Chapter 25

Getting out of bed, Nick estimated his mana reserves at 1800 MP, and 2000 MP in the sword. This was a decent amount, but the fact that he had only restored 820 MP in two days and spent almost all of that time in meditation did not make him happy. His body was almost completely fine, his stamina and vitality were also at their maximum, which could not but make him happy. Nick began to eat dried meat with bread and finished his last water. The next thing he did was walk around the camp using [Reincarnator's Madness], the skill told him that he needed to put more effort into protecting the healers, the alchemist, and the apprentice of the space mage. He also learned that the viscount's son did not like his blow and that the healers refused to treat this idiot. Noticing the vampire, he was convinced of his prediction, if she did not start drinking blood today, she would become too ill and would not be able to move at all. Nick could of course share his blood with her, since he had an unknown amount of life force in his sword, but he did not want to act as a feeding trough for the vampire. It was not that he hated her or anything like that. Maybe if they were friends he would agree, but that was not his problem for now. Today should be a great opportunity for the Vampire to have a bite to eat. Looking around the camp, he noticed Linella pestering Seth. But in this case, she had no chance, his antisocial nature extended to everyone. Looking further around the camp, he did not notice anything remarkable.

As much as I would like to earn myself more levels, today I will be protecting support.

As Nick was about to approach the prince, he just caught everyone's attention.

"Dear classmates, we are going to leave in 30 minutes so be prepared. We will be divided into three groups, two groups will consist of 7 people and the last one will contain everyone else. The task of the two groups will be to scout the surrounding area so that the main group does not get ambushed. They will also be looking for various resources and killing monsters. The two groups are allowed to kill monsters only if they are spotted and they attack first. Meanwhile, the main group will move behind them in the river. In the evening, we will decide whether we can set up a new, more decent camp by the river. Any questions?"

"Yes Prince, who will be recruited for the reconnaissance groups?" asked one of the weapons adepts.

"I'd like them to be warriors and have two mages with them for cover. Who wants to go on reconnaissance missions?"

People were called in turn and the prince made two groups at his discretion. In the first group there were 4 adepts who fought with Ent, Fire Mage, Nathan Spelsword and Linella. In the second group they sent five adepts of weapons, Earth Mage, and Ice Mage. The only one he knew was the guy who had taken it from him yesterday. The prince chose the leaders among the groups, and it was quite obvious that he chose Fire Mage, in the second group the prince chose the Adept of Halberd as the leader.

Name: Eugene Harden

Race: Human [Uncommon] Lvl 45

Class: Halberd Adept [Rare] Lvl 4

Class: Not Selected

Nick didn't see anything special about his status, which wasn't a surprise, it was hard to develop any art for the Weapon Mastery skill to evolve.

The Prince gave the command and everyone set off, two groups went ahead as agreed, while the main one waited. Nick moved closer to the healers and the alchemist, in order to protect them in case of emergency. Their group moved out only half an hour later and moved absolutely slowly, the Prince made the shadow mage scout the area ahead for them, while they moved freely. The first hour while they were walking Nick did not notice anything special, but when they left the cursed territory, ordinary animals and insects became visible. The vegetation of the forest was also completely restored, their group was lucky to stumble upon a boar, which was immediately killed by a well-aimed shot from Ariana. Nick did not care as long as someone could skin the beast. Ariana was just about to do this, as the vampire volunteered for this role for an obvious reason. They stopped for a rest and waited for her to finish with this, she coped surprisingly quickly, in just half an hour. The vampire came out of the bushes carrying meat in her arms without a single drop of blood. She cut up the carcass quite carefully, took out all the organs and skinned it. Someone suggested cooking it right away, but that would be stupid. Nick thought that they were already a living beacon because of the smell of blood, and if there was smoke, monsters would constantly crawl towards them. Of course, the prince also refused this idiot. They simply put the meat in backpacks and everyone set off again. After another hour of walking, they came across a river, the others were overjoyed, but Nick found it strange. They should have been warned by the groups that they would soon arrive at the river.

No matter how good Nick thought of the prince, he made the first mistake by not stopping the others when they started running towards the river.

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"Stop! The other groups should have warned us that we were coming soon."

The people stopped and looked at him with confusion, Nick didn't pay attention to them, but rather listened to the smells, he could smell smoke, but he didn't know where he was at all. Before he could say this, he saw orcs running towards them. Orcs were considered weak creatures, of course they were about three times stronger than humans in physical statistics, but they were completely lacking in intelligence. Orcs had a [Rare] race and received 24 characteristics per level, some especially smart orcs could have classes that would put them on par with some humans, but judging by Nick's estimates, they were lucky today, they were absolutely wild orcs. They looked quite stereotypical, yellow skin, large fangs, wild eyes, about 2.4 meters tall.

