It indeed was a heaven. The floaters kept coming at us and I sent Don in as a tank, so I could swing the whip as I pleased. For our next move, Don charged in like an idiot; he stumbled upon a loose board and fell. The Floater was about to tear him, but I swung hard, and his skull went missing.
[Floater has been defeated. Your contribution: +4XP]
The annoying system kept sending me messages, so I silenced it; it will keep me going. Oh, the suspense on how much I will get XP! Sadly, when I depleted my last bit of mana with a healing spell, we had to rest.
The sadness on my face intrigued the Captain. “Hero, what’s wrong?”
“I want to help; I want to fight them, but I don’t have mana, that’s why I need to rest,” I said as I watched the sailors fight the XP bags and clenched my fists. Damit, I bet the rankers are way ahead of me. I know the future, exploited the game, and I am still lagging?
“You know what? We have a ship full of mana potions, I will sell you one for five coppers. The only condition is, you’ll keep fighting them.” I hungerly jumped up to him, nodded, and snatched potions from his hand and deposited coppers back. This quest is awesome, so generous deal!
“If you need more, just ask me, I will send someone to fetch them. Keep fighting, Hero!”
With a cheerful grin, I emptied the potion and joined the melee on the deck. When Don’s health got low, he screamed like a girl for healing. Useless brat. To cast a healing spell, I moved my shield hand in a simple pattern; the mana flew in; golden energy escaped and enveloped him.
[NPC Donovan has been healed for 14HP.]
Next, the runes for Ice Dance glowed with a familiar blue light, and frost fell on the world; happiness filled my heart. What was this witchery, I succeeded on my first try, even the Ice Dance! Obviously, I had a slow, but steady runecrafting, like would that creep say. The thoughts about my exposed body and his stares sent shivers down to my spine and I decapitated the nearest floater.
My speed of runecrafting needed an improvement, but for now, I enjoyed the feeling of success. The supersonic sound of the whip, the adrenalin in my veins and the experience points waiting kept me awake. The floaters didn’t stand a chance; my whip was everywhere!
“Can I buy additional mana potions?” I asked after I crushed my latest enemy.
“Princess, aren’t you tired?” Captain said with a worry in his voice and offered me a towel. “Ten hours of constant brawling is a lot, you can rest, we can manage it.”
“Captain, I can always fight. If there is an enemy, I will face them,” I said. It wasn’t necessarily a lie, but I lied about why I fought them, so I accompanied the words with a smile to mask my restless heart.
“Very well. We have no supply here, but I already sent one man to fetch them. You are truly a Hero!”
He was mistaken about my bravado. I wanted to grind the Ice Dance, Ice Blood and Heal proficiency points, not help the poor sailors. Accidentally, I got my Ice Blood effect to the maximum effect, but I had to face an additional enemy in five minutes span or it would disappear. Move fast, you morons!
I sat on a bench and drank a wine to keep me intoxicated. It was a thing that encouraged me forward in that constant monotonous fight. Well, that and the muted system notices. Now for my reward, dear system, let it pour in…
[Floater has been defeated x1450; Various amounts of contribution: +4060XP]
[Congratulations! You are now level 6!]
[Congratulations! You are now level 7! XP to next level: 1010/2450]
[Congratulations! Your proficiency with Ice Dance increased to 1-Beginner 2!]
[Congratulations! Your proficiency with Ice Blood increased to 1-Beginner 1!]
[Congratulations! Your proficiency with Heal increased to 0-novice 9!]
[Ice Dance]
Type: 6-marvel | Lv. 1-Beginner 2 | Mana: 20% INT
Effect: Slows your enemies for 31%, add an ICE damage to melee attacks (INT)
Duration: 10 minutes
Cooldown: 19 minutes 30 seconds
[Ice Blood]
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Type: 6-marvel passive | Lv. 1-Beginner 1
Effect: for every 40% of your HP taken, you increase the ICE damage up to your [Reality Limit] (100%) by 1%
“Don, isn’t this the best thing that could happen to us?!” I cheered and danced on the deck, it amazed me how energizing leveling up was. He smirked and stared at my bottom, but then he disappeared to the ship below deck without a word. Possibly to sleep? Whatever. When was Don going in, he met a sailor running through the door who ran past him. Wonderful, mana potions entered my hands, and coins left my purse, again.
“There you go, Hero! Keep the fighting going!” Captain sold them, and I joined the ongoing battle with the ugly creatures with a crazy grin.
The night fell and a night sky full of stars sparkled on the still, vast river surface. For some unknown reason, Duke wanted to push to the seashore and more floaters crawled in because of that. I didn’t complain, not at all!
