The Three Kingdoms Online Overlord Chapter 2

Hello everyone! The new translator, doodlebleh, for Three Kingdoms Online Overlord is here~ With a new editor: TheGreatSage. Take care of us please. I’m picking up this novel from chapter 2 onwards, but do read chapter 1 for some background as well(it has been re-translated 😉 )! The first few chapters might be rather dry but bear with it!

Chapter 2: Leaving Village of Beginnings

When leaving the Village of Beginnings, Yang Rui took another road. The previous village entrance was populated almost entirely with white rabbits, which meant that he gained very little XP. As he passed the blacksmith, he interacted with the NPC and managed to accept a quest to explore the mines.

The North of the village was also populated by white rabbits. Yang Rui decided to start a bunny genocide. From what he remembers, Village of Beginnings was home to a few species of large, harmless herbivores like sheep and spotted deer.

After bullying the rabbits for another 3-4 minutes, Yang Rui had reached level 2. He put all 4 of his attribute points that he gained from levelling into Strength. With 10 points in Strength, his HP has also increased.

Yang Rui decided to leave the white rabbit area. With 10 points of Strength, he could kill one with a single hit. Although his exp gain does not decrease, he is more concerned with the increase in players. As respawn rate of the white rabbit is not fast enough, white rabbits are attacked almost as soon as they appear.

After entering a forest, Yang Rui finally found a cute spotted deer running through the trees as well as a few herbs that the apothecary needed. He could finish the harvesting quest at the same time!

The level 5 spotted deer are not hostile monsters, and their attack stat is not very high, but their defence stat are way higher than the white rabbit. Yang Rui needed 4-5 hits to take down each deer.

Luckily, the exp earned from spotted deer are 6 to 7 times higher than the white rabbit. And with no players here to kill-steal, Yang Rui's training efficiency increased by quite a lot. In less than 10 minutes, Yang Rui has reached level 3.

Yang Rui assigned his 2 attribute points to Strength, making it a total of 12 points. One spotted deer only takes him 4 hits to kill, 3 hits if he gets a critical.

With plenty of monsters, high attack and no need for defending, Yang Rui does not waste any time, killing deer after deer without rest. If not for the infinite durability of his Beginner's Wooden Rod and cotton clothes, they would have been worn out a long time ago.

With it, Yang Rui's exp bar has been increasing rapidly. After 15 minutes, he is almost reaching level 4! The mission from the apothecary has also been completed!

However, a problem quickly arose: large groups of players has reached the forest as well. These players seem to be a lot more aggressive. The forest quickly became crowded and players are beginning to kill-steal.

Most of the players seem to be experienced, with a proper grasp of their abilities, they are able to train more efficiently. A few daring players even decided to go deeper into the forest! Clearly unaware that the deeper they go, there is a very high chance that they may encounter hostile monsters*!

*Hostile monsters:
So the in-game mechanics dictate that mobs follow a certain behavior. All monsters will retaliate when attacked- that includes even the docile monsters like deer and white rabbits. But hostile monsters refer to ones that are aggressive, they attack on sight. While passive monsters are monsters that attack only when they are being attacked. I would classify passive monsters and docile monsters as different groups. Like imagine games such as Dragon Age, the docile mobs would normally have green health bars? Something like that. But except the deer would still attack you if you hit it.

Yang Rui considered his options, and decided to return to the village to turn in his harvesting quest. Since the difficulty level of the quest was slightly higher, he estimated that the rewards should be enough to raise him to level 5.

As expected, after turning in the quest, the level up halo shone above him. He assigned the attribute points to Strength, increasing it to 16 points.

Without selling the items he collected in his inventory or taking a break, Yang Rui left the village. It is important to maintain an advantage in a new game! Yang Rui's goal is to reach level 10 as soon as possible and try to take a chain quest related to a village building order.

Taking his previous route, Yang Rui arrived at the same forest. This time, his minimap is filled with small green dots. Each green dot representing a player from the same faction. This training area is obviously overcrowded.

Yang Rui left the forest and travelled further. Although hostile monsters are in the area head, with a high chance of taking more damage and wasting time waiting for HP regeneration, it is better than competing with the rest of the players trying to kill-steal!

After passing through the forest, Yang Rui carefully hid behind a rock and observed his surrounding for a long while. If he died here, there would be an exp penalty, more importantly, it would waste even more time!

Before him, a continuous landscape of mounds, flatlands, valleys and hills are thriving with spotted deer, sheep and other animals. There are also a few wild wolves and hostile monsters!

Yang Rui killed a few level 5 sheep and found out the exp reward was actually higher than the spotted deer in the forest. Unfortunately, he attracted the attention of 3 level 8 coyotes, they gave Yang Rui quite a bit of trouble, and almost killed him.

When he was done with the 3 coyotes, Yang Rui was only left with a quarter of his HP. He could only hide in a grove to recover HP. Looks like this area is rather dangerous!

