Mike awoke late into the night to the sounds of triumph. By sounds of triumph, he meant a victorious shout that echoed all across the camp. Mike exited the cave, fully rested and wondering what could be so exciting so late into the night. He didn't need to walk much longer, as he saw several corpses being dragged into the camp through one of the two gates that had been made in the wall.
Carried by a few men were 3 night stalkers, level 9 each. What surprised Mike was the corpse he saw being dragged by the Archer woman whom he was just now realizing he had never gotten the name of. He identified the corpse to confirm what his eyes saw.
Alpha Night Stalker (level 10) (Dead)
Now that was quite the accomplishment. Surprisingly enough, not one of the hunting groups seemed to have a single scratch on them. Next he identified the archer, suspecting that she was edging in on level 10 in her class.
Human (level 5)
He was not sure if she had a profession, and if she didn't that meant that she had gotten to level 10 in her class. He had to say that was damn impressive for someone who just days earlier couldn't even penetrate an arrow through the alphas skin. Mike walked over, wanting to start up a conversation and get all the juicy details.
“Hey there, nice catch you got there.” He said, purposely avoiding letting it slip that he didn't know her name.
“Thanks, the team worked hard for it.” She said, giving credit to her group as a whole.
“Well it certainly shows. What level did this bad boy bring you up to?”
“Level 8, and each of the others leveled twice each.”
One of the other hunters piped up, “Nema, don’t be so dismissive of what you did. You easily dealt as much damage to the beast as the rest of us combined.”
Mike internally thanked the man for saying her name, else he would have had an awkward conversation at some point when he needed to know it. Nema’s cheeks turned a bit red when the hunter praised her.
“It was just because my arrows were sharper.” She said, trying to hide her blush behind her hair.
“Sharper eh? Mind if I look at one?” Mike asked, curious where she had gotten them. She obliged and handed him an arrow, allowing him to see the material he was now so familiar with. “Night stalker bone, did you make these yourself?”
“I did, it gave me a profession for my troubles too. I am now an official bowyer. I guess the proper term would have been Fletcher, but I guess making arrows and only arrows would have been too specialized for the system's liking.”
Mike huffed a bit that her arrows were certainly of a higher quality than the ones he had made. They had proper fletching, made from the leaves on the trees around them. He should have thought of that, if the wood was much more durable, why wouldn’t the leaves be? He was about to say something when Nema continued speaking.
“Keep the arrow, I have to go to Otto and get this thing ‘disassembled’ as he likes to put it. Creepy guy that one.” With that she walked off, not giving room for the conversation to continue. Mike didn’t think Otto was creepy as she had said.
Thinking about how thoroughly Otto took apart beasts, he would think disassembly was quite a fitting term. He walked over to the gates, walking out and picking a direction. He began running, and he ran far faster than he ever could before. His stats were now all over double what they had been last time he went hunting, and he desperately wanted to put them to the test. After just an hour of running, he encountered a thin barrier of mana.
He didn’t feel much mana coming from it, but the feeling he got when looking at the mana made him sure it was of a level far above his ability to comprehend. He identified the barrier, getting a reminder about something he had already long forgotten.
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*Mana divider. This barrier blocks out all outside threats until the average level of humanity reaches level 25. All current inhabitants may exit and reenter the barrier at any time.*
It was what separated this part of the world from what the system apparently considered to be too dangerous for humanity's current strength. Mike stepped through the barrier, hoping to find something that could truly test his newfound power to its upper limits. As he stepped in, he saw a grizzly bear, much like the one he had seen before. The only difference was that this one was larger, and not by a small amount either. It was at least the equivalent of 2 of the grizzly bears stacked on top of one another. He identified it, sizing up his enemy as he brought his hammer at the ready.
*Grizzly Goliath (level 26)*
Mike dove backwards through the barrier faster than he realized he could even move. That thing was WAY too strong for him. If he had tried to fight that thing, one swipe of its paw would have turned him to a fine red mist. His trust in the thin barrier between him and the bear was not high, and he pumped as much mana as he could into his armor, trying to hide from view. The bear turned around, its eyes tracking Mike as he slinked away. His armor had absolutely zero effect on the thing, and Mike was ready to strip down naked if it would make him just a little faster.
