The Snapper monsters didn't prove to be that big a threat after I had gotten my hands on my new crossbow weapon. That said, movement was still a pain which got me blasted by water magic occasionally. Nothing significant dropped from the Snappers as they were mostly material drops like [Shell Carapce] and [Snapper Meat]. My inventory eventually reached it's capacity after I had traveled through a good portion of the marsh in which nothing particularly interesting had occurred. Exhaling an empty breath in disappointment, I continued onwards until I finally reached a space where there was solid land and the mana in the shard began to condense into a whirlwind. Inside the gust I could see a pair of luminous yellow eyes tracking my approach, the mana surrounding it appeared to become more solid as I neared it.

Ruined Marsh Spirit

Level 100 Type: Shard Boss (All Status Up) Shard Master

Becoming transparent, the boss started the battle by unleashing a deadly mist into the area, inflicting the [Miasma Bleed] status that reduced by HP recover to -1 per minute and started manipulating the environment to create black tainted wind blades which I strafed to the side to dodge after analyzing their trajectory. The boss was relentless however and continuously fired off wind blade after wind blade with the few I couldn't dodge shaving off 65 of my HP. Firing three crossbow bolts at the eyes did nothing to harm it as its HP bar was still completely full. Eventually it provided an opportunity when it stopped shooting off wind blades and it became solid once more. Using such an opportunity, I fired my two bolts at it causing it to slightly distort with each impact and inflicting 10% HP of damage in total. After repeating this pattern for a few times, the boss's HP hit 50% and its attacks changed. The spirit started fading in and out as it tried to get near me and had stopped solidifying to allow me to reduce its HP beyond the 50% mark. After running around for three minutes to accumulate some bolts, I let the spirit approach whilst making sure not to take my aim off it. When it reached approximately 3 metres, it solidified and transformed into a paw following which it swiped at me. I dodged and let go of 2 bolts with only one of them hitting and the other phasing through it as it cancelled its solidification. Charging towards it, I used the gesture for flame sphere which began draining my MP but it still affected the boss by continuously damaging it even when it wasn't in it's solid state bringing down its HP my 10% before my MP exhausted.

Finally, after an hour with my HP left at 33 from counter attacks and MP completely empty, the boss died as I took a shot at it with my crossbow during solidification. It wailed as it faded out of existence and then a rough black gem fell in its place which turned out to be the boss's corpse after touching it. There were five drop items with three being material items that I will be selling later, one ring and a dagger.

Nox's Ring

+5 PER +5 INT Reduces presence

Marsh Dagger

ATK: 10% Chance to poison on attack

The close range weapon, the dagger, was a nice get in addition to the ring. Afterwards, my status increased owing to the fall of a boss type monster.

Current Status:

ID: A15479C Name: Jason HP: 250/250 HPR: 2/min MP: 230/230 MPR: 2/min KI: 50% STR: 23 (56/230) DEX: 20 (2/200) INT: 21 (13/210) PER: 23 (12/230)

Credits: 777

With 20 DEX you have learnt the skill: Reflex Boost [Passive]

Decreases reflex time by 20%

With 20 INT you have learnt the skill: Magic Boost

Creates magic circles which boost the power and efficiency of magic code by 20% Cost: 20MP

The gains from this shard exploration were excellent but the follow up to go through the marsh again to leave was not something I was looking forward to.

After exiting the marsh and moving towards the exit of the forest, I came upon three players in a 2vs1 situation. The two players had bright red letters for their names [Livette] and [Duran] whilst the other, [Grey], was fending off the two to the best of her abilities whilst bare-handed. It didn't look like she would last long like that. From what I remember when I was checking up on the game, the bright red name letters signify PKers (Player Killers). Because of the nature of the game as it is now, what those players were doing is real murder, laughing all the while they attack with their freebie weapon bracer swords. I fired a crossbow bolt at the head of the player Duran blowing it off completely as it was a weak point. As his body turned into fading blue particles, the other players, Livette and Grey became alert but as I had chosen to hide and with the [Nox Ring] Equipped, they could not locate me.

I fired a next bolt at the head of the other PKer who accidentally dodged it by a lucky sway of the head. Following that the PKer turned to my general location and fired off a magic bolt which impacted on the trunk of my cover tree before running away towards the forest exit at full speed. Not letting him get off so easily, I fired my remaining bolts in his direction earning me a scream of pain. With that out of the way, I moved out of my hiding place towards the player Grey.

"You ok?"

"Yeah, thanks for the help Jason."

"Why are you unarmed?"

"I can't afford the weapons that go for over 10,000 Credits."

"Want me to show you where you can get a free weapon?"

"You can!? Oh well sure then."

And after than, I escorted the lady to the weapon store where she was able to take the request and we split ways after adding each other to our browsers. With me going towards the Arik Plains south of the forest.