Griffith and I continued our journey in mostly silence. It took us a total of 3.5 days to reach the outer edge of the quest location, according to the map. The whole way here, I trained my Arcane Magic, focusing on control of the Mana Bolts as they floated around me. Using the projectile split modifier, I was able to control up to 8 Mana Bolts of a regular 5 point charge around me at once.
My control over my spells increased the more I practiced. I was able to predetermine the path of the Mana Bolts to a certain degree as well. They used to take the straightest path, adjusting as the guiding modifier told it too. Now I can sort of curve the projectile. Not very much, but it still marked an improvement in my spell control.
I haven’t practiced my Barrier Magic much since the first day. Every night Grifith and I stopped to sleep, I formed a large bubble for us to rest in, then poured the entirety of my mana pool into it. We were attacked by Goblins once during the night, but it was a duo that Grifith took care of before I even woke up fully.
I made the right choice in asking him to come. I know for a fact that detection skill of his will save us more than once.
The map showed that we were technically in the Dark Forest right now, but the trees were still relatively sparse and there weren’t any spider webs as far as either of us could see. His skill also wasn’t reacting to any monsters, so there was that too.
“From this moment on, your eyes will alway be moving. I refuse to be taken by surprise.” Griffith said. Well, more ordered than anything, but I was fine letting him take the lead of this expedition of ours. “Make sure you are constantly sweeping not just the ground but the tree tops too. The spiders of the forest prefer ambushes over anything.”
“Agreed. Unfortunately, I can only have one Ball of Light at a time, but I'll save that for when we get closer.” I let him know the limitation of the spell.
“Actually, I want you to cast it now and use that to look ahead. Most monsters here will be used to the dark and hate the light. As such, they’ll attack the light to return the area to its status quo of sorts.”
Makes sense. Again, good thing I brought him along.
I cast the Ball of Light and was excited to see that once it was cast, I could go back to casting and maintaining my array of Mana Bolts. I was getting used to having the constant mental strain of the spell, and it was doing wonders for my mental capacity skill.
One side effect of having the array constantly up was that I was limited to only that one spell. I could increase how many bolts I had out, but if I had any out, I couldn't cast a different spell. I was tempted to stop using the spell in this way, but the potential damage I could do was too good to do more than consider.
Griffith and I move onwards after having a quick meal. We wanted to get at least some quest progress done today. We walked forward for 3 more miles, then I spotted the first signs of monsters: webs in the trees.
I was about to call out to Grifith to let him know what I saw when he made a sharp hand gesture. I shut up immediately and started sweeping the canopy above us when I heard some sort of clacking. It sounded like a bunch of sticks smacking together, but it was very muted.
I looked towards the ground, half expecting to see a skeleton or something. I saw nothing, but Grifith pointed to the webs I saw. I looked closer and saw there was what looked like a cocoon in the webs and a spider spinning more webs onto the cocoon. The sound was coming from the ball of silk the spider was spinning.
Did the spider catch a skeleton to try and eat it? What the hell?
This was the first time I had seen two monsters of separate types interact, and it didn’t look like monsters got along.
Hopefully they don’t get stronger by killing each other. I heard the far off laughing again.
I got a bit closer to the tree the spider was in, but it seemed to ignore us in favor of its meal. I sent two of the 8 Mana Bolts behind me, staggering them to hit the head one after the other. They flew true and soon enough a small ball of spider silk dropped as my reward. I grabbed it and added it to my storage.
I’ll probably be getting a lot of these in the coming days.
“Should we also get the skeleton in its webs?” I asked Grifith. He considered for a moment before shaking his head.
“If it's still here on our way out for the night, we can get it then. Until then, I'd rather save the energy.”
I agreed and replenished my Arc, as I started calling it, with two more Mana Bolts. I sent the Light further ahead of us and used it to look for more monsters.
It didn't take long. We found more webs a few hundred feet in. With webs came spiders. I killed a total of 5 spiders before we saw any other monsters. The last spider we found had caught a Hobgoblin in its webs and was about to start wrapping it in its silk.
