He jumped and turned. The tentacled creature shot upward, its tentacles practically hugging the island. Davos let out a scream and threw poison powder at the tentacled creature and used his medallion.
The tentacled creature shook in pain and frustration as the poison covered its body and was absorbed into its body.
“Get it!” Niemm yelled as he threw a grenade at the beast and pulled out his crossbow.
It shook itself and then dove into the water, turning and trying to get the poison off. The islands bobbed up and down as the water was stirred up and then started to turn purple. The grenades, spells, and ranged attacks hit the creature, causing the water to turn into plumes and cutting the beast. Most of their hits simply slid off the creature’s rubbery hide.
They kept on firing at it, moving away from its path as it rushed them periodically between its fight to remove the poison burning up its body.
It got too close to Lucinda, forcing her to break her medallion as well.
Finally the thrashing stopped as the creature stayed there. A tombstone appeared as it floated on the surface.
He looked at the remaining members of his team: Hayley, Ricky, and Ruoshan.
“Well, that fucking sucked,” Hayley said.
“Let’s collect up the body, look for anything in the area, then break our medallions. If we keep going with just us, then we could be in grave danger,” Niemm said.
“They’re going to be pissed if we get more points.” Ruoshan grinned as Hayley elbowed him in the side, making him wince.
“If it wasn’t for that poison, I don’t think it would have gone down for a long time,” Hayley said.
“That’s not the kind of tactic that we can use in the real world, though,” Niemm reminded them as he grabbed onto a tentacle and pulled on the floating creature, pulling it toward one of the larger islands.
“I wonder what we can get from the prize hall. From the way Special Team One made it sound, it’s a damn gold mine,” Ricky said.
“I hope it just has some damn forging designs for women. Getting guys armor modified for my girls—need some breathing room,” Hayley said, adjusting her chest plate.
“Well, I heard that there was some new fashion armor for women too,” Ruoshan said.
There was the sound of metal hitting metal as Ruoshan sailed out and into the water. In his armor, he had to break his medallion or sink.
“New fashion? A chainmail thong and bra! Just the chafing—ugh.” Hayley shivered.
Niemm let out a tired sigh as he looked to the sky with pleading eyes. “What happened to them—couldn’t they be normal?”
“Ahh fuck!” Ricky complained.
Niemm looked over to see that Ricky was covered in ink as Hayley had used him as a shield, staying clean.
“Black suits you,” she said, holding two thumbs up.
Ricky returned the gesture but with two different fingers.
***
“How do you think they did?” Storbon asked Roska. Egbert had sent them word that Special Team Three had finished off their time in the battlefield dungeon and were in the prize hall.
“Team Three took more time to prepare. They had information from you and they wanted to prove themselves. They’re the newest special team and they will be heading to the Second Realm next. The greater their coordination in the battlefield dungeon, the easier time they’ll have in the Second Realm,” Roska said.
“So you think that they’ll beat us?” Storbon asked.
“Probably.” Roska shrugged.
“What about your team?” Storbon asked.
“Definitely,” Roska said without pausing.
“Did you even take time to breathe?”
“What? It only makes sense.” Roska appeared serious as a challenging smile appeared on her face.
Storbon paused for a moment before a similar smile appeared on his face. “Want to spar?”
Roska looked over to him, a confident smile on her face. “You ready to get your ass kicked again?”
Yao Meng let out a painful sigh. “Damn, she has got you there, boss.”
The others snickered as they reached the teleportation pad.
“How long do you think it will be till Erik and Rugrat come back?” Storbon asked.
“I’m not sure. I just hope I’m around this time to see them,” Roska said in a bitter voice.
Storbon could only laugh awkwardly. He and his team had benefited greatly from Erik and Rugrat’s lessons. Although their stats might be higher than Roska’s team, their fighting skill was nearly on the same level. As they fought together, they were able to improve quickly, unleashing all of their strength and abilities to the max to improve their skill and grow.
“Hopefully it’s soon. I’m itching to go to the Third Realm,” Tully said.
Roska sent back a hidden gaze at Tully. She had recovered completely and was in perfect health, joking and laughing, but Roska couldn’t forget how broken she had been.
“Fuck squids, fuck tentacles, and fuck ink,” Davos said, the first to arrive on the teleportation array as he walked forward. He was covered in ink. He’d done his best to get rid of it but it hadn’t worked and his armor showed burn marks where the poison had gotten on it. The ink was from the creature feeling pain.
He left black footsteps behind him as he marched off toward the barracks. Everyone moved out of his way as he was still talking about tentacles and fish as he went.
“Damn, or as Rugrat says, Dayum Son!” Gong Jin’s eyes watered from the powerful stench.
Tian Cui was bent over, her face pale as her stomach contracted, revolted by the smell.
