Along with Shadow and Raven, Lyndis was teleported without warning to a Asian styled training ground. The place actually had quite a large open space at the font and there was a large building at the centre of it. Inside were rooms for all of them individually. The three could hear Eden's voice as if it was recorded.
[This place doesn't have a name so you call it the 'training grounds' I suppose. Well in this building, there are 6 rooms that are of a separate space. Use these places to train your more destructive skills and spells. I don't want this place burning down in the end. Oh there's also a place to sleep and a kitchen as well with basic ingredients so help your self. I expect you guys to train here for another month so your skill proficiencies will rise]
With that, the message cut off and the three were left to their own devices.
“Say...what are we going to do now?” asked Shadow mostly confused on the whole idea of things. They were given skills and were told to train immediately on using them but they were not given instructions beyond that.
“Oh well~ Might as well explore this place then~” said Lyndis with eyes shining on the building. It felt like it was special due to it's design and feel from just looking at it. However before they could get exploring the place, someone dropped in being teleported by Eden and landed at the centre of the ground outside of the building.
“Ow, damn to think being roughly teleported would hurt this much” complained Sain on his ass getting up.
[This place doesn't have a name so you call it the 'training grounds' I suppose. Well in this building, there are 6 rooms that are of a separate space. Use these places to train your more destructive skills and spells. I don't want this place burning down in the end. Oh there's also a place to sleep and a kitchen as well with basic ingredients so help your self. I expect you guys to train here for another month so your skill proficiencies will rise]
The message played again when Sain appeared, Sain listened in to this while the other waited for it to finish before talking.
“Sain? Done with Eden already?” asked Lyndis since it should have taken a bit longer for Eden to finish explanation some more.
“Ah, it seems he skipped most of the explanation since my class is quite common and gave me some spells to train up while I'm here. Serena and Miriel should be here soon as well. What are you guys doing ?” asked Sain at the end of his explanation.
“Oh, we're going to explore this place. From what I can see, it has two floors and maybe even a basement level as well!” said Lyndis excitingly.
Both Sain and Shadow chuckled a bit since Lyndis was acting like a child. However Raven did not even change his expression at all.
“Say....” muttered Raven which took the attention of the other three immediately, “Don't you think something is missing from our memories?”
The other three thought about it. Now that they thought about it...
“I don't....think so?” replied Lyndis first uncertain.
“Perhaps but it feels like something is blocking it out” answered Shadow as well.
“I think it had something to do with that trial to get in the guild...after we went in, I can't remember anything after besides Eden appearing in front of us saying that we cleared it” said Sain as well.
“....”
These four people from the group was very suspicious of Eden from the moment they saw him. Sure he actually made things a lot easier for them, letting them join his guild, training them and even giving out free skills and spell for them to learn and train. It was TOO good of an offer to get.
“I wonder what's Eden's goal in using us?” wondered Sain before another person appeared via teleportation from Eden.
This time it was Serena who seems a bit more chippy from conversation with Eden. If you talked to the person who saved you, then you would feel great. The others had to thank Eden for taking care of Serena, they did not expect for people to try to harm her the day the group split up to train individually. It was a mistake on that part which couldn't be resolved so easily. However that just made it easier for Eden to manipulate Serena though it seems Eden doesn't have any ill intention so far.
[This place doesn't have a name so you call it the 'training grounds' I suppose. Well in this building, there are 6 rooms that are of a separate space. Use these places to train your more destructive skills and spells. I don't want this place burning down in the end. Oh there's also a place to sleep and a kitchen as well with basic ingredients so help your self. I expect you guys to train here for another month so your skill proficiencies will rise]
Once again the message was played out. It seems that it was designed to play over and over again whenever a new person appeared in this place though most likely limited to the group themselves.
“Huh? Why are you....still here...?” asked Serena confused since the group should be training right now.
“Oh we're talking about a couple of things. We're going to wait until Miriel comes till going to explore this place fully” explained Lyndis on the matter. Soon enough Miriel also appeared and followed by it was the same message again.
After the message from Eden to her, identical to the rest of the group's she too asked, “Why aren't you guys training?”
“Waiting for you to appear before exploring the place, plus we need to talk a bit about Eden” explained Lyndis.
“I see” said Miriel immediately understanding what she was talking, “We what do you want to talk about? The fact that we're missing part of our memories or the shady part where Eden completely accepted us in the guild?”
“Both.”
“Well we can't do anything about the first unless Eden tells us but the second....I tried asking what level he was and he responded that we would know when the time was right. That can't get any more suspicious plus this whole place is suspicious as well. I doubt this is any small Independent Guild...plus our master whom are a part of it are too strong. To understand this point, bring out the guild information.”
The group did just that by Miriel's words and opened up the window in which they can examine the overall situation with the Guild.
Independent Guild Information
Guild Name: Sleeping Sheep Centre
Rank: Unknown (Rank too low to see)
Guildmaster: Eden, Alexandra and Viv
Size: Small
Members: Roughly 2 dozen
Guild Vault: Unknown (Rank too low to see)
Current Ranking of Guild: Unknown (Rank too low to see)
Description: When this Guild appeared is unknown as the information is restricted for new recruits of the Independent Guild. A number of things are restricted for new recruits that have yet to complete a Independent Guild Quest. However the Independent Guild is said to very old and powerful in several ways. In order to gain more information on the Guild, ask one of the Guildmasters.
The group was somewhat shocked since all of the crucial information that they would want wasn't there at all such as the Rank of the Guild which determined what kind of quests they could do or the actual ranking of the guild compared to other Independent Guild.
“Well....” Sain started to think of reasons why the information was blocked off for them, “I think this is a safety feature so spies don't get information from Guilds that easily. I think we're recorded as 'New Recruits' in the guild and cannot be promoted to 'Junior Members' which is kinda understandable.”
