Opened the rankings, and to my surprise, all of the top ten in the China region are level 6. It seems the leveling speed in this game is really quite slow; otherwise, someone should have already taken a job nine hours after the game launched!

I carefully checked the top 50 several times but didn’t see my name. Others must have more experience than me! At the bottom of the rankings, a small line reads: Your current world ranking is 98,652, and your China ranking is 60,231.

Pretty speechless—out of the top 100,000 players in the world, 60,000 are Chinese. My fellow countrymen really are crazy!

……

At the village entrance, a beautiful girl was standing there looking around. That pretty face was clearly Hannah Cooper, without any modification at all! This young lady, isn’t she afraid of being recognized in real life?

“Hannah Cooper? Is that you?” I walked over and asked.

The name Qingcai Keke was floating above her head, so I awkwardly said, “Let’s just call you Keke, that feels more natural. I won’t use your real name from now on.”

Hannah Cooper nodded, looking at my longsword with envy. That’s when I remembered I had something for her, so I quickly opened the trade window and put two items up:

[Warlock’s Robe] (Green Equipment)

Defense: +6

Intelligence: +4

Required Level: 6

[Digging Staff] (White Equipment)

Attack: 4-6

Required Level: 3

I was lucky to get the staff from a small monster on the way. Hannah Cooper was still holding a broken sword with only 1-2 attack, so switching to the staff was just right.

“You’re level 3 now, so you can’t wear the robe yet, but you can already use this staff. It’s much better for hitting monsters than that crappy sword. So, why aren’t you accepting the trade?”

Hannah Cooper hesitated and said, “This robe could probably sell for nearly a thousand RMB right now. Are you really just giving it to me?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Silly, this is assigned to you by the organization, not a personal gift from me. Don’t feel bad about it—take it and level up faster. Don’t you get what Lin-jie means?”

Hannah Cooper finally accepted the robe, but amusingly, she traded me a hundred copper coins in return. That was probably all the money she had—she really was struggling. Unlike Xinyu, who could rely on her pretty face to get guys to help her level up, Hannah Cooper must have fought her way to level 3 all on her own. I took the money, planning to give her more when she could take a job. There was no time to fuss over this now; maybe this way she’d feel a bit more at ease.

“All right, let’s go level up. Stay close. I’ve got good gear, so I’ll tank the monsters. You attack after I do!”

“Okay.” Hannah Cooper agreed obediently.

After teaming up with Hannah Cooper, we headed back to Wolf Valley. Still no other players around, but down the slope we could see groups of players ganging up on level 8 mangy wolves. It was funny hearing people scream and then respawn in a flash of white light.

“The monsters we’re going to fight… are they even higher level than these?” Hannah Cooper looked nervously at the bursts of white light, her voice trembling.

“Of course. These are level 8 monsters; we’re going after level 9s. Don’t worry, I’ve got everything under control!” My tone was calm, and Hannah Cooper quickly relaxed, sticking close behind me as we entered the misty forest.

With my previous experience, I didn’t bother with any fancy tricks—just killed monsters in the simplest way. If I hadn’t spent time soloing monsters to study tactics, I’d probably be level 7 by now, and making the world top ten wouldn’t be too hard.

I swung my sword down on the dire wolf’s head, and a big “64” floated up. Hannah Cooper watched in amazement, her mouth wide open.

“Aren’t you going to attack?”

With my reminder, Hannah Cooper joined the fight, her short wooden staff knocking the dire wolf on the head.

“-2”

I stared in disbelief at that number. That’s a bit much—Hannah Cooper should have at least 8 attack by now, so how could she only do 2 damage? Must be the level gap—a full 6 levels!

Hannah Cooper didn’t mind and kept attacking seriously, while I focused on the fight.

“Awooo~”

The dire wolf fell, dropping two fangs!

I was surprised, but Hannah Cooper smiled and said, “I took the quest too, so there are two sets of quest items.”

So that’s how it works. I quickly tried to pick them up, but found I could only take my own share—Hannah Cooper’s was off-limits. After a while, Hannah Cooper suddenly cried out.

“What’s wrong?”

Hannah Cooper gaped, “My… my experience just shot up by half!”

“……”

Jumping six levels to fight monsters, of course the experience gain is huge. But probably because Hannah Cooper’s damage output was so low, the dire wolf didn’t drop any equipment for us, which was a bit of a letdown.

I moved on to the next monster, and Hannah Cooper stuck out her tongue and followed.

“Evan Clark, your sword must have really high attack, right?” My repeated high damage had piqued Hannah Cooper’s curiosity.