The party gathered around Archy curiously and saw that he’d stepped on a tiny lizard that could probably have fit in their palms when it was alive. They could all see the notification that had popped into their party log when Archy had killed it.

[Party member: Archy has slain a Corrupted Baby Chameleon.]

[Party Member: Archy has picked up corrupted mugroot x1]

“They’re invisible.” TidalWave made an immediate connection.

He had already brought out his journal to record the new creature's information. Seven quickly followed his actions and brought out her own journal to scribble in.

“This thing is useless.” Archy showed them the rather ugly and diseased plant that had dropped alongside the monster. “I can’t even eat it to analyse it. The thing’s description says it's corrupted beyond useability and isn’t even an alchemy ingredient.”

“Hmm.” Third had already moved past the fact that Archy had luckily stumbled over the very thing he’d been trying to find and instead thought about what this could mean, “The corrupted magica we fought didn’t corrupt the ingredients around it.”

By now Spark Joy and Roxxy had already read through the notes that TidalWave had made and knew of their previous encounter. The party hadn’t encountered any other corrupted creatures aside from that one until now.

“Maybe it’s exclusive to this plant.” Roxxy suggested, “They could all be corrupted.”

The other party members agreed but even Roxxy didn’t seem too convinced. It was strange of the forest to provide them with random non-useable ingredients.

“Maybe it’s because more time has passed.” Seven’s suggestion came out of nowhere but she thought it made sense.

“The magica we fought probably hadn’t been around for too long. Now it’s been a few days so whatever this chameleon had on it was corrupted?” Her voice grew smaller as she tried to form a theory.

“That would be a problem.” Third’s frown deepened. “Because if you are correct then over the next few days or longer, the ingredients of this forest will become corrupted and unusable.”

“Sounds like a good way to get rich.” “Let’s pick up everything while it’s healthy” Archy and Roxxy called out at the same time and scrambled to find more things to pick up.

“This poses a major issue.” Third recalled the fight they’d had against the corrupted magica, “But we still need more information.”

“Do you think we should split up to finish these quests before moving on?” Seven suggested as she saw the number of monsters they still had to kill, “Maybe we’ll run into more corrupted creatures and see if they drop anything corrupted.

If they split up they could take on a lot of groups of monsters now. Dryads and treants barely posed a problem if the party split up the tanks and TidalWave with a ranged ally each. They could also cover a wider area to collect ingredients.

“Sounds good to me.” Archy agreed immediately.

They could see the dollar signs in his eyes.

In the end they decided that if they were only fighting treants and dryads it would be easier to split up into three groups of two. Archy and Roxxy, Spark Joy and Third, and TidalWave and Seven. They were mainly going to find ingredients and kill the quest monsters. It would be useless to actively search for corrupted monsters if the things were rare or invisible. They determined that the quests wouldn’t take too long since they all had fairly high damage and skill.

****

“Indeed. Yon dryads tell me thy nasty plans and indeed I shall slay thee nicely. Indeed.” Archy shot arrow after arrow into the heads of dryads and treants.

“What are you doing?” Roxxy was having fun dodging the treant’s slow attacks.

Compared to the crows, these slow swipes were nothing.

“I’m trying to channel my inner Third.” Archy had switched back into normal arrows for now and was saving the steel arrows for later, “He looked like he was thinking deeply about something.”

“You’re trying to get into his state of mind and you’re talking like a three-hundred-year-old actor?” Roxxy smirked. “I like it.”

“He sounds exactly like that.” Archy protested as he finished the last monster of the group.

Roxxy’s smile widened, “I think he was worried that the corruption would spread to the monsters rather than the plants.”

“The monsters?” Archy began to move to the next area and tried to find a new group of monsters to demolish.

“That chameleon was a normal monster, not a special one like the corrupted magica you guys told us you fought.” Roxxy explained, “So if the corruption spreads across -oh-oh- monsters over there.” She pointed towards a new group of dryads and treants and they engaged them, “So if the corruption spreads across monsters then they’ll probably grow stronger and also cost us a lot in items. So he’s probably wondering how the dynamic will change in the woods.”

