Chapter 65 - Kanterbury plains (1/2)

He quickly went along the new path and in a couple of minutes reached a small camp filled with tents. There was a ground with a few soldiers training in fight against each other. There were few guard towers in the vicinity and a small keep near the training ground. There were trenches and anti-cavalry spikes around the entire area.

There was a small gateway beside the keep that allowed player to get outside the trenches. A few guards were in waiting by the gate who seem to be giving quests to the players. He went ahead to talk to them.

”Greeting adventurer, there have been a lot of changes in the area around the Kanterbury plains. We would like you to investigate and kill any monsters you see there,” said the guard. ”We are willing to reward you for any monsters you kill or information you bring.”

[Help the garrison against the increasing menace of monsters] (Difficulty Level: ??)

Quest Description: You have accepted the request of the garrison. Investigate and/or kill any threat to the garrison.

Progress: Monsters killed: 0

Though the difficulty level being indicated by ?? confused many players, Shadow knew that it implied that the difficulty can vary based on the monsters or characters he found. It is completely random and depended on the movements of the player.

These kinds of quests can be very dangerous or very easy, depending on how far the player is willing to go and continue the quest. Sometimes, they even involve higher leveled boss monsters too.

With the guard allowing him to go through the gate, he made his way to observe the landscape. The map he had, only showed the topography up till the barracks. It was a completely new zone for him, and he was going in blind. It would be a lot harder to explore than the Blackrock hills and Arwild forest as it wasn't there in the game during his previous life.

Once he crossed the gate, he went to a side and began production of the Alva's tincture. All basic potions involved heating up some water and adding the ingredients. The instruction specified the different shades of it is supposed to be at every stage.

The only issue was the time it took to make them. With the materials he had, he quickly managed to make 5 of the potions. He had materials for 10 potions and managed to produce 5 potions. ”Hmm, that is 50% success rate. It is good rate in general but for someone who had played the game in previous life, I guess I could do better,” though Balthazar as he poured a potion into the sprinkler.

He went into stealth after he was done potions and made his way across the plains. The plains were filled with tall grass as far as he could see. There were a few trees sparsely thrown at random places in the grass. The river before the blackrock continued into the plains.

As he moved through the grass in stealth, he could see a few fanged antelopes, stags and prairie boars. These were all mostly level 7 and level 8 monsters. With the sprinkler and poison, he just needs to use it and attack the monsters without much worry of retaliation.

Most of the monster like the fanged antelopes, stags and prairie boars moved in the areas near to the river. The stags and antelopes didn't actively attack players and usually ran away at a high speed when they saw anything. Injuring them to generate aggro wasn't usually an option with these monsters.

These kinds of monsters were usually referred to as docile monsters by the player base. It was always suggested to ambush and quickly kill them before they get out of control and escape. They also attack but their attacks are always used to create an opening to run away.

Luckily, these monsters tend to have little defense which was best for ambush attacks but if the failed to control it, they would easily escape due to their extremely high agility and movement speed. The developers of the game clearly decided to trade, defence and attack of the creatures for high agility.

The only exception was the prairie boars. It was possible to aggro the prairie boars and they attacked and even called for reinforcements. So, it is best to find isolated boars to attack. These would also attack if they find players attacking other monsters.

[Fanged Antelope] (Common monster)

Level 7;

HP: 2500/2500;

[Stag] (Common monster)

Level 7;

HP: 2500/2500;

[Prairie Boar] (Common monster)

Level 7;

HP: 2500/2500;

The fanged antelope have horns and fangs. Their most common attack involved using their horns or kicking before escaping. The same held true for the stags. So, it was always advisable to stay away from their legs.

Putting them in a stupor with cheap shot or the alva's tincture and then using garrote to strangle and make them bleed was considered one of the best methods to solo take down such beasts. Luckily, he already has the required weapon and tools to do that.

He slowly made his way towards the river and slowly crept behind a fanged antelope. He quickly used cheap shot and began attacking the beast with his daggers. Even though the garrote is a good way to control as well as injure them, the damage was dealt at a lower rate than using daggers.

The damage was (2 x Strength + 15) which was 97 true physical damage per second if he used a garrote. But each strike with a dagger cause 100 physical damage. With his agility he could land at least 2 attacks per dagger in a second. Even with the defense these monsters had, with the daggers, he could deal three times as much damage as the garrote per second.

After 4 seconds he used the sprinkler to put it in a daze. With the daggers he already managed to reduce its health by half and the potion gave him enough time to change his weapon to garrote, swung it around the antelope's neck, pushed it down and began to choke it with the garrote.

”+65 experience points”

Within 15 seconds, he managed to take down a level 7 antelope alone. At this rate, he would be able to kill at least one beast per minute without much issue. He quickly started looting the corpse and found antelope fangs, antelope horns and antelope meat.

Antelope horns and fangs can both be used in making equipment and even in some potions while the meat like all other meat is used in cooking. He went into stealth and began attacking beast one after the other. With cheap shot, the alva's tincture and the garrote, the monsters were always controlled, and the surrounding ones didn't even usually notice him killing.

In 40 minutes, he had killed enough to even allow him to level up. He not only killed antelopes but also managed to kill a few stags. He made enough experience to even level him up.