Leaderboard Stakes

The shrill ringtone of the cell phone shattered the quiet of the barbecue joint. Kaelen wiped his hands, picking up the device to see Valerie’s name flashing on the screen.

"Kaelen, you have to help me." Valerie's voice bled through the speaker the second he answered, vibrating with an urgent, frustrated heat.

"Take a breath, Valerie. What is going on?" He kept his tone soothing, leaning back in his chair.

She let out a harsh sigh. "It is the Clash of Immortals forums. Ever since the global leaderboard went live, players from Xenora, Valtoria, and Baltonia have been flooding our regional boards. They are leaving merciless, toxic mockery everywhere. Our players cannot even fight back because the numbers prove them right. We do not have a single person on the board. The humiliation is suffocating."

He could hear the genuine distress in her voice. "The early game bottleneck is brutal for Elysium. We just have too many players crammed into the starting zones."

"It gets worse." She paused, her breathing ragged over the line. "The in-game betting system just opened. The odds are a blatant insult. For the bet on which nation will claim the top spot, Baltonia is at one to one point three. Valtoria is one to one point two. Xenora is one to one point one. And Elysium? We are sitting at a staggering one to twelve thousand three hundred and sixty. And it is climbing fast! Then there is the bet for the individual first place winner. Silas Bloodgood, Lucas Chen, Caleb Higgins—all foreign players with single-digit odds. I cannot take this lying down."

"So what do you want to do about it?" Kaelen asked softly.

She practically begged him, her tone shifting to fierce determination. "Power-level me. I want to hit the number one spot and personally crush those arrogant foreigners. Name your price. I will pay whatever it takes and offer you my full financial backing. Just get me out of this crowded starting zone."

A wry, knowing smile touched Kaelen’s lips. He pictured her pacing around her room, eyes blazing with righteous fury.

"Valerie, I fully intend to help you crush those foreigners. But I cannot do the leveling for you." He spoke gently, refusing her offer with a calm, unyielding patience.

"Why not? I have the money." Her confusion was palpable.

"You have not read the strict game mechanics." Kaelen kept his voice steady, breaking down the reality of the situation. "Each player can only have one account. More importantly, experience points in this game are heavily contribution-based. If a high-level player kills a monster while grouped with a low-level player, the system calculates who did the work. Traditional power-leveling is mathematically impossible. You will not get the experience unless you pull your own weight in the fight."

A long, bitter groan echoed through the phone. "This system is incredibly rigid. Do you know what I am doing right now? I have an elite, SS-Rank Hidden Class. The Holy Priest. It is supposed to be a powerhouse with insane sustain, curses, and massive area damage. I am a violent healer! But I do not have a single proper combat skill yet. I am currently stuck painfully whacking low-level rabbits with a basic wooden staff for a microscopic amount of experience. I barely made it to Level 1!"

Kaelen shook his head in amusement, chuckling softly at her plight. "Return to the town and seek out Elder Bramwell. He is the NPC you need. You have to formally learn your proper class skills from him before you try to grind. Stop hitting rabbits with sticks and go get your spells."

He heard her exhale a long breath, the fiery frustration cooling into relief. "Okay. I will go find him right now. Thank you, Kaelen."

"Stay safe out there. We will talk later." He ended the call, his smile fading into a sharp, predatory focus.

Kaelen settled the bill at the restaurant and rushed home. Once secured in his room, he strapped on his gaming gear and logged back into Clash of Immortals.

His vision swam, solidifying into the bustling, chaotic streets of Emberpeak Town. He immediately opened the All-Servers Twenty-Four-Hour Leveling Leaderboard to confirm the grim reality.

The holographic interface glowed with a depressing list of names. Lucas Chen of Valtoria sat at Level 3. Silas Bloodgood of Baltonia followed close behind. The undisputed truth stared back at him in harsh white text. The top one hundred spots were monopolized by rival nations. Roughly eighty percent of the dominating players belonged to Valtoria, Xenora, Baltonia, Zephyria, and Drakoria. Elysium did not have a single representative.

Closing the leaderboard, Kaelen flicked open the Elysium regional forums.

Chaos flooded the screen. Frustrated, demoralized players rioted over the severe starting zone bottlenecks. The text scrolled by in a blur of pure rage. Players threatened mass logouts. They demanded to know why the game was rigged against Elysium. They cursed the developers for making them queue just to tag a Level 1 bunny.

