Author’s corner: HELLO HELLO! Second to last chapter from this arc!

ALSO, here I show how scary our favorite fox actually is! She isn’t just a helpless young maiden!

ALSO(2), i literally, just made an excel table (with the help of my father) so i can calculate the stats of the character. No, i'm not joking!

ALSO(3), I'll try to post the sidestory later today

Have a good read!

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Hello guys, and welcome to our new episode of Crystal science, with your host, Gondorrer, the golem, helped by my pretty and naïve assistant, Cygnas, the goddess! Today, we are going to analyze a certain combination of element crystals, but first… Cygnas, could you give us an brief explanation on how Crystal combination works?

Hello, Gon, and yes, Just let me… Wait, did you just call me Naïve?

Huh? I have no idea on what you are talking about!

Really…? *sigh* Okay then. You see, Gon, to activate a crystal, you need to have a certain combination of, purity, mass and energy. This means that, for every purity of crystals you wish to activate, it MUST be on a certain weight and it MUST need a certain amount of energy for it works. Although there is some small leeway for error here, as long as these parameters are met, any kind of combination works.

I see, so, this means that, for minor crystals, I can’t activate anything with more or less mass than a simple minor crystal?

Yes! It seems that you got it!

Then, Cyg, tell us, why breaking a Crystal increases the ball, but reduces the damage dealt.

This might be a little more complicated, you see? The volume and the purity of the crystal determine the amount of element within it. But these elements, need to escape from the crystal somehow, and for this, they pass through its surface. What this means is, the more surface area there is available, the less compressed the element is.

Hmmm… This seems fairly complicated, could you give us a better example?

Sure, think of the mass and the purity as running water. The more there is, the more water you get. And think of the crystal as a hose. The more you break it, the more surface area you get, which means the wider the hose’s end gets. What hurts more? Getting hit by a small hose that have lots of pressure, or a large one that sends a thick, but slow stream of water?

I see, I think I understand. Now, for the last question of the day. What are your three sizes?

They are… Hey! What kind of question is that?

Oops, sorry, wrong card… Didn’t hurt to try though…

I HEARD THAT!

Whatever… Here is the right one. What happens if we pick, an eight of fire, an eight of chaos, and six eight of light, grind it to almost a dust, and activate it all at once?

…You really don’t deserve this answer… But the readers deserve some explanation…

Please, no breaking the fourth wall… The author said it’s really expensive to keep repairing it…

Okay, okay. *sigh* Fire means power, expansion. Chaos means… well, chaos… Lack of uniformity if you will. Light… Well, light… not much to discuss here. If you combine the two first, you get something akin to an explosion, although the chaos gives it the quirk of generating smaller explosions apart from the main one. The light takes the place of the main element, due to it being the main mass of the compound. Grinding them to dust, makes so there is a whole lot of elements in this, but no damage whatsoever, which means… a Flash (cluster) bomb!

Yup. Thank for your help, Cyg.

You are welcome, Gon… But I’m still mad at you trying to trick me…

Not my problem, this isn’t in the continuity anyway! With this we bring an end to the Crystal science show. And now, back to your usual story! Gon out!

…

..

.

I have this strange feeling that the weirdest thing just happened and I wasn’t there to see it… I hate when this happens.

Anyway, although I had my eyes closed, I could still see the large flash of light from the flash bomb going out, and heard the lynxes meowing in pain and surprise as the light blinded the three of them. As soon as the main flash was gone, I opened my eyes and approached Rip, the closest of the lynx.

The three of them were affected by the blinded debuff. Making them unable to target their attacks through sight for thirty seconds, a lot more time than what I was expecting, to tell the truth.

Anyway, I grabbed my sword backwards, and activated stab from above him, piercing his back, then I slashed towards my back, throwing the cat to outside of the cave. As soon as he left it, seven ice lances pierced him.

-21 -18 (461/500)

-18 -18 -17 -17 -18 -16 -17

Combo!(x1.1)

-133 (328/500)

My attacks seemed to alert the other two lynxes, as both turned straight to me and jumped in my direction, but I quickly jumped back, making Slash and Maim hit each other head on.

