Rushvatte spent the time waiting for the ship while messing around with a talent calculator through in-game addons. Apparently, from the bear path itself, the talent bonuses kind of split between being full bruiser with resistances and doing more ‘impact’. The latter simply means the power to plough through anything on its path. Similar to that of a boar, but a bit more on shock damage and brutality.

From what Rushvatte knew, shock damage itself is the kind of extra damage done when a powerful swing is being blocked or parried. This is usually the bread and butter for warriors especially the ones with blunt weapons such as maces which have the passive effect of dealing more shock damage.

He hated to admit that Mana might be right regarding the harmony effect of bear and panther form. Just like what she said regarding Nubram’s path choices earlier today. Perhaps the main choice they wanted was not the best for them.

However, Rushvatte didn’t know if he’s going to enjoy playing bear form. If he did enjoy it, he might go for harmony effect. Having shock damage on panther form is definitely useful rather than just plain damage.

Characters like rogues and phantera mystics are often attributed as experts in dealing with low armoured opponents. But, Rushvatte had a wish that he still could pummell highly armoured opponents.

“Hahahaha! I won again, buddy.”

“One more, one more!”

While Rushvatte was busy thinking and kinda bored, Zackhs and Macepaw were busy duelling. He didn’t bother to watch the two menaces duking it out on each other, but he kind of had a feeling that Zackhs won more despite Macepaw’s clear advantages over armoured opponents. Though it is hard to tell exactly how often Zackhs won since the handsome undead would still laugh whether he won or lost. Something is definitely wrong with the avenger’s brain.

“Whoa! The ship is here, buddy!”

Zackhs shouted during his duel against Macepaw. Rushvatte looked at the horizon and saw the flag of shield leaves. The best part was that there’s no orcish ship around.

“Alright, see ya guys later,” Rushvatte bid his farewell once the elven ship had arrived.

“Goodluck, buddy.”

“Happy care bear!”

The two bid their good will, though Macepaw’s one was rather questionable between goodwill and mockery, while still duelling. It was later until the ship had far sailed that Rushvatte just realised Macepaw still stranded on the Plague Continent.

But it was the shaman’s own problem now, not his.

Rushvatte arrived at the docks just north of Order Quarter. There he had to pass through the quarter and its great gate to go into the other parts of Elian.

The elven capital was kind of different compared to others since its city encompassed the region even outside the walls of Order Quarter. The true borders of the city are the surrounding thick forest, great rivers, sea, tall mountain, and the magical barrier creating some sort of dome that pushes hostile forces away. Thus Elian is everything within them including lakes, forests, and meadows in between.

As the name of the city parts suggested, Elian was divided into four quarters. Its main gate is named as Valor Quarter which was located far south. Most fighters and melee classes were trained there. Rushvatte remembered the place was akin to a defensive fort.

There’s an intersection just outside Order Quarter that points to each quarter. And Rushvatte always shuddered whenever he felt the aura emanating from the west or the Twilight Quarter. There was a strong aura of good warmths and devilish chill mixed at that place where warlocks and priests focused on their training.

Rushvatte wondered if other classes could feel such presence considering mystics have a sharper sense of these intents and auras thingy.

He turned right towards a place that emanated a soothing aura like those of a beautiful symphony. There lies the Essence Quarter where wizards, mystics, and hunters were trained. They represent the more nature loving side of the elves.

The quarter was basically an ancient forest. The trees were massive and akin to those banyan trees which were utilised by the elves in this place as buildings.

Rushvatte directed his mount towards one of the biggest tree buildings, then climbed the tree vines that functioned as roads toward the different locations of the tree building.

After climbing a bit far, Rushvatte entered a hole without doors. There was a rather big room and several NPCs inside. However, there were only two other players inside it.

Rushvatte walked into the big door across the entrance. There he was greeted by a male elf who had lush long dark hairs and beards, which made Rushvatte wonder how tedious it must be when this guy went to wash hair. Can he differ his hair and beard?

“Ah, the stars smile upon you, brother. What can this old bear do to help you?”

Two options appeared on Rushvatte view. The first one was, “Greetings, Brother. If you will, teach this humble self the way of the bear.” And the second one was, “The stars smile upon you, I’m here just to greet the old bear.”

Rushvatte felt it would be such a waste to not pick the second choice.

“Most wouldn’t know the value of such simple greetings. But, I shall not be one of those. Thank you, My Brother,” answered the bear form trainer. After that, he fell silent and Rushvatte needed to restart the dialogue process. This time, he chose the correct option.

“Of course, the only thing that an old bear can teach is the path of survival of the fittest,” said the tainer with a brimming smile. He then gave Rushvatte the mission to fight several bears which were roaming at the essence lake.

When he picked the cat form, Rushvatte had such a mission as well. The main point was still the same, he needed to beat the required animal using elven form. Since they were mystics, they needed to do this without killing the animal. Usually the beast would flee when their HP reached critical value.

Levels are rather pointless when doing this mission since the level of the beast around the lake will be altered based on the level of the attacking player. This caused elf mystics to have some dilemmas regarding when to pick their second form.

The longer they wait, the harder it gets. But getting it too early would also spell doom to them if the second form was not that suitable for them. Not to mention that deleting a chosen form would be a lengthy process that could take up to three or four weeks.

Rushvatte saw the bears roaming around the low cliffs on the northern side of the lake. However, just as he reached the area, he got a warning from a blue haired elven player named Sylon.

“Careful, I heard some high levelled player is roaming around this area looking for lower levelled players to attack,” said Sylon who also had dark blue glow on his eyes, “if you saw any of them, run.”

“You have a name?”

“Not sure, but I thought I saw an orc and human around the area of the bears that I fought just now. I quickly hid before doing the mission again. So, just be careful.”

“Okay, thanks.”

Rushvatte rarely meddled with players he barely knew, but at least Sylon looked wholesome enough. Also, listening to additional information was never bad.

Therefore, Rushvatte chose to use his tiger form and utilised [Prowl] to move around in stealth to approach one of the bears. Right before beginning a fight, he turned back to elven form.

The fight against those bears was not as difficult as what Rushvatte had expected. Their attacks were relatively weaker and easier to avoid compared to panthers. Though, the shock effect made it harder for Rushvatte to block the attack if he happened to be unable to dodge.

One thing that made it felt complicated to Rusvhatte was that the mission made him start to imagine he might like the bear form. Their brutality slowly grew on him. One bear even charged and slammed him into a tree. He even got inspired to think of a similar custom ability.

In short, bears were so cool, brutal, and savage. This kind of attitude definitely suited his tiger form. Damned be the teddy bear that fell on him years ago, yet fighting brutally like a bear was too awesome to pass.

After defeating seven bears, Rushvatte intended to take a break. Unfortunately, it was that time he heard some clanging noises of plate armour coming from behind.

When he turned his gaze to where the noise came, he saw a level 80 bald big orc that was running towards him. The orc brought a zweihander, had a somehow a metalhead feel to his appearance, and -the most menacing part- named Grok N00bSt0mper.

Rushvatte felt that there was no question needed to be asked to such a person with such a name and appearance. That Grok was surely the kind of Slicer.