While in town, I headed out to take my level 9 exam. On the way, I went to the market and sold all the junk I had beaten out of the players today at minimal cost. Surprisingly, along with the clean money I had knocked out, this gave me a profit of more than one gold piece. If I ever get bankrupt, I now know a quick way to make money.
At the Mage's Guild, I paid for my exam and went to the arena. But when I saw my opponent, I felt sick to my stomach. In the last exam, the monster had 20,000 health, but in this one it was already 200,000. What's more, a scan of the boss' characteristics showed that its damage was appropriate. It was a huge cross between a caterpillar and a slug, spitting venom and striking with two long disgusting tentacles. I immediately began to put mushrooms under this creature's 'side,' growing flowers and bushes at the same time. The slug, of course, crawled after me, and I had to run away from it in a circle, thankfully the size of the arena was sufficient for that.
All in all, it wasn't that bad. With my damage, I was able to beat the clumsy body in just two and a half minutes. That's taking into account the time it took to dodge, regenerate energy, and heal. What I can't even begin to imagine is how a normal player would go through such an ordeal.
After getting the ninth level, I immediately went to get the tenth. This time against me was a huge stone troll with a 1 000 000 HP. Moreover, he had 50% resistance to physical damage, plus it could heal itself, throw huge boulders, leap at my head across the arena, and in addition yell in an attempt to stun me. This one was a real pain in the ass. Only half an hour later, the five-meter-high stone pile crumbled to the ground and fell to pieces. That's what I call extreme!
To be honest, trying to kill an enemy who has 500 times as many lives as I do is really stressful. And what happens when you try to pass a level 11 exam? A boss with ten million health points? Now I see why level ten was considered as the limit for normal players. I read in one of the guidebooks that you can get to level ten after a week of light play, but I'm not so sure about that estimate. If it wasn't for the unexpected wealth that came to me, I would have been stuck at the initial levels for a long time.
As I got to level 10, I was faced with the task of choosing a definitive second profession. I got out to a park in the middle of the city, lay down on the grass, and began to scan the game's 'knowledge base,' trying to figure out whether I was a better fit - Assassin or Hypnotist.
Although these two professions originated from Ninja, their style of play is radically different. The Assassin specializes primarily in attacks with daggers or short swords. At the same time, most of the damage came from the use of poison. The Assassin's control skills were almost nonexistent, and the few that were available could incapacitate a victim for half a second at most. Therefore, the Assassin could only take part in fights in 'swoop, stab in the back, and retreat' mode. Or in 'swoop, get hit back, and leave for rebirth' mode. That style didn't go well with the druid's abilities, so the Assassin wasn't the best choice for me.
The Hypnotist, on the other hand, was much more interesting. The Hypnotist also used poison, but he preferred remote attacks with spells. But Hypnotist's main strength was 'debuffs' with different types of damage or control. They could be used to increase the damage to the target by two or three times, plus get close to the limit when the opponent was practically out of control and incapable of resisting. However, this was compensated for by a poor arsenal of damage. In essence, Hypnotist was a `supporter' who assisted his comrades. The Druid had the same role. But the combination of the two professions was a bit of a waste, because I couldn't take full advantage of them.
In the end, after comparing the two professions, I chose Hypnotist. I don't feel like running around the battlefield and shoving my spear into the ass of a gaping enemies. I prefer to shit from a distance.
Having made that decision, I went to do the corresponding quest. I didn't see an influx of players at these levels. On the contrary, since there were not enough people, all professions received the same task. The first stage required me to go through a dungeon, slay a five-star boss, and travel to an NPC, who would give me an individual quest, depending on the player's profession.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Through the portal I reached the entrance of the desired dungeon, where I began to look for the right group. Since most of the players were Earth adepts, and I had Air, it was hard to find a raid that would accept me. After thinking about it for a while, I decided to change my build to healing. I had the 'Grow a Bush' spell now, but it was being used to grow a Thorn Liana, which was not much use in combat. I wondered what would be better to use instead, and got an unexpected answer from my psionics.
