Luna made the trip rather quick, outrunning any enemy that tried to attack them along the way. Sora and Gzarna dismounted at the dilapidated house, using the tunnel to go into the cavern that was filled with branches. After climbing over many branches, a sphere made of wood that released miasma came into sight. Gzarna ran up to it and started studying the decaying branches that were turning black before looking into the sphere where the corrupted tree was at. A smile of excitement appeared on Gzarnas face as she looked at the corrupt energy that coursed through its bark. She started to take out various tools that she had packed from her lab and set them up outside of the sphere. She started talking to Sora as she finished setting up some equipment.

“I’ll take care of the corrupt energy, I’m hoping to capture it so I can conduct more experiments. Would it be possible for you to take care of the host creature?”

“Sure, I have a group on the way that should be able to take it down.”

“Great! We will start as soon as they get here then.”

Sora watched Gzarna set up all of her equipment for a while before going back up the tunnel. He had gotten a message from Nobunaga saying they were close by and he needed to lead them through the tunnel. When Sora popped out of the tunnel he saw a corrupted ape that was glowing with a blue aura. Sora had been waiting for this chance since he needed another defense enchantment for the cloak he had gotten a long time ago in the dungeon. He pulled out his weapon and used [Purge With Silver] to buff his attacks against the creature.

Level 50 -Layered Corrupted Hanging Ape-

A [Slash] connected with the ape, dealing a decent amount of damage, considering it had a defensive enchantment. The ape let out a scream as it pounded its chest, showing off its might before going into battle. Sora was able to get a couple more hits in before parrying the first attack made towards him. The ape used its extremely strong attacks to try and overwhelm Sora but was met with a quick parry and counterattack. Sora was able to use the time when it was recovering from the parry to slide around it and using [Concuss], giving him plenty of time to get off a couple attacks before the ape managed to properly face him and attack again. Sora continued using [Slash] and counterattacking when the ape was parried, killing the beast before his [Purge With Silver] ended. The beast fell as a few coins and an orb of blue light was left as the spoils.

[x1 Layered Enchantment obtained]

Sora was able to get the second tier of enchantment for defensive enchantment. His success rate would below but as long as he focused he should be able to use it successfully. He was impatient and decided to find a flat area to use the enchantment. Sora sat down on a large stump that was cleanly cut, creating a perfectly flat surface for him to work on. The Layered Essence was absorbed into his brush and an enchantment parcel was placed in front of him. Sora hesitated for a moment since he had low-quality tools but couldn’t resist the temptation of the new cloak. His hand moved on top of the paper, making a complicated outline appear.

Sora immersed himself in the drawing, using very slow but fluid motions that matched with the outlines on the paper. The light started to dim a bit as he was halfway done, reminding him that he needed to hurry up a little or else the enchantment would completely fail. His hand moved faster and left a trail of blue light on the paper, creating a picture of many shields stacked on top of each other. The light of the outline was just about to blink out as Sora made one final stroke, swiftly flowing across the paper and completing the rune. Sora looked at the enchantment and breathed a sigh of relief before looking up, noticing a few people standing in front of him. Blossom, LeeLee, Nobunaga, and Athenes were all quietly waiting for Sora to finish the enchantment.

“How long have you all been here for?”

“About seven minutes now, you were concentrated on something so we just waited until you were done before saying anything. Another defensive enchantment, mister fisherman?”

“Ya, I was able to get the second tier enchantment this time. Let me just put it on my cloak and we can go.”

Sora pulled out the cloak made from spider silk and laid the enchantment on top of it. The paper slowly dissolved as the rune was left imprinted on the cloak.

[x1 Layered Silk Cloak of Slowing obtained]

Rarity - Rare

Durability - 80/80

Defense - 10(+15)

Requires - Level 40

“A cloak made from the sticky yet beautiful silk of Grub, The Weaver of Silk. The cloak fits loosely on the wearer but anybody else who comes into contact will feel a stickiness that is hard to break away from.”

