They soon finished their task and found Twix and Mars. The same glass tanks Grandpa had used sat beside Twix. Kit felt his eyes start to twinkle at the sight of more tanks filled with the crustations and catfish. Mars and Twix saw the look on his face and started to laugh.
“We thought you would be happy.” Kit just nodded his head at Twix in reply.
“Right then, let’s get to grinding some monsters. Then we can get Kit back to the restaurant.” Grandpa had a gleam in his eye as he spoke. Kit chuckled he could tell what was going on inside Grandpa’s head, the man was a foodie after all.
Grandpa led them further around the lake. Kit was amused by the sight of Grandpa and Twix having a trail of glass tanks behind them as they walked. After a while of walking Kit could see large logs poking out of the water not far from where they were heading.
“The Purple tailed turtles are found in this part of the lake. I’ll lure some out of the water with some bait. Twix you keep an eye out for the bugs.”
As they got closer to the logs Kit started to hear a soft buzzing noise. He turned to look at Twix to see him pull out his staff. Lightning crackled up and down the staff in a dazzling display. Twix eyes were fixed on one of the logs not too far away. Kit followed his gaze.
As he focused on the logs, he noticed an abnormality. The log was rippling with movement. Suddenly like a switch was flipped tiny brown bugs rose from the log. The buzzing noise increased, the sound made Kit grit his teeth. He became agitated with the sound. He quickly shoved cloth in his ears to stop the noise.
Kit kept his eyes on the bugs the whole time he put the fabric in his ears. The swarm of bugs swirled then descended upon them faster that Kit had thought possible. Kit watched as Twix became a human bug zapper just like Grandpa asked. Lightning shot from his staff towards the swarm. When the lightning made contact with the bugs they dropped from the sky.
Kit thought that it was over until he saw Twix release another bolt of lightning. Kit’s eyes went wide as he looked around. Large brown swarms of bugs were descending on them from all directions. Kit watched as Twix sent out bolt after bolt at the swarms.
The hordes of bugs kept increasing until, at one point, Kit couldn’t see the sky. Fear started to grip him at the sight in front of him. Would Twix be able to handle so many bugs all by himself. Kit gazed anxiously at his friend. As he looked more closely at Twix Kit’s eyes widened in surprise.
The lightning was no longer crackling from Twix staff. His friend’s whole body was now sizzling with lightning. Twix’ hair was floating around him with an invisible force. Kit watched as the lightning flashed over Twix’ skin then started to increase in intensity.
Twix skin started to glow with a blue hue. When the blue glow peaked Twix suddenly slammed his staff to the ground and large bolts of lightning shot out in all directions from Twix body. The sky started to rain down with bugs.
The once green terrain turned brown. Once the sky returned to normal, Kit took the cloth from his ears.
“Holy pink potatoes! That was a lot of bugs. I’m really glad you came with us Twix.”
When Twix had said earlier that he would not believe him until he saw the swarms himself. Kit had imagined a few large swarms of bugs would appear. What he had seen was nothing like he had expected.
Kit gazed at Twix with admiration. He had looked so cool with the lightning crackling all over his body.
“Kit you will have to make Twix something extra special with the ingredients we collected today. Those bugs are the reason this area is so dangerous. They can eat a man alive at your level in under 10 seconds. They may be small, but they make up for it in numbers.”
Grandpa drew a breath then kept talking. “Surprisingly the little fellows have quite sharp teeth. Just being bitten by one or two is not problem. They will just leave a little hole in the skin from their bite and a bit of venom that causes itchiness.”
“If you come here in the future to get some more ingredients, make sure you take Twix with you. It’s very difficult to shake off the swarms.” Grandpa was staring at Kit with sharp eyes. Kit could tell he was waiting for him to answer.
“Ok Grandpa, I will take Twix if I ever come back here.” There was no way he would leave Twix behind after watching that spectacle.
“Good now let’s continue.” Grandpa looked happy with Kit’s answer.
As Kit followed Grandpa, he heard the crunching of dead bugs under his boots. Revulsion at the sound sent a quiver through Kit’s body. He felt like stuffing the cloth back into his ears. Kit couldn’t wait to make it past the graveyard of bugs.
They soon made it to the bank of the lake in front of the logs. Grandpa went over to one of the tanks filled with shrimp and took a hand full out. He then walked over to the water’s edge and made a trail of the shrimp that led to where they were standing.
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“Now we just wait. The Purple tailed turtles go crazy for these guys, so it shouldn’t take long for them to come out.”
Grandpa was right it didn’t take long for a head to emerge from the water. The beady eyes of the turtle were locked onto the shrimp. The head made ripples in the water as it surged forwards. Soon multiple heads were poking out of the lake.
Kit watched as a turtle made its way out of the water. The turtle just like its name had a bright purple tail. Its shell was black with a pattern of red swirls. It was the size of a small dog. Kit had been expecting a giant turtle, so he was surprised to find it was so small.
He watched as the turtle made slow progress towards the shrimp. Like turtles on earth, it was quite slow in its movements. Kit furrowed his brow. If it was this slow, it should be easy to kill, right? At this thought a smile blossomed on his face. Finally, a monster that would be easy to kill!
