Chapter 16: Skill, skills and suicide?

I stopped the movement skill and my surrounding returned to normal. I keep my Mind’s Eye skill active just in case Old B does some nasty things to me. Even if I cannot see him at least I can sense him. Like they say it’s better than nothing at all.

I can feel Old B moved towards me in a blink of an eye. With his speed I can feel the gap between us is too wide currently my Mind’s Eye skill’s range is about forty meters in radius. But that speed is really something, even though I already maxed out the skill it’s still a far cry compared to his.

“It seems like you already achieved the highest level of the skill. Good … good “

Before I could say anything Old B throw something to me. It’s another book or more like another skill book.

I immediately learned the skill book and see what is it.

*Ding*

System message:

Do you want to learn the skill Golden Body? (Y/N)

I picked yes then look at the skill description

Golden Body (passive lvl 1)

During the ancient times, the greatest weakness of humans is their frail bodies. No matter how strong a human is, they are still cursed by their physical limitations against their sturdy enemies which can ignore magical attacks. That is why the ancients developed a skill to counter those types of monsters.

Effects:

-Increase physical and magical defence by 5%

-increase vitality and strength by 5%

*laughs* it’s like I’m cheating here and it felt so great to have such skill.

“Being happy by learning a second rate skill, you sure are a carefree brat. Here learn this skill and prepare your self were going to train in a different place”

Old B tosses another book to me.

*Ding*

System message:

Do you want to learn the skill Basic Sword Arts? (Y/N)

Sword arts? Why sword arts, from its skill name it is not an offensive skill or rather what is this all about.

I immediately look at its skill description with a worried look

Basic Sword Arts (passive lvl 1)

A swordsman must know how to use its sword effectively at all time and increase ones understanding to gain more power in the said arts.

Effects:

- learn basic sword moves to attack and defend against your enemies

- Increase all damage while using a sword by 1%

- 5% chance to ignore enemies defences

- +5% chance to deliver a critical attack

Note:

* only works in battle while holding a sword

* effects will disappear when the sword is unequipped

At least it’s a good skill and something that is very useful to me in combat. Now event though it’s still weak you can still consider this as a decent skill.

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*grab*

“Now Off we go”(old B)

Without noticing Old B grabs my collar and flew away.

-=+||+=-

*Vomits*

“Can’t you be more gentle!? D*mn *vomits*”(me)

*snicker* “What? Man up, can’t even endure a little bit of height?”

*Glare*

Height? You call that height? You simply flew? If it’s only like that then I won’t be in this state. Who asked you to move worse than a roller coaster? Moving at high speed, going up and down, there are even sharp curves that are impossible even for a professional drifter without losing some speed.

“We are already here at your new training ground. Now the purpose of this training is for you to get accustomed in fighting monsters in different size. Then next will be humanoid beasts and corrupted ones.”

I look around me and indeed I saw a lot of monsters roaming around in different directions. It’s all good and all but the main problem is WHY, WHY DID THIS OLD B BROUGHT ME TO SUCH A DEADLY PLACE!!!

All monsters name is as usual in??? But that’s not all of them are in deep green colour.

This means that all of these monsters are thirty levels above me or at least more than three times stronger than the current me.

Instead of earning experience won’t it decrease instead?

“…”(me)

“Scared?”(Old B)

“Who me? No way, I’m just thinking since I became different from my kind. I won’t get stronger even if I kill monsters; you know that once we kill a monster we received a part of its strength but it’s not the case for me now” (me)

That’s right even though I said it without thinking; this matter still leaves a shadow in my heart.

*laughs*(old B)

“You really are an idiot, have you forgotten that the world essence made up everything in this world? That includes even monsters and even corrupted ones. Though there are differences between the three, all of their essence can be refined and absorb by each other. Here take this” (Old B)

Old b gave me something that looks like a circular token.

Demon Slayer Token (Gray):

A token made with unknown materials, imbued with several runes to contain essence of the world and serves as a proof of being a Demon Slayer.

