The monster that they were hunting for this time was called a towering phasmatodea. It was located across the river from Nanahuatl Village.
Fortunately, Adder had built a canoe during the time he was mastering his double bladed sword BlitzTod. It was big enough to carry them both while Igniz just hovered above them.
They have arrived at their destination, Turremloc Forest. Since the towering phasmatodea was made of wood, their enhanced fire attacks would have doubled effects.
From the book's description, the towering phasmatodea looked like a gigantic stick insect. Whose height was about seven feet tall but had a width of only one foot.
Apparently weapons can only carry one enhancement or enchantment at a time. Efficiently, the spark stone from Adder's BlitzTod was designed to be removable. So his sword could still receive Igniz's enhancement.
However monsters could receive multiple status effects at the same time. Like being poisoned, burned, frozen, stunned, etc... these status effects can stack up.
They entered the forest of Turremloc. Immediately Smoke noticed that something was off. He didn't sense a single monster.
He ordered everyone to stop. He scanned the forest trees. From the trees he saw that some of the branches were slightly moving.
Smiling at the sight of the slight movement, Smoke ordered for everyone to get ready for battle. He let loose his volley of arrows at the branches that were moving.
+ Attack hit towering phasmatodea. +FIRE DMG. CRITICAL HIT. Damage 352.
+ Attack hit towering phasmatodea. +FIRE DMG. Damage 138.
+ Attack hit towering phasmatodea. +FIRE DMG. CRITICAL HIT. Damage 355.
+ Attack hit towering phasmatodea. +FIRE DMG. CRITICAL HIT. Damage 353.
+ Attack hit towering phasmatodea. +FIRE DMG. CRITICAL HIT. Damage 358.
+ Attack hit towering phasmatodea. +FIRE DMG. Damage 137.
+ Attack hit towering phasmatodea. +FIRE DMG. CRITICAL HIT. Damage 353.
+ Attack hit towering phasmatodea. +FIRE DMG. CRITICAL HIT. Damage 354.
The towering phasmatodea's lifebar appeared revealing (12,600/15,000 HP)
After Smoke's first attack the camouflage towering phasmatodeas sticking to the trees started to swarm them. They were surrounded by roughly about 250 towering phasmatodeas.
Smoke asked Igniz to cancel his fire enhancement. He switched to using the poison pellets instead. He started walking around Adder in a circular manner and kept on shooting at all the monsters.
While Igniz followed Smoke's pattern and created a blazing orbit of fire around them. Adder would pick out the towering phasmatodeas that entered their circle.
+ Atk hit. +FIRE DMG. Adder damaged towering phasmatodea for 5735.
- Adder attacked by towering phasmatodea. He has taken damage. Health -640
+ Atk hit. +FIRE DMG. Adder damaged towering phasmatodea for 5737.
- Adder attacked by towering phasmatodea. He has taken damage. Health -640
+ Atk hit. +FIRE DMG. Adder damaged towering phasmatodea for 5735.
+ Atk hit. +FIRE DMG. Adder damaged towering phasmatodea for 5738.
+ Your party has dealt a fatal blow to the towering phasmatodea.
+ Your party has killed the towering phasmatodea.
+ Your party has gained 4,000 exp.
The experience that they were getting from the monster barely made a mark on Smoke's experience bar. But that didn't matter to him. He wasn't here for their experience. He was here for their wooden bones.
With Adder's total HP now at 89,000 the damage that he took from the towering phasmatodea was negligible. They kept the same formation for about 40 minutes until they wiped out all of the towering phasmatodea in their area.
They were able to collect 130 phasmatodea bones. This amount did not reach 1% of Smoke's target quota. So they continued further inside the Forest of Turremloc.
They continued repeating the same formation for the next 6 hours. Until it was time for Smoke to log out for his quick nap.
During the times that Smoke was out, Adder and Igniz would go to the plains or sometimes continue hunting by themselves.
When Smoke returned he found out that they now have a total of 810 phasmatodea bones. He thought that maybe he should decrease his quota from 15,000 to 5,000 phasmatodea bones.
They continued on at the same pace when Smoke suddenly detected an alarming presence. From the riverside there was about 1,000 unknown monsters.
With his 'Cunning of the Dire Fox' ability reaching advance level he could now have a better understanding of the unknown monster's size.
The unknown monster felt to be about 6 feet in height but had a stout body. Smoke was troubled. They were still in the middle of their circle fighting the towering phasmatodeas.
If they were to start running away now then they would be swarmed by the towering phasmatodeas. Smoke quickly did a rough estimate of the monsters they had to kill before making a run for it.
However, the unknown monsters seem to have understood that their presence was felt and started increasing their pace towards Smoke.
After Adder killed the last towering phasmatodea. Smoke quickly gave the signal to run opposite of the unknown monsters.
While running away, Smoke was shooting at the direction of the unknown monster hoping that he would hit one of them so that he could know what the unknown monster was.
A sound notification came indicating that he had hit a monster. He stopped for a moment to look at the unknown monsters chasing them.
Smoke saw what looked like heavy armored virile lizards. But from the name indicated at the lifebar it said that the monster was called varanus indicus and had a (79,642/80,000 HP).
Smoke felt cold sweat run down his face. How in the world can a monster mob have that much HP? He thought that only boss monsters could reach that high.
