Chapter 8

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Chapter 8: First Dungeon Cleared
 
 

Skill Level Up: Cooking +3 Intelligence Slight increase to food’s taste

 
 

Ace didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the appearance of the new window. The Cooking bonus was an undeniable blessing. After all, it was glaringly obvious that Ace desperately needed more of the Intelligence stat. However, the blessing came at the expense of him revealing his mediocre cooking skills. He couldn’t help but feel extremely conflicted.

Ace didn’t like to be laughed at. He especially didn’t like to be the object of ridicule. Fifteen long years of meeting bullies had given him enough of that experience. However, it was precisely the fact that he was a long-term subject of bullying that he knew the difference between demeaning ridicule and friendly teasing.

The people who laughed at his cooking skills were easily considered his closest friends. Their giggling faces and laughing voices didn’t contain the same trace of mockery that was easily found in the laughter of Flares and his fellow bullies.

Since he knew this, Ace couldn’t get angry. All he could do was try to ignore them. However, this wasn’t enough to stop him from feeling embarrassed.

‘I will improve my cooking skills!’

‘I’ll become an expert chef and dazzle them all!’

‘We’ll see who gets the last laugh…’

Ace never thought that the lack of cooking skills was a problem. But just because he disregarded the importance of cooking, didn’t mean that others did too. He had discovered this the unpleasant way.

He had to add cooking to his growing list of improvements. But he wouldn’t just learn how to cook, he’ll learn to cook extraordinarily well!

Ace was firm with his decision. He had already decided that this will be the last time his friends will laugh at his food. Next time, they’ll beg him to cook for them again.

However, Ace had to get back to the matter at hand. The current problem wasn’t his lack of cooking skills, but the fact that he was outclassed. Unless he was content with hiding behind the backs of others, he knew he had to change.

The current him lacked both Strength and Intelligence.

If he had more strength, then he could increase his damage. Although he might not be able to catch up to Kami and Atlas’s monsters due to their magic-casting type advantage, at the very least, he wouldn’t be dealing pitiable damage. It was too embarrassing to be a damage dealer with incomparably weak damage.

He had only three options to increase his damage: gain a lot of Strength stat points, use a more powerful weapon, and to use Shadow Blade. It can’t be forgotten that Agility was also capable of increasing damage, but the amount of damage that Agility increased per point paled in comparison to the boosts obtained from increasing Strength.

Strength was vital for close-combat damage dealers. However, no one knew the game’s damage formulas. Without that knowledge, it became impossible to answer one simple question. How much Strength would Ace need to gain before he could efficiently kill the dungeon monsters?

Ace had gained three levels from the beginning of the dungeon to the current midway point. Three levels weren’t bad. Fantasy Edge distributed experience proportional to each party member’s contribution for slaying monsters, with non-participants gaining minimal experience. Although Ace didn’t play an active role in the battles and wasn’t able to inflict a lot of damage, he was still able to level up three times due to the multitudes of monsters. It wasn’t an over exaggeration for players to claim that dungeons provided one of the best sources for experience.

Counting the thirty stat points from the three new levels, Ace had 190 unused stat points. If he wanted to, he could greatly increase his Strength and immediately deal greater damage. But still, the question remained. How much Strength would Ace need to gain before he could efficiently kill the dungeon monsters?

Two possible situations had to be noted. On a positive note, the damage formula might be extremely lenient for players and 190 additional Strength could help Ace inflict at least a quarter of an enemy’s health per attack. This would instantly allow Ace to turn his situation around. After all, his current predicament was dealing too little damage to enemies while taking too much damage to himself. If he was able to kill faster, he would not only reduce the amount of attackers, but would also be able to retreat easier. However, this was only the best case scenario.

The worst case scenario still existed. It was possible that even after the 190 Strength points increase, Ace could still inflict minimal damage to the monsters. The fact that the dungeon monsters were now at least level 110 can’t be disregarded. Each of the monsters they’ve battled and will battle possessed an alarming advantage in defensive abilities.

Facing these monsters was comparable to fighting a level 110 warrior that invested a great portion of its stats to Endurance and Constitution. 190 extra points might appear to be a lot, but the difference between a level 110 and a level 44 granted at least an additional 660 stat points!

It was unclear if monsters would also gain ten stat points per level up, but it wouldn’t be too different. At the very least, monsters would gain an amount that was close to ten.

It would be stupid to blindly bet all of his reserved points on a slim chance. Ace couldn’t take this chance.

After all, it can’t be forgotten that Ace had weak equipment. If his weapons were stronger, his damage from increasing Strength would be incomparably higher.

Shadow Blade was Ace’s best solution for dealing damage. It was foolish to hope for better equipment at this time, so it was better to depend on a definite guarantee of dealing higher damage.

Ace saw the power of Shadow Blade. He knew how effective it was on the dungeon monsters. However, he had too little mana.

Low mana was a common concern for all early players. It was easily the greatest incentive for magic-casters to increase their level. A higher level meant higher mana. At least, this was true if the Intelligence was also high.

Ace made a decision. Since he needed both Strength and Intelligence, he decied to split 190 points evenly between both stats. In a flash, his mana grew to 1190. Enough for five attacks.

Five attacks might not seem like big difference from his previous amount of two, but it can’t be forgotten that his Strength had also increased. Since Shadow Blade was capable of ignoring defense, the increase of Strength would boost his damage to great heights.

If his calculations were right, by relying on mana potions, he should now be able to take a much more active role in battles.

 

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“You still haven’t found him?!”

TrueAce was in a terrible mood.

The reason? Ace.

Originally, everything was perfect. His recreated character gained 400 bonus stats from using every single stat boosting item acquired by his guild. The bonuses were comparable to being a player who was 40 levels higher than others of the same level.

He used his prior knowledge of the game and the might of his Immortals guild to reach level 100 within a month. He had the best training dungeons reserved for his exclusive use. After all, it wasn’t hard to have his guild force out weak players. It wasn’t wrong to say that TrueAce had a perfectly unhindered leveling experience.

Currently he was level 120, but he had stats comparable to a player of level 160. By his guess, two months was all he needed before he was able to reach back to the same level before his character deletion.

Everything went smoothly. He had no shortage of powerful equipment. He knew lots of secret training locations. He had access to rare quests. His understanding of the Samurai class was second to none. It was unbelievably easy to pull ahead of other players.

However, although TrueAce had zero setbacks with his gaming life, he still couldn’t forget about the player who stole his character name.

‘Ace!!!’

‘Damn you!! No one else is allowed to use that name!’

TrueAce was a man who held grudges. He was a man who would go to the extreme to have his way.

At first, he thought it would have been simple to drive Ace out of the game. It wouldn’t have been the first time his guild had forced a player to quit playing. His Immortals guild had an overbearing reputation in previous games. It wouldn’t be any different inside Fantasy Edge.

It wasn’t hard to find the beginner village that Ace started in. His guild had a few Oracle class players. Within Fantasy Edge, only the Oracle class was capable of divining the location and information of players without physically being near them.

Sadly, his guild never placed a lot of resources in cultivating their non-combat players. The oracles were still at a low level and weren’t able to provide much information for him. However, even the most useless oracle was capable of discovering the general location of a targeted player.

It was Yale Village. Ace had been lucky to start in the southern section of the continent rather than the north-eastern area. If he started in Harvard Village, Ace wouldn’t be able to survive more than a week.

TrueAce had given Ace one week. One week was more than enough time for an average player to get to level 10. Thus, he made the decision to send a few of the lower-leveled players to wait at Gremlin City. After all, everyone from Yale Village would go there to select a class. It was impossible for a low-leveled player to travel to further cities.

Although he sent low-leveled players, the players were all above level 100. That was the minimum requirement for combat classes to join his guild.

However, none of his guild members were able to kill Ace. None of them had seen him. They waited in Gremlin City for weeks, but to no avail. Ace never showed up.

