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Chapter 25 – Subterranean Mushroom Garden
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The Fief of Galitzid Prairie, consisted of 3 villages surrounding a Manor-house. Each village was about half day walk from the central, with Soie on the West, Cuivre to the south and Vinrouge to the East. According to the villagers, there used to be a village in the north, but everyone there migrated due to bandit activities.
Area in the fief was mainly grasslands, which could become fertile soil suitable for agriculture. Wild animals were plentiful but didn't pose as threats to the locals. Average levels of beast and monsters in the region was below 40. To the native peasants, this area would be comparable to Eden. For players who mostly cared about levels, their journey Eastwards from Serabroug ended at Litvart, where the highest level monsters resided.
Two weeks had passed after Bunny became Baronetess which meant the villages experienced 2 game months without bandit harassment. The peaceful region had progressed nicely; Due to proximity to the capital, there was limited immigration, but safety and abundant fertile lands did lure a good amount of natives to the area. The locals whom did not move even under bandit threats lacked reasons to leave. Overall, the total population increased but not drastically.
The average income of the residents had almost doubled too. Majority of the income gain was from reduction of transport cost; Shipments and funds that used to be lost to bandits or monsters were now entering their pockets. The villagers also spent less time traveling and more time on their craft, increasing their overall productivity. Angel's innovations on improving types of goods played an important role as well.
*****
On Saturday morning, the trio met again at the Manor-house. It was their usual weekly habit of meeting up before they spend that long duration together. This week was Bunny's turn to host the session.
Bunny cleared her throat to start the discussion, unused to chairing a meeting:
“Our region, Galitzid, is currently going good and monthly tax reached 250g. Nothing unexpected happened, except the animals found a dungeon somewhere near the north. We can go explore it when we are done here. That dungeon should be good, so I will mostly make a second Litvart.”
Ignoring her two friends with cat-smiles on their faces, Bunny directed at Angel
“Let's proceed with matters to discuss. Angel, how is the central market and brass work”
Taking the cue, Angel started
“The central market is working out very well. I estimate we have made more then 600g just this game month, adding to the 317g last month, we total to around 1000 gold. But we will only be seeing the money later. I spent all the profit on stocking up Brass Cutlery and Kitchen Utensils”
“Are you sure stocking and selling these will work?” Gene queried
“Yes it will. I have sold one batch to a famous restaurant in Serabroug with over 1000% yield. I don't expect others to reach that price, but we will be looking at profit margin of at least 500-600%. Even in the worst case scenario, we will only fall back to the accepted orders, which is around 150% margin, it is impossible to fail due to the pre-orders.”
“So... using layman terms, you already sold some to restaurants in Serabroug at 10 times the buying price and you intend to sell the rest at 5 times the price?” Bunny asked
“Correction! I am talking about profit margin: I sold that first batch at 11 times the price, and they are very happy about it. Just for your information, each batch is only 100 sets of cutlery, and good restaurants will need 3 or 4 batches each. Brass has this yellowish shine that looked comparable to gold on small tools, so the restaurant that uses them ended up with more customers.”
“Even with addition customer, how can they be happy when with such high price?” Bunny questioned
“Why not? Nobody else in the whole RR made brass cutlery, meaning I have a monopoly over this item. I am selling a concept, an idea, not just the raw materials and processing fees. Just like your rabbits, will you sell them for 50 gold each? You bought them at 1 silver and the cost of feeding them don't amount to even 10 gold, so will you accept the offer of 5 times the price.”
“I see...” Bunny nodded understanding.
“Wouldn't the people in Cuivre Village get angry over you exploiting them?” Gene wondered
“Nope, I asked them before starting and they were too meek to even try. Currently, they are under my employment in making brass cutlery and utensils.”
“You hired the whole village?” Gene asked incredulously
“No way I could do that. Cuivre village originally produce copper and brass weapons, which do not sell for much, I only got the brass smiths to switch production from weapons to things I want. The populous also include miners and food producers, I only hired about a quarter of the village using the income of the central market.”