Storbon casually lifted his shirt, putting it over his nose as the medics pulled up their masks.
Roska quickly used her purification spell, destroying the footsteps left behind by Davos.
Ricky appeared next with two pieces of cloth stuffed up his nose, dripping with ink.
***
Lucy put down the tea in her hands and looked around the room. People went about their lives as if nothing had happened, not knowing about the seven traders and thirty-two guards and mercenaries who had died just a day’s travel outside of their city’s wall, or the two hundred bandits that had covered the marshland.
Or about the demon that now rested in their town.
After the battle came to its end and the guards came back from picking off the bandits, they collected the loot that they could find, and took the tombstones of the slain traders, guards, and mercenaries. The traders’ and guards’ belongings would go back to their families; the mercenaries’ gear was given to the ones who were closest to them.
The loot from the bandits was split up, with the majority going to Erik, Rugrat, and Matt. No one could doubt their combat capability. The three of them had probably killed more than half of the bandits and were the reason anyone was even left alive from it at all.
They owed them their lives, but it didn’t mean that they trusted them.
After the fighting, Matt looked to be shaken up. Erik and Rugrat were stiff, but they soon adjusted, relaxing and becoming normalized as they checked over their gear and healed their wounds.
Even after killing tens of bandits, Erik had healed others who were wounded.
Healers were rare to find and few of them would walk onto the battlefield.
Lucy turned her cup as she looked into the distance, seeing the armor that Erik had been wearing, the cuts and slashes that had run through it.
The blood-covered skin underneath that showed no sign of wounds. Others wouldn’t have been able to fight with such wounds but he simply healed himself as he fought to keep on going. It made him a terrifying opponent. Fatigue, loss in Strength, wounds? All could be fixed with healing.
He’d also displayed fighting techniques, showing that he wasn’t a push over by any means.
Boros sat down opposite Lucy. His wounds had been patched and Erik had healed him back to perfect health.
Boros had a dark look in his ey
es. He was the chief of security for the caravan and nearly half of their people had been killed in a single ambush.
“Were you able to find out anything?”
“It looks like they’re part of the Marshland scavengers. Not sure how they got information on our route or knew our schedule. Might have just overheard someone,” Boros said.
Lucy looked at Boros. “You don’t seem to believe that.”
“No, I don’t. To gather that size bandit group takes time and planning, time and planning that they would have to do at least two weeks in advance, if not earlier,” Boros said.
“I will send a message to the sect. They don’t take kindly to people aiming at their caravans. I’ll send them the names of the bandit group. They might not fear us, but the Enclosed Space spell—looks like they fear our backers.” Lucy took a drink from her cup, not tasting it.
Boros nodded. He seemed to have something more he wanted to say but was not sure how to say it.
“What is it?” Lucy asked.
“About Rugrat, Erik, and Matt,” Boros said.
“Have they asked for a raise?” Lucy wasn’t willing to let the three of them go easily. They’d shown how powerful they were and saved her caravan and her people’s lives.
“No, it’s just that people are talking.”
“Then tell them to shut the fuck up or they’re off my caravan.” Lucy looked at Boros, her eyes cutting into him. “You and your petty fucking macho games could’ve turned really fucking bad, so you’d better fix this or I’ll be adding in that you were the one trying to piss off the three people who killed nearly two hundred people all by themselves.”
Boros looked at the ground, looking pitiful.
“So you will clean this up or you will be off my caravan. Don’t even think of pulling that kind of shit again.”
Boros couldn’t say anything back and simply nodded.
“Good. Now we’ve got one more trip and we’ll be in Khusai. I don’t want to give these bandits any time to do anything. We leave tomorrow. Hire the replacement mercenaries; don’t tell them anything has changed, but get them to stay in the inn where we’re staying.”
“What about the three?” Boros asked.
“I will tell them personally. If anything, we know that they don’t care for bandits,” Lucy said.
***
Nicito city was a small city. It could be called more of a regional town, a place where traders passed through between trade hubs. Still, it held some four hundred thousand people and had strong walls against the powerful beasts of the Ten Realms.
Matt had been shaken up after the fight but he was adjusting. It wasn’t the first time he had come up against people who wanted to kill him and he had needed to deal with them. Rugrat knew from personal and quite expensive experience that it would take more time for a civilian like Matt to get used to it.
Erik had wanted to come but they knew how much he needed to practice Alchemy before they got to Khusai, because it was only when they were in cities that he could do so.
So Rugrat and Matt had headed out into the city to sell the loot that the rest of the caravan had given to them as well as the resources they had stored up.
Matt was much more comfortable trading, giving Rugrat hints and bartering for him.
As they got back to the inn and the room that they had rented out, Rugrat sat down on a bed and pulled out the books they’d bought. It had cost nearly nine hundred gold, with over half of that just being for the Spell Caster Mana Cultivation manual.