Miriel nodded and said, “True, judging by the fact that all of the members we've seen, 8 in total are all powerful, the rank of this guild must be pretty high...A or B class....though I don't know how these ranks work. I wasn't exactly planning for us to end up in an independent guild, I heard they were especially hard to get into since one person's blunder was the whole Guild's blunder as well. Only the strongest and more useful people were allowed in one.”
Aside from the Guildmasters which accounted for three, their masters were six more along with themselves as well which accounted for a total of 15 so far. There would be around nine more members in this guild as well but there were literally no signs of them at all.
“Anyway I think we should start exploring this place and then start training, I don't Eden to find us slacking off like this” said Sain with the soon agreement of the rest of the group as well.
[p=center]xXx[/p]
Some time later, the group completely explored this training building that Eden created. Namely it had 2 floors as he said and there was literally nothing out of the normal at all besides that the training rooms that Eden created for them were stronger than normal. Plus there was the fact that Eden created those training rooms for them individually as well.
As such all of the rooms had golems the size of a person in them which they could command to do whatever they want. Each room had three of them which totalled in 18 at the end. There were slight differences between the structure of each room as well. For example Lyndis' training room was heavily resistant to fire and flames so she wouldn't burn down the place while those who used magic had walls and floors that were resistant to magic as well.
Due to this the group could do individual training for a few hours before going to eat via the cooking of Lyndis and Miriel together.
The following is a scene from the first day when they had to eat.
“The only way to go is with Western style Food! It fills you up the most!” shouted Lyndis.
“Fool! Eastern style food does the same thing and besides, this is an eastern style building so it's natural for you to eat eastern style food in the first place!” shouted back Miriel.
“....”
Those who did not have the cooking skill, even though they could cook in real life were immediately denied access to the kitchen by these two who were arguing to each other right now. As such, those four had no power in what they will eat later on. However they all did not mind what they would eat since they were all hungry right now.
Why don't they get out food to eat on their own you might ask? The reason is simply that all their food, since it has been a month since they went hunting are managed by these two people. These two people who are still arguing right now.
After a few minutes....
“Fine! Let's have a cook out then!” shouted Lyndis wanting to show off her cooking skills even though it was still at Beginner level 2.
“So be it!” replied Miriel in utter confidence since her cooking skill was about to reach beginner level 3 soon enough. She would have the advantage of she won this and Lyndis would never be able to catch up in training the skill this way.
WHACK!
The suddenly two fists descended down on those two's heads.
“Ow!” “Ow!”
Both of them looked immediately to who hit them. Eden and Alexandra appeared after being teleported here.
“Seriously....” sighed Eden, “I look away for a few hours and you guys haven't even started training and yet are fooling around like this?” Eden looked distressed seeing the group like this.
“Well that sounds like something you would do in the past. Didn't you slack off to the point I had to force you to get stronger?” said Alexandra commenting in while healing the slight injury on Lyndis and Miriel's heads which were swelling up.
“Please don't say such things of things that happened such a long time ago. You'll sound like an old hag you know” commented Eden backlashing Alexandra without a moment to spare. Alexandra sent a glare at Eden.
However then she let out a smile saying, “Eden~ Do you wish for me to distribute photos of you in carious costume~?”
Eden immediately paled and quickly said, “wait didn't I delete those already?”
“Not at all~ I had some spare here and there” said Alexandra taking out a photo in her hand.
“BURN!”
Eden immediately sent out flames to burn down the photo but Alexandra blocked it using some sort of shield around her. The flames were quickly absorbed into her without much effort which made Eden quite pissed off.
“Tch.” Eden was ticked off by this, “Don't forget Alexandra, that I have dirt on you as well!”
Alexandra put up a dominating look to Eden and said, “Oh, and what may that be?”
Several PMs later between the two which are completely private for only them, Alexandra turned completely red from head to toe.
“Eden....you wouldn't...that stuff should stay private!” she shouted. Seeing this kind of reaction, Eden's sadist nature appeared once again at the worst moment.
Eden took his hand and held Alexandra's chin and said, “Oh, what's this? You're the one who brought up these private matters in the first place Honey. Don't think I will stop now just because you beg.”
“....In that case, I'll reveal every last secret you have!” threatened Alexandra, “I know so much about you that I literally have unlimited ammo against you!” Her fight spirit increased so much that a golden lion appeared behind her.
“So be it, I'm prepare to burn down this entire city if I have to, and don't think every last secret you have as well won't be revealed!” Eden threatened back. His fighting spirit increased and the illusion of a Dragon appeared behind him.
“....”
The group was utterly speechless since one thing led to another and now these two Guildmasters of this Guild they have joined recently are fighting already.
“Hey....” said Lyndis, “Doesn't this sound like a lover spat?”
“Huh?” “Huh?”
“Yep, it makes our fight completely minor” replied Miriel.
Both Alexandra and Eden scratched their cheeks replying:
“Well we are married to begin with.” “More or less been with this thing for a long time now.”
“Huh?” “Huh?”
The two looked at each other a bit shocked or each other statements.
“Why the hell did you tell them that we were married?!” shouted Eden.
“Why would you care?! Do you take interest in these brats you pedophile?!” shouted back Alexandra.
“Who the hell is a pedophile?!”
“You are!”
“Damn you idiotic beast!”
Eden and Alexandra started to wrestle each other there and made a mess of the place in the next 10 seconds completely causing more damage than the group would hope to in those moments than in the amount they could make over a month if they tried to.
[p=center]xXx[/p]
“Right! You guys were hungry to begin with right? I might as well cook for you guys as a gift for joining the guild” said Alexandra while smiling completely ignoring an annoyed Eden sitting on the side waiting for the food to be served.
Alexandra took a few minutes to make a simple set of dishes that were a blend of western and eastern style food.
“Right, time to dig in~” said Alexandra sitting next to Eden as he ate silently without a moment's due. A few moments later and without the group even taking a bite yet, Eden finished the meal that Alexandra made.
“That was quick my bride~” said Alexandra with a mocking smile.