+10 Constitution

+10 Strength

+10% Slow attacker when hit

(Enchantment Effects)

+20 Durability

+15 Defense

Sora equipped his new cloak immediately. The stats were a little worse than his old cloak but this one had higher defense and the slowing effect on attackers. With his new cloak on and his team assembles, he was ready to fight the boss. The team all followed Sora into the cavern and climbed over the branches. Gzarna was waiting outside of the sphere of wood with all of her devices set up. When the group approached she got excited and rushed up in front of them.

“Are you ready? Everything is set up here.”

“We’re ready.”

“Alright! All you have to do is defeat that creature, I will need to be prepared to capture the corrupted energy as the fight goes on so I won’t be able to help you. Good luck!”

Sora and his team stepped through a crack that was between the roots that made up the sphere. The inside was extremely spacious but it still limited how much room the group had to maneuver in. Sora started looking around for anything out of the ordinary since he wasn’t familiar with the fight. He had heard of strategies that were used but that was when the boss didn’t have the corrupt energy on him. Sora wasn’t able to see anything as of now and decided to just go in and adapt to the situation. He turned to his team to brief them on what would happen.

“I’ll be tanking like normal, Nobunaga should keep an eye on the boss for any changes, LeeLee should watch the surrounding area, and Blossom should be dealing as much damage as she can. Athenes only needs to heal, try to keep everyone’s health near the top since we don’t know what will happen yet.”

The group all nodded in confirmation before turning to face the boss. The tree seemed to respond at the same time the groups gaze hit it, pulling its roots from the ground and walking towards them. Sora used [Purge with Silver] before rushing at the boss, using a [Slash] to instantly lock his aggro. Blossom was able to freely attack since Sora was dealing a lot more damage than her. His epic sword combined with [Purge With Silver] made his damage output at an insanely high amount.

The boss used his branches to rake across Sora, dealing a moderate amount of damage that was easily healed by Athenes. The boss didn’t do anything particularly challenging until he fell to 90% health. The tree rooted himself back into the ground and started to release more of the miasma into the air. The entire party was instantly damaged and continued to have their health tick away. Athenes was able to keep up with healing at the beginning but the damage kept climbing up as time went on. The group was confused at what to do and tried a few different things like continuing to attack, holding their breath, running to the edge of the sphere, and eventually were out of ideas. The group finally figured it out when Sora’s [Purge With Silver] ended, triggering a silver streak of light that struck some of the mushrooms that were spewing the miasma into the air. The mushroom was cut in half and wilted away. The entire group seemed to understand immediately but Sora still wanted to clarify.

“Attack the mushrooms on his branches!”

Every mushroom was swiftly taken out, being destroyed in only one hit. After the mushrooms were destroyed, the boss unrooted once again and began attacking Sora. Athenes was able to keep everyone healed with [Greater Healing] but had depleted a large amount of her mana. She drank a mana potion and kept going, hoping she could last until the end.

When the boss dropped to 80% health the group quickly responded this time, attacking mushrooms before the gas could get out of control. There were more mushrooms that grew this time but they still didn’t create too much of a problem. Just when the group had figured out the first mechanic, another mechanic appeared. The boss dropped down to 75% health and started to spread his branches outwards in every direction. Nobunaga was able to quickly let everyone know, making each of them scattered in different directions to avoid touching the black branches. LeeLee was also able to spot something and made sure everyone was aware.

“The sphere around us is also growing branches outwards, make sure you check behind.”

The group had to run around in many different directions, dodging wildly and twisting their bodies into unnatural positions. Blossom was clipped by a branch and lost a large chunk of health, making Athenes have to heal here while paying attention to the incoming branches. The branches eventually stopped growing and quickly returned back to their original positions.