TrueAce was starting to get frustrated. Ace was supposed to have been driven out of the game by now. Instead, his oracles were still reporting him logging on and leveling up.

TrueAce wasn’t stupid. If Ace didn’t show up in Gremlin City for weeks and the general locations still pinpointed the areas near Yale Village, then the most likely outcome was that Ace stayed inside the beginner village. He quickly sent players to Yale Village.

He expected his guild to discover Ace and begin slaughtering him. However, his plans never went smoothly for matters related to Ace. His guild reported that they weren’t able to find him. Additionally, his oracles reported strange information too. They were able to discover Ace being logged into the game, but they weren’t able to discern his location. They believed that Ace was hidden inside a secret area.

‘Impossible! How could there be a secret area near a beginner’s village? Even if there was, how could that guy find it?’

There was no news about Ace for a while, until two of his members reported seeing him on their way back. However, he wasn’t pleased to hear that both of them died due to a mysterious swordsman.

“Where is he!?”

TrueAce’s angry voice yelled towards the four oracles sitting in front of him.

“He should still be in the Chroma City region.”

“I think so too, but I’m getting a reading of some place closer to the left area.”

“No, my reading is a place to the right area.”

“You oracles are completely useless!!”

“Sorry leader. If we had a higher skill level or more advanced skills, then we could find out more info.”

“You have one week to raise them.”

“That’s too soon! Even with the most optimal guesses, we would need at least two weeks.”

“Two weeks. You won’t need me to tell you what will happen if I don’t receive more solid information by then right?”

“Yes sir!”

All four oracles responded in unison. Although they responded quickly, in truth, they were all panicking. Two weeks simply wasn’t enough time. However, they knew it was impossible to ask for more. TrueAce wasn’t a patient man.

All four oracles gave each other the same knowing look. They would have to devote all their efforts into increasing their oracle skills. They didn’t want to imagine the consequences of angering their notorious guild leader.

‘Pathetic.’

TrueAce knew better than to rely on his guild’s oracles. He didn’t become the guild leader based on his financial status. It was also due to his genius. He knew better than to place all of his eggs in one basket.

Although he wished to resolve this through his guild, he knew it was time to recruit outside help. He could only send the low-leveled players out to go on the Ace hunt, after all, it would have been a waste of time to send higher leveled players to take care of a weak beginning player. It was why he didn’t feel the need to personally hunt Ace down.

But enough was enough. Ace had survived for too long.

 

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He was wrong. Two extra attacks didn’t mean much.

Ace’s plan was to run up to monsters and attack five times with his Shadow Blade skill. Afterwards, he’ll use the Body Swap Technique to escape backwards and drink mana potions to fully recover his mana. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat.

He overestimated himself.

At first, he was pleased to discover that each attack would take out one-third of the monster’s health. With that delightful info, he proceeded and followed his plan. However, he soon found out that although his plan was nice, he wasn’t mentally capable of carrying it out.

By the fourth cycle, he had already started to mess up. Stumbling over his feet, hesitating to attack, prematurely teleporting away were only the start of the mistakes.

Ace made beginner mistakes. He wasn’t a guy who was mentally conditioned to effortlessly repeat procedures without mistakes. Each repetition involved a lot of actions that Ace was required to do.

He didn’t just have to run up to a monster. He had to run to a monster that wasn’t being attacked by his party members. That monster also couldn’t be surrounded by too many other monsters, or else he wouldn’t make it back out alive. He had to seek for the one monster that stuck out like a sore thumb. But, this didn’t always happen. A few times, Ace had to make a quick decision to attack a nearby monster instead.

When attacking, it wasn’t simply relentlessly swinging his swords until the enemy falls. He also had to guard against attacks. Since the monsters were over level 110, Ace wasn’t confident in taking too many attacks. If Ace wasn’t careful, he could die from a random hit before he could kill a monster.

Ace had prematurely teleported away more than once. Sometimes, it was because he had no choice. If he didn’t teleport, he would die. Other times, it was because of panic. The fear of possibly dying had caused him to teleport even when he wasn’t in danger.

Ace wasn’t prepared for this. It was one thing to think up a plan. Being able to carry it out was another.

Ace had to abandon his plan. Picking off monsters one at a time wasn’t too helpful for the team. It also wasn’t a good trade-off when placing the amount of potions he consumed into consideration. It was a foolish venture to persist.

Ace quickly retreated back to his team and resumed his previous duties of picking off the weakened monsters.

“What? Back so soon?”

Seven rounds of combat had felt like an eternity to Ace, but, in truth, it had only taken a mere eight minutes.

Ace helplessly furrowed his eyebrows at Kami’s question and continued to attack without a response. Deep inside, Ace’s spirit was thoroughly crushed. It was a big shock for him to realize that he was incapable of successfully carrying out his own plans.

It wasn’t hard for others to notice Ace’s lack of spirit. After all, it was obvious to everyone that Ace had lost his original enthusiasm for the dungeon battles. Everyone noticed Ace becoming more and more dejected with each coming fight, but there was nothing they could do. Kami, Kira, and Atlas couldn’t reduce their offensive power to allow Ace to play a higher role. It would have guaranteed the failure of completing the dungeon.

Originally, they were happy to see Ace, once again, appear motivated for battle. They didn’t know what happened to him during the brief midpoint resting session, but they were glad he looked spirited again. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling to see a friend stay depressed. However, their happiness was short-lived. Ace didn’t just fall back to his previous state. He fell even further.

Vulcan wasn’t blind. He knew what was happening to Ace. He had seen countless challengers and experts fall into that state after losing to him. He had seen a lot of them fail to recover and fell deep into despair. This wasn’t something he wanted for his favorite student. However, Vulcan had never suffered a mental blow similar to that. Naturally, he didn’t know how to help. People at that state were very delicate. One wrong move could shatter them forever.

But just because Vulcan didn’t have any way to help doesn’t mean he wasn’t doing anything. He was in a private chat with Lycan. Vulcan’s narrations were enough to convince Lycan to head back to Chroma City immediately.

After a slightly tough scuffle, the party defeated another batch of monsters.

“Hey, I’m actually curious. Isn’t this place known as the Cave of Firegrass? How come I haven’t seen any?”

Clara’s remark was true. The party had spent a great deal of hours inside the dungeon, but had never noticed a single patch of grass.

“That’s true, I haven’t seen any plants either.”

“Maybe the firegrass is the treasure at the end of the dungeon.”

“Maybe…”

“Actually, I seem to recall seeing patches of a greenish red plant before we fought monsters, but afterwards…”

“…they disappeared!”

Three voices simultaneously finished Kira’s sentence. Originally, everyone was beginning to accept Ace’s hypothetical reasoning, but Kira’s remark had caused them to remember that they had also occasionally seen something similar.

“Is it possible that the herbs could move?”

“Could there be someone else here with us? Using an invisibility skill like Ace?”

The Cave of Firegrass. A cave that supposedly held the greatest abundance of a fiery red plant, the Firegrass. Firegrass was the primary ingredient for an alchemist’s Fire Enhancement Potion and Fire Resistance Potion.

It was impossible for the cave to be barren of herbs. However, the mysterious disappearance of the herbs was an undeniable fact.

Even Kami was baffled by this issue. Could it be? Had he made a mistake? Kami used his photographic memory and godlike processing ability to recall the firegrass code and find the error. However, his search revealed nothing. His code was flawless.

Just as everyone was ready to label this mystery as the First Wonder of the Cave of Firegrass, Keki looked up at everyone and asked a question.

“What’s everyone talking about? Why aren’t we walking? I’m bored waiting and waiting.”

Keki was a frog. He didn’t understand human languages and humans didn’t understand frog languages. Ace was the only person who could make sense of Keki’s words. After all,  he gained the ability Frog Language from the summoning contract.

“We’re wondering what happened to all the herbs in the cave. The cave’s name suggested that there would be a lot of firegrass, but none of them could be found.”