Looking at the 2 flabbergasted faces of her friends, Angel cheerfully claimed:
“Don't worry about the details, just be happy that we invested about 1000g and expect to get at least 5000g back from this venture. Not to mention the overall price of brass will mostly double for a while.”
After recovering, Bunny continued the meeting by directing a question to Gene:
“Ok... we will leave the market to Angel... Gene, how is our personal Demon Lair coming along?”
“Not too good! I have the portal opened, but there isn't enough lure for the demons to come”
“Are there not enough bloodstones?” Angel asked
“Those are fine, but higher level Demons are more cautious, so bloodstones mostly lure the low level ones first... Regardless of the portal size, it will always attract lots of low level imps, with very few minor demons. The large number of imps will consume all the bloodstones before the bigger ones take bait. Killing only imps will give little for our level.”
“That means the efficiency is very low.” Angel supplied
“Hmm... must the magic circles for the portals be drawn on the floor?” Bunny asked
“Well, I don't know, not tried it yet... why do you ask?” Gene questioned the question.
Bunny thought a little then answered
“If we have a portal on the ceiling, then hang bags of bloodstones nearby but out of reach. The imps that come first will not be able to consume them. We will end up with lots of imps but the bigger ones will come after. Our bloodstone stock doesn't diminish unless something breaks the bags.”
“Expected from Evil Bunny, baiting demons while not even giving them the bait” Angel summarized
“Hey! I'm not evil” Bunny pouted
“Says the one who tricked me into some crazy costume maker's place” Angel rebutted
“Crazy or not doesn't matter, you got something good in the end... no?”
“The quality is good, but the process... eek... 3 hours in cold wet silk cloth”
“Alright, lets get back on topic!” Gene exclaimed before he continued. “I am not too sure about drawing a magic circle on the ceiling, but I will try that... so where should I draw it?”
“Hmm... how about above the central hall, so the imps drop 3 floors down...” Angel suggested
“Hahaha, Evil Bunny agrees with Evil Angel...”
The two continued to shoot words at each other for another 10 mins.
“*Sigh* Lets stop acting like kids... Angel, can you refine the bloodstones?” Gene sighed while asking
“Yes, so you want bigger, higher purity or both?” Angel questioned
“Higher purity will do as the demon only sense the bloodstone's purity , but a bigger one can be better secured with ropes. Just don't invest too much time into making them”
“Alright, I will get it done ASAP” Angel confirmed her orders
Having issues of the Demon Lair settled, Bunny concluded the meeting:
“Now the boring stuff is over, lets head over to the dungeon and kill some things”
*****
Meow and Nyaa, the two cats that first joined Bunny, had reached lv100. They had the highest level within in group that surpassed even Bunny and co, who were at 80s. Unlike other cats, Meow and Nyaa were given to her by Shiva and they showed themselves different by exhibiting more intelligence and cunning. The two could read the enemies' powers and relate it to their own. Of all her animals, Bunny only trusted these two for individual activity.
They were the part of the group assigned to patrolling Bunny's demesne and also the ones that located the dungeon. Since dungeon was found on a Tuesday, the trio couldn't immediately explore it. Bunny gave these two cats permission to scout the dungeon first. For the last 10 game days, these cats hunted within and gained over 20 levels each. They would be acting as guides for the trio.
From their second evolution, all animals had been growing in size. For the current Meow and Nyaa, the length from head to the base of their tail exceeded 2 meters; they could be call tigers if not for their twin tails and fuzzy fur patterns. Unlike normally, where they moved with stealth, this day, they sprinted across the grasslands along with a huge red bear carrying Angel and Gene. Behind them, Bunny rode a horse accompanied by a dozen smaller cats.
*****
Reaching the dungeon, Bunny alighted from her ride while Angel and Gene got down from his bear-companion. The 12 other cats that came along were also impressive looking, with size of leopards but furs of house cats. For a distance which would have taken half a day to walk, the group reached in less then 2 hours, this feat made them proudly raised their dual tails.
