Foxes. It just had to be foxes.
The wave this morning happened the same as all the rest had and I found myself being serenaded in the cacophony of ungodly yips. I had never seen a fox before in real life but if these were anything to go off of, they were annoying as hell.
As the group traveled toward our walls all you could hear were the yips and yaps of over a hundred of the annoying creatures. I was already planning to kill them but I was going to try ever so harder now. It was like it was a mental attack before they reached us, there were no other explanations that explained why they had to be so loud.
It was nearly impossible to get the high-pitched screeches out of my head before the leading animals reached me. The next thirty minutes were mostly a blur of gore, viscera, and fluids better left undescribed. The foxes were not very durable, but where they lacked in fortitude they made up for in sharp teeth that easily penetrated skin.
The boss was the most difficult part, it was past the level 10 threshold and was an absolute nightmare to take down. Everyone outside of the wall was, once again, told to retreat so we didn't get to fight it up close. There were a few more volunteers this time out in front of the wall which was a nice bonus. Jonathan and my Dad joined me and a few more as well, it was nice to see people putting in the effort to get stronger.
While we were retreating through the gate, the only living beasts left of the wave were a few foxes who lagged behind the rest, along with the boss. The boss wasn't massive, nor did it have a coat of armor surrounding it that made it so difficult. It was only 50% bigger than the normal foxes of the wave and those were only the size of the average dog.
It was the speed that the boss had that made it so difficult. It dodged all of the arrows that were shot at it and laughed at the slow magic bolts aimed at it. It was a mess of changing directions weaving around other foxes for cover, and the uncanny ability to know when magic was heading toward it.
I saw a fire bolt that Rachel launched that I was sure would hit the thing while it was facing the other way trying to dodge an arrow. Not only did the boss dodge the arrow, it never even turned around to see the fire bolt before it ducked out of the way. It had a sixth sense or something and was a master of evasion.
As the boss neared, we were given the order to retreat. When the boss saw us filing through the gate it charged at full speed, trying to get through.
Half of us tried to sprint faster through the gate so we could close it, the other half turned to brace for the boss' charge, with a couple who stood there not knowing what to do.
I was a part of the group that turned around to face the charge, but before the boss could reach us a wall of ice sprang from the ground blocking us from the boss. The boss' charge was halted by the magic barrier that it suddenly found itself facing and it rammed face-first into it. The ice making up the wall cracked but held from the force of the charge.
Before I could think any further on the matter, we were shouted at to get behind the walls. After we made it through and closed the gate, the wall of ice disappeared. It held long enough for all of us to make it inside of the walls.
"Good job, Alice." I heard my Grandfather say before I looked up onto the guard tower to see Alice slumped down in exhaustion.
It must have taken a decent amount of mana to make a wall of ice that size and she was feeling the aftereffects now. I didn't even know what skill it was, and now that we were all inside of the wall, and our melee group's jobs were done, I sought out Jack to ask him about Alice's new skill.
He informed me that for Alice's level 6 skill, she got Ice Wall and that was what was just displayed. I noted it down for later and added it to my list of potential skills to buy or get.
It was a perfect skill for a tactical retreat, you could erect a barrier behind you while you moved to a better spot. Or you could put it off to the side to shrink the front line of a battle. It could also be used to give you a slight reprieve from battle if placed between you and the wave.
It could also be used how Alice did just now and give us a few extra moments to shut the gate. I didn't know if I'd use my last class skill for it, but it sure wouldn't be a bad one to use points for.
For the sixth wave of the tutorial, I got a whopping 765 points. It was a far cry away from the 15 that I earned on the first day. Hell, it was 3/4ths of the way to another skill. I knew that I would have to give half of them up for whatever we decided to purchase as a group, but it was still a considerable amount.
This was the first wave that I out-leveled all of the regular monsters in a wave and it felt good. I was still lower than the boss of a wave but all except that were level 6 and 7. I established my lead, now all I had to do was hold it.
My stats were a lot higher than where they started and it showed the difference in the wounds that I took. As an example, Mark, a level 5 warrior, had deep bite marks from the foxes that bled profusely until a healer applied a skill to the wound, while when I got bit, the teeth penetrated a few inches and the wound dribbled blood instead of gushing.
The wound most likely would have closed by itself given time, but there was no point with healers on stand-by to fix just that. My strength was the biggest difference. I was most familiar with fighting boars all day and not the different monsters of the wave, and boars were inherently defensive in how they spent levels. Or however animals level.
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The foxes weren't as tanky as the boars, and my axe without any skills did considerable damage to them. Just the common skill of Penetrating Strike was enough to bisect them and that said nothing of my new uncommon skill. Speaking of, it worked like a charm. It had a penchant for turning what used to be inside a creature, outside... in a violent manner.
I used it on one unlucky fox and it disappeared in a mist of pinkish red that made it look like a bomb went off. I was just glad I had my mouth closed, there were some things I was better off not knowing what they tasted like.
I didn't feel like covering myself in gore any more than I had to, so I kept the use of that skill to a minimum. A small part of me enjoyed obliterating the monster like that but I couldn't indulge that part of me now, people would start to think I was a psychopath.
