Finally, Gearme had enough money to purchase the Golden Silk Pants. He did so, then immediately enchanted them thrice before putting them on. Instantly he could see, hear, and smell much better and further. To Chan Si's delight, this extended to other characters and herself in real life as well. It was like a whole new world of information.

Which was how Sunshine managed to notice the two players following her. They weren't being particularly stealthy, but they had been keeping a far distance, only now they were clear to her in both sound in vision. She determined they must have been using some kind of tracking [Skill], as they did not react when she observed them. This meant that simply trying to hide against them would be useless. Furthermore, given their armor, they were likely to be decently leveled, so they could catch up to her even if she used all her stamina potions in an attempt to run away.

Chan Si decided to make use of the fact that Sunshine had the gloves of climbing ability, and adjusted her path to include scaling some cliffsides. It would slow her down somewhat, but it should slow those two players more. If there was any chance for her to escape them, this was the only way.

With that plan out of the way, she began making two sets of adjustments to her other plans. Any player who died in Guild Tree Online would respawn in their starting area, unless they set a new spawn point in another valid location. If it was a valid location, the option to set spawn location would be active and highlighted in the options menu.

Chan Si adjusted Sunshine's route further so that she would pass through a nearby town that was a potential respawn location. While this slowed her overall plans slightly, she felt the extra assurance would be worth it in case she really did die. She would also offload her logs there, albeit for only two silver and twenty five copper each, according to online tools for local market rates. It was a loss in comparison to continuing to hold them, but she did not want to die and drop a stack of logs. Depending on the item, 5, 20, or 100 of the same item could fit in a stack. Logs were an item which stacked up to 100. Items worth more money were more likely to drop than items worth less money.

Chan Si checked the range on her various character abilities and found that while her senses had improved, the ability range hadn't for any but Gearme. This was consistent with Chan Si's hypothesis that effects which interacted directly with the game world on a mechanical level would not be shared. It wasn't yet enough to confirm it, but as she continued purchasing items or adding enchantments with various effects, she would be able to better understand what did and did not apply across her various selves.

A true bug.

With Gearme's build complete, he could go the mountain range spot that Chan Si had picked out and farm the Toxic Mountain Lions safely and effectively. He set out immediately.

Gearme to the farming area, Pickapart making her way to meet up with the Monstrous Character, Sunshine trying lose the two players following her, Ulna crafting arrows. This was the current status of Chan Si's group.

Part of the reason Chan Si had chosen a Ballista for her DPS was because of the class's range. While there were many other classes that could deal higher DPS from a range, their range would naturally be shorter. The result would be monsters which could reach the class before being killed, dealing damage.

The Ballista, however, would be able to finish fights of its level in the same shot the fight was started with. This kind of front-loaded DPS was perfect for picking off key threats to the party in the opening of a battle, leaving the rest of the party capable of doing their roles without worry. That she could also take advantage of the range by farming monsters she shouldn't be able to farm at her level was a bonus.

Thanks to the climbing gloves, it was trivial for Gearme to avoid monsters on his way to the farming spot for the Toxic Mountain Lions. Once he reached the spot, he observed the surrounding area, checking to make sure there were no players nearby to ruin his farming.

In Guild Tree Online, when players competed for the same farm, the player or party who dealt the highest overall damage to the target would be the one to receive the experience and drops. Chan Si knew that her farming would be smooth for the early levels, because of how rare it was for players to begin alt accounts. Once she was farming monsters level 100 or higher, the competition would be fierce against other players, unless she found secret farming spots. Of course, no one but the victim would find fault with her if she chose to kill someone trying to steal her farm. As for if she chose to steal someone else's farm, she felt she could get away with it if she was strong enough.

In the end, it all came back to power!

Not seeing anyone, Gearme unleashed his first arrow against a Toxic Mountain Lion. It roared in pain and rage as the massive arrow sunk into its flesh, and it began climbing up the mountain. No other Toxic Mountain Lions followed, as this was not an Aggro Group area.