Summoning 4 squirrels and 12 rabbits, Bunny got ready for exploration by completing the team. The rabbits and squirrels were similar to their feline counterparts, bigger then normal, reaching more then a meter tall while standing upright. Unlike cats, rabbits and squirrels excel in short distance burst, therefore cannot undertake long distance running. Bunny could summon the cats too, but they had volunteered to run instead. From their state after long distance sprinting, they proved to be competent without being winded.
“So this is the dungeon those cats found?”
Angel spoke as she looked unimpressed at the entrance. The so-called entrance was just a hole of 2m diameter and 4m deep, located in the middle of tall grass patches; It looked much like a pitfall trap with the surface removed or a poorly dug well. Without foreknowledge, most people would either not notice the hole or regarded it as a simple pit. Just as the cats had mentioned, the entrance was not easily found.
Upon closer inspection, there was an opening on the Northern side within the pit. A small tunnel of 1m wide, just enough for a person to crawl through, camouflaged by the shadows. On the south wall, planks of wood were driven into the wall creating footholds to enter or exit the pit. Meow took the initiative and jumped into the pit, landed smoothly then crawled into the opening. Bunny, Angel and Gene donned their cloaks before they mimicked the action. The animals followed after with Nyaa taking rear guard.
As with all underground tunnels, the place was dark, Bunny could only follow the glowing pair of eyes in front of her. Meow was respectful enough to look backwards while guiding the group. After 20 minutes of slow crawling in a downward sloping tunnel, the group reached a rather large cave. It was about 10m in diameter and dimly lit with bluish glowing stones stuck on the walls.
New Dungeon: You are the first to discover Subterranean Mushroom Garden
Benefits:Fame increased by 200 (+200 FAME).
Double experience and 2x normal item drop rate for 1 week.
The first monster killed will drop the best quality item it can drop.
“Not bad, we are actually the first to discover this place” Bunny commented
“First? Didn't Meow and Nyaa hunt here for the last few days?” Angel inquired
“I guess NPCs don't count, we are the first players” Gene supplied
“Look at the name of this place... how lazy can the developers be” Angel grumbled
“But it's easy to understand, better then Litvart which doesn't say anything” Bunny replied
“The history of Litvart dates back to...”
“Don't start a lesson here. Lets just start! There are mushrooms waiting to be cut”
From their previous hunt, Meow and Nyaa had explored this place and notified the trio about the type of monsters around, when the trio first met a walking fungi, none were surprised. The natives of the underground cavern were called Myconids or simply known as Fungus-men.
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Myconids resembled humanoid creatures with a 'mushroom hat'. The primary physical characteristics that distinguished Myconids from normal giant toadstools were the limbs; The lower half of their bodies were split in half to form two legs while number of arms depended on the space from just below its “cap” to the middle section. Small Myconids half a meter tall had only a pair of arms while the really large ones with height over 3m grew up to 5 pairs.
Their flesh were bloated and spongy and looked kind of greyish brown under dim blue light. Their 'caps' had more variety in color, which seemed to signify their types and strength. Yellow and Brown ones where around 90s with Red ones nearing 100. According to Meow, there were purple ones too, but those looked really poisonous so the cats avoided them.
Other then the initial tunnel, the rest of the area had 5m high ceiling, so the group moved steadily forward, with the humans delighted they would not end up with hunched backs. Upon meeting the first enemies, Bunny sent the experienced ones to fight. Meow and Nyaa displayed their agility play by cutting the humanoid toadstool down quickly and efficiently using their claws. The others watched from the side and tried to decipher the weakness of these monsters.
After the first Myconid died, it didn't drop anything, which prompted a question from Angel:
“I remember reading about first monster killed will drop the best quality item it can drop”
“Yeah, I think I read that too when we are notified being first players here” Bunny agreed
“They can't drop nothing, their caps and spores are good alchemy items” Gene wondered
“Don't tell me... Bunny, check party status NOW!!!” Angel commanded
“Huh? What? Wait...” Bunny hesitated slightly before checking the information then said: “Ah! Only 3 of us are in the party at the moment, I forgot to add the animals... that means...”