“Oh.” Archy seemed to think about that, “Okay.”

He watched closely as the sprightly girl zig-zagged across the enemies, slashing at them with her sword. He wondered if he could beat her in a fight. It seemed like she was a lot less skilled and damage dealing than TidalWave. Finally, he concluded that he’d definitely be able to win and was happy.

“Thinking that you could win against me easily?” Roxxy could read him like a book.

“Yup.” he confirmed, “I think I could kick your butt the first few times at least until you get used to my arrows. Don’t know about your friend Spark Joy though.”

“She would totally kick your ass.” Roxxy challenged him as she cut through an enemy dryad with ease, “But maybe only half the time.” She thought back to the conversation the magi guild attendant had with her and Seven, “What about Seven?”

“Seven?” Archy asked as he thought he’d misheard, “What about Seven?”

“Would she beat you in a fight?”

“Are we talking about right now?” Archy tried to avoid the question.

Roxxy picked up on his voice becoming quieter and more pensive.

“Just in general. Now or in the future.” Roxxy finished the last monster and felt satisfaction as she saw one had dropped a silver coin.

They were making a lot off of their monster clearing.

“I think Seven is a little different.” Archy tried to think of his response carefully. “If she fought against me today I would win ten out of ten fights.”

“And if she fought against you tomorrow?” Roxxy recalled how she’d improved on the spot as she took the test at the magi guild.

“Then I have no idea.” Archy confirmed her suspicions, “Did you know I’ve been playing archers in every virtual reality game I’ve played. I pride myself on my aim and accuracy. That thing with the leaves? Are you kidding, that kind of skill took me a week to master hitting even one leaf. And then to hit the second one took me a few more days. Do you know how long it took Seven to do once she found out it existed?”

Roxxy recalled she’d seen the magi hitting at least some leaves consistently. “Not that long?”

“You’re damn right not that long.” Archy sounded bitter but his expression quickly brightened, “That’s one hell of a motivator.”

“What do you mean?” Roxxy could already spot a new group of mobs and moved in to engage.

Before she could get near them, each one had an arrow through the head. A second one soon flew past and he had wiped out the entire group.

“That’s what I mean.” Archy stepped forward to pick up the drops, “just thinking about how fast she’s doing stuff is annoying me into improving myself.”

Roxxy realised that if he wanted to Archy probably could have gone off on his own and finished wave after wave of monsters. Then again, she remembered what the others had said, he would probably end up lost.

“It’s not just me.” Archy continued, “Do you think TidalWave was always as skilled? The dudes probably just as monstrous. He keeps thinking about every move he makes, trying to perfect it. Every fight we have I can see he’s just that bit stronger, faster and more precise in his dodging. I think it’s because he’s competitive. He can see Seven improving a ton and he doesn’t want to fall behind. Just the last couple of days we’ve known each other and the guy is a lot better than before.”

Roxxy hummed as she vaguely recalled TidalWave’s fighting style. He definitely didn’t seem like he needed to improve much.

“But if you ask me Seven probably won’t ever beat me in a fight. Not the way she is now.” Archy said with certainty.

“What do you mean?” Roxxy suddenly realised they had cleared most of the groups in the nearby area.

To find more enemies they’d have to walk deeper into the woods.

“I mean,” Archy tried to find the right words. “She’d have to actually challenge me to a fight to improve. Sure, once she does that she would probably win eventually because she’d grow in the process. But since we all met up she’s never once asked to duel, or even looked like she wants to duel us. TidalWave and Third both want to duel me. You and Spark Joy clearly will eventually. But Seven doesn’t even think of asking and she probably would refuse if I asked her. So she’ll never fight me. That means she’ll never win against me.”

“Fun logic.” Roxxy’s head was thinking up ways to get Seven to challenge the team to duels, she was curious about the team’s assessment of her, “And if she goes out of her way to ask you to duel her?”

They walked deeper into the woods, nearing the inner ring. By now the trees were blotting out the sunlight and they forced the duo into a single file line.

