Another blast engulfed the jungle trees as it exploded on impact, the situation had grown a little more dire for Damien, each attack was being dodged by a smaller margin with each iteration. At the current rate, a fireball would burn him to a crisp, but he wasn’t purely on the defensive, his true strength lay in observation, so he observed.

It was easy to see that each attack began when flames leaked from the cat’s mouth, if you listened closely, you could even hear the pressure built up in its snout. The thing that was only noticed after the fifth fireball was the state of the Inferno Felis. Or rather how its attacks were being performed, between each fireball there was a five second delay between each attack, furthermore for a brief moment the cat’s eyes were closed after the fireball left its mouth. The flames burned so strongly that having them so close to its face was blinding it and forcing it to close its eyes to avoid them being damaged.

That’s my chance.

Still, it was easier said than done, not only were the fireballs strong, they had a long-range and were forcing Damien back with each blast. With no way to close the distance and take advantage of the weakness in the cat’s defenses, he was stuck with very limited options. He didn’t actually know much about how monsters worked, but he reasoned that like Climbers, they would have stats and that would include both SP and MP. Those fireballs were definitely costing it either or both of those, he could not keep this up forever. Though the same could be said for him, with each second that he had Shadow Step active, not only was the initial 5 SP cost, but there seemed to be a drain based on time used. It was a battle of attrition, and he was not sure he would come out on top. If nothing changed soon he would die.

As if to emphasize his train of thought, a fireball roared its way to him, although he tried to jump to the side, a portion of his left leg was licked by a stray flame. The feeling of the sear was unlike anything he had ever felt before, it lingered like a plague and pulsed pain to the rest of his body. That’s going to leave a mark, he really wanted to just sit down and pour some water into his leg but he knew better. Luckily the Felis was not able to see him getting injured, his leg was not in the best shape right now, if the beast knew, he’d pound on him. A snarl was released from its throat, it was clearly growing impatient by the lack of results its attacks were having. If it were a lesser beast, it might have given in to its frustrations and leaped at him to attack with its sharp claws, but the lump of flesh that was its tail on the floor gave it more sense than that. It would only give Damien an opportunity to fight back and it knew it.

Damien looked down at his sword, he found it frustrating that he was being placed so much into the defensive, if he had higher stats or more skills the situation might not be so dire, his grip tightened. The Inferno Felis stared at him with eyes still filled with fury and brimming rage, it knew that it held the advantage here and it would string him along till he collapsed.

Anything, just happen!

His futile prayer was answered. Directly behind the Inferno Felis branches moved out of the way as something tried to get through them. The sudden noise was so unexpected that even the behemoth of a cat was distracted by it for an insignificant fraction of a second. But it was enough, he took this lifeline presented to him.

After being transported to a jungle, Zen was lucky to be teleported to a high hill amongst the dense trees, due to her class of Ranger, she would not have fared too well in the jungle floor. The vantage point would give her the platform she needed to start getting points from a distance.

With the keen eyes that her PER gave her, she was able to spot green little men that ran in groups through the shrubs. She watched as they crawled on the floor and scurried from point to point with hobbled steps, she found the sight to be quite disgusting. They carried themselves like thieves in the night, like they had done something wrong or were about to. Pulling back the string of her wooden bow with an arrow was easy, especially with targets that weren’t moving very fast. She took a deep breath and steadied her hands, the goblins were still a little distance from her position, and although she had practiced for two weeks, this was the first time she was actually shooting live targets from this distance. She didn’t want to start the test with a blunder.

The large bow began to slowly bend inward, the pressure on her two gloved fingers that were pulling back the arrow mounted to optimal levels. She released her hold on the arrow and the built-up elastic energy was released in the form of an arrow silently cutting through the air with considerable power behind it.

The poor goblin never saw it coming, the arrow pierced its way through its thin skull and made a hole in its small brain. The final breath it released was the only sound that it made as its life expired.

By the time it had fallen to its knees and the sound had alerted the remaining number of goblins to the silent killer, a second arrow had already been fired from over a hundred feet away. As the second body fell to the floor, the shrieks of an attack already filled the surrounding area, the goblins scattered like bugs in search for cover.

goblins were dumb, ugly creatures, but they had survived this far by their immense sense of self-preservation. They attacked viciously at every opportunity they got, but the moment the tables were turned they would desperately make their escape any way they could.

