"Most living creatures stall for a time at threshold levels that give more class or race slots, including non-sentients. While sentients are more purposeful in their decision to hold off their progressing, often trying for a higher rarity or more desirable classes, for non-sentient life it is due to the fact that gaining a new subrace requires them to hibernate for a time while their bodies morph to accommodate said subrace, causing them to instinctually refuse the gaining of a second subrace until they are in a safe location, as such it is actually very rare for anything at level 10 to actually have two classes or subraces, most creatures amassing the necessary EXP to level before filling the empty slot."
-Excerpt from 'Thresholds' by Mathias Eguefort
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With our foes dead, and the area already slightly darker than before due to the setting sun, I made a crystal sled and a bear to carry it for 150 mana, and we all stated going back to the town, using the previously carved arrows to guide us. On the way back, we discussed how the fight went and what we would need to change in the future, the general consensus being that for future fights it would be best for me to make a construct to act as a tank alongside Roxy, as while Jordan did do a good job of keeping his occupied, Arnold was far more suited to striking from behind and not being the center of attention.
"That went well, but we'll definitely need to start preparing for multi-day trips sooner rather than later."(Roxy)
"Agreed, at this rate it'd take over a month to get enough EXP to level."(Jordan)
"And that's assuming we find three level 10's everyday, which considering how long it takes us to get this deep is unlikely."(Mason)
With no one arguing against it, it was decided that our next trip into the forest would last for multiple days, the exact length decided as the situation of the trip plays out, and since we all still had what we used for camping in the tutorial, it was decided that we would meet up the day after tomorrow to give everyone some time to gather some supplies and let people know that they'd be gone, all of us agreeing to be responsible for our own rations, but still sharing things that could be used by everyone, such as my canteen that could make water or Roxy's set of stakes that made whatever was inside it harder to find. Even with our future plans concluded, there were still hours of walking left, hours that were mostly silent as none of us knew each other that well, Roxy trying to start a few conversations that quickly petered out, most smalltalk topics having been exhausted the previous day.
Awkward silence aside, once we got back to the town in the last hour or so of sundown and sold the deer, each one being worth 500 points meaning that we got 300 each after selling all three and splitting it, we parted ways and even though I had unfortunately missed dinner with the group, Jason's mom had still made me something that wouldn't be too bad cold, so I was still able to eat. Using my remaining mana to practice my control before bed, I made a mental list of what I should bring for the excursion, as I only had the messenger bag from the tutorial to carry stuff with until I fell asleep. The next morning, the first thing I did was put the items I already had into my pack to see how much space was left, being some hide blankets courtesy of Jackson's dad and the magic canteen, which took up over half the space in the backpack. While we did intend to hunt for food during the excursion, we had all agreed on bringing a day or two's worth of food just in case, so I planned fill the rest of my backpack with some fruits and nuts, since they were the only things that would keep for multiple days that I had on hand, since I wanted to refrain from spending contribution points as much as possible just in case. Packing done, I left my bag on my bed and went to my training area to spend the rest of the day, as it had only taken a few minutes to finish my preparations.
Rather than practicing my crystal control as I had the last few days, I instead practiced exclusively with my [Bestial Constructor] class, as I had noticed in my fight against the deer that I had only used my [Elementalist] abilities, and had I used the 200 mana to make a construct to stop the deer rather than the spikes, it would've been more effective. As such, the rest of the day was spent with me making constructs as quickly as possible, giving them minimal mana and a simple attack order before moving on and making the next until I ran out of mana, feeling a strong headache when I had six of them out at once that only abated after I made them fight each other until some dissipated, practicing my connections until I regained my mana before starting the process again. By the end of the day, while the actual creation of the constructs wasn't any faster, I was more confident in using it mid combat and had a better feel for how long it took me to make constructs of varying cost, starting to imagine a combat style that revolved around using a number of cheap constructs to distract my opponents while I lined up a powerful shot to finish them off, rather than just making one tough one to tank hits.
Going back home after training, and eating dinner where I learned that everyone had established their workshops and were now actively crafting and earning points through both noticeboard requests and open jobs from the mayor, and my mother handed me a short cylindrical wooden container filled with a green paste that she said would help wounds heal faster and prevent infection, apparently made from some of the plants that were fairly common in the forest. The next morning, pack full of supplies and excitement in my mind, I went to Roxy's home once more, this time the second to arrive after Arnold, and it was less than half an hour of waiting before we were all assembled. With no reason to wait, we set off into the forest once more, following the same path as the day before until we were once again surrounded by towering trees and gigantic fauna, but this time we kept going deeper until we could no longer see any non-gigantic trees and the wildlife stopped running at the sight of us, instead eerily eyeing us from afar, still tensed to run should we prove aggressive but no longer too scared to risk it, most of them being level 10 with only a few level eights or nines spread around.
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"I think this is deep enough, level 10's give plenty of EXP and I'd rather keep a level advantage if we can,"(Roxy)
"Agreed, with how the animals are looking at us even though they are a level or two lower, I don't think they'd be as passive as normal herbivores if they thought they had the advantage."(Jordan)
No one arguing to go deeper, we instead looked for a good place to camp, wanting to get everything settled before starting to hunt, and after an hour or two of looking, we settled on a decently flat area as there weren't any better places, and we marked some of the surrounding trees so that we would be able to easily find it later, since none of us wanted to risk leaving anything behind to be taken or destroyed by curious wildlife. Campsite settled, we started hunting the higher levelled creatures for EXP, quickly learning that most animals would run away if they saw all of us together, and Arnold being the only one able to actually hide from their senses, we decided to split into two groups, one with Roxy and Amy, while I had Jordan and Arnold, Amy going with Roxy as she was the only one without any melee ability and Roxy was the only one who could reliably defend others. Before we split up, I made a small snake construct that I wrapped around Amy's arm, telling her to break it if they needed help and that I would do the same, as none of us had any better way to keep in contact and it defeated the purpose of the group if we couldn't call the others for help.