“Then I’d do it.” Archy didn’t care too much about potentially losing, “If she improves quickly then I’ll just improve even more. That’s the nature of it. Besides, having an even stronger teammate is always a benefit. In fact,” he slowed his pace as the treeline suddenly grew much thicker and darker, he thought of that annoying person that kept popping up, Attracting, “I’ll make you a promise. If she ever wants to go out of her way to duel a strong opponent then I won’t argue with her over it. She’ll have first dibs. That's how sure I am that she won’t do these kinds of things.

Roxxy tried to imagine a situation in which there was an opponent all of the team were trying to duel when a purple glimmer entered her vision.

[Corrupted Treant: Lvl 25.]

“-Oh-oh,” Roxxy’s eyes glimmered as they suddenly came across a group of mobs. One of them was similar to the normal treants except with tinges of purple glow on its bark skin instead of the usual gray.

It was also a lot higher in level than the other treants.

Archy cocked his arrow towards the treant. “Looks like we found something interesting.”

*****

“Why don’t you ask to fight us.” TidalWave was easily cutting through the monsters like they were made of salami. “I can see you watching the duels.”

Seven was calmly firing magic blasts at the enemies. The duo had quickly moved deeper into the woods as they defeated the nearby enemies with ease. Now they had encountered two new forces that caused them some headaches.

“It’s fun.” He tried a new tactic.

[Corrupted Treant: Lvl 27.]

[Corrupted Dryad: Lvl 25.]

[Corrupted Treant: Lvl 26.]

There were small groups of high levelled enemies travelling around the place. Each one was a corrupted version of the usual foes. They had spotted a few normal treants and dryads travelling with the corrupted monsters at first but now it was mostly corrupted beings.

She wasn’t sure if it was spreading or if they had simply gone deep enough that the woods had spawned different mobs.

“Because I don’t want to bother you guys.” There wasn’t any deep meaning behind it, “You guys would beat me easily and wouldn’t gain anything from it.”

“Sure.” TidalWave agreed, “But that won’t change unless you get better. And the only way to know you’re getting better is to fight us.”

“That’s a catch twenty-two.” Seven concentrated her blasts on the bodies of the magic creatures, she wasn’t skilled enough yet to hit their moving heads with one hundred percent certainty, “I won’t last long enough to improve while fighting you guys.”

TidalWave stayed silent at her words and continued to dance around the treants. Despite their higher level and tougher attacks, they were still too slow to cause him to break his attention away from the conversation.

“Then what about the leaf practice?” He tried a different approach. “If you couldn’t hit the leaves at first, the only way you could improve was to keep trying to, right?”

“Do you want me to duel you?” Seven finally asked him to get to the point.

“Yes.” TidalWave admitted, “I think it’ll be really fun.”

He secretly wanted to see how much she had improved. She had slowed down her dodging training in favour of practicing against leaves but he still thought that she could use both in fights. He also believed that if they dueled enough she would eventually be the one winning. He wanted to use that as a motivation to improve himself.

He had almost carved through the entire group of enemies when another bigger group joined up with them. Unlike the normal monsters, these corrupted ones could call for reinforcements.

“Reaper’s fury.” He jumped into the middle of the group and fired off a massive damage dealing skills.

He hit most of them and the rest began to spread around him.

“Okay.” Seven agreed, she couldn’t think of any reason why TidalWave would want to bully her by destroying her in duels, “We’ll plan something out. Are you going to hold back?”

“Nope.” He smiled as the creature began their joint attack, he was finally getting into a bit of a prickly situation, “But I’m confident you’ll quickly start putting up a real fight.”

“Maybe after the first few hundred tries.” Seven said, despondent.

“I think it’d be a lot fewer. It took Archy around a hundred remember.”

TidalWave watched a shower of magic blasts caused the enemies surrounding him to hesitate and he used the opportunity to jump out of their circle. He began to slice through them and with his uninterrupted combo his damage was reaching insane heights. It was almost too easy.

“Huh.” Seven peeked through the treants formation and saw the trees behind them had suddenly grown purple, “I think we’re going into the inner ring area now.”

