Maria landed on the ground and looked around her.
"Everything looks so different~ what happened to the plains?"
"Master...we passed the plains a while ago..."
"Oh~"
Maria and Lilah were back at a mountainous area, they had essentially returned to the Enoch Mountain Range, but instead of the East Summit area where she was at earlier, she was now at the West Summit area.
The East Summit was where the level 20-30 monsters gathered, here, however...
"Oh! It's those birdies!"
Name: Iron Hawk Level: 40 Rank: Common Elite HP: 30,000/30,000
MP: 5,000/5,000
"Hmm there are only 2 over there~ let's go kill them?"
"Sure Master."
"Let's hunt here for a bit~ these guys give me lots of EXP!"
With that decided, Maria pulled out her Calamity and activated [Gehenna's Eye] on the two unsuspecting birds.
-1,450
When they combusted into flames and began screeching in pain, she quickly cast [Fire] and was about to hurl it over at the birds before she had a thought, 'What happens if I send my feathers through those flames? Will they just burn up or—'
An [Angel's Rage] quickly followed after the [Fire] and once the feathers passed through the flames, they didn't immediately burn out, but were instead caught on fire and continued flying forwards, striking the 2 Iron Hawks.
-650 -650 -650
The damage it did was higher than the usual [Angel's Rage] so her little experiment worked.
"Woohoo~! It worked!"
Maria cheered before she happily flew up and cleaved down on the monsters.
-1,100!
With a round of her usual combo, Maria took out over a fourth of the monster's HP. She should have waited for Lilah to finish casting her [Faerie Fire] first before attacking so she could deal more damage, but she had little concern for that.
Since Lilah's debuff was now applied to one of the monsters, Maria focused on that particular monster. As for the other one, she let it be and allowed it to occasionally land a hit on her.
She wanted to start using her [Cure], [Heal], and [Regen] skills so she could at least level them up a little. She didn't like pain, but the monsters she was facing weren't those weird ones like Guard Captain Heather that bypassed the [Pain Settings] of the game. Since Maria had set the setting to 10%, she only felt a little shock or nudge whenever she was hit.
Up until now, Maria had never once used those 3 skills despite having learned them. She had been relying on her Epic-ranked title's Soulsteal effect and her weapon's Lifesteal and Manasteal to heal herself up after a battle.
This girl didn't need any potions because of how self-sustaining she could be due to all her abilities and extra effects. It was something any gamer would envy, but Maria didn't care for that. As long as she could hunt, that was all it took to make her satisfied.
+100,000 EXP (4x Multiplier)
Maria easily dispatched the monster and moved onto the next one, but she encountered some difficulty in the second battle. Maria wanted to try learning how to cast spells even while moving around in battle. Since she didn't need to be stationary to chant, Maria tried using spells while evading the monster's attacks.
It was hard to do and she failed throughout the entire battle, but she was optimistic and thought that she'll eventually get the hang of things with a little more practice and experience.
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+100,000 EXP (4x Multiplier)
Once the last monster fell, Maria quickly moved on to look for other birdies. Lilah was her automatic loot-grabbing pet so she didn't need to go touch any of the monster corpses and just continued on her way.
She quickly found a lone Iron Hawk and immediately engaged it in battle. As usual, she started the battle up with [Gehenna's Eye] but this time, she didn't follow it up with her usual [Smite] + [Angel's Rage] + [Calamity Cleave]. She instead used [Fire] and followed it up with a [Smite] and tried to finish it with a [Ruin] spell when the monster was successfully stunned by her [Smite].
The [Ruin] spell was interrupted halfway through the chant by the Iron Hawk, but Maria persisted in using a mix between [Smite] and those 2 spells along with normal attacks to take down the monster. She was able to successfully cast [Fire] a couple of times during the battle, but never once had she been able to complete [Ruin].
It vexed her immensely and she continued finding other monsters to continue practicing her new battle style.
"Oh look, that's new."
