“Chief, we’re ready,” Justin said.
“What? Oh, alright then let’s head in.”
Currently, Elijah was standing outside a cave with Justin and the village warriors. After they finished their dawn cultivation, they immediately left the village and headed to the astral mine. Once they arrived, they began readying the items they prepared for fighting the slimes in the cave. They took out their torches, put on their cloaks and prepared their umbrellas.
As they did so, Elijah’s mind was on the conversation he had with Cole last evening. Cole told him that Bart had been going to the members of the clan trying to convince them to take action against the villagers while he was away. Elijah was shocked by the information, but at the same time he wasn’t.
To some extent, Elijah always thought that Bart would cause him problems at some point. However, he still couldn’t stop himself from feeling surprised when it happened. Now, the only thing he needed to do was decide how he would react to Bart’s actions.
Following behind the village warriors, Elijah entered the cave with his spear in his right hand. The moment he set foot in the cave he received a notification for the astral stone mine and Elijah immediately agreed to pay the upkeep. In the beginning only three people could walk side by side, but the further in they went the wider the cave became. Alongside the increase in width was an increase in darkness.
With the torches they prepared in advance, they had no trouble pushing back the darkness. However, what they really had to worry about was the darkness in front of them. As they walked deeper into the cave, the floor slanted downward, and the ceiling became further away. The light of the torches wasn’t able to reach the ceiling and the warriors wouldn’t be able to see any slimes that may be lurking up above.
Unlike his warriors, Elijah didn’t have a problem with seeing in the tunnel. He was using his Supreme Astral Sense talent to keep track of everyone and everything. If that failed, he still had his Supreme Eyes talent.
During the most recent dusk and dawn, Elijah avoided tempering his senses in order to avoid being unable to use his eyes. All the energy he gathered during his previous two cultivation session were sent to his village core. Losing a few cultivation opportunities was a small price to pay for the safety of his men.
“This place sure is creepy,” Tevin said. He was walking at the front of the group next to Justin.
“I agree,” Tap said. “It reminds me of the first time we fought at night. Back then I thought all the noises were scary, but this silence is a lot scarier.”
“I don’t think it’s so bad,” Carl, another warrior said.
“That’s an easy thing to say from the back. How about we switch positions?”
“No, no, I’m fine where I am.”
More than a few warriors began to chuckle when they heard Carl’s response. To Elijah the chuckles seemed a bit forced. He guessed that the warriors were nervous about fighting an enemy that could appear from anywhere at any moment at any time.
“That’s enough,” Justin said. “Now is not the time to be joking around. We can enter battle at any moment so be on guard.”
Elijah saw Justin glance back at him and he decided to speak up in support. “Justin’s right. Talking gives away our position to our enemies and we might end up revealing some information that our enemies could make use of. Although I don’t think the slimes are that intelligent, this can be considered practice for the enemies we’ll face in the future.”
“I see something,” a goblin called out in a high-pitched voice.
The goblin spoke a few seconds after Elijah finished speaking. On average humans had better perception, but the goblins were naturally better suited for seeing and moving in the dark. Of course, before the goblin saw the slime Elijah already saw it with his astral sense.
“Shields! Archers! Get ready!” Justin commanded. However, everyone was already moving before he opened his mouth.
Before they entered the cave, they had already discussed their strategy, and everyone knew their job. The goblins that were ahead of the group, stepped back so that they were slightly behind and to the side of the humans in the front. The humans in the front were wielding a shield in one hand and a torch in the other.
After them came a row of humans wielding a torch in one hand and a weapon in the other. Within that row there were a few goblins wielding mele weapons, but they didn’t have any torches. Behind them were the archers standing ready with their bows nocked.
Finally, Elijah stood at the very back observing everything. He nodded his head as he saw his warriors smoothly preparing themselves for battle. Once Justin was sure everyone was ready, they continued pushing forward. As they did so, Elijah once again reviewed the information he obtained from one of the five enemies.
Slime Level 29
Slime Level 27
Slime Level 32
Slime Level 24
Slime Level 36 Energy: 1,200/3,700
Health: 400/400 Stamina: 450/500 Mental: 900/1,500
Attack: 3 Defense: 9 Astral Attack: 40 Astral Defense: 36
Using his Supreme Eyes talent, Elijah obtained a better understanding of the strongest slime. At first Elijah was a bit confused by the concept of astral attack and defense. However, after a few seconds passed something clicked.
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Normally, once a human reaches the Qi Condensation realm, their astral attack and defense information would appear on their status page. Basically, they represented a person’s ability to attack and defend with astral energy. An example would be the fire balls and fire shields that the goblin leader used when he attacked the village.
One of the biggest problems with astral energy attacks is that they dealt damage over time or DOT. For, example, when Elder Jamal and the others first encountered the slimes, they were caught off guard by their acid attacks. A few of the hunters received some damage after they were hit by a ball of corrosive liquid, and they continued to receive damage even after they wiped off the liquid. This DOT was caused by the harmful astral energy that was in the attack.
Eventually, they stopped receiving damage and were able to recover. This happened because the hunters had a lot of health, so they were able to endure until their bodies naturally healed. Also, they had a few healing items that Jenny provided. These items contained beneficial astral energy that worked against the harmful astral energy that remained from the attacks.
Armed with the knowledge on astral attack and defense, Elijah was confident that none of his warriors would die in the battle. Therefore, he resolved himself to not interfere no matter what. Well, he would definitely interfere if someone was about to die or lose a limb, but that was it.
