Chương 12: The Threshold of Rank

The hot wind of the lower Jordan Valley swirled with grey ash as Ethan rematerialised outside the silversmith's shop. His digital wallet sat at 6. 20 Silver Shekels, the raw Hacksilber scrap resting inside his leather pouch like a heavy metal anchor. He had bought his grandmother an hour and a half of unthrottled oxygen, but his long-term math model remained dangerously skewed.

A few shekels a day kept the smart-meter from cutting their air lines, but it did nothing to pay down his forty-thousand-dollar university debt or secure the eighty-dollar physiotherapy sessions her joints desperately required.

Worse, a new warning indicator flashed red in the top corner of his vision: [System Alert: Level Milestone Deficit] Current Level: 1 (Novice) Accumulated Level Experience: 94% Warning: Free-tier players who remain at Level 1 for more than six server hours will experience a passive 10% decay in Stamina efficiency due to 'Malnutrition Status Effect.' The system is squeezing me, Ethan thought, his jaw tightening as he navigated the narrow, unpaved residential lanes of Hazor's lower ward.

The developers didn't design this sandbox to be fair. They built it to force free-tier players into corporate labor pools. To scale his exploits, he needed to unlock higher-tier industrial nodes. To unlock those nodes, he had to level up. But traditional leveling meant entering the wild hills, which required buying weapons, armor, and health potions—the ultimate economic trap for a F2P gold-farmer.

He pulled up his class selection interface, staring at the translucent option he had uncovered in the limestone ravine: [Available Public Class Path: The Outlaw Shepherd (Ro'eh Noded)] Prerequisites: 0. 00 Shekels Spent on Arms (Met), Sling Grade 1 (Met). Status: Locked (Requires Militia Rank 1 / Level 3 Minimum). The Outlaw Shepherd was his ticket to zero-maintenance combat, but he was stuck in a catch-22.

He needed to hit Level 3 to claim the class, but he couldn't hit Level 3 without hunting the wild jackals or marsh beetles that the corporate squads from Pixel Rex had already fenced off behind their paid-tier security borders. Ethan stopped at the intersection of the weavers' lane and the main garrison road. Ahead, a massive billboard projected a live feed from Pixel Rex's regional office in the Upper City.

A slick, corporate-sponsored presenter with a manicured smile was pitching a new recruitment drive:"Tired of the F2P grind? Sign up for the Pixel Rex Associate Program today! For a flat deposit of twenty Singapore Dollars, we provide an accelerated path to the Level 5 Soldier class, complete with a copper shortsword and guaranteed access to our private hunting reserves in the northern terraces. Don't waste your hours digging in the mud—invest in your future!" Ethan let out a cold, sharp snort.

Invest in your future. He knew the algorithm behind that program. The twenty dollars didn't buy the sword; it rented it. If the durability dropped to zero during a raid, the guild docked the player's real-world pay contract to cover the salvage overhead. The corporate syndicates weren't selling progress; they were selling structural dependency. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the frayed, braided hemp sling he had squeezed from the overworked NPC clerk at the Levy Office.

David didn't clear his deficit by paying Saul for a bronze sword, Ethan thought, his fingers tracing the coarse fibers of the string. He used the King's own administrative oversights against him. He recalled the unique AI behaviors he had observed from the city clerks and market widows. The game engine simulated absolute, unflinching physical and structural realism.

That meant monsters weren't just bundles of health points moving on a track; they were physical creatures bound by gravity, biological limits, and terrain geometry. He didn't need to buy a copper shortsword. He didn't need to join Pixel Rex's paid hunting reserves. He just needed to exploit a physical bottleneck where the game engine's environment forced the wild beasts into an unwinnable situation.

He turned his back on the recruitment boards and marched toward the southern mud-brick walls, his hand resting firmly on his pouch of free river pebbles. He was going to hit Level 3 without spending a single copper bit of his capital, and he was going to do it right beneath the noses of the corporate guards.