Now that Warren and Kelly had proven to Jameson that they could handle themselves in a fight we all partied up and continued on towards the field where the two fully-grown Terror Birds were waiting for us. It wasn’t long before we found the next group of Terror Chicks and with a nod Tylie activated some sort of stealth Skill and completely disappeared while Jameson signalled us to stop while Tylie scouted out the area.

Not long after this Jameson nodded and started moving forwards drawing his axe as he did so.

“According to Tylie that’s the only group in the area,” Jameson whispered. “She’s waiting nearby so let’s go and get this group while she keeps watch.”

I raised an eyebrow at this. Apparently, Jameson and Tylie had some sort of private messaging system set up which made sense and I decided to ask about it as soon as we took out this group of Terror Chicks.

This group of Terror Chicks had five members which was larger than most of the ones that I had seen since the first day. The groups strongest member was only Level 4 so I wasn’t too worried about this fight and looking around at my friends I could see that they weren’t either.

Taking a deep breath to ready myself as Jameson and Warren stepped out and raised their shields before charging towards the group with a loud shout that immediately caught the attention of the sleepy looking monsters. Once we were sure that our two tanks had the complete attention of the birds Fern and I stepped out from the behind the rock we had been using as cover and charged towards them while the ranged attackers started firing their various projectiles at the charging birds.

By the time I was in range to use my Jolt spell the first of the birds had already fallen to a combination of ranged attacks and Jameson’s axe. So instead I targeted the Terror Chick that Warren was focussing on and sent the small bolt of electricity into its body just in time for Warren to smash the things skull with his sceptre.

This fight was unsurprisingly one of the easiest one yet since we had three party members who were significantly stronger than the Terror Chicks or even any of us. In fact, every time Jameson swung his axe one of the Terror Chicks died. In fact, Jameson only attacked a couple of times when it looked like one of the other melee fighters was struggling which told me that he wanted us to get used to fighting these weaker Terror Chicks before we started fighting the stronger ones.

Tylie on the other hand kept mostly at a distance while she threw a strange ring-shaped weapon that I vaguely recognised as a chakram at enemies which returned to her hand after hitting one or more of the Terror Chicks that we were fighting. In between attacks she kept moving around the area, often disappearing entirely for a few seconds as she used her stealth Skills. This was because her main role at the moment was making sure that we weren’t interrupted by another group of Terror Chicks and was obviously something that she was taking seriously.

The other guard, Yarrol was being far less useful, in fact he barely even did anything which was a fact that I could tell didn’t go unnoticed by anyone. Least of all Jameson who was looking more and more irritated as the fight wore on.

Once we finished off the last of the Terror Chicks Warren, Jameson and I quickly looted the bodies as the others approached. Jameson turned to glare at Yarrol angrily making the skinny man shift uncomfortably.

“Would you care to explain why you barely helped out in that fight?” Jameson asked in a deceptively calm tone of voice.

“With all due respect Sergeant, I am a healer,” Yarrol began to explain but Jameson gestured angrily for him to stop before he could continue.

“And so is young Evie,” Jameson told his subordinate. “That didn’t stop her from attacking when she saw that we didn’t need healing so why didn’t you do the same?”

“I decided that the chances of accidentally hitting one of you was too great,” Yarrol sniffed. “Besides I knew you could handle things without me.”

“That’s not the point Yarrol!” Jameson snapped. “You complained about bringing Zeke and the others along, but they were much more useful than you were despite their lower Levels and Stats as well as their lack of Skills compared to a trained guard like you!”

Yarrol’s eyes widened as he hung his head in embarrassment, even after everything that he had said about not needing us and he had contributed less to this fight than anyone else.

“If you don’t pull your weight in the next fight, I’m sending you back to town,” Jameson told the man. “This is too important for us to be dragging dead weight around.”

“Yes sir,” Yarrol replied quietly.

While this was going on, I noticed that Warren and Kelly had been playing around with notifications that only they were able to see and wandered over to ask what Skills they had now since they had obviously Levelled Up all of their Soul Cores.

“Oh, hey Zeke how are things over there?” Kelly asked. “It looked like they were getting into it.”

“Yeah, Jameson’s really not happy with Yarrol,” I sighed before deciding to change the subject to the one that I had actually wanted to talk about.

