Thirty minutes later, Grim was cheerily walking back to the city, ready to turn in his quests. He had leveled up another time during his hunt, and had also leveled up his skills. Deadshot now dealt a solid 200% damage at level 6, and headshot now only took 4.9 seconds to aim at level 2. At this rate Grim was looking forward to becoming a beast. As he walked back to town, he noticed a few players walk by him. He hadn’t seen many other people at the hunting grounds, and to him it seemed that the draconic races weren’t too popular. However, he personally paid it no mind, the buffs were cool, and seemed to hold a lot of potential. He was still a little apprehensive about trying his Dragon’s Lung attack, since it was making use of a function that the human body could not properly replicate. As Grim walked back to the city, he walked over to the guards.

“Excuse me,” he said to the guard, “I have a bunch of lava slug antennae for a quest?”

The guard looked at Grim for a moment, before nodding. “Thank you young traveler, you have done us a great service, we don’t have time to deal with those damn slugs, and they keep breeding to no end!”

The guard, sighed, but Grim noticed something, and his gamer instincts prompted him to ask, “Is there a way to stop the breeding? Do they have a nest somewhere?”

The guard scratched his head before replying, “Aye, there is a nest. It’s a breeding ground for both the slimes and the lava slugs, but it’s a large cavern. Even if you were to get to the main nesting area, I’m not sure how you would actually deal with the sheer amount of eggs and larvae there. Also, you’d have to deal with all the boom slimes.”

“Boom slimes?” Grim asked?

“Nasty type of slime. If you hit their core, they explode, and deal a decent amount of damage. It doesn’t damage the core, but it is far too easy to set off a massive chain reaction that’ll leave you burnt to a cinder.”

Grim smiled. “Perhaps I can still lend a hand with this breeding situation anyway, I think I have a plan.”

No sooner did Grim finish saying that than a window popped up in front of his face, followed by another one, and one shortly after.

Quest Complete!

Fire Slug Pacification

Rewards: 4 silver, exp

Destroy the breeding grounds

Destroy the Fire slug and Slime breeding grounds to slow down the onslaught of mobs

Rewards:

Increased reputation with guards 10 gold Large amount of exp Fewer monsters will spawn

Consequences:

Reduced reputation with guards Monsters in the area will be automatically hostile against you for 24 hours More monsters will spawn around you

Congratulations on reaching level 5!

Rewards: 5 bonus stat points and access to the transcontinental waypoint system. You may now teleport to any waypoint within the continent. Reach level 20 to be able to teleport to other continents.

Grim shrugged, he saw no reason to not accept the quest. It seemed like a dungeon crawl, and he had been hoping for a dungeon so that he could get some better gear. But before he went off to go commit creature-genocide, he first needed to turn in his slime core quest, and also see if he can’t get a bayonet or something put onto his gun. So after asking for directions, Grim set out to see the blacksmith.

The smithy was a far different sight than what Grim had expected. Instead of a large area with a forge and anvil, it appeared to be a mixture of a steampunk workshop and a weapons store. A single red-scaled draconian stood hunched over a table, focused on some delicate work. Grim waited patiently for the man to finish, but there seemed to be no end in sight. Finally, Grim decided to make some noise, so he sharply rapped on the counter.

“Be right there!” was the reply from the man, and after another half a minute of fiddling, he stood up and walked over.

“Hello there traveler, my name is Liaron, how can I help you today?” asked the draconian as he took off his gloves.

“I’m here to deliver some slime cores, and if possible also learn a bit of blacksmithing so that I can eventually make my own guns” Grim said politely. He didn’t want to accidentally antagonize a potential teacher or useful ally.

“Excellent! I’ve been waiting for those slime cores for days. Now I can finally start making those extended rifle cores!” Liaron was practically jumping for joy as he grabbed the cores from Grim's hands. As he was about to walk away, he looked back at Grim and said, “well? Come on! If you want to make your own guns and gun-cores, you’re gonna need to learn from the master!”

Grim stared for a moment, before shrugging inwardly and following along. He had nothing to lose from watching, and who knows? Maybe he’d learn something! With those thoughts buzzing through his head, Grim walked with Liaron towards a workbench, ready to learn his first craft.