The battle party walked together as they ventured deeper into Desert Area 3.

~ Monica, Violet, Rainbow, Lily, Marla ~

The beautiful sunrise across the horizon is going to give them the entire day to explore and conquer their new foes. The NPCs were too busy talking amongst themselves to care about any enemies as they were overly confident in their newfound strength. Lily was busy telling everyone all her romantic date plans with Stardust. Marla was boasting her amazing strength by making random craters on the sandy plains and how she was going to defeat the monsters in one punch. Rainbow was being very smug about her new abilities and showcasing them, wasting her precious mana for fun. Monica was joyfully taking part in each of their conversation and display of power.

Violet double facepalmed her face as the battle party wasn’t even taking this seriously despite her warning them to be cautious of the potential dangers.

Ten minutes later, a lone desert sand mole monster popped out of the ground from a distance, it quickly shot a ball of sand against the battle party. The four slackers didn’t even notice they were being attacked before Violet used her [ Wind Magic LVL 5] to conjure a violent wind storm to blow away the magic sand ball. Not even one single grain of sand managed to hit the party. Violet counter-attacked by shooting an arrow imbue with wind magic that allowed it to fly blazingly fast with great penetrative strength. The sand mole monster wasn’t able to burrow back into the sand in time as its head got pierced by the wind arrow. Blood splattered all over the ground before its limped body fell to the sandy grounds. It soon disintegrated in white light, leaving behind monster loot for the party to collect.

After the ordeal was done. Violet looked at her unaware party members and they were still too busy talking about their future life plans.

“ Girls… did you even realized that a sand mole monster attacked us?” questioned Violet.

“ Oh?” said Marla. “ The sand magic ball was quite scary at first but I can probably one punch it away. Even if it did hit me, it probably wouldn’t do any damage to me anymore.”

“ Those desert sand mole monsters are trash,” said Lily. “ Ever since I learned how to use magic, I realized that the sand magic they used was trash too.”

“ I’m sorry Violet,” apologized Rainbow. “ We will attack the next mole monster before it evens have a chance of noticing us.”

“ I was perfectly aware of it Violet,” said Monica. “ I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help as my attack range isn’t as great as yours.”

Violet frowned but smiled. It was true that the mole monsters stood practically no chance against them now with their proper training. “ Alright you girls, I get it. I will deal with all the mole monsters that pop out from the ground. Since I have the greatest attack range and my wind arrows can pierce them all to death in one hit. But you girls need to pay attention to the stronger monsters that could appear.”

Little did the party know. The mole monster that they killed was a weak scout patrolling the weakest area of Desert Area 3. Eventually, the colony of desert sand moles will soon find out that one of their scouts had been killed if it hasn’t returned to the base in time. A small group of 5-mole scouts will be sent to investigate the area. If they get annihilated, then a platoon of 20-mole soldiers will be sent to deal with the problem. The re-enforcement will keep escalating until the desert mole colony decided to concede its territory.

The party members walked towards the vanquished mole monster to collect its loot.

X1 Desert Mole Monster Meat.

X1 Desert Mole Monster Tooth.

X1 Desert Mole Monster Core.

The monster core was a sphere the size of a small rock. You could hold several of them in one of your hands.

“ It’s cool to see that the monster drops differ from the wild animals,” said Violet. “ The tooth could be used to create sharper and more durable bone weapons. If we collect enough desert mole monster cores for Stardust, he could use them to create a new NPC. Perhaps our new ally with even acquired [ Sand Magic] upon creation.”

“ Hopefully the new girl has a good personality,” said Marla. >

“ I hope she will be useful,” stated Lily.

“ It’s always great to have new allies,” smiled Rainbow.

“ Another great asset to the party,” beamed Monica. >

They continued on their journey. No other monsters were spotted yet.

“ The mana density is increasing a little bit more,” said Lily. “ These desert plants look slightly bigger than the ones before too. Even the sand feels a little harder than usual.”