“Who the hell is your wife?! If I recall the female one is the wife!” retorted Eden.
“But your so pretty....and you were the one who wore the dress at our wedding~”
In an instant, three pairs of eyes glowed wanting to know the details of those events.
Eden tried to get angry but them stopped himself and said, “Thanks for the meal” and left the place without a word.
“....”
The group could only stare trying not to be rude since these are things are a private matters between Eden and Alexandra.
“Geez....completely changing your character since your embarrassed” said Alexandra when Eden disappeared from the Vortex World, “Well, I guess I can play with you kids now then~” She had a smile on her face but her eyes were glimmering the same way as Eden's.
“Well? Aren't you going to eat the meal I made?” asked Alexandra, “I'm very confident in my cooking skills.”
On that signal the group had no choice but I eat the food Alexandra prepared. Upon the first bite...
You have tasted one of the Grand Master of cooking's dishes
- Health and Mana will double for the next 5 hours
- Stamina will increase by 70
- Strength and Agility will increase by 160
- Chance of getting a status debuff will dramatically decrease
- Due to the very low level of the ingredients, permanent stats will not be gained
“Delicious!” “Incredible!”
The group collectively was amazed by the taste that was in their mouths. It was a heaven sent taste that literally melted their senses to the point that they forgot themselves and continued eating until there was nothing left.
“Ah...that's the reaction I've been wanting from Eden from a while now. These days he doesn't give a genuine smile anymore you know. Plus he doesn't appreciate how wonderful it is to be married to be person who is a Grand Master of Cooking!”said Alexandra chuckling at the sight of the group literally trying to consume the bowl itself for more content of the food.
“Well...it seems you guys can't hear me right now...better cook some more before you turn on me~”
With that, the group suffered the next day of eating too much and stay sicked for a full day.
“What the hell are you doing feeding to the point that they would burst?!” Eden whacked Alexandra's head that day and didn't use a spell to heal their symptoms as punishment for them as well.
[p=center]xXx[/p]
Approximately a week after the incident where the group collectively got sick getting too much food in game, Lyndis was in her training room mediating on what to do next.
“So far...I have used these skills Eden gave me and I have gotten used to them....they are more or less at Beginner Level 3 each now since I solely trained them for a week without end....” she muttered thinking some more.
Over the last week, Lyndis more or less was swinging her sword over and over again using the skills when she had enough mana. Because of this kind of training, her sword mastery also increased by 1 to beginner level 6 as well. Using the three golems that she had in her room, she at least had some company with the others training on their own as well.
“Power Strike does more impact then I expect and it doesn't feel like there's that much impact but....”
Lyndis looked over to the wall which were unexpectedly cracked since Lyndis accidentally hit it using her skill while thinking it would bound off like normal. It can be said that the durability of the whole building was nothing to laugh about and yet there were cracked here and there due to Lyndis losing control of her skills.
“The worse one to use is the Speed Strike...”
Speed Strike increased the speed of her attacks by quite a bit. Think of it was an invisible force forcing your body to move faster all of a sudden. Unless you're used to it and expect it, you would quickly panic that you could move so fast. It was giving a beginner driver a high powered sport car. While nearly impossible to drive at full speed at the beginning without crashing, the body would eventually get used to it in the end.
“At least these stance skills are easy enough to master...I just need to take a second to set them up now but....a second...I need to somehow use the skill while moving without delay as well....”
Lyndis while being able to use the stance skills properly was troubled by the fact that she did not have enough time to actually attack if she used these stances. A whole second would pass and enemies will take this chance to attack in that time.
“I either have to shorten the time setting up or....going faster even with the delay....the speed stance seems to be the best bet here. Precision stance can be used for counter attacks I think if I can predict the movements of the enemy but....power stance won't be useful unless against slow enemies...”
Lyndis was scratching her head trying to think of a series of methods which would allow her to fight properly. Before with only fire 'spells' to use, Lyndis would fight with only her own 'skill' with the sword which wasn't that much but was at least stable in her eyes. But now that she needed to use 'skills', she suddenly found it difficult for her to fight using them at the same time.
A top player could combine body movements with skills naturally as if it was a part of the body itself. It takes months of practice to combine the two without one dragging the other down with it but Lyndis didn't want to disappoint the others.
“Meh, I can figure thing out when it comes to that! Now...Eden said something of making new fire skills with this Fire Manipulation skill of mine....”
Finally she had enough of thinking of this problem. She moved onto the next thing she wanted to do in this month with three quarter of the session left. Currently she had 'Pocket Fireball' which was a mini and weaker version of the normal fireball which could be used to set small things on fire, 'Fire Blade' which blended her sword to deal fire damage on hit though not that much more in the end since it also seals their wounds with the heat of the blade as well and 'Life Burn' which was a powerful skill that burnt her health in order to deal above average fire damage to the enemy.
“I would like something powerful and yet not that costly....”
Lyndis was thinking of setting the enemy on fire from afar without taking damage herself. Of all the things she needed, a long range attack would be perfect even if it was weak. The first thing Lyndis thought of was that spell Eden used that combined Lightning and Fire together into a large beam.
“No no no, that is way out of my league...something more simple....I could use regular fireballs but they would be pretty weak compare to other mages'....ahhhhhh! Why is thinking of a new skill so hard?!”
Lyndis unexpectedly hit a wall at the very beginning of making new fire based skills on her own.
“Damn I just have to set enemies afar ablaze right? Let's do that!” said Lyndis just wanting to act instead of think at this point.
Lyndis gathered her mana and focused on converting it into flames from far away from her body. However the mana turned into flames did not do that at all. Instead it seems that she used her 'Life Burn' skill without knowing it.
“Wait, do I even know how to set thing son fire without touching them?” said Lyndis all of a sudden, she had 'Pocket Fireball' but that really had a short range and little power, even less so the further it got from her.