“Are those the red plants that grow near the walls?”

“You’ve seen them?!”

“Yep! They’re tasty! Spicy and chewy!”

Ace stared at Keki in horror.

‘It couldn’t be… could it?”

“Ace, what’s wrong? What did Keki say?”

Atlas had noticed Ace’s horrified expression.

“You mean… the reason we could never see the firegrass… was because you ate them all?”

“Calm down boss. I only ate a few. I gave you the rest since I thought you might want to try eating them later too.”

Keki’s beaming face revealed his intentions. He wanted Ace to compliment him for being considerate.

Ace opened up his Item Bag and glanced inside. Sure enough, he had 108 clumps of firegrass.

Ace smacked his forehead and shook his head a few times. His summon was simply too amazing.

“Sorry everyone…”

Ace explained the truth of the baffling mystery to his friends. He couldn’t help but feel more embarrassed. After all, the confusion only started due to his summon. At the end of the explanation, the party roared with laughter.

Ace quickly sent a trade request to Clara and gave her every trace of the herb.

“I’m really sorry Clara. I didn’t expect Keki to do this.”

“It’s okay. It’s not a big deal. But help me tell him not to eat anymore. I really want to train my Herb Extraction skill.”

“Yes ma’am…”

Ace and party once more ventured deeper into the cave.

They didn’t travel far before a loud echoing rumble revealed the start of an impending battle.

“Golems! Finally its golems!”

Both Kami’s face and voice revealed his immense excitement. But why? Only he would know.

Ace stared as the towering golems slowly advanced towards them. They weren’t overly large, after all the cave wasn’t too tall. However, in height alone, they were at least a head taller than Vulcan.

“Inspect.”

Level 117. FireRock Golem.

‘It appears that every monster inside this cave has the prefix FireRock.’

Golems, by nature, were extremely durable monsters. In terms of defensive power, a golem’s attributes could easily dwarf all the other monsters that the party had faced. After all, they didn’t just possess a body that was resistant to physical and magical attacks, they also possessed a massive amount of health and extremely heavy attacks. This definitely wouldn’t be an easy fight.

Luckily, golems were extremely slow. This was evident from the distance that the golems had traveled since they first detected the party. They truly moved at a snail’s pace.

“FurryLizard, Icicle Spear.”

“Icey, use Frost Wind.”

This was the same starting routine as all of their other battles. Both Kami and Atlas would use their elementally advantaged Ice magic to test out the endurance of the monsters. However, unlike previous times, they discovered that their ranged magical attacks weren’t very effective. Each attacked golem’s health didn’t lower by more than ten percent.

“Gravity Field.”

Kira quickly casted her expansive gravity field on each golem and increased their weight as far as she could.

“Wow! The golems can’t even move anymore!”

Clara was very happy to discover that Kira didn’t need her Gravity Sphere skill to immobilize the golems. It was enough to simply increase their weight.

“Ace, its up to you!”

Ace didn’t need any further instructions. He had played enough games to know what was expected of him. Since both regular attacks and magical attacks weren’t effective on these golems, the only option was Ace’s Shadow Blade skill that was capable of ignoring defense.

Ace casted Haste and Assassin’s Eye as he ran towards the immobilized golem.

Since each golem had a massive amount of health, Ace had to insure that each attack was a critical hit. After all, he didn’t have the mana to waste attacks.

“Shadow Blade!”

Ace navigated himself to the back of the closest golem and targeted his attack to the back of the golem’s knee. A loud boom sounded as the golem fell onto one knee and forty percent of its health disappeared.

Ace was unhappy to discover that the weakpoint on the back of the knee disappeared when the golem collapsed and immediately stepped back to the golem’s front side.

The golem’s primary weakpoint was a roundish stone buried in the middle of its chest. Due to the fallen golem’s lowered elevation, Ace was able to reach the chest weakpoint without the need to jump. He quickly slashed it once before stabbing forward with both blades. Another loud rumble sounded as the defeated golem crumbled into pieces.

“Guys! I won’t have enough mana potions for this!”

“Keep attacking, I’ll start making more right now!”

With that reassurance, Ace continued with the same attack plan.

Ace was starting to feel really good about himself. After all, he was the only one who could attack the monsters. This was something only he could do. He had already disregarded the fact that both Kami and Atlas’s monsters were also constantly bombarding enemies. He had already forgotten that he wasn’t the only one damaging the monsters.

However, Ace discovered that it was too soon for him to be happy. The golems weren’t completely helpless.

While repeating his plan against the second golem, he discovered a glow surrounding the monster and it immediately punched out with its fist.

Ace wasn’t able to dodge the unexpected attack and took the full brunt force of the hit. The force carried enough strength to launch Ace flying back to his party and land heavily on the ground. Ace watched in horror as his health drained by a mighty eighty percent.

“This damage! How? I don’t understand what happened! Wasn’t I safe?”

Ace’s face was frozen in fear as he looked at the golems. His body was still numb from the attack. Although he didn’t feel the pain, he still felt the dense impact of being hit by a boulder-sized object. It easily knocked the air out of him.

“I think it casted a skill that heavily raised its strength! It became strong enough to resist the increased gravity and attack.”

“Would Gravity Sphere work better?”

“They’re too big. Gravity Sphere could only affect two or three of them.”

“How can we win?”

“We can go with the same plan… just dodge.”

Ace nodded in agreement. It made sense, after all, there was nothing wrong with the previous procedure. He had only gotten injured due to the fact that it was a surprise attack. But if it was no longer a surprise, then there shouldn’t be any danger.

Ace once again ran to attack the monsters. But this time, he was extremely cautious. After all, he couldn’t take a second attack.

Ace tried with all his might, but he wasn’t able to get his mind focused completely into the fight. He was too distracted. The slightest motion from a nearby golem was enough to make him startled.

But fear didn’t simply distract him.

No. It did something far worse.

It caused him to panic. It caused him to close his eyes. It caused him to flinch.

Ace saw a golem move, but didn’t see the deadly glow. Thus, he returned his attention back to his target. He thought he was safe, but he didn’t realize the golem just had a delayed action. The moment he turned his head away, the glow appeared and a fist rushed towards him.

Ace’s greatest flaw was fear. This was proven from nearly two decades of bullying. He was scared. Too scared to fight back and too scared to stand up for himself. Each time he was bullied, he would close his eyes and clench his muscles. Not to attack, but to bear the incoming pain. Vulcan’s physical training couldn’t change this aspect of him. It changed his body, but not his mentality.

Ace noticed a movement again and turned his head in horror. He didn’t need to see the glowing arm to know he was in danger.

He knew he should dodge. He knew he should have used his Body Replacement skill. At the very least, he should have stumbled backwards, but he didn’t.

He was frozen in place.

He was afraid of being hit by the colossal punch. Ace’s only reaction was to close his eyes and brace himself for the blow.

“Ahh!!!”

Ace screamed loudly as he flew backwards once more. This time, he lost more than ninety percent of his health. He realized that he was simply lucky the previous time. Eighty percent was just the low-end of the golem’s enhanced damage potential. There was no guarantee that the new ninety percent was the maximum amount. It was possible that the golem was capable of killing him with one blow.

‘I could die!’

‘The next time, I could really die!!’

‘I don’t want to die!!!’

Although the death penalties weren’t too extreme, Ace didn’t like the idea of dying. It wasn’t simply a matter of being subjected to the penalties. What Ace didn’t want was to be a loser. He wanted to be someone who was always victorious, not someone who constantly died.

His desperate need caused him to fear death inside the game. Although he could revive after one day, he still feared dying. It symbolized the identity that he didn’t want to return to.

It was truly pathetic. However, this was the type of person that Ace was for the past twenty-two years of his life. A man can’t change his nature by physically exercising. The exercise gave him a sense of confidence and nothing more. It didn’t affect his mental strength.

