“I hope this one is finally a useful one,” Brian said.
“Please don’t jinx it,” Lucas said.
All three agreed that it was Brian’s turn to get a skill crystal.
“I just squeeze it like this?” Brian said, and squeezed the crystal.
It popped and yellow energy went into his hand.
Right Arm Increased Strength: Rank 1
Brian told them what he got.
“I guess this is useful? Is there some way for me to test this?” Brian said.
“I”m not sure. Maybe if we had weights. But we don’t have any previous data of how much you could lift before you got the skill. Maybe do some pushups and see if you can feel a difference?”
Brian nodded and started doing pushups. At home he always did at least 100 pushups a day.
“Yeah yeah, I feel it now. It’s not huge, but maybe like, I dunno, 10% increase in strength in my right arm? My arm itself doesn’t look bigger. I’m not sure how to explain it. But yeah, it kinda feels stronger. Anyways, back on track!”
“We have to avoid the grasshopper area and the balloons area. The hispanics will probably figure out it was us somehow. I’m not sure. But we should get stronger, get that skill point today. Right now we are east of the balloon area and I think this is a new area with a new monster type. We should grind here to avoid the hispanics. So we need to practice against this new monster type. Also, I need to fill my magazine up with more bullets and before we move on, let’s loot the backpacks we stole. I also suggest we drop the combat knives, have them on you, but use one of the longer weapons. I’ll take the golf club. Jack should take the machete and Lucas the bat,” Brian said.
“Fine with me,” Lucas said.
Inside the stolen bags were mainly meat from the grasshoppers. There was also dried grasshopper meat, presumably for rations. Toilet paper and water. And a first aid kit.
“Why didn’t we think of packing first aid,” Jack said.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Yeah, I also think we should start wearing some kind of armor or something. After seeing this shit today I wanna get a bulletproof vest,” Lucas said.
“Yeah, that does sound smart. But we don’t even know if this new monster drops anything we can sell off,” Brian said.
After 2 minutes of walking, they spotted the new monster. It was a goblin.
Kill 100 non-Balloon monsters
001/100
“Fuck! We can’t sell this shit!” Lucas said.
The goblin showed almost no intelligence, and as soon as it spotted them it charged and tried to attack them with its claws.
Jack tried to cut off its head with a sideways swipe of his new machete when it lunged at him. He had never swung a machete before, so the swing wasn’t clean and instead got stuck in the goblins neck and Jack had to pry it away from the dead goblin.
It’s not a system skill, but I have gotten good at the timing of attacks after grinding hundreds of Balloon Monsters. But I still need to get used to this new weapon.
“So, if all monsters drop crystals, how do we find it in this one? I don’t wanna open it up. God, I miss the Balloon Monster. We really hit the jackpot with it,” Jack said.
“I’m not about to get greasy and covered in shit for a 1 out of 100 chance of getting a crystal that might have something useful. I think after we get this stupid skill point and spend it on that mana shit we just go back to grinding the Balloon Monster,” Lucas said.
“No, it’s too dangerous,” Brian said.
“They don’t even know it was us. And we need money. We can’t do shit with this goblin corpse. I’m tired of sleeping on floors. I want that motel room” Lucas said.
“He’s kind of right, we really need money to buy more weapons and armor and shit. I suggest we decide what to do when we are done. Let’s get grinding,” Jack said.
Kill 100 non-Balloon monsters
024/100
When Brian was in the attacking role, he only needed one good swing of his baseball bat to kill the goblin. But Lucas needed to swing 2 or 3 times with the golf club before it killed the goblin. Eventually they decided to just switch it on rotation where the attacker would hold the machete and the backup the golf club and the scout the baseball bat. They were still using the same grinding setup they had with the Balloon Monsters.
Kill 100 non-Balloon monsters
050/100
Kill 100 non-Balloon monsters
64/100
Kill 100 non-Balloon monsters
078/100
Kill 100 non-Balloon monsters
099/100
Kill 100 non-Balloon monsters
100/100
You completed the challenge: Kill 100 non-Balloon monsters. Your reward is one unfixed skill point.
“Okay, so I think this is what we should buy with our skill points…”