“Indeed,” Jameson rumbled from behind me. “That would be good information for all of us to have.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re right,” I said as I realised that he was correct that everyone should know what we were capable of. “Sorry I should’ve waited.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jameson replied with a nod.

“Well I unlocked a Skill for my staff that allows me to make a weak barrier in front of me that lasts for a few seconds,” Kelly reported. “And for my Earth Magic I got the ability to create a wall of earth that can take a reasonable amount of damage before collapsing.”

I nodded at this they were both defensive techniques, although creating a wall of Earth could also be used to control the battlefield which made it a bit more flexible. It was also a suitable Skill for Kelly to get since she specialised in things like that. Also, her having the ability to create a protective barrier for the ranged fighters would be very useful going forwards.

“I unlocked a ranged attack for my sceptre that fires a bolt of Mana similar to the larger bolts that Evie can fire with her wand, I think hers are stronger though,” Warren explained. “And as for my Shield Core I have the ability to increase the amount of damage that I can block with my shield for a short period of time.”

I nodded once more at my friend’s words; both of these Skills would be very useful in future fights. The ranged attack would allow Warren to be much more flexible when fighting much like my own Jolt spell as well as allowing him to make enemies that would normally be difficult for him to lock down with melee attacks focus on him and the boost to the amount of damage that he could block with his shield would allow him to deal with the increased number of enemies attacking him.

Like in most of the other games that I played lately shields in Soul Core Online only really provided extra protection when you actually blocked an attack with them, instead of functioning the way that they did in older games where they often provided some extra armour as well as a chance to block some attacks. Some shield with special properties might still provide some extra armour to the wielders entire body but the wooden one that Warren was wearing didn’t.

Moving on we found another area where there were two smaller groups of 3 Terror Chicks and once again Tylie entered Stealth and scouted out the area. Stealth was a really useful Skill to have and IO could tell from the look on Fern’s face that she couldn’t wait to get a Soul Core that would allow her to do something similar. In all honesty after seeing Tylie use it like this I couldn’t wait for her to get something that would allow her to avoid detection either. There was a lot to be said about having an invisible scout when you were surrounded by enemies.

“Okay,” Jameson said eventually. “Those two groups are the only ones nearby. This time we’re going to do things a bit differently though since the group on the left has a Level 5 and a Level 4 Terror Chick while the other one has one Level 4 and two Level 3’s. Now I know that you’re strong for your Level Warren but fighting a Level 5 Terror Chick would definitely be too much for you. So instead you’re going to engage the group on the right while Kelly, Fern, and Evie back you up while Zeke, Yarrol and I take on the other group.”

“What about Tylie?” Kelly asked.

“She’ll be keeping watch like last time but if any of us needs her to she’ll jump in,” Jameson replied with a nod.

“Sounds like a plan,” Warren said as checked the straps on his shield. “Shall we then?”

Everyone nodded at once and charged out towards the two groups of Terror Chicks. All of us who had ranged attacks started attacking them right away so that we could be sure to keep the two groups separate and soon I found myself facing off against one of the Level 4 Terror Chicks while Jameson took care of both of the other two.

It was obvious now how used to fighting Terror Chicks I was because I didn’t even get more than a scratch. To my surprise Yarrol actually decided to help out this time sending several blue bolts of energy hurtling past my head and into my opponent. By the time I killed the Terror Chick that I was fighting with a Slash from my naginata that nearby took its head completely off Jameson had already killed one of his and injured the other.

“Show-off!” I exclaimed as I stabbed the remaining Terror Chick in the side which made Jameson snort to himself as he decapitated the distracted monster.

Turning towards the other group I was surprised to see that they had already killed two of the Terror Chicks in the group that they were fighting. Warren and Fern seemed to be doing quite well fending off the three Terror Chicks while Katy and Evie wore them down with their ranged attacks. I knew that Evie had been forced to use her healing spell twice already from the flashes of blue that I had seen out of the corner of my eye while Jameson and I were fighting the other group of Terror Chicks but that wasn’t anything unusual in games.

Activating my Lunge Skill as soon as I got in range, I slammed into the side of the Terror Chick that Fern was dancing around with enough force to knock it into the one that Warren was fighting causing them to tumble to the ground in a tangle of legs and necks.

“Whoa!” Warren exclaimed as he brought his sceptre down on the head of one of the now extremely pissed off Terror Chicks. “A little warning would be nice!”