-20 (480/500)

-22 (478/500)

After that, the two of them started to hit each other in confusion, thinking that it was me, so I ignored them and went to the lynx outside of the cave. I got there just in time to notice him standing up, so I ran towards him before he could recover and used slam on the cat, throwing him towards Yuu, who used her frost emission to lock the cat inside three ice walls.

I could notice that the cat was slowly regaining his vision due to the damage, so I kicked him into the wall and kept using some normal cuts to deal damage, waiting for my energy to recover.

-25 -3 -13 -14- 13- 15

Combo(x1.1)

-91 (237/500)

You guys probably understood the gist of our strategy by now. Basically, I use my flash bomb on the trio at the beginning, and leave two of them blind for a few seconds. Afterwards, me and Yuu throw everything we have on the third one to take him out of the equation, afterwards, we just need to freeze one of the remaining and take our time killing the other.

A fairly simple strategy, I know, but we don’t really need anything too monstrous to beat this guys. Sometimes, simple is better.

The cat broke out from my combo with a quick jump backwards, landing on the back wall, and then jumping in my direction. I was taken by surprise because of his sudden movements, but barely managed to put my shield in front of me and block his advance.

The little bugger still managed to grapple the border of my shield and claw my face from above it.

-25 (245/270)

God dammit, that hurts!

I bash him with my shield, throwing him back to his place between the walls and take a quick glance at my energy. 65 points. I take one step forward and raise my sword, giving the bar enough time to reach 72, then activate slice ‘n dice. My sword starts to swing wildly between the walls, with its tip barely managing to fit in the space, scrapping the ice.

But just as I have barely enough space for my swings, the cat have no place to run away, so he had to take the full seven seconds of the attack.

-8(x14)

-112 (125/500)

The cat, having only a quarter of his health left, look at me with fury in his eyes, and prepare to jump at me, but.

“Shishou!”

Yuu’s shout came from above, and I look up just in time to see the kitsune jumping the wall with one hand while holding a spear with an ice edge on the other.

Wait, spear?

When I focus on the weapon in her hands, I notice that it’s actually her usual ice staff, but the tip had a piece ice in the shape of an arrow.

She throws her staff towards the feline, impaling him on the ground, then just as she falls down, she grabs her weapon again and she spins around, dragging the cat on the ice walls and only letting the cat slide of her make-shift spear as he goes towards the opening. I stand aside to let the cat go through and he slams on a nearby tree, only to be impaled once again by the spear that Yuu threw.

-16 -3(x4) -5 -32(Brutal)

Combo(x1.1)

-71(54/500)

Yuu passes by me in a blur as she runs towards the staff. It fell to the ground after some time without contact with its owner, losing the ice edge. I leave her to finish Rip and look back to the other two cats in the cave.

And just in time, because they had just recovered from the blinded status, and both were looking at me with pure hate in their eyes. Each one had taken around one third of their life in damage on the misunderstanding. Just let me tell you, that this wasn’t what I had planned. I sincerely thought that it would only end up with blinded and then leave us alone for a moment, the fact they tore each other apart was only a really nice bonus.

As I start to prepare myself for their attack, both of them make a low hiss, getting me by surprise as they weren’t below half health, and then the two disappears at the same time.

I instinctively turn backwards while bashing my shield towards their appearance point, but…

There is nothing there!

Just as I start to get confused, I see with the corner of my eyes the two of them appearing at my sides and jumping at me. I did not have time to dodge nor block the attack, so they manage to grab a hold of me and sunk their fangs onto my scale-mail.

-25 (220/270)

-25 (195/270)

I screamed loudly, as the pain reaches my brain, but still barely manage to elbow the two of them out of my scale mail.

-3 (372/500)

-3 (351/500)

They fall nimbly on the ground and jump away at the same time, takin their distance. This is bad. They have coordinated attacks, I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to hold myself much longer against them… I look at Yuu just in time to see her finishing Rip, and she looks back at me in worry.

I give her a quick nod to tell her that I am ok and turn my attention back to the cats, just to see them reading themselves for another attack. A quick look at my energy and I notice that I only have enough for one attack.

The two of them start running towards me at the same time, and just as they were about to reach my shield, each one jump towards one direction. I turn towards the one on my left and take a step forward just in time as he jumped back towards me. I activate nature’s bastion and shield slam at the same time, dealing a counter.

