Chapter 2

Li Huailin's five attributes—Strength, Agility, Constitution, Intelligence, and Spirit—all fell within the normal range. For a new account, the maximum for each attribute was 10 points, but no one had all attributes maxed out. Li Huailin's attributes were average, but they were still considered relatively good. What puzzled him was his racial talent.

Racial Talent:

Wisdom: Intelligence -10%

Diplomacy: Reputation with non-human main cities -10

Li Huailin read it again carefully. It really said Intelligence -10% and Reputation -10. What was going on? Shouldn't it be a positive value?

Without hesitation, Li Huailin immediately logged out of the game and picked up his home computer, logging into the official website of *Heart of Glory*. The official website had very little information, just some introductions to races and classes and a basic tutorial for new players. Li Huailin quickly found the information about the human racial talent on the official website.

Human Racial Talent:

Wisdom: Intelligence +10%

Diplomacy: Reputation with non-human main cities +10

"Strange, the official website says it's a positive value," Li Huailin confirmed that his eyes were not deceiving him. Tianyu Corporation was a large company, and if there were any errors on the official website, they would have been corrected immediately. The game had been open for four days, and if there were any mistakes, they would have been discovered long ago.

"Could it be that the custom-made login device has a penalty?" Li Huailin rubbed the back of his head, not understanding what was happening. He could only guess.

After some thought, he realized he had no other options. If a regular player found an error in their character's attributes, they could contact customer service, and it would be resolved. However, Li Huailin couldn't do that because he didn't have the qualifications to purchase a helmet. If he contacted customer service, they would find out his illegal login and he would be in trouble. So, he couldn't seek help from customer service.

"Ah... forget it." With no other options, Li Huailin gave up. "At worst, I won't become a mage and will play as a warrior instead. A 10% reduction in Intelligence isn't a big deal for a warrior. As for the -10 reputation with other main cities, I'll just stay in the human main city. If I become indifferent in other cities, buying things will be 20% more expensive, which is unbearable."

Thinking this way, he realized that apart from the lack of racial talent, there wasn't a significant problem. He could accept it. After all, he was logging in illegally, so this could be considered a punishment. At least he could still play the game.

After consoling himself, Li Huailin sat back on his custom-made game pod and logged into the game again.

Returning to the character interface, Li Huailin ignored the glaring racial talent and checked his current equipment. Tianyu Corporation didn't let players start naked; he had a set of cloth armor and a broken sword.

Cloth Armor: Defense 1-1

Cloth Pants: Defense 1-1

Broken Sword: Attack 1-3

Li Huailin glanced at his money bar. It was too stingy; he didn't even have a single copper coin. He was completely broke, with only the three pieces of equipment on his body and nothing in his inventory.

"Stingy... how stingy." Li Huailin complained and then, following his experience with online games, started looking for the initial quest.

The server had been open for four days. According to the information on the official forum, someone had already reached level 10 and left the newbie village this morning. It was now afternoon, so many players had likely already left the newbie village. Although there were still many new players like Li Huailin, the overall traffic in the newbie village was manageable, unlike the exaggerated photos in the forum post titled "On the first day of the server opening, this is the sea of people."

"The village is surrounded by dark creatures. Future hero, are you willing to help me eliminate some of these dark creatures? I will give you some rewards," said a gray-bearded old man to Li Huailin.

System Prompt: The village chief of the newbie village has issued an E-rank quest, "Eliminate Black Slimes." Do you accept?

"Yes."

E-rank Quest: Eliminate Black Slimes

Objective: Kill 20 Black Slimes

Reward: 200 experience, 10 copper coins

After searching for a while, Li Huailin found only this one quest. The other NPCs just chatted with him and didn't give any quests. He thought that maybe he needed to complete this quest before he could get others. Without much thought, he left the village and started looking for the quest monsters.

Outside the newbie village was a large grassland, with a few people scattered around fighting Black Slimes. However, these monsters were for new players and only gave 5 experience points, so not many people were fighting them. Most had already moved on to higher-level areas.