“Then....first thing is make a burning skill with touch?” Lyndis wondered aloud. Lyndis focused her mana in one hand and wanted to make a strong blaze that only lasted a short amount of time. Any longer than that and the power would decrease too much. As such she focused and gathered her mana into flames and let it burst out of her left hand in one go.
Booom!
Her left hand was completely covered in fire bit it didn't even hurt or feel that warm at all.
You have generated the skill: Burning Touch
Burning Touch Beginner Level 1
Create an intense flame over your hands or other body parts as it compresses at a single point to deal massive damage to enemies that get too close
Mana Cost: 30
Cool Down: 10 Seconds
The mana cost was quite high compared to her other skills for certain but Lyndis had almost 800 mana which would allow her to use it a couple dozen times in a row if she feels. She was fortunate that it didn't end up costing 100 mana else it would be too costly to use to begin with.
“Right~ Now I have a powerful close range weapon as well” Lyndis was quite happy with the results at least since it lowered the chance of enemies getting too close when least expected.
“But these details...this means I can use this on any part of my body?”
Lyndis tested that theory with her gathering mana at her legs and said, “Burning Touch” her feet here also set ablaze as well just like how her hand was before.
“Doesn't seem to work at the legs or arms....does it only work with my hands and feet? Maybe my head as well?”
Lyndis tried gathering mana there and activating the skill to set her head and hair on fire which is a stupid thing to do mind you in real life but this is a game so deal with it.
“Burning Touch!”
In an instant, her vision was completely covered with flames and it felt like something was burning.
“Ow ow ow ow this is NOT how the skill should be used then!” shouted Lyndis quickly turning off the skill before she burnt herself to death. She quickly checked her hair and some parts were a bit black being burnt a bit.
“Bits of my hair was burnt....”
Lyndis realised that the skill did not completely protect her and parts of her body that had low resistance to fire such as her hair would still burn. That was the source of the warm feeling when she used the skill to begin with. Until her fire resistance increased, her skills could in the end be the end of her.
Lyndis sighed and went back to the other issue she had.
“I need a long range attack as well....”
Lyndis spent the next hour thinking about it and then realised how simple it could be.
“Right! That could work!” She was quite excited since it could end up more powerful than the skill she just made in the right circumstances.
Lyndis gathered mana once again but did not convert it into flames at all around or in her body. She calmly gathered it and then in one go sent it bursting in front of her while simultaneously turning it into mana at the same time as well.
Booooooom!
A large explosion of flames roughly 5 metres away from Lyndis occurred and quickly died out. However the idea was a success and the game responded to that.
You have generated the skill: Flame Strike
Flame Strike Beginner Level 1
Cause an area that you choose to burst into flames causing whatever inside that area to take massive amount of fire damage at the same time with condensed flames.
Mana Cost: 20
Cool Down: 10 Seconds
While having the same amount of cool down, it had a lower amount of mana cost and at the same time had an almost instantaneous casting and low mana cost of mana per use! Although other fire mages could do the same with less mana or more with the same amount of mana due to their high intelligence stats, Lyndis primary was always going to be the sword first and this fire magic was a secondary thing to her.
As a sub skill, it was highly powerful and most likely more powerful than her sword skills although Eden assured that they were powerful if trained as well.
“Yes! Let's train these skills up as well!” said Lyndis motivated once again though she reminded herself in the end to remember to train her other skills as well since they were important as well.
Later on she was able to increase the skill level of all of her previous fire skills by one and the two new fire skills by 3 levels in total. It was a good gain from a total of one month worth of training. Her skill window looked like this in the end of the training.
Skill Window
- Sword Mastery Beginner 6 (76/100)
- Fire Manipulation Mastery Level 3 (33/100)
- Cooking Beginner Level 2 (19/100)
- Pocket Fireball Beginner level 4 (4/700)
- Fire Blade Beginner level 6 (73/1100)
- Life Burn Beginner level 3 (80/500)
- Power Strike Beginner level 3 (0/500)
- Speed Strike Beginner level 3 (0/500)
- Power Stance Beginner level 3 (0/500)
- Speed Stance Beginner level 3 (0/500)
- Precision Stance Beginner level 3 (0/500)
- Burning Touch Beginner Level 4 (0/700)
- Flame Strike Beginner Level 4 (0/700)
[p=center]xXx[/p]
“Shield Parry.”
Bang!
Raven barely countered the blow and smashed his spear into the stone Golem in front of him pushing it back with raw strength as his right hand numbed due to the impact of the strike rebounding on him.
'I need to time the parry earlier since it seems at that time, the power of the attack is lowered by a bit, enough for me to push it away' thought Raven as he ordered one of the stone Golems to attack him again.
The Golem, the same height as him and having an arm that was similar to a large blade, swung it at Raven at moderate speeds.
“Spear Parry.”
This time Raven moved his spear in his right hand at the arm blade that was coming at him hitting and sliding off the edge of the attack.
Bang!
Raven was sent flying back since the parry missed it's mark and as a result the attack got a clean hit in on him. In order to parry properly, you need to hit the centre of the attack in order to deflect it. Having a higher strength and agility stats will help by forcing the parry though by force alone but a perfect parry is something very difficult to do since you need to time it as well.
Thinking of the correct method to do this, Raven thought back to Eden's 'Full Counter' which completely and perfectly deflected back any attacks and allowed him to hit the moment he deflected the attack back as well. It was different from parrying but countering attacks had the same basic principle with countering going a step further than parrying by actively attacking as well.
“So...instead of defending using parries, I should attack instead?” said Raven to himself. While he was a quiet person by nature, he actually didn't mind talking at all. It's just that its much easier to get things done with he didn't talk and voice his opinion.
Getting up, he noticed that his health barely decreased from the blow and literally recovered in no time without him noticing at all. There were no traces of injuries by the time he got up and commanded one of the golems to attack him again.
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
A different Golem with a hammer like arm this time attacked Raven with a slower attack but something much more powerful in force.
“Spear Parry.”