-29 (322/500)

Followed by that, rather than saying that I saw the attack coming, I felt it, so I threw myself on the ground, rolling just in time to see the other lynx flying above me and hitting it’s partner in the tree.

-23 (299/500)

As he fell back to the ground, confused, I used my shield hand to grab his tail and throw him away towards Yuu. Although the cat managed to avoid the damage by falling on his feet, he immediately had them frozen solid on the ground by the kitsune’s ice magic.

Meanwhile, the other cat that had been slammed was starting to get up once again, so I punted him towards a tree and held him in place with my boot.

As soon as my energy is back in full and shield slam was out of cool down, I move my boot from it’s head towards his stomach, and throw him upwards with it. Using the combo I had accidentally discovered while saving the trio earlier, I stab the cat, leaving my sword impaling him in the tree, then shield slammed the blade in his chest before slashing him twice, once upwards and once downwards.

-22 -50 (Brutal) -17 -17

Combo (x1.2)

-127 (172/500)

Just as he hit the ground, I noticed Yuu looking in my direction with three ice lances floating around her, she gave me a quick node and I took a step backwards, giving her space to launch the attack.

-18 -16 -17

Combo (x1.1)

-56 (116/500)

After that, the battle went relatively easy. While it’s true that these lynxes are stronger than usual, but their main strength comes from their coordinated attacks, and right from the start, me and Yuu managed to take away this advantage by singling them out.

But if I had to say whether this fight was difficult or not, I would say that it is. Unless you came here with a really good plan before starting the fight, or come with a well-coordinated group that is already used to hunting lynxes, you would end up having problems with fighting these three.

After the end, for some reason Yuu was strangely fidgety, avoiding eye contact with me. I looked at her inquisitively and she turned her head away while one of her ears twitched, she was clearly hiding something from me. I slowly approached her and put on my best angry face.

“Yuu…” I only needed to say that with a deep tone and she was immediately bowing her head to me.

“Forgive me, Shishou! I… You… I… I could not manage well my mana… And it is only around a quarter now… I did not mean to disrespect your teachings… But…”

Geez… So that was it? I was sure it would be something a lot more troublesome than that! I gave her a wry smile while petting her head, making her stiffen in surprise for a moment before dropping her ears in bliss.

“I told you that there wouldn’t be any problem if you used it under dire circumstances… Right? So there isn’t anything wrong to spend more mana with stronger opponents like these.” She looked at me surprised for a moment, then nodded meakly.

Afterwards, I started to think on what to do with the lynxes. To tell the truth, I wanted to skin all of them, since they looked stronger than usual, and would probably make better equipment out of them. But then there would be nothing left for Yuu, even though she fought so valiantly back there.

To tell the truth, after seeing what she did with the make-shift lance, right now I’m starting to doubt why she chose to start with mage’s equipment.

Oh well, it’s not right to meddle too much on other’s life

“Shishou… I want to let you take these lynxes’ hides…” She said suddenly. I looked at her in surprise, and she looked downwards slightly ashamed. “You see, Shishou… You helped me so much during this time, teaching me about the game, giving me these equipment… Yet I have nothing I could do to repay you. So, for now I want you to have these lynxes. I am sure that whichever items you could get from them is far better than those of the normal ones… So…”

I looked surprised at her. For me, bringing her along wasn’t anything great. In fact, she actually helped me a lot while hunting these lynxes. But my greedy side started to take over, so I ended up accepting her offer.

“Alright, but I wouldn’t feel good if I were to only take these things, so let’s make a deal.” She looked surprised at me. “For now, I can’t really do much when it comes to crafting, but as soon as I’m sure that I can do something decent, I’ll have you take one of the items I make, ok?” She widened her eyes for a moment, then she nodded.

Then came the aftermath. I went to the cave and mined the red-glowing ore from the walls. There wasn’t anything I could say about these, as there was no description and its name was literally, mysterious red ore.

After that I gathered the three lynxes on one place and started skinning them with all the care in the world. Meanwhile, Yuu sat besides me and started to check her status.