The party took pity on their close combatant and chose to let him sit this battle out.

They adopted the much slower method of only attacking with the long distance magic skills of their monsters.

Without Ace’s overpowering skill, the slow battle took a total of two hours to resolve. The entire time, Ace stood behind the three active participants without moving. He didn’t turn his head because he didn’t want to look at Vulcan and Clara. He didn’t want to see the expressions they’ll make at him. He was also too embarrassed to start doing other things while Atlas, Kami, and Kira were fighting. All he could do was stand there like a statue.

For two hours, Ace stood there silently screaming at himself. He hadn’t yelled at himself since the time he was used by Flares as a scapegoat. However, for that time, he had no choice but to follow his nemesis and listen to his commands. He was forced into the ordeal.

This time was different. He wasn’t with people that he hated. He was with friends that depended on him. He wasn’t able to help out in earlier battles due to the strength of elemental type advantages, but it was different this time. He was the only one who could deal high damage. This was his time to shine.

But he didn’t. Instead of leading his friends past the towering golems, he simply stood there in shame. It was the fear in his heart. He couldn’t force himself to move. He couldn’t force himself to attack. He knew that the worst case scenario for death in the game was insignificant, but, even with that knowledge, he couldn’t bring himself to move.

However, the worst feeling came from how his friends acted. They didn’t yell at him. They didn’t force him to return to the fight. Instead they allowed him to rest and took over for the rest of the battle. They were too considerate.

Ace hated himself. Since he knew he was weak, he had tried hard to be strong. He thought he was becoming strong after being able to easily fight large amounts of easy monsters.

However, he finally understood that that wasn’t strength. Just because he had strong stats doesn’t mean he was strong. All of that didn’t matter if he still hid in fear at the slightest hint of danger.

Tears started to well up in his eyes, but Ace used all of his strength to force them to stay inside. He tilted his head slightly upwards to allow gravity to help him keep his tears inside.

He wasn’t teary due to his incompetence. He was teary due to the compassion he felt from his friends. He had only met them for around two months, but his heart was already extremely touched. He didn’t deserve friends like them. He didn’t deserve such kind and considerate friends.

As he thought of these thoughts, the tears uncontrollably fell. Simply raising his head and mentally restraining himself wasn’t enough to restrict the salty liquid. However, Ace would quickly wipe his face clean each time. He had already shown everyone how pathetic he was, he couldn’t let them see him cry because of it. Even Ace cared about his pride.

Ace’s face was a mess. It was impossible to cleanly wipe away a tear-stained face with his bare hands. It was also impossible to force red glistening eyes to return to normal. This wasn’t possible in reality, naturally it wouldn’t be possible inside the game either.

After the battle, everyone had noticed Ace’s pitiful state. However, none of them could bring themselves to comment about it. Even Kami remained silent. Although Kami liked to tease Ace for his silly antics, he knew that there was a right time for everything. This wasn’t the right time for jokes.

In silence, the group ventured further into the dungeon. Unexpectedly, they were able to travel deeply without discovering more enemies. Were the endless monster waves over?

They discovered the answer when the straightforward path led them to a large cavern.

“I believe we’re in the boss room now.”

Sure enough, a peek into the cavern revealed a large ferocious ruby red stone lion with a bright fiery mane and a flaming tail. A quick inspection afterwards revealed that it was a level 120 boss monster named FireMane StoneCat.

With the visual confirmation of the boss monster, everyone unanimously agreed to rest and prepare for the impending battle. After all, a boss monster was incomparably more powerful than a regular monster. They were stronger, faster, tougher, and had an unbelievably greater amount of health. Moreover, besides the increased difficulty, they also possessed a greater amount of intelligence than regular monsters. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that boss monsters were the most deadliest monsters inside the game. However, although they were extremely tough to handle, they offered unparalleled rewards.

Everyone knew what they had to do. It was common knowledge to always prepare for battle and fighting bosses was no different.

Clara immediately began to create more potions. Although her alchemy skills weren’t very high, she was able to create an abundance of lower-tiered healing potions. Since the boss looked to be a fire elemental monster, she also crafted a couple of low-tier fire resistance potions.

Kami was also busy. He took out multiple monster pieces and began to stick them together. Apparently his excitement over the golem monsters was because they were excellent ingredients for his creations.

“Let’s see, I need the defense of a FireRock Golem…”

Kami took out the stone pieces of a destroyed golem and built back its body. Ace couldn’t help but notice the body was slightly larger than an original golem. However, he wasn’t sure if the change was intentional or accidental.

“Of course, we have to fix up it’s main weakness…”

Kami then took out the dead body of a six-legged FireRock Lizard. After removing the head, he placed it underneath the golem’s stone body. Its body appeared to be very close to a centaur.

The Creator had a unique skill known as Creation Model which allowed him to magically suspend monster parts in midair. This skill allowed Kami to freely build his monster without the need of a physical support or stand.

“Too short. These legs are definitely too short.”

Kami once again reached into his monster corpse bag and pulled out six legs that belonged to three different FireRock StoneApes. Everyone grimaced as they watched Kami dissect the six lizard legs and replace the vacancies with the StoneApe legs.

“Hmm… might as well.”

For a final touch, Kami took out more golem remains and attached two additional arms to the torso.

“Perfect!”

Everyone watched in a mix of fascination and horror as Kami’s creation magic melded the abomination’s body into one seamless monster. During the construction process, Kami was able to adjust the size of each body part to a certain extent. For instance, the legs of the FireRock StoneApes grew larger to accommodate the larger size of the golem’s body.

“Holy damn! Kid, you got skills!”

Vulcan couldn’t help but applaud Kami’s work. The result was a colossal beast that not only retained the defensive abilities of a golem, but also gained a mobility that the golem originally lacked. It had also increased in damage output due to the bonus of an additional two arms.

It was a mighty construct that could easily be displayed as a boss monster.

Kami named it Bulldozer.

Smiling in agreement, Kami began to work on a second monster.

This time, he simply replaced the arms of a large FireRock Gorilla with the arms of a FireRock Golem.

“The gorilla is agile enough and it’ll pack more of a punch with these arms.”

Kami kept nodding to himself as he circled around the monster. He could feel that something was missing. It wasn’t perfect yet.

“You’re only using FireRock monsters?”

“Yep. Besides the defense and health stats, they are also thirty percent fire resistant. Of course, that value is now forty percent after this minor change.”

“You could see its stats before you create it!?”

Ace couldn’t believe his ears. The Creator class was a lot more amazing than he originally assumed.

“Of course, its part of the Creation Model skill. But stats aren’t everything. I have to consider how each part works together otherwise, they’ll just get in the way. For example, I chose to use six legs instead of four for Bulldozer because of its weight. It’s front legs are also a bit larger in mass due to the body’s center of gravity. Finding the right balance is a type of art in itself.”

Ace had never considered that. He had assumed that the monsters would function perfectly just by sticking monster parts wherever he pleased. He had never considered that monsters also had to live by realistic rules. Too many legs on a short body could easily lead to a reduction in movement speed rather than an increase. Too many arms could lead to a tangled mess. A slight miscalculation could ruin the creation’s potential. The Creator was a profound class that would be wasted in the hands of someone like Ace.

“It also helps that the monster takes the strongest part’s level as its own. In this case, this one will be a level 117 monster due to the FireRock Golem being the highest leveled component…”

“Of course!”

Kami’s explanation drifted to a quiet silence before he loudly yelled in realization. He finally figured out the missing piece of the puzzle.

Kami took out two furball monsters and embedded them deep into the palms of the floating construct. Ace recognized the two additional pieces. They were Ice Furballs, the same type of monster as Atlas’s Icey pet.

“Perfect! Creation Time!”

As Kami worked on the minor adjustments during the creation process, he explained the reason for including the furballs. It was purely to grant an ice-elemental attribute to the gorilla’s physical attacks.

“You will be called IceRock.”