Thankfully the bear just turned and walked away, disappearing behind some trees. Mike let out the breath he had been holding since identifying the bear.
“Guess I’m going to have to look for something else to fight.”
He began running back to the camp, taking a zigzag pattern to hopefully find something interesting that he had missed. He saw a few alpha wolf caves, a handful of fox dens, and a few other groups of low level monsters. He ignored them all, wanting to fight something that was at least of an equal level. When he estimated he was only another 10 minutes from the camp, having already decided to just pick another direction to run, he found something. It was a cave, but not like the ones that housed wolves. This one went down, sloping into the earth at a nearly 45 degree angle.
He approached the cave, hammer at the ready again until he was sure there wasn't going to be another monstrously powerful enemy in there. He walked deeper and deeper into the cave, being forced to use his mana to cast a glow in order for him to see. He walked ever deeper, walking for what felt like several minutes. After what felt like forever, but really had just been 5 minutes, Mike encountered his first enemy.
He had found it, or more accurately it had found him, at an intersection of 4 tunnels. It started when he heard a clicking noise. He had stopped walking, looking around him to try and find the source. Apparently underestimating his perception, the creature lurched forward under the assumption Mike couldn't see it. At that moment, Mike wished he couldn't, as the first hairy leg came into view. That leg was quickly followed by seven more as a spider the size of a small dining room table creeped up towards him.
“Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope!” Mike half said half shrieked as the monster lunged at him, making him nearly evacuate his bowels. Mike reacted by swiping his hammer, shattering the exoskeleton of the spider, killing it quickly.
*Tarantula swarmer (level 9) slain*
The monster was quite a bit weaker than him, but he would rather fight that damn grizzly goliath before he ever fought a spider larger than the one he just had.
“Well, not really, but man do I hate spiders.” He said aloud. He regretted it the second the word left his mouth, the sound of his voice echoing down the cave. His skin crawled as he heard rapid skittering coming from multiple directions.
He ran, entirely fueled by fear as he sprinted at top speed. He turned around quickly, realizing he had gone into one of the branching paths. Behind him when he turned, were dozens of spiders, each and everyone the size of the previous. Mike tried to at least force his scream to be a manly one as he sprinted forwards, swiping his hammer side to side trying to clear a path to freedom.
Many, many spiders fell to his might, their exoskeletons weak to the blunt force he could bring to bear. By the time he got out of the cave, Mike would guess he had killed at least a hundred of the bastards. A brief glance at his notifications confirmed this.
*Tarantula swarmer (level 8) slain x76*
*Tarantula swarmer (level 9) slain x37*
*Class level up! Mighty Infusionist Slayer (level 11)*
That was a lot of killing for just a single level, but he supposed they had been significantly weaker than he was. It only took a single blow to kill most of them, and many of the ones that hadn't fallen to the initial blow had bled out. He knew this because he was still getting a trickle of notifications as he stood there catching his breath. He immediately threw every free point he earned into agility, wanting nothing more than to get away from the nightmare fuel he had just been subjected to. Mike remembered the notification about reaching the level of encampment opposed to being an outpost.
Nightly monster raids from nearby monsters. He needed to warn Jonas, and they needed to prepare in some way. He got back to the camp just a few minutes later, making record time on his sprints. He didn’t want to waste time walking around the wall to get to the gate, instead opting to leap up, planting a foot halfway up and propelling himself further higher. He sailed over the wall, hitting the ground running. Mike spotted Jonas sitting by the fire, chatting with several people, including Aaron, Otto, and Nema. Mike threw all social norms out the window as he butted into the conversation, cutting off something Otto had been talking about.
“Spiders!” He screamed, and it was all he could get out before collapsing on the ground, unconscious before his head hit the dirt below him.
Stamina: 0/1970
Mana: 98/1305
This marked the first time Mike ever used his new skill Enhance Self in an effective manner, though it had been without him even realizing. Stories would be told of the man sprinting into the camp, yelling “Spiders!”, before promptly face planting into the ground, sleeping through the rest of the night.