“ Wow! You are amazing for noticing these things Lily!” beamed Rainbow.

The others didn’t even realize the subtle changes as it proved Lily to be the most magically gifted among them.

“ Of course I am, I am Stardust’s Wife. It should be expected of me since I am his best NPC amongst you all,” declared Lily.

“ That sounds like you are challenging me,” said Marla readying her fists. “ Let’s have a duel.”

“ I cannot win against you Marla… at least not right now,” stated Lily.

“ There is no need to have this best NPC debate while in the middle of the expedition,” said Violet. “ Please focus on the expedition.”

“ You are right Violet but there are no monsters around so there is nothing to worry about,” said Monica.

Rainbow was focusing and trying to learn [ Sand Magic] while walking with the party. >

Violet was getting a headache babysitting the four slackers of the party. >

In this monsterless desert, a sand elemental formed in front of the party. It had a humanoid shape and was about 2 meters tall. Sand elemental monsters come in all shapes and sizes, they often take the shapes of other animals and monsters. They are quite weak but are known to be tough to kill as they would endlessly regenerate their bodies with sand.

Violet attacked it first with her wind arrows. The arrow pierced its head at terrifying speed, blasting its entire head off. But the sand elemental didn’t perish, the sand from its environment quickly gather toward its head and regenerated. So Violet kept shooting wind arrows until the entirety of the sand elemental’s body was blown off. It still didn’t work as the sand elemental was now regenerating its entire body.

“ The sand elemental monster probably has a monster core somewhere and we have to destroy it,” surmise Violet.

“ Let me try killing it,” said Marla.

Marla dashed in front of the sand elemental monster that was nearly finished with its regeneration and was about to punch her. But Marla was too fast and empower her fist with her magic and punched the sand elemental monster once and it destroy its entire body. Yet the sand elemental was still not dead as it began regenerating once more. Marla attacked its regenerating body a few more times but it still wasn’t going to die. “ Why won’t you die already!” yelled Marla.

“ The monster core isn’t on its body,” concluded Lily. “ It’s probably hiding its monster core somewhere in the desert sands. It should be nearby as it was quite weak.”

Marla immediately attacked the surrounding areas, blasting craters all over the ground. The sand elemental had stopped regenerating and Marla was now covered in sand. Violet used her wind magic to shield the party from the blasts of sands and cleaned off Marla. “ Thanks Violet,” smiled Marla. “ Looks like we did it! It even dropped the monster loot!”

Monica quickly ran over and used her [ Blood Magic] to pick up the loot. The swirls of blood reached over to the loot and enveloped it before swirling back to Monica’s bag. “ The sand that it dropped looks the same as the desert but it appears to be slightly magically enchanted.”

X1 Sand Elemental Sand

“ Looks like we cannot collect the monster cores from the sand elementals since we need to destroy their cores to defeat them,” said Violet.

“ Hehehehehe,” giggled Lily. “ You will need me to use my [ Debilitate Magic] to impair their regeneration. I am the most useful NPC here.”

“ But you cannot defeat them on your own,” said Marla.

“ You want to bet?” dared Lily. “ We have other NPCs that can defeat them as well but none of them can collect sand elemental cores without my ability.”

“ Only because you don’t want to teach Rainbow your [ Debilitate Magic],” argued Marla.

“ It wouldn’t be good to force Rainbow to learn so many different skills. The stress will eat her alive!” countered Lily.

“ It’s okay Marla. I don’t mind if the others don’t want to teach me their unique skills. It just means I have to work harder on my own to obtain all the skills,” smiled Rainbow.

The battle party resumed walking further. More sand elementals were forming around them. They had the shapes of other wild animals like wolves, tigers, and a few other monster forms they haven’t seen before.

Marla could use her bone weapons and even with her using magic to imbue her weapons with greater strength and durability, it would still easily break with her berserker strength. So Marla had to resort to using her fists and kicks to attack like a brawler. She was able to defeat multiple sand elementals together with a single punch or kick.

