《Mana's Champion》 Startup and meeting with a Goddess Welcome to Valkyrie Online Would you like to connect? Yes No ¡°Yes¡± The scan of your iris and vein has determined that you are an unregistered user. Do you want to create a new account? Yes No ¡°Yes¡± Everything went black for a moment before Manuel found himself floating above the clouds looking down at an incredible view of the ocean illuminated by the setting sun. ¡°Interesting¡­.hard to believe that this is all just a virtual reality¡­¡± ¡°Yes, it¡¯s a great view; I never get tired of looking at it.¡± An alluring female voice said from nowhere. ¡°Hmm, guess I¡¯m not alone here¡± Manuel said. ¡°Of course not, his is the character creation room. My name is Serenity and I am the AI that will be assisting you during your character creation¡± replied the female voice before appearing in front of him. ¡°Hoh, an AI huh, never would¡¯ve guessed it, not to mention that you look¡­¡± Manuel stopped talking when he saw the glare coming from Serenity. Incredibly beautiful. Seeing as he couldn¡¯t finish his sentence out loud, he decided to finish it in his mind. Serenity looked to be in her mid-twenties and was wearing a very sexy but professional looking secretary outfit. She had short black hair, a beautiful face and a body that looked extraordinary. ¡°Say anything about my looks and what im wearing, and I¡¯ll give you a very nice present for your avatar before you start¡± Serenity Said Manuel had a shiver run down his spin at that time, and goose bumps grow when he heard the menacing tone when she said the word nice. ¡°And before you say anything about why I¡¯m dressed like this if I hate it, let¡¯s just say that that idiotic creator of mine has horrible tastes.¡± Well now we know that one of the creators of this game is a pervert. Manuel thought. ¡°You have no idea, I had to revoke all his administrative power otherwise this game would¡¯ve been rated ages 18+ with adult contents.¡± Serenity said. ¡°Anyway, let¡¯s start your character creation, I want to go back and enjoy my leisure time¡± Hmm, so she¡¯s able to read surface thoughts, gotta be more careful about what I think around her. ¡°Sure let¡¯s begin¡± ¡°Ok, good you¡¯re catching on quiet quick. So pic a username¡± ¡°hmm, lets go with Eons.¡± ¡°Unoriginal, pick your gender.¡± Unoriginal?... Haah, let¡¯s stop those train thoughts before I think of something that pisses her off ¡°Male¡± ¡°Smart, now pick your race¡± ¡°Can you tell me a bit more about the races in this game?¡± ¡°Annoying.¡± Serenity said in a low voice ¡°There are 15 races that make up the world of Valkyrie with various hidden races. Currently there have only been 5 races unlocked each with their own advantages and disadvantages. The races are: human, elf, dwarf, beastman, and half-breeds. Humans are the most balanced out of all of the races and start with 10 across all starting stats. Elves are leaned more towards magic and speed, they are a great starting race if you¡¯re considering being a mage or an archer/ranger variant, they start off with a higher intelligence and agility, but lower strength and vitality. Dwarfs are short like you are probably imagining and are crafty with their hands; they start off with higher strength and dexterity, but lower intelligence and wisdom. Beastman have a wide range of looks and often time resemble and have characteristics of the animal you choose to look like, so until you choose an animal you want for this race I won¡¯t be able to tell you the starting benefits of it. Finally there are half-breeds. Half breeds are very similar to beastman, however the main difference is that half-breeds are a mixture of different races. Any questions?¡± ¡°You mentioned that there are hidden races, what is the difference between a hidden race and a normal race?¡± ¡°Difference is that the hidden races are only available on an individual basis and can only be bestowed by a higher being during gameplay. They are not available for anyone during the character creation time. Now if you have no more questions pick a race already so we can finish this stupid character creation time.¡±¡­ ¡°Seriously they don¡¯t pay me enough for this¡± she mumbled in a low voice? How do you pay an AI? Leaving that stray though alone Manuel answered ¡°can I be a human, elf, lion beastman half-breed?¡± ¡°The description says ¡®half-breed¡¯ not ¡®multi breed¡¯¡± Thought so. ¡°Then a human and lion beastman will be fine.¡± ¡°Fine. Let¡¯s go over your human/lion half breed status. As a human/lion half breed you will keep the balance of a human, with some characteristics of a lion. You will have 2 stages of transformation available to you. The default form will be a human form of course, your first form will be a human with lion characteristics, and lastly is a full blown lion form. Due to being a half breed you will start off with lower, but balanced, stats across the board. In case you¡¯re curious that will be 8 points due to the overwhelming might of the animal you have chosen. For other information when you start you can just view your character status screen, it¡¯s too much of a pain to explain it all. This choice of race is ok with you?¡± Hmm, I would like to ask for more details, but she¡¯ll probably chew me out if I do. ¡°Yes that¡¯s fine.¡± ¡°Good, and you¡¯re wrong, I would not just chew you out, I would kill you¡± she said ¡°now lets move on to appearance customization¡± Saying that, Manuel, or rather Eons, found himself staring at a hologram that looked like him. He was 5¡¯ 12¡± tall, he had lean muscles, not too huge, but of a decent quality thanks to his martial arts. He had short, curly black hair and green eyes, and hair stubs growing along his face. ¡°hmm, can you give me a buzz cut, and change my eye color to red?...yes, perfect, and also remove the hair stubs growing, thank you.¡± ¡°ok, and we are done, would you like to take a tutorial?¡± ¡°yes please¡± ¡°hmm surprising, not many people say yes, but whatever, your time not mine. Now to go back to relaxing in my nice cozy armchair and take a nap¡± Serenity said. ¡­that¡¯s why you were in a rush to get rid of me? Eons thought before seeing Serenity snapping her fingers and everything disappearing around him. Eons found himself standing in a nice big, beautiful clearing in a forest with boulder around the area. ¡°Welcome traveler, I am Goddess Mana, and I will be your guide while you get accustomed to this new world.¡± Said a young feminine voice behind Eons. I see, so I have a goddess to guide me during the tutorial. Turning around to look at the owner of the voice, eons saw a young beatiful girl, looking to be in her teens, with long blonde hair and a black dress that looked to be made for battle. Goth loli. He thought while looking at her. ¡°YOU.¡± Mana bellowed with an angry voice carrying a power that did not match her appearance ¡°you just thought of something extremely inappropriate and insulting about me didn¡¯t you? You dare to insult a goddess of my caliber?¡± ¡°I apologize, I did not mean to insult you, I was just surprised at your adorable and cute looks.¡± ¡°You, you realized that that is still an insult towards me?¡± Mana said with a defeated voice, but blushing and happy face. What kind of Goddess does not like flattery? ¡°well, I¡¯ll forgive you this time, so don¡¯t let it happen again.¡± ¡°Thank you¡± Eons replied ¡°Ok, now that you understand, let me re-introduce myself. I am Mana Goddess of battle and strength, welcome to the land of Valkyrie Traveler.¡± Goddess of battle and strength? How interesting Eons thought ¡°Thank you for the welcome Goddess Mana, my name is Eons. Can you tell me about your goddess title, it sounds very interesting.¡± ¡°Hoh, so you are interested about what my divinity encompasses¡± Mana said in a very happy voice. ¡°Very well, I¡¯ll tell you a bit about it. As a special bonus for pleasing me, I¡¯ll allow you to just call me Mana. As the Goddess of battle and strength, I bless those that seek the road of strength, those that desire to grow stronger and become powerful in order to protect themselves and defend those that they care about. I do not differentiate between those that follow the path of strength by sword, bow, magic, or anything else that they would like to use.¡± Mana then started boasting in a proud voice ¡°Amongst the Gods I hold a title of neutrality, and naturally to maintain my neutrality, I have the strength to keep it. There is no God that can match me in a fight, except for that stupid God of War. Of course he can only match me I am still stronger than him and can wipe the floor with his face.¡± Hmm, so there isn¡¯t good blood between her and the god of War. For that matter, good to know that the title of War falls on someone else. ¡°I see, if it is alright with you, I would like to test my strength against you¡± Eons said, unable to contain his excitement of fighting someone that holds the title of Goddess of strength. As a martial artist, he was thrilled to encounter and potentially fight someone that was stronger than him, something that he rarely found in the world now a days. ¡°Hoh¡± Mana said in an excited voice, starting to draw long sword out of nowhere ¡°So you are someone that seeks the path of strength. Very well, I¡¯ll hold a duel with you, pick a weapon, and I will give it too you so that we can start.¡± Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. ¡°Great, I¡¯ll take a katana then¡± Having finished saying that, he caught the katana that Mana threw at him. ¡°Ready, set, begin.¡± Mana yelled. The two of them started staring each other, paying attention to any moves that the other makes. Suddenly Eons dashed towards mana, and with an unbeliable speed drew his sword striking towards her right side. With a surprise yet happy face, Mana moved her sword to bloke the strike. After blocking the strike, Mana swung her sword towards Eons neck. To avoid the strike, Eons, ducked down and slashed, horizontally towards, Manas legs, causing her to jump up and back to avoid the strike and create some distance before dashing towards Eons again. For the next five minutes, the two dance acrossed the open clearance in the forest, blocking, parrying, deflecting and avoiding each other¡¯s blade. Although Eons was able to match Mana, he was slowly losing ground to her, each strike that she did contain a power that did not match her appearance with a terrifying speed that if it wasn¡¯t for his reaction speed and experience, he would¡¯ve already lost. After the five minutes of fighting against Mana, Eons found that his stamina was running out, and the cuts threw his body were starting to heavily pile up. So this is the power of a Goddess. Eons thought. I can even tell that she is restraining herself, otherwise this fight would¡¯ve been over the second it started. After another two minutes, Eons found himself out of stamina, and as a last move, he slashed with all his remaining strength, only to have the slashed stopped by Mana¡¯s sword. To Mana¡¯s surprise, Eons then let go of his blade, and with his hand being straight like the blade of a sword and incredible speed, thrust out towards Mana¡¯s face. Although Mana was surprised with Eons actions, she moved her head, avoiding Eons hand thrust. Although she avoided it she received a very small scratch on her left cheek. Separating himself from Mana, and falling on his back, Eons started to breath heavily. While steadying his breath, he heard the sweet melodious voice of Mana laughing. Regaining herself from her laughter, Mana started talking. ¡°You my boy, just thoroughly entertained me. How long has it been since someone was able to keep up with me and even land a scratch on me, granted I was only using .01% of my power¡± Snapping her finger the scratch on her face disappeared and Eons found that his cuts were healed and his stamina was restored. I see, so I wasn¡¯t even able to match .01% of her power Eons thought all gloomy. Noticing the gloominess on Eons face, Mana said ¡°no reason to pout, as a beginning adventurer it is truly amazing that you were even able to last 7 minutes against the amount of power I used. Such a great feat in fact, and due to the fact that you were able to entertain me, I believe a reward is in order.¡± Finished saying that, Mana snapped her finger and a screen appeared in front of Eons. Due to your feat of matching .01% of Mana¡¯s Power while being level 1, you have caught Mana¡¯s interest. Due to this, Mana has decided to reward you with the Divine Class ¡°Mana¡¯s Champion¡± Do you accept? Yes No A divine class? If I remember correctly, this game has three types of class levels; normal, hidden, and finally divine, and as far as I am aware, no one else has obtain a divine level class¡­Due to the name its highly likely that the class is essentially meant to be Mana¡¯s representation in the world so it might somewhat of a pain¡­still it looks interesting, and I gotta say, I do like what her divinity encompasses, and it has been fun talking with her, so what the hell... Having finished contemplating it, Eons answered ¡°yes.¡± As soon as Eons answered, Mana had an ecstatic expression on her face and said ¡°wonderful¡± before snapping her finger. Suddenly Eons felt a tingling of pain coming from his left hand with a tattoo of Mana¡¯s face appearing on it. Then a pop up window appeared in front of him. Due to accepting to become Mana¡¯s Champion, HP +15000, Mana +5000, stamina +5000. All stats receive +50. The following stats have been generated: Endurance Willpower Perseverance Insight Leadership Charisma (any other stats that I missed, basically the class entitles all known stats) ¡°Congratulations in becoming my representative in this world¡± Mana said. ¡°As a special bonus I¡¯ll reward you by giving you the extra stat points you would¡¯ve gain by completing the basic training at the training center in the city you choose to start in. Keep in mind that I¡¯m only doing this since I judge your abilities to be above this. And because I like consistency, I¡¯ll also apply the bonus to all of your stats. Though for a small sake of balance I¡¯ll reduce the amount that you would¡¯ve normally gotten.¡± Having finished saying that, a window popped up in front of Eons. All stats +12 For completing the Basic Training Center fame +50, an additional +50 fame for completing it in an unorthodox format. (Under normal circumstances you would¡¯ve received 40 points in strength, agility, and vitality, due to Goddess Mana interference, amount has been reduced to 12, however it is spread throughout all stats.) After reading the message Eons bowed and thanked Mana ¡°no problem, ah, also, you normally would¡¯ve received a normal iron sword when you completed the training center, but all alter it and give you a basic katana instead¡± Mana said handling him an iron katana. ¡°Now, moving on, where would you like to start your adventure?¡± ¡°Hmm, I¡¯m not too familiar with this world, so can be sent somewhere at random?¡± ¡°Very well, your starting city will be called Dragus. Enjoy your adventure Eons.¡± Mana said before snapping her finger and everything disappeared. Next think Eons knew, he found himself standing in the middle of a plaza, next to a fountain surrounded by shops. While looking at his surrounding, Eons heard a ¡°Ding¡± signifying a game message. Checking it he read what it said: Due to becoming the first person to hold a Divine Class, fame +1000 Due to receiving the blessing of a Goddess, Faith stat has been generated, Faith +200 Due to your New Class Reputation +2000 Due to your feats a new titled has been generated: Mana¡¯s Favored, Effects: HP+2000, Mana and Stamin +200, All stats +20, People will be generally nice to you Due to your Class Change the following Skills have been generated: Mana Manipulation All-Weapons Mastery Mana¡¯s Light Mana¡¯s Smite Mana¡¯s Blessing ¡°I think this class might be a cheat getting it as soon as I started¡­¡± Eons mumbled ¡°oh well, time to check my status, Show Status and Skills¡± Status Name: Eons Class: Mana¡¯s Champion Titled: Mana¡¯s Favored Reputation 2000 Fame/Infamy 1100 Level: 1 Health: 17,910 Mana: 6,110 Stamina: 5,300 Strength: 91 Vitality: 91 Agility: 91 Dexterity: 91 Intelligence: 90 Wisdom: 90 Endurance: 90 Willpower: 90 Insight: 90 Perseverance: 90 Leadership/Charisma: 90/90 Fighting Spirit: 90 Skills Mana Manipulation (Passive) Able to manipulate Mana All-Weapons Mastery (passive) Able to use all and any weapons without any penalties. ATK Dmg: +5%, Atk Spd: +5%, Crit Chance/dmg: +3% Strength +1 Agilitiy +1 Vitality +1 Dexterity +1 Mana¡¯s Light (Active) Mana Cost: 100 mp/s Able to manifest a white light around your body and any weapon that you hold. Atk damage: +50 pts Atk speed: +50 Def: +50 HP: +100 Mana¡¯s Smite (Active) Mana Cost: 10,000 Through your connection to Mana, you are able to bring down a heavenly smite. Damage: 20,000 Range: 5 Meter Mana¡¯s Blessing (Active) Mana Cost: 500 Cool down: 1HR You and your party are granted manas blessing, all stats +10% for 10 mins, increased in drop rate and exp gain. Racial trait: Lions Roar (Only available while transformed)(Active) Mana cost: 100 Through a lions roar able to inflict fear in enemies and courage in allies Enemies: -5 all stats and inflicted with fear Allies: +5 all stats and increase in moral Transformation(Active) Mana Cost: 2,000 Able to transform into lion form, 2 steps Half lion: all stats *1.2, Health and stamina doubled, mana halfed, duration 2HR Full lion: all stats *2, Health and stamina tripled, mana/3, Duration 5 mins Predatory Senses (Passive) Due to animal characteristics, able to feel danger (sixth sense) After reading all this information, Eons got tired of it, and did not continue reading after the Predatory Senses passive. ¡°I¡¯ll continue reading it later, now what should I do now that I don¡¯t need to do the basic training?¡± Before leaving the plaza, Eons had one last stray thought. Wasn¡¯t I supposed to undergo the tutorial from Mana? Chapter 2: The Library. Chapter 2: The Library Based on basic information that he had looked up before starting the game, Eons knew that he would not be able to leave the city for a total of 4 in game weeks. That¡¯s why he had originally thought to spend that time at the training center, however now that Mana had told him there¡¯s no need to do the training center, he had no idea on what to do. Moving to a map that was at a corner of a plaza, Eon¡¯s started studying it and looking at anything that might be interesting to do. At the top most part of the map he found a building with the title of libray. Hoh, so there are libraries you can go to in the game as well. Might as well go there and study up on this world, might find some very interesting things. Having finished thinking that, he started to head to the library. On his way there, he decided to look at the katana that he received from Mana. Basic Iron Katana A basic iron katana forged for a beginner No special properties Although handed to a person by a Goddess, this Katana holds nothing special. Requirements: LVL 1 Dmg: 10-15 Durability: 20/20 Upon reaching the library, he was surprised at what he saw. He saw a magnificent 15 story building made out of wood. However no matter how magnificent the building looked like, Eons could see that the place was just a shell of what it might have looked like in the past, there were places where looked like the woods were falling out, places that looked broken. It appeared that this building had not seen maintenance in a long time. Although place look broken down, Eons decided to take a look inside, and to his surprise, he found that the inside was well taken care of. Searching around, he found the reception desk with the librarian. While heading to the desk he got a better look at the librarian. She appeared to be an elf in her late 20¡¯s, about 5¡¯ 7¡±, with long wavy red hair, glasses and a very seductive body. When Eons stopped in front of her desk, she sighed, and in a very impolite voice said ¡°what do you want traveler?¡± Traveler was how the residence from this world referred to players, moreover from her voice tone; Eons could tell that she had something against travelers. ¡°Yes, but it seems that your quite annoyed seeing a traveler approach you, is something wrong?¡± The librarian glared at him ¡°is something wrong you ask? You male travelers typically come here and make a mess at my library; you noticed all the damage this building has on the outside? Those were made by you stupid male travelers that for some reason were all bunched up in this library some 10 years ago, and then started fighting for no reason after seeing me asking one of them for a favor. Needless to say, since then I have not liked the travelers that are male.¡± 10 years ago? Ah, that must¡¯ve been a bit after the game first was released and had a surge of people flocking to try the game. But for all of them to be bunched up in the library as soon as starting¡­.I can see the reason¡­Eons thought taking a second look at the librarian. ¡°I¡¯m sorry for the travelers that male travelers have cost you. If it¡¯s alright with you allow me to make up for it.