Chapter Thirty-Nine: Carrot and Stick

First of all, there are now upper limits for “hit rate” and “dodge rate.” Huang Yunshuo had actually found it strange before: these two attributes, so closely tied to agility, hadn’t shown any real effect in the beginner village. To be honest, he’d never seen a low-agility player miss an attack, nor had he, with his own high agility, ever managed to dodge a monster’s strike—not unless he actively tried to avoid it.

“Maybe it’s to balance things out in the newbie zone,” he mused.

Hit rate is a blessing for low-agility players. The monsters are vicious enough as it is—if you missed a crucial hit on top of that, anyone would want to give up in despair. As for dodge rate, it curtails the survivability of high-agility players. When facing the overpowered level 1–3 monsters of the beginner village, ordinary players have no chance of dodging. Even high-level players, despite their stat advantage, can’t evade attacks, which subtly raises the challenge of monster hunting.

Activating both these attributes was a tremendous boon for someone like Huang Yunshuo. With his 60 points of agility, those “melon-head” players with only 10 agility would be lucky to land a hit on him once every two swings.

Next was remote team formation. Now you could invite players to a party from a distance when entering a dungeon, though it would cost a certain amount of copper coins.

This was a genuinely thoughtful addition. Just think—how many beginner villages are there in Reforged Epoch? Millions! That’s why there are those ridiculous codes like ekT92034 for the villages. If there are that many starter zones, the sheer scale of the world map must be unimaginable.

With friends and family scattered randomly across the continent, unless you reach the required level to unlock teleportation, you’re all alone—forced to team up with strangers to fight monsters and level up, and not everyone is lucky enough to meet reliable companions.

How bleak is that? But with this new remote party feature for dungeons, people can finally play together across mountains and rivers—a true blessing for all.

The third point was hunger. On one hand, it’s a gentle reminder for players to take breaks and log off regularly. On the other, it’s a nudge toward in-game purchases: want to play longer? Buy some food. Want a temporary stat boost? Buy gourmet food.

“Charge! I can’t let these steamed buns go to waste!”

He tossed the buns into his backpack and hurried out of Stone Platform Town, heading straight for the Southern Meadow where the most players gathered.

The lush green grass was teeming with level 5 white rabbits—yes, still rabbits. But now, they were no longer a riot of colors and their level was no longer three. These level 5 rabbits were adorably naive, white and fluffy, crouched in the grass with big, innocent eyes staring at the players, each clutching a long carrot in their paws.

Standing alert, Huang Yunshuo watched as a level 10 human player, already advanced to warrior, charged forward and smacked a white rabbit with a feather duster.

The little rabbit let out a tearful cry, a “-15” floated above its head, and its health bar dropped by nearly one-sixth.

A hundred health points, five defense.

Judging by the numbers, Huang Yunshuo reasoned: the average level 10 player, unless utterly clueless, would pour all their free stat points into strength. With all the bonuses and a five-attack feather duster, their damage should easily exceed fifteen—so the white rabbit must have five defense points.

The frail little rabbit stood on its hind legs and swung its huge carrot at the player.

“-28!”

Damn. Fifty attack?

Was this really the strength of a level 5 monster? What chance did ordinary players have against this? One hundred health, five defense, fifty attack—if a level 10 player tried to trade blows with it, they’d be beaten to death. It wasn’t as crushing as when everyone fought the level 1 chicks, but players were now five levels higher than the rabbits!

The warrior panicked and dared not continue. “Charge!” He dashed five meters away, stopped to catch his breath, then ran for his life, leaving the rabbit’s aggro range behind.

“Hey, man, how was it?” a few players nearby jeered, clearly amused by his misfortune.

The warrior looked as if he’d just eaten something foul. “Cut the crap. You guys want to team up or not?”

“That’s what we were waiting for, brother! Let’s do it—take it down!”

There were about 150–200 players grinding in the area. The entire population of Stone Platform Town didn’t exceed 250. Huang Yunshuo estimated that about fifty beginner villages had sent their players here—an average of five level 10 players per village seemed plausible.

He swung his sword at a white rabbit, triggering a combo.

“-35! -14!”

The rabbit immediately swung its carrot at him, but Huang Yunshuo, thanks to his high agility, managed to land another hit before the carrot could connect.

“The heck, its head is just a ball of fluff sitting on its body—no neck, no weak point to aim for,” he chuckled ruefully. Another “-34” floated up. In a blink, the rabbit’s 100 health had dropped to a pitiful 17.

At last, the huge carrot struck him.

Miss!

“Haha, you silly little rabbit!”

Huang Yunshuo couldn’t help but laugh, having deliberately taken the hit to test his dodge chance. Sure enough, with both level and agility suppression, he dodged it. Two quick sword strikes finished off the rabbit. It let out a pitiful squeal, rolled over with its white belly exposed, and its carrot tumbled to Huang Yunshuo’s feet.

“What the… Why didn’t the carrot disappear? Why did it drop to the ground?”

Puzzled, he picked it up.

Carrot Club, level 10
Attack: 3–5
Equipable?!

Huang Yunshuo was momentarily stunned.

First, shouldn’t equipment only appear by randomly dropping after a monster dies? Why had the rabbit simply handed him its weapon?

Second, he could accept a feather duster as a weapon, but what kind of game uses a carrot as a weapon? Did they think the players were rabbits, too?

Still, he was delighted, though he did mourn his battered old iron sword that had cost him thirty hard-earned PvP points. Originally, that 6–8 attack sword was quite impressive—since Reforged Epoch almost never dropped weapons for players, 6–8 attack meant an extra thirty to forty points of strength.

But now, with the carrot clubs dropping from rabbits—even if their attack was only 3–5—it significantly devalued the battered iron sword. If it could have sold for three thousand copper coins before, now it’d fetch no more than two thousand.

After all, there’s not much practical difference between 3–5 and 6–8 attack!

Of course, either way, both were much better than the starter wooden stick’s 1–2 attack.

Players who’d gotten used to the five-attack feather duster for grinding would now have the carrot club, which kept their attack about the same, but could also be used for PvP.

It was easy to imagine the stir these carrot clubs would cause.

He rubbed his hands together in excitement and pocketed a few copper coins that had dropped. Still, it seemed these level 5 rabbits weren’t dropping much money. What was going on there?