Lily was using her [ Dehabilitate Magic LVL 7] to attack the sand elementals. An aura of black magic formed out from Lily before flying to attack the sand elementals. They simply disintegrated under her magical might. Normally the [ Dehabilitate Magic] would only weaken their foes by limiting their movements or destroying their senses but for enemies far weaker than Lily, it was possible to outright kill them with it, especially if their magical resistance is low. After they had disintegrated, the black aura located the sand elemental core and stopped it from regenerating itself. She also sent out black auras to the other sand elemental cores that the others were fighting to stop their regeneration.

Violet used a combination of wind arrows to pierce targets that were further away while using violent gusts of wind at close range to attack the sand elemental and the surrounding grounds at the same time. The sand elemental unable to withstand her violent wind gets its body blown to bits, and when she unravels the sand elemental core in the ground, Lily’s [ Debilitate Magic] helps to stop its regeneration so they can collect the cores later.

Rainbow let the sand elementals attack her while she was dodging its attack. She was trying to understand how the sand elementals were able to use their magic to control sand into making a solid shape. By doing her best to copy what the sand elementals were doing, she used her magic to manipulate the surrounding sands and soon acquired [ Sand Magic LVL 1]. She had a magical epiphany and used her sand magic to create sand itself and fortified her body with sand, creating a full plated sand armor. When the sand elementals attacked her with her sand armor, it greatly reduced the damage even further than if she were to take it head-on. Rainbow felt so smug at her magical genius then used [ Fire Magic] to set it ablaze and its surroundings to destroy the sand elemental. The newly enraged sand-fire elemental became deadlier momentarily before its core was starting to suffer damage, that its movement began to sluggish. Rainbow quickly extinguished her fire magic as she realized she shouldn’t damage the core so Lily could collect them. She returned to using all her physical and other magical skills to defeat the sand elementals. >

Monica let her blood out of her body, swirling around her like a long band of ribbons. She used her blood magic to slice off the sand elemental limbs and body apart. It was unfortunate that the sand elemental contained no blood within them, blood that she could add to her offensive and defensive power rather than using her blood. When a sand elemental was about to sneak an attack behind Monica. The blood that was swirling around her body rushed to create a blood shield right behind her, protecting her from the impact without her being aware until a moment later. Then she used her blood like a long sword to slice off its head and limbs.

X32 Sand Elemental Core

X32 Sand Elemental Sand

After this easy skirmish with the sand elementals, the party ventured further.

“ It seems like this area has only sand elemental monsters,” said Violet. “ Why do I get the feeling the deeper in we go, the more and more sand elementals there will be. If it gets too dangerous, let’s retreat with our current loot.”

“ Those sand elementals are trash,” said Lily. “ Even if there are thousands of them, you guys are all strong enough to deal with it singlehandedly.

***** Desert Area 3 - Mole Monster Colony *****

In a huge underground sand labyrinth, thousands and thousands of sand mole monsters were busy crawling all over the tunnels. There were chambers for their food, sleeping areas, brood area, and other various essentials. Many of the mole monsters had specialized jobs like scouting, food gathering, tunnel building, soldiers, and carers. The intelligence of the mole monsters was low but enough to form a stable colony living together. The desert sand monsters can produce more offspring but at the same time, the mana in the underground sand labyrinth can sometimes spawn desert sand mole monsters out of thin air. If the population drops very low, the spawn rate increases to compensate. If the population is near its limit, the spawn rate drops to near zero. The excess mole monsters will often travel to new areas of the desert where they can form a new colony, spreading the desert mole monsters all over the great desert. But many other competing monsters were fighting for new areas and resources as well. There were about 6 other desert mole monster colonies like this one.

These desert mole monsters were completely blind and relied on vibrations to detect movement and how far away things were. They have powerful front claws and back legs that they use to burrow and travel underground. They also had a low level of [ Sand Magic] to further help them survive the desert environment.

