"Alright, I've logged in safely. Can you hear me loud and clear?" Soren asked, as he was standing on the same spot he previously logged off from the previous day, as it had passed uneventfully after logging off.

"Loud and clear Soren. No complications on our side either." Nicolas stated calmly, as Dr.Vale spoke through the microphone next. "Yesterday we got a decent idea of your capabilities in the game, so for today I'll have you hunt a few specific monsters. Now, can you check the back of your right hand?"

"The back? Why the... Why do I have a red arrow on the back of my hand? What do it point to?" Soren inquired calmly, as the direction of the arrow moved around as he moved his own hand in a similar manner.

"That's a Tracker Arrow. As its name implies, it's used to track anything, which in this case are the creatures you'll be hunting today. It's only meant for testing purposes, such as looking for new creatures and making sure their behavior and attack patterns are working properly, but it's also used to locate objects as well. For today and the next days onwards, you'll be using the Tracker Arrow to hunt down a special monster from a list of different creatures we've registered. I also suggest to stock up on your healing consumables as well. Get going now Soren and don't get yourself killed early."

Once Dr.Vale finished speaking, Soren gave a quick nod, before trying to make his way back to the settlement, which took him just a bit under two hours, since he always remembered its general direction and dashed straight towards it, instead of killing critters and collecting stuff, like he would do during his previous excursions. Once he made it, he quickly made his way towards Manny's shop and ordered fifteen Trainee's Health Potions, which cost him a bronze coin and fifty copper coins.

"You're certainly buying a lot of potions kid. Are you going on an expedition or something?" Manny curiously asked, as she stared at Soren inquisitively.

"Something like that..." Soren responded awkwardly, as Manny's gaze was making him a bit uncomfortable, before remembering something important and immediately ask. "By the way, do you have any alchemy sets of some kind? I'd like to borrow one, if possible."

"Sorry kid. Unfortunately we got none at the moment. Better wait until the guys return from their expeditions, if they do return in the first place. Hehehe..."

"Return? Wait, they have the alchemy sets!? Why do they have them!?" Soren inquired incredulously, as he barely managed to keep himself from yelling loudly in anger.

"Because the other alchemists in the expeditions are using them. Don't you know the importance of an alchemist in an expedition? The ability to create combat supplies during expeditions, especially in dangerous locations, is borderline necessary, let alone invaluable. Trust me kid, you don't want to run out of medical supplies in the middle of combat."

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"Fair enough... So, when will they return?"

"If everything goes well, probably in a couple days. If not, maybe never." The moment she said that, Soren silently gulped, as shivers went down his spine, before leaving Manny's shop and making his way towards Maybelle's shop and giving his sword a quick repair, which cost him another fifty copper coins. After taking care of the repairs, Soren considered going to the Hunter's guild to turn in his kills, but decided to do so after taking care of his targets, since he'd have more kills and maybe it'd be enough to rank himself up to the Purple rank.

With his preparations completed, Soren left the settlement and quickly rushed once more towards his first target, while also trying to avoid as many unnecessary encounters as possible, as well as ignoring most collection points. It wouldn't take him longer than an hour to arrive at his first target, but once he arrived near it, he couldn't help but feel disappointed, as his first target was a sleeping robed doll.

"Um... Is this my first target?"

"Don't write it off as another doll you're used to fighting. Even the doll with the wind slash pales in comparison to it." Dr.Vale stated coldly, as she added in a similar manner. "All of the targets are creatures that should be doable for your current stats and abilities, with a variety of abilities and stat differences between them. For now, try your luck and see what you can do with it. Death is also an acceptable result, although I'd prefer for you to avoid it as much as possible."

*sigh* "Could you at least tell me what I should expect from this particular doll?"

"I'll just let this next part be a surprise." The moment Dr.Vale made that statement, Soren could only sigh worriedly, as he stared at the doll and wondering what kind of attacks it might have, before shaking his away all of his negative thoughts and gathering all of his courage for the fight he'll be engaging on.

The moment Soren took a few steps in front of the sleeping doll, the doll suddenly woke up and took out a wooden stick and waved it around, creating a powerful wind wave, that slowly pushed him back by a few centimeters. While Soren used one of his hands to guard himself from the powerful winds, the doll started waving its wand once again and shot a slow moving bubble, which quickly picked up speed and exploded right in front of him, slightly hurting and drenching him in the process.

As he quickly recovered from the bubble explosion, the doll shook its wand and snowy wind started flying towards him, but Soren quickly dashed to hide behind a tree, as he could feel the sharp temperature drop enveloping him. As he was hiding behind the tree and cold wind was blasting it, ice was slowly forming on the corners of his body and he could tell that if he didn't do something, his entire body would turn to ice, so he quickly grabbed a few pebbles and acorns from his inventory, before throwing a couple of them towards the doll, in an attempt to disrupt it.

Unfortunately, his attack missed completely and a couple of his fingers on his left hand had completely frozen over, as well as a part of his waist. Seeing this, Soren continuously threw pebbles and acorns, as his body slowly turned into ice and after a couple of throws, one of the acorns ended up hitting the doll on its head, stopping the cold winds from being emitted from its stick, at the cost of half of his left hand, a part of his left leg and the left side of his waist being completely frozen over.

Unfortunately, he couldn't take the opportunity to charge down the doll, as his leg was partially frozen and he couldn't quite close the distance between the two of them, as the doll recovered and immediately started blowing strong winds once more, before being followed by the speeding bubble, which he quickly dodged by jumping towards a tree. While trying to catch his breath by hiding behind the tree, he felt a sudden explosion of pain, as a stone javelin exploded his frozen waist into chunks of frozen flesh and blood, before everything slowly turned black and a panel appeared in front of him.

You have died. Penalty: You won't be able to log in for the next 01:00:00 hour(s).