A thousand bandits could be done in roughly 6 hours of non-stop grinding. Since one would spawn 15 seconds after defeated, and that mountain has like 50 of them that can be spawned at the same time.
...Alright, so not exactly hard, but tough, especially just for the very first class. Doable, though.
Alternatively, you can farm any bandits on the map, but why would you do that? Considering how they have higher levels than the Beginning Hills ones, with slower respawn rate.
To that question, I answered with… Too many noobs doing the same things can hinder your progress.
I arrived at the Beginning Hills only to find ten dozen level 2s running around like caffeinated ants, killing every single bandit on sight. I stood on top of a rock, watching as a fresh bandit spawned, raised his sword, before getting vaporized by eight fireballs, three arrows, and someone's chicken pecking at him. He didn't even finish spawning his idle dialogue.
I hung around ten minutes and killed… Drumroll please?
One bandit.
[Bandits Defeated: 1 / 1,000]
Fuck.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH," I screamed, throwing my avatar on the grass.
No way in hell I'm spending the next 2 days fighting for scraps with a bunch of tutorial-brained newbies who can't even use the Dash movement option. I'm the third best player in the world, and that doesn't mean rotting away with these noobs!
I forgot how hard last hitting was, even when you're twenty times their levels, their numbers just overwhelm you.
Clearly, it was time to cheat.
I sat down on a rock and and began brainstorming for any alternatives.
There were one other bandit farming sites, but those bandits were level 15s and I could not one-shot them for ease of farming, it would take an extra two hours to finish, unless I have a good weapon, in which case, I do not. The Poison Dragon did not drop any gold, only XP, which make sense why no one even consider challenging it, considering its fixed-XP mechanic can be found in other bosses, too.
But then I remembered something.
Warlock
The fucking Warlock class.
One of the worst class to ever dip your hand into.
Why?
Because unlike normal media interpretation of gaining cool necromancy powers from your magic evil dark lord daddies.
In Darkmoon Adventure, this class was basically "Trade offer: Player receives a small buff or a small request. The game receives the player's suffering, blood and tears."
One of the requests that a player could make when they become a warlock was to change their class into any other starter class without doing the said class' quest.
I low-key wish this game was gatekept and there was no new players.
"Fuckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk"
I screamed into the skies, startling some nearby newbies, who just learned there was no language filter.
Well, I got no better idea, time to walk for one hour to [The Catacombs].
I arrived at hatch with stairs leading underground to a spacious graveyard, a place where sunlight did not hit and an immediate debuff was placed on me.
Hard Of Breathing I: The player felt harder to breathe
In the PC version, it was just a slower movement debuff, but since they can interact with your VR now, I guess they changed it. And as far as I know, there were three levels of this debuff. I had level 1, which was bearable, like a stuffed nose from a flu at best.
"Hisssssss, haaaaaah."
Deep breaths, deep breaths, CJS69.
No music and no footsteps, only resounded the noises of distant, echoing water dripping somewhere behind walls.
The further I went, the more those torches lining these walls changed. At first, they were just flickering with warm, orange flames. Then they began to sputter, changing color. First purple, then blue, then a sickly green that twitched the corners of my eyes.
At one point I swore I saw a face between the cracks of the brickwork. But, as far as I know, there was nothing there, not in the early access and in the PC version.
Perhaps it was my death staring back at me from a thousand yards away.
The path opened into a long hall with uneven stone tiling and bone fragments. There were ribcages, cracked femurs, one rusted knight's helmet—which were decorations and not actually a usable item—with a skeletal hand still inside it, fingers curled like they were praying.
The Catacombs were off-limits for players under level 20, but since I was 25 and basically immune to everything short of God smiting me with lag, I walked through it while humming and flicking my hips side to side like that one guy who got paid 80 dollars an hour to clean a haunted cemetary.
Speedrun time!
You have defeated a Skeleton
Just throw a random rock at them and they'll die.
Literally, it was that easy, it's only hard in the PC version where realistic physic game-engine wasn't a thing.
You have defeated an Undead
Squat down and they'll fall over trying to walk by you, smashing their head in.
You have defeated a Catacomb Guard
You have defeated a Catacomb Guard
Yeah there's no trick that I figured out just yet. Get good if you want to win, but getting good probably wasn't a thing you could do.
At the deepest corner of the crypt, I found him.
A robed NPC, floating an inch off the ground, with eyes glowing faint violet.
"You smell of death, traveler," he said, voice reverberating, "What do you seek here on these cursed land?"
"Hello, Jimmy." I called for his name, "I wish to become a Warlock."
Quest Acquired: Sacrifice of Blood
Goal: Kill 15 players
Reward: Access to the [Warlock] class
Fifteen player kills. That's it, then I could ask to skip the Squire nightmare and go straight into whatever class I wanted. I could even go for Sword Dancer, the agility-based melee class only available to elves, if I wanted to. Or maybe Sorcerer, which normally requires doing 15 fetch quests and finding a cursed toad.
Or, of course, I could just pick Squire, and continue my Knight progression without grinding the stupid bandit corpses like a dumbass.
"Fifteen kills, huh?" I whispered, stretching my ass. "Well. I already have one."
Fourteen to go.