Zen was not happy to have her prey run in all directions, the System prompts were also not helping.

Killed Goblin (F): +2 Points!

Killed Goblin (F): +2 Points!

She dismissed the annoying pop-ups with a thought, a fleeting thought of having experienced that feeling before she arrived at this place was quickly squashed by the System, Zen hardly cared, however, she had already given up on remembering her past life. She felt that whatever it was, it wasn’t as exciting as what she was currently doing.

There weren’t many places to hide in the jungle aside from the vegetation, which was being extra useful to the green goblins, Zen internally cursed at her misfortune. Though that didn’t stop the occasional goblin who’s trembling gave away his position among the leaves. Or the few that peeked out to see if the danger was gone. Her arrows were primed to meet them as they revealed themselves.

She had gained a few points from her exploits, but looking at the leaderboard revealed that others were quickly gaining more and more points, if she wanted a chance for the System boon, she would have to get in there. The goblins had either decided to hunker down for good or ran away without her noticing, either way, she would have a hard time getting more points out of them. A careful trek to the nearby jungle later and she was soon at the border of the trees.

It was daunting looking into it and hearing all sorts of noises, mainly the ones that didn’t sound human. Even if she wasn’t suited for this type of combat, she wanted the points, there was no way of telling what they would mean at the end of the phase.

Walking through the multitude of trees was harder than what she had initially thought it to be, the moisture in the air got in her long hair and made it annoyingly hot, luckily her armor was light, especially when compared to the thick robes of a mage and the heavy armor warriors wore.

As she kept going deeper into the jungle, a small thud could be heard up ahead, it came one after another, like clockwork the sound grew closer and closer. Her eyes saw the green giant long before it spotted her small frame, just ahead of the trees in front of her stood a large orc, the only three items on its person were a loincloth, a large necklace filled with small bones, and a large jagged stone cleaver.

Lesser Orc (F): 35 Points

35 Points? That would be a huge boost!

Lured by the thought of said points, Zen began to crouch into the ground, she wanted to make herself as small as possible. Quitely pulling out an arrow from her quiver, she began to draw her bow back. Orcs were tenacious monsters, they had slow speed and low intelligence, but they made that up in their high strength, vitality, and endurance. She did not want to get into direct combat with the mass of muscle, her aim was the head; a one-hit kill.

Since the Orc was huge and barely moving, he made an easy target for the novice archer, with her aim on his right eye, she released her deadly arrow. Due to the close proximity, the arrow had greater strength in it than when it traveled a hundred feet to strike the goblins earlier.

“AGRHHHH!” came the loud wail of pain from the now one-eyed Orc, he reached out to grab the arrow that was stuck to his head, it had gone straight through its large eye and had imbedded itself into its eye. With a rough pull, he yanked the offending stick and blood began to pour profusely from the open wound. He quickly turned to the direction the arrow had come from and Zen, who had gotten up from ger position, was easily spotted.

How the hell is it still alive!?

Having stood up from her crouch due to her wrong conclusion that Orc would die from her one arrow, only one word came to her mind at that moment, “Fuck.”

The Orc charged at her and ripped through the trees that stood in the way, his angry growls reverberated through the nearby area and Zen got the clue to book it. She knew her chances of escaping the Orc were currently slim, she had to hide somewhere. Noticing the mud where she ran, she threw her body in a dive and used the mud to slide faster than what she was able to run.

Her sliding led her to a particularly thick set of trees, she lunged past them and readied her bow with an arrow as quickly as she could. The Orc arrived seconds later and fortunately was stopped by the robust trees. Immediately noticing it would not be able to run through these, it began to use its massive hands to start tearing the trunks apart. The massive strength his muscles afforded him made the task as easy as tearing through paper.

Zen knew she would only have a few more seconds at most, so she did what she should have done with her first shot and went all out.

Piercing Arrow Lvl 2: Your arrow will penetrate the toughest of armors. +250% damage (+50% True Damage)

The tension on her bow grew to immense proportions as the arrow was charged with power, unlike her previous arrows that flew in tranquil silence, this strong attack was heard loudly as it shot out like a missile and struck the Orc dead-center on its forehead and ran all the way through.

The Orc’s eyes widened in pain, after a loud scream of death, its massive body fell limp on the ground.

