After a night's rest which to tell the truth was not very pleasant, we begun to get ready for a second day of exterminating monsters of the forbidden forest.

With the eastern part of the forest mapped out, we decided to go South. We did not have to walk far in before we noticed what was in store for us. A snake which was approximately 10 feet in length and about as thick as a tree trunk slithered towards us and attacked. Soup was the first man in line as usual and his reaction was superb. He met the snake's wide open mouth with his sword and he used his “Power Strike” just before the instance of impact.

He sliced it cleanly with one shot.

“Niceeeee.”

“Holy shit bro.”

“OHYEAH LET'S KILL MORE OF THESE THINGS.”

Snakes were about the same levels as dire wolves but a trickier thing to deal with. Their scales were hard, smooth and tough. Physical attacks were not very effective unless you slice them while their mouths are open which was what Soup did with the very first snake. Counterattacks were the best way to put them down. However this required delicate timing and courage which looked like what Soup was good at. Magic resistance of the snakes seemed rather high and I could not deal much damage with my spells. I tried casting Rooted on the snakes as well but there was nothing like feet to grab on to and grabbing the entire tree trunk of the body drained my mana faster than I thought so I immediately ended the spell.

Looks like fighting with the katana is the best way for this.

We did our usual routine like that of the dire wolves. Xantos took Beathoven to map the surrounding areas while Breadtalk ran around luring snakes and bringing them all back to Soup and I for the clean up. However there was a flaw in the plan. When I used my earth walls to box them up, I realised the entrance while small enough only for about one big sized man, the snakes inside could still attack all at once since they could all stick their heads out at the same time. Advantages of not having a normal humanoid or beast like body I guess. Apparently Soup noticed this as well.

“JINXXXXX. BAD IDEAAAAA. BOX THEM UP LIKE A PRESENT QUICK OR WE ARE GONNA DIE!”

I was on it before he even started on the third sentence. Now we had a problem. How were we going to clear up the 10 snakes inside the enclosure?

As usual Breadtalk had other ideas. He climbed a tree and jumped into the pit.

“YOLO!”

“WHAT?!”

I immediately removed the wall and saw 10 snakes rearing up getting to strike Breadtalk all at the same time. Apparently his luck stat never ceases to amaze me. As all of the snakes striked at the same time, they all aimed for the same part and crashed into each other just 1 feet before being able to touch Breadtalk.

Soup took this chance to quickly bring down one of them by casting a power strike onto the head of the snake and I used gravity crush as well. I realised that wind mana could be wrapped around to enhance the sharpness of the sword so I used wind for this fight. Breadtalk took out his knives and started stabbing another one in the eyes. Their HP all went down considerably and we had enough time to kill all 3 of them before the other snakes managed to recover and regroup. Beathoven came back in the midst of this and started playing songs that would slow the movement speed of the snakes while Xantos took to the skies and started pelting spells or swooping in to claw their eyes out. I transformed the piece of land into a frozen landscape, thinking that snakes would be bad at fighting on ice and I was right.

The snakes were basically conducting a musical. They could not control their slithering and they looked like they just had a hell of a night partying and drinking. One of the snakes tried a desperate lunge at me and shot off in an entirely different direction into the wall.

I thought the fight was won when I realised we didn't have experience fighting on ice as well. Breadtalk was slipping and sliding like the snakes and it looked like he was thoroughly enjoying himself. Soup was decked in heavy armour from head to toe so he had abit more weight to be stable but when he tried to attack, he fell face first into the snake which still wasn't able to counterattack. Before I could do something stupid I thought of what would be the smartest thing to do now and I added made spikes of earth sprout out from beneath my shoes. I tried running towards the snakes. Sure it felt weird like my every step was stuck to the ground and I had to use a bit of strength to pull it out and take another step but it worked.

I added the spikes to Breadtalk and Soup's shoes as well and we cleaned up the defenceless snakes in no time.