Race: Орк [Rare] 40 Lvl

Race: Орк [Rare] 33 Lvl

Race: Орк [Rare] 21 Lvl

Race: Орк [Rare] 50 Lvl

Race: Орк [Rare] 38 Lvl

Nick assessed all the orcs and activated the skill [Reincarnator's Madness], he calculated what the orcs had on average in physical statistics:

Strength 120 +(84—200)

Dexterity 60 +(42—100)

Stamina 100 +(70—166)

Vitality 100 +(70—166)

Constitution 120 +(84—200)

Perception 100 +(70—166)

Intelligence 20+(???)

Wisdom 20 +(???)

The orcs only posed a threat if they could hit, which was unlikely due to their low agility. While they were moving towards them, Nick was thinking about what to do, he could of course go and cut them all down without much effort, or he could use the mana to level up the Mage class. Having decided that he would level up the Mage class, he began to prepare a spell.

"Don't touch the strongest one, I'll deal with him."

Nick took his sword out of its sheath and began casting a level 4 spell, "Spear of Power," hoping it would be enough to kill or seriously injure the Orc. He spent 8 seconds on the spell, and had to quickly approach the strongest Orc and cast the spell almost point-blank. After releasing the spell, something resembling a blue glowing spear formed in front of his sword, the Orc was caught off guard and received a blunt blow to the chest, his ribs crumpled, and he himself flew toward his fellows. Nick decided that this was enough for him and hurried to quickly retreat to the line of defense of their group.

Congratulations, you have defeated [Orc][Rare] Lvl 50

Congratulations, you have reached a new level in the [Mage of Arcane Will] [Rare] > Lv. 2 class.

Nick liked the fact that his experience was not cut for being in a group. While he was in the line, the rest of the orcs came up to them and just mercilessly hit their sticks on the shields, their blows were very strong and the front line was bending, but before they could deliver the next blow, they were either pierced by spears or cut by swords.

Nick was not at all surprised by what happened, it was natural, although the orcs were much stronger than humans, humans could still withstand one blow and decapitate them with their own. The last surviving orc was pierced by three spears, he was on his knees and in his rage tried to reach the others without success. At first, Nick did not understand why they hit him in other than vital organs, but when the vampire came up to him and sank her teeth into the orc's neck, he understood. She literally drank him dry, it took her 15 seconds to leave only meat and bones from the orc, without a drop of blood. Next, the vampire drank the rest of the orcs, and now that he could take a better look at her, she really did look better. Nick caught himself thinking that he would not like to be in the place of the poor orcs.

"Well, the other groups were most likely attacked as well and that's why we didn't get a warning, I suggest we go to the river so Max can assess whether the water is safe to drink." The prince spoke.

The group approached the river and after the half-elf said that it was safe, everyone began to collect water in their canisters. Nick was no exception. After collecting water, he moved slightly away from the group and began to look around to find traces of the smoke that he heard. But this was unsuccessful. After 20 minutes, a second group joined them. The Halberd Adept reported to the prince that they were fighting with orcs, which was not surprising. The group had one wound, a man had a broken arm, Nick thought that they were still lucky. After a while, the second group arrived and then everything became interesting. Nathan and the fire mage were dragged in the arms of the adepts with a large number of fractures. Healers quickly ran up to them, along with the prince, the healers began to treat them, and the prince was full of anxiety.

"What happened?" The prince asked with great concern in his voice to the completely beaten group, almost all of them had one or two broken bones, Nathan looked the worst of all, his ribs were broken and one arm was almost torn off, the fire mage was badly bitten on his arm where he had half of his bicep missing. The only one who was whole was Linella and it was not surprising. One of the adepts with several broken bones answered the prince.

"We met 5 orcs, from Lvl 30-50, but one of them had the [Berserker] [Rare] Lvl 26 class. We noticed it too late, he activated rage and rushed at us. Nathan was able to hit him with several swings of the "aura sword blades", but they were useless. After the first blow, Nathan went flying, only thanks to Linella, we were able to win. She created an illusion that she tricked the berserker and he received a "flaming spear", but this was not enough to kill him. He was able to accidentally bump into Nathan and grab his arm, after several more blows of the "aura sword blades" to the head, the orc died. But he almost managed to tear off arm. The rest received fractures in the fight against the other orcs, one orc was able to get close to Russ and bite his arm. As soon as we killed all the orcs, we quickly came to you"

The life mage was able to reattach the arm to the body and restore Nathan's chest, which cost him almost all of his mana. The Arcane Healer limited herself to weak healing of the fractures and closing the open wound of the fire mage.

Damn, what's next?