==========
Technique Book: Silence spell
==========
Do you wish to activate this Technique book? Doing so will destroy this Technique book.
==========
YES/NO
==========
==========
Simple Silence
==========
Apprentice
==========
Silences object cast upon for 5 minutes
==========
50 mana to cast
==========
==========
Technique Book: Night Vision spell
==========
Do you wish to activate this Technique book? Doing so will destroy this Technique book.
==========
YES/NO
==========
==========
Night Vision
==========
Apprentice
==========
Allows the caster to see in the night as if it was day.
==========
10 mana to cast, 1 mana per 5 minutes to keep active
==========
==========
Technique Book: Clean
==========
Do you wish to activate this Technique book? Doing so will destroy this Technique book.
==========
YES/NO
==========
==========
Clean
==========
Journeyman
==========
Clean and sanitize target of foreign bodies
==========
30 mana to cast
==========
He’d bought two of the night vision spells and then the last book was actually just a few pages held within a heavy box and bound together. The Spell Caster Mana Cultivation manual wasn’t actually about cultivation; it was a special Mana circulation pathway that one could move their Mana through, increasing the speed at which it moved, allowing one to decrease the cast time on spells, or in the case of Erik and Rugrat, increase the rate of fire with their Mana bolts and Mana blasts and the speed that they fired, increasing their penetrative power.
***
Erik let out a yawn as he looked at the Mana pill in his hand. Once he had completed it, a wave of fatigue rushed over him. He smiled at the pill and put it away, rubbing his face and letting out another yawn.
“Seems it’s a sign.” Erik got up, stretching from being in one position for so long.
He stored away his Alchemy tools as he moved to the bed. He pulled out his armor chest plate. There were clear patches on it where Rugrat had repaired it.
Erik rubbed his thumb across a ragged cut in the side of his chest plate.
“What did I learn?” Erik asked himself, forcing himself to not think about those he had killed or those who had died. In the Ten Realms, he needed to learn, and quickly, using every moment to get stronger.
Erik’s expression turned serious as he looked over his notifications.
==========
Skill: Marksman
==========
Level: 53 (Journeyman)
==========
Long-range weapons are familiar in your hands. When aiming, you can zoom in x2.0. 15% increased chance for critical hit.
==========
==========
Upon advancing into the Journeyman level of Marksman, you will be rewarded with one randomly selected item related to this skill.
==========
You have received the Weapon: Iron Repeater Bow
+100,000 EXP
==========
==========
Skill: Hand-to-Hand
==========
Level: 58 (Journeyman)
==========
Attacks cost 20% less Stamina. Agility is increased by 10%.
==========
==========
Upon advancing into the Journeyman level of Hand-to-Hand, you will be rewarded with one randomly selected item related to this skill.
==========
You have received the accessory: Ring of Giant’s Strength
+100,000 EXP
==========
==========
You have reached Level 30
==========
When you sleep next, you will be able to increase your attributes by: 10 points.
==========
==========
Skill: Alchemy
==========
==========
Able to identify 1 effect of the ingredient.
==========
==========
511,331/1,055,000 EXP till you reach Level 31
==========
==========
Iron Repeater Bow
==========
Damage: 65 (piercing)
Weight: 4.7 kg
Charge: 90/90
Durability: 100/100
Range: Medium Range
Requires: Arrows
Innate Ability: Create spin (increase bleeding by 7%)
Enchantment: Armor piercing (80% chance to pierce mid-Apprentice-level armor)
Requirement:
35 Agility
38 Strength
==========
==========
Ring of Giant’s Strength
==========
Weight: 0.1 kg
Charge: 20/20
Slot: Takes up finger jewelry slot
Ability: Increases Strength by 7% for 8 minutes. Cool down 20 minutes (20 uses remaining)
==========
Erik pulled off a storage ring and added it to the necklace of them that he wore. He still had his two other rings, Greater Reaction and Beyond Limits. He used a beast core to charge them fully. The burst of strength and increase to his abilities from the accessories had helped him numerous times. He’d had to rely on his armor and Beyond Limits ring in the fight as he was unable to get any consumables out of his storage rings while in the middle of fighting.
Erik received the two items as Experience entered his body, but he felt something was different. The change to his Agility wasn’t just a simple factor that the Ten Realms controlled but it increased the limit of his body’s abilities.
Erik let out a breath, focusing his mind as he looked at the Iron Repeater Bow.
It was rather plain, with three arms connected to a formation that would pull back and fire bolts that were held in a hopper above as he held down the trigger.
He put it to the side, promising to give it to Rugrat to examine.
His eyebrows pinched together thinking about the fight. For the first time in a long time, he had used the One Finger Beats Fist technique.
The Third Realm Page 25