After taking care of another 6 Iron Hawks, Maria was roaming around and encountered a new kind of monster.
Name: Mountain Ligor, Gitlior Level: 50 Rank: ??? Elite HP: ???/???
MP: ???/???
It was a monster that was a mix between a lion, a tiger, and a goat. At least, that's what Maria thought it looked like.
It had a mane just like a lion, a strong striped body like a tiger, and the curled horns of a goat.
"Well, I think that's a boss...it has a name so it has to be a boss...let's go kill it!" Maria quickly brandished her Calamity and was about to charge in, but Lilah immediately pulled on her hair and stopped her.
"Wait, Master!!!"
"O-ouch! What is it, Lilah? That kinda hurt y'know!"
"L-let me buff you and debuff that monster first, okay? That thing is a BOSS! We can't just rush in like that!"
"I guess~ hurry up and buff me then! I wanna go attack that thing before it runs away!"
"...Master, that thing's just sleeping...by the way, please apply a [Barrier], [M. Barrier] and [Regen] on yourself first!"
"Oh~kay~"
Maria quickly applied the 3 buffs on herself and Lilah applied [Enchant: Poison] on her weapon, she then began casting [Ruin] and Lilah waited until she finished activating the spell before quickly applying [Faerie Fire] on the Liger.
"—desolation to those who sought thy wrath, [Ruin]!"
Once Maria's bolt of non-elemental energy made its way down from the heavens to strike at the Mountain Liger, Lilah immediately invoked [Faerie Fire] and lowered its defense.
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Maria knew that [Faerie Fire] lowered the DEF of the monster and not the M.DEF, but she was a little surprised that her [Ruin] only dealt so little damage to the monster.
The Liger was startled awake from the spell and roared in anger. Maria swiftly rose into the air and began casting [Fire] before swooping down with a [Calamity Cleave].
When the hit connected, Maria threw out her [Fire] onto the beast and followed it up with an [Arc Swing] sending the monster into the air. She activated [Gehenna's Eye] and pelted the monster with [Angel's Rage].
When she saw the numbers popping on top of the monster's head, Maria couldn't help but exclaim, "Wow~ this thing has high DEF and M.DEF! Let's try out its attacks~"
Despite having its DEF lowered by [Faerie Fire], Maria's physical attacks did much lower damage than she expected it to do.
Maria stopped in place and waited for the monster to finish rolling and tumbling in the air. She didn't know it yet, but being able to send a monster airborne for a good long while was a pretty high-class technique.
Once the Liger fell to the ground it quickly picked itself up, roared angrily at Maria, and charged at her. The girl only raised her weapon to defend against the monster's charge, but that was a mistake.
She wanted to test out how strong its attacks were, but when the monster collided with her, she was sent flying away. She smashed into the mountain wall behind her.
-1,550! -100
"Ack, that was stupid..." Maria quickly saw her HP bar deplete real low. She quickly cast a [Cure] on herself and pulled her HP up by 10%.
"Phew, this thing has high ATK and DEF, but it's kinda slow. Let's hope this thing doesn't have any magic attacks..."
Once she roughly gauged out the monster's stats, Maria began her attack once again. She still wanted to try out her new battle style, so she kept on practicing to chant her spells while evading the monster's attacks and also dishing out counterattacks herself.
It was a good thing that the monster was pretty slow for its level and she was able to invoke [Fire] and [Ruin] multiple times after she got the hang of it and adapted to the monster's speed. During the battle, some of her skill levels rose.
Skill Level Up! [Arc Swing] Lv.5 → Lv.6 [Angel's Rage] Lv.5 → Lv.6 [Cure] Lv.1 → Lv.2 [Smite] Lv.1 → Lv.2 [Barrier] Lv.1 → Lv.2 [Magic Barrier] Lv.1 → Lv.2]
While she was fighting, Maria was unaware of the unsuspecting group of players that happened to arrive in the vicinity of her battle.
"Hey, isn't that..."