After using 2 minutes to recover his HP, Yang Rui returned to find suitable monsters to grind. This time he remained aware of his surroundings in case he was attacked by hostile monsters.Yet, there would always be 2 or 3 coyotes in the distance roaming. Although he tried to avoid them as much as possible, a level 8 coyote is very fast. Yang Rui could not evade all of them.

On one occasion, Yang Rui was almost surrounded by 4 coyotes. If not for his high HP, and desperately attacking one of them, he might have really died. In the end, he barely survived with a drop of HP left, a few more attacks from the coyotes would have killed him.After a few cycles of hunting and resting, Yang Rui finally reached level 6. The 2 attribute points are still added to Strength. This way, he would be safer when attacking coyotes.

After some calculation, Yang Rui realised he took 30 minutes to get from level 5 to level 6. Although the exp requirement has increased, but the levelling efficiency is not high at all.Yang Rui rested in a bush to recover his HP, feeling quite defeated. Suddenly, he heard a system message:

"You have discovered an abandoned mine!"

An abandoned mine? Could it be the small cave behind the bush just now?

Hesitating for a split second, Yang Rui crawled into the small cave without a second thought. In War of the World, a small map like this would have hidden areas, he has to enter!

As he entered the cave, Yang Rui could not help but think to himself: what a stroke of luck! Looking at the familiar minimap in front of him, thinking back to the quest he received at the blacksmith, if he could not recall the details from his past life, his revival would have been useless!

Yang Rui was impressed with his luck. Village of Beginnings only had a single dungeon-like area, and it was this cave. The cave is an excellent training area, however it would only be unlocked to the rest of the players once someone completes the blacksmith quest.

In Yang Rui's previous life, he was still inexperienced and grinded his way to level 10 by killing white rabbits. Thus, he had not encountered the cave. However, there was a detailed guide in the forums, so Yang Rui knew about it anyways.

Within the caves are humanoid NPC monsters-indoctrinated miners! As for how they got indoctrinated, the game's background story was rather complex and Yang Rui could not remember. But he knows that the miners are really focused on mining, if they are not attacked, they would not respond to anything happening around them! They are passive monsters.

According to the forums, the final boss in the second level of the cave has incredible loot. But Yang Rui was not prepared to go to the second level, he already has his hands full with the humanoid mobs in front of him. He was not complaining: he could leave the village very soon!

Indoctrinated miners are level 9 monsters, they have higher attack and defense than the coyote. However, Yang Rui could defeat them no problem in a 1v1 fight. With 18 points of Strength, 6 to 7 attacks could kill one of them!

Most importantly, the monsters spawn close together, their exp reward is high, there is no other players to kill-steal and there is no need to share the exp reward! Additionally, the miners are humanoid NPC monsters, once defeated, they would drop rare loot like metal, gear and occasionally, minerals and copper plates! Although the quantity is not much, but Yang Rui was very satisfied.

After two hours of continuous grinding, Yang Rui is already halfway through level 9! Yang Rui equipped a miner's uniform with 5 defense, and replaced the indestructible wooden rod with a higher attack pickaxe: attack 5-6! The attribute points he acquired are still added to Strength, now with 24 points.

With new equipments and higher stats, Yang Rui had a much easier time with the miners. Although he was reaching level 10, Yang Rui is starting to feel rather attached to this area.

He discarded the miscellaneous items, such as rabbit meat, venison and mutton in his inventory. The 40 spaces in his inventory is not enough for him! In comparison, the metals and minerals he just acquired are more valuable. They filled up 26 slots, each slot could contain up to 10 identical items, so 260 in total! All of them are rank 9 grade 3 metals*.

*Rank 9 grade 3:
This is the rarity system for the game apparently. It is by rank (品) and then split further into grade (级). The smaller the number for rank, the rarer and more powerful it is (i would assume, since this is the start of the game and if it follows the ancient chinese governor grading system).
As for the grade, we would have to continue with the story to see if grade 3 is the lowest or highest.

Additionally, Yang Rui also kept 140 sets of miner's uniform, which occupied the remaining 14 slots. As for his pickaxe, Yang Rui only has one which he has equipped. Although the pickaxe was useful, it was not a specialised weapon, its attack stat is limited, hence there was no point in keeping it.

In the end, when Yang Rui hit level 10, he has only cleared half of the first level in the cave. As for the final boss in the second level, Yang Rui decided to pass it. Time is precious, and he cannot lose sight of the bigger picture! Not to mention Yang Rui is unable to solo the boss at his current state!

Rushing back to the village, Yang Rui turned in the blacksmith quest and reported to the village head.

"Searing Sun*, I am proud that you are able to improve so much in such a short period of time, I believe that you already have a deeper understanding of the world, I hope you will work hard and continue to drive for better results…there is a bigger world waiting for you…"

*his IGN(in-game name)

The village head started his monologue upon meeting the level 10 Yang Rui, most of it was meaningless, but players are unable to skip the process. After listening to the monologue patiently, Yang Rui's vision went dark, followed by a rush of relief as he read the system notification.

"Leaving Village of Beginnings!"

Translated by doodlebleh

Edited by trivialking and TheGreatSage

Chapter end