The items he sold didn't fetch that much money. The wolf hides were damaged since they hadn't been collected using the Gatherer profession and the proper skinning tools.
Still, Kael was satisfied with what he got. It wasn't like he had any use for the hides anyway, so getting a few copper coins out of them was already a win.
In the end, he walked away with 4 silver coins. One hundred copper coins equaled one silver, so that was a pretty decent amount—especially compared to the other players at this stage of the game.
After that, Kael went looking for an NPC that sold potions. Consumables were incredibly important while grinding, especially for someone like him who planned to keep hunting nonstop before returning to any safe zone.
The only ones available were small, low-quality health potions, which restored less HP than higher-grade ones. But Kael was just relieved that there were any potions at all being sold in this tiny starter village. The place was so small, he'd been worried he wouldn't find any useful vendors.
All that item-selling and shopping took quite a bit of time... And now that more players were flooding into the game—and many returning to the village after killing or being killed by wolves—the starting area was absolutely packed. Just walking around was a challenge.
And to make things worse, Kael was already getting a bit of a reputation.
Players started recognizing him. Some tried to form parties with him to level up faster. Others begged him for tips on how he'd managed to reach level 2 so quickly.
They were doing anything they could to get his help.
One female player, with a slim, well-defined figure, went as far as unequipping her starting armor—leaving only the bottom half—and stepped up to him, showing off her body.
She leaned in close, speaking with a seductive voice, "Wanna party up with me? I'm a healer, I can help you level even faster."
Kael looked her up and down.
Yeah, he couldn't deny—it was a tempting offer. But in the end, he turned her down. He didn't want people leeching off of him or getting in his way.
"I'm good on my own, sorry," Kael said. "But I'm sure someone out there would love to party with you."
She wasn't ready to give up yet.
"But I want to party with you! You're the top player in the server!"
"Top player in the server?"
That caught his attention. Kael decided to check the level rankings. He hadn't even looked at them yet—after all, the server had just opened, so it didn't make much sense to care about rankings this early.
But there it was.
His name.
Kael.
Level 2.
Top 1 on the server.
The only info visible was his in-game nickname and level. Nothing showed about his starting area or class. If he wanted, he could hide his profile from the rankings, but if he did that, he'd have to wait a whole month before being able to make it public again.
In any case, he politely thanked the woman for the offer and walked away, leaving the starter village behind as he headed straight toward the deeper part of the forest.
On the way, he opened up his status screen.
It was time to decide—Which stat should he level up next?
[Name: Kael]
[Class: Cult Leader (SSS)]
[Level: 2]
[EXP: 65/500]
[HP: 140/140]
[MP: 180/180]
[Attributes:]
[Strength: 9]
[Agility: 5]
[Vigor: 4]
[Intelligence: 10]
[Faith: 10]
[Free Points: 5]
[Special Attributes:]
[Charisma: 8]
He was unsure about which stat to invest in.
From what he understood so far, his class seemed to lean more toward the magical side—and Faith appeared to be an important attribute too.
But the system had given him bonus points in Strength, and his only offensive skill, Beast Claw, scaled off Strength as well. So if he wanted to increase his current damage, he'd have to invest in that stat.
"Even though Beast Claw has high base damage, its Strength scaling isn't that great just yet," he thought.
The skill was currently doing 150 damage plus his Strength stat. That meant if he used all 5 points he earned from leveling up and dumped them into Strength, it would only boost his damage by 5.
Not exactly a game-changer.
Now he was stuck wondering if it would be better to spread the points out or hold onto them for later.
Kael thought it through for a while and finally decided to put 3 points into Strength and 2 into Agility. Even if the damage boost wasn't much, it was still something—and Agility could help with mobility and maybe even dodging attacks.
"It's not worth holding onto stat points this early in the game. I need to be as strong as possible to make the most of this starting phase," Kael thought.
After distributing the points, Kael went to test his power by facing the wolves again. And to his surprise, his damage didn't go up by just 3 points—it went up by 10!
It looked like Strength affected something else in his damage calculation too, making the increase much greater than expected. That made Kael smile. He was glad he had chosen to put the points into Strength.
Another thing he noticed was that his body felt a bit lighter and faster. It was a small change—something most people probably wouldn't even notice—but he could feel it.
"A small improvement, but it's a start."
Now it was even easier for him to kill those wolves. Still, they were only level 1 monsters. If Kael wanted to grow stronger faster, he'd need to start hunting tougher enemies.
So he began exploring deeper into the forest. He made sure to avoid the area where he had seen that Field Boss earlier, knowing he still wasn't strong enough to take it on. That area didn't seem to have many monsters anyway—probably because of the boss occupying the zone.
The goal now was to find a different place with new kinds of monsters.
He continued walking through the forest, slaying any wolves that tried to ambush him, but never stopping. No distractions. Just forward.
Eventually, he found the entrance to a cave.