The fight progressed with the same mechanics, except that more mushrooms would grow every time the boss dropped by 10% health. When the boss hit 50% health, he once again stretched his branches outwards while also spawning mushrooms that released the miasma. Dodging the branches was already hard enough so when the group also needed to attack the mushrooms, things turned bad. Sora tried to take out as many mushrooms as he could by himself since he could afford to be hit by the branches. Athenes was able to find a relatively safe position and continued casting [Heal] whenever it came off cooldown. Nobunaga was very nimble and somehow managed to slowly destroy the mushrooms while also dodging every branch. LeeLee wasn’t destroying very many mushrooms but also managed to dodge every branch that came at her. The only person who was having a lot of trouble was Blossom. She tried to destroy the mushrooms at first but soon realized that she needed to focus more on dodging since two branches hit her one after the other, dropping her health by a huge amount and putting a lot of pressure on Athenes. She used a health potion and decided to let other people take care of the mushrooms, only attacking the ones that were closeby so she could remain safe.

The branches eventually retracted and gave the group a lot more room to breathe. Sora and Nobunaga had taken out most of the mushrooms but were both very low on health. Each of them used a health potion and destroyed the last of the mushrooms while Athenes used her last bit of mana to heal them both to full. She took out a mana potion and hoped it would be able to last her for a while. Luckily the fight continued smoothly since the hardest part was out of the way. When the boss hit 10% health it spawned at least five times the number of mushrooms it had at the beginning. A full 3 minutes of destroying mushrooms was needed to get rid of the threat before focusing on the boss again. The boss wilted up as the purple miasma it was releasing condensed into an orb and bolted out of the sphere, only to be trapped by many floating orbs full of silver energy. Gzarna used a long tube to collect the energy while the group looted what the boss dropped.

[Level Up]

[x1 Inventory Expansion Stone obtained]

The entire group rolled, resulting in Nobunaga obtaining the stone. He immediately used it and expanded his inventory. The next piece of loot looked to be a dagger that had thorns coiled around it.

[x1 Stinging Dagger of Nature obtained]

Rarity - Corrupted Epic

Durability - 60/60

Attack - 88 - 94

Requires - Level 50 - Dagger Class

“A dagger that was naturally formed from an ancient wood. The wood is bathed in corrupt energy and has sprouted extremely sharp thorns that cause bleeding.”

+30 Agility

+30 Strength

-10 Constitution

+10% Damage over 5 seconds on hit

The group could see LeeLee’s eyes become bigger through the holes in her mask as she looked at the dagger. Nobody else could use it so they simply all passed and let LeeLee take it. She couldn’t quite equip it yet, thanks to the level requirement, but she wasn’t far off. A book was also dropped by the boss, causing everyone’s hearts to stop as Sora picked it up.

[x1 Skill Book: Thrust obtained]

-Use this item to gain the Thrust Skill

Sora let out a sigh of relief when he realized it was a knight class skill. He was able to obtain it without any competition. He didn’t waste any time and immediately learned the skill, finally adding another damaging ability into his kit.

[Thrust]

Cost: 20 Mana

Cooldown: 7 Seconds

Requires: Knight Class

-Attack that deals 100% Damage and ignored 50% of target's defense.

Sora picked up the last few coins and noticed that a lucky coin was actually hiding under a silver coin. The group rolled and Sora was able to win with a high 98, obtaining the coin and using it. Gzarna was waiting outside with a tube of corrupt energy, smiling gleefully as she started prodding towards it with many different instruments. She looked up as the group walked out of the sphere, obviously happy that she was able to obtain this sample of corrupt energy.

“Ah, great adventurers. You have truly done an amazing deed for your kingdom.”

“Oh really, then how about a reward?”

“Now now, you should talk to Desakor about that. He was the one who originally wanted this mess taken care of right? You would have had to fight that thing even if I wasn’t here.”

“Fine, fine then we will be off.”

“Good luck, hopefully, Desakor will give you a nice little reward.”

The group left the cavern that was slowly becoming clearer since the misma wasn’t being produced anymore. They all got on their wolves and made their way back to the elven village.