The sunlight that pervaded the forest and had been bathing them with a soft green glow and lovely breeze had disappeared. So it was extremely noticeable when the light disappeared and a purple glaze swathed their vision. Smog appeared from the ground and seemed to form a wall of mist blocking their vision.

TidalWave and Seven finished the last of the enemies and peered carefully at the smog barrier.

“Do you think we should go in no-” Seven’s sentence was interrupted as something fast flew towards her head, “Holy crap.”

She moved back and out of the arrow’s flight path. TidalWave gripped his sword tightly as five figures emerged from behind the smog with swords. A sixth figure hovered around behind them and Seven could barely make out the shape of a bow in its hands.

[Corrupted Wilder: Lvl 35]

[Corrupted Wilder Archer: Lvl 35]

“Run.” TidalWave made the split-second decision and they ran for their lives.

Luckily the wilder team didn’t follow them into the outer ring.

“Well, that’s an issue.” Seven had gotten a good look at the figures.

The corrupted wilders were far too dangerous for the current team. Especially with the corrupted wilder archers shooting from the back. It wasn’t just their levels, the environment worked against them too, she could barely see the figure of the archer due to the fog. They couldn’t beat them without levelling or practicing more.

“Well now.” TidalWave had a playful smile tugging at his lips. “It looks like we all might need to get some dodging practice in. You know, duels are a good way to do that.”

Seven nodded. She honestly loved the idea but was just afraid of wasting her team’s time.

“Let’s flesh out a plan.”

****

The team couldn’t do much else that day after meeting up together. They were too far below level 35 to match even the basic wilders, and further exploration revealed that the corrupted monsters travelled in large groups of five to ten. It was a far cry from the three crows they’d fought with two teams numbering in the double digits. The team decided there was only one way to prepare themselves to go further into the woods where Seven’s quest was pointing towards.

Farm quests and monsters, and practice.

“Are you ready?” TidalWave and Seven faced each other in the clearing caused by the behemoth’s rampage.

They had logged into Zodiac Online a few hours earlier than the others to duel. Seven’s philosophy was that if TidalWave was willing, they would try to duel over and over again until they got results.

TidalWave had been thinking the same thing. He loved to win good duels and Seven loved to practice and improve. It was a powerful combination. He was sure that with the amount of duels they would do they’d be able to improve greatly over time. She would become better at dodging and fighting in a close and longer range. Then he could gauge how powerful she could become.

TidalWave predicted that at her current level she’d have a chance at winning within three hundred duels. They could get out that number soon enough if he killed her fast enough during the first couple of hundred. She would probably only hit him after a hundred and fifty duels.

He was certain of his analysis.

“Dang it.”

She died within a few seconds the first time.

“Whoops.”

Also the second time.

“Hmm.” Seven mused to herself.

The fortieth time was no different. But this time she had barely managed a dodge, if only once.

“Not bad, nod bad.”

The forty-fifth time had lasted a lot longer. She had even managed to get off a magic blast when TidalWave got near her. If she dodged his attack and sent a counterattack due to her range and accuracy she could always at least hit his body in return.

Of course, she died straight afterward. She simply couldn’t keep up with his attacks yet.

It was during the fiftieth fight that she finally saw some progress.

“Stone shift.”

“Magic blast.”

“Stone shift.”

“Magic blast.”

“Stone shift.”

“Magic blast.”

She managed to get off three consecutive dodges and attacks.

“DAMN IT.”

Her screen turned gray for the fiftieth time and she sighed. She had been so close to killing TidalWave. He had cut her last magic blast in half with his sword but if she could get another couple of good shots in he would die. He simply didn’t have the health to tank her high damage attacks. She looked at him standing there near her dead body.

TidalWave’s expression was unfathomable.

“Wow, you guys are here early.” They turned around to find themselves looking at a rather tired Archy.

“I asked Seven to practice. She said that if we're going to fight, she wanted time to improve. So we agreed to take a few hours out while waiting for you guys to fight.” TidalWave seemed to consider something as Archy came up close to him.

“Oh.” Archy’s eyes turned to her curiously. “I saw that. How long have you guys been here?”

