*Growl*

For the first time since the fight had begun, Diana got a close look at the creature that Ingrid had called an Ultivate.

It wasn’t particularly tall, only about a meter in height or perhaps a bit more, it was standing upright like a human would and had a long scaly snout which reminded Diana of a crocodile or alligators, a small tail was protruding from the top of its bottom. It was covered in dark blue scales and its eyes were a menacing glowing red colour. Over the head of the creature were a series of letters and numbers.

Health: 20/30

According to the description of her skill, Water Strike, she did ten damage with each strike and she could shoot ten times since she had ten mana and each strike cost only one mana.

Diana and the monster stood only a few meters away from each other but she could physically feel the tension in the air as it thickened so much that she imagined it could be cut by a knife. As they stared at each other she realized that the rain around the creature was gathering into it, being destroyed as it’s essence was absorbed into the creatures skin.

Health: 23/30

It was healing!

Before the creature could react, Diana immediately lifted her left palm up to face it.

“Water Strike!”

*Bam*

The ball of water that had shot out from her palm smashed into the creature but instead of flying back like it had before it simply stood still and seemed to yawn at her. She quickly gazed at the creatures head.

Health: 18/30

‘Why did it only do five damage?!’

Diana was fairly shocked, she hadn’t expected that the creature would be unaffected by her attack.

‘But it got hit for ten damage before, why is it different now?’

Although she was somewhat used to virtual reality games in general, Diana couldn’t help but feel pressured psychologically as the monster continued to stare at her, not moving and continuously spewing forth rage and killing intent. When it was coupled with the fact that she couldn’t move because it would expose the injured Indrid to danger, it was as though she was mentally being backed into a corner.

But after a second of tense waiting a message appeared in front of her.

Weak points.

In the world of Eternity there are all sorts of creatures, both big and small. Some creatures, such as the Ultivate you face now have high defence due to their scales and natural affinity to water magic. Despite this natural resistance, all monsters and living beings have weak points which may be exploited and attacked in order to deal the maximum amount of damage possible to the creature. Each weak spot is different for the various races although in general creatures of the same race will have the same weak spot.

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‘Of course, god I’m stupid, I should have thought of it as soon as I saw the blue scales. It has a water affinity!’

Even though it had been seven years since Diana had played a video game, she had so often encountered different affinities with creatures in games that it didn’t surprise her to find out that there were various creatures here with the affinity feature.

It didn’t appear that the creature was going to attack her any time soon and with the tension from the initial confrontation gone with the new message Diana finally had time to think properly.

‘let’s see, umm.’

Well the first thing was affinities. As far as Diana could remember, a certain creature would be likely to belong to a certain element, such as how the Xana were water spirits so they would belong to the water element. This would mean that they had an 'affinity' for water element attacks and take less damage from them. But at the same time, the Ultivate in front of her was also dark blue in colour so would probably also belong to the water element and so her water based attack would do less damage to it.

It was like splashing water against a waterfall, it may damage the rock behind it but most of the water would be washed away while dealing no damage.

But she had done full damage to it.

‘It was when I hit it in the side.’

Diana glanced sneakily at the monster’s side. If she was going to move it would have to be fast. The creature hadn’t healed yet but it would still take two quick shots to take it down. The creature may have been standing still, but it was still intelligent. It would quickly work out what she was trying to do if she attacked its side and block the second attack or dodge it.

‘So then.’

Diana moved to the side and the creature stayed standing still, moving only its thick neck to look at her as she moved to its side. Most likely it would only move when she made her move.

“Water Strike!”

As her palm reached out she fired a blob of water at high speed towards the Ultivate. But before it had even left her hand she cried out again.

“Water Strike!”

Two consecutive Water Strikes!

Although the creature had already begun to move it was futile, as the first strike hit its side it went flying into the air where the second strike hit it dead at its side. The number twenty appeared in red on top of its head.

Health -2/0

Diana sighed in relief and turned to face the injured woman on the floor. Only to find that there was a perfectly fine Indrid standing tall and facing her.

“Congratulation my dear, you’ve completed the tutorial.”

Authors note: I may have accidently made this one too long, it was just barely under a thousand words. Forgive me! Thus I shall strive to make chaps still under 1k words and no longer.