¡± ¡°Make up for it? What do you have in mind?¡± ¡°Well for the next 4 weeks I¡¯ll be spending my time in this library. If it¡¯s alright with you, you can you use me for manual labor around the library. All I ask is for 3 meals a day and access to the library at night.¡± The librarian looked at Eons closely up and down. Although she did not trust him, there was something about him that was telling her that it would be alright. In truth this feeling that she was getting was due to his fame, reputation, and charisma. ¡°Hmm, ok, we have a deal. However, I cannot let you in the library at night. I¡¯m assuming that the reason you want to be in the library at night is to have a place to sleep, so instead you can have access to bed that¡¯s at the very top of the library.¡± She said ¡°Ok. Thank you. My name is Eons¡± ¡°Mine is Roxanne¡± ______________________________________________________________________________ For the next four weeks, Eons settled into a routing for reading, eating with Roxanne, helping around the library. From helping in the library he had gotten a few bonus stats in dexterity, and from reading books he had found that he would get an addition stat in intelligence and wisdom after reading about every third book, with the occasional book giving an increase to insight. From the books that he had read he found out that Dragus was a big town of the Valhalla Queendom, the biggest kingdom/queendom on Valkyrie. It was a naturally fortified Town with mountains surrounding it to the North and East, and a vast forest with monsters ranging from lvl 150-300 to the south. The only safe entrance to the town lied to the west, and naturally this entrance was heavily guarded and maintained. From the books he had also learn a lot about magic, and every night, he did what the book suggested for a novice magician to do. That is to meditate and try to feel the flow of magic around him and to try to manipulate it. After two weeks he was able to finally materialize a wind ball. And in the next two weeks following that, he was able to do a ball with each of the other 3 main elements. He learned that it is easier to use an element when he had that element available; otherwise he had to create the element from nothing, which would require more mana. He had also learned that due to mana manipulation he was able to control how much mana he gave the spell, which in turn affects the damage of the spell and the range. Due to this he was able to hypothesis that by using mana manipulation he would be able to use Mana¡¯s Smite, although it would have a lot lower damage and range. Of course he had not tried it out yet, otherwise he would¡¯ve damaged the library and earned Roxanne¡¯s wrath. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. One last thing of particular interest that he had found was something he read from an old, worn out fantasy book. In that book, the magician in it was able to combine different types of magic to form a new, stronger magic. However, although the magician in that book was able to do that, in no other magic principle book that he read was such an ability mentioned, even when he went offline and searched the internet he found no information on it. Eon¡¯s decided that once he was able to leave the city he would experiment with this and see if such a thing was possible. For the last two weeks, Eon had been having breakfast, lunch, and dinner with Roxanne. With this his familiarity with her had greatly increased and often time they joked a lot, with some of those jokes involving Roxanne¡¯s seductiveness. Although he had spent all of his time at the library, he had also made a friend that was not an npc. Her name was Rory. Rory first came to the library 3 days after he did. She was a small child appearing to be the age of 10. She was small, had long green hair, and fit the word of ¡°cute¡± to the letter. She was an aspiring magician and she had come to the library to learn more about magic. When she first came into the library she appeared to be lost with all the books and did not know where to start. *FLASHBACK* Looking up from the book that he was reading, Eons noticed a small child looking at the books, unsure of what to pick and read. Noticing that she/he might need help he put his book down, and went over to the child to see if they needed help. ¡°Hello, do you need help.¡± Eons ask ¡°EEP¡± the child squeak when she/he heard Eons. Looking back the child identified Eons and introduced herself after regaining her calm. ¡°Sorry about that, you scared me¡± she said. ¡°My name is Rory, and yes I could use some help. I¡¯m trying to become a magician, so I want to learn as much about magic as I can.¡± *END FLASHBACK* Since then, Rory and Eons often talked. Eons had come to think of Rory as a younger sister, and he had found that learning magic with someone else was a lot easier than learning it alone. Well, after those four weeks of learning, the beginner ban on leaving the city was finally lifted. However, he was not leaving the city for another three days. The reason for this is simple. About a week ago, Rory had asked him if he wanted to party up with her and her older sister once the ban was lifted. He accepted her offer, but since she started 3 days after him, he decided to wait those 3 days in the library with her and Roxanne. Rory¡¯s older sister had said that she would meet up with her at the library on that day. After another 3 days, Eons finally met with Rory¡¯s sister. She was about his height, appeared to be in her early 20¡¯s (he learned that although Rory appeared to be 10, she was in fact around 13, she had not just reached her growth spurt), had short red hair, and had a nice body and beautiful face, and was wearing a shiny metal armor. Rory had told him that by doing quests inside the city she had reached level five, and had taking Blacksmith as her main class with tailoring as her second. ¡°Hi, my name is Lisa, thanks for taking care of my younger sister¡± Lisa introduced herself. ¡°No problem, she¡¯s quite adorable (not meant in a sick perverted way, for those that might read it as such). Names Eon.¡± Eon said while holding out his hand. Shaking his hand, Lisa said ¡°So, where should we hunt?¡± ¡°No idea¡± Eons and Rory responded simultaneously. Lisa sighed ¡°Should¡¯ve known. Well, first things first let¡¯s create a party, and Rory, I made a staff for you.¡± ¡°Thank you big sister¡± Rory said accepting the staff and party invitation along with Eons. At this moment, Roxanne interrupted them. ¡°Well, since you guys are going outside the city, can you do a favor for me?¡± ¡°Sure¡± Eons responded. ¡°To northeast of this town, through the Pine Forest, at the base of the mountain there is a cave. At the very end of the cave, it is rumored that a rare flower grows, and that around that flower, some amazing herbs grow that could make any food extraordinarily delicious. Would you mind going into the cave and retrieving the flower and herbs for me?¡± Roxanne asked. In front of Eons, Lisa, and Rory and quest message appeared. Retrieved the Cave Floor and Herbs The Librarian Roxanne has asked you and your companions to get her a rare flower and herbs that is found to the northeast of the city in a cave at the base of a mountain. Be careful though, it is said that cave is infected with Fire Bats. Difficulty: E+ Reward: Roxannes specially cooked meal with the herbs Unkown The three looked at each other. Lisa and Rory were a bit concern since a quest of difficulty E+ was typically meant for a party around lvl 15-20, however Eons was a bit enthusiastic to explore the cave, and eventually his enthusiasm spread to the other two. After accepting the quest, the three left the library and started to leave the city. The three had agreed that before arriving at the cave, they will first hunt the monsters between the city and the cave in order to grow experience fighting monsters and levels. Chapter 3: The Ferocious Rabbit king, The Metal Boar, The Fire Lance, and... Hey guys, sorry for the wait, I got sidetracked watching the arrow on Netflix. Since it¡¯s been a while and since it¡¯s a bit long I decided to break chapter 3 into 2 or 3 parts. I¡¯ll release the other parts later today or tomorrow. Also, I decided to make a complete party to consist of 8 instead of 6 ______________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 3: The Ferocious Rabbit king, The Metal Boar, The Fire Lance, and The Fire Bats Part 1 Upon reaching the north exit of the town, Eons and his party stopped to discuss battle formations. ¡°So, before we head out, why don¡¯t we discuss how we fight so we can come up with the best party formation?¡± Eons suggested ¡°Alright then, I¡¯ll start us off then¡± Lisa replied taking out a giant War Hammer. ¡°Due to my armor, out of all of us I probably have the highest defence. And thanks to my blacksmithing class I have a great boost in vitality, strength, and endurance, so I should probably play the role of tank for the time being. Ah also, if you didn¡¯t noticed, my primary choice of weapon is this War Hammer.¡± ¡°Um, right, my turn¡± Rory Mumbled ¡°I am an inspiring magician, and right now my most proficient elements are fire and earth¡­I still need practice in targeting and making sure I hit.¡± ¡°Alright then, my turn¡± Eons said ¡°I guess you can say I am a spellsword, leaning more towards strength and speed then magic. For the moment my primary weapon is a Katana, though I can use other type of weapons. Since none of us have experience fighting in this world yet, why don¡¯t we first practice with rabbits and foxes around here, and spent the majority of the day fighting them, collecting there meats for food and their pelts for extra money, and having Rory practice her accuracy on them?¡± ¡°Ok¡± Rory and Lisa responded Leaving the northern exit to the town, the group moved into the beginner lands that were roaming with foxes and rabbits. The rabbits were unlike any rabbits that they had ever seen before. They were about 3 feet long and 2 feet wide, with very big and sharp teeth. Seeing all of the people fighting the giant rabbits, they saw that each rabbit was being attacked by a group of 6 beginners. The foxes on the other hand, did resemble how foxes looked in reality, however, they demonstrated monstrous speeds that made fighting them very hard and bites that were strong enough to shatter rocks. ¡°I might have underestimated the beginner rabbits and foxes.¡± ¡°Analyze¡± Lisa said ¡°I¡¯ll say, those rabbits are around level 10, and the foxes around level 15. Good news is that it appears all the rabbits have going for them is their high vitality and foxes their high speeds with strong bits.¡± ¡°¡­t-though I w-wouldn¡¯t like to g-get h-hit by a rabbit¡± said Rory upon viewing how an unfortunate noob was to slow in getting away from a Rabbit and got torn to pieces and eaten by said rabbit. ¡°I didn¡¯t know you had the skill analyze¡± Eons said to Lisa ¡°I¡¯m a blacksmith remember, one of the skills my mentor had me learn was analyze so that I would know exactly how my weapon came out.¡± ¡°Hmm, right, so let¡¯s try to fight the rabbits then. For formation, why doesn¡¯t Lisa draw its attention from the front, I¡¯ll flank it, and Rory stays behind and showers it with her magic?¡± ¡°Good a plan as any¡± Lisa said Having finished coming up with a plan, the group moved up to their first Rabbit prey. Coming up to a rabbit that was eating the grass, Lisa agroed the Rabbit by swinging her War Hammer down and smashing it against the rabbits head with all of her strength. Although she swung with all her strength, and although she had some inflated strength due to her blacksmith class, her swing to the rabbits head was only able to take of 15% of the rabbit¡¯s health. Fortunately though, from the hit to the head, the rabbit ended up with a stun status. Taking the opportunity this presented, in the five second that it tooked the rabbit to get out of its stun status, Eons moved to the rabbits rear and unleashed a barrage of critical hits on it, dropping its health to 40%. Once the stun status was removed, Eons separated himself from the rabbit, avoiding a back kick from the rabbit in the process. Although Eons attack on the rabbit ended, the groups combination attack was not finished yet. When Eons separated himself from the rabbit, Rory unleashed her barrage of 15 fireballs that took half of her mana on the rabbit. Out of the 15 fireballs that were fired, 10 missed, however the five that did hit brought the rabbits HP to 25%. Charging the tired rabbit again after Rorys fireball barrage ended, Lisa swung her hammer horizontally hitting the rabbits head again from the right side. Without stopping, she quickly turned her hammer, and hit the rabbits left side of the head. To her, and the rest of the groups surprise, the rabbits head turned complete the left, instantly killing the rabbit. From consecutive hits, starting with hammer coming down on its head, followed by a fireball hitting the head, and ending with a right-left combo from the hammer to the rabbits head, the head of the rabbit had lost much of its resilience and durability, causing the last hammer hit from the left to turn its head around and kill it. In less than 10 seconds, the party consisting of a blacksmith-tank, a novice magician, and a spellsword had killed a rabbit that took a full party of 8 half an hour to kill. ¡°Hmm, good to know that if you concentrate damage on one spot of the body; the damage becomes stronger, just like in the real world.¡± Eons said ¡°Yea, we can make good use of this information. Now you¡­¡± Lisa said, in an interrogatory voice, pointing her finger and narrowing her eyes to Eons ¡°for a guy that spent most of his time stuck in the city in the library, isn¡¯t your damage a little too high?¡± The fact that Eons tooked off 45% of the rabbits health in under 5 seconds, while a full blown out surprise hit from her to the rabbits weak spot in the head had only taken of 15% of its health, had not escaped her notice. Smiling, Eons responded ¡°There are many secrets to this game, and I just happened to discover one of those. Furthermore since I attacked it from a blind spot, most of my hits were criticals.¡± ¡°Hmm¡­ is that so, I¡¯ll drop it for the time being.¡± Lisa said ¡°Ok, moving on, hey Rory, how long does it take you to fully recover your mana¡± Eons asked ¡°About 10 minutes if I meditate¡± Rory replied. ¡°Alright, from now on, don¡¯t unleash a barrage of 15, only do 5 and try to aim all five at the rabbits head.¡± Eons said ¡°Let¡¯s continue with this strategy against the rabbits till we reach level 10. Rory, after you finished recovering your mana, can you cook the rabbits meat we got so we can get an increase in health and mana regen?¡± During their time in the library, Rory had asked Roxanne to teach her the cooking skill, and since learning she was able to bring it up to beginner level 5. ¡°Ok¡± Rory responded. For the next 2 in game days, the party hunted a total of 100 rabbits. After all of this hunting, Rory and Eons had finally reached level 9, while Lisa had reached level 12. From the party experience option, they had decided to put it so that everyone will get and equal amount of exp from each kill. Furthermore, Rory had reached the point where she was able to accurately aim up to 8 fireballs and make sure they hit the same spot. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. After they killed the 100th rabbit something strange happen. The ground around them started to shake a bit, something that they hadn¡¯t seen happen in the two days since they started hunting. Since it was night time outside, the party was having trouble identifying where the shaking was coming from. Then finally Rory saw something. ¡°W-w-what is that¡± Rory said pointing to something approaching them from the west. Approaching them was a rabbit unlike any other rabbit that they had fought. The rabbit was about the size of a small car, had black fur, red eyes, and teeth the size of a normal in game rabbit. ¡°Analyze¡± Lisa said with sweat coming from her forehead, but with a large smile on her face. ¡°Dammit, we must¡¯ve killed too many rabbits to fast. It says it is called the Rabbit King, it¡¯s a mini-boss monster, and it appears to be level 22¡± Upon hearing this, Eons started smiling too. They had grown bored of hunting rabbits for two days, and were in the mood for something more challenging. ¡°Well, since its coming for us, let¡¯s give it a warm welcome.¡± ¡°Ok let¡¯s, bet it¡¯ll taste delicious¡± Lisa said. Upon finished saying, this she dashed to meet the rabbit king, Eons started to circled around to its side, and Rory started casting her magic. Charging at the rabbit king, Lisa swung her hammer sideways, hitting the black rabbit on the side of its head. To her surprise, her hit only managed to take away 1% of the black rabbits health and did not inflict it with stun. The black rabbit swung its front paw towards Lisa after receiving the hit. Lisa quickly withdraw her hammer, and used it to block the paw. Although she blocked the paw, she was still blown away a little bit from the black rabbit and lost 10% of her health. Dammit, it took me 10% hp just to take away 1% hp. Lisa thought. While the black rabbit was preoccupied with Lisa, Eons started to concentrate his attacks on the black rabbits back leg. Before the black rabbit noticed him, Eons managed to shave away an extra 5% from its health. When the black rabbit noticed him it used the same leg that was getting attacked to do a back kick towards Eons. Luckily Eons was paying attention to it after seeing how Lisa got blown back and dodge to the side, avoiding the attack. After seeing Eons separate from the black rabbit, Rory unleashed a barrage of 15 fireballs towards it. 5 fireballs were aimed at the head, and the rest to the body. 3 Fireballs missed. Those 15 fireballs cost Rory half of her mp. The fireball barrage brought down the black rabbits health to 85%, however the attack ended up agroing the black rabbit. Seeing the Black Rabbit starting to charge towards Rory, Lisa charged the black rabbit from the side and swung her hammer to hit the black rabbit in the face. The hammer hit the rabbit squarely in the face. Since the hammer came out of the black rabbits blind spot, the black rabbit hit the hammer with the added speed that it was charging towards Rory with. With the critical hit that was inflicted due to this, the rabbit lost 5% of its health and this time ended up with the stun status. Taking advantage of the stun, Eons took his chance to use his transform skill to transform into his half lion form. Upon transforming, Eons grew a size, started growing golden hair around his body, and grew a bushy golden beard to represent a lions mane. Since he started in the town a month ago, every night when he tried to practice his magic, he used his transformation skill in order to level it. After a month of doing this every night, his transformation skill had gone up to beginners level 5 and in his half-lion form, it multiplied all of his stats by 1.4, doubled his health & stamina, and increased his time in this form to 3 hrs. It took Eons the full 5 seconds that the black rabbit was stunned to transform. In the time that Eons transformed, Rory unleashed a second barrage of 8 fireballs on the black rabbits head, dropping the black rabbit¡¯s health to 72%. Once again, the attack agroed the black rabbit, and it started to charge towards Rory again. However, this time it was not stopped by Lisa, but by Eons. After transforming, Eons used his Lion Roar skill. Lion Roar was a skill only available to Eons while he was transformed. It was a skill that increases his and his allies stats by 5 as well as raised their morale. To his enemies on the other hand, it decreases their stats by 5 and had a chance to inflict fear on them. Fear was a status that once inflicted stunned the enemy for 30 seconds and lowered their morale. If morale decreases, a person¡¯s/creature defense was lowered and they lose their initiative. Due to the natural food chain in the world, upon hearing the lion roar from Eons, the black rabbit become terrified and become inflicted with fear, stunning it for 30 seconds. In the 30 seconds that the black rabbit was stunned, Lisa started bashing the black rabbits head in, Eons started to chop of its legs, and Rory wasted her remaining mp hitting the black rabbits head with fireballs. After the barrage of attacks, the black rabbit was left in a critical state with 5% of its hp left and its two back legs were severed. Unfortunately, in this critical state the black rabbit entered into a berserk state. In this berserk state, the effects of morale being decrease disappeared, and its atk doubled. This berserk state that the black rabbit went into bad news to the party. Lisa was still standing in front of the black rabbit, and due to wasting all of her stamina bashing in the black rabbits head while it was stun, she was not able avoid the headbutt that the black rabbit used. The headbut hit Lisa clearly in the chest and sent her flying towards a now manaless Rory. From the impact of Lisa slamming into her, Rory hp was reduced to 20%, and Lisa entered into a critical state. Noticing the danger that the party was currently facing, Eons decided to use his trump card. Although he did not have the mana to use the skill Mana¡¯s Smite, he could use his mana manipulation to alter the skill into a far less powerful form. With his remaining mp left, the Mana¡¯s Smite would not even have a tenth of its normal power, however it would be just enough to kill the black rabbit. Upon using Mana¡¯s Smite, a white shower started to fall upon the black rabbit from the sky. The Shower completed consumed the black rabbit and killed it. Upon killing the black rabbit, Rory and Eon grew to level 12, and Lisa to 15. The party also gained a new special title that is only available when they are in a party together. Party Title: Rabbit King Killer A title available only to the party that was able to kill the ferocious Rabbit King that roams in the outskirts of the town Dragus. In order for this title to be active, the original members of the group that killed the Rabbit King must be in the same party. If the Rabbit King is killed by a party that does not consist of a full party of 8, the effects will spread to whoever else joins the party with the members that killed the Rabbit King Effects: HP: +5000 Defence: +100 Too be continued in Part 2¡­. Chapter 3: Part 2 Chapter 3: The Ferocious Rabbit king, The Metal Boar, The Fire Lance, and The Fire Bats Part 2 ¡°Now that¡¯s why I bought this game¡± Lisa blurted after recovering from her critical state. ¡°If you enjoyed the fighting so much, why did you picked a crafting class instead of a combat class?