Kami ignored the faces of the onlookers and proceeded to his next project.

Contrary to assumptions, Kami didn’t work on a new monster. Instead, he decided to upgrade FurryLizard. He replaced the lizard body with a more powerful FireRock Lizard body. Afterwards, he took out multiple FireRock Monkeys and extracted their tails.

Everyone watched in confusion as he removed the lizard’s original tail and placed nine monkey tails in its place. Their confusion changed to shock when they saw Kami take out eight Ice Furballs.

“How many of those do you have?!”

“Enough.”

Kami gave a wink before laughing at their reactions.

Kami took the original Ice Furball from the original lizard’s tail and plopped all nine furballs onto the nine monkey tails.

“Beautiful isn’t it? Extremely light and fast. Able to take a hit or two. Nine intelligent tails that are capable of shooting out magical attacks.”

“Ok, I’m done. Everyone else finished preparing?”

“Yep!”

“Yep! Oh wait, Ace how come you didn’t wear any new equipment? I remember seeing Keki picking up a shirt you could wear.”

Ace cracked a slightly bashed smile. He had forgotten that.

Although Keki was unbelievably helpful, Ace had soon discovered that there was a negative aspect to having an item pickup summon. Since he didn’t receive notifications of the items that were collected, Ace wasn’t able to know about the new items until he opened his Item Bag.

Ace opened his item bag and saw a large collection of loot amassed from the hours of dungeon exploration. He couldn’t help but feel deeply moved. Keki had been selfishly collecting every item that dropped out of a monster, but none of his friends objected to it. Items that Keki swallowed were automatically placed inside Ace’s item bag. This essentially meant that the items collected belonged to him. However, none of his friends expressed complaints.

There wasn’t just armor that was suitable for him. There was also armor that was suitable for the rest of them. But none of them demanded for the equipment.

“How about we split up the drops right now. I feel bad for holding on to them for so long.”

Ace evenly distributed all non-equipment loot with every member of the party sans Vulcan. Unexpectedly, no one questioned the amount that was given. Ace could feel a warm feeling inside his heart when he realized what this meant. They trusted him.

“There’s quite a bit of equipment too.”

Ace handed Kira a new staff and then looked questionably at Kami, Atlas, and Clara. He didn’t know what weapons they used.

“I like to keep my hands free.”

“It’s ok, I don’t like fighting so you can keep the weapons.”

“I agree, just keep them. Alchemists don’t really use weapons either.”

“Alright, but how about armor? There’s some leather armor in here.”

“You can equip them yourself.”

“Are you sure?”

Ace wasn’t used to fellow players being so nice. In each and every game he’s played, gamers were very stingy and greedy with items. Not only would they attempt to hoard every item drop, but they would go to great lengths to make sure they acquire the greatest amount. Every party and guild that Ace had been in contained competitive players. To them, items and equipment were treasures.

Ace had never been in a party where players were so trusting and nonchalant about items. In previous games, he was always forced to relinquish equipment. After all, games were an area where the strong ruled over the weak. Ace was a gamer, but he was never a professional gamer. He mostly played as a solo character and rarely joined parties or guilds. Due to this, his level and equipment were never able to reach as high as the players who were backed by large guilds.

‘This is a very strange party, but it feels really nice. It feels really comfortable.’

Unlike other occasions, this was the first time Ace was in a party where every party member was a non-competitive player. Naturally, they didn’t care too much about items or equipment.

“Are you guys really sure?”

Although Ace knew he was with friends, he couldn’t come to terms with what he was hearing. It had to be known that Fantasy Edge had an equipment system that emphasized freedom. Unlike other games that restricted certain equipment to specific classes or genders, Fantasy Edge allowed players to equip any piece of equipment they wanted. This meant that a mage could wear heavy armor if they wished or a knight could wear cloth armor. It also meant that women could wear men clothes and men could wear women clothes.

Ace didn’t just discover equipment that was suitable for himself, he had discovered equipment that was suitable for everyone. He couldn’t help but worry that they will go back on their words later on. He couldn’t believe that there were people this nice. If there were, then he would have been the last person to meet them.

“We’re sure.”

“It’s not that big of a deal, we’ll get better equipment later anyway.”

“You need it more than us, you’re a close combat fighter.”

“Keep it.”

“T-thank you so much!”

Ace carefully inspected each piece of equipment as he continued to thank everyone endlessly inside his head.

After a few minutes of comparing, Ace finally settled on his new equipment. Although there wasn’t any sword drops, he had finally gained armor.
 

Sweat-Absorbant Shirt		Uncommon Shirt
Defense: 23-33 +Fire Resistance 1% +Water Resistance 3% Durability: 30
Most popular piece of summer attire. Its popularity far exceeded production capabilities, thus rendering the famous shirt hard to find.

 

Dark Wolf Leather Jacket		Uncommon Outerwear
Defense: 30-38 +Dark Resistance 5% Extra: +5 Constitution Durability: 30
Leather from Dark Wolves provides ample defense and extraordinary resistance to darkness. An Adventurer’s most sought after item due to its defensive capabilities and stylish appearance.

 

Steel Plated Leather Gloves		Common Gloves
Defense: 10-14 +4 Strength +2 Dexterity Extra: +2 Intelligence Durability: 20
Excellent gloves for all unarmed combatants. Steel plates are capable of blocking incoming attacks and dealing heavier damage.

 

Expensive Traveling Boots		Common Shoes
Defense: 6-10 +2% Movement Speed Durability: 20
Elegantly designed boots that provide maximum appeal, but minimum usability. Not worth the money.

 
 
‘Definitely worthy of being equipment dropped from level 100 monsters. The shirt and jacket gives so much defense compared to the amount from my pants! There’s even elemental resistances and bonus stats too!’

‘Although the gloves and boots are only common equipment, they’re still not bad. At least I’ll be able to switch out of the beginner shoes that offers zero abilities.’

Without any further delay, Ace immediately began to equip all four pieces of armor.

‘That’s strange… I’ve never seen a game have a feature like this.’

Ace had discovered a peculiar aspect of the equipment system. Although the gloves and boots came as a pair, he wasn’t restricted to wearing both pieces. However, he was quick to notice that wearing only one piece would provide only half of the equipment’s stats.

‘Although every ability is reduced by half of its amount, this is actually quite amazing! I could mix and match other gloves later for different benefits.’

Ace was lost in his thoughts as he imagined countless possibilities. Thoughts about wearing one glove that offered fire resistance, while the other glove offered water resistance. In this case, he’ll be able to gain resistances to two elements rather than solely on one. Ace started smiling as he realized that the potential could extend to stats and possibly other abilities.

‘Maybe I can have one glove with a health drain effect and another glove with a mana drain effect!’

‘What if gloves provided a skill? Wouldn’t I be able to gain two skills that way?’

However, although Ace was pleasantly entertained by his vivid imagination, the rest of the party wasn’t amused. They watched in confusion at Ace repeatedly put on and took off his gloves. Sometimes he’ll take off one glove. Sometimes he’ll take off both. A creepy smile, in their eyes, never left his face. It only grew bigger and bigger.

‘Has he snapped?’

Everyone had that thought.

“Ace! You ready?”

Ace looked up in surprise. He didn’t realize he had gotten too into his new equipment and lost track of time.

“Yes! Yes. Sorry, everyone. I’m ready now.”

Ace had regained back a bit of his confidence now. Although he knew his damage didn’t increase, he knew his defense definitely did. His previous miserable appearance was due to the fear of dying from one or two hits. But, he had a lot more defense now. He would be able to take a lot more hits.

The party finally entered the boss’s cavern and went closer to attack.

However, why would a boss monster patiently wait for a group to launch a preemptive attack before it decides to respond?

The FireMane StoneCat opened its mouth and let out a thundering roar. Immediately, everyone lost two percent of their total health and was inflicted with both the Deaf and the Dizzy status.