Possessing the omniscient foresight of his previous life, Kaelen knew the dark truth behind these specific forum posts. This widespread unrest was not an organic reaction from angry gamers. It was a deliberate, meticulously coordinated sabotage campaign. Foreign operatives, funded by rival intelligence agencies, were infiltrating the Elysium servers to fan the flames of discontent. Their ultimate goal was to induce a massive wave of player resignations, permanently crippling Elysium's future military strength before the game eventually merged with reality.

Kaelen swiped the forum away, his jaw set in cold resolve. Attempting to expose this massive espionage plot as a powerless, unbelievable individual on the message boards would be fruitless. They would just call him a conspiracy theorist and laugh him out of the thread. He needed to take direct, undeniable action.

He resolved to seize the top rank himself. A single, shining beacon of dominance would instantly restore the server's shattered morale and silence the foreign agitators.

First, however, he realized he needed massive in-game capital. The Grand Immortals Wager was a lucrative betting system that accepted in-game currency. He intended to exploit those insulting odds Valerie had mentioned to financially support his server's future war efforts. But to place those bets, he needed copper coins, and lots of them.

Monster gear and coin drop rates were abysmal in the early game. Players could grind for thirteen hours and only see a handful of common items.

Kaelen shifted his strategy. He would target the Unbound Chests scattered across the map.

The game divided treasure chests into strict tiers, from Bronze to Divine. Every zone in Emberpeak Town contained one Boss Chest and one Unbound Chest. While ordinary, high-level Thieves would be forced to spend countless hours grinding their lockpicking proficiency just to attempt opening an Unbound Chest, Kaelen did not face such limitations.

He relied on his overpowered, soulbound skill. Absolute Lockbreak.

This unique skill bypassed all mechanisms, arrays, and hidden realms. It effectively turned every locked chest in the entire game into his own private, unguarded treasury.

Leaving the suffocating crowds of Emberpeak Town behind, Kaelen bypassed the congested low-level hunting zones. Millions of players were still shouting and shoving each other over spawning rabbits in the meadows. He slipped past them like a ghost, journeying stealthily deep into the untouched wilderness.

The terrain shifted from rolling green plains to jagged, desolate stone. After an hour of careful navigation, the imposing stone structures of the Rock Behemoth Encampment finally rose in the distance.

This was his first destination. The massive Level 7 beast reigning over the area was widely considered a nightmare for early-game players. It was a brutal gatekeeper that slaughtered any overconfident party daring to approach it.

Kaelen crouched behind a jagged boulder and cast Insight on the hulking monster patrolling the center of the camp.

A translucent blue window materialized before his eyes, breaking down the mechanical threat.

The Rock Behemoth boasted ten thousand health points. Its attack power hovered ominously between one hundred and twelve and one hundred and thirty-eight. It carried impenetrable physical defense and a staggering magic defense. Worse, it possessed three brutal crowd-control skills. Boulder Rush allowed it to charge and send targets flying. Granite Armor boosted its already ridiculous defense while restoring health. Seismic Spikes ruptured the earth to drastically slow its enemies.

Any single strike from that massive fist would send Kaelen straight back to the graveyard.

Yet, crouched in the shadows, Kaelen remained unfazed by the threat. His eyes tracked the beast's lumbering footsteps with predatory confidence. He knew the secret. Underneath its terrifying, boss-like stats, the behemoth harbored one fatal, exploitable flaw.

It possessed a pitifully low movement speed stat of just 8.

Kaelen withdrew his daggers from his inventory. The steel blades gleamed faintly in the dim light. He carefully produced a small, dark vial and uncorked it, coating the sharp edges with his newly acquired Soulreave Venom. The toxic liquid hissed softly as it bonded to the metal.

His mind raced through the combat calculations with flawless precision. Soulreave Venom dealt true damage, bypassing all defense, and disabled healing. More importantly, it inflicted a severe slowing effect. Once applied, he calculated that he could instantly halve the behemoth's sluggish pace, dropping its speed down to a pathetic 4.

His own base speed was 5. Even without relying on stamina-draining movement skills, that single point of difference meant everything. It would allow him to effortlessly and safely kite the hulking monster to death without ever taking a hit.

Kaelen tightened his grip on his poisoned daggers and stepped out from the cover of the boulder. The harsh wind whipped through the rocky encampment, carrying the scent of dust and danger. He stood his ground in the open clearing, perfectly still, staring down the terrifying Level 7 monster.