Aggro Groups were a mechanic in Guild Tree Online. If monsters were part of the same Aggro Group, they would have a symbol next to their name, and possibly a number next to the symbol. If multiple monsters shared the same symbol and number, and were within an appropriate distance, they would aggro with one another. The Toxic Mountain Lions had neither a symbol or number, indicating they did not belong to any Aggro Group.

Later, when Chan Si farmed with her party she would want to farm Aggro Groups to take advantage of her Dark Weaver's AoE effects, but for now it was good that Aggro Groups were rare in newbie areas like this one.

Without any other Toxic Mountain Lions coming to its aid, the one Gearme had shot had nothing it could do but fruitlessly scramble towards its aggressor, only to become an oversized pincushion and die, its 4310 health depleting to zero. Immediately Gearme began on the next Toxic Mountain Lion, and it soon met a similar fate.

After three of these, counting the minor quest that Gearme had done along the way and otherwise wasn't worth mentioning, he reached level 2! His physique immediately rose by 10 more points, adding 50 more damage to his attacks. Along with the natural growth in Reflexes, Acuity, and Stability, it was 59 damage more.

But, the true damage gain came from the Starter Bow! It's bonus damage immediately doubled, increasing from 200 to 400!

And this was only the starting weapon, a piece of trash even among common items!

Truly, the early game greatness of oversized bows could not be understated due to their large amount of bonus damage.

As for why the weapon scaled in damage, of course it was because one's starter gear scaled with the player's level. The Starter Bow would continue to gain 200 bonus damage every level.

Item scaling was not unique to starter gear. Any item which required at least level 10 would have a level range in which it would continue to scale. Common items would scale for 10 levels, Uncommon items would scale for 25 levels, Rare items would scale for 50 levels, and Legendary items would scale for 100 levels. This ensured that players would not need to frequently replace their gear, especially since they likely enchanted it. The scaling would start from the minimal level requirement of the item, and adjust to the level of the player wearing it, up to the item's maximum.

With each Toxic Mountain Lion earning Gearme 3330 experience, and the 500 experience he earned from the quest, Gearme had 490 experience leftover after hitting level 2.

Level 3 required 20,000 experience, double the amount.

However, Gearme now did 618 damage per shot, it would only take him six shots per Toxic Mountain Lion to kill it now. The first two would take 21 seconds, then Gearme would need to kill the third without Quick Shot, taking 24 seconds. Receiving 1% less bonus experience per kill, he would get 3300 experience per kill. Since he would need six kills to reach level 3, and every three kills would take 66 seconds, Gearme would hit level 3 in just two minutes and twelve seconds!

Thus, that was precisely what he did, hitting level 3. Level 3 also came with a new [Skill] for the class.

The [Skill] was Piercing Shot. The ability allowed Ballistas' shots to carry through from one enemy to the next if they killed in a single shot. However, it had a number of restrictions that made it a poor skill that wasn't really considered multi-target damage.

First, the second target had to be standing directly behind the first, meaning it was very difficult to actually line up multiple enemies.

Secondly, the leftover damage would be reduced in full by the second enemy's defensive statistics, meaning the damage was often much lower than expected.

Adding onto these issues was simply that, past a certain level, killing enemies in one shot was no longer realistic for Ballistas unless they focused purely on weaker enemies, or specifically built themselves to accomplish it. There were ways to make the skill more useful, but these ways took investment, it was easily a trap option.

Any game with any amount of real customization could be said to be full of trap options - places where you could spend considerable effort to make something work, perhaps even well, but would be strictly inferior to alternatives. Chan Si did not even regard it as a real [Skill] for this reason. At least it was a passive, meaning Gearme could, on rare occasion, benefit from it. Chan Si simply did not intend to plan around it.

Level 3 was 259 more damage per shot, putting Gearme at 877, or only four shots per kill. However, the experience to go from level 3 to level 4 was doubled again, from 20,000 to 40,000! Thankfully this was the last level where experience requirements doubled.

It would take Gearme thirteen kills to level, and he could Quick Shot every other kill, alternating between 13 and 16 seconds per kill for six kills, before needing to spend two kills in a row without Quick Shot. Thus it would take three minutes and ten seconds for level 4.

