After exiting the system, Haoshuai was ready to set off. But then it hit him: his skill required a corpse to summon a skeleton. Which meant he needed to kill a monster on his own first. Panic washed over him. He didn't even have a weapon — how was he supposed to kill a monster? Although he knew, based on his stats, he could easily defeat low-level monsters, asking a young man raised under the red flag of the new era to physically fight a monster was no simple matter.
Fortunately, there were no monsters nearby, so Haoshuai forced himself to calm down and think through what to do next.
He noticed a rock nearby and sat down on it to think. Remembering his own attributes, he entered the system and asked, "Leng, can I see my status data like in games?"
"Ding... New mission released: d"
"Mission Name: d"
"Mission Duration: None"
"Mission Level: None"
"Mission Requirement: Kill one zombie"
"Mission Reward: Beginner Skill — Data Display (Personal)"
"Mission Note: The retinal data display can show your own attributes, such as health, stamina, etc. The specific items can be developed by the host."
Seeing this, Haoshuai realized he couldn't access that skill yet.
Exiting the system, he began thinking about how to kill his first monster. The beginner monsters included zombies, fallen demons, and quill rats. In the game, these three were all trash mobs, but this was real life now — the quill rats' ranged attacks and the fallen demons' weapons were not easy to deal with. Comparatively, zombies were the easiest targets. Of course, ideally, these zombies would be like in the game: slow and clumsy, not some mutated super-zombies. As long as Haoshuai stayed careful, he could easily kill one. The biggest obstacle for him, though, was psychological.
Just then, a thought flashed through his mind: "Diablo... barrels... rocks! Yes, rocks." He remembered in Diablo, sometimes you could find items by kicking rocks. He jumped up to test if this world had the same feature. Realizing he was sitting on a rock, he quickly moved it aside. Unfortunately, there was nothing underneath.
Though a bit disappointed, he didn't give up. In the game, lots of rocks also yielded nothing.
Looking around, Haoshuai saw plenty of rocks. Only now did he take in the environment. The ground was covered in black soil, scattered with knee-high wild grass. A few trees stood sparsely in the distance. Taking a deep breath, he didn't smell the stench of blood as he had imagined, but instead a fresh scent. The sky had only one sun, just like Earth, and it was currently right overhead. Maybe because it was summer, he didn't feel cold despite not wearing a shirt.
Although the environment wasn't bad, staying alive was more important. After quickly scanning his surroundings, he started rummaging through rocks.
But after moving dozens of rocks, he still didn't find any equipment.
Feeling helpless, Haoshuai stopped. "Looks like there's no such luck — these are just normal rocks."
Since he couldn't find any equipment, he had to think of another way to kill a zombie. He scanned his surroundings again to look for anything useful.
On the ground, there were only some stones, but not far away, he spotted a fallen dead tree. Haoshuai headed toward it, intending to break off some branches — better to have something in hand than to go completely bare-handed.
The dead tree had quite a few branches. The thicker ones were too hard to break, so he collected more thin ones instead. After cleaning off the small twigs, he held a bunch in his hands. He also picked up two small stones, planning to throw them at a zombie later to test the situation. With his makeshift gear ready, Haoshuai set out to search for zombies.
After about ten minutes of walking, he finally spotted a lone zombie behind a tree. Seeing it startled him. Thin body, pale skin, green eyes — the zombie's appearance gave him a huge visual shock. Maybe because it was still far away, the zombie didn't react, and Haoshuai didn't run. Instead, he tried to suppress his fear.
After about another ten minutes, he felt a bit better and slowly walked toward the zombie. When he was about 30 meters away, he stopped. The zombie still didn't move. Haoshuai threw a stone at it — it missed and landed nearby. Perhaps startled by the noise, the zombie moved two steps. Like in the game, it moved very slowly — more like a shuffle than a walk.
Seeing this, Haoshuai felt some relief. Realizing how slow it was, he quickly came up with a plan. After mentally rehearsing his moves, he stepped forward again.
At 20 meters, the zombie finally started moving, slowly shuffling toward Haoshuai. At this point, Haoshuai began to run, aiming the branch to knock the zombie over. The distance quickly closed. When he crashed into the zombie, the branch also hit his own chest. Luckily, because he had charged at full speed, he managed to knock the zombie to the ground.