Raven once again moved his spear in but his spear was once again deflected from the attack that seemed to be impossible to stop and was hit cleanly by it.
Bang!
Raven was sent flying back once again. He hit the wall this time and recovered after a minute of rest due to the effects of being in this world where things are made easy for a person to practise in.
“My attack is too slow....so I use Footwork maybe?” thought Raven aloud.
Raven tested that theory going against the hammer Golem once again since that one is the slowest attacker of all of them but with the highest attack power.
“Footwork!”
Raven sped up his body and went and immediately stopped in front of the Golem forcing it to attack.
“Spear Parry!”
Raven moved his spear and perfectly deflected the hammer from his body and then proceeded to hit the Golem with his spiked shield at the same time. The Golem was sent flying back a metre falling on it's back.
“It looks like having a faster approach gives me more time to parry? Or is there something else I'm missing?” wondered Raven.
While his experiment was a success, he wasn't so sure of this was the correct way to do this. He decided then to test out parrying with his other skills to see if it worked well with each other or not. While some skills were easy to connect together in a string of attacks, certain skills of the same nature would not work together at all. You were simply not capable on using two shield skills at once that forced it to do two different things.
Weeks later, Raven got his result and more or less learnt how to combine some of his skills in a row in order to get a certain desired effect. Due to this, his spear mastery increased to beginner level 5 and his shield mastery increased to beginner level 6.
Footwork also gained a level to beginner level 5, Repair increased to beginner level 2 due to Raven repairing all of the damaged geared the group's training resulted in, Ram also increased by 2 levels to beginner level 4. The biggest results were the three skills Eden gave him with both parry skills increasing to beginner level 5 each while Body Reinforcement increased to Beginner level 3 due to the multiple times that Raven failed using his skill and getting hit as a result. Raven's skill window looked like this in the end.
Skill Window
- Spear Mastery Beginner Level 5 (27/100)
- Shield Mastery Beginner Level 6 (55/100)
- Shield Bash Beginner level 5 (31/900)
- Double Strike Beginner level 4 (53/700)
- Footwork Beginner level 5 (122/900)
- Repair Beginner level 2 (988/1000)
- Ram Beginner level 4 (20/100)
- Shield Parry Beginner level 5 (111/900)
- Spear Parry Beginner level 5 (98/900)
- Body Reinforcement Beginner level 3 (10/500)
[p=center]xXx[/p]
Shadow had only one new skill to train since Eden only gave him one skill to use to begin with. This was mainly due to the fact that the skills Shadow would need to use were several levels more difficult to learn compared to other skills. Having a low presence and yet running around the battlefield while actively attacking seemed to be a contradiction but according to what Shadow knew, there were in fact a number of people who did just that.
It was a matter of directing attention away from yourself and hiding in plain sight. Something that Shadow was a natural at but not proud of. Inside Shadow's training room, unlike the other rooms with simple designs for training skills, Shadow's training required him to run around anywhere without failing.
As such, Shadow's room was a lot taller than everyone elses, twice was tall to be precise. There were small platforms that moved around in the air and one the walls at random directions and a button on the ceiling which would allow him to fall down slowly to the ground without risk and taking damage. This was the training room Eden designed for Shadow.
“Burst Speed.”
Shadow's body now doubled in speed for a total of 2 seconds moved quickly, to the point that he could run up walls to a certain extent and leap onto the floating platforms in the air.
“Backstab!”
Shadow fell to the ground using gravity to speed him up and teleported with great speeds behind the golem that was designed to be fast and reactive to attacks for Shadow's training. The slight confusion between the place Shadow should be allowed a split second delay for Shadow to attack.
Bang!
However Shadow was clearly not fast enough since the golem that looked like a human deflected his attack easily.
“Tch...how many more times do I have to do this before I can get a hit in?” complained Shadow.
He had been doing this kind of training for a few days now with little results to show for it. The only skills that increased in level at this time were his climbing skill to beginner level 5 and the Burst Speed skill at Beginner level 3. The reasons for this was that Shadow was climbing the walls while running and using Burst speed which has a short cool down as well at the same time for a while now.
On the other hand, his other skills were lacking in proficiency due to him training to run around the battlefield instead of just simply being able to attack while hiding once in a while. The thought of sprinting around the place and attacking everything in sight is something that Shadow wanted to achieve. Anna's style of fighting left a great deal of influence on Shadow as well since even Eden has some trouble against it.
“Damn...this is going nowhere...” muttered Shadow seeing that his move was deflected like that, “Does the effectiveness of backstab increase with stealth? No, my stealth skill is in the intermediate levels now so it shouldn't affect it that much....I guess it has to do with the skill's own proficiency that I need to train...? Plus this may be a great time to train up the 'Become Mist' skill as well...”
With those thoughts in line, Shadow wanted to test something out which he normally wouldn't do at all before.
“Become Mist.”
Shadow turned his body into a non physical state and gathered around the room checking if the Golems could sense him. They didn't so he moved to the next stage while he had the chance.
“Backstab.”
Shadow's body materialised once again behind the Golem as he sank his short sword which was quite useful with his backstabbing skill as it increased the level of the skill by 2 which means that his backstabbing skill had the power of a beginner level 6 one instead of a beginner level 4. Because of this sole fact, Shadow decided to focus on using that skill more than something like 'Double Strike' which is more useful against foes head on.
Stab!
The short sword went deep into the Golem with that one hit. Due to the change in weapon, his range and damage was further increased as a result. However the blade was a bit heavier than he was used to and was like swinging a hammer after using a knife for so long to him.
Bang.
The Golem fell to the ground and was recovering it's health due to how it was made and due to the effects of this world they were all in. Shadow wasn't worried at all since there were two more Golems for him to use for training though their reaction times were a level below the one he just took out.
“I need to be faster and react faster as well...else I'll have to rely on the “Become Mist' skill....”