¡± Eons asked. ¡°Well simple, I enjoy fighting but I also enjoy making things, so I picked a class that would allow me to do both, hence blacksmithing. ¡° Lisa responded. ¡°So anyway, how come you didn¡¯t mention that you were a half-breed?¡± ¡°You never really asked¡± Eons said ¡°and in case you are wondering, I¡¯m a half lion/human combination.¡± ¡°What was that spell you used at the end? I¡¯ve never read anything about that before, and how come you waited till the end to use it?¡± Rory asked ¡°You can say that is my ultimate spell that I have, and no I won¡¯t tell you more about it for the time being. And the reason why I didn¡¯t use it till the end is because that spell is a mana guzzler.¡± ¡°You know one day you are going to have to tell us what your class really is¡± Lisa said ¡°Anyway, let¡¯s check what this rabbit king left for loot¡± {{{Black Fur of the Rabbit King A clear black fur of the mysterious Rabbit King that roams around the town Dragus. It is a true testament to the strength require to bring down this Rabbit King. Can be tailored into outstanding fur armor Rarity: B}}} {{{Meat of the Rabbit King A rare drop from the mysterious black Rabbit King that roams around the town of Dragus. Can be cooked into very delicious food 1Time permanent Effect: Health +100, Endurance +5}}} ¡°These drops from the Rabbit King¡­are outstanding¡± Lisa said ¡°I¡¯ve heard stuff of rarity above B are extremely hard to get and with the amount that they sell for¡­not to mention this meat from the rabbit king, who would¡¯ve thought that its food would have the rare effect of permanently increasing health. I¡¯ve heard that only mythological beasts like the dragon and hydra have that kind of effect¡­¡± ¡°Hmm, I wonder if there is something special behind this Rabbit king¡± Eons wondered. After finished saying that a message appeared in front of the group. {{{ Mystery of the Black Rabbit King You were the first to witness the wrath of the Black Rabbit King that roams Dragus. Upon inspecting the remains of the Black Rabbit King you found something very mysterious. The meat of the Black Rabbit King have the same effect as mythological creatures. Investigate this matter and find out the mystery behind the Black Rabbit King. Quest was triggered by successfully identifying the abnormality in the Black Rabbit King. Quest Cannot be denied. Difficulty: A}}} ¡°Good going Einstein¡± Lisa said sarcastically ¡°You triggered a Difficulty rank A quest¡± ¡°Don¡¯t get hang up on the details¡± responded Eons ¡°Solving this mystery might turn out to be fun, not to mention that the rewards for a rank A quest should be really good.¡± ¡°Putting that thought on hold, are you forgetting that the quest description does not even tell us where we can start searching for the answer?¡± Retorted Lisa ¡°Don¡¯t worry about that, we¡¯ll find something eventually. Anyway I¡¯ve been wondering this since I read the description, but it said that we were the first to witness the Black Rabbit King, I thought that this game has been out for years already, how come no one has fought it before?¡± ¡°Did you seriously not read up on the town of Dragus before starting here?¡± Asked Lisa. ¡°Although this town has been available since the game started those that first started in this town highly advised new players not to start in this town due to the difficulty in fighting rabbits and foxes when you first leave the town. It was found that this town has stronger beginner monsters than other towns. Since then the only ones that start in this town are the brave individuals or those that come to play this game in a full party of 8.¡± ¡°I see¡± ¡°Anyway, I suggest we take the rest of night completely off. The chest piece of my armor was highly damaged by that rabbit king. I¡¯ll take this chance to forge me some new armor that is up to par with my level. Ill also use that fur from the rabbit king to make you 2 some new gear. As for the rabbit king meat, we should save it to when we return to the city. That way we can cook it in the plaza, eat our part for the effect, and sell the rest to the players around the city at a very high price.¡± Lisa said ¡°Sounds like a plan. Can you also do maintenance on my katana¡± Eons asked handing over his Katana to Lisa ¡°I¡¯ll take this chance to experiment with my magic. What will you do Rory?¡± ¡°Um, I¡¯ll also try to make some new magic spells.¡± ¡°Speaking of that, after we get back from the quest and have some money, we should probably buy you a few spell books¡± Lisa said. ¡°I agree, will definitely be helpful down the line.¡± Eons said _______________________________________________________________________________________________ *From this point on, when people start talking, I decided to have the name of the person talking before they say anything to avoid saying he said she said so many times. Separating from the group Eons was thinking of what kind of spell he wanted to learn. Well I always wanted to be able to do this Eons thought jumping into the air. While in the air he moved one leg forward and started gathering wind magic at the bottom of his feet. Unfortunately he gathered too much wind magic beneath his feet and the force flipped him in the air and caused him to fall head first into the ground. Eons: ¡°OOUUCCHHHHHHHHHHH¡± he yelled rubbing the spot on his head where he landed. So if I condense too much wind beneath my feet it¡¯ll flip me over he thought. Let¡¯s try this again. Jumping into the air again, he moved one leg forward and started gathering wind magic beneath his feet. Unfortunately this time he gathered too little wind magic and fell face first into the ground. Third times the charm Eons thought rubbing his face. For the third time Eons jumped into the air and put a leg forward gathering wind magic beneath his feet. This time he got a system message. {{{ Skill Air Walk Generated Through trial and error you learned that by condencing the correct amount of wind magic beneath your feet you are able to walk in the air. Cost: 20 mana per step per 200 pounds.}}} Hmm, so for each step I take, it¡¯ll cost me 20 mana, and I¡¯m only able to carry 200 pounds. Ok now time to practice the skill. For the next hour, Eons practiced only that skill and by the end of it he raised the skill level to beginners¡¯ level 2, increasing the max amount that he can carry/weight by 10 pounds. Unfortunately there was no decrease in mana consumption. One thing that he did learn is that if is falling he can use the skill to stop falling Ok, enough with practicing the Air Walk Skill, time to make an attack skill. I¡¯ve always wanted to do a sword attack with magic attached to it. I¡¯ve decided I¡¯ll make that kind of attack. Creating five wind balls around him, Eons moved the wind balls to surround a stick he had picked up to use a temporary weapon. To make the attack stronger he remembered what he had learned about combining different types of magic to make a stronger magic. At the tip of the stick he made a small wind vortex to have the wind balls spiral around his weapon. Unfortunately things did not go as plan. The wind vortex spiraled the wind balls down towards it, and when the two met together at the tip of the stick, the stick blew up and sent Eons flying 10 yards back, hitting a rock and getting a system message. -2000 health. Well that was unexpected. Didn¡¯t think that that affect will happen. Also that combination completely broke this stick, good thing it wasn¡¯t an actually weapon. Good news is that it did prove that if you combine different types of magic, a stronger magic is created. That explosion really did hurt. Getting up from the ground, Eons got up and started dusting himself off, while thinking on how he can make the magic succeed. The problem this time was that the stick was not able to handle the high concentration of magic, and combining the wind vortex and wind balls did not stick correctly together. I am missing something to make it all still together. Now what kind of spell will have such an affect? While thinking of this problem, he remembered a skill that he got when he became Mana¡¯s Champion. It was the skill Mana¡¯s Light. Mana¡¯s Light was a skill that enveloped his body and his weapon with a light that increase defense, health, atk speed, and atk damage. This skill. That light that envelops my body and weapon can be seen like armor. I wonder if I were to use it will using wind vortex and wind ball, if it¡¯ll provide the catalyze needed for the weapon not to blow up and for the two spells to correctly hold together at the tip of the weapon. Putting this into practice, Eons grabbed a new stick and activated Mana¡¯s Light. With the light enveloping the stick, he created a wind vortex at the tip of the stick and summoned 5 new wind balls. The wind vortex sucked the wind balls down toward the tip of the stick, but this time the stick did not blow up. Rather the wind vortex, wind balls, and Mana¡¯s light, all combine at the tip of the stick creating a very bright light, with swirling air around the tip. Thinking that he had successfully combined the three spells into one, Eons started congratulating himself. However after five seconds, the magic went out of control and blew up again sending Eons flying into the same rock again. -5000 health, minor bleed affect active, -10 health/second Hmm, should¡¯ve realized the spell wasn¡¯t finalized yet, I didn¡¯t get the new spell notification screen. Now, I wonder what I¡¯m missing. I am on a good track seeing as how that explosion was a lot stronger that the first. There was a 5 second delay before the wind, I wonder what would happen if I were to strike something during those five seconds. While thinking of this, he looked at the rock that he had slammed into twice already and a large evil smile crept through his face. Seeing as how you were nice enough to stop my flying, Let¡¯s return the favor. Eon¡¯s then picked up a third stick and activated the 3 spells again and this time before the five seconds were up, he struck the tip of the stick straight into the rock. To his surprise the stick easily penetrated straight into the rock. Following the penetration, the magic gathered at the tip of the stick burst out, cutting the rock into pieces. The stick was not destroyed. This time a system message did appear in front of Eons. {{{Skill Wind Lance Generated. A skill created by combining three different types of magic. The caster has a limited amount of time to stick the weapon into something in order to release the magic gathered, otherwise the large concentration of magic will blow up and destroy the weapon, damaging the caster. Cost: 1500 Mana Time before magic must be released: 5 seconds If weapon used before releasing magic: Atk Damage: +100 wind damage, atk speed: +75% When Released: 5500 wind damage to target, minor bleed affect activated: -10 health/s. Cannot use mana manipulation on this skill This skill has a piercing affect.}}} I see so that¡¯s why the magic kept blowing up; I have to release it before it blows up. For the rest of the night, Eons kept practicing with the wind lance and trying to generate a new elemental lance. By the end of the night he was able to generate an Earth Lance and learned two very important facts. One was that these skills were extremely hard to level up. After an entire night both the wind and earth lance were still at beginner level 1. The second thing was that depending on the element, the secondary effect of the lance would be different. For example the wind lance caused a bleeding affect, while the earth lance increased his defense by 5% for 3 minutes. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ Returning to where Lisa and Rory were, Eons was greeted by the pleasant aroma of the breakfast Rory was making. Eons: ¡±Something smells delicious, what are you making?¡± Rory: ¡°I¡¯m making some rabbit stew. And don¡¯t say anything about having stew for breakfast; I¡¯m in the mood for some stew after last night¡¯s fight.¡± Lisa: ¡°Anyway, here¡¯s your new gear that I made from the Rabbit kings fur¡± Receiving his new gear from Lisa, Eons checked it out {{{Armor of the Black Rabbit King An armor made by a novice tailor with the fur from a Black Rabbit King. Due to high quality fur used, an additional affect has been generated. Affects: Defense: +200 Agility: +20 Additional Affect: Health: +1000 Level Requirement: 25}}} Lisa: ¡°Sorry you won¡¯t be able to wear the armor for a while, it was high quality fur, and with my current tailoring ability I couldn¡¯t draw out the full effect of the fur. Luckily, there still is a lot of fur remaining so once my tailoring skill increases; I¡¯ll make some better armor.¡± Eons: ¡°It¡¯s fine. The affects are quite good, and it does give me motivation to level up faster¡± Rory: ¡°Foods ready, let¡¯s eat.¡± After finishing eating the stew, the three discussed their next course of action. Eons: ¡°I believe we have outgrown the rabbits and foxes around here, I vote for moving towards the Pine forest and hunting the wolves that are there.¡± This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Lisa: ¡°I agree, rabbits no longer give us good experience, and foxes at best would give mediocre experience to us now.¡± Rory: ¡°Although I¡¯m afraid of the wolves, I also agree.¡± Lisa: ¡°Ok then. Now to decide on a formation. Although I am acting as a tank, I do not have an agro skill to use on the wolves, so when we are attacked by a pack of wolves, I suggest we use a line formation. I will in the front drawing there attention, Eons will be behind me blocking any wolves that get pass me from attacking Rory. Which would leave Rory as our primary damage dealer.¡± Eons: ¡°Agreed, while I¡¯m behind you blocking the wolves from attacking Rory, I¡¯ll also use my magic to attack them. That is if none get pass you¡± Lisa: ¡°ah, right, I forgot you claim to be a spellsword.¡± Eons: ¡°what¡¯s that supposed to mean?¡± Rory: ¡°It means that with the exception of that big attack you used on the Rabbit King, we haven¡¯t seen you use any magic attacks¡± Rory responded with a smile on her face. Having decided on a course of action the three moved towards the pine forest. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Upon entering the forest, the party got attacked by a pack of 6 wolves from the front. Upon seeing the wolves, the party got into the previous formation that they discussed, with Lisa in the front, Rory in the back, and Eons in the middle acting as wall for any wolves that get pass Lisa. Lisa: ¡°Analyze. The wolves levels range from level 20-25. Be careful.¡± Four wolves dashed forward trying to get pass Lisa, leaving two behind to attack her. Noticing this, Lisa went ahead and swung her hammer in a large horizontal arc to block the wolves from passing her. While Lisa blocked the wolves, Rory was creating 6 groups of fireballs consisting of 8 fireballs each, and Eons created 4 air spears around himself. When the wolves jumped back to avoid Lisa¡¯s swing, Eons tooked this chance to launch his 4 air spears towards a wolf that was landing. The wolf¡¯s four legs were impaled into the ground by the air spears preventing him from moving and losing 30% of its health.. Seeing how one of their own got impaled into the ground, the other wolves started being more cautious towards Eons and his companions. Taking the initiative, Lisa dashed towards the nearest wolf and swung her hammer to hit. The wolf was alerted when he saw Lisa dashed towards it so it jumped backwards to dodge the hammer. Unfortunately for the wolf, Lisa¡¯s charge was a distraction, and it created the necessary opening for Eons to launch another 4 air spears and pin it down to the ground. Taking advantage of the hole that Lisa left when she charged towards the wolf, the remaining four wolves tried to dash towards Eons. Unfortunately this was part of the plan to deal with them. With the four wolves dashing towards him, Eons used his earth magic to raise an earth wall right in front of the wolves, causing them to slam right into the wall. Slaming into the earth wall with their charge put the wolves into a stun state. Having finished creating the 6 groups of 8 fireballs, Rory tooked advantage of the stunned wolves to start launching 4 groups of fireballs towards the wolves. Each group of fireball was shot one at a time, with 1 group going towards a wolf. After getting hit by the fireballs, the four wolves entered into a critical state. With the wolves in a critical state, Eons dashed towards one, and quickly drew his sword, slashing towards a wolf, instantly killing it. While Eons killed the first wolf, Lisa charged towards a second wolf in a critical state, and killed it with a swing of her hammer. Together, Lisa and Eons killed the reaming two wolves that were in a critical state. While Eons and Lisa killed the wolves that were in a critical state, Rory tooked her chance to send the remaining 2 groups of fireballs towards the 2 wolves that were pinned down to the grown with Eons air spears. The two wolves were instantly turned to BBQ when Rory¡¯s fireballs hit them. Eons: ¡°Well that wasn¡¯t so hard¡± Lisa: ¡°Yea, with a good strategy, these wolves are pretty easy to handle.¡± Rory: ¡°Speak for yourselves, I had to use a lot of mana, and it was extremely hard to control 6 groups of fireballs.¡± After Rory retorted to the two of them, the three started laughing. Using the same strategy that they formed for the first group of wolves, the trio hunted hundreds of packs of wolves in the forest for the next in-game month while they headed towards the fire-bats cave. The further in that they went into the forest, the stronger the wolves became. Near the end of the forest, the wolves typically ranged between levels 40-45, and were twice the size of normal wolves. By this point the group had reached level 35 with Lisa reaching level 36, and Eons and Rory had long since equipped the Rabbit King Gear that Lisa made. The hunting in the forest typically went the way they did in the first five, just that sometimes, the wolf packs consisted of 8 wolves instead of 6. The most dangerous situation that they faced in the forest was when they reached the center of the forest. When they reached the center of the forest, they were attacked by a pack consisting of 15 wolves. 8 of the wolves appeared in front of the party and 7 behind. For this fight, Lisa guarded against the wolves in the front and Eons against wolves in the back with Rory in the center. The fight ended up being a long and tiring fight, with Rory wasting all of her mana half way through killing all the wolves on Eons side and 2 on Lisa¡¯s side. While Rory recovered her mana, Lisa and Eons finished off the remaining 6 wolves. During their resting time, Lisa was constantly using the wolves fur that they were gathering to make new gears in order to raise her tailoring skill and to sell the armors at a much higher price than what they would¡¯ve sold for as just furs. While Lisa was tailoring, Rory and Eons were working on their magic. Aside from fireballs, Rory had branched out to rock bullets, air spears, fire spears, earth spikes, earth walls, and the combination magic infernal fire spear (a combination magic that combines the fire spear, air spear, and rock bullets). Eons had developed the Fire and Water lances. By the time they reached the end of the forest, Lisa¡¯s tailoring skill was at intermediate level 2, Rory¡¯s magic manipulation was at intermediate level 5, and each of Eons lances was at beginner level 2 with his magic manipulation at beginner level 1. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ Upon reaching end of the forest, the group finally saw their end destination: the Fire Bats Cave. The fire bats cave was about 30 yards away with a large clearing between the forest and the cave. However in the middle of the clearing there was a boar the size of an element with silvery shiny fur. Lisa: ¡°Analyze. Hmm, that thing is called a metal boar. It says it¡¯s a mini-boss level 58.¡± Rory: ¡°D-d-o you guys t-think w-we have to f-fight it? O-or can we p-pass it without f-fighting i-it?¡± Eons: ¡°Don¡¯t think we can get pass it without fighting it.¡± Lisa: ¡°Yea, there are no hiding places in the plain. Let¡¯s come up with a plan of attack to kill it¡± Eons: ¡°Why don¡¯t we go with a surprise attack now that the boar is not paying attention to us? We will have Rory use all of her man to create the infernal fire spears and launch them in a surprise attack towards the metal boar. The hits will probably be mostly criticals. After her mana attack the two us will attack it in and try to kill it together.¡± Lisa: ¡°Sounds like a plan, Rory start making the infernal fire spears. And when we attack, stay hidden.¡± Having come up with a plan, they began to take action. Rory started to summon her infernal fire spears. The spears were about 2 years long, twice as big as a normal spear. The spear had raging fire and rocks being swirled around in them by wind magic. They were lucky that it was still day time outside; otherwise the boar would have noticed the bright, blinding light being emanated by the spears. Using all of her mana, Rory was able to create only 10 spears. Positioning the spears to send them directly at the boars head, she waited for the boar to lower its head and start eating the grass on the ground. When the boar started eating the grass, Rory instantly sent her 10 infernal fire spears towards the boars head. Each spear hit boars head with a critical hit. After the barrage of spear landed, the boar¡¯s health was reduced to 35% and received a blind status, testament to the power that each spear held. With the boar blinded, Lisa charged towards the boars head and swung her hammer down on the boars head. To her surprise the sensation that she got back from striking the boars head felt as if she had just stricken metal; and she was shocked to see that her hammer strike had not even taking away 1% of the boars head. While Lisa was hitting the boar, Eons moved up to the boars side and drew his blade to slash at the boar¡¯s side with one quick motion. Again to his surprise, the slash did not damage the boar. The boar remained perfectly fine. After two minutes of Lisa hitting the boars head with her hammer and Eons slashing at it, the boars blind affect was beginning to wear out, and noticing that none of their attacks was doing any damage to the boar the two back off. Lisa: ¡°I think this thing has complete immunity to physical attacks.¡± Eons: ¡°Yea and the blind affect is almost off. Give me a minute I¡¯ll activate the strongest fire magic I have. This thing is mostly vulnerable to fire considering the damage that Rory¡¯s spear did and the fact that it is a metal boar.¡± Finished saying that, Eons position himself in front of the boar and activated his Fire Lance skill. With his fire lance skill activated, Eons thrusted his katana into the boars head. With lances penetration ability, the katana slowly sunk into the boars head. Then the magic in the fire lance was released. From the point that the katana entered into the boars head, a stream of fire erupted, going through the boar and coming out of the boar¡¯s rear end. The stream of fire went right threw the boars length and continue for another yard pass the boar. This was the effect of the Fire Lance. The fire lance sent a stream of fire from the tip of the boar spanning for a couple of yards. As a secondary effect, the target that is hit with this fire develops a burned status. Needless to say, this effect of the fire lance burned the boar from the inside out, instantly killing it. Rory: ¡°That is a beautiful combination magic you have¡± she said coming out of her hiding place in the forest Lisa: ¡°Yea it was. Now let¡¯s see what this boar dropped. It gave excellent exp. My level rose by 5, as I imagine yours did too.¡± {{{Metal Boars Meat A rare drop from the mysterious Metal Boar that roams around the town of Dragus. Can be cooked into very delicious food 1Time permanent Effect: Health +500, Endurance +20 Metal Fur of the Metal Boar A Metal fur of the mysterious metal boar that roams around the town Dragus. It is a true testament to the strength require to bring down this metal boar. Can be tailored into outstanding fur armor Rarity: B+ }}} Eons: ¡°Now that is very interesting this metal boars meat has the same effect as the rabbit kings meat. Wonder if there¡¯s a connection. For that matter I wonder if there are other animals like this.¡± Once Eons finished saying that, a system message popped up again. {{{Mystery of the Black Rabbit King: Updated You were the first to witness the wrath of the Black Rabbit King that roams Dragus. Upon inspecting the remains of the Black Rabbit King you found something very mysterious. The meat of the Black Rabbit King have the same effect as mythological creatures. Investigate this matter and find out the mystery behind the Black Rabbit King. While continuing to hunt near Dragus, you encountered another animal with the mysterious meat that increase status point. Maybe if you continue hunting animals like this you will get a hint to the mystery. Quest was triggered by successfully identifying the abnormality in the Black Rabbit King. Quest Cannot be denied. Difficulty: A # of animals/things found: 2/10}}} Lisa: ¡°So there are a total of 10 animals like this¡­.what a pain this will be. Just fighting one of them is a big pain.¡± Eons: ¡°Yea, but it is fun fighting them. Anyway, lets rest up and enter the cave.¡± _____________________________________________________________________________________________ After resting, the party entered the cave. The cave was very dark, damp, and long. For a source of light, Rory casted a fireball. As the trio continued into the cave, oddly enough they did not encounter a single fire bat. For the next 4 hours the trio continued to explore the cave. Finally they reached the end of the cave, with wary nerves sense they did not encountered a single fire bat. Once they reached the end of the cave, the found a very large opening being a hundred yard in diameter in every direction. At the very center of the cave there was a single flower blooming with lots of herbs surrounding it. The trio walked up to the flower observing their surroundings. Upon reaching the flower, the trio heard wings flapping behind them. Turning back, they saw a giant bat blocking the only exit out of the cave surrounding by hundreds of fire bats. Lisa: ¡°Analyze.¡± With a nervous voice she said ¡°well¡­good thing is those bats range from level 25-30. Bad news is that that big bat is called Fire Bat King and is level 75.¡± Then the trio heard a system message update. {{{Retrieved the Cave Floor and Herbs: Updated The Librarian Roxanne has asked you and your companions to get her a rare flower and herbs that is found to the northeast of the city in a cave at the base of a mountain. Be careful though, it is said that cave is infected with Fire Bats. Upon Finding the flower, you found that there was a fire king, and with his minion he sets a trap for anyone that enters the cave for the flower. Old Difficulty: E+, New Difficulty: D Reward: Roxannes specially cooked meal with the herbs Unkown }}} Chapter 4: The Fire Bat King Chapter 4: The Fire Bat King Eons: ¡°So, any ideas on how to keep the big bat distracted while we deal with the hundreds of smaller bats?¡± Lisa: ¡°Yes. You and Rory take care of the small bats while I keep the big one busy.¡± Finished saying this, Lisa put away her war hammer and her body started to transform. She started growing feathers on her body, and her arm started to get thicker with feathers, taking on the form of wings. Eons: ¡°Hoh, so you¡¯re a half-breed as well.¡± Lisa: ¡°You never asked.¡± She relied with a big grin on her face ¡°I¡¯m half eagle.¡± ____________________________________________________________________________ Eons: ¡°Rory, lets get rid of the small bats while your sister distracts the big bat.¡± Rory: ¡°W-will we r-really be a-alright? T-there are so m-m-many of them¡­¡± Eons: ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I got a plan, you start gathering your mana for the spell earth spike.¡± Rory: ¡°U-um, ok!?¡± Eons: ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I have something that will really help us, and hopefully help Lisa distract the big bat thing.¡± ¡°Mana¡¯s Blessing¡± Eons yelled. Mana¡¯s blessing was the 3rd spell that he got when he became Mana¡¯s Champion. With this spell, Eons invokes a blessing unto the party from Mana. This blessing lasts 10 minutes, increases all of the party¡¯s stats by 10%, and increased item drop rate & experience. After activating Mana¡¯s Blessing, Eons started using mana manipulation in order to be able to use Mana¡¯s Smite. He manipulated Mana¡¯s Smite so that itll have 20% of its original power and a radius of 15 yards for the cost of 4500 mp. He aimed Mana¡¯s Smite right at the middle of hundreds of fire bats. Half of the bats were instantly killed, and the other half entered into a panic state upon seeing half of their numbers destroyed. Without pausing, after using Mana¡¯s Smite, Eons activated his transform skill to transform into his full lion born. Upon activating his transformation, Eons starting growing in size, his arms and legs became thicker and hairier. He started growing a golden main, and a very long tail. At the end he had transform into a majestic, giant (twice as big as a normal one), golden lion. With his full transformation into a lion, Eons experienced his stats multiplied by 2.2, and tripled his health and stamina, with the transformation lasting for 7 minutes. Unfortunelty, the transformation has his mana being reduced to a third, and after, Mana¡¯s Blessing, Mana¡¯s Smite, and his transformation, he only has 467 mana left. Using 100 of his remaining mana, Eons activated his lions roar skill. With his lions roar, he and his party experience an increase in moral and had 5 extra stat points added to each stat. His opponents on the other hand had their stats reduced by 5 and had a chance to have fear inflicted upon them. Due to the state of panic that the bats were in due to having half of their numbers annihilated in a second, all of the bats were completely inflicted with fear, with the exception of the fire bat king that Lisa was keeping busy. Since they were already in a panic state, the fear that they were inflicted was much greater than what it would¡¯ve been, so the affects were significantly more severe. Upon being inflicted with fear and getting stunned, all of the bats fell from the sky into the group. At this moment, Rory casted the spell earth spears, piercing many bats that were in the ground. For the next five minutes, Rory and Eons killed every remaining bat. With Rory having only 25% of her mana left and Eons only with 2 minutes remaining in his lion form, the two joined Lisa in killing the fire bat king. ______________________________________________________________________________ Lisa¡¯s fight with the fire bat king had¡­gone worse than she had expected it to. She had thought that by the time Rory and Eons had joined her she would still have over half of her life left, but she had greatly underestimated the air maneuverability of the fire bat. By the time they joined her she had just a little over 10% of her health while the bat still had 90% left. From the moment that she started fighting the fire bat, it had out maneuvered her and shown her just why it was called a boss monster. She had came into the fight without her war hammer because the war hammer would impede her flying abilities, she had chosen stability, maneuverability, and speed over the stronger damage of her hammer. From the very beginning she was dominated by fire bat king. As soon as she came within range of it, it sped up towards her and slam into her pushing her towards a wall. The impact of the collision instantly killed 30% of her health, while the bat only lost 1%. The second round between Lisa and the bat went a little better. She was able to fly to the side when the bat flew at her, however, when the bat turned around it spew fire at her from behind. She was able to dodge the fire attack by flying up. When the fire hit the wall, to Lisa¡¯s surprise the wall melted as if it was hit by acid. That¡¯s when she realized that this bat had a venom fire spit attack. A fire attack with the properties of both fire and acid. Being aware of that particular attack, she started to move on the attack. She hoped that by moving to attack rather than defend she would be able to restrict the movements of the bat. She went the best defense is a good offense. This train I thought was mostly correct. However the downside was that when she attacked, the bat also aimed an attack at her, so it became a fight where the two traded hits. For the five minutes that it took Rory and Eons to get rid of the smaller bats continued in this format for the two fighters. They would separate and then fly towards each other at extreme speeds and pass each other while attacking each other. In this format the fighting continue until Lisa reached a critical state and the bat having 90% hp left. The way that the fight was going changed once Rory and Eons finished off the small bats. The fire bat king was so consumed with his aerial battle with Lisa that he didn¡¯t notice when all of his minions were defeated, however Lisa did. Lisa noticed how Eons in his lion form was circling around the bat and how Rory was gathering mana. The problem that she saw was holding the bat in place long enough for Eons to get in position. To help with this she thought what if I try moving the bat towards where Eons was. To do this she got inspiration from an old fighting movie she watched. In that movie before two people fought they circled each other waiting for any sudden movements from the other. During the last 5 minutes of fighting she had gotten the full attention of the bat king with her majestic eagle characteristics. She was sure that if she started circling to her right, the bat would circle to his right as well. Lisa then went ahead and put her idea into action. She wasn¡¯t sure what Eons was planning, but if the last month fighting together had taught her anything, it was that she could trust him. This trust that she put on him, was not misplaced. Once the fire bat king was in front of him, Eons did not miss his chance. He quickly activated his air walk skill and dashed up the air and pounce on the back of the bat. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. Once on the bats back, Eons slashed at the bats left wings, and with his mighty jaws bit down on the wing and started biting it off. The result was instantaneous. The fire bat was not able to keep himself afloat with only one good wing left and with Eons in his lion form still on top of him. The Bat came crashing down to the grown with Eons still on top of him. The impact on the ground instantly reduced the bats hp by half and more importantly left the bat in a stun state. Once the bat came down on the grown, Eons quickly jumped off the bat. He jumped off just on time since at that same time, Rory unleashed a wave of harden earth spike beneath the bat that impaled it all over its body. The earth spikes impaled the right wing of the bat to the point that it became useless. And what remained of the left wing that Eons started biting off was completely severed. Coming down from the sky, Lisa cancelled her transformation and tooked out her war hammer. Walking up to the recently stunned and impaled bat, she started bashing it with her hammer while yelling at it. Lisa: ¡°This¡­is¡­for¡­toying¡­with¡­me¡­you...goddam¡­stupid¡­huff¡­huff¡­bat!!! And¡­never¡­throw¡­at¡­me¡­your¡­stupid¡­venom¡­fire¡­huff¡­huff¡­spit!!!!!¡± Eons: ¡°Remind me to never make your sister mad, I imagine dying by being hammered to death is quite painful¡± Rory: ¡°Y-y-yes. L-lisa is really s-scary w-when m-m-mad¡± _________________________________________________________________________ It took Lisa half an hour after the bat was dead to stop from hammering its dead body. Once she stop she fell panting on the ground as the bats body started disappearing. Lisa: ¡°So, how come you¡¯ve never used such a handy skill before?¡± Eons: ¡°hmm, what skill?¡± Lisa: ¡°You know, the one that you used in the beginning of the fight that raised our stats by 10% and increased exp and loot drop rate.¡± Eons: ¡°Ah, Mana¡¯s blessing. Truth be told, I forgot I had that skill.¡± With Eons reply all three of them started laughing. Once Lisa stopped laughing she got up from the ground, walked over to Eons, and whacked him across the head. Lisa yelling angrily: ¡°You Idiot!!! That skill could¡¯ve come in handy in so many circumstances. Not to mention that increase in exp gain and loot increase would¡¯ve been great when we were fighting those mini bosses.¡± Eons: ¡°Sorry, sorry.¡± Lisa: ¡°Haah, forget it lets see what that boss dropped.¡± {{{Fire Bat King A rare drop from the mysterious Fire Bat King that rules the fire bat cave near the town Dragus. Can be cooked into very delicious food 1Time permanent Effect: Fire resist: +15%, agility +30, dexterity +50}}} {{{Hide of the Fire Bat King The hide of the mysterious Fire Bat King that rules the fire bat cave near the town Dragus. It is a true testament to the strength require to bring down this Fire Bat King. Can be tailored into outstanding armor Rarity: B+}}} Lisa: ¡°hmm, guess that this boss was one of the monsters that we needed for that quest.¡± Eons: ¡°Yea, but wasn¡¯t he too weak compared to the others?¡± Lisa: ¡°Weak!!?? Did you miss my aerial flight with him? The only reason that you think that he was weak is because I had caught his attention long enough so that you could get rid of his wings. If you hadn¡¯t taken out its wings, then trust me that fight would have been a lot worse. The aerial maneuverability of that thing was no joke.¡± Eons: ¡°Hmm, got it.¡± Lisa sarcastically: ¡°Yea, sure you did.¡± Rory: ¡°Umm, can we go pick the flower and the herbs now?¡± Lisa & Eons: ¡°Ah right, that¡¯s what we came here for.¡± Walking up to where the flower was, the trio started picking up all the herbs that were surrounding it. Finally an hour of picking up all the herbs, they reached and picked up the flower. {{{Flower of the Fire Bat Cave. A rare and beautiful flower that only grows in the depth of the Fire Bat Cave. For being the first to successfully pick this flower, fame +100}}} Rory: ¡°It¡¯s a very beautiful flower isn¡¯t it?¡± Eons: ¡°Yes, it is. Anyway let¡¯s leave this cave and start heading back towards the city.¡± Lisa: ¡°Nope. We are not leaving this cave just yet.¡± Eons: ¡°Hmm, and why not?¡± Taking out 3 pickaxes and handing one each to Eons and Rory, she pointed towards the wall. Lisa: ¡°Look around, the cave walls are completely filled with ores. I can really use those ores for my blacksmithing. So we won¡¯t be leaving till we fill a good portion of our inventories with these ores.¡± And so, for three days, Lisa had all of them slaving away in mining ores. Finally on the third day, Lisa decided that they had gathered enough ore and decided to call it. At long last, after picking hundreds of ores, and gaining 38 levels thanks to all of the fire bats, the fire bat king, and Eons Mana¡¯s Blessing skill. The trio started leaving the cave and heading back to the town to turn in their quest. Their month long journey to the Fire Bat Cave was finally over. {{{Status Name: Eons Class: Mana¡¯s Champion Titled: Mana¡¯s Favored Reputation 2000 Fame/Infamy 1200 Level: 78 Health: 23,650+(1000)=24,650 Mana: 8,780 Stamina: 5,890 Strength: 215 Vitality: 178 Agility: 225+(20)=245 Dexterity: 245 Intelligence: 367 Wisdom: 367 Endurance: 167 Fighting Spirit: 198 Misc. Stats 167 Defence 100+(200)=300 Unused stat points: 385}}} __________________________________________________________________________________________ Couple of notes: In this game, every level, players get 1 stat point automatically added to every stat they have, and 5 stat points that they can distribute to the 6 main stats. Stat Points are also added depending on the action that they do. For example, a mage can get extra stat points in intelligence and wisdom from using magic because the more practice they put into magic, a deeper understanding on how magic works they learn (though most players, in this game, just think that more magic usage= more int and wis) Last point: sorry this chapter is a bit short, felt like the best place to stop for the chapter. Chapter 5: Quest completion, Profits, and Alice. *Back in chapter 2 I said that Valhalla was a queendom. This was a mistake on my part. It used to be a queendom, it is now a kingdom. *Also I said that Valhalla is the biggest, but just because it¡¯s the biggest, it does not mean it is strongest. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 5: Quest completion, Profits, and Alice. Without stopping to hunt for monsters on the way to Dragus town from the Fire Bat Cave, it tooked the party 2 days to reach the town. The first thing the trio did upon reaching the town was visit the library and turn in their quest to Roxanne. Roxanne: ¡°Oh, welcome back guys, how was your trip to the Fire Bat Cave?¡± Lisa: ¡°It was tiring¡± she said sitting down on a chair. Eons: ¡°Aye, you should¡¯ve warned us about the final trap in the Fire Bat Cave.¡± Roxanne: ¡°What trap?¡± Eons: ¡°Once you reach the end of the cave the exit gets blocked by hundreds of fire bats led by the Fire Bat King.¡± Roxanne: ¡°Hmm, I¡¯ve never heard of a Fire Bat King before. Anyway, moving on, can I see the Cave Flower now?¡± Rory: ¡°Umm, Sure¡± She said taking the flower out of her inventory. Roxanne: ¡°Wow. This is a very beautiful flower. Have I told you the story of how this flower was found?¡± Eons: ¡°No you haven¡¯t¡± Roxanne (with a look of nostalgia and sadness): ¡°Long ago, there was a beautiful young woman that was exploring to the northeast of the Pine Forest where she found a cave. While exploring this cave she ran into an adventurer that had also found the cave. For days the two started exploring the cave together while watching each other¡¯s back when fighting Fire Bats. Finally after a week of fighting bats, they reached the end of the cave. They were quiet surprise when they saw the big opening they saw at the end, especially when they saw the flower and the herbs surrounding it. The closer they got to the flower, the more mesmerized they were by its beauty. They were so mesmerized that they didn¡¯t notice the fire bats gathering behind them. By the time they saw them, it was too late.¡± At this point a tear came down Roxanne¡¯s face. Roxanne: ¡°When they turned around they saw that there were about 3 dozens fire bats. The young lady became very scared when she saw all of the fire bats crowded together. What the young girl didn¡¯t know was that over the past week, the adventurer fell in love with her. Noticing how scared the young lady was, the adventurer told her ¡®don¡¯t worry, everything will be ok. Ill attack them and draw their attention, you take the first opening you see and run out of the cave.¡¯ The young lady tried to protest, but the adventurer would not yield. To get her to leave, he went ahead and drew her in for a hug surprising her. Before she regained herself from her surprise, he went ahead and kiss her, then told her: ¡®Please, take the chance that I will provide you with and get away. I wouldn¡¯t be able to rest in peace if you died here with me. Please, escape and live life for the both of us. And if I can ask for a favor, I would ask of you to look over my sister, she¡¯s 5 years old, and aside from me she does not have any other relatives left.¡¯ Being unable to refuse the young men, she agreed with his plan. At the first opening that she saw she tooked her chance to run out of the exit, and leave the cave. When she arrived back to Dragus, the first thing she did was searched for the adventurer¡¯s sister. When she found his sister, she tooked her in and raised her as her own sister. Although it¡¯s been 20 years since she met that adventurer, she has never forgotten what happened that day. She thought that if she finally saw that flower again, she would be able to get closure on what happened.¡± Eons (with a coarse voice): ¡°¡­So did she get closure?¡± Roxanne: ¡°Yes she did. Anyway, give me the herbs so I can go make you your first reward. We will discuss the second one after we eat.¡± Receiving the herbs from the crying Rory, Roxanne left to go to the kitchen with the excuse to start cooking in order to hide her crying. When Roxanne left the group, they received a popup message. {{{Quest Completed. Upon giving the flower to Roxanne, you heard why she wanted the flower. When she was a younger girl, while she was exploring the fire bat cave, she ran into a young explorer, and the two fell in love. When they arrived at the end of the cave, they ran straight into trap that is set there. In order to allow Roxanne to escape, the young explorer sacrificed his life, but before he died, he confessed his love to her and asked her to look after his baby sister. Upon returning to Dragus, Roxanne searched for his sister, and adapted her as her own sister. In order to get some closure, Roxanne asked you to retrieve the flower from the Fire Bat Cave. For going into the cave and completing the quest, you have made Roxanne eternally grateful for two reasons. One was because you gave her closure by bringing her the flower. And the other reason was because you avenged the young explorer. It is more than likely that the Fire Bat King was born from the fire bat that killed the young explorer. Rewards: Fame+500 Reputation +100 Intimacy with Roxanne maxed. Level +2 Home cooked meal by Roxanne using the caves herbs. See Roxanne for additional reward.}}} Two hours later, Roxanne returned with the food. {{{Fire Cave Herbs Food A delicious dish created by Roxanne utilizing the Herbs the grow around the Cave Flower. 1 Time permanent Effect: MP +100, hp & mp regan +5/s.}}} Upon checking the Rabbit King Quest, the trio found that the herbs were something that they needed for the quest. It was why the quest said animals/things instead of just animals. After finishing the food, Roxanne proceeded to talk about their last reward. Roxanne: ¡°Ok, so lets talk about your additional reward. Well, aside from being a reward it is also a favor for me. I have a younger sister, and she recently made the rank of Captain in the Valhalla military. I am sure you know what this means, right Eons?¡± Eons: ¡°¡­Yes I do.¡± Roxanne: ¡°Ok, your reward/favor for me is to become my sister¡¯s officers in the Valhalla military.¡± {{{Quest: Meet with Roxanne¡¯s Sister As a reward for bringing back the Cave Flower, Roxanne has offered you officer positions in the prestigious Valhalla military. Roxanne has also asked you to look after her younger sister in the military. Meet with Roxanne¡¯s sister and discuss becoming her officer. Difficulty: F}}} After seeing Lisa and Rory nod their heads towards him, Eons responded. Eons: ¡°Yes, we accept becoming your sisters officers.¡± Roxanne (with a happy expression): ¡°Thank you very much. If you go to the barracks, you should find my sister pretty easily, she should be the only female captain there.¡± Eons: ¡°No problem. It¡¯s supposed to be a great honor to become an officer in the legendary Valhalla military.¡± Having finished their business with Roxanne, the trio started leaving the library. Lisa (with a somewhat sad voice, she was still thinking about Roxanne¡¯s story): ¡°After that story, I think we all need a break. Let¡¯s call it a day here, get a good night sleep, and get back online tomorrow morning. Eons when we come back, tell me more about the Valhalla army, based on how Roxanne said it, there¡¯s something special about her sister becoming a captain.¡± ____________________________________________________________________________ Coming out of his capsule, Manuel (Eons Real name) steps foot into his game (?) room. The room was large, dark, and cold. Aside from the capsule for Valkyrie, there were only a few furniture in the room, and they were all cover in a white tablecloth. It looked like before Manuel put the capsule in this room, the room was not in use. Leaving the room, Manuel walked down a dark hallway and tooked a right to enter his bedroom. Just like the game room, his bedroom was dark and cold, but unlike it, the furniture in this room did not have white tablecloth covering it. However, it did have all of the pictures that were on top of the dressers placed face down. After Manuel came into the room, he got undress and headed towards the bathroom to take a bath. An hour later after relaxation, he got out of the bath. After getting dressed again he went down to the kitchen to get something to eat. After eating something he returned to his room and went to bed. ______________________________________________________________________________ After logging back into the game, Eons waited for 5 minutes while Lisa and Rory came online. Lisa: ¡°Hey, you wait long?¡± Eons: ¡°Nah, not really.¡± Lisa: ¡°Alright, so tell us a bit about the Valhalla military, and why there¡¯s something behind Roxanne¡¯s sister becoming a captain.¡± Eons: ¡°Where to begin¡­Ok, the Valhalla military is considered to be the seventh strongest in the entire world of Valkyrie and is the most prestigious out of all of them. Prior to travelers (players) coming to this world, the Valhalla military was the third strongest in the world; however since they came they dropped to third. The reason for this is the way that the Valhalla military is set up. The Valhalla military is set up in such a way that there are only four ranks- General, Captain, Officer, and Soldier. To become a captain that has the potential to become a general you have to pass a certain number of tests set up by your town. These tests are considered extremely hard to pass, and due to the pre-requisite of having been born in Valhalla to become a captain, no traveler can ever become a captain that has the potential to become a general. This is the reason why Valhalla fell behind in military might. Now, there¡¯s something I have to elaborate on, it¡¯s one of the more complicated parts of the Valhalla military. In the Valhalla military there are 2 different types of captains. There are captains that have the potential to become a general; those are the captains that have to pass the test. And then there are the captains that are under a general; these captains were formally the officers of the general back when he was a captain, and these positions can be filled by travelers.¡± Stopping for a moment to let Lisa and Rory absorb what he had said, Eons continued explaining how the Valhalla military works. Eons: ¡°Ok, now let¡¯s talk about the type of captain that can become a general. When these captains are appointed, they have to pick 3 officers that will serve under them. Each officer controls a grand total of 5 troops in the beginning. As the army under this captain completes more or harder missions, the amount of troops under the officer increases. When the amount of troops under each officer becomes a thousand, the captain is then promoted. He/she is promoted to a general, while the officers are promoted to becoming the general¡¯s captains. The next mile stone that this type of captain reaches is when each captain then controls 5000 troops each. All though there is no title for this, a general that controls a total of 15,000 troops is considered a grand-general. In Valhalla there are only 3 grand-masters. From those 3, 1 of them rose in the last 10 years. Of the other two, the female grand-master is the oldest and her army is considered the strongest of the three. Now I don¡¯t know if this is true, but Roxanne told me that the newest grand-general is nothing but a puppet for his three captains that are travelers. Any questions so far?¡± Lisa: ¡°Yes, 2. so if I understand what you said about the ranking system correctly, then a newly appointed captain does not have the same level of authority as a captain that is on the verge of becoming a general, correct? Or using different example, a captain that just became a general, is at the very bottom of all generals correct? Now my last question is, which is higher, a captain under a general or a captain that has the potential to become a general?¡± Eons: ¡°Yes, your understanding of the ranking system is correct. A newly appointed captain is a lower rank than a captain that controls more troops. Now for your question about which is higher, a normal captain or a captain that is under a general, the answer is neither. Neither one is allowed to give orders to the other. Though Roxanne told me that captains under a general tend to be more arrogant towards a normal captain because they feel they are superior since they serve a general and they think they are better captains. Ah, before I forget, in Valhalla, aside from the 3 grand-generals, there are 100 generals, and 3000 captains. Also, captains/generals that achieve a certain amount of accomplishment and reputation are allowed to rule a city, and these special captains/generals are different from other captains/generals. I¡¯ll explain everything later on if we ever reach that point.¡± Lisa: ¡°Got it. No more questions from me. Now explain why Roxanne sister become a captain is special.¡± Eons: ¡°The answer is simple. In this country, females in the military tend to be discriminated against. About 95% of all leaders in the military are male. Whenever a female becomes a captain, they are often time given the worst missions available with the worst conditions. They often time die. Roxanne once told me that 90% of females that become normal captains die during the first year. When they are first appointed, besides the 3 officers she chooses, each of the 5 soldiers giving to each officer is often time below level 5, while for a male captain the average level of the soldier given is 25. Now although females are discriminated like this, they are often time rewarded for the appropriate risk of the mission and raise up the ranks a bit faster than men. It¡¯s a very weird system like that.¡± Lisa: ¡°So that¡¯s why Roxanne asked us to become her sister¡¯s officers. She wants us to keep her alive and remove part of her burden.¡± Rory: ¡°Unum, I don¡¯t understand. Earlier you said that the leader of the strongest army in the Valhalla military is a female. But why are females discriminated if the strongest army is run by a female? Shouldn¡¯t this prove the abilities of females in the military?¡± If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Eons: ¡°I have no idea either. When I had the same question, I asked Roxanne and she told me that she didn¡¯t know either, but she gave me an old book to read to see if I could figure out anything from it. Now, when I say old, I mean old. This book is oldest book in the library. It is several centuries old, but unfortunately it did not answer the main question, rather it rose more. According to that book, when Valhalla was first started 5000 years ago, it was a queendom.¡± Lisa: ¡°Wait a minute. If Valhalla was a queendom, then why are females discriminated in the military, and why is it a kingdom now?¡± Eons: ¡°Let me finish. Now where was I¡­ Oh yes¡­ Valhalla was founded 5000 years ago by an ancient order. This order was the Vakyria Knights. The Valkyria Knights are considered to be strongest force to ever exist in Valkyrie. The Valkyria Knights were led by the strongest knight to ever live. When Valhalla was first founded, this knight became the new ruler. Now all of the history books say that this knight was a male. According to that book that Roxanne gave me, this knight was a female. Now don¡¯t ask me her name, I don¡¯t know it, the book did not say what it was. Now as the ruler of the queendom of Valhalla, she set the foundation to proper Valhalla to become the strongest nation for the next 4000 years. That book said that everything changed 1000 years ago. Something happened, I do not know what, but after that event Valhalla became a kingdom instead of a queendom, and females in the military started being discriminated against.¡± Lisa: ¡°I smell a quest there.¡± Eons: ¡°Most likely there is. However it wasn¡¯t triggered when I read that from the old book. Theres probably another component that we are missing. Now let me finish the crash course on Valhalla¡¯s history. After whatever happened happened, Valhalla started going on the decline, and its power ranking in the world fell from 1st to 20th. Valhalla wasn¡¯t restored to being a world power till 300 years ago when the current family that rules this country came into power. Under their leadership, Valhalla rose to becoming the 8th strongest nation in this world. It wasn¡¯t until that female grand-master that I mentioned earlier rose to power 20 years ago that Valhalla became the 3rd strongest nation in this world. However since the arrivals of the travelers, Valhalla fell to 7th. And that ends this history lesson.¡± ______________________________________________________________________________ Lisa: ¡°Well that was an interesting history lesson. Now before we go to meet Roxanne¡¯s sister, lets sell all of the loot that we gathered.¡± Over the past month of hunting, the trio had collected a lot of root. They had collected a 100 pelts from the rabbits, hundreds upon hundreds of wolf pelts, and many, many bat wings and teeth. Not to mention the meat they got from the black rabbit king, metal boar, and bat king that would sell for a lot of money. The first thing that the group sold was the easiest thing; the fire bat wings and teeth. They took these drops to the local alchemy shop. With the amount of wings and teeth that they gather, they were able to obtain 350 gold and a great deal of intimacy with the shop owner. The gold was split 30% each to Rory and Lisa, and 40% to Eons. Eons got 40% because thanks to his Mana¡¯s Blessing skill a lot more loot than what would¡¯ve fell normally fell. From the loot, Eons ended up getting 140 gold. To sell the pelts and meat they broke up into 2 groups. Lisa sold the pelts and Eons & Rory sold the meat. During the nights of their month on travel, Lisa tooked her time to tailor the rabbit and wolfs pelt into armor so that they would be able to sell them for a higher price. The 100 rabbit furs were tailored into armors ranging from level 8-12, and were sold to players for an average of 50 silver a piece. From the sale of rabbit armor, the trio made 50 gold. Out of all of the wolf pelts they had, Lisa was only able to make 250 armor pieces before she got tired of making them. The other 850 pieces were sold off to the local tailor for 850 gold and an increase in intimacy with the store owner. The 250 wolf pelt pieces were forged into armor ranging from level 20-35 and were sold to players for an average of 8 gold pieces. A total of 2000 gold was made from this sell. From the sale of all animal pelt armor sold, a total of 2900 gold was made. 30% was split each to Eons & Rory and 40% to Lisa. Lisa got 40% because she was the one that tailored the animal pelt into armor. From this sale, Eons got 870 gold. From all 3 things that they sold, the sale of the meat brought them by far the most money. Using her cooking skill, Rory cooked the Rabbit King meat, the metal boar meat, and the bat king meat into delicious meat to sell to players. There was enough rabbit king meat to sell to 500 players, enough metal boar meat for 800 players, and enough bat king meat for 100 players. The rabbit king meat was sold for 1 gold, the boar meat for 3 gold, and the bat king meat for an outstanding 15 gold. The bat king meat was the most expensive because it was the only one that gave a permanent boost to fire resistant, and attaining resistance to any type of magic in this game in extraordinarily hard. At first, players were against buying the food at such high prices, but when they found out that they permanently rose stats, they started swarming around Eons & Rory, and all of the meat was sold in an hour. A grand total of 4400 gold was raised from the sell of the rare animal meat. The gold was divided 30% to each Eons & Lisa, and 40% to Rory. Rory got 40% because she was the one that cooked all of the meat. From the sale of the rare animal meat, Eons got a total of 1320 gold. When you combine how much money the group made during that month of hunting and grinding, the grand total came out to 7650 gold. Of those 7650 gold, Eons walked away with 2330 gold. An amount that can be considered a fortune for anyone that has only played the game for 2 in game months. ______________________________________________________________________________ After selling all of their loot, the trio had an hour long break before heading off to find Roxanne¡¯s sister at the barracks. After reaching the barracks, they searched for half an hour before they found the only female captain there. She had short, neck long red hair, a slim body, had armor on the top part of her body, a long skirt on, and a great sword on her back. She looked a bit like a less voluptuous, but younger Roxanne. Walking up to her, the trio started talking to her. Lisa: ¡°Hello, I¡¯m Lisa.¡± Rory:¡± I¡¯m Rory.¡± Eons: ¡°And I¡¯m Eons.¡± ???: ¡°Can I help you with anything?¡± Lisa: ¡°Are you Roxanne¡¯s sister?¡± ??? (With a curious voice): ¡°Yes, do you have any business with me?¡± Lisa: ¡°Yes, your sister told us that you recently became a captain and was looking for new officers. She gave us a letter of introduction to give to you.