“Hmm… It seems that I leveled up and earned spear mastery, Shishou…” She said after a moment, surprising me for a moment before I laughed for a moment, it makes sense, I guess. “And I also got Enhance: ice for mage’s staff mastery…” Wait, what? That whole makeshift spear thing, is actually a skill? After that she started to fiddle around with the derivation point she got, looking around on something that caught her interest… And…

Sub-skill: Frost emission: Weaponized [lvl6] (New skill)

(requires Enhance: Ice)

(levels increase with ice mastery)Creates a weapon made of ice for you to wield. Damage and mana consumption depends on the weapon.Cost: varies

Yep… I fear I may have just created a monster…

Finally, I got all the lynxes stripped bare, and the time it took for me to finish this, the three bastards had respawned at the cave. Yuu’s face when she saw the three of them there while I was still skinning them was priceless. I had to explain her the concept of respawn and such.

After that I finally started to check around on my notification boxes. As usual there was the level up box, all points to vitality, of course, and a few skill boxes.

By continuously making use of your body to damage your enemies, you have earned the skill: Martial artsSkill: Martial arts [lvl 1]

4%Increases damage dealt without use of weapons

Bonus DMG: 10%Passive

By unlocking the martial arts skills and making continuous use of your legs to attack, you have learned the sub-skill: KickSub-Skill: Kick [lvl 1]

(levels increase with Martial arts)Increases the knockback of your kicks

Knockback distance bonus: up to 10%Passive

By continuously repeating a movement, and proving it’s use on combat, you have learned the original skill: RollOriginal Skill: Roll [lvl 1]

1%Roll on the ground, dodging your enemies attack. Dodging on the last moment gives you an opening chance, increasing the damage of your next attack by 30% for two seconds. You can activate roll from any position.Cost: 10 energy

…

..

.

“OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” I shouted excitedly, surprising Yuu who jumped in surprise.

FINALLY! I EARNED ROLL! OOH YEAH! TAKE THAT!

“Original skill~! Original skill~! Ori, ori, Ori-gi-nal!” I started to sing and dance idiotically, making Yuu even more worried.

And that wasn’t the last window.

Congratulations, you have just created a brand new item.Lesser Flash bomb (cluster modifier)A elemental crystal bomb that emits a strong light, blinding the enemies. Followed by smaller explosions that don’t do anything

Blinded: 30-60 seconds.

By creating a new item that uses mainly elemental Crystals, you have learned the crafting skill: Crystal tinkerer.Skill: Crystal tinkerer [lvl 1]

22%Allows you to create items that use elemental crystals. combinations must be discovered on your own or through recipes. Discovered recipes can be left to the system to re-create.

Allows you to break and recombine the crystals of the same elements through the system.

You have received the modifier: Delayed activation. Can be applied to any Crystal creation.Passive

And now is where I go crazy!

After some minutes commemorating like a mad man, and making Yuu doubt my sanity, something I’m really surprised she hadn’t done up to now, we finally went back our way to the village.

On the way, Yuu asked me to wait while she tried her new skills on the lynx.

She applied Enhance: Ice on her weapon and used frost emission: Weaponized to summon another spear on the other hand.

Yep, she was dual wielding spears… That is NOT something that should be able to happen on this game, after all, a spear occupies two weapons slots. The maximum you could do was to equip a shield on your offhand or some daggers as auxiliary weapons, but since her frost spear is a skill…

Well, I saw a slaughter as she minced the cat with her two spears at the same time… She kept spinning them nonstop and the cat barely had any chance to attack back.

Must never make her my enemy…

I might know more about gaming than her, but when it comes to straight up fighting… She is far better than me.

When she came back, she had a slight frown on her face.

“Muu… Using the two of them at the same time spends too much mana…”

“But the damage seems to be really good…” She nodded to my words. “Then, you could do something like this… Use them when you have lots of mana, then go back to your ice lances when you are low and wait for it to regenerate.” She looked at me like I was the most intelligent man on the face of the earth, not that it’s too far from the truth.

We left the forest in time and saw the village ahead of us. We sped up slightly and soon arrived at it’s streets. As it was still in the middle of the night, there weren’t many NPCs on the street, and seeing as we would have to wait for the day to dawn, we went around looking for Yuu’s friend.