Shadow decided then to further increase all of his skills at once besides the trap related ones. Because of this, when the time was up, all of his skills increased by one once again. And because of that, his skill window looked like this in the end.
Skill Window
- Dagger Mastery Beginner 6 (55/100)
- Stealth Intermediate Level 4 (86/100)
- Hearing Beginner level 5 (25/100)
- Dark Vision Beginner level 3 (15/100)
- Night Vision Beginner level 3 (89/100)
- Locate Trap Beginner level 1 (30/100)
- Disarm Trap Beginner level 1 (12/100)
- Backstab Beginner level 5 (399/900)
- Double Strike Beginner level 5 (14/700)
- Climbing Beginner Level 6 (82/100)
- Become Mist Beginner level 2 (19/100)
- Burst Speed Beginner level 4 (100/700)
[p=center]xXx[/p]
Miriel was on her own with three golems to play with. She had just finished regenerating her mana and started to follow up on training all of her magic spells at once.
“Melody of Vitality!” chanted Miriel placing the effects of the spell on one of the Golems.
“Cracked Barrier” chanted Miriel once again placing the effects on the same Golem. Then she got the other two Golems to standby while she attacked this lone one which was buffed up.
“Shriek! Mana Bolt! Ice Bolt!” Miriel fired both these spells at the same time and hit the Golem with multiple shots at once hitting the buffed Golem.
Bang Bang Bang...
The Golem fell onto the ground being unable to move since it was too damaged at certain parts. Using these three spells at once drained a total of 55 mana and along with the other two spells which costed 150 mana in total, she would use just over 200 mana per cycle. Miriel had over 1500 mana in total and could do this 7 more times before running out of mana.
However Melody of Sound has a long cool down while cracked barrier only had a cool down of 10 seconds while the Shriek had a cool down of 2 minutes and the only two attack spells she had did not have a cool down or the cool down was extremely short only in a matter of seconds.
After using up all of her mana in one go like this, Miriel would once again use mediation to increase her mana up again even though her mana regenerates at a ridiculous 10 times the norm rate in this Vortex World.
“If the effects of 10 times the mana regeneration is already with much...with mediation, the effects will be even higher” were the words in which Miriel said to herself when she realised that this place could be used like that.
The main reason why Eden had them train in this place, other than sheltering them from others since they only started this game recently and joined them as well was due to the increased mana regeneration which would allow the group to use their skills and spells over and over again quickly increasing the amount of skill proficiency they could have.
It could be said that with this in place, the group's one month of training skills in this place would be equal to 10 months if they did the same outside this place. After a week of this kind of training, Ice Bolt increased by 2 levels, and all of the other spells she used increased by 1 easily even with her taking regular breaks and not straining herself.
Magic, Sound and Ice Magi Mastery also increased by 1 level at this time as well along with Magic Control Mastery which was on the verge of levelling to begin with. With a single week of training, this was the result; if she continued with this, her spells would increased to around the mid point of the beginner levels.
However this was not her complete focus.
“I need another Ice spell...something for close range....”
Miriel thought about her weakness in the fact that she was undoubtedly useless in close combat.
“A shield? No....I already have Cracked Barrier for that though it can only negate damage...so maybe something that will deal a massive amount of damage at close range for starter....with ice magic at it's core as well...”
Miriel thought about in between the breaks she took when her mana almost ran out and made sure to leave a bit to use for her experiments.
“A shotgun is one of the most lethod weapons at close range...so a scatter shot of ice?”
Miriel gathered mana and turned it into a cluster of ice in front of her hand and fired it.
Bang!
It turned into a messed up Ice Bolt with little power behind it disappearing after only a bit of distance losing much of it's size and speed almost immediately. But for what Miriel wanted, this was fine since the power and speed of the attack was already higher than a normal Ice Bolt at close range.
Miriel once more over her breaks of training using her other spells gathered ice in a cluster and shot them randomly in front of her until the game recognised it as a spell to use. It was only then that the spell was completely fixed to her character and was permanent to use.
“Haa!”
The blast from the new spell she was making broke off a large chunk of the Golem before it started to repair itself. Normally most damage was repaired fairly quickly even before it hit the ground bit now Miriel was looking at the insides of the Golems on the ground fixing itself rapidly.
This new spell in the making already had 5 times the power of a normal Ice Bolt.
Several weeks later, near the end of the training period and with her patient wearing thin, the game finally accepted the 'spell' as a 'spell' when the damage of the attack was 10 times higher than a normal Ice Bolt she could fire.
You have generated the spell: Ice Burst
Ice Burst Beginner Level 1
A blast of concentrated ice that deals massive amount of damage at point blank to close range. In exchange however, the spell will dramatically lose power and speed as the range increases more than that.
Mana Cost: 30
Cool Down: 3 Seconds
“Yes!”
Miriel had finally made the spell her own with this. Miriel tested the spell a couple of times on the Golems and the results were shocking. The Golems, creature of stone, were half blown into pieces when Miriel used this spell on them. From these tests, Miriel figured out that the reasonable range to damage was to 1 metre away from her. Something extremely close but served as a good defence measure just in case.
In the end of the month, her skill window looked like this.
Skill Window
- Magic Mastery Beginner 6 (18/100)
- Illusion Magic Mastery Beginner 2 (68/100)
- Sound Magic Mastery Beginner 4 (70/100)
- Ice Magic Mastery Beginner Level 3 (19/100)
- Magic Control Mastery Beginner 4 (20/100)
- Mediation Beginner level 6 (14/100)
- Cooking Beginner Level 2 (93/100)
- Identify Beginner level 1 (70/100)
- Magic Bolt Beginner level 6 (132/1100)
- Clairvoyance Beginner level 1 (46/100)
- Melody of Sound Beginner level 6 (480/1100)
- Cracked Barrier Beginner level 4 (855/1600)
- Shriek Beginner level 3 (517/500)
- Ice Bolt Beginner Level 5 (0/900)
- Ice Burst Beginner Level 1 (5/100)
[p=cemter]xXx[/p]
Similarity to Miriel, Serena continued her training in an exact method to train her spell up quickly as well. Due to the lack of motivation of rewriting something like this a second time, the month of training my Serena will be summarised to make it easy on everyone.
