At first, the only other creatures he encountered in the jungle were small snakes, lizards, frogs and bugs. None of them were worth much considering their levels were lower than the snake he had first slain. Finally, after almost a dozen hours of Felix slicing his way through the jungle, he encountered an enemy worth fighting.
[E - Common] Panther (Lvl 92)
[E - Common] Panther (Lvl 94)
Felix watched as two panther's fought each other for dominance. They leapt and vaulted around the jungle as they each struggled to fell the other, locked in the most acrobatic wrestling match Felix had ever witnessed. Felix didn't really want to interrupt the fight, but these were the first creatures he had encountered in the jungle worth paying attention to. The one with the higher level was actually slightly losing as it was bleeding in multiple locations. As soon as they separated next, Felix finished it off with a Lightning Bolt. He was so used to world bosses and Krakens that he didn't actually expect to kill it with a normal, single sized lightning bolt.
Ding You have slain an [E - Common] Panther (Lvl 94)
The other panther took one look at Felix, then it quickly shot it's head off in another direction then back at Felix. It steeled itself for battle and pounced. The panther was a massive disappointment. Felix was pretty sure his lowest stat would be over twice what this creatures highest stat was. He finished it with a quick Lightning Bolt then headed in the direction the panther had looked in when deciding whether or not to fight Felix. Worst case, it was defending it's young, best case there was a natural treasure to be found. Alternatively, it could have just been swatting a bug. Either way, Felix didn't have any other direction to go so he continued onwards.
The further he traveled, the faster Felix began walking as he got increasingly excited. He encountered more panthers along the way, a lot more panthers, and their levels increased steadily as he traveled. He wasn't overly enjoying one shotting the panthers so he instead opted to practice his long sword combat. Unfortunately, the enchantment on his longsword had the annoying tendency of bisecting them on his first strike. He was steadily improving his swordplay and footwork as he went though. He even managed to gain a level in Caster a few panther's in, after killing a panther sitting at level 99.
After that, he found another 3 panther's and gained another level before the jungle was completely empty. He considered the possibility that he had walked in the wrong direction, but his map disagreed. He continued onwards through the jungle, carving a path forwards with his sword. He began to notice all of the animals of the jungle were oddly quiet and missing where he would normally have expected them to be loud and aggressive. Before this silent patch, he had heard the occasional bird, bug or frog every once in a while, now though, there was nothing. It was almost an hour before he encountered another living creature of any kind, and it was in fact, another panther.
[D - Common] Panther (Lvl 103)
Was that gap just the E grades giving berth to the D grades?
Seems like it. Grim responded.
The difference between E grade and D grade, was massive. Felix's only other experience with a D grade was the Kraken, which was going to be hard to kill no matter what grade it was. He also hadn't fought an E grade Kraken so he had no idea what the difference between them was. With the panthers though, he had just fought multiple panthers at the peak of E grade and he was pretty sure he was doubling their agility, at least. With the D grade panthers, he was only just slightly beating them out in agility.
The fights were no longer one sided and they actually managed to avoid his swings and try to strike back. He still killed them in a single strike of his sword, but he couldn't just swing at them freely anymore. At least they provided valuable combat experience.
The panther's levels continued to marginally increase for hours. There were also some with an Uncommon rarity sprinkled into the mix as Felix traveled. Eventually, there was another gap, smaller this time, around a single panther that circled some sort of plant.
[D - Rare] Alpha Panther (Lvl 121)
Finally, a worthy opponent…
Your battle will be legendary! Grim finished.
Felix slowly walked towards the panther, sword at the ready. It immediately noticed Felix and jumped between him and the plant then began snarling. Felix continued onwards, unperturbed until he was just a few meters from the panther and it leapt forwards. This panther, was much faster than Felix so he had to engage his boot inscriptions to step to the side and avoid it. The panther immediately bounded off the ground instead of landing and re-engaged. Felix barely managed to turn and activate his Mana Shield inscription. It blocked the attack and slightly stunned the panther who slid to the ground on the hard surface of his shield.
Felix dropped the shield and stabbed forwards to finally land a blow, but it leapt backwards faster than he could move. The battle continued like this until Felix got caught by a claw that ripped his left thigh open. He waddled back and defended as many strikes as he could but the panther was much faster than he was and didn't intend on letting him go now that he had made a mistake. Felix blocked and parried the strikes until the panther got overconfident and dove forwards to rip Felix's throat out. Instead, Felix dropped to the ground and brought his sword up, removing it's front left leg. It fell to the ground and stumbled, allowing Felix to kill it with a final blow through it's neck.
This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
Take the body.
I don't really need a bunch of corpses littering my inventory.
The sprite might be able to take the form of corpses you feed it, if your soul makes it intelligent enough.
