“Oh… sorry guys. Guess I just panicked a bit,” Elizabeth apologized. Now that everyone had gotten ready for battle only to see Rabbit, the Ranger’s expression was flushed red with embarrassment.
“Well, it’s alright. Better to be overly cautious than caught with our pants down. So don’t worry too much about it,” Mark said. The man who’d ended up becoming the de facto of their group lowered his warhammer and shield. His class was the Iron Juggernaut, something kind of obvious as soon as one saw how he was decked head to toe in heavy armor.
“So should we just go ahead and kill it? Won’t give much in terms of meat, but at least it’ll be a start while we hunt for more,” someone suggested.
“Well, maybe we should be cautious. This might seem like a regular Rabbit, but we’re still in an alien world. It’s clearly not afraid despite being right in front of all of this crowd, and it’s also Level 1, same as us. It could potentially be more dangerous than it appears,” Mark warned.
As a few people nodded in agreement, Jordan frowned. According to traditional video game logic, the basic mobs were almost always significantly weaker even if they were at the same starting Level. While that wasn’t true all the time, he believed it still applied in this case.
He could see the reasoning for being careful, but the Appraise Skill had given no indication of this creature being any kind of threat. All it mentioned was that it was basically just a simple little herbivore.
A part of him was tempted to just prove a point by aiming his Energy Pistol and pulling the trigger. But he didn’t really want to be that guy that spontaneously acted on his own without any warning. Especially if he was wrong, which’d only further make him look like a reckless asshole. So Jordan decided to instead be a team player.
“If you think it might be dangerous, then I could shoot it first after giving everyone a second to get ready. I have what’s basically an energy gun, so that should at least do a lot of damage if it survives,” he suggested.
After a couple of moments to think about it, Mark gave him a small nod. Jordan took aim as he glanced around at them all to give the promised chance to prepare themselves. Then with a deep breath, he pulled the trigger. In an instant, the screen on the back of the pistol’s barrel updated from 100% to 95%. At the same time, a small energy bolt shot out from the barrel with a low-pitched hum. Jordan was slightly amazed to feel that there was practically zero kickback after firing.
The bolt sped through their air and pierced into the small mammal’s chest. It went straight through its flesh and tore out of the other side. From the moment he aimed the gun to firing, the Rabbit never even reacted till the moment of its demise.
Experience Earned!
+11 EXP
As soon as he saw it, Jordan quickly checked to see his updated Status.
EXP: 11/100
Well that’s pretty generous as far as Experience gains go. So all I need to do is to kill nine more Level 1 Rabbits, and that’ll be more than enough to reach the next Level. Good deal, Jordan thought to himself. Now feeling pretty satisfied, he dismissed the Status screen.
“Yep, it’s just like the System said. I got 11 Experience Points for the kill, so it shouldn’t take much for us with Battle Classes to reach Level 2. Though we should probably keep an eye out for anything above our Level. Because those creatures are likely going to be the actually dangerous ones,” Jordan said.
He glanced down at the screen showing his pistol’s updated charge. It’d probably be a good idea to figure out how to use his Tech Points to recharge the thing. He still effectively had 19 shots left, so it wasn’t an immediate emergency. But better to do that sooner rather than later.
One of the other members of the group grabbed the corpse of the Rabbit. No blood fell out as it was lifted off the ground. Though that was likely due to the flesh basically getting cauterized by the energy bolt. But for now it was put away in that person’s own pocket space. Which was fine by Jordan as he had no real desire to actually claim his kill.
Although, aren’t Rabbits normally supposed to be pretty skittish? Like that thing might as well have just walked over with a “easy kill here” sign with how it didn’t even react to us. Hmm. Well its description did say they’re found on Vervina-C, which I’m assuming is the name of this planet. So maybe unlike Earth, they just don’t have any natural predators around here? Jordan wondered.
Using the video game analogy, it did make some sense. Perhaps the System had picked this area to drop them off in because it was a kind of safe zone. Somewhere that noobs like them could get used to their newfound powers without immediate danger.
But if all of humanity and other alien populations were spread out into small groups across this planet, could there really be that many safe zones? Rather than an intentional choice by the System, had his group just gotten lucky?
While Jordan hoped that the System was so beginner-friendly, that sounded just a tad too naive. If it was just a matter of luck, he could only hope that his family and friends had also gotten lucky. That they too were somewhere like a grassland with Level 1 Rabbits, and not some jungle filled with higher Level monsters.
Once that was settled, their group had basically done everything they could in terms of preparation. The large red sun was no longer directly overhead, but was now slowly inching across the sky. Nobody knew exactly how long a day would be on the planet apparently known as Vervina-C. Yet from how much it had already moved in such a short amount of time, it seemed to be moving faster compared to the Sun back on Earth.
It meant that the darkness of night would come all the sooner. And while there was a resident Pyromancer on hand to start a fire, they didn’t really have a suitable Class for constructing a shelter. There was unfortunately no Geomancer or anything like that among them to just build something directly from the ground itself. And the few people with Trade Classes were focused on crafting items like the Blacksmith, rather than being related to construction like the Mason.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
None of those present wanted to sleep while completely exposed to the foreign world. So when they collectively moved away from the starting platform, they did so with a fair amount of urgency behind their steps.
Yet as the group walked, a few people strayed off to each side. The reason for that was simple. To have a better chance of getting the first dibs on another Rabbit. And, of course, Jordan was also one of those who did so.