Ace cringed with discomfort as he experienced complete sound loss. People always took their hearing for granted and always failed to acknowledge even the tiniest bit of noise. It’s not until the moment when sound is completely gone that people realize how much noise the world exhibits even during moments of silence.

Suddenly becoming deaf was scary. Ace could see his friends covering their ears like him and constantly moving their mouths. They were yelling, but no one on their team could hear them.

However, what’s worse than the sound loss was the dizziness. Ace’s vision kept rotating and spinning at random speeds. Occasionally, it was fast. Occasionally it was slow.

Ace felt his head hurt from staring at the chaotic movements. The only momentarily relief came from shutting his eyes. But that would lead to him being both deaf and blind.

The StoneCat looked down at the group of six with an amused expression. However, it knew it couldn’t waste time laughing at them. A boss’s intelligence was much greater than the common monster. It naturally began to attack and it chose to attack the greatest threat. After all, the best time to take out the strongest fighter was when he was impaired by a negative status effect.

This was a great plan. Sadly, it’s target was Vulcan. Vulcan wasn’t just dozens of levels higher than the boss, he was also an expert fighter. As an expert fighter, he had a great sense for danger and was able to both dodge the StoneCat’s pounce and counterattack with a swift kick.

The reflexive attack took out a chunk of the StoneCat’s health and knocked it a full ten meters away. This allowed all affected members ample time to recover from the inflicted status effects, after all, the status effects only had a duration of five seconds.

Kami had the fastest reaction and immediately called out his three highest leveled creations: Bulldozer, IceRock, and FurryLizard. Kira was only slightly behind but she immediately casted Gravity Field on the party and waited for the boss to enter her range.

“Haste!”

“Assassin’s Eye!”

“Shadow Cloak!”

Ace didn’t react any slower than Kira, but, as a close-combat fighter, there was nothing he could do except enhance himself. He knew that even with his new defensive strength, it would be foolish to rush headfirst at the charging boss. He had to come up with a different attack plan.

The team was ready to battle once Atlas summoned out her monster arsenal.

The StoneCat growled in annoyance when it saw the group of players waiting for it. It didn’t take a veterinarian to see how unhappy the StoneCat was. It had launched a special group attack skill to temporarily disable all affected players. Then, it planned to quickly dispose of the strongest players one by one until only the weakest remained. Afterwards, it could take its time to play with the remainder until he felt content enough to finish the job. It was a sound plan.

However, not only was it unable to take out a single player, it had also gotten injured. FireMane StoneCat hated when its plans fail. It hated to waste effort.

But it did notice one interesting fact. The most powerful enemy wasn’t standing with the group of attackers. He was standing far off to the side with a human girl and didn’t display any intentions of joining the fight.

FireMane StoneCat couldn’t resist the urge to show an evil smile and decided to pounce towards one of the weaker females. However, the moment it jumped, it discovered that its hind legs weren’t moving. With a loud boom, the cat dropped back onto the floor. He wasn’t damaged, but he felt severely humiliated.

It was Kira. She noticed the boss slightly crouch down as if it was to leap at them. Thus, she quickly casted two consecutive Gravity Spheres to adhere the boss’s back legs to the floor. She knew that the one meter high Gravity Sphere wouldn’t be able to fully trap the large boss nor would it be able to gravitationally attract the boss, but she knew it could still affect it. After all, the boss wouldn’t be used to the strong suction force and wouldn’t be able to immediately expend enough strength to pull free.

“Yes! It worked!”

Kira cheered loudly when she saw the boss crash onto the ground after attempting to jump. She didn’t waste time in casting Gravity Field onto it. Every detrimental effect was appreciated for moments like these.

“Perfect!”

Kami quickly commanded his creations to attack and Atlas followed his lead.

But where was Ace? How could he disappear while everyone else was beginning to attack? Was he simply hiding behind his teammates while they attacked? Was he hoping to reap the spoils without providing any help?

He wasn’t. In truth, Ace was the first to respond. He had moved towards the boss before Kira had casted her Gravity Sphere. However, he ran while under the guise of his invisibility status.

Ace had a plan. He was going to sneak behind the boss and attack it while it was focused on the larger group. This was the typical attack pattern of assassin-like classes.

However, Ace was normally a solo player. He didn’t have experience fighting tough bosses in a party. Even while he was hunting with Kami and Kira, they were still playing as a separate entity. There was zero teamwork between Ace and the two lovey-dovey partners. It was simple enough to state that Ace wasn’t a team player.

Ace planned to take the straight path to the boss. There was ample room to dash through underneath the cat and Ace was confident in avoiding the boss’s dashing legs.

When he reached the cat’s tummy, he noticed the boss’s muscles tense up and jump. Although he didn’t expect the boss to pounce towards the group, he was able to make a quick decision to stop running. With the boss’s size and strength, further running would be a wasted effort. He would naturally be behind the boss after the boss lands.

However, he never expected Kira to bind the boss’s feet.

‘Oh shit.’

Ace’s eyes widened in horror when he noticed two Gravity Spheres appear on the two hind legs in front of him.

Ace quickly dashed forward with all his strength to avoid the incoming attack. He didn’t need to pay attention in physics class to know what would happen when someone tried to jump with binded legs. It took all his effort to barely dodge the descending body.

Had he reacted a second slower, Ace would have been flattened under the boss’s extraordinary body mass.

‘Kira!’

Although Ace silently blamed Kira for his near-death experience, he knew he shouldn’t have. After all, he had never announced his plan nor had he gave them any indication that he was rushing to the boss. No one could see his invisible body and Shadow Cloak also muffled all sound.

Ace noticed the incoming onslaught of friendly monsters and knew he couldn’t remain standing.

“Shadow Blade!”

“Backstab!”

Ace swiftly stabbed his darkened blade at a critical spot and jumped backwards. His combination of Assassin’s Eye, Shadow Cloak, Shadow Blade, and Backstab was his strongest attack. He wasn’t capable of boosting his damage any further. However, Ace stared in dread as he realized that his most powerful attack only removed a sliver of health.

Ace continued to run backwards when he noticed the FireMane StoneCat turn its body to attack him. Although the boss wasn’t injured too much from his attack, it was extremely annoyed. Ace couldn’t help but feel like the boss was swatting an annoying fly.

At this time, the monster army finally arrived. Each monster surrounded the boss and began wave after wave of relentless attacks.

Ace was lucky. Although he was able to dodge a few of the boss’s swats, he wasn’t confident that he could maintain that condition. He knew that he’ll eventually be hit, after all, he now knew that one of his weaknesses was maintaining a consistent set of actions. He wasn’t someone who was good at maintaining focus. He was too easily distracted and was slow to react to immediate danger. Kami and Atlas’s aid was a godsend for him.

Ace stepped to the side to calm his breathing and observe the battle. He really hated to fight monsters like these. He preferred fighting monsters that would die easily. His grandeur dreams always involved him defeating boss monsters in less than ten attacks. He abhorred battles that would take hours.

For now, he would watch the battle and look for the optimal moment to attack. He learned from his previous mistake of rushing into battle without looking at his other teammates.

Atlas’s monsters were randomly attacking in a straightforward manner. They didn’t care about dodging nor did they care about where they were attacking. After all, Atlas’s only command was: “keep attacking.”

It was obvious that the one who lead the attack was Kami. Bulldozer used its heavy body to grapple one of the enemy’s legs for the other monsters to attack while the boss was detained. Whenever Kira’s Gravity Sphere restrained the enemy, Bulldozer would switch to throwing out a volley of punches with its four heavy fists. It was quick in dodging and quick in attacking.

IceRock on the other hand fought in a more simple way. It had climbed onto the boss’s back and continued to pound it with its ice-elemental fists.

However, the true damage dealer of the group wasn’t the physical attackers, but the nine-tailed magical attacker FurryLizard.

FurryLizard didn’t stay still. With its strong and swift body, it kept circling around the boss to launch multiple attacks at a time.