¡± Taking the letter from them, ??? started reading the letter that Roxanne wrote for her. As she read further on, a smile grew. ??? (with a pleasant voice): ¡°I see, my sister said that you guys were very trustworthy, and you guys look the part. Good. Very Good. I was a bit troubled over finding trust worthy officers. But my sister seems to have deep trust in you, and she said you are strong. Now the only problem that I have is that you guys are travelers. Whenever a traveler enters the military, they typically tend to make the captain their puppets. I have no intention of becoming your puppet.¡± Eons: ¡°No need to worry. We have no intention of using you as a puppet. Roxanne is a dear friend. If we we¡¯re to use you as a puppet she¡¯d kill us.¡± ???: ¡°True enough. My sister wouldn¡¯t have sent travelers to be my officers if she wasn¡¯t sure that they¡¯d use me as a puppet. I¡¯ve decided. From now on, you guys are my officers. My name is Alice, a pleasure to meet you. Here, these rings will show that you are my officer. You guys will receive a monthly wage of 50 gold for being my officers. You have the rest of the day free. Meet me tomorrow morning so that I can introduce you to your new troops and so that we can head off to do our first mission. Unfortunately all of the troops I¡¯ve been given are inexperienced and are only level 3. To prepare for our first mission, you guys should head on over to the alchemy and buy any potions you may need. Looking forward to working with you.¡± {{{Quest: Meet with Roxanne¡¯s Sister Complete. After finding Roxanne¡¯s sister, Alice, at the barracks, she has agreed to make you her officers. Reward: Become Alice¡¯s officer.}}} {{{Alices Officer ring. Level 1 A ring given by Alice to her officers. As Alice¡¯s army completes mission, the ring will grow in level and start gaining special effects. Requirement: Be Alice¡¯s Officer Effects: None}}} _____________________________________________________________________________ After separating from Alice, the trio headed towards the alchemy shop. Lisa: ¡°Hey Eons, you¡¯ll be buying the potions for us.¡± Eons: ¡°Hmm, why?¡± Lisa: ¡°Because Rory and me already spent all of our money. Think of the potions as my payment for making you some new gear- both armor and weapon.¡± Eons: ¡°Fair enough. For my weapon, make me dual swords.¡± Lisa: ¡°Why change your weapon? Won¡¯t it affect you katana mastery?¡± Eons: ¡°Not really. I have a special weapon mastery skill. To advance this weapon mastery further, I have to use different weapons.¡± After finishing their discussion. They entered the alchemy shop. The NPC that ran the alchemy shop was an old and nice women. Old Women: ¡°Welcome, welcome. Thank you very much for the alchemy ingrients that you brought earlier, they are really helping me.¡± Eons: ¡°No problem at all. Can I get 10 small health potions, 18 medium health potions, and 18 medium mana potions?¡± Old Women: ¡°No problem. Here you go. The total comes to 41 gold pieces.¡± Rory: ¡°Um, is it possible for you to teach me alchemy?¡± Looking at Rory for a bit, the old women responded. Old Women: ¡°I would love to. You appear to have a gift for alchemy. Though I do have 1 condition. You occasionally would have to bring me rare alchemy ingredients, like the fire bat wings and teeth you brought me earlier.¡± Lisa: ¡°No problem at all.¡± Having everyone had agreed. The old women brought everyone to the back of the store and started teaching Rory alchemy. After the old women said that Rory had finished learning the alchemy skill, a puzzled look appeared on Rory¡¯s face. Eons: ¡°Something wrong Rory?¡± Rory: ¡°I just got a message that tells me that a Goddess named Mana has taken a liking to me and has blessed me with the option to get the hidden class alchemic witch. But I¡¯ve never heard of this class before.¡± Old Women: ¡°D-did you just said a-a-alchemic witch?¡± Rory: ¡°Do you know the class?¡± Old Women: ¡°Of course I do. Every alchemist knows about the mythical alchemic witch.¡± Rory: ¡°C-can you tell me a bit more about the class?¡± Old Women: ¡°Ok. The alchemic witch is a special class where the person pursues both the study of alchemy and magic in tandem. The class can learn all alchemy skills to master level and can learn all types of magic. Unfortunately all though it can learn all types of magic, the powers of a spell are restricted to 80% power. That is unless you use an alchemic item as a catalyst. If you use a catalyst, you will be able to use the spell at a higher power output. Though how high depends on the synchrony between the alchemic item and the spell. For example the fire bat wings you handed to me earlier will allow you to use a fire spell for 115% of its damage, but a water spell for only 85%. Keep in mind though that I used those numbers as an illustration to prove a point. I don¡¯t know the exact amount that fire spells will be increase by, but I do know that the rarer the item, the higher the quality, and the higher the level, the better effect it will have. Does the class interest you?¡± Rory: ¡°Y-yes, I choose to become an alchemic witch.¡± She said accepting the job change. Old Women: ¡°Excellent, I¡¯ve always wanted to meet and alchemic witch, and now I finally meet one. If its ok with you, I would like to take you in as an apprentice and teach you everything I know about alchemy.¡± Rory: ¡°I-I-I would love too, b-b-but I am an officer in Alice¡¯s a-army, and we leave for our first m-mission t-tomorrow.¡± Old Women: ¡°Hmm, truly a shame then. When you come back from your mission, come to me, and I¡¯ll teach you. In the mean time I have a book that can teach you the basics while you do your mission.¡± Rory: ¡°T-thank you very much.¡± Saying that, she gratefully accepted the book from the old women. After saying goodbye and thanking the old women one last time the trio left the alchemy shop. Lisa: ¡°Well that was unexpected. I have heard that some god do give hidden classes to players that catches their interest, but this is the first time I heard of a goddess given a hidden class outside of her temple or without any quest.¡± Eons: ¡°Maybe she met the requirements needed for the class.¡± Lisa: ¡°Maybe. Wonder what they were. Anyway, let¡¯s call it a day here and meet up tomorrow morning at the barracks. I¡¯ll craft our new gear tonight and hand them out when we meet up tomorrow.¡± Rory: ¡°I¡¯ll start working on my alchemy then. It will save us a lot of money on potions and other stuff.¡± Eons: ¡°Then I¡¯ll go and collect some alchemic ingredients for you. I¡¯ll to find you some rare stuff.¡± Rory (with a bright smile): ¡°Thank you.¡± Having decided on a course of action, the trio split up to go ahead and do what they had said they will do and wait for morning to go and meet up with Alice and meet their new subordinates. Chapter 6: First Mission Here''s the new chapter, sorry it tooked so long to bring out. I''ve found a brand new appreciation for those that can turn out a chapter once every few days/week. From this chapter on, I switched from using yards to using meters. I find writing meters easier than writing yards. Also does anyone know if we can post pictures we find on the web? My descriptive skills suck, so i was thinking of going to google images and find images that fit my characters to give you a better idea of how they look. _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 6: First Mission Finishing getting ready for their first mission, the trio came together half an hour before going to meet Alice. Lisa: ¡°There you are; here¡¯s the new gear I made for you through the night. I better here some praise from you.¡± Saying this to Eons as he approached, she handed over to him the new armor and weapon she had forged for him. {{{Armor of the Flying Metal King. An incredible armor crafted by an intermediate tailor. The tailor put forth all of her skill and knowledge into creating this masterpiece. Due to the high quality materials used to forge this armor, additional effects have been generated. Due to unknown properties, it is possible to update this armor in the future; perhaps then the unknown properties will be known. Affects: Defense: +1000 Agility: +100 Dexterity: +50 Additional Affects: Health +1000 For 5 minutes, immunity towards physical attacks activated. Can only be used once per day. Fire/Poison resist: +25% Requirement: Can only be worn by a person that defeated the creatures this armor was made from. Durability: 500/500}}} {{{Duel Fire Swords Good quality swords that was forged by an amateur blacksmith. Due to the blacksmith adding fire ore into this weapons creation, a fire property was added to the swords. Affects: Dmg: 50-75 per sword Fire Property: 5 extra fire damage added, has a chance to inflict the status burn Durability: 115/115 Requirements: LVL 80}}} Eons: ¡°¡­These equipment pieces are incredible¡­¡± Lisa (With a large grin): ¡°That¡¯s right. It¡¯s nice seeing you speechless. That armor came out a lot better than what I thought it would. Those great stats and that unknown property in the armor are probably due to those strange bosses we¡¯ve taken care off. The sword came out like that thanks to the ore we found in the Fire Bat Cave, you should thank me I made you mine for so long.¡± Eons: ¡°¡­Thank you¡­¡± With Eons thanking her like she told him to, Lisa couldn¡¯t hold it in anymore and started laughing at his reaction. With Lisa¡¯s laughing fit dying down, Eons turned to Rory. Eons: ¡°I got these alchemic ingredients for you. I also stopped by the alchemy shop again and bought you a ton of basic alchemy ingredients for you.¡± Saying that to Rory, Eons handed over a bag filled with every alchemic ingredient needed for basic alchemy potions, and the few alchemic ingredients he found. Rory (With a happy expression): ¡°Thank you very much.¡± With the exchanging of items done, the trio headed to the barracks to meet Alice and get introduced to their new troops. ______________________________________________________________________________ Alice: ¡°Listen up you new recruits.¡± Alice said looking at the 15 new soldiers of her army. The soldiers were all young men whose ages range from 16-18. They looked fairly scrawny and some looked as if they had never even held a sword before. Alice: ¡°I know some of you are worried in being assigned to a female captain. In this army, female captains are usually given the hardest mission with the weakest starting soldiers.¡±¡± With Alice saying this, the soldiers face clearly became a bit more depressed. Alice: ¡°Although this is true, the rewards that come with these risks are typically the greatest. We will be giving some of the hardest missions available, but I have faith that we will prevail and the name of our army will be spread throughout Dragus and the surrounding area. With great risks, great rewards will also come, as long as we come together and do things in the proper order we will succeed.¡± With Alice¡¯s speech promising great fame and rewards in the future if they follow her, the soldiers face took on a happier face with a little bit of hope for the future. Alice: ¡°Now allow me to introduce to you the three officers that will help us complete our missions, and more importantly keep you guys alive.¡± Saying these, Alice started introducing Eons, Lisa and Rory to the group. Soldier 1 (in an outrage voice and pointing at Rory): ¡°You expect that little brat to keep us alive!!!??¡± Upon hearing the disrespecting tone the soldier tooked towards her new officer, Alice got mad. Walking up to him, she smacked him across the face. With the force of her smack the soldier got thrown to the side 10 meters. Alice: ¡°After this meeting, he will be receiving a punishment for disrespecting his commanding officer. Anyone else have any complains.¡± With Alice demonstration of her strength, the soldiers became shocked and quickly started shaking their heads, not wishing to upset their new commander. Alice: ¡°Now continuing the introduction of your new officers before I was rudely interrupted by one idiot¡± saying this she tooked a sharp glance at the soldier that was trying to get up. ¡°Now, this is your first officer. He¡¯s name¡¯s Eons; he is a self-proclaimed level 80 spellsword.¡± With this introduction of Eons, the soldiers became a bit excited. Although they had no idea why their captain was calling him self-proclaimed, a spellsword was a very rare class. To become a spellsword, the person had to have considerable knowledge in swords and magic. For one of their new officers to be a spellsword must mean that the officer had considerable strength. And with a strong officer, their chances of surviving increased. Eons: ¡°Hey, why did you call me self-proclaim?¡± Eons asked Alice. Ignoring Eons question, Alice continued on with the introductions. Alice: ¡°Now, this is your second officer. Her name is Lisa; she is a level 80 craftsman specializing in blacksmithing and tailoring.¡± With Lisa¡¯s introduction, the soldiers were now truly excited. They had a craftsman as an officer. A craftsman that specialized in armor and weapons, an existence vital in any expedition in order to survive. Lisa: ¡°Good job calling him self-proclaimed.¡± Eons: ¡°Come on, you too? What have I ever done to give you the impression that I¡¯m self-proclaimed?¡± Again, ignoring Eons and Lisa, Alice continued with the introductions. Alice: ¡°Now, this is your third officer. Just because she is young does not mean you should underestimate her. Her name is Rory, and like Eons and Lisa she is also level 80, and her class is mage.¡± Now the soldiers became quite and were quite surprised. Even the soldier that had the outburst earlier was quite with a shocked expression on his face. And unlike the other soldiers he was turning pale. In the entire city of Dragus, no other army led by a captain had a mage. Now while mages weren¡¯t rare, they were not common either. Moreover, those that typically followed the path of magic did not directly join the military, they were often hired as mercenaries, and when they did join the military, they typically went to the army of a general, not a captain. While Dragus was a large town, only the 5 generals that were stationed here had mages. The reason being that the mages of Dragus choose to joined the ranks under a general rather than a captain. A spellsword, a craftsmen, and a mage. With the introduction of their new officers, the soldiers were now truly excited. A rare spellsword, a craftsmen that will greatly increase their strength, and the highly offensive mage. With these people as their officers, the soldiers felt that their chances of survivor had definitely gone up, and that they were now more likely to survive then if they had been assigned to an army led by a man. Alice: ¡°Now that introductions are done, everyone get ready, we are moving out for our first mission.¡± Soldiers: ¡°Yes ma¡¯am!!!!¡± ______________________________________________________________________________ While soldiers were getting ready for departure, Alice, Eons, Lisa, and Rory went into one of the private rooms in the barracks to discuss the mission. Alice (while bowing down to Rory): ¡°I¡¯m sorry for the disrespect that the new soldier showed you. For the entire mission, he will be in charge of everyones luggage, the carriage, and the two horses that will be pulling the carriage.¡± Rory (with an embarrassed expression): ¡°D-d-don¡¯t worry a-a-about i-it.¡± Lisa: ¡°Yea, you really gave him a good smack as a punishment. It makes me curious about your level.¡± Alice: ¡°Yea. It was a bit hard restraining my strength to the point where I wouldn¡¯t kill him. Oh, and my level is 197.¡± 197. Upon hearing this number the trio were surprised that Alice was so strong. In the world of Valkyria it can be said that you have not experience the true struggle of leveling up until you reach level 100. Although Valkyria requires higher exp per level than any other game, it is said that any player level 100 or above considers the work required for level 1-99 as heaven. The amount of experience required to reach the next level after level 99 is 500x of the previous level. Although valkyria has been out for almost 3 years, the average level of players is level 125, with hardcore gamers being around level 200-250, top players ranging from 300-350, and the highest level at 355. For an npc, moreover one that just recently became a captain in the army, to be close to level 200 was truly amazing. Eons: ¡°That¡¯s incredible; you must¡¯ve truly trained really hard to gain that level.¡± Alice: ¡°Yea, it is hard for females to become captains in this army, so I had to give 300% to training in order to reach this level.¡± Lisa: ¡°Yea. We¡¯ll do our best to ensure that the efforts you put into becoming a captain are paid off.¡± Alice: ¡°Thank you.¡± Eons: ¡°Ok. Now getting back on topic, you mentioned that the soldier that insulted Rory will be in charge of a carriage, I didn¡¯t know that as a new army we would get a carriage.¡± Alice: ¡°Yes. Typically a new captain is not given a carriage seeing as for their first few missions they will be around Dragus, however due to the nature of our mission, we will be travelling for about a week, so the higher ups gave us a carriage so we can carry our supplies.¡± Eons: ¡°Ah, got it.¡± Alice: ¡°Now for our first mission. Are you guys aware of the Dragus Gate to the west of here?¡± Eons: ¡°Yea, it is the only man made obstacle that any invading army has to pass through in order to reach Dragus.¡± Alice: ¡°Yes that¡¯s correct. According to scouts that were sent out from the gate, there appears to be a small army of lizardmans gathering about 4 days to the northwest of the gate. Our mission is to go ahead and exterminate them.¡± Eons: ¡°Geez, I knew that female captains got the hardest missions, but I didn¡¯t think that they¡¯d send a new captain with soldiers level 3 to face a small army of lizarman who¡¯s level range from 60-70.¡± Alice: ¡°Yea. So it¡¯s up to us to come up with a plan that will allow us to succeed with the fewest amount of casualties.¡± Eons: ¡°That¡¯s right. The first thing we should do before going to face the lizardman is to strengthen up the new troops. It would normally take 1 day if travel straight forth to the Dragus Gate, but I suggest, we lengthen that travel time to 3 days so we can have the troops fight monsters to get experience during the way there.¡± Alice: ¡°Yes, I agree, we will also lengthen the 4 day trip from the gate to the lizard encampment to 6 days for the same reason. Also when we arrive, we will spend some time on reconnaissance. Rory do you know any AOE magic?¡± Rory: ¡°U-uh not really. B-But I c-can m-make some b-b-before we reach the l-lizard e-encampment.¡± Alice: ¡°Good. Do any of you have anything else to say before we head out?¡± Lisa: ¡°No, not really.¡± Alice: ¡°Alright, then let¡¯s head out. We only have a month to completely destroy the lizardman encampment.¡± ______________________________________________________________________________ With the course of action decided for the next week, Alice¡¯s army started to advance towards the Dragus Gate. They took 3 days to reach the gate. During the journey there, they had the soldiers fight the rabbits and later on the foxes that were between the town and the gate. ¡­The results from watching the soldiers fight the small animals were less than what any of them hoped for. Not one of the soldiers had any experience ever holding a sword before. In fact none had any training in any weapon before and the only reason why they joined the army was because their parents force them in the hope that the army would turn them into true man. It was just too bad that they didn¡¯t know that their sons would be given to a female captain¡­ Upon reaching the gate, Alice, Eons, Lisa, and Rory had an emergency meeting due to the poor results that the soldiers showed when facing the rabbits and foxes. Eons: ¡°This will never work. If we have those soldiers fight the lizardman with no sword skills then they will die, even if we take 3 weeks to have them raise their levels.¡± Lisa & Rory: ¡°Agreed.¡± Alice: ¡°Lisa, how long will it take you to make 15 good beginner bows?¡± Lisa: ¡°I can do it in a night.¡± Alice: ¡°Excellent. We will spend the night here while you make the bows. After that we will spend a week training their bow skills. The training will not make them proficient in using a bow, but it will teach them how to aim and shoot. Eons: ¡°Make me a bow too; I¡¯ll use it train my bow mastery too. Now getting back on track with the soldiers. After this week of training the plan goes back to normal, with 6 days of travel will hunting to raise level until we reach the encampment?¡± Alice: ¡°Yes¡± Eons: ¡°Alright. Then when we arrive and due reconainssence, I suggest we take note of the lizardman patrol groups and have the soldiers practice with them before the real show.¡± Alice: ¡°Good idea.¡± Rory: ¡°I¡¯ll also try to make some potions that raise dexterity that the soldiers can use when we go up against the lizardman.¡± Alice: ¡°You have the alchemy skill?¡± Rory (with a proud voice): ¡°Yes. I have it at beginner level 2.¡± Eons: ¡°I¡¯ll also create this idea for a spell that I had that might help.