You know, there used to be a time when I would fantasize about being able to take on beasts above my level, and don’t get me wrong, I still did to a lesser degree. I just had a more manageable set of expectations now. That solid thumping by the treant had set my bar on reality a bit lower than it had been previously.

  It may seem a bit odd, and to be honest I found it the same, that the treant was able to smack me around so much when it only had a meagre amount of higher stat points than me. That was a minuscule difference in the grand scheme of things. But, as always, there are a few things than need to be considered before jumping to conclusions. Even if I was rather prone to do so myself.

  First of all, the guardian treants were beings the dungeon did not wanting us dungeoneers messing with. They were the protectors of the villages scattered around the floors, and were supposed to be overly strong for their floor. If they didn’t exist, the villages usually didn’t either due to starvation or other such means.

  And second, treants were a naturally stronger creature than man was. Where man started off with an average of four to five stat points in each stat, treants started with an average of seven to eight. According to some guy on the street who had warned me away from messing with them. I didn’t know how trustworthy he was at the time, but seeing how things were now I decided to take his word for it.

  Things like the foxes I had fought earlier were naturally weaker than man. They likely had an average of three in each stat. Things like rats probably had one to two, and things like hill giants probably had an average of ten. Stats scaled with proportions. However, while those few stats were very obnoxious in the beginning levels, they had much less of an observable effect once stats started hitting the thousands and tens of thousands.

  Another interesting thing about stats was that they were graded on an exponential curve in each tier and along the whole. In the tierless and Initiate brackets, the exponential curve was very sharp, while in Apprentice tier and beyond things began to slow down. However, in Master tier the curve was quite sharp once again, even though there were 250 levels between the bottom of Master and Paragon. This was because the graph was nearing its end and was sloping upwards rapidly.

  In Paragon tier, things leveled out again. Levels began to mean less and less unless they were large gaps, and skill synergies began to matter the most. Competence was key, and even the smallest edge could grant victory.

  Nobody knew how far Paragon tier actually went. In fact, some people speculated there was a tier beyond Paragon. That was preposterous, of course, but still it did make one wonder where the end was. Where levels stopped mattering entirely and skill mastery completely took over.

  As a matter of fact, there were Paragons that had reached over level fifteen hundred. Did them little good when either the faceless devils or Hades himself had slaughtered them all. Hades had only been at level thirteen hundred or so when he had gone on his rampage, which even further demonstrated the importance of skill over level in that stage, as the Archon had been level fifteen hundred and fifty.

  The other natural Paragons had ranged between levels twelve hundred and fourteen hundred as well, with the average level of our other ones being somewhere around twelve hundred.

  I, on the other hand, was level two, and had had my head nearly bashed in by a single strike from an over-sized stick. This was a slight issue, as the stick in question had a bit of a health problem I needed to look into.

  So I found myself punting various different critters in an attempt to avoid yet another litany of bodily complaints when I met the thing again. No wolves yet, but I didn’t really want to mess with those things again. I would be far happier if I never saw a black furry coat again. I’d stick to foxes with five tails or so. But so far, all I had to show for these foxes was a single point in defense. Yet again.

  Congratulations! You have reached Level 3.

  Because you do not have a tier, the system will assign your stat point(s) for you.

  Def 7 > 8

  It was nice of the system to think of my earlier brush with death in the form of an ambulatory tree, but I could really use more agility. And while it would be good not to be turned into a human-shaped hamburger patty, agility was the stat I most desperately needed in this encounter. If I could outrun or dodge around the thing, I could get a good look at it.

  On the plus side, I had gone from slapping the foxes against the nearest convenient tree I could find to just kicking them or punching them in the face. This made for a bit of a mess all over my clothes and shoes, but they would get over it once I introduced them to a nice, cold stream.

  My shield wasn’t particularly useful for this task, though, so it got put away. I didn’t really need sheltering from the poor things that put their faces in the way of my fists. Even if I did get the occasional scratch or gash, our levels weren’t that different now and so I healed from them rather quickly. A few hours saw them scabbed over pretty good.

  My English is fantastic, thank you.

  When people think of shields nowadays, they think either of the round bucklers knights used to have, or the kite shield. My shield was more of the former, though much, much larger. It was designed as a purely defensive measure, not meant to be wielded with a lance or a sword or a spear. Two hands were basically always required except in dire circumstances which tired me out much quicker. Trust me, I experimented with this.

  It was surprisingly durable, for a shield. I had thought it would buckle under a higher level assault given it’s low grade. The thing had given me a pleasant—well, much more than pleasant really—surprise in that regard, taking the beatings of that walking stump wonderfully.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  And it was quite light, too. The item description had said that, but I hadn’t realized just how light it would be. I thought it would be somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen pounds, given its size, but no. It was actually in the neighborhood of five. That was a two-thirds reduction from what would still have been a reduced weight, which was incredible. It must have been a system enchantment, though it wasn’t specified in the description.

  Too bad it was designed to be purely defensive. The boss in the center of the shield was dull and rounded, not pointy or any such thing. Sure, it was big, but it just didn’t have the same oomph behind it that a normal one would have. Which, given its size and what would have been twenty or so pounds of extra mass behind it, would have been quite a lot.

