“I hope everyone has mentally prepared themselves for the next battle,” Sophie said. “The dire bear will be a lot stronger than what we faced so far but we will defeat it. We have potions, skills, and each other. The most important thing is for us to not be overwhelmed and loose our will to fight.”

Zane and the others nodded and said words of agreement. They were sitting on the floor in front of the dark passage after they finished a meal. Sophie suggested that they eat one of the meals that were prepared in their space bags despite the fact that they were not hungry. Shane gave his full support and everyone else agreed when Sophie mentioned the buffs they could receive. Each of them received three points to endurance that would last for an hour.

While they ate, they came up with a basic plan on how to deal with the dire beast. If the dire beast was at level twenty, like all other bears in this den, they would try to distract it while Jason went to destroy the den. They would only try to kill the dire bear if it was level eighteen or lower. At that level the fight would be verry difficult but not impossible.

“We should give up if its source field has reached the basic level,” Shawn said. “I won’t be able to bind it while the source field is active.”

“Shawn makes a good point,” Sophie said. “I think we’ll be exhausted by the time we finished destroying a basic source shield. Let’s start moving and hope that the dire bear has a flawed source shield.”

Zane took the lead as the group headed into the passage. After a few minutes he was able to see a large area filled with grass and trees. As he got closer, he could see that the trees were nine meters tall and emitted a gentle blue light. Also, there were a few plants emitting blue light and the walls were too.

The beautiful scenery wasn’t what truly caught Zane’s eyes. His gaze was focused on a bear that was laying down but still a head taller than him. Next to the bear was a clear crystal half Zane’s height emitting a large amount of mana. On the crystal Zane saw the image of a bear. The image looked exactly like the bear lying next to it. Without using identify his senses and experience told him that the bear was strong. He would have to flee or be killed if he tried to face the bear alone.

“I’ll check the bears level so everyone should get ready,” Sophie said.

“Wait,” Zane said. “If it has a low level, how are we going to fight it? Are we going to charge in or attack from a distance? The bear would be alert after you use identify so we should establish our plan.”

Sophie paused and took a slow deep breath. “Sorry, your right. I think I was a bit too nervous.”

“Don’t feal bad its natural to be nervous. I can take the lead and be the main defense.”

“I should be the main defense” Shane said. “I got my first special effect for my basic shield mastery skill and my defense is a lot stronger.”

Zane was surprised at first but he quickly realized why. Shane had used his shield during their sparring, while they walked through the forest and while they fought the bears. For him reaching level twenty-five with his skill was only a matter of time.

“When we fought the alpha in the last room Shane was able to receive its attack without taking a single step back.” Jason said. “I remember I would occasionally be pushed back a few steps when we fought in the room with the three alphas.”

“Yup,” Shane said with a proud smile. “I managed to finally increase my skill to level twenty-five after that room. I decided to wait and surprise everyone.”

Everyone congratulated Shane and Zane agreed to let Shane be their shield. The group spent some time discussing how they would do attack after finding out if the dire bears level was high or low. After planning their attack Sophie began applying buffs on everyone.

Sophie gave Shawn and Jason a buff for their magic. She gave Zane, Shane, Luna and Lana a strength buff. After applying the strength buff Sophie began to give everyone including herself a dexterity buff. Zane watched as her mana slowly decrease as she applied buff after buff. Toward the end Sophie had to stop and drink a mana potion to recover before continuing to use her mana. If she didn’t, she would have become unconscious or left with a nasty headache.

You received a Basic Dexterity Buff

Buff: Dex +18

Duration: 15 minutes

Zane nodded when Sophie asked everyone if they were ready. He saw Sophie stare intently at the bear. A few seconds later the bear was glaring in their direction and Sophie was wearing a smile on her face. Her next words caused Zane to smile as well.

“It’s at level fifteen.”

Everyone smiled and their eyes lit up with excitement. Zane stepped on to the grass ready for battle. He glanced up and noticed he could see the night sky but he quickly returned his focus to the dire bear in the distance. The bear’s brown fur was so dark that it almost looked black. Its eyes were a deep dark red and they emitted the desire for blood.

The dire bear stood up when they entered and started to growl. Zane estimated that the bear was at least three heads taller than him. When he saw the sharp teeth of the dire bear, he thought they would be perfect weapons if they were pulled out. He then imagined his hand being sliced apart if he tried.

Zane shook his head to clear it of useless thoughts. He was surprised to see that the bear did not immediately rush to attack them. It looked furious about their presence and clearly wanted to attack them but it didn’t. Zane quickly realized why but Sophie spoke before he could say anything.

“The dire bear is guarding the core of the den. That means the fight will go a lot more smoothly and it looks like its source field is flawed.”