Kit took out his sword from it sheath then waited for more of the turtles to descend onto the bank of the lake. He glanced over at Mars to see him doing the same. Once there was a fair amount of turtles congregated Kit and Mars surged forwards.
As they got closer to the small reptiles a sea of turtle heads swung their way. Kit hesitated in his movements. He could feel aggression leaking from the small creatures just from their stare. He felt a shiver run down his spine.
Kit lifted his sword to take a strike at the closest turtle’s head. As his sword descended the red swirls on the turtle’s shell started to glow. Then the red swirls lifted from the turtles back and flew towards him. Kit’s eyes went wide as the red swirls came closer.
The red swirls connected with his body and Kit felt a tremendous force send him shooting backwards. Kit went flying through the air and hit the ground hard rolling backwards with the force.
- 500 health
Kit grunted from the pain. He slowly sat up and stared at the little turtles with frustration. Where was his easy kill? Why did such a small creature pack suck a huge punch? Kit glance around to see if Mars had faired any better. To Kit’s surprise Mars was sitting on the ground not far from him with a stunned look on his face.
Kit laughed out loud at the sight.
“Mars this is the first time I have seen you defeated by a monster. Your perfect record is broken.”
The smile on Kit’s face was huge. After seeing Mars in the same situation as him, Kit felt better about being able to keep up with Mars fighting skills. He had been worried for so long now about this, it was like a huge boulder was lifted off his shoulder. Seeing Mars be imperfect made him appear more human to him.
Mars lifted his eyebrow at Kit.
“Kit even I won’t be able to predict everything. It’s only natural I’ll be caught off guard sometimes. Everyone has to fail at some point in their life or they will not be able to improve.”
“Very true my friend. Shall we go and improve ourselves together?” Kit gave Mars a large smile.
Mars laughed at Kit’s reply. “Ok let’s go and improve ourselves together. I think we will need to work together to defeat these small turtles anyway.”
“What is your plan Mars?”
“I will distract one to fire the red swirls towards me then you attack once the swirls leave the shell. Hopefully it can’t rapidly fire the attack.”
“Alright let’s give it a try.”
The pair made their way back to the turtles. Mars approached the nearest turtle with caution. When it released its attack, Mars dodged out of the way narrowly missing the red swirl.
Kit quickly struck out a strike at the turtle’s head while it was distracted. He felt a shock wave up his arm from the force of the strike. He quickly pulled the sword backwards to slice the skin. Blood sprayed out of the cut. Kit felt his adrenaline spike.
- 3,000 damage critical hit.
Kit quickly struck again before the turtle could send out another pulse of the red swirls. He aimed his sword to connect to the same place as his previous hit. As the sword connected the head fell from the body.
- 5,000 damage critical hit.
Ding!
[Purple tailed turtle killed]
2 x turtle meat
Reward: 3,000 experience.
“YES! Mars we did it. These little suckers are going down.”
Kit couldn’t contain his excitement. Now that they could counter the red swirl attacks, the turtles were easy to deal with. Finally, an easy monster that was not messy!
Kit and Mars took turns countering the red swirls. Kit could feel his dodging improving with the practice. Hopefully soon he could increase the skills level.
Soon they had cleaned up all the turtles that had clambered from the lake. Grandpa moved them along the bank, then they repeated the process with another batch of turtles.
They spent the next couple of hours killing turtles and frogs. Kit managed to raise his swordsman level to 28. With the rate he was improving Kit felt it wouldn’t be too long before he would reach level 100. He felt a ripple of anticipation at that thought.
When lunch time was getting near Grandpa called a stop to the training. Kit wanted to find out what caused the lake to turn red before they left. He headed over to the water’s edge to have a closer look.
Kit knelt down at the bank of the lake to get a closer look into the water. Kit could see fluffy red plants covering the entire bottom of the lake. His question was finally answered about how the lake got its colour. Kit wanted to get a closer look at the strange looking underwater plant.
“Grandpa do you think you could get me some of those plants to have a look at.”
Kit pointed his finger into the lake. Grandpa’s eyes followed his finger.
“You want some of those? Just so you know, they taste terrible Kit.”
“You have eaten them before?”
“Yes. I like to try different things. You never know when something will surprise you and taste great. Those unfortunately really do taste terrible.”
Kit fixed his eyes on the plants. They were in the same area as all the crustations. Snickers words rang in his ears. He would collect them even if they tasted awful. He never knew what would combine to create a stats dish.
“It doesn’t matter if it tastes awful, I still want some.” Kit pulled his eyes from the plant and gave Grandpa a pleading look.
“No need to look at me like that. Of course, I’ll get you some.”
Grandpa removed his staff and in the next moment a large patch of the aquatic plants was floating through the air towards the tanks.
“I’ll fill the bottoms of the tanks with the plants. How does that sound. Will it be enough?”
Kit happily nodded his head.
Once the plants were nestled at the bottom of the tanks. The party headed back to Spartan Fire.