Chapter 33 - To Blackrock hills (2/2)
He quickly went outside the village and checked the map. To the left of the village were the red grass plains followed by the Blackrock hills. The right side of the village was the Arwild forest. The path in the middle led to the Red leaf village but was filled with higher level monsters. There was also a small river between the plains and the blackrock hills which fed water to the village.
The river thinned at a point, a few miles away from the village. It was sure to have a bridge there. The map only showed the natural structures and not constructions till a person reached that point. But Balthazar from his previous experiences was sure that a bridge would be there.
He made his way towards the Blackrock hills. Such areas were always a good source for mining. That would enable him to gather some herbs and iron ores too. So, he set off towards the bridge shown in the map. Soon, he came into contact with the rocky mountain wolves but there were already somebody attacking it.
He could see it was a level 2 wolf. This area was the outskirts of the Blackrock hills. This area would be known in a few hours for its abundance of herbs by the river. Only few wolves estranged from their pack would be found alone in this area. There were a group of people clearing the area.
[Mountain Wolf] (Common Monster)
Level 2
HP: 100
”The Sirius Imperials have taken over this area. Please evacuate.”
There were more than 30 people from the Sirius Imperials clearing the area. He hated such instances when the large guilds held such clearances of the monster farming areas. But he didn't have any friends supporting him and could hardly go against 30 people alone. The number of wolves in this area was also very small.
A berserker with a long heavy spear approached him. ”Couldn't you hear? The Sirius Imperials are farming here. Get out of here,” he said. He was a level 1 berserker and seemed to have already swapped his Level 0 Trash weapon.
”Don't worry. I am not interested in the wolves here. I am going beyond this area,” said Balthazar as he quickly ran away and cast stealth. With the amount of attribute point he invested in agility, he was very faster than most of them and manged to get away unscathed.
The berserker along with a few others followed him but were unable to reach him. ”Forget him, we can kill him if he is found in the area. If he actually goes much deeper than us, the monsters will kill him,” said the player leading the group. He was a ranger named 'Blue Dart'. ”Make a note of his name - Shadow Tyrant”, he continued while attacking a wolf.
Balthazar ran into a few more level 2 mountain wolves as he came nearer to the Blackrock hills. He quickly applied the poison and used ambush to attack them. The wolves usually were in packs of three to four. When one of them was attacked by him, the remaining also attacked him.
The wolves had two main skills: Rend and Paw attack. Rend causes a bleed attack on the player and paw attack had high damage. The only advantage that Balthazar had was that it was slower than him and he could evade almost all attacks from the wolves, even if 6 of them attacked him together.
Moreover, he also applied the slowing poison to his blade, which lasted for 2 hours per bottle. The poison slowed down the wolves and he always used ambush to attack them having an advantage.
He also knew that attacks aimed at the weak points of such large monsters are more effective than others. If a person manages to hit the eyes, it can even cause a bleed effect.
Each of the mountain wolves gave an experience of 20. By the time, he reached the river separating the fields from the Blackrock hills, he had killed more than 15 wolves and managed to get 10 wolf furs and 12 wolf teeth. He was just 40 exp away from level 2.
The wolves hardly gave any coppers. He got only 10 coppers even with the rabbit's foot. Luckily, he got a long sword among the loot.
[One-sided Wooden long sword] (White trash tier, sword)
Level 1
Equipment Requirement: Strength 8;
Attack Power +8
Durability 15/15
He had a strength of 7 points and it required atleast 8 points in strength for him to equip the sword. In vita-nova, there were no restriction for the weapons based on the occupation, except for a few special ones.
An assassin can even equip a mage's wand and use it to hit. But the skills of a mage couldn't be used by an assassin, which made it a useless piece of log in his hand.
Balthazar thought he could equip the sword, once he reached level 2. Even though he has no skills to be used for the sword, he could at least use it to block monster attacks.
He checked the level ranking list and found out that the top 10 were all still at level 1. This implied that he was very close to being in the top. He immediately selected the option to remove his name from the list.
At the bridge, there was an old man looking over the bridge. He was an NPC with a yellow dot blinking over him. The usual quest giving NPCs had a yellow dot over them, but not one which blinked. This was a special case, which Balthazar had never seen before.
He slowly approached the old man. The man had long pointed ears and Balthazar had found his face very similar to Lucius for some reason. The text above the NPC read ”old man Rotar”.
The NPCs in vita-nova were all very close to characters in real life. They had their own consciousness and intelligence. If they don't have some restrictions, they would just break the game and be the same as players.
As he reached the NPC, he asked, ”Respected Sir, you seem to be looking for something. Could I probably help you with something?”
”Dear boy, my grandson is on the other side of the bridge. While we were walking through the area, I felt some elf magic over from the depths of the Blackrock hills. My grandson ran towards it as soon as he felt it, but I am unable to cross the river due to a curse in the area. Could you contact him and tell him to come back here before anything untowardly happens to him.”
”Sure, Sir. But how do I convince him to return?”
”You could show him this,” said Rotar giving him a small round pin with a symbol of what looked like a griffin on it. ”This is my crest. He would recognize it.”
As he received the pin, he got the notification.
[Rotar's Request: Pass on Rotar's message to his grandson] (Difficulty: Hard)
Quest Description: Convince Rotar's grandson to return back.
Received quest item: Rotar's crest: Stealth skill level +1; Agility +2; Strength +2;
Progress: Find Rotar's grandson (To be completed);
Balthazar was extremely surprised that he had received a quest which was of Hard difficulty. It also provided him with a quest item, which provided him attributes and increased skill level. He was also not overly fond of the quest as there is a high chance that he would be killed in such quests. It would also take a lot more time than the usual quests.
He quickly thought about it and the time in the world was displayed to be 12.25 a.m. He still had a lot of time till the morning and decided to complete the quest.