Returning back to Crab Town, I went to an inconspicuous alleyway where a group of about a dozen players were gathering. Approaching to a player named Ruthless Toad Hamster, I whispered in his ear.
“Sell me the seed of the Heavenly Healing Rhododendron.”
“What?!” - He exclaimed. Then he added in the same whisper. – “How do you know I have this seed?”
“From the camel.”
“What camel?” - Hamster frowned.
“Never mind. Will you sell it?”
“Do you have any idea how much it's worth?” - He was indignant, displaying the behavior of a real hamster.
“How much?”
“At least fifty gold coins!”
“I'll pay seventy gold coins.” - After my words, the Hamster began to be pressed by an inner toad, demanding immediately to sell everything. – “And this money you can get right now, not after a couple of months.”
The hamster froze in front of me, and his look was a perfect illustration of the image of 'inner torment.
“One hundred gold pieces!” - He bulged his eyes.
“Seventy. Even for that, no one would buy it from you. More likely the guilds would rip you off and make you sell it for thirty gold. It's the seed of the Heavenly Healing Rhododendron.”
“All right, fine.” - Hamster snickered when he heard about the guilds. There was indeed an abundance of them in this world, so it was very difficult to resist them.
“Then let's go to the bank.” - I cheered.
“I'll be back in ten minutes.” - My counterpart said to his companions.
After that we got to the bank, where we took the necessary valuables from the warehouse and made an exchange to our mutual satisfaction.
I immediately inserted a seed into the talisman and grew a bush. It looked amazing. And most importantly, the bush had ten buds, each of which could heal 5000 HP. Each flower had a recharge time of three seconds. In total, the bush healed 50,000 every three seconds. That was so much more than I could give out with my spells, practically my role as a healer was to grow a bush and just stand there. Nice!
After completing the transaction of the century, I went to the Temple, where I `binded' the seed to myself. Now it was impossible to lose it. And the fact that this procedure cost another ten gold coins was insignificant. I had plenty of gold.
Once again, I went to the cave, walked to one of the forming raids, grew my bush, and spoke to the leader of the raid.
“Do you need a healer?”
The man looked at me, at the bush growing beside me, and his eyes twisted with hatred and envy.
“Element?”
“Air.”
“Fuck off!”
Holy shit! I added the freak's name to my list of enemies and headed for the next group.
“Do you need a healer?”
This time the leader of the raid was a girl, who immediately glanced at me with management eyes. I grew a Rhododendron bush right in front of her eyes, after which the girl exclaimed.
“Hooray! Now we have another healer. What's your element?”
“Air.”
“Well... okay.”
There were sounds of protest from the Earth adepts in the crowd.
“All right. I won't heal those with an Earth element. I'll stand beside the firemen.”
The grumbling died down to angry whispers.
“Yeah, we've got all the elements in here.” - The girl reassured me. – “We'll find five more, and then we'll move out.”
Ten minutes later, the crowd of our raid moved toward the cave. Surprisingly, a firm female hand guided the assembled rabble, avoiding obvious mistakes. There were 25 people in the raid, although it was possible to pass the dungeon in a group of 15. So, it was purely due to our numbers we smashed the monsters into bloody mincemeat, without exposing ourselves to much risk.
For the next couple of hours we moved through a labyrinth of underground passages, going lower and lower underground. According to the game's history, the 'hydra of fascism' was once again raising its head here. I mean, the wretches of the Dark Forces still wouldn't die for the glory of Heaven. But we were correcting that omission to the best of our ability.
Finally, we got to the main boss, whose killing was the goal of our raid. It was the Nine-headed Diabolical Poison Hydra. Well, or morphologically speaking, we had to kill a snake with nine heads about the size of a nine-story building. Honestly, even 25 people looked like a bunch of pathetic insects next to that thing.
As always, I grew a bush next to our Fire mages and started planting mushrooms at the side of the enemy. Five of our armored tanks would occasionally fly away from the hydra after getting hit by a tail or head, but they landed right next to my bush, so they got a cure and ran right back.