Zen huffed and took air as quickly as possible, her heart was beating out of her chest. If it weren’t for those trees, the Orc would have torn her apart in no time.

Killed Lesser Orc (F): +35 Points!

She mentally kicked herself, 35 points now barely seemed worth putting her life in danger. Out of nowhere, her body began to glow a white hue which then immediately turned to little motes of light. Strange… A second System prompt, however, made her grow in curiosity, she had leveled up, I guess I should take a look at my status.

Class: Starter Ranger

Name: Zen

Rank: F+

Species: Elf

Title: N/A

Lvl: 4

Passive Skills:

N/A

Active Skills:

Piercing Arrow Lvl 2 (10 SP) Quick Draw Lvl 1 (5 SP)

Stealth Lvl 1 (15 SP & MP)

Bond:

N/A

HP: 65/65

MP: 30/30

SP: 23/50

Skill Points: 0

STR: 16

EDR: 5

VIT: 4

AGI: 22

PER: 23

DEX: 21

INT: 10

WIS: 7

FAI: 0

Status Effects:

N/A

Blessings:

N/A

EXP: 23%

Fighting Style: Archery

Is that a new skill? And I ranked up too… Sweet.

“I need to get somewhere to rest, or hopefully find someone so I don’t have to walk around with Orcs looming over me, rangers work best in a team after all.”

She had joined a team prior in the Guild hall, but that was worthless in a situation where everyone was sent to different directions, at least that was what she thought. She hadn’t seen another person after all.

Boom!

“Huh!?”

A loud explosion was heard nearby, Zen entertained the idea that a mage was close to her location, “Perfect!”

Not wanting to stay alone in the dangerous jungle anymore, she quickly ran for the direction of the loud explosions. As her legs drew her closer to the source of the blasts, she spotted brimming red fire in the distance between the leaves.

A fire mage? That’s pretty crazy for Level 1.

The reason Zen thought this was because mages did not get elemental classes until they evolved their initial starter classes, they needed to level up quite a bit an have an affinity for a certain element before they would get the option to evolve their class. That or they could buy an elemental skill from the Merchant Guild and use that until the System gave them their desired class, but that could be expensive depending on the class you wanted to get. Not to mention that it was also based on luck, there were stories of Primers in the Frontier who had attempted to get their classes to evolve into rare classes with this method for centuries without success.

Either way, a Fire Mage would be super useful in the current situation, so Zen moved through the jungle at a quicker rate.

It quickly became apparent that the flames that were being produced were extremely hot and powerful, the heat was rising very quickly as she got closer.

What kind of mage is doing this? Or better yet… What in the world are they fighting that requires this much effort? Should I help?

The new thoughts that entered Zen’s mind made her stop dead in her tracks, the thought that she would be walking out of the pan and into the fire, literally, was a very real concern. What if they are fighting a Dragon!?... Well, There’s no way something like that is here, nor that it would fit in this jungle anyway, but still, it could be something bad.

Gathering her courage, she decided that she might be better off with the mage than by herself anyway. She began to push her way through the thick shrubs and headed for the mage. That was when she heard a loud snarl, it sounded almost like a cat. That was when she finally managed to clear the foliage and the branches and entered the clearing where the fire was coming from. The sight that awaited her was not at all what she was expecting.

A giant red cat stood before her, it was larger than even the Orc from before. Its eyes only told of the terror that would come from encountering this thing. The million way it could kill her flashed before her eyes, the claws that were the size of her finger, the sharp teeth that would sink into her soft flesh; everything about it was death.

The small flames that were leaking from its mouth cued her into the origin of the fire, what she had thought to be a mage was actually a monster, all she managed to see before the next sequence of events were its name.

Inferno Felis (F+), 125 Points

Blood spewed from the large gash as the man took out his sword by cutting its way out. The cat twitched violently, it jumped in all form of directions aimlessly, the spectacle only lasted for a few seconds before it finally lost too much blood and fell to the ground dead. From the other side of the clearing, the moment the cat looked at her, a shadow had blurred with surreal speed. It moved through the large clearing in a single bound, the cat noticed right away, but it was too late. The moment it had been distracted was all it took for this new figure to drive its sword through the underside of the beast’s jaw and into its head.

A man stood where the large beast once did, he was covered in blood and looked even more tired than her, he smiled at her and said, “Thanks, you saved my life.”

“Huh?”