¡± ______________________________________________________________________________ Like that the week of archery training began. It was a long week of training with unexpected surprises during it. The first surprise came 2 days after the training started. This surprise involved Lisa. Lisa had decided to also obtain the archery skill during this stay as you never know when an extra skill might come in handy. On the second day she obtained a skill related to archery. The skill that she got she got is in part thanks to her half breed traits. The skill that she got was called Eagles Eye and it helped her see in the distance better, which is a nice skill to have if you¡¯re an archer. When She obtained that skill, she received another pop-up right after. She was surprised when she got it since it was just like the message that Rory had received a few days previously. {{{Class Change Available Due to your overwhelming pursuit in the path of becoming a craftsman as well as a warrior, the Goddess of Strength, Mana, has taken a liking to you. For catching her attention, she has decided to bestow upon you a new class that will better help you reach your goal. Do you accept? Yes/No}}} Upon reading the message, unlike Rory, Lisa did not hesitate on accepting the new class. A class bestow by a god/goddess is always a blessing. Although she did wondered why Mana was watching them and how she was able to bestow a class to her; since as far as she knew a god/goddess can only bestow a class to a person that had high faith and was present at one of their temple. What Lisa did not know was that Eons was Mana¡¯s Champion, and because Mana did not require a person that was near Eons to go to her temple in order to receive a class. The vicinity around Eons produced the same effect as being a temple; and since Lisa had been around Eons for so long the requirement to have high faith was not needed. The class that Lisa got when she accepted the new class from Mana was called the ¡°Illusionist Craftsmen.¡± It was a class that would allow Lisa to be a craftsman and fight in a way that she wanted to. The class was centered on 2 main skills. The first skill is called mana weave. It is a skilled where she weaves her mana into a piece of equipment. The skill has a high mana usage, but the effects are worth it. The first effect that weaving her mana into equipment has is that it reinforces the piece of equipment. By reinforcing the equipment with magic, durability was greatly increase and depending on whether the equipment was armor or a weapon, magic defense or magic attack would be added. It was a terrific ability to have for any craftsman and it was only at beginners¡¯ level 1. Lisa drooled when she imagined what the skill might do at a higher level. The second effect the skill has was directly tied to the second skill that the Illusionist Craftsmen is centered on. The second skill of the Illusionist Craftsmen is called Illusion Manifestation. This skill can only be activated when the second effect of Mana Weave is used. The second effect of Mana Weave can only be activated if Lisa the power of imagination. When Lisa is using Mana Weave on a piece of equipment if she holds a clear image in her head for the class and the skills of that class that the equipment is meant for, she is able to project that class into that piece. If Lisa were to wear a complete equipment set with the second ability of mana weave on it, she will be able to activate the Illusion Manifestation skill. The Illusion Manifestation skill will allow Lisa to make a pseudo (false) class of the class that she projected unto the equipment using Mana Weave. This pseudo-class will allow Lisa to fight as the class that she imagined with the skilled she imagined. Although the skill is great, it also has a high cost. Illusion Manifestation would last for 2 hours unless canceled, and would consume 25% of her mp, no matter how much mp she has. This would mean that when she fights as a pseudo-class, she will only have 75% of her mp available to use the skills she imagined. Furthermore, while Illusion manifestation is activated her mp regen would also be cut in half. In addition to this penalty, the skills of the pseudo-class will only be at the same level as illusion manifestation. This means that if illusion manifestation is at beginners¡¯ level 1, the skills she has in her pseudo-class will also be at beginner level 1. On the other hand this also means that if illusion manifestation is at advance level 1, then her pseudo class skills will also be at advance level 1. In the future that will be extremely OP. After reading the details of her new class, Lisa decided to make two sets of equipment to use illusion Manifestation on. The first set of equipment was a set meant for archers, while the second was meant for a tanker/warrior for when she used her trusty war hammer. She also weant ahead and updated the equipment she made a few days ago for Eons with her Mana Weave. After using Mana weave, the equipment felt a large improvement. {{{Armor of the Flying Metal King. An incredible armor crafted by an intermediate tailor. The tailor put forth all of her skill and knowledge into creating this masterpiece. Due to the high quality materials used to forge this armor, additional effects have been generated. Due to unknown properties, it is possible to update this armor in the future; perhaps then the unknown properties will be known. The armor has been upgraded using a rare skill called Mana weave. Affects: Defense: +1000 Agility: +100 Dexterity: +50 Magic Defense: +50 Additional Affects: Health +1000 For 5 minutes, immunity towards physical attacks activated. Can only be used once per day. Fire/Poison resist: +25% Requirement: Can only be worn by a person that defeated the creatures this armor was made from. Durability: 750/750}}} {{{Duel Fire Swords Good quality swords that was forged by an amateur blacksmith. Due to the blacksmith adding fire ore into this weapons creation, a fire property was added to the swords. Affects: Dmg: 50-75 per sword Magic Damage: +10 Fire Property: 5 extra fire damage added, has a chance to inflict the status burn Durability: 220/220 Requirements: LVL 80}}} _____________________________________________________________________________ The second surprise of the training session came after Eons created a new skill. The skill that Eons was trying to create tooked him till almost the end of the training to learn. It was a skilled that required a precise combination of fire and water magic to active. Trying to balance 2 opposite elements to create a new spell was not an easy matter, but after days of trial and error Eons finally succeeded. {{{The Skill Mirage Field Has Been Generated. By correctly using fire and water magic, you are able to create a mirage field where you can create illusions. Skill Cost: 500 Mana Field size: 15 meters. Illusions possible: Clone: Costs 50 mana per clone Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.Army: costs 1 mana per soldier.}}} By creating an illusion of an army to use on the Lizardman patrol groups, Eons was hoping to create confusion amongst them and decrease moral, allowing the soldiers to have an easier time to kill them. After creating this skill, the second surprise happened. It was a pleasant surprise related to his class. Since Mana was the goddess of those that followed the path of strength, she rewards those that use their own powers to reach new levels. As Mana¡¯s Champion, it is only natural that Eons uses his own strength to reach new heights. That is why whenever he creates a certain number of skills, his class will reward him for his efforts. This is one of the secrets of his class: by creating x number of skills, he will be rewarded with a new rare skill. The additional skill that he got from his class after creating Mirage Field was called Growth. It was a passive that made leveling up his other skills easier. ______________________________________________________________________________ With the week of training over, the small army started to head out so that they can complete their mission. Alice¡¯s mind was still made up on drawing out their journey towards the lizard encampment so that they soldiers can get stronger while fighting wild animals and monsters. The first thing that the soldiers found out was that there is a difference between hitting a live target and just practicing with their bows and arrows. When they came up against their first monster, only 2 of the soldiers¡¯ arrows hit while the rest missed. That was truly a terrible statistic, but it was still a lot better than when they fought with swords. During the six days that it tooked them to reach the lizard encampment, the soldiers accuracy had really gotten better. Now, collectively they had a 25% accuracy rating with the best soldier being at 35%. Furthermore from their journey from Dragus their levels had risen all the way till level 20. Although they had vastly improved during their travels, the soldiers¡¯ morale quickly dropped when they reached the lizard encampment. The lizard encampment was vastly bigger than what scout reports had suggested it would be. Scout reports suggested that there might had been around maybe 85 lizardman, but the sheer size of the encampment suggested that their might have been 10 times that amount. While looking at the encampment, Alice stepped forward and addressed the troops. Alice: ¡°Alright guys, although there are vastly more troops then what reports suggested, our mission does not change. All of you make sure to stay conceiled we will spend 2 days on surveillance before deciding on a course of action. Now start making camp here for the day.¡± Upon Alice¡¯s order, the troops began to make camp. They had decided to stay about 2 kilometers from the lizard encampment on a cliff that overlooks it. The lizardmen would have a hard time spotting the troops at this location because the cliff was concealed in a forest. With the soldiers making camp, Alice signal for Eons, Lisa, and Rory to follow her. She tooked them down the cliff and started traversing through the forest until she reached the end of the forest. The lizard encampment was located about half a kilometer from their current spot. On reaching the edge of the forest, Alice kneeled down, tooked her hand gauntlets off and place her hand on the ground. For 5 minutes Alice stayed in the position. Then suddenly she got up. Alice: ¡°From what I can tell there are about 600 regular lizardman soldiers, around 50 lizardman lt., around 150 Elite Lizardman and 1 lizard commander.¡± A typical army of lizardman is divided into 3 ranks. The first rank is just your typical lizardman. Above them and the ones that give them orders are the lizardman lieutenants, and then finally above the lizardman lt. is the leader of the whole army, the lizardman commander. Aside from these three ranks, there is another type of lizardman called the Elite Lizardman that is directly under the lizardman commander and usually consists of the strongest lizardmans. The levels of a lizardman that are located around Dragus tend to range from level 60-70; the lizardman lt. range from levels 75-85; the Elite lizardman range from levels 80-95; and a lizard commander can be anywhere from level 100-130. Rory: ¡°H-how c-can you tell h-how many and w-what kind of l-lizardman there are?¡± Alice: ¡°It¡¯s a special technique that I have.¡± Eons: ¡°What kind of technique?¡± Alice (With a seductive smile): ¡°S-E-C-R-E-T¡± Lisa: ¡°Stop inquiring anymore, she¡¯s not going to tell us. We have more urgent problems than what technique she used. There¡¯s no way we can take out 800 lizardman with only 15 newby troops.¡± This was the unmistakable truth. There were far too many lizardman for their small army to win. Eons: ¡°I suggest we go with our original plan on reconnaissance. An encampment that big must sent out patrols. Let¡¯s study how their patrols work and then let¡¯s attack those patrols to slowly kill off the lizardman and train our troops at the same time.¡± Rory: ¡°U-um I¡¯ve also made big AOE spells.¡± Alice: ¡°Very good Rory. Eons, are you able to erect earth walls?¡± Eons: ¡°Yup¡± Alice: ¡°Can you cover the entire lizardman encampment?¡± Eons: ¡°It¡¯ll take a bit of concentration, but yes I can.¡± Alice: ¡°Alright, then here¡¯s the plan. We will spend 2 days watching the encampment and figuring out their patrols. After that we will start attacking each individual patrol. Since we will be attacking their patrols, they will envutually catch on that they are being attacked. Once they figure out that they are being attacked, they will probably not send out a lot of patrol groups. Once this starts, we will wait a day before attacking the encampment.¡± Stopping for a bit to drink some water from her canteen, Alice continued with the strategy explanation. Alice: ¡°Now the attack will happen in the early morning, right before the sun comes up and the lizardman are starting to wake up. Eons will go ahead and surround the entire encampment in earth walls preventing any lizardman from escaping. Rory will then go ahead and unleash her aoe skill on the entire encampment. She will continue to do this till we run out of mana potions. After that we survey the outcome, and if we judge that we are enough to take on the amount of lizardman that survived, we will attack them right there and then; if not then we will continue with surprise attacks till we exterminate them all. Any questions?¡± With no one having any questions or objections, the group ended their strategy session and headed back towards the soldiers. ______________________________________________________________________________ After observing the lizardman encampment for 2 days, they group found that a patrol group goes out every other hour and that they typically consist of 20 members; 19 lizardmans and 1 lizard lt. Carefully following one of the patrol groups, it was time to start eliminating them. Eons activated his mirage field on the group of 20 lizardman and had 100 fake troops surround them. With the sudden appearance of a force that was 5 times there number, the lizardmans became visible confused and nervous. Before the lizardman could get a grasp on what happened, Alice gave the orders for the soldiers to bambard the lizardmans with arrows. Due to the fact that all 20 lizardman were all bunched up together, there were not many arrows that missed. Though they did miss their mark, they ended up hitting some part of the lizardman. It took 1 full minute for the lizard lt. to snap out of his confusion and surprise at the sudden appeareance of a 100 man force. In that 1 minute, the soldiers had managed to kill 5 lizardman. With his senses back, the lizard lt. went ahead and attack the 100 fake troops head on. When he reached one of it he raised the sword he was carrying and slashed at one of the fake soldiers. To his surprise, the sword went right through the fake soldier, almost as if there never was something there to begin with. Before the lizard lt. was able to make heads or tails of what was going on, Rory shot the infernal fire spear she was holding straight at the lizard lt. head. The hit became a critical hit and instantly killed it. With the death of their commander, the lizardmans began to start panicking which lead to a severe loss in morale. For the next 5 minutes, with the help of Rory¡¯s magic and Lisa & Eons shooting arrows as well, the soldiers were able to kill the remaining lizardman. Like this for the next 2 days they killed 10 patrols of lizardmans. Of course not every fight went as easy as the first one. There was one where the lizard lt. was not surprised and shocked, and immediately after the fake soldiers surround them, he ordered the lizardman under him to attack. However this ended up being a pleasant mistake. When the lizardmans clashed with the fake soldiers, the soldiers instantly vanished creating mass confusion and a form of panic in the troops. This made picking them off with arrows and magic all the more easier. The most dangerous encounter was when after surrounding a patrol with fake soldiers and killing half of them off, a second patrol group came. When they saw the first patrol group being half killed and surrounded, they attacked the fake troops from behind. However when they attacked them, the soldiers vanished. That was when the lizard lt. of them first patrol realized that they were being duped. Upon realizing this, he moved his soldiers to join up with the second patrol group. Together, it became easier for them to start blocking the arrows, and without the fake troops around, they were able to pin point where the arrows were coming from and slowly start moving towards the real troops. Unfortunately for them they were not prepared for magic, and thus were unguarded when Eons unleashed Mana¡¯s Smite on all of them and instantly killed them. After two days of killing the lizardman patrol groups, the lizardman encampment started noticing that they were slowly being killed off and stopped sending out patrol. This was the moment that Alice was waiting for. With all of the lizardman all bunched up together in one place, they were easy pickings for strong magic attacks. With that in mind the last stage of their plan was moved into motion. Stepping up, Eons surrounded the entire lizardman encampment with earth walls. The Earth walls were 25 meters tall so that the lizardman could not escape, and 1 meter wide reinforced with magic so that the lizardman could not break through them and Rory¡¯s magic would not destroy the walls. With Eons earth walls erected, Rory stepped up and prepared to cast her magic. As a catalyst to activate her magic, Rory decided to use a medium mana potion. Mana potions were a special type of regent that she could use to activate her magic. Due to the special properties of a mana potion (by special I mean the fact that they recover magic) they activated equally on all elements and they provided a higher boost to magic. The medium mana potions allowed her to fire off her spells at 225% power. Rory used two mana potions in order to allow her to cast two wide area magic spells. Both spells were similar in composition. They were both combination magic but with different elements. One element combined earth, fire, and wind to create a fiery infernal tornado. The second element combined earth, fire, and wind to create a freezing water tornado. She casted both spells at the opposite most extreme of the encampment and for the next 10 minutes she moved the spells all over the encampment killing off the 600 lizardman that were trapped in the encampment. For those 10 minutes all that could be heard was the shrieks of the lizardman as they were burned alive by the fire tornado, slowly frozen by the water tornado, or ripped to shreds by the wind from the tornados; or a combination of all three. Just seeing the chaos that the little female magician had unleashed on the lizardman encampment cost the soldiers to start shivering in fear. But the fear that they felt was nothing compared to the soldier that had insulted Rory when they first met. That soldier had fallen unconscious and wet his pants when seeing the vast amount of power that Rory unleashed on the lizardman encampment. From inside the lizardman encampment, Alice, Eons, Lisa, and Rory could see where a group of lizardman were bunched up together and were surviving Rory¡¯s magic. When Rory¡¯s spells ended, Eons put down a small segment of the wall that was behind the surviving lizardmans. From the hole that was made, 70 Elite Lizardman came out along with the lizardman commander. Although they had survived, they did not escape scratch free. The elite lizardmans had health ranging from 50%-65% with some were inflicted with a frozen, burned, or bleeding status. The lizardman commander had 90% of his health left and was not inflicted with any status effects. Upon seeing the surviving lizardmans and their status, Alice decided that they were capable of killing off these survivors. With that, Alice drew her great sword and dashed towards the lizardman. Upon reaching them she quickly did a horizontal slash decapitating the first 3 lizardman that were in her way. After decapitating them, she then went ahead and turned her sword sideways and did a diagonal slash, cutting a lizardman in half. Upon seeing this women suddenly run up to them and start killing off his elite troops with ease, the lizardman commander moved all the way to the back of his troops and ordered his soldiers to surround Alice and kill her. Although the lizardman surrounded Alice, that did not change their predicament in any way what so ever. She was easily dodging all of their attacks, and for those that she could not dodge, she would go ahead and use her great sword as a shield. Watching the incredible strength that their captain had, the soldiers were awestruck and every fiber of their bodies was brimming with excitement about serving such a powerful captain. Even Eons could not contain his excitement upon seeing Alice¡¯s strength, though his reason was entirely different from the soldiers. Such strength, I would love to fight her. He was thinking. Eons: ¡°What are the rest of you waiting for? Are you going to let Alice kill of them herself? Get your bows out and start shooting at them. Though the lizardman commander is mine!!!