Cathulhu Online, MUNYA!

Chapter 8 – Cat Dad’s Game Character is Perfectly Balanced

Smelly Seaweed x 1

Stalk of Seaweed x 1

Those two items were the common trash items from a monster, which could be sold to NPC for scrap money. However, the following items were something else.

MSG Seaweed x 1

Premium MSG Package x 1

Niece Seaweed Card x 1

MSG-Seasoned Baby Ayu x 1

Common-Grade Seaweed Ring x 1

Common-Grade Seaweed Necklace x 1

There were too many items! Aside from the quest item, aka MSG Seaweed, several items had colorful names, which indicated their rarity.

Premium MSG was a green-named uncommon japtem, which was a standard ingredient for food.

Common-Grade Seaweed Ring was self-explanatory. It was a piece of white-named equipment that rarely dropped from a monster.

Niece Seaweed Card had a golden name as it was rarer than equipment and uncommon ingredient. Every monster could potentially give players a card, which could be used to craft an add-on skill, add-on perk, or add-on traits to NFT characters or items.

The card was also a collectible item that card collectors desired. In the game menu, there was a monster encyclopedia book, which Xiaomao could put a card in there. If he added the card to the book, he could view its detail, such as HP, MP, status attributes, weaknesses, immunity, and droppable items.

The last one, MSG-Seasoned Baby Ayu was another food ingredient, but its name was blue. Its value was more than the white-named and green-named items.

Xiaomao gazed at the floating seaweed underwear, which had been floating on the sea surface. Then, he looked at the log text.

Aside from these eight items, four items were ejected from his inventory as there was no place to store them.

Common-Grade Seaweed Panties x 1

Common-Grade Seaweed Brief x 1

Common-Grade Thong x 1

Common-Grade Seaweed Bracelet x 1

They were other equipment drops.

Xiaomao looked at the floating items in a daze. He thought that he got too lucky.

He ignored the floating underwear and checked the ring in his inventory.

It didn’t give any stats. It was just a decoration item, but they were edible as they were made from seaweed.

Who would eat their used underwear anyway?! WTF game?!

Xiaomao scoffed and discarded the item. The seaweed ring floated to the surface of the sea._.

Then, Xiaomao checked the information of the blue-named fish. He smirked.

…

MSG-Seasoned Baby Ayu

This baby ayu fish has been captured and swallowed by Niece Seaweed Plant. Fortunately, it was not digested yet, and it was coated with natural MSG traits of the Niece Seaweed. Its sweetness and saltiness from MSG make it a favorite snack and preferable food ingredient.

Item Type: Food Ingredient, Food

Effect: Increase Satiety by 30

*Protein from Fish: Permanently Increase VIT by 1.

…

The general information of the blue-named fish didn’t interest Xiaomao, but the red text below the item description excited him.

Protein from Fish’s passive skill effect began to show its true potential!

It was the add-on’s effect that Xiaomao had equipped on his NFT character. Only characters with the legendary add-on could see and use this effect!

It was worth 300,000 PACTs for a reason!

It was a broken pay-to-win passive skill!

‘I thought I had to kill a hundred of them to get one blue-named fish. But wow. I got one on the first try.’

Xiaomao took the fish out of his inventory and shoved it in his mouth. It was chewy, sweet, and mushy. Yet, it was delicious.

Ding

<Your Vitality has permanently increased by 1.>

Xiaomao grinned as he checked his HP gauge. It was now 10/20.

One point of VIT increased his max HP by 10!

In addition, the VIT status affected his defense status value. With 1 VIT, his defense was meagerly 0.5 points. But with 2 VITs, his defense value was 1.

The number didn’t look impressive. However, if he could raise it to the limit that the legendary add-on skill permitted, he would have 50 VITs and 25 DEF at level 1!

50 status points were equal to 10 levels!

This game was so balanced that Xiaomao wanted to laugh.

Getting excited, he went back to the bottom of the sea to cut down more seaweed.

This time, he got closer to the Nephew Seaweed. Then, he cut it in half within two snips.

Ding

<Seawater is corroding you Copper Pruning Scissors.>

<Your Copper Pruning Scissors’ durability has decreased by 1.>

Each kill, the durability of his scissors decreased by 1. At this rate, Xiaomao could only kill 20 of them before the weapon broke.

Again, Xiaomao had foreseen this. He bought 90 scissors for this purpose.

<You have killed the Nephew Seaweed Lv. 2.>

<You have gained 2 EXP.>

<Your inventory is full.>

However, before Xiaomao could switch to the next target, he was surprised by another series of notifications, and more underwear appeared.

Xiaomao had a mixed feeling about this. He rechecked his inventory once more.

“Wow, munya.”

All stackable items filled his inventory slots again. The number of common items, such as Smelly Seaweed, Stalk of Seaweed, MSG Seaweed, and Premium MSG, was increased by 1.

However, this time, two new items appeared and occupied the remaining slots.

Nephew Seaweed Card x 1

MSG-Seasoned Baby Mackerel x 1

He hit a jackpot again!

But Xiaomao started to worry. He got too lucky that it was unnatural.

It smelt like a glitch or a bug in the system.

As a good guy as he was, Xiaomao opened the game menu. He navigated to the help option and was about to choose [Report Bugs].