Essence content: 0/10000

“Every time you kill a monster, its essence will be directly absorbed and refined by that token. Then you can absorb the essence from the token. Just be reminded that the purity it refines has the same purity as your body so that token needs to be upgraded every time you made a breakthrough to the next stage to match your body’s essence. It can also serve as a container to recover the essences you lost during a fight. More or less it’s a really helpful tool for us Demon Slayers.”(Old B)

It really is a great item to have as a compensation for not earning experience points from monsters. This token can also serve as an alternative item for mana/ki potions which I cannot use.

"Now off you go, I won’t tell you to be careful since you will just revive if you die anyway" (Old B)

I looked around and find a lone monster nearby. Gripping my old sword with some rust on it, I use my movement skill and disappeared from the spot.

*slash*

-100

*roar*

I thought that with my 157 points of STR I would do a lot of damage to this monster but seeing that floating numbers, I guess I over estimated my strength. As I would expect from a monster which is several times stronger than me. When I looked at its health bar I noticed that it did not move much, I mean it’s not even noticeable and it makes me wonder if I really did some damage.

The monster became confused since it cannot find its enemy and the hate value I gained vanished which then reset the monsters Health points. The monster then exit from battle mode then returned to its normal state and roam around..

This proves that when im using the movement skill monsters won’t notice me even if I accidentally bump into them.

Now for me to keep them into battle mode all I have to do is keep hitting them until they die. I only hope that I can keep my concentration until the end since killing this monster will really take a lot of time.

*woosh*

-113

-110

-210

-98

-115

..

..

..

I keep attacking the monster and it took me about five minutes before it collapse and die. If you think about it this normal monster's health points is already on par with a final boss in the low level dungeons.

The corpse glowed and the token absorbed that light. I looked at the token and its values changed from zero to fifty

Some might think that I only need to kill 200 monsters to increase my strength but killing monsters till my token become full won’t mean that I will have my breakthrough. The token is like a water bottle not my exp bar that once it’s full I will advance to another level, I still need to slowly absorb the essence from the token and enhance my body till I manage to breakthrough to another level.

As for the drops or loot it still drops the same as before I became a Demon Slayer. This time I got some meat and fur, as well as its fangs and some bones.

In <> the item drop rate gets higher if the gap in level of the monster is higher against the average level of the player's party and how many players are there in a party. If there are less people in a party then the drop rate will also increase by a little, so in hunting items it is recommended to have the minimum numbers and higher level of monsters as an opponent.

The down side of doing so is of course getting the whole party wipe out since the monsters in this game is a lot stronger with better Artificial intelligence than the other games. Monsters in <> respond to the situation and execute appropriate action. Especially Elite and Boss class monsters as they are close to human in terms of responding against attacks. They also use high level strategy against raid parties in dungeons and field raids.

This is why players up until now have slow progress in the game because there are no perfect strategies or sure win methods when hunting Elite and boss class monsters. Experience is also hard to earn since monsters gives low experience points especially with people that rely on parties.

This is also the reason why there are a lot of solo players in this game since there are more benefits playing solo than in a party. From this situation a lot of solo players became famous for their strengths and solo fights against strong monsters.

Moving on with my monster hunting, I always attacked monsters that are moving alone and kill them as fast as possible. And every defeated monster I need to change my sword since the swords I use have low durability I have a lot of them anyway so I won’t have to worry about it. I now have a lot of monster parts and meat which I can cook to refill my stamina. If only monsters drop money then I would have some decent amount by now.

One thing about this game is that monsters do not drop money except for humanoid monsters like un-dead soldier, thieves, bandits, etc. and the only way to earn money is to sell the drop items to the ‘Adventurer’s Association’ or directly deal with NPC's who need them. Just be careful because even NPC's can scam players.

After seeing my token Full I stopped killing and go to a safe area where there are no monsters roaming around. I also noticed that Old B cannot be seen anywhere and even I used my Mind's Eye skill I cannot find his presence. Oh well who cares about that perverted and narcissistic old man he will come back later anyways.

I choose a huge tree and rest on one of its branches after confirming that there are no threats nearby I held my token on my right hand and slowly absorb the collected essence. This time let’s focus on increasing my skills and my strength.