“Only a bit.” Seven had finally revived fully. “But that was our fiftieth duel. TidalWave just keeps killing me too quickly.”

She had learned a lot. She briefly wondered if her dodging skills would allow her to outrun that strange attack Attracting used to finish his duels. If it followed the players it targeted, she might be able to dodge it long enough to survive and run away.

But that still wasn’t a sure-fire way to escape the attack. She wanted to think up a way to counter it completely. She had formed focus points intending to shift the direction of the leaves she was firing at but it was a slow process.

Archy stepped up to TidalWave, “You’re not holding back right?”

TidalWave shook his head. He knew Archy had seen how close Seven had gotten to killing him just then. Of course, the same pattern wouldn’t get him the next time. But he knew she would keep finding new ways to attack, new places to dodge to give her the advantage against him. She had already far surpassed his expectations.

“I have an idea.” Archy’s eyes lit up. “We still have a few hours. I was just going to train as well, so this is perfect.” He had been planning on farming more treants for archery practice, “Lets-”

“Archy and I will duel you from now on.” TidalWave interrupted Archy’s showmanship babbling.

“-Both fight Seven together, aw, that’s no fun. You have to let me finish.”

They looked at each other with calm expressions. Unbeknownst to Seven, they were sending quick messages to each other.

-Are you sure you want to do this? I was kind of joking.-

-Yes.-

TidalWave had seen her potential, and he wanted to see what would happen if they both fought against Seven. She was already making insane progress just by fighting him.

“BOTH of you?” Seven put a harsh emphasis on the word ‘both’.

She wasn’t fully unconvinced that they didn’t want to bully her. Maybe she had accidentally stolen one of their kills.

“Yes, both of us.” TidalWave was calm and resolute, “it’ll be good practice.”

“I can’t even match up to one of you.” Seven complained but didn’t seem too against the idea.

She had a faint taste for battle in her and now she wanted more. She could see now that she’d been underestimating herself too much. She had caught up to TidalWave a lot quicker than she’d estimated. When they started she hadn’t thought that she’d be able to dodge his attacks at all today, let alone damage him.

She wondered how difficult it would be to fight against both Archy and TidalWave.

“Are you sure I won’t be wasting your time?” She asked one final question.

They both shook their heads then ran back as they prepared for the next duel. Due to their classes they gave Seven a fair range to start from or else TidalWave could simply catch up to her in a second and kill her.

The duel started and Seven prepared to fire magic blasts at the oncoming TidalWave.

And promptly died as two arrows struck her head perfectly.

“Damn it. Here we go again.” She grumbled.

One duel. Two duels. Fifty duels. Sixty.

The fights were still rather one-sided even after they’d passed one hundred duels. Each fight was only seconds long as Archy and TidalWave made mincemeat of Seven. Of course, she couldn’t notice much of a difference between each fight but Archy and TidalWave could. After the fiftieth fight, she had gone from lasting five seconds to lasting ten. After the seventieth, she lasted twelve seconds.

On the one hundredth duel Seven decided that she was doing something wrong.

An arrow pierced the air as it flew at her head. She moved slightly to the left, allowing the arrow to pass by harmlessly. She was keeping an eye out on TidalWave as he approached, saving her stone shifts for him. This entire time she had slowly been gaining more awareness of both their actions. She continued to dodge arrows as she tried to navigate away from TidalWave.

They pushed her concentration to the max as she tried hurriedly to fire off magic blasts.

‘I need to do something different.’

The surroundings distracted her too much for her to focus fully on the opponents in front of her. A tree stump there, a rock underneath her foot. She was worrying about unnecessary things. She breathed deeply as another arrow barely missed her eye. She tried to filter out the unnecessary thoughts, she could deal with new obstacles as they appeared. For now she only had time to focus on the two people trying to kill her.

The area seemed to disappear as the arena slowly disappeared around her. No, she was simply not concentrating on it. Her entire body relaxed as she stopped doubting her every step and instead moved only to dodge the constant attacks heading towards her. She dodged another arrow as TidalWave caught up to her and she dodged his stabbing attack.

And then TidalWave slashed at her again and she died.

