Starting from Zero

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After a white flash, I\'m teleported to an antique village, while still laughing like a lunatic.

Shit!

There are people everywhere, and they\'re staring at me like they have seen an idiot.

I quickly rushed to another street, and called out the clock. It\'s almost 10 pm now. I nearly spent two hours to create my character! But they say "sharpening your axe will not delay your job of cutting wood", worth it!

Because I spent so much time, the rookie village is full of people now. The system considers anyone under level 20 as rookie. Rookies cannot leave the rookie village and the training area within 5 kilos around the village. From quick guess, I think this not-so-big area is populated with at least five thousand players. I don\'t like crowds, so I decided to find somewhere quiet to level up.

I\'m thinking about getting familiar with the place first. I called up the item window (in [Zero], players only need to "think" about these actions and the system will catch it.) , there are only flax topwear and flax pants, with 2 defense in total. And a "Rookie Sword", a one-handed long sword with an attack of 1-1! These should be the equipment for rookies!

They suck, but since everyone on the street is wearing the same thing, I don\'t feel too bad. Now, I need to beat some mobs and level up first.

I ran for about 10 minutes to reach the training area outside. Rookies got low Dexterity and Speed so this can\'t be helped!

And when I got out, I realized things aren\'t good. Outside the village, there are full of scenes where 3 to 5 players beating up a poor deer, or a group of 10 players chasing behind a boar! The monsters are respawning fast, but there are even several times more players! Joining them certainly isn\'t a good idea now, and besides, I hate crowds!

In [Zero], the rookies will not appear on the ranking list, so I have no idea how many levels the fastest player has already reached. But I can still take a vague guess, I think someone should already reached level 16 or 17. This isn\'t good! I can\'t fall behind now. I never fall behind, be it in game or in real world! I need to catch up with leveling up.

I ran further from the village, there are still much players but everyone can at least face one monster on their own now. Good!

A small deer ran close. Sword drawn, with a slash. Then came the system notice:"You killed a deer. Gained experience point 200."

Crap! One hit! I\'m this strong?! My character is OP, but it\'s all about the pet slot. My attack power isn\'t supposed to be much of a surprise. I saw a "60" over the deer\'s head, that should be the damage I dealt. Was it a critical hit? Likely!

I found another deer, and slashed. A red "30" appeared. The deer is still running. Yes, a critical hit for sure.

I hit the injured deer again, and got a 35. The deer collapsed and disappeared. It seems the deer has around 50 HP, maybe less.

Another three deer down, I reached level 2. Now my statuses are:

Attack: 24-32

Defense: 20

Speed: 10

HP: 290

Mana: 41

(With equipment on)

A normal attack should kill a deer now. I slaughtered deer for half an hour and reached level 12, now my statuses are:

Attack: 68-98

Defense: 65

Speed: 20

HP: 440

Mana: 51

There are still plenty of people around killing deer, and getting crowded. From experience, I should go somewhere else. I ran for quite some time and reached the border of the training area. I can see through the border but cannot walk over it. There\'s an invisible wall blocking me.

There\'s no other choice, I have to keep looking for monsters. And I found something new soon enough -- A boar. Rushed over n slash, one hit KO. I added more Strength to my character, and it will only get crazily high on higher levels, so my current Attack is pretty overpowered. Later I heard that 44-70 Attack is pretty good for an ordinary level-12 player. A Warrior at level 20 will probably have an Attack of 60-90.

I was lucky to find a boar cave. Boars spawn faster here, basically faster than my killing speed. It\'s good that boars return attacks when provoked, but they don\'t initiate. I maimed them for about a quarter and reached level 18. Called up the ranking list, I saw more than 30 people on it. This means they have gotten beyond level 20. This is no joke, if i don\'t go there soon I basically am hopeless.

Level 20 is not only a dividing line between rookies and formal players. The first skill for all classes becomes available at level 20 too. Skills would raise your level up speed ten fold! The top player on the list is now level 25. They need more experience points to level up, but they have skills, plus that the outside world has fewer people and you don\'t have to fight over other players for monsters!

I need to be fast. I kept working for 20 minutes, and finally heard the blessed system notice sound.

"Congratulations, player Ziri, you have reached level 20. You\'re the 79th player to breach the rookie barrier. You\'ve become a true fighter now. Please proceed to the Occupation Institution to register, and obtain your Class Skill."

