Breaking the Limits

The Red-eyed Rabbits served as easy targets, offering a single experience point per kill. They rarely dropped anything besides their designated quest items—the Red-eyes—alongside a few scattered copper coins. Most players abandoned this farming spot the second they reached level two, chasing better loot and faster experience.

Varek stayed.

He drew his bow, enduring the sluggish animation as another arrow buried itself into a rabbit’s flank. He ignored the miserable experience gain and the meager coins littering the grass. His focus remained fixed on a calculated, dual-layered strategy that would secure his foundation.

First, he needed to trigger his Heaven's Hand talent on repeat. Every hit stacked his maximum health. More health meant a higher threshold of raw, unstoppable true damage.

Second, he aimed to secure an obscure hidden reward tied to the Novice Settlement. The standard quest required handing over one hundred rabbit eyes. Varek knew from his past life that submitting a staggering ten thousand eyes unlocked a unique, max-level skill. It expanded basic attack range by fifty percent. For close-combat classes, it was a neat trick; for an archer, it was a game-changing asset.

With his boundless health scaling and that extended range, his master plan would truly begin.

*Ding!* "You have killed a Red-eyed Rabbit. Experience points +1."

He maintained his rhythm. Every three seconds, he loosed an arrow, stacking two health points. Factoring in the time spent repositioning and pulling aggro, he averaged roughly thirty health points per minute.

At first, it took a grueling twelve arrows to bring down a single Red-eyed Rabbit. As his health pool swelled, his true damage scaled right alongside it. Twelve arrows dropped to ten. Then eight. Then five.

As the fifth arrow pierced a rabbit's skull, a chime echoed in his mind.

*Ding!* "Your talent, Heaven's Hand, has reached 2 stars."

Varek pulled up the interface, his eyes scanning the updated text.

**Heaven's Hand (Super God-Level): 2 stars**

**Effect 1:** Each basic attack deals 2% of your health as true damage.

**Effect 2:** Each basic attack permanently increases health by 2 points.

**Proficiency:** 0/100,000.

The upgrade shifted his momentum. The scaling efficiency and damage output doubled. Now, he only needed three arrows to kill a rabbit.

He had been logged in for eight straight hours. Thankfully, the starter zone had emptied out long ago as players rushed to higher-level areas. No one remained to witness his hyper-focused grind.

During this marathon session, he leveled up twice, earning five attribute points. He dumped all five into attack speed, nudging it from 0.63 to 0.73. The difference barely registered.

"Equipment and attribute points," Varek muttered, drawing his bowstring back. "That's the bottleneck."

He released. The arrow struck a fresh target.

*-30*

His basic attack damage turned monstrous. The increased damage meant he killed rabbits faster, which paradoxically slowed down his health stacking since he spent more time running between targets. His attack rate dropped to twenty shots a minute. However, with the upgraded talent granting two health points per hit, he still netted forty health points a minute.

A new notification popped up as he slew another beast, but it wasn't for experience. In *Dusk of Divine Lords*, players killing monsters below their level received zero experience. Only labyrinth creatures, bosses, or rare elite spawns bypassed this rule. Sitting at Level 2, he no longer gained a single point of experience from the Level 1 rabbits.

Varek ignored the penalty and kept shooting. The ten thousand eyes held far more value than a quick level up.

Two more hours vanished into the grind.

Varek remained Level 2, but his health pool skyrocketed from a fragile 100 to a terrifying 4,800 points.

A heavily armored Level 5 warrior who dumped every stat point into vitality would cap out around five hundred health. *Dusk of Divine Lords* featured strict class-based attribute scaling. An archer gained 0.02 attack speed per attribute point, while other classes gained 0.01. Warriors gained twenty health per vitality point, doubling the standard ten points other classes received. Warriors inherently stacked armor, health, and magic resistance. Archers prioritized attack, attack speed, and critical hits.

Varek shattered that mold. Without spending a single point on vitality, he possessed a health pool ten times larger than the best tanks currently in the game. But raw stats from leveling were never enough; players relied on equipment to truly amplify their builds. Varek was walking around as a raid boss in novice rags.