The caught monster didn’t look anything special. It looked like a short, green man with a long nose and mildly hunched back. It was carrying a small bone dagger as a weapon, not that it did it any good. The leather armor it was wearing was extremely torn up
Do monsters not drop loot when other monsters kill them? I get the skeleton not dropping loot since it wouldn’t have died to the spider venom, but that Hobgoblin looks pretty damn dead to me. It's not fighting back or anything.
I got out of my head and killed the spider. I then asked Grifith my questions about monsters killing other monsters.
“No, when a monster kills another monster, the dead monster doesn’t spawn loot, and its body stays for another 10 days after it dies before disappearing. As for your other question, yes, monsters get stronger by killing other monsters. With the high respawn rate of monsters around here, there’s bound to be a few extremely strong ones.”
Damn Hagrid. You really aren’t holding back.
I sent a bolt through the Hobgoblins head just to be sure. Nothing happened other than the corpse being brutalized. No drops appeared from it.
The fact that it’s wearing armor is slightly off putting. The bestiary mentioned that some Hobgoblins can spawn with armor, but I didn't expect it to be full, decent looking quality armor.
The armor looked almost as good as leathers did, if it was a new spawn, at least. As it was, it was horribly shredded and looked like the Hobgoblin put up one hell of a fight before going down.
After my examination, I continued looking for more monsters to hunt. It sounds rather eerie how quiet it’s been since we got here. There were no birds, no sounds of insects in nature. Just the sound of our feet on the dying grass.
We made it to the part of the forest where the webs started to get a good bit more dense. The canopy has been partially webbed together to block out the light, making the Ball of Light stand out more than it already did.
A few minutes later, a larger spider jumped on top of the light and flew right through it into another tree. I sent 3 Mana Bolts at it before it could get away. My reaction time has become better the higher my Enhanced Body skill leveled. The spider turned to loot before it could hit the ground.
That marked the seventh spider I had killed in the last half hour.
I kept my eyes aimed at the trees above us, but Grifith made a soft sound to get my attention. He pointed forward and to the left at a tree. I looked but couldn’t find anything. Then I realized he was behind the tree.
I walked around the tree slowly and sent the light in the opposite direction of where I was going. I could now see the shadow of a monster. I sent one of my Mana Bolts towards it in a curved pattern, and a Hobgoblin screamed in pain. It was a loud and guttural sound that I was sure would only bring the attention of more monsters.
Grifith ran forward and killed it with a dagger to the throat while I was writhing in pain on the ground. From the look of it before it disappeared, I had hit it right in the kneecap.
Right, Hobgoblins are a lot taller than their non-evolved forms. I need to take that into consideration going forward.
“Shit. I was hoping to avoid having to deal with too many monsters at once, but there’s no way that’s happening now. Prepare yourself to deal with a small horde.” Grifith put his dagger away and replaced it with a sword. “Expect no less than 15 Hobs and 25 Spiders. I’ll let you deal with any spiders that come our way, since you have ranged attacks. And remember to keep your eyes moving. I can already hear the rustling of the branches. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of monsters from this one fight. Also, be prepared to run if I say so.”
I agreed and added to my Arc so there were 10 Bolts ready to go. I was not going to die here.
I refuse anything lesser than a dragon to be my death. But holy Hagrid I'm freaking out.
I put my brave face on and got ready to cast. I did a slow 360° as I scanned the canopy. I felt intensely strained with so many bolts at the ready, but I alleviated the strain by killing two spiders before I finished my slow twirl.
I saw a few Hobgoblins approach, but I left them to Grifith. I would’ve had no problem taking care of them by myself, but I didn't want to hog all the glory. Although I did kill one that was coming from my direction.
There’s not hogging glory, then there's negligence.
I kept my slow twirl going, killing a few more spiders.
Ooh, that one looks different. Maybe it’s a Dire Spider?
It went down with the rest.
I was conserving mana by killing the spiders with one shot to the head each, made a lot easier by the Guided Projectile modification.
