She just wanted to rest for a couple of minutes, tired and hungry from the hours of walking she had been doing. Her endurance was one of her lowest stats, and it showed. How was Aurelia supposed to know that bears could climb trees? Well, she had probably heard something to that extent before, but she wasn’t thinking clearly when she decided to climb the large, moss covered tree.
Aurelia had only been sitting among the tree branches for about 10 minutes when the large red bear approached her. Of course when she finally stopped looking for the monsters, is when they showed up. Aurelia had only found and killed 11 bears in the three hours she had been here, including the first black claw bear she had encountered. The bears had so far ranged in levels between 10 and 13. Aurelia identified the bear below her as it stood up on its hind legs and roared at her.
[Red Claw Bear] Level 14
Health: 900/900
Mana: 200/200
Stamina: 310/310
The [Red Claw Bear] is a monster found in forest and mountain regions of Eldria. The [Red Claw Bear] has high vitality and strength, using its long claws to decimate their foes. Can wield flames through their claws that will cauterize wounds they inflict, not allowing for prey to bleed out.
Wait, this bear could wield flames? Aurelia blanched as she saw the eight inch long bear claws turn from white to red hot, then burst into flames. The large bear then began to climb the same tree she was sitting in, causing branches, bark and leaves to catch flame. She shrieked in horror at the sight and then teleported to the ground behind the bear.
The bear had made it up six feet into the thirty foot tree before Aurelia had moved away. Wasting no more time, Aurelia began pelting the bear first with a quick lightning bolt, then mana bolts and a spatial slash. The bear didn’t even have time to react as the many spells impacted into its back and limbs. With a roar, it fell backwards out of the tree and onto the ground. A couple of spells after that, and Aurelia received a kill notification.
[Red Claw Bear] Level 14 defeated.
5,252 experience earned!
You have reached level 8!
Stat points allocated!
You have 9 free stat points.
You have one free skill point.
Would you like to loot [Red Claw Bear]?
“Oh yay! A new level! Loot please.” Aurelia happily accepted, settling down in the grass.
[Red Claw Bear] meat x 6 received!
[Red Claw Bear] pelt x 1 received!
[Red Claw Bear] flame claw dagger: uncommon received!
[Monster Core] level 11 received!
16 Copper coins received!
2 Silver coins received!
All loot deposited in [Spatial Storage].
Aurelia set her wand to the side and curiously pulled out the flame claw dagger. This was the first made item she had received as loot in this section of the dungeon. Usually she only got meat, pelts, and individual bear claws. The flame claw dagger came with a black leather sheath for the blade and had a black leather-wrapped hilt. Aurelia carefully drew out the blade from the sheath. The white, double edged blade looked sharp. She put her hand near the blade, but didn’t feel any heat emanating from the blade. After pressing the flat side of the blade to the back of her hand, she felt that it didn’t feel hot or even warm.
So it was a flame dagger that wasn’t on fire? Maybe she was missing something. Or perhaps she needed to know a flame spell before it would catch on fire. Aurelia thought back to the games she had played. Oftentimes, magical artifacts required magic to work. So, maybe Aurelia needed to put magic in the blade before it worked?
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Aurelia hadn’t used her mana outside the spells she cast. For the first time, she tried putting her mana into something other than one of those spells. Aurelia focused on the dagger and imagined mana going into the dagger. The white blade began to turn red hot, and then burst into flame in her hands. Aurelia shrieked and tossed the dagger aside into the grass.
She watched as the flames went out and the blade turned back to white. The blade was still hot enough, though, that the grass around the blade began to smoke. Aurelia cautiously picked the blade back up again and saw that the handle was not hot whatsoever. She could still feel slight heat emanating from the blade. Curious, she held the blade as far away from her torso as she could and tried lighting the blade again.
This time, when the blade caught fire, she didn’t drop it. She watched the red and orange flames dance around the blade in fascination. She had fire! A loud popping noise coming from the side made her jump. The tree the red bear had climbed was now alight with flames. A growl noise came from her stomach and Aurelia smiled. She could cook now!