I blocked the claw attack with my trusty shield and finished the floater in one motion of the whip. The always present howling of the wind suddenly stopped, heck all the other sounds died out. It started raining, and a heavy air of a thunderstorm was drawing near.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Captain said. Why?! Why did you say it? I screamed in my mind, because the next instant an enormous shriek announced a massive monster.
The entire ship dangerously shook, and ugly big tentacle shot upward, bringing tons of seawater with it. It had many suckers rimmed with toothlike projections, and the suckers were as big as my entire head! Unknowingly, I sucked in a deep breath of warm, salty air. We were in the ocean waters already; that explained everything. Sea monsters.
The tentacle brought tens of Floaters to our deck with it. What an welcoming party! I was out of luck, because the Ice Dance was still on the cooldown, but despite that I joined the chaotic melee.
“Take a line! Second formation!” Captain commanded his men. The disorganized groups of warriors stepped back and shielded mages, who were coming as a support. Tens of spells, shrieks of monsters, and tentacles trashing the water filled the salty air; classic world Boss fight.
“Let’s have a pie too!” I emptied my super-potion into my mouth.
[You have used the Agility Potion]
[Agility increased by 50]
Strange courage overtook my mind, and I rushed forward, the whip ready. The ship dangerously shook, and I heard a faint swishing sound coming from our right side; that urged me to jump and climb higher.
A big gust of wind replaced the sound, and a tentacle tore through our deck, taking everything with it. My heart skipped at the sight of broken sails around me, and I clutched some rope hanging in front of me. Thanks to a fact the rope hung on a broken sail, which rested on the monsters tentacle I soared through the air with it!
When I flew in a misty rain, a ship with the biggest sails popped up on my left side, probably the Duke’s capital ship. This can be my chance to impress him!
I slashed my whip, and the end of it wrapped around a Duke’s ship’s mast, then I clutched a whip’s handle with my both hands and it stopped me flying. The next moment I swung on the whip and crashed to the big sail; the smash was so powerful I lost my breath and almost let go of the handle.
On the deck below me was Duke’s party in a serious fight with a dozen of floaters, and other creatures who looked like elites of floaters. As I was getting my sense of the world together, the cooldown of Ice Dance was over, and I urgently drew the runes in the air as I climbed up. Thankfully, this wasn’t a reality, so I could use my potion-boosted agility instead of strength and climbed to the top.
My new vantage point had one big boon, because I finally saw our enemy. An enormous octopus was floating on the surface of the sea, his eight tentacles going underwater and back. I fought with similar species on the Kari island, but the ugly octopuses used to be epic rare monsters; at level one hundred and a lot smaller. Like hundred times smaller. I almost finished the Ice Dance spell when I finally saw the monster’s level.
[Ilaginous Lv.15]
Type: 6-marvel World-Boss | HP: 26000/26000
Oh damn, the first marvel monster and World-Boss to the boot! Killing these things was a job for thousands of players at level fifteen and higher, not for my measly level seven. I finished the last rune, and the effect of my marvel-level spells were flashy; a strong blueish light glowed to the night at the top of the biggest ship. Whoopsie-daisy.
The monster turned our way, and one tentacle shot towards us. I had time to only jump and hope for the best. Perhaps the deck will save me. As I dropped, I heard tearing of all our sails. I hadn’t aimed my fall at all, but when the deck came I crashed on two floaters.
I heard the splashing sounds of heavy meat tentacle bouncing off something. The next moment all mana in the area surged behind me, and a beautiful white mana-shield formed all around the ship; probably Istvan’s. Sadly, I didn’t have time to confirm my suspicion, because I was suddenly in a pickle. At least ten Floaters measured me with their scary monstrous stares.
Thankfully, the new level of Ice Dance looked a lot more flashy than before, not only the runes. The layers of deeper frost were further than before, the surrounding area got colder and even the rain halfway through it froze into snowflakes. Sadly, Floaters hadn’t admired my skill and swarmed at me.
As thousands of times before I moved the hand with the whip and a supersonic sound accompanied a crushing of skull, it was an instant death. That intoxicated me more than the tens of bottles of wine I drank already.
[Armor pierced. Target lost 44HP (6x2 normal) + (8x2 ICE +100% [Ice Blood] effect)]
[Floater has been defeated. Your contribution: +5XP]
“Fear me, Floaters! I am the Hero of Ice Blood!” I screamed at them and smashed at their heads without a second thought. They fell like level one Bearbits, as I jumped backwards toward the railings with ease and slaughtered them, one by one. The only word that would describe my doing was a massacre and XP poured like a tea.
“I heard about you, our new Hero.” Duke’s voice came from the top of the deck. “Please help us defeat the monster.”
“Gladly, my lord!”