At this moment, he suddenly remembered that he hadn’t checked his own stats yet. He put away his throwing knife and brought up his stats to admire them: HP 100, Inner Power 100, Attack 0–10, Defense 15, Dodge 10, Movement 10, Initiative 15, Accuracy 15. It seemed that Initiative and Accuracy should have been 10 as well, but because he had “Mind’s Eye,” they were 50% higher.

Thinking of this, he activated ‘Swift as the Wind.’ Checking his stats again, Movement had become 20. After running a few steps, he was indeed much faster, but his Inner Power was dropping at a rate of two points per second. When he stopped, the Inner Power stopped decreasing, but there was no sign of it returning to 100. Damn, that means I can only sprint for 50 seconds. What’s the use of this? He had no choice but to continue running forward at normal speed.

Just then, a wild rabbit appeared ahead. He quickly pulled out his throwing knife and hurled it at the rabbit, but before his knife even reached it, countless arrows flew out from who knows where, and the poor little rabbit instantly evolved into a hedgehog.

Damn, so many people here—how can I even hit a rabbit? I’d better get out of here!

With that thought, he buried his head and kept running, ignoring whatever appeared around him. He kept running until he passed through the woods, and what appeared before his eyes was already a valley. Finally, there was no one around, Eric Ford thought with relief.

Looking around, he didn’t see any rabbits, but there were several wild oxen grazing with their heads down.

Wow, this is great! They’re so big, much easier to hit than rabbits. With that, he aimed at a nearby ox and threw a knife at it.

With a “thud,” the throwing knife stuck into the ox, and a red 8 floated up shakily from its body. Why did I only do this much damage? Checking his stats, after equipping the knife, his Attack was already 10–29.

Then he realized, the ox must have Defense too.

He threw a few more knives, and the most he ever did was 14 damage. Looks like the ox’s minimum Defense is 15—29 minus 15 is exactly 14.

At this point, the wild ox noticed that Eric Ford was attacking it, turned around, and charged at Eric Ford. Eric Ford quickly turned and ran. Looking back, the ox was only a little bit faster than him. Ha, looks like this guy’s Movement is just 12 or 13. As long as I activate ‘Swift as the Wind,’ I’ll be fine.

Thinking this, he relaxed, running while throwing knives at the ox. Every knife hit, but the ox still showed no sign of falling. Luckily, every time the ox almost caught up to Eric Ford, Eric Ford managed to activate ‘Swift as the Wind’ in time to dodge. Even better, the other oxen around were so focused on grazing that they had no intention of helping out.

Eric Ford fully embodied the spirit of “many grains make a tower, dripping water wears through stone.” Finally, with a final “thud,” the wild ox didn’t get up again. Eric Ford also heard a familiar “ding”—system prompt: level up.

Eric Ford pulled up his stats and saw he had gone straight to level 3. Thinking about the time, those two levels had taken about half an hour. Not easy! Better see how to allocate my points.

After leveling up twice, he got 10 points. Thinking of the chase just now, he realized he still wasn’t as fast as the ox. Luckily, he had ‘Swift as the Wind,’ but that skill consumed Inner Power, and now he had almost none left, with no sign of recovery. Looks like if I’m not faster than the ox, I can’t fight it.

So, without hesitation, he put his points into Agility. After adding five points, his Movement was already 15. He figured that should be faster than the ox now. He went to provoke another ox, and sure enough, he was now just a bit faster. He decided not to add more for now.

Turning to fight the ox, he still felt a bit slow, and often missed his attacks, which meant his movement skills weren’t agile enough. So he put the remaining five points into Dexterity, increasing his Initiative. After adding the five points, his Initiative became 90.

With the points allocated, he went to fight the ox again. This time, he was much more agile when turning, and the increased Initiative made his attacks land more frequently. He took down an ox in much less time than before.

With another “ding,” he leveled up again. Eric Ford grinned from ear to ear. Leveling up is so easy—just two oxen and I’m up three levels!

The extra five points were again put into Dexterity by Eric Ford. Checking his stats, his Initiative was now 107. Eric Ford thought for a moment and realized: the points convert to stats as “level plus points minus one”!

He went to lure more oxen, repeating the process. The more oxen he killed, the faster it went, but the time between each “ding” increased in an arithmetic progression. The eighth “ding” finally sounded, and Eric Ford cheered with joy.

He had a secret he’d been holding in his heart: just now, leaping around with “Soaring Sword” was simply too cool!! Now he couldn’t wait to go to Wudang and learn the “Cloud Ladder” skill that lets you leap up and down.

The points from the last level-up, for convenience in fighting monsters, he split between Agility and Dexterity—one level all Agility, the next all Dexterity.

Now his stats were completely transformed: Movement 105, Dodge 140, Accuracy and Initiative boosted by Mind’s Eye had skyrocketed to 157 and 210, and with the throwing knife’s stats, Accuracy 167, Initiative 250!

Damn, Initiative 250—what bad luck. Eric Ford cursed inwardly, put away his throwing knife, and turned to head toward Xiangyang!

Once again, he passed through the woods and came to the main road, where he saw a group of Axe Gang members still hunting rabbits. Because their outfits were so uniform, and since in the open beta there were only male and female faces, Eric Ford couldn’t be sure if they were the same group he’d met before.