The scenery around me shifted, and suddenly I\'m standing in a teleport array of a giant plaza. I opened the map and saw that the city is called the Cold Jadeite. This giant plaza is the teleportation point plus resurrection point of Cold Jadeite. It\'s empty, looks like the previous arrivers have gone leveling up somewhere. Even if they\'re all here, it wouldn\'t be much people! I\'m the 79th to leave rookie village, that\'s to say there are a total of 79 players scattered around the world of [Zero] outside the village.

The world map of [Zero] is designed based upon the real world map, and the rookie village is located in an alternative space, only those below level 20 will appear there. They get teleported out once they reach the level. As for the other city maps, they just changed the names and then built the city in ancient style. So there are only 79 people in this vast world now. Maybe I\'m the only one in this city!

Never mind those, I followed the map and rushed into the Occupation Institution. The big hall is decorated with marble tiles as the floor, it feels much like the hall of a bank. There are 30 or so marble counters aligned along the wall, each with a bronze sign on it. The ones in the middle are "Main Class Registration", while the side ones are "Side Class Registration".

Let\'s do the main registration and get my skill first. I went to one the the middle counters. "Hello! I want to register my Main Class."

The beautiful Elf lady behind the counter admitted me politely. "Greetings sir!" She knew I\'m male! Finally someone recognized it. "Welcome to Occupation Registration. Which occupation are you going to register?"

"I have two main ones. Dark Fighter, and Tamer."

"Oh! A gifted player! You need 1 Gold to register Dark Fighter, and 2 for Tamer. That\'s 3 Gold, payment first please."

"Huh? That\'s expensive!" I opened my item window, just 307 copper pieces in there!

(Conversion: 1 Crystal Piece = 10 Yuan = 10 Gold Piece = 100 Silver Piece = 1000 Copper Piece)

After paying I got only 7 copper left! I\'m broke!

The Elf lady is quick on her work, she said:"Congratulations, you have become a Dark Fighter and Tamer. The skill books for main classes are sold in stores, but the number is limited. The real good ones are for the players to discover on their own, please try your best."

"Wait what? On my own? Oh shucks!" I turned and prepared to leave. The registration cost all my money, forget about buying skills! I\'ll put the Side Classes for later too, I need to make some money first!

The Elf lady called for me, however. "Please wait a moment!"

"Anything else?" I\'m starting to worry. Don\'t tell me they need more money!

"You\'re the first to register as Tamer in the game, according to the rules, you will receive a reward."

"Reward?"

Ha, jackpot! Pity it\'s only Tamer. Looks like someone else got the Dark Fighter one first! I think I\'m becoming greedy! Heh heh!

It makes sense though, Tamer is a hidden class, there won\'t be many Tamers, it\'s about right that I\'m the first one. But reward is always welcomed. I asked:"What is the reward please?"

"It is random, come here and I\'ll help you draw it."

I walked to the counter and the Elf started drawing prize for me. I reached my hand into a black hole that suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and grasped a red paper. The Elf lady took it and looked at it.

"Congratulations, your reward is special equipment: Collar of Protection. You can control seven Companions, so you will be receiving seven collars."

"Collars? Why do I need collars? There\'s only one neck, I\'m not a Hydra or something! How do I wear seven?"

Is the system making jokes?!

"Pfff!" The Elf laughed while trying to cover her mouth. "The collars are not for you to wear. They\'re for your Companions."

"Companion? My companions can wear equipment in this game?" Now that\'s awesome!

The Elf immediately explained: "Not like that. Normally Companions cannot equip items, but with the exception of some special items. This Collar of Protection is one such item."

"So what does this collar do?"

"These collars can link your life with your Companion\'s lives. For example, you have only 3 HP left and you take 7 damage, then you will only lose 2 HP, the remaining 5 HP will be drained from a random Companion of yours whose HP is beyond 5. Note that the protection is one-way, when a Companion is dying they will not drain HP from you."

"That\'s amazing! So as long as my Companions got health, I\'ll not die?"

"Basically. Unless every one of your Companion\'s HP is not enough to deduct the damage, you will die then."

"YES! That\'s quite a neat trait. Looks like I got to find Companions with a lot of HP. Ha! Ahahaha!"

The Elf interrupted me. "You can\'t capture Companions at free will. Remember once you decide on a Companion, you can never change it."

"Oh! I see now! Thank you!" I reached out my hand and asked for the collars.

Then the Elf lady looked at me with a strange look.

After some staring, I asked:"The collars. Give them to me alright?"

"Ah!" Then she knew what I meant. "I will not issue the collars to you. Once you capture a Companion and tamed it, the collar will automatically appear on its neck."

"So that\'s how it goes! Ok then, thanks. I\'m leaving. Bye."

The Elf lady waved me goodbye too.