“Yes, we can beat the system. Change of plans, we'll not party and let the animals hunt until we reach the boss room... we will need more animals too to fight the boss” Angel commented with a grin.
With new findings, Bunny summoned 30 more animals. There were changes from the original plan, instead of leisurely hunting the Myconids and building up level slowly, the team would now rush deep into the dungeon to visit the boss room, leaving the killing of mobs purely to the animals.
Myconids were sensitive to vibrations. Sound was also a form of vibration. When a raid team of over 60 units moved around the mushroom dungeon, they made lots of noise therefore attracted many mobs. Bunny's Echolocation added fuel to fire, luring even more fungus-men to them. By the time the raid team found the stairway downwards to the next floor, the group had almost cleaned up the whole place.
The progress was slow, but as the animals fought more, they gained more levels which meant becoming bigger and stronger. On top of that, they also learn more efficient ways of killing the fungus-men. Myconids had tough caps which were resilient to cuts and scratches, but vulnerable to impact. Their bodies were the opposite, the sponge-like skins could absorb impact from blunt damage, but easily shredded by claws and jabbed with spears.
There were some close moments during the rush, an example would be the first meeting with a 'purple-cap'. Angel almost instinctively used her Mass Cure when the monster released a large cloud of purple gas. Luckily, Gene who was beside her, broke her incantation midway by covering her mouth with his hand.
The second level of the dungeon was similar to the first, just having bigger fungi and higher density of poisonous ones. Although the bigger monsters had more hands which improved their offensive ability, they were bigger targets to claws and spears of the animals. Similarly, poisonous ones were equally decimated like normal ones, only costing some antidotes. These bigger Myconids gave more exp too as they were about 10 levels higher then the shorter ones. Without much trouble, the group continued pushing deeper.
Upon finding the stairway to the third level, Bunny halt the progress for a rest. The trio were still fresh as all they did was a leisure walk in the cave with an occasional spell or two, but the animals were starting to lose concentration from over 10 hours of constant hunting. Inversely proportional to their state, the animals had gain many levels, while the trio remained the same as when they entered.
During the break, Bunny decided to invigorate the animals with specially cooked food. For the vegetarians, she made Apple pie with large servings of peach sauce, while the meat lovers got grilled kebab. With Intermediate cooking, Bunny was able to bring out flavors of her dishes that satisfied both animals and humans.
Gene made used of the lull by practicing alchemy. With the poison obtained as loot from killing 'purple-caps', he mixed those with other ingredients he carried and created vaccines for the poison. Unlike antidotes, vaccines would make the animals immune to the specific poison for a period of time. With vaccines, the animals no longer need antidotes when mowing down those 'purple-caps'.
With nothing to do, Angel spent her time examining their light source; The bluish stones that gave off dim lights. She chipped off a few pieces from the walls and identified them to be Glowing Lapis, but no other information was found. As they no longer glow after being mined, Angel did not gather many as retain the lighting.
*****
After 6 hours of rest, most of the animals had napped shortly and recovered from their fatigue. Bunny and friends had also done their 'logout break' to take care of real-life necessities like food and hygiene. With vaccine, food and potions ready, the group descended into the third floor.
There was little difference between floor 2 and 3, with the exception of green-cap Fungus-men. Bunny called them 'poppers' as they had puffy bodies that would make loud popping sounds when wounded. Myconids, being sensitive to sound, would rush to the popping sound and try to overwhelm their enemies.
For a normal group, these poppers were extremely troublesome as they could pull more monsters then the team could handle. However, for Bunny's army, that was already moving noisily and attracting all nearby monsters, poppers were slain without care.
After spending another 2 hours hunting the third floor, Bunny located the boss room. There wasn't a sign on the door, but with her Echolocation skill, Bunny detected an extremely huge toadstool. Standing over 6 meters in height, its outline looked like a centipede with over 10 pairs of arms sticking out of its torso.