One of the mole monster scout leaders in charge of many of the mole scouts in the weakest area of the desert was in a chamber waiting for his scouts to assemble. Eventually, all the scouts returned except for his weakest scout patrolling the weakest area. It was an area barely worth mentioning as it contained very little food for the mole monster colony and the mana density was non-existent.

The mole monster scout leader spoke in the monster mole language, it was at a high frequency that wasn’t comprehensible to humans. “ So Bob finally had enough and left the colony to discover himself huh? Good thing I have a newly recruited scout to fill his position. Please welcome Takki, everyone.” The other mole monster scouts clapped their large hands together for him.

“Takki go and patrol the weakest area,” ordered the scout leader.

“ But sir!” complained Takki. “ Our normal protocol for a scout failing to return is that we send 5 mole scouts to investigate what happened to them.”

“ Shut up Takki. Bob is the weakest desert mole scout in the entire colony and you better not disappoint me Takki. You are the weakest in my platoon of scouts right now but you have the potential to move up the hierarchy. Bob was always complaining about his job and he probably decided to run away from his duties and responsibilities to this colony!”

“ But what if Bob encountered a strong monster?”

All the desert mole monster scouts laughed at the newbie Takki for being such a huge whiny brat. Even the mole monster scout leader laughed at him heartily. “ You are very funny Takki. There are only sand elementals in that area and you should know that staying underground, you will be completely safe from them. The mana density is very low, there is no way a strong monster would want to occupy that area. Enough complaining, you don’t want to be like Bob either. Do your job!”

“ … yes sir,” complied Takki while looking down.

Takki soon left the desert mole colony and began to make her way to patrol the weakest area of the desert. The area where the battle party was currently fighting in.

***** Desert Area 3 - Battle Party *****

The party had ventured quite deep and were fighting countless thousands of sand elementals. The sand elementals kept on popping up from the desert plains. Even though they were weak, the party will eventually run out of energy with the never-ending fight. If they succumb to their exhaustion, the sand elementals will annihilate them.

Violet sent out a wind message to her party members that were scattered about, “ everyone! Let’s retreat!”

The party members gathered together into a tight formation with thousands of sand elementals surrounding them. Lily used her biggest AOE attack ever with her [ Debilitate Magic LVL 7] aura expanding outward from her in a sphere to a radius of 20 meters, annihilating all of the sand elementals around them so they could make a run towards the safer area. Thousands of sand elemental loot were left on the ground as the party had no time to pick them up, and could only carry so many monster cores and loot with them.

Meanwhile, Takki was shitting herself in fear when she was watching the unknown monster humanoids destroy countless hundreds of sand elementals in a blink of an eye. Technically she is completely blind but she could feel the vibrations from the ground and determine that her foes were extremely deadly. > She burrowed back into the ground after witnessing Lily’s biggest AOE attack, tunneling her way back to the colony.

Violet used her [ Wind Magic LVL 5] to help improve the speed of her party members by pushing them from behind. The party members ran as fast as they could while defeating countless more sand elementals. When they finally got out of Desert Area 3, did the sand elementals stopped chasing them and went back to their spawning grounds while collapsing back into the ground. They were all exhausted from the long-drawn-out battle. The sand elementals were weak monsters but a never-ending supply of weak monsters was simply too much for the 5 members of the battle party.

“ We won’t make any progress if we can’t get past the endless sand elementals,” said Marla.

“ That’s true,” said Violet. “ Perhaps we could use these sand elemental monster cores to create even more NPCs to help us. Maybe we can tame those monster moles to dig an underground tunnel for us so we can escape the surface battle. Although I am not sure if those sand elementals would spawn underground either.”

“ What if I train my sand magic to a higher level so I can create the tunnel for us?” suggested Rainbow.

“ If only… those sand elementals have blood in them, I can create a huge flood of blood to destroy them all,” said Monica.