He opened his inventory. The stack of Red-eyed Rabbit eyes sat at 1,600. He was far from his ten thousand goal, but he felt no anxiety. His true damage scaled purely off his massive health pool. He now dispatched the rabbits with a single, devastating arrow.

A blaring tone pierced his audio feed. It was an external system alert from his high-tech gaming pod, signaling he had been submerged for ten hours. The mandatory logout for the evening meal had arrived.

Varek commanded the system to log out, his vision fading to black before the physical world rushed back in.

The hiss of the pod opening greeted him. Bram popped out of the adjacent unit, a massive grin on his face.

"Varek, this game is unreal," Bram said, stretching his arms. "It feels like a secondary realm."

"It really does," Varek replied, stepping onto the cold floor.

The two young men navigated the sterile hallways of Visionary Studio. Located in the bustling heart of Oceancrest, the studio stood as one of the city's three major gaming lodges. Varek and Bram occupied the bottom rung of the corporate ladder: low-level gold farmers. For Bram, it was paradise. Free food, a bed, a steady paycheck, and gaming all day. For Varek, it was a cage he intended to break.

They entered the sprawling dining hall. The air hummed with tense, competitive chatter. Over a dozen gold farmers clustered around the long tables, shoveling food into their mouths while comparing stats.

The room fell silent as heavy footsteps echoed from the entrance. A middle-aged man with a prominent gut strode in, trailed by a tall secretary wearing crisp business attire and black stockings.

This was Silas Vane, the general manager of Visionary Studio. The employees secretly called him 'Motormouth.' He possessed zero actual gaming talent, relying instead on barking orders and micromanaging the skilled players under him.

Silas marched to the head of the room and crossed his arms. His sharp gaze swept over the tired faces of his staff.

"Dusk of Divine Lords opened its servers today," Silas announced, his voice carrying an abrasive edge. "You've all logged your mandatory ten hours. I want strict progress reports. From left to right, state your current levels and your gold farming yields."

The line started immediately.

"Level 4, 45 copper coins."

"Level 4, 53 copper coins."

"Level 4, 32 copper coins."

The reports painted a clear picture. The standard pace for a dedicated ten-hour grind was Level 4 and roughly half a silver coin's worth of copper.

The line moved down the table until it reached Bram.

Bram puffed out his chest, took a step forward, and declared his status loud enough for the whole room to hear. "Level 5, two silver coins."

Whispers broke out among the other farmers. Silas raised an eyebrow, a rare look of approval crossing his harsh features. He gave Bram a curt nod. "Not bad. You can manage."

Silas shifted his focus to the next person in line. Varek kept his head down, focused on the meager meal sitting on his tray.

Bram elbowed him in the ribs. "Varek, it's your turn."

Varek slowly lifted his head. He met Silas's expectant gaze with calm indifference.

"Level 2, 15 copper coins," Varek said evenly.

It was the honest truth. The drop rate for Level 1 rabbits was abysmal. He had slaughtered over sixteen hundred of them and only scraped together a handful of loose change.

Dead silence blanketed the dining hall. The only sound was the hum of the overhead vents.

*Bang!*

Silas slammed his palm flat against the tabletop. The tray in front of him rattled.

"Varek, what is going on?" Silas demanded, the volume of his voice rising to a furious shout. "Every single person in this room is at Level 4, and you are still sitting at Level 2?"

Varek didn't flinch. "I got delayed because I chose to watch the entire promotional video."

The muscles in Silas's jaw twitched. His face flushed a deep, angry red. "Watching a promotional video?"

Silas stepped forward, pointing a thick finger squarely at Varek's chest. He unleashed a public barrage of scolding, his voice echoing off the dining hall walls.

"Do you comprehend how precious time is in the early stages of a newly launched game? Every minute translates to market dominance! We are paying you to establish a foothold, and you threw your potential away on a useless cinematic?"

Varek remained silent, letting the general manager rant.

"You wasted eight hours staring at a screen while everyone else ground for resources!" Silas roared. He leaned in, his eyes narrowed with cruel finality. "Visionary Studio does not keep slackers. We do not tolerate leeches who waste company time."

Silas pointed toward the exit. "Pack your things. Get out of my studio. You're fired."