I poked my tongue out at him as we quickly finished off the two monsters before they were able to recover from my surprise attack. While the others watched on with amusement because it was obvious that Warren had predicted what I was going to do and had positioned the Terror Chick that he had been fighting so that when I had hit the other Terror Chick it would knock both of them to the ground. And that was just based off the physics in-game since this my Lunge Skill technically didn’t have a knockback effect.

“Well now,” Jameson said once he had made his way over. “That was quite impressive.”

The big man had an impressed look on his face as he looked at us.

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen such effortless teamwork,” Jameson continued as our ranged party members closed in.

“Didn’t look like that to me,” Yarrol grumbled drawing the attention of Kelly who just stared at him silently until he averted his gaze.

“Well then your eyes are obviously painted on,” sighed Tylie. “Honestly Yarrol, sometimes it’s hard to believe that you went through basic training at the same time that I did.”

Yarrol scowled once more in irritation but even he understood that he didn’t really have any allies here he decided to keep quiet. However, I decided to continue keeping an eye on him since it was clear that he had some serious issues with outsiders like us and at this point I was starting to suspect that he was either going to let one of us die or stab us in the back. Despite his rather obvious dislike of outsiders I doubted he would try anything too obvious since he also seemed to be a bit of a coward but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t pretend to miss that some of us needed healing if someone didn’t keep an eye on him.

As I thought this, I made eye contact with Kelly who had been looking meaningfully at Yarrol for the past few seconds and we both nodded in silent agreement. I wasn’t going to be able to keep an eye on this idiot while we were fighting but Kelly was going to be standing next to him the whole time so it would be very easy for her to call him out if he tried to pull anything.

“Just a moment,” I said while the others started looting the corpses of the Terror Chicks that we had just killed. “My Basic Lightning Core Just Levelled Up and I forgot to check after the last fight, but I seem to have reached Level 5 as well.”

“Oh?” Jameson grunted “Level 5’s a pretty big milestone. What Crafting Skills are you going to pick?”

“Well I’m definitely going to pick Core Crafting but other than that I’m not too sure,” I admitted as I brought up the Level Up screen for my Lightning Core and examined my two options.

Congratulations your Basic Lightning Magic Core has reached Level 4!

Please pick an upgrade from the choices provided.

Lightning Stream: Creates a large lightning bolt that deals 3 base damage + 50% of Magic Power per second. Cost 10 Spirit/per sec. Cooldown: 30 sec.

Increase Intelligence by 1.

Soul Points: 6/100

“Right I think I’m going to pick Lightning Stream,” I told everyone who was paying attention which predictably didn’t include Yarrol who seemed to be more interested in taking the best loot for himself while we weren’t paying attention to what he was doing although I noticed Tylie slap him on the back of his head when she saw where I was looking. “It’s a channelled spell, so it doesn’t deal that much damage all at once, but it should still be useful if I need to retreat out of melee range for any reason or we have to fight ranged or powerful enemies.”

“Good choice,” Jameson nodded. “Like you said; it won’t deal that much damage until you start to get more Soul Cores to increase your Stats but once you do it should be very useful to you.”

A quick check of my Stats Screen confirmed that both my HP and Spirit now had a maximum of 170 and I already had 9% of the Experience I needed to reach Level 6 so I selected the new option that had appeared in my menu and selected Core Crafting for my first Crafting Skill and Shard Collection which was the Gathering Skill that allowed me to loot more Soul Shards.

“Having trouble deciding on the other Crafting and Gathering Skills you want?” Tylie asked as she saw the frown crossing my face as I examined my options.

“Yeah,” I sighed. “I’m having some difficulty choosing between Blacksmithing and Focus Creation.”

Blacksmithing obviously would allow me to make things like blades and the metal parts of armour but as Fern had mentioned in the Tutorial multiple Crafting Skills would be required to actually make some things. For example, to make a new naginata I would only be able to make the blade, someone else would have to make the handle. Unless of course I made the whole thing out of metal, but I suspected that something like that would require quite a high Level to equip and would be very difficult for me to make until I raised my Blacksmithing Level.