I wonder if the Experience Points are variable, or if 11 will be the fixed amount. If it is just 11 every time, then I only need eight more Rabbits to reach 99 EXP. Here’s hoping that there’s at least one that’ll give me 12 instead and let me round that up to 100 for Level 2, he thought to himself.
As he moved, the newly minted Combat Engineer decided to test out one of his abilities. Jordan concentrated on using the Summon Air Drone Skill for the first time.
After a moment of focus, there was a small shift in the air right next to him. The drone itself wasn’t very large, only about the size of a basketball. Its frame had a central core with four extensions, where each one had a rotor. There also appeared to be little wheels at the bottom of the extensions as well to allow movement directly against the ground.
But as the drone was currently flying as a default, the sound of its spinning blades was barely audible. To the point where a moderate breeze would be enough to disguise the noise even if it was right behind you. Yet the most impressive thing about it was attached to the underside of the core. Hanging off the drone was a weapon similar to his Energy Pistol in terms of the style of its design.
Yet instead of just being a small pistol, it had a much longer barrel. And that had a series of what appeared to be some tinted red crystal on each side. These crystals were partially see through and still allowed him to see the same kind of blue energy inside the drone’s gun. Though they appeared to largely dull the energy’s glow of light, likely to help it be better at remaining incognito in the dark.
Jordan mentally whistled in appreciation. Partially to not cause a panic by making any suddenly loud noises. But mostly because he actually didn’t know how to really whistle.
But now that the drone had manifested, Jordan felt an influx of inherent understanding. It was a flood of information similar to what the System did for his pocket space, informing him more about how Summon Air Drone worked. And beyond the simple descriptor of being autonomous, how it operated was actually quite interesting.
At the moment, the drone was in a sort of idle state. One where it would just passively follow him around but not really do anything else. But that could easily and quickly be changed through any of a series of different kinds of mental commands.
These could range from having it enter battle mode to attack things, patrol a designated area, and more. Yet rather than being a simple on or off switch, these inputted orders could be more accurately described as sliding scales.
For example, Jordan could have the drone enter a patrol around him. Where it could then shoot any other creature on-sigh that wasn’t him. So if he were to activate such a command now, that would obviously be bad for whoever the nearest person happened to be. But this was the part that actually impressed him more than anything. Because he quickly realized that in terms of interpreting instructions, the drone was actually pretty smart. More so than he’d have otherwise assumed for just a starting Skill at Level 1.
If Jordan simply told the target to target enemies, it’d be able to interpret that directly through their mental connection. So all the people with his group or any other humans it happened to find would automatically be considered friendly. And then because he currently didn’t know what else to expect from this planet’s lifeforms, it’d shoot at any other random creature. But that too could be tweaked and adjusted at any point to fit his most current needs.
As for the drone’s actual specs, Jordan also inherently knew a few key features. The first was that it had a top speed of 100 miles per hour. And that it did have an effective range before it would automatically be desummoned, which was 25 miles. Now Jordan only ever had a passing interest in drones back on Earth, but as far as he knew, those specs were far beyond anything he could have afforded.
If anything, the only weak point seems to be the upkeep. Let’s see, the base cost was 3 Tech Points. It takes 6 per minute to keep it summoned. And then I currently regenerate 3.60 per minute. So at most… it’ll only be able to last for what, right around five minutes? he believed.
That didn’t sound bad at all from the perspective of an RPG or video game power. But for a drone of its speed and range, that time limit would be the main bottlecap. A drone of its relative quality should last for at least half an hour from a regular battery. But for this one, that would be hard-capped by how it currently drained his resources.
A part of Jordan was already looking for ways to try to raise that limiter to the Skill. Like the System said it scaled with his Wisdom and Intelligence. And then that its current Grade was only E1, while Appraise started assumingly better at E5. So his focus on improving the Skill’s efficacy should be on his Stats and whatever it’d take to raise its Grade up.
In any case, that would be something to figure out after he learned more about how Levels worked. And rather than waste time just thinking about it or other possibilities, it’d be better to just reach Level 2 as soon as possible. Which meant that it was about time he got serious about the Rabbit hunt. Luckily, he had just the Skill that allowed him to effectively cheat around the use of tall grass as cover.
Jordan still had five whole minutes of use out of the drone. So he quickly sent a mental command for it to speed ahead of him. He just included two specific instructions. The first was that for Rabbits, it would shoot them on sight. But if it saw any other kind of creature other than a Rabbit or the humans in his group, the drone would immediately return to the air directly above him and fly around in a circle.
He wasn’t sure if there were other creatures in these grasslands. But he felt that would act as a good warning system for anything in their immediate vicinity. With that, Jordan watched as the drone took to the sky and quickly zoomed away from him.
“Hey, was that a drone just now? And was that one of our Skills or something else?” someone off to the side called out.
“Yeah! Sorry for not giving a warning first, but that’s mine!” Jordan yelled back.
“Good to know, and that’s a really sick Skill dude!”
“Right?! Thanks!” he agreed.
A few seconds later, Jordan pushed away the grass in front of his face. With how the taller parts were above his height in some places, just seeing was a pain at times. But then, not even thirty whole seconds after sending the drone away, something else appeared in front of him.
Experience Earned!
+11 EXP
Jordan grinned at the notification. Then just a couple moments later, a second one popped up right next to it. Just like that, he was a third of the way to reaching the EXP threshold for Level 2.
If this was how things were going to be, then maybe this Merging wouldn’t be so bad after all.