“That was ingenious Jinx.”

“That was so funnnnnn”

“You are a crazy bastard.”

And so we used this technique to hunt the snakes for the entire day, venturing deeper into the forest.

The deeper we went into the eastern side, the stronger the dire wolves became and it was no different here. With one exception.

While we were venturing in deeper, a different type of snake could be seen. A cobra. It had elongated parts near their necks which looked like hoods and they were significantly about 10 levels ahead of their other counterparts. We thought they were free levels as the snakes could literally do nothing on ice but I was wrong. Cobras had the ability to shoot out their venom and when we realised this for the first time, the cobra had shot its venom at Breadtalk and due to his insane luck, the venom missed slightly and it landed on Soup in a clear headshot instead.

“ARGHHHHHH. OWWWWWWW. IT'S LIKE HOT SOUP ALL OVER MY FACE.”

“Nice pun I approve.”

“SHUT UP AND HELPP I'M GONNA DIE ITS ACTUALLY QUITE BAD.”

Poison was extremely effective in RR. It took away just a bit of health per second but it acts as a percentage decrease so it was actually very effective against classes with high health such as gladiators. The poison from the cobra took about 1% of health from him every 10 seconds so in about 1000 seconds if we did not get this treated, he would probably die. Poison did not just wear off after a while in this game as well so we needed a solution. I promptly finished off all the snakes first, using wind and gravity crush and even Rooted the Cobra which took about 200 mana per second just for one bloody snake to prevent any further casualties from venom spray while I finished it off.

I rushed to Soup and found out that Xantos was already on it. I saw light mana surround Soup and he was cured of his status. I asked Xantos if she could teach me the skill and she agreed.

New Skill : Dispel

You have learnt how to dispel negative status from Xantos. It needs light mana but it only has a certain success rate. Success rate will increase at higher skill levels and different status would have different success rates. Poison and Blindness are the easiest to cure but rarer statuses will be harder.

Mana cost : 100 mana

The mana cost wasn't high so I was quite pleased with the skill. Just because I could manipulate mana doesn't mean I know all the spells already. For now I could fight my manipulating and materializing the elements like creating a floor of ice, columns of fire, wrapping wind around my sword to make it sharper and basic level skills like fireball and lightning strike. However I still could not use spells like Frostmourne which was a spell that could coat my sword in cursed ice that would slow the enemy and impair their health regeneration as well. I know about the skill but I still had to learn it first before I could use it. I tried wrapping my sword with ice and dark mana but it just doesn't work that way.

Figures if not this class would immediately know every spell in the game and even that was too OP.

Cobra's were tough to deal with because of the venom spray but because of the ice we were constantly fighting on, their aim wasn't too accurate and since Xantos and I had the dispel skill, we need not worry at all. Without Xantos however it would have been a different story so I was quite happy. They gave better drops and experience as well so we were progressing at a faster rate. Last but not least, when we reached the edge of the Southern forest, a surprise was waiting for us. Compared to the eastern side which just had dire wolves of increasing levels, the southern side had a bit more variety. There were snakes, cobras and finally, a king cobra. King cobras were a miniboss class monster which meant that there woud only be one that spawned within the area which gave higher rewards and experience but it was not a true boss monster so it wouldn't be extremely good rewards but still it was our first time seeing a miniboss.

The King cobra was easily longer than 20 foot, had a body circumference of almost 3 tree trunks instead of 1 and the head the size of Xantos due to its huge hood. It was huge. Soup looked excited as hell and Breadtalk's eyes were shining like jewels. He must have been thinking how best to make fun of such a monster. Xantos was just like meh whereas Beathoven was just staying behind making sure our buffs were applied and quickly turned himself invisible. I had to engage the fight as usual.