Level 5 was 60,000 experience, taking Gearme 18 kills, four shots per kill - annoyingly 2 hp off from a kill in three shots - four minutes and twenty four seconds. The number of dead Toxic Mountain Lions were quite a few, and since Gearme could now kill much more quickly, he began descending as he killed to be closer to his loot drops when he was done. He took minuscule amounts of damage each leap down the mountain, but never once stopped firing oversized arrows, even mid-air.

Level 6 was 100,000 experience, 31 kills, three shots each. Five minutes, thirty nine seconds. It was now officially a slaughter. There were no lion cubs in the area, but had there been, Gearme would have been making numerous Simbas.

Level 7: 140,000 experience. 44 kills, still three shots each. Seven minutes, fifty one seconds. The unlooted bodies formed a pile.

Finally, level 8 required 180,000 experience. This was 57 kills, but required only two shots each. Exactly seven minutes.

Gearme leveled from 1 to 8 in thirty one minutes and forty nine seconds.

It would take a non-brilliant person - like an author - longer to do the math, than it took Gearme to farm!

Below, Toxic Mountain Lion corpses were scattered, but in Gearme's eyes, it was a mound of loot. Thankfully his kill speed had picked up enough at the final level that he had managed to clear the spawns around his kill area, so he would not need to worry about being attacked while gathering his prizes.

It was unfortunate he had so little bag space, there was definitely more than he could carry in terms of dropped gear. Besides the gear he decided to wear, he would fill each bag slot which whatever would net him the most amount of money when he sold it. He would need to drop some of it later, after looting the Toxic Mountain Lion Queen and its treasure, but he could not predict exactly how much he would need to have free in advance.

Gearme had also received another new [Skill] at level 8, and it was the most important skill for taking out the Toxic Mountain Lion Queen. The [Skill] was Hobbling Shot, which when striking an enemy would slow their movement speed by 70%. It was another [Skill] available to all bow-based classes like Quick Shot, but this one was much less useful in most cases for the Ballista, due to killing enemies in one shot.

However, it was necessary for taking down the the Toxic Mountain Lion Queen, which was too fast. Without this [Skill] she would reach Gearme and rip him apart even with his ranged advantage. However, with the [Skill] he would only need to worry about the ranged attacks, which would only deal Toxic damage, and he had just acquired the gear he needed.

Among the gear there was every armor slot represented; Boots, Gloves, Head, Pants, and Chest. Gearme did not plan to wear the pants, as the ranged bonus on his current pants was more important.

Unequipped the gloves would not be an issue, as Sunshine had already scaled a few cliffs and lost her pursuers.

The best boots, chest, and gloves which the level 8 Gearme could wear were uncommon, while the best head slot item was only common. The boots were the [Lionsludge Boots], and it granted 10 Hardiness, plus reduced all instances of Toxic damage by 8. The chest was [Viscious Furs], which gave 21 Physique with 22 Hardiness, and 18 defense against Toxic. Finally among the uncommon items were the [Gooey Grabbers], which had no stat bonus, but reduced Toxic damage by 13 and had a special ability to increase Stability by 50 for 5 seconds on a two minute cooldown.

Some items had very silly names, but could be worth more when sold for that reason, coveted by those who wanted to make jokes.

The common head slot item was the [Fur Mantle], and it provided only 7 Stability.

Overall, the damage Gearme would take from Toxic with these items equipped would be reduced by 39. This did not seem like a lot, but Toxic damage was always a DoT effect except in rare instances, and the resistance would apply to each tick of damage. Toxic resistance was much lower than other resistances for this reason, though other resistances would not apply per tick if the damage was a DoT, instead reducing the overall maximum damage amount. It was another way Toxic was a ‘weird’ element.

As Gearme sorted through his loot - Chan Si considered writing her own loot filter for the game, a type of modification that was officially supported - and prepared for his battle with the Toxic Mountain Lion Queen, it was finally time to log in with Chan Si's fifth and final character, her monstrous character.