  Punching yet another fox in the face, I reflected on how easy it had become to kill these things. Which made me think, why had the other ones I had done in been so hard? The wolves had been difficult just because of sheer numbers. It’s the same sort of problem as that old pick to categories to defend you one. Always go with the rats and the birds. Two eagles in the sky would just be a hassle for you to deal with, but going up against ten thousand rats would get you killed, even with how small they are.

  Sure, the bulls or the lions would be stronger and faster, but they just can’t overcome the numbers game. Even with all ten of the other large animals, ten thousand split ten ways is a thousand per foe, which is still too much for them.

  As for the charviper? Well, it was my first fight after all. First fights tend to be messy in ways you can’t really predict. Not to mention it had a fear debuff, which was not supposed to be a thing on the lower floors. It got people killed way too often for that.

  Now, it was so much easier to kill the monsters. After the fact that they really were trying to kill me had sunk into my thick skull, I had had an easier time with the blood.

  What didn’t help was my lack of strength. Thanks, system.

  If only there was a way for me to make it give me the stats I wanted until I hit Initiate tier. I would have taken a point in strength for level three, and a point in agility for the level I could feel was coming after far too many fox kills. Seriously, it had been like fifteen at this point. Maybe I should venture further into the woods to find better things to fight.

  But no, that was where the wolves were, and I was not in the mood to fight a pack of wolves again. That would just spell my end. Even if I was on the same level with them.

  So I just stuck with the foxes and the occasional deer that came along. Interestingly enough, the deer were much smarter than the foxes and realized they had an advantage. They had pointy things on the end of their heads. And those were really, really sharp.

  Thorn-crowned Stag(Lvl 5)

  These creatures are highly confrontational, and very territorial. They will charge anything they believe they can fight, which includes treants, sadly to say. This leads to there being less of them than other animals. Those thorn-like antlers on their head are razor sharp and designed to cut and pierce flesh.

  Sorry, I lied. They were stags. But in my defense, I hadn’t taken any hunting lessons over my lifetime, and only had a vague understanding of general trends in the animal kingdom. Trends such as the males generally having bigger pieces of headgear, or any at all, in an attempt to attract a mate.

  My first encounter with one of these beauties was very informative. It told me I was not in a place where I could even think of taking on the treant yet. If these things regularly faced up against treants and lost, even with the nice and shiny toys on their foreheads, what chance did I have?

  The stag rounded the nearest tree, coming from deeper into the forest. It had bone-white antlers on its head that had a kind of wooden texture and ended in needle-sharp points. There were more of them than I had expected for a beast like this, perhaps twenty-five to thirty, and they all congregated around its head in a weird way, like a nest of some sorts. Again, see the word ‘thorn-crowned’ above.

  It charged me, giving me no time to pull out any sort of defenses. Leaping sideways, I just managed not to be skewered by that first oncoming rush. The head swinging to follow me, however, managed to clip me in the back as I jumped. Those thorns on the thing’s head lived up to their name, and I caught a shallow, but very clean few cuts across my back.

  When I made it back to my feet, I found it was already charging me again. It almost reminded me of one of those great jousting tournaments back in earlier times before electricity, while all the books were being written by monks, but still after most barbarity was dealt with by the Romans. Except for the vikings, of course. But they were an odd bunch.

  I threw myself to the side, not getting nicked this time, and rolled back to my knees. There, I got my shield out. If I couldn’t deal with this thing the normal way, I would have to resort to the old faithful methods: let it blunder into the shield while I watched, then strike when unexpected.

  Didn’t serve me too well facing the treant, but again, what was I supposed to do there?

  Raising the shield, I waited for the inevitable crunch of antler on wood. When it came, the antlers dug into my shield, trapping the stag there for a time. It shook its head from side to side, trying to free itself. Then I released the shield, causing its head to jerk sideways suddenly, and lunged forward into it.

  What I did next was very silly, but still quite effective. I took a pair of the charviper teeth from inside my inventory and put them between the knuckles of each hand.

  And I started punching. Specifically its neck.

  Blood spurted as the teeth tore through the weaker skin there and into the muscle underneath. I caught its big vein, sealing its slow death by a very nasty form of dehydration, then I caught the major artery. After that, I got out of there.

  It bled out in seconds, slumping to the ground and lying there, jerking. Death was not pretty, even the quick ones.

  After I got the kill notification, I stepped forward to collect my shield and loot the corps. To my disappointment, all I got was the hide. It was nice, to be certain, but not nearly as valuable as I thought the antlers would be. Those could go for a good few pennies on the market.

  That was my first encounter with those reckless things, after which I just dealt with the rest of them the same way. I only encountered two more of them, sadly enough. They gave good experience. Enough so, that the third one gave me my fourth level.

  Congratulations! You have reached Level 4.

  Because you do not have a tier, the system will assign your stat point(s) for you.

  Agi 4 > 5

  Finally! I finally got my point in agility. That had been the whole purpose of this hunt. I was still behind the curve in levels. Most people would have been at level five by now, but I was done with killing for the day.

  Believe it or not, killing things takes a lot of energy, both mental and physical. And I had expended both pools.

  Counting up everything, I found I had killed eighteen foxes and three stags. Not a bad haul, in all honesty. When I had thought about getting more levels and going on a hunt for these things, I had thought maybe eight or so would do the trick, based on my previous leveling speed. But no, leveling was also exponential. It took exponentially more of the same creature to level up again.

  Trudging back towards the village yet again, I decided tomorrow would be the day I finally looked hard into what was causing the treant to go crazy.

  Lucky me.