Elsewhere, the fighting was in full swing. A lot of people realised that teaming could be a great method to use if you were on the weaker side of the players here. That would make killing individuals much easier for them, and they can simply share the kills equally.
Of course, since there was nothing stopping them from killing players that they had decided to work together with, that was also a common method, many utilised to get easy kills.
Time ticked by, and Raven had managed to rack up more kills than he could even count. With 10 minutes left, he had managed to reach level 20, and he wasn't slowing down soon either.
[You have levelled up]
[1 skill slot has been unlocked]
[This skill slot can hold a skill of any rank]
[You are the first awakener on this planet to reach level 20]
[You receive a C-class mystery box and a one-time safe zone creation scroll]
'So it seems I'll get extra rewards for being the first player to reach each level milestone.'
'Also about this skill slot and safe zone creation thing, I wonder what I shou…'
Raven flinched when he heard a voice from behind, realising he had spaced out in the middle of a battlefield while looking at his status screen.
"Hey, you." A woman shouted.
He turned around to a group of players emerging from between the trees, their boots trampling the grass flat as they moved together like a pack.
"Just roll over and die, mutt. You've got no chance against us" This time, a man who was standing next to her shouted.
"So whose turn is it to get a kill?" The woman turned to her four other group members to inquire.
"Yours, I believe." Another, who was at the back, replied.
"You hear that, little boy? Guess I'm going to be the one to kill you, so just give it up, will you and save us both a lot of pain." She grinned.
Raven stood there, almost dumbfounded at their cockiness and stupidity. And not knowing how to handle this situation, he decided to just go with it.
"Sure, why don't you just come here and get it over with?"
"There is no point playing around, just stand still and it'll end extremely quickly."
She drew closer and decided to cast a water magic spell. Water droplets slowly started to coalesce as she lifted her arm and slowly but surely took the rough shape of an arrow, which she waited until she was close enough before releasing.
But just as she was about to do so, she was sliced cleanly in half by Raven's sword, which even sliced cleanly through the magic arrow.
The rest of the group stood in shock for a few seconds as they came to grips with what had just happened. Then they promptly decided to charge at Raven together to stop him from picking them off one by one.
Since he didn't want to go through the trouble of eliminating them individually anyway, he decided to use Aether to kill them all in one go.
Since Raven wasn't that proficient at using Aether, he had to take his time to accumulate surrounding mana to build up enough power to kill them all.
Even then, this was still only a fraction of the time that the mage from before had used to make her water arrow. After that, all he had to do was to infuse it with the fire affinity and… Boom!!
All dead.
Even the ground took quite a beating.
[You have levelled up]
Since he was starting to run out of Aether, Raven decided to continue killing using his weapon, as he wanted to increase the distance between him and everyone else as much as possible.
At first, each kill had flooded him with experience. But after Level 20, the system's demands spiked. Where thirty kills once gave him three levels, now it barely gave him one. The climb was steeper, and the weak would be left behind.
[There is one minute remaining]
The mysterious voice warned them, along with the red countdown that appeared on their system panels.
The momentum of most players slowed down as the fighting was about to end, but Raven wasn't one of these people. And he didn't let this opportunity slide either, as he killed as many players as possible, and his speed allowed him to take them by surprise, which saved him a lot of time.
With only a few seconds left, Raven reached level 22, and he collapsed onto the grass in exhaustion, the scent of ash and blood still heavy in the air.
[You have levelled up]
[Training has ended.]
[All currently dead awakeners are being revived]
[Final results are being calculated.]
[...]
[1st: Death kills: 420
2nd: Gwenith220 kills: 197
3rd: Magicboss3000 kills: 182
4th: Aurelia kills: 148 + 20
5th: Demon9 kills: 164
6th: XxKrishna kills: 159]
…
The leader board kept going till the top 100, and the person in 100th place had managed 125 kills. This may seem small for 100th place when there are hundreds of millions of people, but many people who were weak would've been more equally matched.
This meant that they would've had to battle for a lot longer to get one kill. Only the players in the top 1000 or so were that much stronger than the rest that they could hunt others and get kills efficiently. Even still, they weren't exactly strong enough to breeze through everyone.
Elsewhere, the woman and her group had been revived.
"Wait, you guys died too?" She blurted in surprise as she turned around to find the rest of her team members.
"Yeah, one second we were alive and the next, dead." One man said while holding out his hand to show that he had no clue as to how that happened.
"Who the f**k was that monster?" She complained in dismay.
"No clue, but I bet he's at least in the top ten." Another replied back
"Huff, how unlucky to meet someone like that." However, she was interrupted by a voice from above.
[Not too bad for such a pathetic race, some of you might even be worth watching in the future.
[As mentioned previously, the more kills you get, the better the rewards you get.]
[Naturally, healers and buffers will be rewarded who had a disadvantage from the get-go, didn't end up falling behind much at all. However, we have still decided to award them up to 20 kills depending on how much healing they were able to do to themselves, as well as those with whom they partnered up.]
[If you are one of those who didn't end up teaming up even when the advantages of your attribute were quite obvious, then you have only yourself to blame.]
[Now that we have addressed that, let's award you your rewards.]
Raven was ecstatic to hear this, as he had beaten almost everyone by a massive margin. He would naturally be awarded accordingly.
[Training Reward: For getting 420 kills, you receive 42000 gold and 21 skill points]
[1st place reward: random S rank skill ticket and an A rank invisible armour]
This may seem like a lot for any player to get at the start, but considering the average amount of kills the players got was about 15, this meant that most only got about 1500 gold and 1 single skill point. The rewards are only so exaggerated because, for Raven, he got almost 30 times the average. Hence, he got 30 times the reward.
Naturally, the reward for first place is exceptional, but the top 100 received rewards as well, although they were nowhere near as good. For example, the 100th place player only received a C-rank armour, but the 10th place player received a B-rank armour.
Without a doubt, everyone who was not in the top 100 ranking was jealous of the rewards that those in it received, but they could do nothing about it, as at this point, your ranking correlated to your level, and your level correlated to the players' strength.
Raven was almost delirious from what he had achieved. At the end of the day, it's almost impossible not to develop an inferiority complex after being treated as a slave for so long, and finally being on top felt like a dream to him. He knew that he had to do whatever was necessary to keep things this way from now on.
{Name: Raven Dmitry
Class: Classless
Level:22
Exp: 300/2700
Attributes:
Aether 15/50
All elemental magic 15/50
Martial Power 15/50
All master 15/50
Divinity 15/50
Attribute points: 42
Skills:
*Awareness (E-Rank)
*Tracking (E-Rank)
Inventory:
Iron sword (D-rank)
Invisible armour (A-Rank)
Random skill ticket (S-Rank)
Mystery box (C-Rank)
One-time safe zone creation scroll
Mysterious Key
42500 Gold