The first week was mainly Serena training her spells. Most of them increased by 1 level. This was done by casting Heartbeat Healing for a start, then casting both Minor Health and Stamina Regeneration on a Golem as well and using Root Bind to Restrict it and finally Blood Burst to take it down in one go.
By the end of the 4 weeks, her skill window looked something like this.
Skill Window
- Magic Mastery Beginner 5 (775/100)
- Nature Mastery Beginner 5 (88/100)
- Mediation Beginner level 3 (19/100)
- Mana Burst Beginner level 1 (6/100)
- Minor Health Regeneration Beginner level 7 (1254/1300)
- Minor Stamina Regeneration Beginner level 6 (1079/1100)
- Quicken Death Beginner level 1 (0/100)
Language Comprehension Beginner level 1 (0/100)
- Blood Burst Beginner level 4 (177/700)
- Root Bind Beginner level 3 (366/500)
- Heartbeat Healing Beginner level 3 (55/100)
Now onto something more interesting.
[p=center]xXx[/p]
At the time of his own training as well, Sain was trying to increase the skill proficiency of his magic related skills mostly against the three golems at once. It was training to go against multiple foes at once.
“Weaken! Magic Arrow!”
Sain took the impact of one of the Golems with his increased armour and fired 2 magic arrows at the Golem. His Magic Arrow skill level was at Beginner level 3. It seems for every two levels he gains with the skill, the number of Magic Arrows increases by 1. This is the opposite of 'Mana Bolt' where for each level the number you can fire at once increases by 2.
Anyway one of the Golems were hit while the other two advanced on Sain. Thanks to the effects of the ring Eden gave him, he was able to cast spells without it being half baked.
“Mana Bolt!”
Sain fired a total of 11 Mana Bolts at one of the remaining Golems still active and used his spear to hit the other one piercing it through the eye socket which seems to be the weak spot for these Golems. After all three Golems were rendered disabled, Sain took a break.
“Spear Mastery needs to increase still....Mana Bolt and Magic Arrow seems to be developing fine as well with Weaken... the problem is with Minor Heal....”
Sain looked at his health which was at 70% due to the fight with the Golems just then.
“Minor Heal...”
A light shone on himself increasing his health to 75% now. Minor Health currently only healed for a total of 110 health in one go with 50 health being the base and the amount increasing by 15 health per skill level up.
“Damn this spell doesn't even heal for a tenth of my health anymore...and it has a cool down of 10 seconds as well....”
Sain was distressed since his healing powers were quickly falling behind everything else compared to before. Yes, Sain had just realised the lack of ability that a shaman will have due to their low rank skills and spells.
He looked at his skill window.
Skill Window
- Spear Mastery Beginner Level 4 (12/100)
- Identify Beginner level 2 (20/100)
- Party Scan Beginner level 3 (40/100)
- Mana Bolt Beginner level 6 (155/1100)
- Mediation Beginner level 4 (15/100)
- Summon Familiar Beginner level 3 (4/500)
- Minor Heal Beginner level 5 (150/900)
- Weaken Beginner level 4 (64/700)
- Bursting Will Beginner level 2 (17/100)
- Wolf Summoning Beginner level 1 (0/100)
- Magic Arrow Beginner level 3 (133/500)
In order to compensate against that; they are usually required to have a very high skill proficiency in all of their skills to be as or more effective then their counterparts. However such a thing was literally impossible for a level 50 and besides, by the time Sain achieves a high skill proficiency, the others will most like gain stronger and stronger skills before him.
“The only good thing is that my health ranks second to Raven...though Lyndis and Shadow's health are very near my one and I have a reasonable amount of mana to play with as well...Eden did say not to use the summoning spell without him....”
“Oh, you finally decided to select your familiar?” asked Eden standing next to him.
“Ah!” Sain let out a small scream and quickly backed away from Eden that appeared all of a sudden without warning or consideration to him.
“Why are you so surprised? You do know that I am the MASTER of this place which means I can literally do anything in this place if I wanted to. Anyway hurry up and summon a wolf to make a contract with” ordered Eden.
Sain raised his hand to stop Eden from talking and asked, “Wait a second, first I want to know the details of this summoning. What will I have to do?”
“Well the summoning will get you a creature that is roughly the same level of you else something of the high potential but weak if your lucky. The next thing is to subdue it with force or make a contract with it. Simple right?”
“....Is there anything else that might be trouble to deal with?” asked Sain suspicious.
Eden gave a shrug and said, “Well when it comes to that, I will help you. Not many creatures would want to fight me to begin with.”
Sain looked at Eden and then turned to his hands and gathered mana for the spell to work. His mana turned into a magic circle on the floor in which was similar to the one from his 'Summon Familiar' spell.
“Wolf Summoning!”
As Sain called the spell name, power gushed out of the magic circle and the wolf creature in which he would have a contract with appeared.
“Arf.”
There was a cute cry on the other side.
“Huh?” wondered Sain in confusion. He looked at Eden who was struggling to stop himself from laughing on the floor as if this was ridiculous. The smoke from the summoning cleared and what was in front of Sain was...
“A puppy?!”
There was a black and white puppy....no....very young wolf pup in front of him. The small and cute creature immediately sensed Sain and ran and cuddled with him.
“....”
Sain looked at the creature holding it up as it excitingly looked at him with pure eyes.
“This is the summoned wolf?” asked Sain before looking at Eden who all of a sudden had glasses on with a serious feeling around him.
“Yes...this is quite the rare creature to summon. Hmm....looks like it likes you. Keep it” Eden said with a thumbs up.
“Wa-wait! Doesn't my summon need to be a wolf?”
“It is a wolf.”
“I means something that can battle!”