FurryLizard was definitely a force to be reckoned with. Each of its tails had a mind of its own. Each tail was capable of casting a different magical attack and was capable of attacking at a different angle or location.

Ace felt his brain hurt simply from trying to imagine how FurryLizard can have ten different minds.

Ace continued to stand at the side and spectate the battle. Truthfully, he was mesmerized by the battle. Unless a player was a monster-trainer class, it was rare to see monster versus monster battles. It was even rarer to see a monster battle on the scale of this one.

The group’s monsters were relentless and it was obvious that their barrage of attacks were working. The boss’s health was steadily decreasing.

However, the boss wasn’t just standing around to take attacks. It was also actively attacking. Its fiery mane would occasionally erupt out in an area attack that dealt heavy damage to all monsters that had low fire resistance. The fire mane explosion skill was primarily used to eject IceRock from the boss’s back.

Although the FireMain StoneCat was a fire-elemental monster, it didn’t have a lot of fire attacks. The majority of its skillset involved physically attacking with its paws and teeth. Only rarely would it use a fire skill. It was easy to see that each magical attack would utilize a lot of mana. They weren’t skills that a physical attacking monster could endlessly spam, even if the monster was a boss.

Atlas’s monsters were dead. Although ice magic had an advantage over fire-elemental monsters, the opposite was also true. Fire magic was also equally powerful against an ice-elemental monster. Unlike Kami’s creations that had a high fire resistance, Atlas’s monsters either had none or were pure ice types. It didn’t take long for them to be wiped out even under the aid of Atlas’s minor healing skills.

But even with the absence of Atlas’s monsters, Kami and Kira were still able to contend with the boss.

However, the moment the boss’s health reached ten percent, a change happened. The boss let out a loud painful scream and the fiery mane stretched to completely cover the boss’s body.

A stone cat coated with flames. It was obvious that the change wouldn’t be a simple cosmetic change.

IceRock saw the sudden appearance of flames under it and jumped off the boss immediately after feeling an intense heat wave.

However, StoneCat suddenly turned at an unbelievable speed and swatted the airborne gorilla. IceRock smashed loudly onto the ground and wasn’t able to resist the subsequent barrage of slashes. IceRock was forced to retire for the remainder of the battle.

Luckily, both FurryLizard and Bulldozer were agile monsters. They were quick to escape to a suitable range the moment they knew that IceRock was helpless.

“Not good!”

Kami knew the next few rounds with the boss would be extremely tough. After all, he had lost a third of his attacking force and Bulldozer was no longer suitable for attacking. Realistically, Kami had lost two-thirds of his attacking force.

Kami couldn’t help but wish that he didn’t give the FireMane StoneCat such an over powerful move. Flame Ignition was a very high leveled skill that didn’t just provide the user with a layer of fire for protection. It would also increase all of the user’s abilities for a period of time. Flame Ignition was a protection skill that would damage physical attackers and extinguish low-leveled water and ice magic attacks. It was a very tyrannical skill.

“Do you have a plan?”

Although Kira was confident in Kami, she couldn’t help but worry about the result of the battle.

“Two options.”

Kami was trying his best. Although he originally planned to remain on the sidelines, he knew that that wasn’t possible this time. This was Kira’s first dungeon exploration experience. He knew how disappointed she’ll be if she failed to complete her first dungeon. Kami didn’t want to see that happen. It was enough motivation for him to have a more active role during the past few battles even after Ace had faded off to the background.

“One. We can throw Atlas into the battle. Vulcan would definitely show up and protect her.”

“What?! That’s so mean!”

“Not literally throw her…”

Kira knew Kami was simply joking around with her. However, that didn’t stop her from sending a glare at his direction.

“Second option is just continue supporting me. Don’t worry, I’ll get us out.”

Kami switched tactics. FurryLizard was the primary attacker and it had to rely on only using its highest leveled attacks. Although high leveled magic attacks used up a greater amount of mana, it was also the only attacks that was capable of passing through the flame barrier.

However, since FurryLizard wouldn’t have enough mana to sustain the shower of attacks, Kami had to keep using Mana Transfer to provide mana for his summon. Mana Transfer was a rare skill that could be obtained by anyone after completing a long and complicated series of quests. However, monster-trainer classes were the sole exception to this rule. They were able to easily obtain the skill alongside their class skills.

With Mana Transfer, Kami would be able to sustain FurryLizard’s attacks. The key to Kami’s new tactic was FurryLizard. After all, it was the only monster in the area that had the ability to damage the boss.

FurryLizard had to be protected. If it falls, then the team falls. Due to that piece of knowledge, Kami assigned BullDozer to protect FurryLizard. BullDozer’s only role was to pull FurryLizard out of harm’s way and take the incoming hit if an attack was unavoidable.

Honestly, It was quite sad to see the monstrous BullDozer be reduced to becoming a meat-shield. However, with the current crisis, some sacrifices had to be made.

Ace continued to watch. At first, he was mesmerized by the monster battle. Then he felt worried at the sight of the increasing losses of friendly forces. But once the boss was cloaked in a layer of flames, Ace felt fear.

To be fair, it was very normal to be afraid when staring at a towering figure of fire. After all, the majority of humans were taught to fear fire. It didn’t help that Ace had been engulfed by a fiery tornado during his first day of the game. That type of trauma couldn’t disappear even if it was only a trivial experience.

There was nothing he could do besides watch the monster duo face off against the monstrous inferno.

Kami’s plan proved to be very effective. Although he had consumed a great amount of mana potions, he was able to allow FurryLizard to utilize a neverending volley of attacks.

Before long, the last ten percent of health was depleted and the battle was over. The FireMane StoneCat gave out a harsh growl before it collapsed onto the ground for the last time.
 

You have gained a level.

 
 
“Keki! Don’t!”

Ace had to quickly block Keki from immediately swallowing the dropped items. He didn’t have the nerve to pick up a single item. Throughout the entire battle, he had only made one meaningless attack. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that his presence was unnecessary. With only one insignificant attack as a battle contribution, it would be too shameful for him to collect all the dropped items.

“So much items appeared!”

Ace was surprised to discover that he was the only one to feel ashamed about grabbing items. The rest of the team rushed to inspect the dropped goods.

“I see lots of herbs! There’s an alchemy recipe too!”

“This dress is so cute! Can I have it?”

“A fire-elemental staff! It doesn’t boost gravity magic, but it gives a two percent Intelligence stat boost! Mine!”

“Not bad, these gloves are great! It’ll fit my hands-free policy.”

“Hey Ace, aren’t you picking anything? If you keep waiting, all the good items will be gone.”

“There’s a sword over here.”

Ace hesitantly walked up to Clara and collected the sword. He couldn’t help but glance towards Kami and Kira. He didn’t want them to hate him for picking up items when he didn’t participate much. However, neither person was paying attention to him. They were both having fun digging through the treasure trove.
 

Flame Splitter		Rare One-handed Sword
Attack: 48 – 58 +10% Damage Against Fire-Elemental Monsters +10 Intelligence +10 Wisdom Durability: 30
Crafted by a renowned blacksmith for an unknown BattleMage. With sword in hand, the mysterious BattleMage inspired fear among all fire spirits.

 
 
“Such an amazing weapon!”

The Flame Splitter was Ace’s first piece of rare equipment! Although it was quite common for players to begin collecting rare equipment for the duration of time that Ace had played, very few people collected them at his level.

‘A BattleMage’s weapon! Strong damage and an Intelligence and Wisdom boost.’

Ace couldn’t believe his luck. With the addition of the sword, his attack had gone up by another level.

“Ohh! A hair-tie that boosts wisdom!”

“I found a pair of frameless glasses! How do I look?”

“Wahahaha!”

Kami laughed loudly as he spun around with a new white cloak. The snow white cloak was engraved with captivating red markings.

“A fire-resistant cloak that offers cold-resistance too. Best of all, it looks so good on me!”

