The next morning we left the village. Leaf came to see us off, waving her hand quickly with tears forming in the corners of her eyes. Leaf must have gotten attached to us. Smooth sailing the rest of the way through the forest. The Nooby Squad now knows exactly what each other is going to do. With the new element of the crossbow I can actually deal some damage instead of be full support. I wouldn't aim at a skeleton. The bolts might not even do anything to them and I could miss, sending the bolts flying and making them impossible to find.
The shadows are just laying on the ground and are easy targets. Plus I can collect the bolts I fired too. I say I can help deal damage but Lance ends up dealing with 90% of the enemies. I still feel like I'm far more valuable than I was when we started though. The crossbow deals a set amount of damage since it is a mechanical. I think my archer class helps me aim but it doesn't change the damage I can deal with it. Making the damage far higher than what I can do with other weapons. I'll have to remember this for later. Making something similar to the crossbow would really help weaklings like myself survive for longer.
I have thoughts about taming either a skeleton or a shadow but decide not to. 1 reason being that both creatures are weakened by sunlight, that would be a huge weakness since most of the time we travel during the daytime. They would be easily killed if I tamed either one. If I had to choose, I would pick the shadow though. We already have a great group composition, 1 thing we're missing is an offensive caster. The panic status effect isn't helpful right now but it would be extremely helpful in the future. The pet would be much stronger if I had either the illusionist or warlock classes. I'll just have to keep that in mind for later, but it is so weak it would be very hard to raise and evolve into something better.
Evolving pets is one of the only ways for them to become stronger. Unlike humanoids, they have a different leveling system. Weak creatures evolve into stronger ones to increase their chances of successfully killing humans. This goes for almost every monster, including the extremely giant and deadly kinds like raid bosses. Sometimes the evolution could be as simple as an increase in size and power. Other times it evolves into something crazier. I think I remember a beast tamer who tamed a tiny bat that changed into one big enough for him to ride on... I think the person who owns the pet also changes what they might evolve into.
We managed to make it through the forest very quickly. It was a bit of a detour but we got a lot out of it in the end. The first fight we encounter was with a petty wolf. I managed to tame it pretty easily in comparison to the first one. We set up camp for the night with the wolf around I feel a little safer.
Taking quick inventory of everything we've gained. With some of the money we earned I bought everyone better bags to carry equipment. Some bags can reduce weight or even shrink things put inside it to increase the carrying amount. Those are extremely expensive and I don't know how either are made. I finished off a few enchants to the gear I couldn't do early because of time constraints. I now have a crossbow with a bolt quiver on my leg holding 20 spare bolts.
I enchanted half with weak fireball magic and the other half with weak ice bolt magic. There is a separator splitting the 2 kinds apart. Lance definitely looked the most different. Buying almost a full set of gear for himself (which I enchanted for free of course.) He also bought a boomerang. He had strapped to his leg where the smoke bombs and knives were close to. Kattie hasn't changed gear at all. She has her heirloom robe and special incantation book from picking white mage as her rebirth class.
Once we get to the safety of the city. I would like to upgrade the bolts that I've made to have a more powerful enchant on them. Maybe a stronger material as well, that is the only way I see myself making my attacks more potent. The time it takes to reload the crossbow is far too long right now. Normally I get a single shot before Lance finishes the fight. I'll have to think up some ways to increase the fire rate of it once we get to Shienta.
Everyone's gained a ton of levels. Lance is already 15… Which feels a little unfair. Kattie was already level 30 but she still got 4 levels from everything… Which is the same as me, even at that high of a level… Some of my classes are getting close to level 7. I get new skills at level 10. Most of the time they're active skills. Like new magic attacks but sometimes they are passive.
I know from talking with Theodore that time mage gets shortened incantations at level 10, which is a passive. Most classes have a passive skill and an active when you get them. Like warrior had survivability and headbutt which is an active skill that has the chance to stun enemies if they're close enough. Thief is the only class that doesn't start out with a passive skill. At least to the knowledge I have currently.
Some classes meld well together too. Moves change when you get 2 similar skills like with thief and bandit. The hide skill and move silently skill fused into sneak. Which does two similar things so the effect is a new move. Because of that, some classes just go better together. That is why you will see things like warrior and berserker picked together a lot or guardian and knight. Classes that do the same thing are often picked together like physical damage or defense. You don't see many merged skills until most classes are leveled up.
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Other classes might only give 1 or 2 active skills but are very good secondary classes. Like red mage with infuse, blue mage monster copy and knight which gives no active skills but increases stamina which effects your health and damage resistance to attacks.
We continue to head towards the city Shienta. As we get closer, we're less likely to be targeted by bandits. We haven't gotten nearly close enough to not be attacked. Thankfully I managed to get something from Olaf. I won't be looking forward to fighting any bandits ever in the future because of this. I've never looked down on any human, even slaves but bandits are the worst form of human. Taking advantage of other people for gold is disgusting to me. Even so, I don't want to be forced to kill anyone for awhile. Lets hope it doesn't come to that I think as I head to sleep.
The wolf starts barking very loudly! Fearfully, I pull my weapon out and I'm ready to fight whatever is going to attack. Thoughts of a bandit attack come into my head from what I was thinking before I went to bed. I will not just die sitting on my hands! I aim my crossbow at the black shadow approaching us, waiting until I have a clear shot to fire at them. A figure emerges from the path we were coming from. Breathing heavily, I can start to make out facial features as our campfire hits her.
It's Leaf! She screams.
“Enemies!”
Leaf takes a second to catch her breath.
“Behind me!”
From behind Leaf I can see a vampire bat as well as a wolf. Both are fairly dangerous, the wolf being an evolved petty wolf and the vampire bat being very hard to target and hit with ranged weapons. Either would make great pets so the entire fight I try to tame both but unfortunately couldn't… Maybe I can't tame more than one I think to myself. It would be better to release the petty wolf if that was the case. More testing is necessary though. After the commotion was over. Leaf spoke about what she was doing.
“I got permission from my family that I could head with you after you left. I couldn't catch up so I decided not to sleep and make my way towards you while you slept to catch up. It wasn't a good idea though. The wolf destroyed my familiar in 2 hits and I got the bat chasing me while I was running from the wolf.”
It's a good thing we were close by or Leaf might have dyed... We go to sleep with the petty wolf now keeping a vigilant watch. Leaf summons a familiar and I do as well now to also keep watch.
Blue mage passive skill gained Drink blood- Consume the blood of enemies to regenerate lost health
Blue mage skill gained Night vision- Able to see more easily in the dark
My and Leaf's conjured familiars are entirely different. Mine was what appeared to be a fox like creature. While Leaf's looked more like a tiny knight. Apparently, the way you're thinking while summoning it changes some aspects of the familiar. Thinking that way I end up summoning 2 more. One similar to Leaf's except a black mage type little guy and a bird. I attached a letter to the bird and sent it towards our village.
I could use telepathy to communicate between all 3 of my familiars. It would be handy to also be able to use telepathy on the wolf. After trying it doesn't seem to work. The wolf still follows commands, which is nice. Each familiar has a different sounding voice in my head.
All are higher pitched than mine. The foxes sounds more feminine. The mages sounds more masculine and the birds sounds higher pitched than both. The note tied to the bird stated that it was my familiar and if they wanted to talk to me, they could just talk to the bird.