Chapter 59 - Clearing a path (2/2)

”Believe me. I know for sure that a few of their skills would be very helpful in both the dungeons and quests. Don't consider them so useless. Though the somnium technology allows direct interaction between player in hand-to-hand combat, all player can't use it effectively. This is where the martial artist's skills come into play.”

”Hmm, I will take your word for it. But I doubt that I would be able to find anyone.”

He already heard about that the most recent quest from the village head was to clear the route to the city and the skill book would be of great use. Moreover, the skill would provide an element of surprise for any player in PVP.

The group left Merlin at the dungeon and went back to the Blackrock village through the portal. They immediately set on to the path to the city. The path was windy and between the Blackrock hills and Arwild forest. Along way, the came into a few blackrock wolves and wild cats which are common in the areas on both sides of the path.

Soon, Shadow leveled up, he already had acquired more than 1500 exp before the dungeon. The dungeon and the few monsters along the path allowed him to finally reach level 6.

Character: Shadow Tyrant (Human)

Affiliated Village: Black Rock Village

Title: None

Job: Assassin

Level:

Exp: 0/2500

HP: 2200/2200; MP: 750/750;

Physical Attack: 82

Defense: 60; Attack Speed: 48; Movement Speed: 51; Willpower: 17; Balance: 27; Focus/Search: 34; Reflect: 1; Magic Resist: 11; Luck: *; Charm: *;

Attributes: Strength 41, Agility 37, Endurance 21, Intelligence 16, Vitality 31, Perception 17.

No Special Racial Attributes or weakness.

Free Attributes Points: 6

He quickly put a three attribute points in agility and three in Strength. This quest was going to be the most harrowing of all the quests he took till now. It was considered a quest that a player can continue till he reached level 10. He needed to be prepared for it.

A few minutes later they reached a fork in the path. This is where the quest actually begins. The fork marks the end of the Blackrock Village region. The two paths lead to other villages or the city. No player would know that beforehand.

If they reached the city while clearing the path, they chose they would be luck, else they just would form a path between two villages and the quest would be incomplete. They would can either continue the quest from the new village or go back to the fork and attempt again.

Some villages don't have any path directly to a city and need to go through other villages. For these village, all the paths at the fork would lead to another village. This kind of situation made the players extremely angry with this quest.

Though it was a bit closer to the situation that happens in exploring an unknown land in real life, the game made the actual process of clearing the path quite easier. All the players had to do was kill the monster around the area. Once, the boss monsters are all killed, a few village officials would arrive and quickly make the path to the other villages/cities.

That would only be the first time someone clear the monsters in the path. The village official would set up a teleportation method between the two points when the path is cleared, and village official would install a few magical posts along the path.

After the first time, whenever another group finishes the quest, the village official would just come and use a magic crystal to power up these posts and keep the paths clear. That is just the story that the game came up with. Only, once the quest is cleared and the players register at the other teleportation point would they be given access to teleporting to other cities/villages.

As Shadow and his team reached the fork, they suffered the same dilemma like everyone else. They had to choose a direction to pursue. If they chose the wrong one, it would be a waste of time if they fail to reach the city. Apart from reaching level 10, reaching the city outskirts through this quest was necessary for gaining entrance into the city.

Moreover, it is the first time and if they fail to choose correctly, they would lose a chance to gain city reputation points which everyone coveted. Also, some groups already started working along both the paths. It is better not to delay any longer.

Luckily, Balthazar already knew the path due to his past life and quickly chose to pursue the quest along the left path. To the left of the path was a hilly area filled with rocks and to the right were woods slightly sparser than the Arwild forest. As they continued in that direction, they say a group from the guild Sirius Imperials led by Blue Dart.

The numbered about 10 people and were very busy fighting a barrel of monkeys that they failed to notice Shadow and his team approach. Finally, it was Blue Dart who noticed the newcomers first and greeted them.

”Ah! You guys have also taken the same road. Mind lending a hand with these monkeys,” asked Blue Dart politely. Though the monkey were the first new creatures they came across in the quest, they were all at level 7 and extremely hard to deal with.

They were fast nimble and almost perfectly evaded physical attacks. They also pelted the players with stones they found on the road which was an almost unending source of ammunition. They had better long range attacks than the players. The only advantage which allowed the players to survive is that unlike the players, the monkey didn't have any healers topping up their health from behind.

[Forest Monkeys] (Common monster)

Level 7;

HP: 2500;

Though the monkeys had slightly lower health for their level. But their quick movements and their attacks more than made up for it. Shadow quickly went to battle the monkeys followed by his team. But he couldn't be of much help.

There were many using long-range attacks and him being a melee player would be losing health if he received the attacks from Sirius Imperials members. He needed to be in the same team as them to avoid friendly fire.

”Blue Dart, if we continue like this, none of the close combat occupations can safely fight the monkeys. Why don't we join the same team?” asked Shadow.

”Who would be the leader?” asked someone from Sirius Imperials.

”Let it be Blue Dart but do change the distribution rights of the loot to be based on most damage caused,” replied Shadow quickly. He didn't want any sort of quarrel between the two groups and he always had a decent relationship with Blue Dart who was a strong minded individual. If he had any suggestions which are useful, Blue would consider them.

”I am fine with it. Let us all form a team and loot would go to the character that caused most damage to the specific monster,” agreed Blue Dart.

He had never seen Shadow fight personally nor did he have any idea of his skill set. He would definitely like to see him pit himself against these monkeys which are a higher level than him. He quickly sent members of Shadow's team requests to join his team.

”Finally, I can attack higher leveled monsters than me,” thought Shadow. Higher leveled monsters always gave more experience that was a common feature of most games. The only thing that differed was the percentage increase. But there was a large difference from time he killed higher level wolves which was that he was in a team and the experience gained would be distributed through the team.