While he was running for dear life. Smoke realized that Zectas was truly too big a world to assume anything. He dreaded to imagine what the life of the boss from that monster would be.
He told Adder to run faster. But as they were running Smoke felt another unknown presence up ahead. His 'Cunning of the Dire Fox' ability never felt like this before.
A notification window popped up.
* Cunning of the Dire Fox has detected the presence of a player
Player alignment: Chaotic Evil
Player body type: Gigantic
|
Smoke knew that only 'Player Killers' had an alignment of Chaotic Evil. They were stuck between a rock and a hard place.
He calculated that Adder would most likely survive against the Player Killer and escape if Smoke would sacrifice his life.
He ordered for them to clash with the Player Killer head on. In the next few seconds the unknown Player Killer came into view. The Player Killer was a gigantic WereBear!
It started at the Diner.
Sherry Levine was a love child born to her mother Laura. She inherited all of her mother's looks except for her red hair which she got from her father.
Her mother used to work as a secretary for a big time business tycoon, her father, Tad. Her parents’ love story started on one of their long business trips.
Everything would have been perfect if it wasn't for the fact that Sherry's father was a married man with two children. Her mother used to think that only silly girls would fall for married men. But her mother realized that it wasn't such a simple thing after all.
Sherry's mother couldn't leave her father until she was pregnant. Her mother asked him if he would finally leave his family for them but he told her mother that he couldn't do such a thing.
His company stocks would plummet if the business world heard that he was getting a divorce, not to mention that he would lose 50% of everything he owned if not more. After hearing her father's answer, her mother finally found the courage to leave him.
Sherry's mother decided to live with her older brother Alex. Before she left, her father insisted on giving her some money for their child. He also wanted to see their child at least once every two months, but both these requests were denied.
Sherry grew up never knowing her father. All she knew about him was his name. Her mother didn't speak ill of him but then again the subject of her father never came up that often.
Her mother's genius business sense and her uncle's restaurant connections helped them to open a diner. The diner was a hard business to start, but her mother and uncle still persevered.
Her mother never got married and only focused her time and attention on their business and on her.
Seeing such a hard working mother inspired Sherry to become a helpful and responsible child. She took her studies seriously. Although she wasn't top one in her class, she was consistently an honor student.
She found that playing with kids her age was such a waste of time. So, on her free time she stayed in the diner and helped around instead.
It took five years to turn their business into a restaurant chain. At one point they had up to eight diners. Things were looking up for Sherry and her family.
They lived a quiet and joyful life. Sherry was well loved by her mother and uncle. However, their happiness could not last forever.
When Sherry was 13 years old, her family received tragic news. Her mother, was diagnosed with an aggressive Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and was only expected to live for another three years at most.
Sherry and her mother spent the next three years preparing for the inevitable. Her mother sensing that it was almost time, called for Sherry.
On her mother's death bed, Sherry was told that since she was born, every day on her birthday, her father had been religiously putting $20,000 into a bank account under Sherry's name.
"I'm sorry it took me this long to tell you. I was just afraid that if you knew maybe you would've chosen him, since he's so rich. He offered to take you in and have you live with them but I never told you. I want you to know that I never took a dime of your father's money. Your account should have $320,000."
"Wow! That's really a lot mom, but that doesn't matter to me. I don't want that money. All I want is you. If only I could trade that bank book to spend one more day with you, I would. You don't have to apologize for anything and even if I did know about my father's offer I would still have chosen you mom. You're the best mom I could have ever hoped for."
"I'm so happy to hear you say that, but still it was wrong of me to hide that from you. From now on, I want you to spend that money for fun. It was given to you as a birthday present so go wild with it."
"Mom, can we not talk about money right now. Even if that bank account had one hundred million dollars I wouldn't care. I just want you to know how lucky I am to have you. The sacrifices that you did in order to raise me. I want you to be filled with thoughts that I'm so grateful for everything."
"How many times have I told you that you sound too old for your age? My dear, I want you to be more reckless. You're too young to be so responsible. You made my job of being your mother too easy. I'm so proud of you and I know that you will take good care of yourself. I love you so much, my, Sherry."
Sherry's mother slept with a smile on her face and passed away the next morning.
Their diner chains could not stay afloat with her mother gone. She was the magic recipe that kept those diner chains going. They slowly started selling off their branches.
Sherry offered to use the money from her bank account but her uncle Alex refused her. That money was meant for her not for their business. In the end, all her uncle Alex could save was the original diner that they opened.
Going to college was one of the things that a responsible child would do. So, Sherry went to the nearest University and pursued Economics.
After her first year she felt that college wasn't for her. The lessons were okay. She had read most of the materials from her mother's books. She met some good friends but never really made any real connections.
Something was definitely missing. She needed to clear her mind, she needed some inspiration. She decided to go back to the diner to get some fresh perspective.
Sherry asked her uncle if she could do anything in the diner and her uncle told her that she could be one of the cooks.
Helping around in the diner instead of goofing around the playground gave her a lot of skills in the kitchen. She gladly accepted her uncle's offer and was very excited to start.
On her first day as a cook, a young man who had been working as an assistant, introduced himself to her. He said that he used to be Mr. Cacoy's fruits and vegetables delivery boy.