What actually happened, was that she found us, and by us, I mean Yuu, as suddenly came a girl that looked no older than twelve and jumped at the kitsune, hugging her.

“Yuu-chan! I was so worried! I heard there was this really mean and strong guy on the forest you were hunting! Something the brutal! I was so sure he had killed you!”

The little girl was hugging Yuu with all her strength while rubbing her eyes full of tears on her chest. Yuu seemed at loss on what to do and started petting her friend’s head and for some reason she looked at me wryly.

Only after a while she finally came down and cleaned the tears from her face.

This girl was a silver-haired cat-girl, with the top of her head reaching my chest. She had her hair cut short and tied in a twin-tail fashion. She wore the initial leather armor and had a sword hanging on her waist. She looked suspiciously similar to an anime character I knew… But, it couldn’t be… Right?

Only after some time she noticed my existence and looked surprised for a moment, then she shook her head in some kind of “It can’t be” manner while shrugging.

“Mnn… I am Tatenaka Hanbei! Or Han-chan, thanks for taking care of Yuu for me!” IT IS! IT REALLY IS! She really copied the appearance of the character from that anime!

“Geez, no need for that… She actually helped me a lot…” I said while wryly while scratching my head. “The name is Gondorrer Lynxban…” Whoops… “Gravelheart, Gondorrer gravelheart. You can call me Wargon.” She looked suspiciously at me for a moment when I almost messed my surname, but wasn’t too bothered by it. “Anyway, it seems that it’s about time for me to leave her back in your care, as you will probably want some help to level up…”

“But aren’t you level one yourself? Why don’t you come with us?” She asked after seeing my equipment, but I shook my head.

“No, I’m actually am level seven, almost eight. I just need to deliver a quest before leveling, then I plan to go to the capital to learn crafting…”

“Heeh! So you are going for crafting?” She asked with curiosity, I shook my head.

“Nope! I’m going for Monster Hunter!” I said as I filled my chest with pride. Yuu looked at me with curiosity, as it was probably the first time she heard that, but Han-chan eyes shone immediately. It seemed that she knew the game.

“No way! Are you… Is that serious?” I nodded happily and she looked at me with admiration. “You are amazing!” I smiled smugly.

“Anyway… How did you know it was her? Did she tell you her nickname?” I asked curious, but she widened her eyes for a moment and then she grinned smugly.

“What…. Did you really think that this girl, who never played a game before, would be able to create an original character all alone?”

I looked confused at her for a moment as the information slowly seeped in my mind, then I looked back to Yuu and stared at her for a moment… Does she means that…

“Yuu looks just like that in real life?” I asked surprised. I was eighty percent sure that she had edited her character, but now that she mentioned it… Truly. Yuu had just created this character…

Then isn’t she quite the looker in real life?

“What is the matter?” She asked confused, not understanding what was happening. Han-chan turned to her with an impish smile and started.

“You see, Yuu-chan… Wargon-san is actually really smitten with how yo…”

“MY APPRENTICE!” She was about to say something embarrassing, so I interrupted her by going back to my grave voice. Yuu’s reaction was just what I expected, stiffening up.

“Yes, Shishou!”

“Eh? Shishou? What do you mean?” The cat-girl was completely surprised with Yuu’s reaction.

“It seems that your friend here wants to level up quickly, so why don’t you take her to hunt lynxes like what we were doing?” Her eyes shone up as she understood my idea, then she nodded vigorously.

I am an evil person. My revenge is fast and swift!

“Leave it to me, Shishou!” She said that and grabbed Han-chan’s hand before starting to dash off. I stopped her at the last moment when something came to my mind.

I sent her a friend invite before she darted off. She looked at me surprised for a moment, then smiled brightly before accepting. I approached her and gently patted her head once more, seeing as I wouldn’t be able to do that anytime soon.

“Take care, apprentice.”

“Hmm… I will, shishou!”

Meanwhile her friend was looking at us with shock in her eyes, as if she was seeing something unbelievable. Then I finally sent the kitsune off, who dragged the helpless cat girl that was completely lost in this situation.

After she was some distance away, I finally logged off to get something to eat, as I would have to wait for the morning