Which we're pretty sure it will.
Almost certainly.
Felix quickly cauterized the cut on his leg and stowed the panther's body, picking up the leg he had removed along with it. He limped over to the plant which he now saw was actually just a pile of leaves and vines intended to hide something beneath it. Before he could figure out what it was though, another panther leapt from the trees and attacked. This one was a normal panther in the D grade with an Uncommon rarity and a level of 112, no different than any of the panther's he had killed on his way here. He sliced it down fairly quickly with just a few parries required. He avoided dodging due to his leg injury but that didn't hinder him much. As soon as it died, another panther attacked.
Before he had even finished this one off, another panther attacked him from behind. The panther's continued to leap out of the trees and attack him, as if trying to create a dogpile. Felix continued to cut them down with his fire sword, ready to switch to Lightning Bolts at any moment if he felt he was in real danger. Felix slew over a hundred panther's before the torrent seemed to subside. Lucky for them too as Felix had run out of mana on his sword as he fought the last one, luckily the remnant heat was enough to kill it.
Ding You have slain an [E - Rare] Alpha Panther (Lvl 121)
Ding You have gained a level in [E - Common] Caster
Ding You have slain 104 [D - Common] Alpha Panther (Lvl 100-116)
Ding You have gained a level in [E - Common] Caster
I got one level from the alpha panther, then a SINGLE level from slaying 104 panthers?
Yikes.
I have no idea how people are going to keep leveling once they hit D grade. I fight alone and tend to fight much higher level enemies.
It's just going to be slow, not impossible.
Yeah I guess.
Most people would take a week at least with their party to cut their way to the alpha.
That sounds like a HUGE waste of time.
To you, I suspect for most people, that's just how they level and eventually, they grow accustomed to the pace.
Speaking of levels, I hit level 100 there, then got another level?
Yeah, noticed that too.
D Grade
You have reached the prerequisite level to upgrade to D grade in your class.
You may open the class selection screen to select your class upgrade now.
Note: It is possible for these options to change if you decide not to evolve now. It is possible some options will not be displayed until you have reached the prerequisite level to evolve in your profession and race as well.
Note: You can continue to gain experience, but you will not gain any stats from the levels beyond the threshold until you evolve. Those levels will be active as soon as you evolve however.
I should just wait then, shouldn't I?
Yeah. I don't see how those options could be worse than the ones it shows you now, more requirements likely means better. I'll post a question though and let you know.
I'll just wait till that get's answered then, don't want to tease myself too much.
Felix bent down and brushed aside the leaves and brush to reveal a large red crystal. It was massive, almost the size of a basket ball. Felix tried identifying it, but didn't get any useful information.
[D - Rare] Ruby
You know nothing about the properties of this material.
Well that was decidedly unhelpful.
It's a big gem and probably has some cool power or ability. Who cares though? Pocket it and let's go find another.
You don't think I should try and get my profession to level 100 so I can see my options?
I think you should get the sprite as fast as possible.
Fair enough.
Felix stowed the ruby and sat down to meditate and restore his health. While he did so, he also created a new battery for his sword and replaced it. Once he was fully restored, he set out into the jungle and searched for another treasure. Over the next 6 days he found another 4 treasures guarded by birds, hippos, frogs and bugs. The bugs were particularly annoying, not difficult, just annoying to deal with. He mostly sprayed them down with a flame thrower but it did make him start thinking about some sort of chain lightning bolt so he didn't have to deal with hitting them individually.
They guarded a yellow rock, a flower, a liquid and a tree. The liquid was in a small basin and Felix almost missed it, but it now sat in a canteen safely stowed in his inventory. The rock he simply picked up, though it was rather large. The flower and tree were the hard ones to figure out. He didn't know if there was a correct way to harvest them and neither did Grim so he just dug them up as much as possible with the junk in his inventory then cut them down at the root.
Once he had collected the tree though, he didn't have any time to head back to his tower with just over an hour until Noah and the rest of the citizens arrived.
Atalus
Would you like to teleport there now?
Yes.
No.
Yes.
Felix found himself on the front step of the only building in the city and quickly flew over to the basin of water to clean himself off. Once that was done he sat on the front step where he had arrived and began meditating, funneling mana to feed his soul space.
Right on time, exactly when scheduled, Noah appeared hand in hand with Amelia. After which, at least 20,000 thousand people followed and appeared scattered around the area.
Trenus World Announcement.
Welcome to Trenus.
Everyone has arrived from their respective tutorials. There will be a world council meeting in 3 weeks time attended by the vote holders and their representatives. The agenda for this meeting will be simple introductions and a vote on whether or not to end the restricted settlement founding period. The three options for the world event will also be presented and that vote will occur at the following meeting, 4 months later.
World Event? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .