As I focussed on the wolf, it's red name plate showed a drop down menu of it's level and type.

Fragment Wolf

Level 25 Type: Ordinary

The monster level was a way of letting players know the total value of stats required for equal combat. Right now my stats are 8, 8, 8, 9 which would be lv33 as a monster. I wasn't sure if everyone began with the same amount of stats but the monster before me should be a good match for my current amount of stats.

The [Fragment Wolf] had a brown fur coat with a line of black that begun from its snout all the way to the tip of it's tail which swayed happily as it enjoyed it's meal. As the wolf took bites from the dead rabbit, I saw the missing parts of the rabbit, where one would expect to be smeared in blood and gore to be a luminous red instead with light particle dust rising from the area as it faded away eventually.

As I moved to point my weapons bracer's circular formation towards the wolf, it's ears perked up and it turned towards my location and started growling whilst assuming a low, pounce stance.

Eventually the thing started to bark, not that I cared much as I twitched my opened hand to open a bit more, releasing a magic bolt from my palm that hit the wolf squarely on it's face causing it to stumble a little and shave off a third of it's name plate revealing a red outline encasing a transparent space.

The wolf shook it's head whilst I, my arm, as that bolt made my arm sting a little and drained over half my mana pool. After that, the wolf pounced towards my location as I rolled out of the way, skated on the grass and chased. I switched the weapon bracer mode to the sword arm and tried making some stabs at the wolf, sometimes missing, sometimes making some graze cuts shaving off a bit of it's HP bar whilst it did the same with its bites and claws when I failed to perfectly dodge. Eventually, I hit 60 HP as I lost 20 HP from its graze attacks and another 20 from when it scored a solid bite on my ankle. With only a third of it's HP left, the wolf raised its head and let out a howl and continued attacking. By now I had memorized its attack patterns and was able to dodge better and attack more scoring more direct stabs.

Critical Hit!

The fight ended when I was able to shave off the last of its HP with the sword arm through its skull and a pop-up showing critical hit appearing as a circular band around the attack site.

The wolf collapsed onto the grass floor and eventually started fading away into red particle dust. Placing my hand on the wolf corpse before it disappeared, a menu showed up with the list of loot-able items which included the [Fragment Wolf Skin].

Available Items:

Fragment Wolf Skin (Request Item) Fragment Wolf Claw Fragment Wolf Fang

Combat ended. Successfully absorbed the fracture essence. Your status rises!

ID: A15479C Name: Jason HP: 55 HPR: 1/min MP: 40 MPR: 1/min KI: 70% STR: 8 (7/80) DEX: 8 (8/80) INT: 8 (1/80) PER: 9 (2/90)

As I stood up, consuming two of the [Rejuv Berry] to restore my HP, I notice Novir flying over and the faerie, a her I guess, now that the features were now a bit more definite, landed on top of my head and lay down. I took a deep breath and started heading towards the city when I heard some rusting in the bushes shortly followed by some growls. Approaching me from the shadows of the trees were more fragment wolves baring their teeth at me. There were 12 of them though thankfully, none of them had cut off my path back to the city. I started running and they gave hot pursuit.

One of the wolves were probably an agile type as they could catch up to me and kept nipping on my heels. It wasn't until the arch became visible that the wolf group began to fall back.

After all the wolves left, I stopped to catch my breath only to be berated by a very untimely notification.

Strenous activity beyond limits causes a rise in STR and slightly in DEX.

STR: 8 (8/80) DEX: 8 (9/80)

Fatigue status added, further activity may result in status decline.

I found a nearby tree and slumped down with my back towards the trunk. I almost died. That recent reality was a resounding slap and I had to let that sink in for a few moments. After that, I got up and headed towards the city, singing a rather pleasant tune about the developers in my mind.

"Thank you very much! This [Fragment Wolf Skin] is going to help me out greatly."

"Sure."

"The [Weapon Bracer] should've helped you out a lot. You can keep it!" said the NPC with a sickeningly cheerful voice and wide smile. I felt like pushing his teeth out but a deal was a deal. He probably thought it wasn't a big deal.

Request Complete!

Obtain 1 x Fragment Wolf Skin.

Reward: Weapon Bracer > (Already Obtained)

I immediately left the store in a sour mood and headed towards the item store which had a big display screen showing advertisements of their products on top of the three building. Though the wolf incident was frightening, I kept telling myself that I have to get stronger in this game to prevent stuff like that and as such, I chose to visit the item shop next. Hopefully the other items I looted from the wolf, [Fragment Wolf Fang] and [Fragment Wolf Claw] can be sold here.

Inside the item store was like a shopping mall. There were a few players here, most being female who were browsing despite the circumstances. Maybe they didn't take this situation seriously? I don't know, won't know or even care right now. Everyone is entitled to do as they want and face their own consequence. There was a kiosk located at the center of the store which allowed you to look up the store information and at the same time, the location of the kiosk itself allowed you to look up at the other floors in the store as the central area was enpty

I began browsing through the various stores until I landed on one called [Magick Runix] which should deal in items related to magic coding. The shop was located on the second floor which I headed to by using the rising escalator to the left side of the ground floor and going past some weird potion store. Upon entering, I met someone whom I had met in the auditorium. They had circular formations hovering adjacent to their shoulders, glowing a powerful blue with lightening tracing it at certain intervals. With the appearance of a Caucasian male you can find anywhere, they turned around.

"Hey you're that guy..." he said as he noticed me entering.

"I'm Jason. You?"

"Karl. So what brings you here Jason?"