“ It’s good that everyone is trying to think of a solution for our problem,” smiled Lily. “ While we were fighting the sand elementals, I noticed one of the giant desert mole monsters was spying on us. Maybe we can get the mole monsters to wage war against the sand elementals so we don’t have to do any fighting.”

The battle party talked amongst themselves about how to deal with the sand elementals as they walked back to the camp. They had collected about 542 sand elemental monster cores and 1 giant desert mole monster core.

When they finally got back to the camp, everyone came to welcome them home. Lily ran into the arms of Stardust. She was healed first by him before he healed all the others. They rested at the camp while discussing their next strategy. Everyone had a small piece of monster mole meat as they were only able to hunt down 1 giant mole monster and the meat loot wasn’t as big as its body either. The desert mole monster meat proved to be the most delicious meat they had ever eaten since being created. The NPCs wanted to hunt even more of them!

*****

The next day, Stardust was finally going to use the sand elemental monster cores to create the next NPC. 100 monster cores was the minimum required to summon a new NPC with the maximum being 1000 monster cores. The more monster cores that were used to create an NPC, the likelier the NPC will have better-starting stats and skills. Stardust was planning on using all 542 sand elemental cores to create 1 NPC as he believed in NPC quality than quantity.

All the NPCs gathered around. They gathered all the sand elemental cores into 1 pile with clothes added together so Stardust could create an NPC. Everyone was praying for an NPC that best matched them. Also, they wanted the newest NPC to join their karma team. Normally NPCs with similar karma values will most often get along. The exception being the evil karma NPCs that may or may not get along with others.

*** Good Karma NPCs ***

2 Marla - Please be a friendly girl that wants to protect others.

3 Luna - Please be a true supporting type NPC like myself. Stardust half counts, and Queen doesn’t count at all. I need a true bestie.

7 Rainbow - I will love you no matter what!

*** Neutral Karma NPCs ***

4 Remi - Just be someone who won’t cause trouble for the party.

6 Queen - An NPC who understands my true worth and will support me as the party leader.

8 Violet - Hopefully we will get an NPC who does what is best for the party.

*** Evil Karma NPCs ***

5 Lily - We need a useful and competent doll to control.

9 Scarlett - Someone who wants to create chaos and destruction!

10 Monica - Another useful tool for survival.

Stardust placed his hand onto the monster core pile, “ create NPC.” Appearances, personality, karma, and loyalty will be randomized due to lack of materials to create a customized type.

Once again, he doesn’t need to say ‘create NPC’ to create an NPC, it is just so the others could hear clearly what he was doing.

***** NPC 11 Talian *****

Base Attribute: Sand Elemental

Class: Sand BattleMage

Stats:

Physical Power: 250

Physical Speed: 250

Physical Defense: 250

Magical Power: 250

Magical Speed: 250

Magical Defense: 250

Resistances:

[ Heat Resistance LVL 5]

[ Sand Resistance LVL 5]

Physical Skills:

[ Fighter LVL 5]

[ Focus LVL 5]

[ Burrow LVL 5]

[ Vibration Detection LVL 5]

Magical Skills:

[ Mana Generation LVL 5]

[ Magic Mastery LVL 5]

[ Sand Magic LVL 5]

Special Skills:

[ Sand Life LVL 1]

Karma: -80 (very evil)

Loyalty: 89%

***** End *****

A battlemage is a hybrid between a fighter and a mage. They can excel in both melees and ranged combats scenarios, using both physical and magical attacks.

[ Sand Life LVL 1] was a special skill that allowed Talian to simply revive herself upon death as long as she has access to the sand. But she has a ten-minute time limit to revive herself before she can no longer do so. This ability can happen indefinitely and will not cause her to lose any stats or skills. If Talian was not able to revive herself within 10 minutes, she will simply remain as an NPC core and will lose her stats and skills just like the others.

“ Master Stardust, I will do my best to serve you,” bowed Talian. “ The other NPCs will no longer be allowed to bully you or control you which includes you, Lily.”