But then, Xiaomao stopped and pulled his tentacles away. He recalled that he had an odd racial skill, which was incomprehensible.

…

[???] (Bloodline Passive) – Mastery Max

Munya-munya munya munya munya. Munya munya munya munya munya munya munya munya munya.

…

Xiaomao had a theory in his mind. He guessed that the skill might be the cause.

To test his theory, he cut down another Nephew Seaweed.

SNIP

<You have killed the Nephew Seaweed Lv. 2.>

<You have gained 2 EXP.>

<Your inventory is full.>

After the seaweed disappeared, underwear and equipment were ejected from Xiaomao’s inventory again. Stackable seaweeds, quest items, mackerel, and cards were increased by 1!

That confirmed it!

“OMG, munya!”

Xiaomao’s pupils expanded. His breathing rate and heart rate spiked, and he almost fainted.

This might be an OP passive skill!

Could this skill’s effect be a 100% drop rate?

Would every monster he killed explode everything that they could drop?

It couldn’t be possible, right? It was an online game!

But since he got this bug by chance, it would have been a shame had he never exploited it!

Nice guys earned respect, but bad guys earned riches!

“NYAHAHAHAHA, MUNYA!”

Xiaomao suddenly had an idea. He looked at the seasoned baby mackerel.

…

MSG-Seasoned Baby Mackerel

This baby mackerel has been captured and swallowed by Nephew Seaweed Plant. Fortunately, it was not digested yet, and it was coated with natural MSG traits of the Nephew Seaweed. Because of its extreme saltiness, many chefs often used them to make salty sauces.

Item Type: Food Ingredient

*Protein from Fish: Permanently Increase STR by 1.

…

Since he had two of them, Xiaomao ate them all at once, increasing his strength by two points.

As Xiaomao only had two inventory slots left, he thought of something. He charged toward the seaweeds and cut everything in frenzy.

SNIP

SNIP

More items exploded from the dead seaweed. Underwear filled the surface of the sea while stackable items were collected to Xiaomao’s inventory.

Xiaomao threw away unstackable equipment and kept only cards and stackable items.

After killing 18 Seaweeds, the copper pruning scissors broke.

Xiaomao discarded it. Then, he resumed hunting these docile plants.

…

Xiaomao lost the track of time. He forgot how many seaweeds he cut down, but 50 of his scissors were broken as they ran out of durability.

Suddenly, the game prompted him with a notification.

<You have killed a total of 1,000 seaweed plants.>

<Warning, Elite Monster, Uncle Seaweed, has appeared!>

Elite Monster’s emergence was a common thing in this game. Every time a number of local monsters were killed to some extent, an elite monster and its subordinates would be spawned, and they would protect the endangered monsters for a few hours.

Killing the newly spawn elite monsters would bless the hunters with rare equipment. Sometimes, the most valuable set gears with unique enhancement appeared.

In short, these elite monsters were like a walking treasure trove.

Xiaomao came back to his senses. He swam away from the seaweed spawning point to avoid the aggro range.

Suddenly, a massive vine shot out from the bottom of the coral reef. It wiggled like a snake and let out a weird sound in a peculiar accent.

“Fuiyoh!”

Uncle Seaweed (Elite) Level 5

Not only did the massive vine appear, but one thousand seaweeds magically manifested. The previously cut-down seaweeds were also respawned to repopulate the monster field.

Xiaomao gazed at the large seaweed plant, which was at least 5 meters tall. Then, he looked at his weapon.

The stalk was too big for the small pruning scissors to cut. He needed a bigger cutting tool, such as heavy-duty hedge shears or something similar.

Ding

<A reminder: It is 6.30 AM.>

“…”

Xiaomao had been gaming for hours and forgot about real-world time. He had 30 minutes left to play the game before he needed to log out and go to school.

“Munya, I hate school now.”

As Xiaomao didn’t have enough time to travel back to town and buy the right weapon, he thought of a way to hunt the elite monster while he gazed at his inventory.

‘Oh, right. I haven’t eaten more fishes after that.’

Xiaomao smirked as he slowly brought out Mackerel and Ayu fishes from his inventory. Then, he shoved everything down his mouth.

“Nom-Nom, munya!”

Ding

<Your Vitality has permanently increased by 1.>

<Your Strength has permanently increased by 1.>

<Your Vitality has permanently increased by 1.>

<Your Vitality has permanently increased by 1.>

<Your Strength has permanently increased by 1.>

<Your…>

…

<Your Strength has permanently increased by 1.>

<Your Strength cannot be increased further than 50.>

<Your Vitality has permanently increased by 1.>

<Your Vitality cannot be increased further than 50.>

Xiaomao ate enough fish to increase his raw STR and VIT to the limit of his add-on skill.

He laughed at looked at his HP gauge.

500/500 HP

“My game character is perfectly balanced, munya!”

.

LEVEL: 1

EXP: 2,000 / 100,000

Status Attributes

STR: 50

DEX: 1

AGI: 1

VIT: 50

INT: 1

WIS: 1

Allocable Status Points: 25

.

Combat Status

ATK: 25 + 2

DEF: 25

HP: 500 / 500

MP: 10 / 10