I heard the sounds of fighting as Grifith took down several Hobgoblins. I looked his way while I pointed in his direction. He seemed to be doing fine, but there was a Hobgoblin sneaking up on him. I was about to end it with a Mana Bolt when Grifith did an elaborate twirl of his own and decapitated both the one that he was fighting and the one sneaking up on him.
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Right, he’s been an adventurer a lot longer than I have. He knows how to use his skills a lot better than I do, I'm sure.
I continued scanning the canopy, and spotted a spider above Grifith. I shot it dead with a single Mana Bolt, and it dropped a ball of silk right on a Skeleton’s head, causing it to stumble enough for Grifith to destroy its skull in one swipe.
I didn’t even realize that Skeletons had joined the fight. I guess this is a free for all in the wild, huh?
I killed another Skeleton that was approaching from my direction. It took two Mana Bolts to destroy its head enough for it to go down, but it went down nonetheless.
Grifith and I were fighting for around 10 minutes until I heard the sound of battle die down. I killed one last spider then checked on Grifith. All around his feet were claws, random pieces of leather armor, and balls of spider silk.
“Not nearly as bad as I thought it would be, but it also was louder than I was hoping for. Let’s get our drops and we can move on. I’d like to avoid staying in one place for too long.”
I agreed and started storing everything. I convinced myself that I wouldn't look at my storage, other than to make sure I had enough space for drops, until we were done fighting for the week. I stored balls of silk, a bine, and a few pieces of armor. Grifith gathered all the claws and the rest of the armor.
We moved on looking for more monsters. I kept my eyes moving along the canopy, making sure no spiders could sneak up on us. Yet Grifith gave me the heads up one was coming from behind and above. Ii fired a single bolt at it and stored the silk.
“So, we’ve gotten a whole lot of spiders, a few Hobs, and like two skeletons so far. Where are the rest of the monsters we’re supposed to hunt? We have to be at least two miles into the forest by now?” I was starting to get anxious about the lack of variety.
“This is the Hobgoblins section of the forest.” Grifith explained. “I’m sure if we keep going this way, we’ll find a village of them set up. Most humanoid monsters, when in large numbers, gather in villages that look eerily like sapient villages. I’m talking huts, guard posts, and even the occasional wall with a designated entrance/exit.”
“Well damn. I wasn’t expecting that.”
“Yeah, it’s weird. Some people hypothesize that some monsters are sapient. I refuse to believe such utter bull. If they were sapient, then they’d at least try to communicate with us. But the fact is they still drop loot, and we don’t. That’s the big dividing factor between sapient and non-sapient.”
I nodded and kept going. This wasn't the right place for a lecture. Maybe when we get back to civilization, we can have a more in depth conversation about it.
We found more and more Hobgoblins. It got to the point where they started showing up in packs of 3 or 4. When we saw our first pack of 6, I told Grifith to hold off for a bit so I could trap them and let them drain behind a barrier. I hadn’t replenished my Arc yet, so this was the perfect time to use my Barrier Magic.
I trapped the group and they immediately started banging on the wall in front of them. It took a minute for the first monster to fall to its knees and pass out from exhaustion. They all died in under two minutes.
I made sure to make the barrier air tight so no sound got through. The whole extermination cost 25 mana. Less than what I would have paid for a mana bolt to the head each. After that group had died, I brought up an Arc of 4 Mana Bolts.
We gathered the loot and moved on. When we saw a group of 10 that looked ready for war, Grifith said we should back out for now.
“They’ve probably noticed the groups not returning, so they send out an extra pack of their stronger members to search for them. It’s that kind of intelligence that makes Hobgoblins so much more dangerous than regular goblins.”
Was Grifith praising them?
I still had 700 mana in my pool for now, so I offered to spend a good chunk of it taking them all out at once.
“No, not yet at least. If you do that and they don’t return, they’ll send out the village head, which is usually an Orc or an Ogre. If we’re unlucky, it’ll be a Troll. I’d rather not deal with a Troll on our first day. They’re easily the most dangerous monster I've fought. It took my party of 6 over an hour to kill the damn thing.” Grifith shuddered a bit at that.