¡± Finished saying this, Eons dashed towards the group of lizardman surrounding Alice; but upon reaching them, he did not attack them, but rather activated his air walk technique, by passed all of the lizardmans and Alice, and went straight for the lizardman commander. Seeing Eons childishness on by passing the lizardmans and going straight for the commander, Lisa could do nothing but shake her hand. Lisa: ¡°Rory, command the soldiers, I¡¯ll go and lend a head to Alice.¡± Saying this, Lisa activated her equip skill to switch her equipment to the war hammer set. Equip was an additional skill she got when she switched to her new class. This skill allowed her to instantly put on any equipment set she had registered under this skill. Upon switching her equipment, Lisa activated her illusion manifestation skill, activating her pseudo class. With her pseudo class activated, Lisa dashed towards the lizardman to give a hand to Alice. Upon reaching the lizardman, Lisa noticed that Rory had taken command of the troops and started having them shoot their arrows. Reaching the lizardmans, Lisa swung her hammer and activated her shock wave skill. Shock wave skill was a skill that she had imagined her pseudo-class to have. The skill was set so that upon the strike of her hammer, a shockwave would be released doing internal damage to the target, and releasing a wave that damaged nearby foes. The stronger the force of her hammer when it collides against something the stronger the shockwave. The reason why she had activated this skill with the first swing was because during their constant assault on the lizardman patrol group, they had noticed that due to the natural touch scales the lizardmans had, they had high defense. By using the shockwave skill, the shockwave damage by passes the natural defense of the lizardmans and did internal damage. Due to the fact that the elite lizardman was already damaged, the lizardman instantly died. And the shockwave from the hit drew damaged and drew the attention of 5 surrounding lizardmans. To better deal with them, Lisa activated a tank skill that increased her defense by 10%. With the extra defence added, she was able to take the combined lizardmans attack while she killed them. With Lisa¡¯s, assistance, and the soldiers realizing barrages of arrows, the lizardman were slowly but surely killed by Alice. ______________________________________________________________________________ While passing over the lizardmans with his air walk, Eons drew his dual swords. With his dual swords drawn, upon reaching the lizardman commander, Eons did a jumping downward dual strike towards him. Due to Eons moving above the lizardmans, the lizard commander had not noticed him approach and thus Eons dual strikes ended up being criticals. The attack instantly shaved off 5% of the lizardmans commander¡¯s hp. Upon receiving the surprise attack, the commander became enraged. Issuing a mighty bellow, it drew his mighty axe and faced Eons. Facing Eons, the lizard commander demonstrated uncanny maneuverability and attack speed. He instantly narrowed the distance between itself and Eons and swung his axe. Eons easily blocked the attack with one sword and counter attack with the second axe, hitting the commander in the abdomen. Although the lizard commander demonstrated incredible speed, Eons felt disappointed. Speed was the only thing it had. Due to its tough scales, the commander had grown too attached to the natural protection it provided and had neglected his defense, thus making it very easy for Eons to hit him. Furthermore, although the boss was at level 115, it did not have much experience in facing someone 1 on 1, the commander had grown far too reliant on commanding his subordinates whenever he did damage. This mini-boss character was truly a disappointment. Like this the fight continued with Eons blocking the axe with one sword and hitting the abdomen of the commander with the other. To break through the tough defense of the lizardman, Eons had casted on his blades his Mana¡¯s Light skill and was concentrating all of his attacks on one point. Due to all of Eons attacks being concentrated on one spot, the lizard commanders natural defense was failing, and each continuous slash that Eons did at the same spot did more damage. When the lizardman commander¡¯s hp finally fell to 40% Eons drew back and prepared to end this fight. He had judged that 40% was the minimum that the commander needed to be at so that he can one shot kill it. Seeing Eons fall back, the lizard commander became happy. He was under the impression that he had finally forced his opponent back. This being the case he became more conceited and dropped his guard even further, something that made Eons extremely surprise since he didn¡¯t think that could happened. Due to this ¡®happy¡¯ state the lizard commander was in, he was not prepared for Eons next actions. Very quickly, faster than what the lizard commander was able of noticing, Eons dashed towards him, activated his Wind Lance skill and hit the commander where all of his previous attacks had landed. When the Wind Lance skill hit the commander, the special effect of the skill had activated. Due to the natural increase in penetration that the skill cost, Eons blade had easily went into belly of the commander. Then with the blade inside the commander, the tip of the Wind Lance started glowing and unleashed countless wind blades. The wind blades instantly shredded the insides of the commander. The commander was not able to survive being cut open from the inside out and the 40% hp he had remaining vanished. With Eons duel with the commander finally over, Alice once again bent down to the ground and placed her hand on the floor. After 5 minutes she finally stood up and addressed her soldiers. Alice: ¡°Well done guys. You should all be very proud of yourself. When we first headed out here you were all novices, however through this campaign you have grown much and accomplished a task that was neigh impossible. In two days, being vastly outnumbered and out leveled, we were able to kill 800 lizardmans.¡± With Alice¡¯s small speech, the soldiers started cheering, high fiving each other, hugging each other, and crying with happiness. After 5 minutes, Alice again addressed the soldiers. Alice: ¡°Now that the fight is over, start going throughout the camp and taken and loots that the lizardman had dropped and anything of value that they had in the camp.¡± After the dealing with many lizardmans, the small army had collected many, many loots and items. There were two reasons for this. The first reason was thanks to Eons. During each ambush against the patrols and during this attack on the camp, Eons had activated his Mana¡¯s Blessing skill, a skill that increased the drop rates of enemies. The second reason was mainly thanks to the sheer number of lizardmans that were located here. The troops had not only gathered many loots thanks to Eons spell, but they had grown a lot too. Mana¡¯s Blessing was a skill that also increased experienced. Although they did not kill a lot of the 800 lizardmans, thanks to Mana¡¯s Blessing and the residual experience they got from their commanders and officers kills, they were able to level up level 83. Not only had the soldiers increased in level, Eons, Lisa, and Rory also increased in level. With the kill of 800 lizardmans, and a mini boss at level 115, the trio had finally reached the beginning of truly hard part of leveling up in this game; they had reached level up 19 times and reached level 99. Unfortunately 800 kills and 1 mini boss was not enough for Alice to also level up. This combine kill that not even earn her 1% of the experience she needed to level up to level 198. With their business here finally completed, the small army finally started to return to Dragus. Chapter 6.5: The three headed Troll Meant to put this up early this week, but was sick. _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 6.5: The three headed Troll After arriving back at Dragus, Alice went ahead and reported what had happened to her superiors. For the task of annihilating the large lizardman soldier gathering before they grew even bigger, Alice was given an additional 30 soldiers, bringing her total army count to 45, and was given a 1 month free period where no missions will be assign to her. After everything was settled, all loot divided up, and payment for their services, both Eons and Lisa received 150 gold pieces, while Rory received 250 gold for the big role she played in killing the lizardman. For that one month of free time, Alice decided to put her troops through a month of intensive (hellish) training. This mission had shown her just had badly the system screwed a female captain in the military. They give them the worst starting soldiers, and the worst missions available. She decided to break up her troops into 4 groups. The soldiers were divided into groups based on the weapons they used. The 15 starting soldiers that she had, she put them all into the archer groups since they developed some experience fighting with the bow. The 30 new soldiers she received were divided in the following format: 10 were to be trained as spearman, 10 as swordsman, and 10 as tankers. To better train the warriors, Alice decided to have Lisa supervise the tankers and archers, Eons the swordsman and spearman, and Rory was in charge of watching over the body conditions of the troops. Alice would be in charge of training the basic body of all the soldiers. Like this, the worst month that that soldiers ever had begun, a month that made the soldiers wish that they were dead. After this month the developed a deep, deep fear of their captain. ______________________________________________________________________________ After two weeks of training the troops, Lisa asked Alice if she, Rory, and Eons could have a week off to take care of some business. With permission granted, the trio began preparing to head out. Eons: ¡°So where are we going?¡± Lisa: ¡°We¡¯re going to the northwestern mountain range. I¡¯ve read rumors online that in that mountain range there is some weird mini-boss that showed up a few months ago.¡± Eons: ¡°Hmm, think it¡¯s related to that quest we have that involves finding weird monsters?¡± Lisa: ¡°Might be.¡± Eons: ¡°So what monsters inhabit that mountain range?¡¯ Lisa: ¡°Trolls.¡± ______________________________________________________________________________ The trip to the mountain range took 1 day of travel since the trio did not stop for anything and they were jogging towards them. Upon reaching the mountains, they were able to make out a group of trolls in the distance. The trolls that inhabited the northwestern mountain range near Dragus were about 2.5 meters tall, had hard green skin, a disgustingly ugly face, bulging muscles all over their bodies, carried clubs, and levels ranging from level 70-85. To test out the characteristics of the trolls, the trio separated a troll from the group and faced it solo. From the fight with that troll, the trio discovered 4 facts about the trolls. The first was that the trolls had high speed, they noticed this when the troll charged towards them when it spotted them. The second thing they noticed was that trolls had really high strength. This became obvious when Lisa blocked a swing from the trolls club with her tower shield and was sent backwards about 5 meters. The third thing discovered was that the hard skin of the trolls provided a high natural physical defense for the troll but it was weak towards water magic. The trolls body layout and blood also provided it a high regeneration ability and high health. The last thing discovered was that although the troll had high speed, it had poor maneuverability. In other words, it was slow to attack, react and defend in close combat. After discovering these things about the trolls, the trio did not have much difficulty in hunting them. The only thing that was a bit problematic was that the trolls often travelled in groups of 3-5, but even then that only provided a minor inconvenience. Hunting the trolls became so easy that often time when they encountered groups consisting of the 3 trolls, the trio held a competition where they would each take a troll individually and see show could kill the trolls faster. For these competitions the winner was typically either Eons or Rory. To handle the trolls, Rory developed a combination magic that she called a freezing water spear. It tooked Rory 3 well placed freezing water spears to kill a troll. Eons also quickly handled the trolls by infusing his swords with his Mana¡¯s Light skill and a thin layer of water magic along the blade. Lisa¡¯s build was leaning towards a tanker rather than a damage dealer and she had no magic so it came as no surprise when she didn¡¯t win. Like this, for the next 3 days, the trios hunted hundreds of trolls along the mountain range. On the fourth day they finally encountered what they were searching for. In a large clearing surrounded by boulders there stood a 3.5 meter tall, three headed troll. The troll looked truly vicious. Although it was only a meter taller than the other trolls, its body muscle mass was about twice the size of others, and the mouth of the trolls were also a lot bigger and had huge teeth resembling tusks. The trio did not doubt for a moment that this troll was cable of eating the three of them with no problem. Identifying the troll, Lisa found that it was a mini boss whose level was 95. Lisa: ¡°Bet taking on that troll will be fun¡± Eons (with a happy expression): ¡°Yea. How bout we start with you busting up one of his legs with your hammer?¡± Lisa: ¡°Aye, after that, you and Rory just kill it with your magic¡± Rory: ¡°Got it.¡± With a plan decided, Lisa went ahead and started dashing towards the troll. Noticing Lisa, the troll issued a huge bellow with his three heads and started dashing towards Lisa. Colliding with the troll, Lisa swung her war hammer activating her shock wave skill and hit the troll straight on its right sheen. With the momentum from her running, and the charge of the troll, Lisa instantly shattered the trolls¡¯ leg and sent it back. With the loss of its right leg, the troll started to fall towards its right side. Although it was falling it was not going to go down without putting up a fight. While falling, with its right most head, it opened its mouth and aimed to eat Lisa¡¯s head. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Although the collision with the troll, greatly worked in Lisa¡¯s favor, she was in no position that would allow her to evade the trolls¡¯ mouth. Seeing the trolls mouth reaching towards her, rather than hopelessly try to evade the attack, Lisa decided to take this opportunity to inflict heavy damage towards the troll. Although the hammer (?) part of her war hammer was pointing downwards, the other end of her hammer was pointing directly towards the trolls¡¯ mouth. Grabbing her war hammer further down, with all of her strength, Lisa thrusted the hammer shaft into the trolls mouth, activing her shock wave skill in the process. The tip of the hammer shaft hit the trolls¡¯ throat and with her shock wave skill activated directly inside of the troll, the right most head of the troll instantly suffered massive damaged. (I¡¯d imagine having a shock wave go off in your mouth really messes up your head). While Lisa was busy with the right most head of the troll, Eons started to get to work on the left most head. Going behind the troll, Eons started to slash away at the backside of the trolls left most head. Eons landed blow after blow on the same spot of the trolls¡¯ neck with his Water Mana¡¯s Light skill activated. After the 74th consecutive slash, Eons finally was able to severe the left most head. Since beginning to end, it took Eons only 20 seconds to lend all 74 slashes. While Eons and Lisa took the trolls attention, Rory started to mass produce her Freezing Water Spear. With 15 spears produced, Rory finally attacked the troll. 5 spears were launched at the right most head, 3 at the severed left most head, and 12 at the center head. This final attacked by Rory was enough to kill off the miserable troll with one shattered leg, a severed head, and a broken head. With the death of the three headed troll, the trio were finally able to level up to level 100. And the death of the troll was able to confirm that it was a monster needed for their quest. The meat of the troll was one that gave an increase to health and mana regen by 15/s and increased health by 5000. Unlike the other monsters that dropped hide that could be used to make armor, the troll dropped bones that could be used to make top tier weapons. Although the drops from the troll were great, the thing that truly got the trio excited was increasing their level to 100. Seeing as it required so much experience to even grow 1 level after level 100, what was there to motivate a player to keep on leveling and not focus more on other parts of the game? What motivated them was the bonus that they could get every 50 level started at level 100. Once a person reached level 100, and every 50 levels thereafter, the player was granted the ability to spin a giant wheel, and you received whatever the wheel landed on. Typically the wheel gave about pretty nice things. It gave out rare/mythological equipment; maybe a rare race; an extra skill; maybe even a mythological pet; or a stat increase as well. However, although all of these things are good, if the wheel lands on a stat increase then you will be in for a huge gamble. You can receive a great stat increase or you can receive a crappy stat increase that made that wheel turn worthless. Taken a break, the trio spinned the wheel in excitement. Eons: ¡°What did you guys get?¡± Rory (With a very happy voice): ¡°I got a rare weapon meant for an alchemic witch that grows in level with me.¡± Eons: ¡°Wow that was a really lucky spin then. It sound like you hit the jackpot.¡± Rory: ¡°Yes, I¡¯m so happy. What did you get.¡± Eons: ¡°My spin landed on a mystery egg that requires exp in order to hatch.¡± Rory: ¡°Ohhh, I hope something cute comes out. I want a furry little pet.¡± Eons: ¡°Hahaha, yea, hope it¡¯s a good pet that comes out of it. You¡¯ve been really quite, what did you get Lisa?¡± Lisa: ¡°+50 health.¡± Eons + Rory: ¡°What was that? We couldn¡¯t hear you.¡± Lisa: ¡°+50 health.¡± Eons + Rory: ¡°We still can¡¯t hear you.¡± Lisa (in an angry and loud voice): ¡°I said +50 health!!!¡± Hearing what Lisa said, both Eons and Rory started laughing. They were laughing so hard at her that after a while they were having trouble breathing. Seeing Eons and Rory laughing, Lisa¡¯s face was red with embarrassment. After Eons and Rory stopped laughing, the trio decided to head back to Dragus, their objective was done and they needed to help Alice train the troops. ______________________________________________________________________________ It was night time at a place far from Dragus. There was a mansion resembling a castle on a cliff overlooking a large town. At the innermost chamber of this mansion, there was a young men sitting on a chair resembling a throne seat. The young man had blonde hair, appeared to be in his late teens, was a bit short, and was a bit over weight. Surrounding him were 4 incredible beauties that resembled one another. They were fairly tall, had long black hair, lascivious bodies, they were scantly dress with cloth that left nothing to the imagination, and had soulless eyes; eyes that showed despair and a loss of hope. For the past hour the young man had been impatiently watching the door to the chamber, waiting for someone to enter. Finally, after waiting for what felt like an eternity, someone entered. Walking into the chamber, a messenger came into. Waling forward, about 10 meters form the young man; the messenger kneeled down and paid his salutes to the young man. ??? (In an irritated and tense voice): ¡°Is it done?¡± Messenger: ¡°Yes sir. Although it tooked a bit of money we were able to bribe that captain into faking an emergency. Using this emergency as cover he will enter the ancient forest, and in there he will ¡®accidently¡¯ separate from that little wrench and leave her there.¡± Hearing this, the young man couldn¡¯t help but smile. Alone, that little wrench that would be a thorn at his side in the future would not be able to survive at the ancient forest. Furthermore, like this, it would look like an accident and no one would be able to pin her death on him, they may suspect him, but there won¡¯t be any evidence. That is so long as he gets rid of the captain he had to bribe, something that he considered a simple matter compared to killing her. ???: ¡°Excellent, excellent. As a reward for your service, why don¡¯t you join me?¡± Saying this, the young man wrapped his hands around the four beautiful women, touching them all over, and beginning a night full of depravity.