I wrapped the floor in ice but this time it was to no avail. The sheer size and weight of the king cobra made the ice crack beneath it so it's movements were unhindered. I contemplated using gravity to make it lighter so that it could slip on the ice but the thought of making something that big and heavy lighter was ill considered as it would require about 5 times my current mana pool before I could do something like that. I had to think of another way to fight this beast. Before I could think of something though, the king cobra retracted its hood and looked slightly upwards. This was an animation signalling that it was about to use venom spray. We braced ourselves but what came out was not a thin jet of venom like the usual cobras. It was a river of venom of an entirely different magnitude. All of us lest Xantos who was in the air got drenched in it and the venom was of a different class as well. It dropped our HP by1% per second so we had only 100 seconds. I quickly used dispel on us with Xantos and it even took a few additional tries.

The quality of the venom must also affect the chances of success of Dispel..

Breadtalk and Soup went to flank the King cobra and Soup just went full man mode to show his balls of steel. He used berserker's call. Apparently this worked on minibosses as well and the king cobra turned its full attention on Soup. It used the tail and jaws to lash out at Soup who could only defend and not even counterattack while Breadtalk took the chance to climb a tree near the head of the king cobra.

He then proceeded to use his knives to attack the hood of the cobra. When the berserker's call duration went off, the cobra proceeded to use another venom spray and this time, when he retracted the hood, all of us hid behind trees for cover and when he released the spray, the hood flapped back open and on the hood, there were words carved on them.

“I came...”

“When I was busy aggro-ing it for 10 seconds all you could do was go up it and instead of poking its eyeball out or something.... YOU WENT TO WRITE I CAME ON ITS HOOD?!”

“But it's practically begging me to do that look! Its about to come again!”

*Pshhhhhhhhhh*

The sound effect of the venom didnt seem to help and Beathoven was the only one enjoying it as he need not be directly involved in this fight, laughing and playing his songs behind a tree.

My options were rather limited even though I had a full mana pool. I considered making a swamp out of water and earth but I had a strong feeling snakes were amphibious and mud wouldn't hinder it as much as us. It should have high magic resistance too so I wouldn't be able to inflict loads of damage with divine judgement like i did on the werewolf last night. We had to take it down slowly but surely then.

I used divine judgement on a smaller scale just to focus on the eyes of the king cobra and Xantos used to same approach. We tried to take the away it's sense of sight. Breadtalk just went to slash at the cobra's body, hoping that the venom inside his twin daggers were potent enough to cause damage to a venemous creature itself. Soup had no choice but to try and harm it with his greatsword but it wasn't very effective. The head was too high above the ground for us to do any substantial damage and unless we could bring the head down, this would be an endless fight just tiring us out. Then I realised. I could do something to bring the head down.

“Guys! The head is coming down so get ready to inflict massive damage on the head!!”

“What?”

I used gravity mana on just the head of the snake which didn't require too much mana. It worked well. Just like I put on Elena's boots for the first time, the head of the snake didn't just slowly go down, the head basically just dropped down like a sack of potatoes and onto the ground.

I used gravity crush onto the eyes of the cobra and it worked. The eyes were ruptured and bloodied. Soup went to use power strike on the base of the neck where it seemed like it would do the most damage. Breadtalk went into the mouth and stab his daggers into the tongue of the king cobra.

“WHAT? THIS ISN'T PINNOCHIO THIS ISN'T A WHALE YOU DUMBASS! GET OUT!!!”

Breadtalk managed to jump out of there while the snake was thrashing around in pain from all the damage it just received. Before this we only managed to take down about 5% of health but now it was already at about half health left. Especially after Breadtalk's ballsy move, it took out a huge chunk of health off the miniboss. It was also poisoned from the daggers still lodged inside it's tongue. Loki must have put some serious venom in there which could even affect a king cobra. I checked my mana and decided to use all of it to keep it's head down for about 1 more minute. We hacked and slashed at the base of the neck together and since the head was the origin of attacks for the snake, it could not do anything but try to whip at us with it's tail. Since we knew where the attacks could come from, it was fairly easy and even before all my mana was drained, the king cobra died.