If he hadn't charged, his strength alone wouldn't have overpowered the zombie. Now he understood why zombies, despite being so slow, were ranked alongside fallen demons and quill rats as beginner monsters in Diablo — they relied on brute strength.
Ignoring the pain, Haoshuai hurriedly picked up the fallen branch and stood up. The zombie, moving slowly, couldn't get up right away. Haoshuai then frantically started smashing it with the branch, over and over, until he was completely exhausted. In fact, the zombie had died after about twenty blows, but this was his first time killing a monster. His nerves were stretched tight, and he couldn't control his actions. He was so terrified he didn't even hear the system's notification about completing the quest.
When he finally stopped, seeing the zombie's remains made him vomit immediately. (Details omitted, feel free to imagine.)
After vomiting for a while, he finally caught his breath. At that moment, he saw a baseball bat-shaped wooden club beside the zombie and quickly picked it up, overjoyed. Whether or not it was an actual Diablo weapon, it was certainly better than his flimsy branches.
Remembering that he could finally summon a skeleton, he immediately used Raise Skeleton. With a series of cracking sounds, a skeleton crawled out of the zombie's body. Seeing this, Haoshuai vomited again.
Once he finished throwing up, he quickly left the area. Only then did he remember he had completed a mission. Despite the pain in his chest, he opened the system and claimed his reward. A sharp pain flashed across his eyes, and suddenly, a light screen appeared in his vision, displaying a string of numbers.
Strength: 5.2
Agility: 5.0
Intelligence: 5.1
Endurance: 6.3
Damage: 1–1
Defense: 0
Health: 53/63
Spirit: 0.2/1.2
Stamina: 45/63
Haoshuai found he could open and close this screen at will. Seeing his Defense at 0, he couldn't help but complain, "My briefs don't even count as 1 point of defense? They should at least count for something!"
Whenever he had questions about these numbers, he always stuck to his principle: ask the system.
"The lost 10 points of health were due to the zombie's strength when you collided with it. Spirit refers to your control capacity — it costs 1 point of spirit to control a skeleton. Stamina is your fatigue level. When it hits zero, you'll be too exhausted to move."
Thanks to the system's explanation, Haoshuai understood these numbers.
"Then why is my damage only 1–1?"
"Although the host has 5.2 strength, without proper training, you can't fully utilize it. That's why your damage is only 1–1."
"Then for killing the zombie, did I get any Legion Points?"
"Please figure it out on your own."
"Uh..." Haoshuai was stunned. The system actually refused to answer. So he entered the exchange system. To his surprise, the screen still showed 0 Legion Points.
Thinking it over, he guessed it was because the zombie was too weak. Maybe if he killed more zombies, he'd start earning points. Now with a skeleton companion and some fighting ability of his own, he felt certain that a flood of Legion Points would come his way soon. Imagining this bright future, he started drooling.
"Crack, crack..." The skeleton beside him seemed to have had enough and shook its head.
This sound snapped Haoshuai out of his daydream. Blushing, he scolded the skeleton, "What are you looking at? Turn around!"
To his surprise, the skeleton actually turned around.
"Huh?" Haoshuai was startled. Examining the skeleton, he saw that its bones were surprisingly white, without a trace of blood. It held a bone dagger in its hand — clearly not very strong.
He also noticed the skeleton's stats in his vision since he hadn't yet closed the skill display.
Summon: Skeleton
Current Level: 1
Damage: 1–2
Defense: 20
Health: 21/21
In the game, Necromancer skeletons were known for wandering around uncontrollably, but here, he found he could command the skeleton. So he began experimenting, making it walk forward, backward, turn around, etc. More complicated movements weren't possible, but as long as he had the intention in his mind, it worked.
Originally, Haoshuai had dreamed of turning the skeleton into a kung fu skeleton, but now that seemed impossible. Still, he was happy he could control it. He had worried that a wandering skeleton might attract a bunch of monsters, but now he didn't have to worry.
After testing, Haoshuai picked up his wooden club and, together with his skeleton, set off to find more lone zombies. He wasn't ready to mess with fallen demons or quill rats yet — for now, bullying zombies was the safest choice.