“It will...one day. For now it's more of a cute mascot for you. The girls will love....hmm....” Eden took a closer look at the cute creature.
“Oh~ Sain you should definitely keep this one; you struck rich here.”
“Huh?”
“A rare hybrid of equally rare wolves from both sides. One side is the wolf of the white moon and the other side is the wolf of the black sun. I can only explain that the parents of this one are both extremely powerful that could give your masters a run for their money on their own. And now you have two for on with this one....well you'll see when it grows up. First make a contract with it.”
Sain looked at the wolf pup and asked, “Will you make a contract with me?”
With those words, the wolf pup licked Sain on his cheek and the message from the appeared for him.
You have successfully made a contract with the Hybrid Wolf Bright Luna
- You will be able to summon Bright Luna with the Wolf Summoning spell from now on
- Bright Luna will be become a creature that cannot die and will have it's soul bound to you
- You can break the contract with Bright Luna any time you want but be warned that Bright Luna may hunt you down later if you do
- A total of 10% of your experience will be used to level Bright Luna up when summoned; this can be split to your party if they accept
“I made the contract” said Sain.
“Good, Bright Luna is it? This little guy will increase in size and power as it levels up. I think from level 10 it can fight along side you and will have further forms and powers later on. Anyway tell the others of this little one” said Eden with a smirk on his face disappearing before Sain's eyes.
Sain looked at the wolf pup that was in his arms and sighed.
“Arf.”
Bright Luna looked at Sain with it's innocent eyes that shone too bright for him. The name of this wolf pup was perfect since Sain could literally not feel any ill intent for it at all. As the child of two very powerful wolves according to Eden, this feature must have been a God sent for the parents who by then must have many enemies.
Given that the month of training was almost over, Sain carried Bright Luna to the dining area where they would eat.
“What do young wolves eat...?” wondered Sain without much of a care in the air.
[p=center]xXx[/p]
In the Guild building where the hatch was connected to the Vortex World, a lone person walked into the building. It was a knight with shining white and red armour and a helmet which literally concealed the knight's gender in question. No, the body type of this knight was the thing that made it impossible to tell the gender from.
“Are thou the Guildmaster of this place?” asked the knight that had a gender neutral voice. It was too high for a male but too low for a female. It could go either way.
At the receptionist desk sat Alexandra bored out of her mind until now. She looked at the knight with interest and replied, “More or less, though there are two more in this Guild.”
The Knight looked a bit shocked since no matter what, Guilds had a one leader system but the knight could only expect such a thing to this Guild...Independent Guild that it came to.
“I can only ask thou one thing” the knight said to Alexandra who to the knight looked like a monster in the flesh of a human.
The amount of power condensed in a single body was so high that the knight being a powerful being itself could only bear the burden of being in the presence of such a more powerful being to the point it wouldn't be unusual for the knight's body to be shattered into pieces of Alexandra willed it.
However Alexandra ignored this fact and said, “Sure why not” with a casual approach.
Others that met the knight in it's journey here could only be respectful to the knight due to the strength it carried and the opposite was happening here. To the knight, it was a feeling of helplessness to be compared to such a being in front of it. But this was what the Knight wanted, someone to aid it in it's ultimate quest for a knight.
“I ask thee for-”
“Hmm? Who are you?” asked Eden cutting off the knight's words as he came from the Vortex World just talking to Sain moments ago.
“Ack!” The knight feeling the presence of Eden immediately went on one knee and couldn't get up from the sheer presence that Eden was creating from merely standing there. Eden looked with great interest since only beings with a certain amount of power could feel this.
“Ho~ To think such a powerful knight...though weaker than one of those senior brats would come here. You feeling like this from seeing me means you are quite powerful I your own rights.”
Eden approached the knight that was suffocating in his presence and lightly tapped the knight's shoulder removing the feeling completely.
“What was...” the knight could only mutter.
Eden smiled at the knight and said, “Don't worry about it. You have a Guild request for us right?”
The knight realising if it were with these people...no monster than it could be possible for his order's long wish to be fulfilled. However things needed to go in order for no mistakes to be made. On the knight’s shoulder was the emblem of the order that the knight belonged to. It was a phoenix crossed in twin blades of gold and silver.
“Yes, I ask thee to help with the slaying of a vile Demon King!” the knight responded with great energy now.
Then to everyone in the Independent Guild, a message appeared in front of them all alerting them of a quest being requested to them.
Help the Knight from the Order of True Knights to slay the Vile Demon King
One of the Knights of this order has formally requested the Independent Guild Sleeping Sheep Centre to help slay a Demon King that has captured and imprisoned the Princess of a long lost Kingdom for hundreds of years. Many centuries have passed and yet their devotion to their loyalty still continues. The Kingdom will reward greatly for helping this knight.
Guild Rank Quest: B+
Restrictions:
- The Knight must live at least until the quest is done
- The Demon King must be slain
- Must come with the Knight to battle the Demon King
A B+ ranked Guild quest appeared! It was something that would affect a large portion of the Kingdom and was difficult enough that it would require the ability of several tens of B rank or higher Independent Guilds to complete.
But...
“Sure, why not” said Eden casually as well, “This would be a pretty good experience for the new brats.”
Guildmaster Eden has accepted the Guild Quest on behalf of the Independent Guild
Eden looked at the knight that was about to explain the details of the quest to him and stopped the knight was even speaking.
“Oh yeah, who said that I was the one who was helping you?” his smiled destroyed the expectation of the knight immediately, “I have another set of people I would like to present this challenge to.”
His gaze at the hatch to the Vortex World could only means one thing....
“I think this would do fine for a entrance test for those brats to become regulars in this guild.”
Onwards?PreviousExitNext
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Author's Notes:
- Word Count: 10400~
- Finally....finished with all these training things. And now onto a proper quest..which is totally out of the league of the group.
- btw, I'm not even close to finishing chapter 5 so see you guys when it's done.