We defeated our first miniboss. The rewards were substantial. All of us gained at least one level and there were also some decent drops. My katana mastery and Soup's greatsword mastery was stuck at beginner level 9 (99%) for awhile already and this mob pushed our masteries both to the intermediate level. There was a pendant which was the fang of the king cobra attached to a silver chain which increased poison resistance and luck. There was also armour made from the scales of the king cobra which was classified as leather armour and gave significant increase to defence, magic resistance, poison resistance and added some dexterity. Breadtalk received the pendant and I got the leather armour as we were the ones who would benefit the most from it. Breadtalk then went to retrieve his daggers from the boss as we decided to skin the king cobra in order to use it's leather to craft more items in town at a later date.

Equipped : King Cobra's Chestpiece

A piece of armour made from King Cobra's scales. Extremely smooth and glossy with a fair bit of magical and physical protection.

Level requirement : 55

Defence +50

Magic Resistance +5%

Poison Resistance +30%

Dexterity + 20

We finished mapping the Southern area as well already and proceeded back to town as it was late. We were left with the Western and Northern areas and the north was where the castle was. I had a moment to think.

There's a dark force in the castle that Valhalla wants us to exterminate. There are most probably werewolves inside as they don't exist in this region but we saw one in the village yesterday. Treants should also be on their side as they stole the tiara for them. Inside the castle there should be a boss as someone should be commanding the forces. We only know these so far...

Oh well I can think of worst and more impossible quests. We each took different shifts to look after the tiara as we passed the night, looking forward to tomorrow to map the western side before deciding on how to tackle the north.

“Open stats and skill windows.”

Stat Window[quart=Character name,Alignment]Jinx,Neutral[/quart][quart=Level,Class]58,Elemental Swordsman[/quart][quart=Title,Race]N/A,Human[/quart][quart=Fame,Infamy]10,0[/quart][quart=Health,Mana]1400,3000[/quart][quart=Strength,Dexterity]75,85[/quart][quart=Wisdom,Intellect]30,200[/quart][quart=Vitality,Affinity to Nature]60,13%[/quart][quart=Leadership,Luck]0,0[/quart][quart=Perseverance,Sustenance]50,50[/quart][quart=Attack,Defense]100,69[/quart][quart=Fighting Spirit,Magic Resistance]100,5%[/quart]Elemental AffinitiesFire +5% Ice +5% Water +5% Wind +5% Lightning +5% Earth+5% Gravity+5% Light +5% Dark +5Class Bonuses

Ability to wield any swords and use up to leather armour

+500 Health

+1000 Mana

Able to use magic and swordplay simultaneously

No miscast penalty due to spell failure due to absence of magic circles

Member of both the Intelligence and Warrior Guilds

Fast Reader | Intermediate level 2 (33%). Finishes books 42% faster.Mana Manipulation | Beginner level 9 (37%). Affinity to Nature +13%.Flare | Beginner level 1 (5%). Summons a small source of light.Katana Mastery | Intermediate level 1 (10%). Increases attack power with a katana +100% and attack speed +30%.Gravity Crush | Beginner level 4 (40%). Weapon Atk +560% (Dependent on Gravity Affinity)Wind Steps | Beginner level 6 (40%). Increases movement speed +26% (Dependent on Wind Affinity)Electrical Impulse | Beginner level 6 (40%). Increases reaction time by 0.1s (Dependent on Lightning Affinity)Adrenaline Rush | Beginner level 1 (5%). Increases time perception by 5% when HP is below 10%.Cooking | Beginner level 6 (70%). Enables you to prepare meals.Rooted | Beginner level 3 (5%). Immobilises enemy by restraining their movement. (Dependent on element's affinity).Dispel | Beginner level 3 (40%). Has a chance to heal status effects.

I could only hope that this was for now enough for what was to come in the future.

End of Chapter 9