She was silent as she requested another duel. She was fully in the zone of concentration now. She couldn’t even see her surroundings. Soon she lost track of the number of duels she had been fighting. She just knew that she was lasting longer and improving. Even if she didn’t land attacks, she was seeing more possibilities opening up to fire them.

Even if arrows shot towards her she was certain she could dodge them if she just practiced a little more.

Spark Joy watched the proceedings with narrowed eyes from a nearby tree stump. She had logged on only to find Seven fighting against both Archy and TidalWave. The two players had noticed Spark Joy straight away, but the fighting had completely absorbed the magi. Spark Joy doubted the girl even knew she was here.

The girl hadn’t left a lasting impression on her yesterday but Roxxy wouldn’t shut up about her.

So she felt extremely surprised when she saw that Seven was putting up a good fight against her opponents. Spark Joy wasn’t under any false impressions; She could see that Archy and TidalWave were equal to her in skill or even better. And she had great pride in her skills.

The trio had entered their two hundredth duel.

Seven hadn’t hit a single shot, but she was improving before their eyes at a visible rate. Within a few duels the magi had gone from shooting out magic blasts and missing to shooting them and having them blocked as TidalWave destroyed them in mid-air. Seven wasn’t missing shots due to lack of skill, but simply because her opponents were monsters. It made Spark Joy wonder if she could defeat the girl in a duel. Technically Seven countered her tank class because of her ability to fire long-range attacks constantly. Spark Joy could dodge of course, but if the girl was this good at close range fighting then Spark Joy didn’t have the confidence to say that she would win every fight.

She sensed that TidalWave felt the same way. The fighter was concentrating and taking this fight completely seriously.

She watched as he finally caught up to Seven despite her dodging. He made five quick attacks in rapid succession. Seven dodged every attack with a combination of sidestepping and her stone shift ability, but at the same time, she maneuvered away from two arrows Archy had shot at her. She tried to fire a wind blast at the incoming warrior, but at the last second, he sidestepped it.

Then TidalWave got too close and Seven’s dead body hit the ground again.

Spark Joy felt a shiver at that fight. The girl’s skills were simply too monstrous. But she was still lacking in basics. Against any weaker opponent she would undoubtedly overwhelm them but against these two opponents, the girl’s accuracy and timing would need to be perfect for her to even think of getting in an attack. She simply hadn’t reached that level yet.

Spark Joy watched them begin another duel. This time, Archy and TidalWave started slightly closer than they had before. Even while Seven was improving they were slowly giving her less and less of a handicap. One day they might not even bother to start from a long-ranged distance and instead have the warrior stand right next to her from the beginning. These fights were convincing Spark Joy that Seven would catch up to the two soon. Though that would still be in quite a while.

Spark Joy recalled what Roxxy had told her about Third. The man had told the magi guild a single word to get them interested in Seven.

Monster.

She thought it was an apt description.

“Imagine if she had better accuracy.” Roxxy’s voice interrupted her thoughts as the latest duel began, she pointed to TidalWave, “She’s aiming for body shots at the moment. But if she could shoot at his eyes with certainty, or even his head, then it’s not a guarantee that they’d win the duel.”

The girl had logged on soon after Spark Joy and was sitting down on a tree stump as she watched the battle enthusiastically. Ironically Third, the most punctual of the team, was the last to arrive. They couldn't blame him because they had all decided on their own to log in earlier than the agreed time.

Fortunately, the instructions were fairly clear. They would kill the rest of the dryads and treants to quickly clear the subjugation quests and then return to Lum to get their rewards and the next quest in that line. They would likely have to kill an even higher number of dryads and treants later.

Unfortunately, because the wilders seemed to have all become corrupted it was difficult to farm enough to reach their level and fight against them. They would have to find other corrupted creatures or go to other areas of the outer ring that were untouched and full of enemies.

After the duel count had long reached three hundred Third finally logged in. He seemed to take in stride the sight of Seven fighting against Archy and TidalWave for a full two minutes. Once they finished the duel they all gathered together to see what they would do. Once they had their exact plans down pat for the day they set out.

It was a grind that would last days.