Damn. if it took 6 of them to kill one, then what’s in store for us if we run into one? I knew that Trolls were the most dangerous on the list for us since neither of us has fire abilities, but maybe I underestimate their strength. I figured we could finagle something, but I guess Grifith isn’t so confident.
We turned around and went as fast as we could out of the forest without making too much noise. I killed a spider at Grifith’s direction, but other than that we didn’t pause until we reached the spot where we found the Skeleton trapped in the spider’s web. Grifith killed the monster with a quick bash to the head. It left no loot.
We jogged until we were no longer in the blue shaded area in our maps. It had started to get dark outside, so we decided to call it a day. Grifith started setting camp up by setting out his warding stones around us. I then set a barrier that would prevent anything outside of the wind and us from passing, including under us. Then I made sure that we could get both out and back in with no trouble. I packed the barrier with 600 points of mana and sat back, proud at how far I had come in the meager month since coming to this world.
“Nothing will be getting through that easily. We’ll be sleeping fine tonight.” Grifith praised the barrier.
Feels good, man. Feels good.
After we were done setting up the perimeter, we each started setting up our personal sleeping areas. Grifith had also brought a chair to sit in for when he was eating, but I just sat on my sleeping mat.
I was tempted to get a fire started, though I don't actually know how to do that.
Maybe I should've bought the firebolt ring anyway. A fire sounds nice right about now, especially to cut back on the chill we’re starting to get.
It had been rather chilly last night, to the point even Grifith remarked that autumn must be near.
We ate our food in a slow silence. When we finished eating, I asked Grifith if he had any sort of plan for what we should do. Both in general and if we were to run into a Troll.
“Well, if we find a Troll, you are to immediately cast the strongest Barrier you can around it, making it as tight around the monster as you can, add those draining effects you have to make the barrier to make the Troll weaker, then we run for it. Plain and simple. I dont have fire magic as my secret third skill, I know you don't have fire magic, and unless you have an enchanted item that deals fire damage, we don't have any hope of actually defeating it.”
He shivered a bit.
“The only way to deal with a Troll without fire is overwhelming force, which neither of us possesses. You’re not holding back on me are you?”
I considered it for a bit.
“Well, technically no, but also kind of yes. I made a Mana Bullet that completely disintegrated the upper left quarter of the Lizardman Dungeon Boss. It costs 100 mana to do so, but now that I have a higher mana cap, I could probably double the power of it with another hundred points of mana to at least destroy the head, if not the entire upper torso section of the monster. But I can also do 4 of those at a time, so if it survives the first one, it might not survive the second, third, and fourth all at once.”
Grifith looked at me curiously. I pulled up the basic version of my status.
User: Claff:
Health 300/300 (300*/hr)
Stamina 122/300 (30/hr)
Mana 100/940 (580.8*/hr)
SKILLS
PASSIVE
Enhanced Body Lv 10 [63%]
Increased Mental Capacity Lv 17 [33%]
Regeneration Lv 17 [49%]
ACTIVE
Arcane Magic Lv 13 [95%]
Barrier Magic Lv 13 [46%]
Game-like Storage Lv 11 [45%]
“Oh yeah, by the way, I have a maximum mana pool of 940 right now. I’ve gained a lot of experience on our way here, with all the practice and all that.”
“It’s shown. You did well with the spider. And by the way, for now, whoever has room in their storage holds the loot. When we get back, we’ll sell everything and split the cost from there. 60/40 sound fair? You are the party leader here, and I wouldn't even be here right now if not for you, so I don't mind giving a little of my share to you for it.”
“Absolutely not. We’re doing 50/50, and I won't hear anything else about it. I probably would’ve been killed at least twice by now without you here, and that’s honesty being generous to me.”
He laughed. “Agreed. But still, you have my appreciation for this whole thing. I probably would’ve been at my little Goblin hole doing the same thing over and over for the rest of my life without the push you’ve given me. So when we get back, the first round is on me, yeah?”
