Damage numbers kept jumping above the Black Panther King's head, finally driving its health to rock bottom. As the trial poison's last “-15” popped up, the Black Panther King let out a mournful cry, turned into a ball of white light, and collapsed dead.

Finally, it was over. David Bolton let out a sigh of relief. Nearly an hour of high-intensity combat had left him feeling quite exhausted.

“Ding! You have killed the Black Panther King and gained 90,000 experience points (double reward for killing above your level)!”

“Ding! Congratulations, you are the first player to kill a wild Black Iron-level boss. Your glorious deed will go down in history! Would you like to announce your name so the world can praise your achievement?”

David Bolton was stunned. In his previous life, he had entered the game too late and missed out on all the first boss kills, so he had never encountered this situation before!

His first reaction, naturally, was to choose “Yes.” To become famous on the server and the object of envy and admiration for countless players—isn’t that the original dream of every online gamer? Besides, being famous would help him establish a guild and attract more players.

But he immediately thought of his current situation: he was penniless and, apart from not yet having contacted Fatty Cooper, he didn’t have a single person by his side! If a major guild “took a liking” to him and wanted to recruit him, could he say no?

If he refused a big guild’s invitation, what awaited him would surely be endless harassment, or even being hunted down!

This was not surprising at all! David Bolton clearly remembered that in his previous life, there was a knight tank called “Starlight Unlimited” who was extremely skilled. Although he was in a small guild, his dungeon achievements were enough to challenge all the super guilds! At first, all the major super guilds invited Starlight Unlimited to join them, but Starlight Unlimited was deeply attached to his own guild and refused all invitations.

As a result, Starlight Unlimited and his guild were besieged by three major guilds working together. In less than ten days, many members no longer wanted to log in and chose to quit, causing the small guild to fall apart. Starlight Unlimited was so frustrated that he deleted his account and protested on the official forum.

The official response was that “Miracle” did not encourage private fights, which was why there were level drop and red-name penalties. If you want to PK, go to the arena; if you want to kill enemies, go to the battlefield—there, you won’t lose levels or equipment. If you want to settle personal grudges, you have to pay the price.

No matter what the official reason was, in short, they would not intervene in players’ personal vendettas!

David Bolton wasn’t just “playing” the game—he wanted to use the game to make money, to accumulate enough wealth to rival the Liu family and match the Lin family. He knew the game’s trends and when certain materials would be valuable, but to take advantage of this, he needed to be ahead of the general player base in level. For example, the hottest-selling level 20 beginner dark resistance potion—the recipe for it only dropped from silver-level chests!

To get this recipe, he needed the strength to obtain a silver treasure chest! And he had to get it as soon as possible, or else, by the time he got the recipe and made the potion, there wouldn’t be many players who needed it!

Right now, he needed an environment as undisturbed as possible, at least until he established his guild and had the strength to say “no”!

David Bolton ultimately chose “No”!

Immediately, the world channel began to flash the server announcement’s unique red text over and over.

“Server Announcement: Player (name hidden) has successfully killed the level 15 Black Iron-level boss Black Panther King (China region). This achievement will be recorded on the Glorious Achievements List! Please cheer and praise him!”

“Server Announcement: Player (name hidden) has successfully killed the level 15 Black Iron-level boss Black Panther King (China region) and received a system reward of 10 gold coins!”

“Server Announcement: Player (name hidden) has successfully killed the level 15 Black Iron-level boss Black Panther King (China region), increasing reputation by 500 points among all races in the Alliance!”

A series of red messages spammed the screen—an absolutely stunning effect!

“Ding! You have received an extra reward: Luck +1!”

He actually got a point of Luck! David Bolton was a bit surprised. Luck was a stat that couldn’t be increased by equipment, yet it was extremely important! For one, Luck affected monster drops; it also influenced the success rate of equipment enhancement and rune weapon forging, and of course, the chance of a lucky critical hit.

David Bolton looked at the server announcement that had flashed five times on the screen. Even he felt a bit lightheaded, then turned his gaze to the loot dropped by the Black Panther King.

……

On the other side, the sudden server announcement instantly sent all players in the China region into a frenzy.

“Damn, I’ve been hacking away at monsters for ages and just reached level 5, and someone’s already killed a level 15 boss?”

“No way, did someone really solo it?”

“Damn server, made Big Brother so distracted reading the messages that I forgot to fight and got killed by a monster!”

“Bullshit, must be using hacks. How could anyone solo a Black Iron-level boss!”

“Damn GM, get out here and see for yourself!”

“You noob, there are no GMs in ‘Miracle,’ only a supercomputer monitoring everything to ensure fairness and justice!”

“Fair, my ass!”

“Justice, my ass!”