After we split up and I felt the snake get decently far away from me, as I had learned in my testing that while it was harder to give orders far away the actual max range of my constructs was quite far, I let the others know and Arnold activated his stealth skill, which immediately made him harder to focus on, as even though I knew he was there, if I wasn't looking directly at him my brain would automatically ignore his presence, like how it does with your nose, easy to see if you looked, but otherwise essentially not there, though I did still hear every time he stepped on a branch or whatnot so it was far from infallible. Now that Arnold was fairly hidden, so that the animals would hopefully think it was just me and Jordan, we started looking for things to fight, with me creating a hawk out of Lightning for 80 mana that I sent to attack any level 10's that I saw, most of them seemingly able to predict the attack beforehand and dodge the initial dive and usually running deeper into the forest, to which I refused to follow having already learned my lesson. It wasn't until we came across a trio of giant rabbits that we finally got a fight with two of them pouncing on my hawk after the first dodged it and shattering it with powerful kicks before turning towards us, seemingly realizing that the hawk came from me like all the other animals before, a worrying realization even if it did work to our favor this time as the rabbits charged at us, zigzagging as each powerful leap set them hurtling forwards, confident due to their numerical advantage.
As Jordan braced himself for collision I started forming a Crystal bear with 100 mana between me and the rabbits, but as the rabbits passed the halfway point between us Arnold emerged from his hiding place behind a tree and managed to bury his shortsword into the side of one of the rabbits as it passed, making it screech in pain as it halted its charge and instead flung itself away from the sudden pain, causing a spray of blood as its sudden movement caused the shortsword to cut an even wider wound as it was torn out, its cries of pain making the other two halt their charge, beady eyes flickering between us now that they realized they didn't have the number advantage. Not waiting for them to decide to run away, Jordan and Arnold charged, joined by my bear that had finished forming shortly after Arnold's initial attack. Surprisingly, the rabbits didn't run away, the two uninjured ones leaping to meet Jordan and my construct while the last one waited for Arnold to arrive before sending out a kick, which he barely managed to avoid as he danced around the frantically struggling rabbit, blood pouring out of its side from its sizable wound. Meanwhile, right before Jordan clashed with his opponent, he instead stopped and jumped backwards, leaving an echo in his wake that was shattered by a kick from the rabbit, managing to get a shallow stab in its flank while it was confused, before circling it and making an echo to tank every hit while he went for a counterattack, the rabbit only catching on after it was marred by a series of stabs and slashes of various depth, forcing him to switch to a much more fast paced style, where he ran at the rabbit before making an echo to continue the charge and causing it to throw out kick after kick to dispel them. At the same time, after the rabbit collided with my bear, the collision and subsequent attack taking out 20% of its energy before the rabbit was able to leap out of the way of my bears bite, I ordered it to stand still until the rabbit once again jumped at it, but this time I struck it with a bolt of Lightning using 80 mana, and had my bear clamp its jaws around its neck while it was unable to move from the shock, the rabbit frantically sending out kicks and trying to get away as my bear tore into it with its claws while it dug its teeth as deep as they could get, having only a third of its energy remaining from a few lucky hits by the time the rabbit finally went limp in its jaws, causing me to turn and see that the others were also fairly close to being done with their fights, Arnold's rabbit visibly slower with a large pool of blood underneath that caused it to slip after a kick, which Arnold took advantage of to lodge one of his his shortswords into its head and end the fight, while Jordan's rabbit was also slower than before, though this time due to the physical exhaustion of its many wasted attacks against the seemingly unending assault of his echoes, Jordan managing to slip past its guard and land a killing blow a short while after Arnold. All the fights now concluded, I checked the system ping that I had felt when mine first died, curious if it counted this as one group fight or three individual fights.
Congratulations, you have defeated a Level 10 Giant Rabbit x 3 and gained 150 EXP
Happy with the result, I checked in with the other two to see if anyone was wounded or low on mana, to which the both said they were fine before we started searching for more things to fight, only to be disappointed as most of the nearby animals fled when they heard the sound of combat, causing us to be unable to find anything by the time the surroundings started to darken with the presumably setting sun, so we made our way back to camp, a visibly excited Roxy appearing from the forest a little while after we had gotten a fire going.
"Good hunt?"(Mason)
"No, but we found something, or rather Amy did."(Roxy)''
"Oh, what did you find?"(Jordan)
"A pack of large quadruped predators"(Amy)
"A pack? you sure? It seemed like animal packs weren't a thing anymore with how many lone deer we've run into, plus we've only really seen prey animals so far."(Jordan)
"I'm sure, I saw their den and there were five distinct trails, all regularly entering and leaving, though none of them were present when I found it and we didn't stick around, and there were multiple bloodstains from different animals near the entrance."(Amy)
"Huh, five animals and a five person limit before EXP is reduced further, for some reason I doubt that that's a coincidence."(Mason)
"Wait, do you think that that's the reason why packs aren't a thing anymore? Like, they realized that it was worse off in the long term to stick together if it meant slower levelling so they split up?"(Arnold)
"That would make sense, but it might've been more instinctual, since I doubt that even System-enhanced animals have the intelligents for that level of thought."(Jordan)