Soon, Li Huailin spotted a lone Black Slime and checked its attributes.

Black Slime: HP: 30, Physical Attack: 8, Physical Defense: 4

It looked like a blob of black goo. Li Huailin didn't attack immediately; he let it attack him first.

-3

-2

The attack was indeed low. With 100 HP, he would need to be hit over 40 times to die, so there was no real danger. Raising the broken sword, Li Huailin tried an attack.

-5, -6

He calculated that it would take about six to seven hits to kill one. Indeed, the newbie monster wasn't very challenging.

After a few random swings, the Black Slime "popped" and turned into a puddle of black water, with a copper coin bouncing out.

Battle Log: You have killed a Black Slime, deducted 5 experience.

"Hmm, just as the forum said, 5 experience points..." Li Huailin said, but then he noticed something was off. He looked at his battle log again and saw "deducted 5 experience," not "gained 5 experience."

Li Huailin quickly opened his character attributes.

Name: Huailin Li

Class: None (not yet chosen)

Secondary Class: None

Level: 1

Experience: -5/500

...

His experience had indeed become -5/500. At first, he thought he had misread, but the system was serious. Not only had he not leveled up, but his experience had become negative.

"Damn, this... is possible?" Li Huailin managed to say after a while.

Without hesitation, he ran to another nearby Black Slime and killed it with a few more swings.

Battle Log: You have killed a Black Slime, deducted 5 experience.

Seeing his experience bar now at -10/500, Li Huailin was speechless.

"Can this game be played? I accepted the negative racial talent, but now my experience is also negative. How am I supposed to level up..." Confirming that he would indeed lose experience, Li Huailin was at a loss.

Li Huailin felt that his character might be stuck in a bug. Recalling the misaligned opening animation and the deformed newbie receptionist, along with his strange character attributes, he thought it was possible. After all, he wasn't using the official client, and his custom-made game pod was still in the beta stage, so it was possible for issues to arise.

"What should I do now..." Li Huailin was a bit depressed. The character data for *Heart of Glory* was stored on the official server. To fix his bugged character, he would need to delete it and then improve his login device before trying to create a new character. However, creating a new character after deleting an old one took a month, which was too much trouble. If he improved it and still got a bugged character or couldn't log in at all, he wouldn't be able to play.

"I'll just keep playing like this. I want to see what happens when my experience reaches -500." Li Huailin decided to ignore it. After all, he wasn't trying to conquer the gaming world or become invincible. He would just play and deal with the bugs.

Feeling a bit depressed, Li Huailin fought Black Slimes for a while and finally completed the quest requirement of 20. His experience was now -100/500.

"Ha." Li Huailin laughed helplessly and checked his HP, which was down to 13. At his current healing rate, it would take a while to recover. Since he had completed the quest, he decided to die and respawn rather than run back.

He looked around and casually lured two Black Slimes to attack him. Soon, his screen turned gray, and he died.

System Prompt: You have died, gained 50 experience.

"Damn." Li Huailin, who had just respawned at the newbie village's respawn point, couldn't help but shout, drawing the attention of nearby new players. However, they quickly turned back, probably thinking he had been killed by a powerful monster and didn't pay much attention.

Li Huailin was still in shock and checked the system prompt again. Died, gained 50 experience...

"What, gaining experience when you die?" Li Huailin confirmed his experience bar, which had indeed become -50/500, showing that he had gained experience.

"Wait, I remember the official website of *Heart of Glory* mentioned that dying to a monster would drop 10% of your current level's experience. I'm level 1, and I need 500 experience to level up, so 10% is exactly 50 points... I get it. My character is bugged, so now gaining experience deducts it, but losing experience adds it." Li Huailin, with his decent intelligence, quickly figured it out. "This game can still be played. If I die 10 times, I can level up to level 2. Right, dying deducts 10% experience, so I can level up every 10 deaths. Damn, I'm in luck. In the later stages, my leveling speed will be unbeatable."

"I am indeed awesome." Seeing the hope of leveling up, Li Huailin started to feel confident.

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