After a few more minutes, the group finished distributing all the loot. There was a large amount of drops due to the double drop rate from the dungeon discoverer bonus. It could easily be said that everyone had profited greatly from the dungeon.

Besides the equipment, a great deal of potions and money were dropped and evenly split between five players.

“Well, now that that’s done. Let’s leave.”

“It’s pretty late now, so I think I’ll log out. I still have school tomorrow.”

“Don’t remind me! I still haven’t finished my homework…”

Without further ado, the party quickly backtracked back to the dungeon’s entrance. On the way back, Vulcan took the initiative to extinguish every threat. Normally, the players would fight their way back for more experience, but Vulcan could tell how exhausted Atlas and the rest of the party was.

However, before the group of six traveled far from the cave, they noticed a small group of people pointing at them.

“Hey! Are you Ace?”

Ace looked at them in confusion before slowly nodding. He didn’t know who these people were. They shouldn’t know him either.

Originally, he suspected them to be members of the Immortals guild. After all, only they would actively seek him out. However, Ace had already confirmed that none of them were a member of that notorious guild.

“It’s him! Get him!”

Instantly a swarm of players appeared and rushed forward to surround the group of six.

“What’s happening? What are you doing? Why are you blocking us?”

Ace had a lot of questions, but he had a feeling that he wouldn’t be getting any answers.

“Kill him! Kill the rest too!”

There were at least thirteen players surrounding them. The majority of them were around level 80s. They weren’t tough to handle.

However, before any of them could move, four painful screams signaled the deaths of four unlucky players.

“Scram, you damn kids! My baby girl has school tomorrow and needs her beauty sleep!”

Atlas could feel her face turning red when she heard her dad mention her. He spoke like she was still the little girl from ten years ago! She wasn’t a little girl anymore.

“Wait, we’re only loo-”

Vulcan didn’t have the mood to listen to any additional words. He was never someone who placed a lot of effort to chat during a fight.

In the blink of an eye, Vulcan dispatched the remaining forces and frowned at their dead bodies.

“People like them really makes me angry.”

Vulcan dusted off his hands and proceeded to guide the party back to Chroma City.

“Master, are you alright? You’re chaotic now.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve been chaotic a lot more times than you can imagine. Too many punks play this game.”

The group couldn’t help but laugh at Vulcan’s response. It was true, after all, they had met with a few more ambushes on the way back. Luckily, Vulcan easily slaughtered anyone who stood in their way.

“Your daddy is so scary…”

Kira couldn’t help but nod in agreement at Clara’s words to Atlas.

“Hey, now that I think about it… is it just me or was that dungeon a bit too simple? I mean, we were pretty much just following one path.”

“You’re right! I expected some fake pathways, hidden doors, secret treasures, and a few deadly traps. But all we got was just strong monsters.”

“Let’s hope the next dungeon is more exciting!”

Kami couldn’t help but smile amusingly at the conversation. Since he knew each and every secret of the game, he also knew that the Cave of Firegrass wasn’t really so simple. It definitely had its fair share of secret areas and contained an abundance of deadly traps and hidden treasure. However, since no one in the group had discovered any hidden pathways, there was no reason for him to purposely reveal the secrets.

He wasn’t interested in gathering all dungeon treasures. He simply had a different agenda.

 

•●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●•

 

Era pulled himself off the Electric Chair and sighed heavily. In just one day, he had not only lost all of his self-confidence, but he lost his pride too. He felt like the game version of himself was the exact same weakling as his real world self.

“The problem isn’t my equipment. It’s me.”

After the dungeon experience, Era finally understood something. The reason why he was weak wasn’t because of his equipment, stats, or skills. It was his personality.

“Rendy did around the same damage as me, but he never messed up. Against the dungeon monsters and against the boss, he was flawless.”

Era was in awe of Rendy’s skills. He couldn’t help but once again feel the distance between him and his neighbor. They were complete opposites.

“Rendy didn’t have any problem fighting for hours. He was completely focused during the whole battle.”

Era was obviously jealous of Rendy’s willpower. It was human nature to wish for the things that they don’t have.

“When will I be able to do that?”

Era sighed once more as he thought of this question. It was impossible. He wasn’t a rich person like Rendy. Rendy probably lived an easy life since he was born. It wasn’t possible to be like him.

Era knew his weakness. It had became painfully obvious inside the dungeon. It wasn’t his low stats and lack of good equipment that caused him to freeze and not join battles. It was his fear.

He was a guy who was easily scared. Even if he tried to force himself to move, his body would refuse to move. That’s how weak he was.

“I will change! I will definitely change!”

Era had to see the obvious strengths of others before he could notice the flaws of himself. If Era had not seen how strong Kami was during this dungeon experience, he would have never discovered what was the real reason for his weakness.

However, Era had no idea what he had to do to change his personality. He couldn’t just mentally force himself to change. Only a small percentage of humans were capable of that.

“I’ll think about it later…”

Ace went onto his computer and opened the official forums for Fantasy Edge. He had made it a habit to check his thread before he went to sleep.
 

Has Anyone Seen A Ninja Village?
Does anyone have any information about a ninja village or a ninja hidden class? Thank you.
Posted: Soane 3 weeks ago
… Soane: Bump Easa: Stop bumping this thread! No one knows anything! Lesia: The ninja hidden class is unlocked if you go to the Bard Instructor NPC and tell him: “The leaf hidden in the shadows will rise again.” Afterwards, he’ll pretend to not know what you’re saying and ask you a question. At that point, you MUST respond with: “Yes, I do.” Make sure you say the opening line first otherwise it won’t work! Glenn: @Lesia You lying bastard!!! I followed those directions perfectly and became a Bard! Stop spreading fake information like that, it’s not funny. Wish people like you would just die! Damn, I’m forced to recreate my character now. I was level 62! You think it’s easy to train up to that level without a class? AABattery: There’s a ninja village at the very top right corner of Central Continent. TunaFish: @AABattery Confirmed I’m a ninja now! Thanks. Sause: There’s a ninja village hidden inside the forest near Halise Kingdom. Be careful though, the monsters are very strong in that forest. FriedChicken: Sorry, I don’t have any information, but if you end up discovering it please share it with me too.

 
 
“I could ignore this batch of information too.”

Era never had high hopes for the accuracy of the information. He was simply tossing in a fishing net and hoping it’ll land a fish. Sadly, he wasn’t able to catch anything useful.

There were too many people providing fake information! Era couldn’t understand why people found it fun to lie to people who wanted help.

Era had investigated the tips near Chroma City, but failed to gain any results.

However, not everyone who responded had written unhelpful messages. There were a few honest people who gave support and some others who said they’ll keep an ear out for news. Forums were extremely diverse in the type of people that someone can meet.

It was time to bump up his topic again. Every few days, Era would have to type something into his thread to bring it back up to the top for forum users to notice. If he didn’t, his thread would have been buried deep underneath all new threads.

“Hmm, what’s this?”
 

Bounty: Ace
This is TrueAce from the Immortals guild. Hunt: Ace Last Picture: Attached Image Last Location: Chroma City region Reward: 100 gold per kill. 500 gold bonus per ten kills. It is also possible to receive reward in real world money using current rates. You can send me a private message or contact my character TrueAce in the game. Reward will only be given if a video of the kill is provided for verification. You may party up to kill, but remember that reward is per kill and not per participant. 1 gold will be given for information of his whereabouts. Of course, verification is necessary. This post will be continuously updated for information and location.
Posted: Ace 4 hours ago
Seia: I’m curious to know what did he do to get such a high bounty. Escar: Our Assassin’s Reborn guild will take the bounty. There is no maximum amount of kills right? Ace: @Escar No limits. The gold will be given as long as proof is provided. Hunter: Nice! I’m on it. Beowulf: Count me in! Tasle: I’ll kill him all the way down to level 1! …

 
 

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