The room where the boss resided was spacious enough for all the animals to fight in, so Bunny intended to have all of them participate. However, other then the boss, there were around 20 Myconids of various types and sizes in there too. The smaller Myconids could be easily destroyed, but they could spoil her plans. After some thoughts, Bunny smiled her evil smile, then signal for Angel and Gene to discuss her plan.
The group gathered at the first intersection outside the boss room, Bunny and the animals were a few meters into the left corridor while Angel, Gene and his Bear-companion hid on the right side. When all were in position, the cats started singing. With Meows, Chirrs, Hisses and Growls the cats became a messy choir that produced terrible noise. This noise did attract the attention of those within the boss room.
Disturbed by the singing feline, all the Myconids along with the boss rushed towards the animals. Angel shot arrows only at the Boss redirecting it towards her. With the Bear-companion tanking the boss, Angel and Gene lure it back into its room, leaving the other mobs to Bunny.
Facing around 20 attacking Myconids, over 50 animals sally forth and counter-charge them. It didn't take long before all the fungus-men turned into gray wisps. With the minions removed, Bunny immediately invited all the animals into her raid group, randomly assigning 10 animals to each of her raid leader. Not wasting time, Bunny and the animals were running towards the boss while she distributed the party. She also started casting Wind Armor on the animals.
Both Angel and Gene were focusing on healing the Bear. There was a huge level difference between it and the Myconid Boss, and keeping it alive took most of their concentration. They were only stalling for time. Occasionally, Gene would use Earth magic to disrupt the Boss's movement giving them some breathing space.
After a few minutes of struggling, which felt like hours, Bunny appeared with reinforcements. Over 50 animals started charging the boss taking aggro away. On cue, Gene unsummoned the bear and started buffing the animals with Angel.
Freya's Mass Blessing, Freya's Ethereal Armor, Tokkin's Grace, Tokkin's Sphere of Safety, Lu's Might, Lu's Sunbond... Angel drained a large portion of her mana on many spells, including many new ones she just obtain from making shrines in the villages.
Alpha Authority, Bark Skin, Giant Strength, Ancestral Mask, Primal Rage, Dryad's Grove, ... Gene as a druid didn't lose out in the buffing department against a priest. In fact, he could easily out-buff any other priest besides Angel.
With both her teammates focusing on heals and buffs, Bunny started attacking the Boss with various spells. Even though she initially focused on air element, Bunny had learned a wide variety of different magic, so she was slinging different types of basic elemental spells. Fire, Flame, Water, Ice, Wind, Lightning, Earth, Poison... a kaleidoscope of colors emitted from her hands towards the face of the boss. She had specifically targeted the head to avoid friendly fire, but was lucky scoring critical hits as the face turned out to be one of the boss's weak spot.
After 20 minutes of focused attack, the huge Myconid Boss finally collapsed onto the ground, dropping several items. All the fighters including the trio were spent and laid down at their position resting. Gene and Angel unceremoniously just dropped onto the floor suffering from headaches due to extensive mana usage. Unlike fighting normal mobs, during the boss-fight, they drove their concentration to the limit; a simple careless mistake would cost lives. The squirrels which were not fighting started cleaning up the scene. The giant corpse was cut into pieces and stored.
Before looking at the loot, Bunny checked her notifications:
New Skill: Air Mastery
New Skill: Fire Mastery
New Skill: Water Mastery
New Skill: Earth Mastery
New Skill: Natural Elemental Mastery
Fire, Air, Water, Earth Masteries have combined to form Natural Elemental Mastery
Increases Magic Power with any Natural Element (+10% MATK)
Increases Casting Speed with any Natural Element (+3% CAST SPD)
Level up x 8
Grinning at herself for both obtaining magic mastery and gaining 8 levels, Bunny went over to help Gene and Angel up. Even thought they had finished the stressful job of killing, they still needed to do mundane work like checking the loot. The boss had dropped 6 items and they trio were interested in what 'Best Quality Item meant.
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