“That’s great,” Jason added. “With only a ten percent bonus to its defense my spells will have no problem dealing a lot of damage.”

“Wait till we get closer and remember that Lana will be attacking first.”

“Don’t worry, I can’t hit anything from this distance.”

They moved forward with Shane at the front. Zane, Luna and Lana were directly behind him while the others stood in the back. The group walked forward until they were inside Lana’s archery range. After that they waited while Lana rained down arrow after arrow on the dire bear. Every time Lana’s arrows approached the bear its fur would glow and cause the arrows to slow down. The dire bear roared in anger but it still didn’t move. A few of Lana’s arrows hit the crystal but they bounced off without doing any damage. However, they did cause the dire bear to become angrier.

Eventually, the bears fur stopped glowing and Lana’s arrow began to sink deeper into its fur. The bear let out a powerful roar a few seconds after its fur stopped glowing. It charged forward and was able to close the distance before anyone could react. Shane quickly stepped forward and raised his shield. The dire bear slammed a paw on Shane’s shield sending him flying backwards pass Zane and into Jason.

Zane saw the bear focus it gaze on Lana and quickly pushed away the slight feeling of surprise. Zane used Charge trying to take the dire bear’s attention off of her. When his shield slammed into the bear’s front leg Zane saw it shake slightly before turning its gaze onto him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Luna moving from his left to stab her short swords into the bear. Zane prepared to attack the moment it became distracted.

Skill Combo. Stab. Pierce. Zane delivered his attack the moment the bear looked away. It barely did any damage. After the combo attack was complete the spearhead barely entered the bear’s neck. The bear roared in anger and pain as Zane pulled his spear out. Zane raised his shield and used Block to receive a paw that sent him flying backwards.

Zane felt dazed but quickly shrugged it off after a few seconds. Zane stood up and ignored the signals of pain his body was sending him. The first thing he saw was Shane slamming into the dire bear’s mouth with his shield. After taking a second look he saw the bear’s legs were bound by roots and grass. The roots kept breaking and growing as the bear tried to struggle free. Zane ran forward to rejoin the battle and quickly checked everyone’s status.

Zane saw that he lost over ten percent of his health from the bear’s attack. Shane had lost close to half his health but Zane saw it rise while he looked at it. Seeing Sophies mana bar decrease he realized why it did. Jason and Shawn’s mana bars were decreasing at a steady rate while Lana’s stamina bar rose sharply. Zane assumed that she drank a stamina potion and realized he would have to drink one soon as well.

Like Luna, Zane had more than half of his stamina left. The problem was that only his strongest attacks would deal a decent amount of damage to the dire bear. If he consistently used his strongest attacks he would be drained of stamina in seconds.

When Zane reached the dire bear, he immediately used his combo attack and took advantage of it lack of movement. Zane aimed at the wound he already created but only managed to hit an area nearby. Zane repeated this move two more times before stopping to drink a stamina potion.

Zane stabbed his spear into the grass and took a clear bottle filled with green liquid. The green liquid had a salty taste and made his throat itch as it went down. Zane dropped the bottle and charged back into the battle. Zane managed to deliver two more combo attacks before he had to stop.

“Everyone get back,” Sophie mentally commanded.

Zane started stepping back and felt heat from behind. Looking behind him Zane saw a pale Jason standing next to a tired Shawn. In Jason’s hand was a sphere of red mana twice the size of a human head. In the center was a small flame that emitted a high level of heat. Zane looked toward the dire bear that had roots binding it legs and roots covering its back. The sphere of red mana streaked over Zane’s head, landed on the bear’s back and quickly spread to its leg.

The bear let out a powerful roar and a powerful smell when it began to burn. Everyone backed up and took deep breaths as they tried to recover from the short but high intensity battle. Zane tried to remain cautious for another attack from the dire bear but he didn’t really think he needed to. He could sense the bears strength decreasing as the fire continued to burn it.

Zane was shocked by the powerful level of fire mana that Jason had created. They had planned for Jason to help everyone damage the bear with a few spells while Shawn covered it with roots. Shawn would stop trying to cover the bear with roots only when he had a small amount of mana left. Jason would then attack with a fire bolt spell and set the roots on fire. The fire bolt spell only contained some fire mana that could cause small burns to its target. The attack Jason unleashed was on a completely different level.

When Zane turned to look at Jason, he saw that he was passed out on the floor. Zane could only shake his head and continue watching the dire bear roar in agony. A few dozen seconds after it was attacked the dire bear collapsed. Shortly after Zane received a system message and felt a cool energy spread through his body. He had leveled up and made a full recovery. Turning to the group he saw smiles on everybody’s face and Jason sitting up with a groan.

“Morning Jason,” Zane said. “Mind explaining what just happened.”