A couple minutes later, the smell of cooked mole meat filled the air. The piece of meat was held aloft on a stick, as Aurelia spun it next to the burning pile of logs. Her mana shield protected her from the intense heat and the sparks that flew out of the fire. Not wanting the whole forest to catch fire, she had used a bear pelt to smother the growing flames on the tree. Then she had used her spatial slash skill to cut the tree down and drag the charred logs to a nearby clearing. Some use of her flame claw dagger had allowed her to relight the flames.
She pulled the dripping meat away from the flames and walked a few steps away. Aurelia waited until the meat had cooled slightly before digging into it. When finished, she decided to cook some of the snake meat.
As the meat spun over the flames, Aurelia sighed in contentment. The mole meat had satisfied her hunger and the smell of roasting snake meat made her salivate. After all, snakes were always better not alive. Aurelia listened to the sound of the rustling leaves, crackling flames, breaking branches, grunting…
Aurelia turned to see two black bears rushing out of the forest towards her. They came from two different directions, coming towards the smell of the cooking meat. Aurelia dropped the snake meat and picked up her discarded wand before she scrambled to her feet. Aurelia began throwing spells at the bear to her right. Mana bolts slammed into the bear and a spatial slash cut deep into one of the bear's forelegs. It crashed to the ground, the leg unable to support its weight any longer.
The bear on the left continued forwards, its long claws creating deep gauges in the earth. Aurelia switched targets and began shooting spells at the second bear. After a couple mana bolts hit on target, she teleported near the fallen bear. The second bear noticed she had changed positions and roared in anger. Bear number one was struggling and ended up standing on its hind legs. The first bear turned towards Aurelia only to get a spatial slash to the face, not quite killing it.
The second bear rushed at Aurelia, moving past the first bear. The second bear rammed into the first black bear, trying to get around it. Taking her cue, Aurelia cast a lightning chain at the first bear. The spell connected, and finished off the bear. Lightning chained to the second nearby bear, causing it to growl in pain. Aurelia teleported behind the second bear to get a better angle and continued to cast spells at it. To her relief, the bear collapsed and Aurelia received a second kill notification.
She looted the two bears, but didn’t get anything new like the flame claw dagger. Aurelia decided to wait before trying to make more food. More bears may come out, led here by the smell of cooked meat.
An hour later Aurelia continued to sit by her burning cook fire, full from all the meat she had devoured. During the entire hour, she had neither seen or heard any other bears out there in the forest. She sighed, and thought that there must be no more bears in the area to be drawn in by the meaty smell.
Aurelia wasn’t sure what she should do. She didn’t want to be stuck in the dungeon for the next week, searching for bears. Thinking about her options, she remembered that she had one free skill point she still hadn’t used. Maybe there was a spell that could help her!
Aurelia pulled up the skill list available to her, and noticed that the list had grown even longer. All those attack spells seemed so amazing, but she needed a different spell this time around. She looked through the list when she spotted it.
“That one. That’s the spell I need!” Aurelia selected the skill.
Spatial Tracking:
Allows the User to passively see paths made by other monsters and Users through space. With an expenditure of mana, the User can create a lock on a specific target to track their path even through portals, wards, and other translocation and restrictive spells. The lock on the target can last up to 24 hours. Passive Cost: none. Active Cost: 100 mana.
As Aurelia received the skill, the world changed around her. All of a sudden, she could see lines of color crossing through the air. The lines were like strings of color crossing through the forest. One blue line seemed more prominent than the rest. The blue line seemed to intersect many times, the line going from the cook fire, towards the burned tree and back again. At one point the line seemed to just end abruptly and start again in another location. Aurelia walked a couple of steps and then looked behind her, the blue line followed right behind her. So the blue line indicated the path she had traveled.
Aurelia walked over to where the two black bears had died and saw two black lines start where they died, did some twists and turns and then the two lines headed out into the forest in different directions.
She looked at other lines around her. Most were black in color, but some were red, white, brown, and even one golden strand. Aurelia guessed these were the lines of all the other bears in the forest. Looking closer at the different lines, Aurelia noticed that the two lines for the bears she had killed looked more translucent than most of the other lines. Only two other lines had that translucent quality, one red and another black. That’s when she realized the translucent lines must be an indication that the subject of those lines were dead.
Aurelia smiled. So if she simply just followed the lines, she could find all of the monsters in a lot shorter of a time. Now, she could do some proper hunting.