I smiled and agreed. Then I remembered the last time I drank and tried not to gag at the feeling.
“Maybe just buy me dinner and call it good. I can’t even think about alcohol since I tried Theromear’s Fire. That shit kicked my ass. Hard.”
“Well no wonder. That stuff is hard even by Dwarven standards. And expensive too. A night at a good inn is cheaper than that stuff.” Grifith laughed some more at me.
“In my defense… I actually don’t have a defense. I was warned by a few people not to even try it. Yet I wanted to show off for a girl.”
“Story as old as time, my friend.” Grifith got up and smacked my shoulder. “At least you learned your lesson.“
We sat around for a bit reading stories of girls. I had to do my best to adapt my stories to be more appropriate for the world I was in, since they don’t exactly have online dating here. We both had a few good laughs.
After an hour or so of talking, Grifith decided to call it. I let him know I wanted to practice my Arcane Magic a bit more before bed to get as close to level 14 as possible. I also remembered I had a spell to learn in Barrier Magic too.
Looks like the danger bonus XP does wonders for leveling. Maybe I should just hold off until tomorrow? NO, there’s only 5% left. I can get that in an hour of practice no problem.
I called forth an empowered Mana Bolt that had 30 mana in it. I then split it into 3 projectiles to practice controlling stronger Mana Bolts at the same time. When I got the hang of dealing with so much power at once, I added a fourth bolt by putting more mana into the pattern.
Soon enough, I had 10 Mana Bolts that were empowered to 10 mana each. I had them floating around my head, then I brought them out of the barrier to put on a bit of a light show, I had them swirling in all sorts of patterns. Figure eights and smiley faces were my most common pattern since it was too difficult right now to hold more than 10 bolts at a time.
I kept the Mana Bolts under 10 feet above the barrier, but I guess that was enough to attract monsters from the forest. It was only two Skeletons, but it was enough that I decided to call it a night.
I killed the skeleton with two bolts to the head then killed the second one off with another two. As the second skeleton dropped, I felt the same change in my magic as I had before.
FUCK YEAH! My Arcane Magic leveled to 14!
I brought up my skills and focused on Barrier Magic first, since I still hadn’t done that yet.
Barrier Effect Darken has been learned.
Okay, not quite what i was hoping for, but i could see some potential as a convenience thing. Not sure it has battle potential, but it would be nice to make some shade on a sunny day. Disappointed my other barrier effects haven’t gotten a boost yet, but they’re pretty powerful as it stands.
I moved onto Arcane Magic.
Muti-casting has been learned.
The hell? What have I been doing then?
I focused on the information that was hammered into my head. It seemed to let me cast two separate spells at the same time. What I've been doing is basically hijacking a bunch of separate effects of other modifiers to achieve something close, but not quite the same as this.
Paris is off the hook then. He said muti-casting at level 14, and here it is. I guess I just let him get to me. Good thing I did though. I don’t know if i could have achieved what i did in the short time i had the modifier otherwise.
I tried casting Mana Bolt two separate times instead of doing it using the janked method I've been using. I cast one on each hand. It was interesting to have so much less mental strain for doing something so different yet so similar.
I continued playing with my new modifier for another half hour until I was interrupted by Grifith coughing. It didn’t make me mess the spell up, but it definitely startled me.
“It’s been over an hour, Claff. You might not need as much sleep thanks to Enhanced Body, but you still need sleep regardless.”
“Nah, I'll be fine. I’ve gone 3 days with no sleep, and that was before I got the skill’s help. I could probably go a full week right now, especially if I'm just sitting here playing with magic.”
I smiled and separated the bolt in my right hand into 5 parts. Then I sent one flying around Grifith’s head. He did not look amused,
“Fine fine, I’ll go to sleep. Night Grifith.”
I let the spells dissipate, then curled up in my sleeping bed. I threw the remainder of my mana into the barrier and passed out.
It was a good first day at the Dark Forest. Hopefully we can find some different monsters tomorrow though.