I had saved my free point from reaching level 8 for the wave to see if there was anything I needed to improve. The foxes, being as fast as they were, proved hard to hit. There were enough of them so that it wasn't that big of an issue, but if I had to pinpoint one, it was difficult. How it was now was if I missed one, I would hit a different one.
I knew it was a smidge cocky to go into a fight with a stat point unspent but it was only 1, there's only so much one stat point would do. I still put it into agility though, midway through the fight to help matters.
My new skill was a blessing during the wave and was most of the reason that I did so well. It was the perfect counter to the fast and weak fur balls and when the blue blade made of mana hit them, it crippled limbs and broke bones.
Sweeping Slash took some getting used to, but after sparring with Austin yesterday, I had a decent handle on it. The mana manipulation practice every day helped and it made adjusting to the new skill intuitive instead of grasping in the dark.
The skill had a variable amount of mana to activate and the initial amount changed the distance the blade extended out. I could pump the skill with as much mana as I could for a blade that extended a yard out from the end of my axe, or I could adjust it for a smaller blade.
The blade followed where I swung my axe and extended the range of my swings. The only thing wrong with the skill was that the mana blade wasn't the strongest. When I used it while hunting this morning before the wave, the blade broke against the boar's skin and all it did was leave superficial marks on the hide.
The hardest part of the skill was getting the blade to go away. It wasn't as easy as an on-off switch and I had to be careful how I swung my axe in the beginning until I got the hang of it. The knowledge the skill gave me was to cut off the projected blade from my weapon and the mana blade would dissipate, but I thought that was wasteful.
There wasn't anything I could do differently but it felt wrong to leave all that mana to just dissipate. I tried to launch it, so it would do some extra damage from range, but it didn't work. It was disappointing, but I had to settle for what I knew. Both of my new skills were extremely helpful and I was very glad in my choices.
During the clean up I looked over my Status.
Name: Christopher Zalenski
Race: (H) Human
Class: Warrior – Level 8
Profession: None
Faction: Zalenski Family (Temporary)
Strength- 31
Agility- 14
Perception- 10
Fortitude- 19
Endurance- 22
Vitality - 21
Intelligence- 9
Wisdom- 12
Acumen- 8
Free Points: 0
Laws: None
Skills: Heavy Blow(Uncommon), Fortified Body(Common), Throwing Weapon Proficiency(Beginner), Identify(Common), Penetrating Strike(Common), Sweeping Slash(Common)
Coins: 0
Points: 409
It was good progress and the skills weren't as derelict as before. What I really wanted to remedy on the sheet was the blank profession. Scott ended up gaining the Carpenter profession yesterday and told all of us about it.
He said that it had the same stat increase per level as classes did and carpenter gave +2 Strength, +2 Agility, +1 Wisdom, +1 Acumen per level. It was a good answer to a lopsided class. I wondered what would happen if you evolved into a strength-heavy class, would you have to spend every free point trying to keep your other stats from lagging too far behind?
There had to be other ways to get stat points other than through levels and training. Training was already slowing down and I couldn't imagine how slow it would be to increase a stat through training when you had over 100 strength. There were obviously some diminishing returns, and my training proved that.
I kept at it though, because every bit helped, and leaving a potential increase on the table was the paramount of idiocy. It made sense that training would do less and less because otherwise someone could just lift weights for years on end and get 100s of stat points in strength.
I really wanted to dissect the information tab in the store because there had to be answers to my questions, and I wanted to find them.
After Scott got his profession, the others followed later that day using his guidance. It showed how much faster it was to get a profession by having someone teach you, rather than being self-taught.
The profession was a much-needed life improvement and it went a long way for people's moods. The 3 newly minted carpenters got straight to work and replaced our derelict tents with some proper lodges.
There wasn't enough time to build everyone their own personal lodge, so I still had to share, but it was infinitely better than the tent. They made actual furniture and accessories. We now ate at a table, instead of doing the lap table we were forced to. Also, we now had chairs replacing the stumps we were using.
There were other quality-of-life improvements that all added up to a monumental change. The three of them were working nonstop all day to crank out as much new stuff as they could. Their skills were a wonder to watch and it went to show how magical our new world was.
They didn't get to pick like we did with our classes, so all of them started with the same skill but they had the techniques they could use from the book we had purchased. Scott was especially proficient with his new profession since he had previous experience in woodworking and building various things.
Seeing how much easier a profession made things, we unanimously decided that's what we would spend our points on until we had all the basic professions to make things easier.
We gained about 7,000 points to use for spending on the group and could now afford another profession book. Leatherworker was the profession that won, after discussion, and we soon had a total of two books in our possession.
Our gear was in desperate need of repair, and we also needed something to do with all of the animal skins that got delivered to us every three days. Only two people wanted to become leatherworkers and I would be first in line for commissioning their skills.
I believed I would look dashing in a new fox fur pauldron. They deserved to be made into armor and I would get no small amount of glee from wearing one because of how annoying they were. My pettiness was on a new level.