“I can see it,” Carl said. A few other warriors in the back with him said similar words.
Carl and the other archers were in the back, but they were able to see the slimes before the people in the front. This was because the archers switched from their warrior job which gave bonusses to the physical stats, to their hunter jobs which gave bonuses to perception. Justin suggested they make the change since they would be shooting in a dark cave and Elijah agreed.
“Release!” Justin commanded.
Through his astral sense, Elijah watched as eight arrows flew toward a green gelatinous blob. In terms of height, it came up to Elijah’s chest, but in terms of length and width it was thicker than two of Elijah. The arrows sunk into the green slim and the wooden shaft of the arrow immediately began to dissolve.
In addition to dissolving, the arrow rapidly lost momentum but it still managed to hit the slimes nucleus before the arrow shaft dissolved. The only thing that remained was the stone arrowhead. As for the slime’s nucleus, it was a green sphere that was the size of a baseball. There was no damage shown on the surface of the nucleus itself and the slime itself didn’t show any signs that it was affected by the arrow other than a small wave that rippled through its body.
Looking at the information for the level twenty-four slime that was recently attacked, Elijah saw that it lost ten health points. The next seven arrows dealt between eight and twelve damage to the slime. However, the slime didn’t simply lie down and take it.
Balls of green liquid were being shot out of the slime’s body at three second intervals. After its first attack the level twenty-seven slime slid forward to help. However, the warriors at the front easily fended off the slime attacks.
In the end, the slimes fell to the barrage of arrow released by the archers. The warriors at the front loss three of their shields and suffered some damage from the occasional stray spray of acid. Otherwise, the group came out of the battle fine without any losses.
Once the battle was over, Justin ordered one of the goblins to go forward and check if any more slimes were nearby. After a few seconds the goblin returned and reported that everything was clear. Everyone relaxed after they heard the news. Everyone except for Elijah.
With his fist clenched Elijah watched as three slimes dropped from the cave ceiling. As he watched them through his astral senses, he saw that the slime wouldn’t directly fall on the heads of his warriors, so he unclenched his fist and relaxed a bit. However, he immediately clenched his fist again and his eyes widened in alarm when he saw the weight of the three slimes fall bring five of his men to the ground.
Chaos erupted and screams of pain resounded through the cave. Over the next few seconds, seconds that could be considered crucial, Elijah watched as his men panicked and fail to take action. Thankfully, Justin quickly restored order and led the warriors to quickly finish off the three slimes.
First, one or two warriors pulled the wounded warriors away from the slimes and immediately began tending to their wounds. The remaining warriors entered mele range and immediately began hacking at the slime’s nucleus. Their weapons rapidly lost points in durability, but they managed to quickly kill the slimes after an intense ten second battle.
Elijah let out a sigh of relief when the battle was over. His entire body relaxed, and Elijah was a little surprised to see that he was sweating. Not only that, but he also lost a few dozen mental and stamina points as well.
“Don’t drop your guard, there could be more in the area!” Justin shouted.
Justin shouts brought Elijah’s attention away from his status and back to his people. He quickly made his way to the injured and began using his healing skill to help them recover. He didn’t bother to tell the warriors that there were no more enemies around as it was good for them to practice remaining vigilant.
As Elijah treated the wounded warriors, the remaining warriors eventually began to relax when they realized no more slimes were coming. Elijah didn’t fully heal the injured warriors, but he brought them back to fighting condition. With the help of the medicine Jenny prepared and their own healing abilities they would be fully recovered within an hour.
“Let’s take a break,” Elijah commanded.
“We don’t need a break,” one of the injured warriors quickly spoke up. “We can still fight.”
“Where’s the fire? I don’t remember assigning a time limit to taking the dungeon. Since were not in a rush, then there is nothing wrong with us taking a break.” No one was able to refute what Elijah said nor did they want to. Everyone leaned their torches against each other and sat on the ground around them. “During this break, I would like to discuss the mistakes that were made during the battle.”
All of the warriors flinched at the word mistakes. They all knew that although they won, their performance during the battle was very poor. Out of everyone, Justin had the worst expression on his face.
“Actually, what I really mean is that I want all of you to discuss the mistakes that were made in battle. I won’t be saying anything. If you want to improve its important that your able to notice what you’re doing wrong. This applies to both cultivation and combat. It's even more important in combat because if you keep making the same mistakes eventually, you’ll be killed. Once you all finished discussing your mistakes, we can continue hunting down the remaining slimes. Now discuss.” Elijah sat on the ground, closed his eyes and didn’t say anything else.
“Well, obviously we let our guard down a bit too early,” Tevin said after some time passed.
“I agree,” another warrior said. “I felt kind of useless during the battle. I think I should have had my shield out to help protect from the slimes above or used my bow to help attack.”
“We could probably-”
Outwardly, Elijah remained expressionless as he listened to his warriors. Inwardly he was satisfied with their thinking. Although they didn’t see all their mistakes, they saw the important ones.
Elijah was satisfied that the group were able to keep themselves from dying in the astral mine cave which was an area that could be called extremely dangerous given the abilities they currently had. Now, they demonstrated the ability to recognize their mistakes. Elijah was confident that the warriors would be able to go into battle against beast and come back safely without his help. Once the group were finished discussing their mistakes, they were much more confident and eager to fight against the slimes. Over the next thirty minutes they quickly made it through the mine, slaughtering all the slimes in their path.