On the other hand, Focus Creation was the Crafting Skill that allowed you to make magic- based equipment like wands, staves and spellgloves. I was actually leaning more towards this Crafting Skill right now which meant that I would have to get the Mining Skill because according to the Focus Creation Skill Focusses required gems to create them which were one of the things that you could gain from mining along with the obvious metal ores.

“Well what do you guys think?” I asked turning towards my party members. “I don’t think there’s going to be much point in having too much crossover in our Crafting Skills.”

“Don’t let that stop you mate,” Warren chuckled. “It’s not like there are that many different Crafting Skills and either of those would be useful to you.”

“Yeah,” Kelly nodded. “Besides from what I’ve read online it’d be expensive for you to learn every single recipe for even one Crafting Skill let alone two so if someone else wants either of those Skills then they can just focus on different recipes.”

“Oh, so you have to buy recipes for the things that you craft,” I muttered in thought.

“Actually, they’re less like recipes and more like schematics,” Katy explained. “As you Level Up your Crafting Skills you can use different ingredients or even add different things to the design to increase the quality of the end product.”

“Huh, okay that’s good to know I guess,” I replied thoughtfully. After examining all of the options I eventually decided to pick Focus Creation for precisely the reason that Katy had mentioned. According to Katy normal spellgloves weren’t as good as other things for casting spells because their primary function was defensive but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t modify schematics to change that.

“So, I decided on Focus Creation and mining,” I told the others who nodded.

“Okay I assume that you’re going to be focussing your efforts on creating a better spellglove design?” Katy asked and I nodded in reply. “Okay it will probably take a while before you can make something that’s that much better than the ones that you can buy from a store, but you should be able to do that eventually. More importantly you should now have two schematics; one for each of your crafting Skills.”

“Yeah I got a Basic Stat Core for my Core Crafting Skill and a Simple Wand Focus for my Focus Creation Skill,” I replied as I brought up the Crafting Screen.

“Good, as I’m sure you’ve already realised a Basic Stat Core is a Support Core that provides a small boost to one of your Stat,” Katy explained. “Now that you have the Shard Collection Skill you will find more Soul Shards like the few that you already have. You will also note that you have another new Skill that allows you to identify the different attributes the Soul Shards have called Soul Scan. Why don’t you try it out?”

“Okay,” I agreed as I pulled out one of the Terror Soul Shards that I had and activated Soul Scan which brought up a window that looked very similar to the item description one.

Terror Chick’s Soul Shard (Crafting Material)

Item Tier (Rarity): Basic (Rare)

A Soul Shard containing a fragment of the essence of a Terror Chick. Can be used to create Soul Cores.

Core Affinities: HP (medium) Strength (small), Agility (medium).

“Okay so I’m guessing that the Affinities that each type of Soul Shard provides is based off the monster that I looted it from but what does ‘small’ and ‘medium’ mean?” I asked once I had finished reading the changes to the description.

“You’re right about why that Soul Shard has those particular Affinities,” Katy replied. “As for why they’re labelled small and medium you should have a look at the schematic that you have. It should explain the differences.

Bringing up the schematic I read over the descriptions and nodded. A Soul Core required you to take a what was known as a Blank Orb which was basically just a glass orb and infuse it with one or more Soul Shards to produce different effects. To produce a single Basic Stat Core, I needed to infuse a Blank Core with 3 ‘points’ of Affinity for the Stat that I wanted the Core to increase. A Soul Shar with small Affinity for a certain Stat was worth one point, medium was worth two and large was worth three. This would create a Support Core that provided a one-point increase to a single Stat. It did look like there were options to improve this, but I needed to reach Level 3 in the Stat to make changes to this schematic. I also didn’t seem to be able to make a Soul Core that increased my HP or Spirit with this schematic which was interesting. Also, I couldn’t just craft a Core wherever I wanted; first I had to find what was called a Soul Catching Altar which was what the crafting station for Core Crafting was called.

After I had read this, I brought up the information for the other recipe that I had unlocked and read over the information for that which was a little different but not so much that I would get confused. After taking a low-quality crystal such as quartz I had to cut it into a certain shape and infuse it with Mana using a Focus Crafting Table which had all the tools that I needed.

“Have you finished looking at everything?” Katy asked.

“Alright then you should start collecting Soul Shards so that you can start making Cores as soon as possible,” Katy said gesturing at the corpses of the Terror Chicks that we had just killed.

“Yeah,” I agreed as I walked over to one of the corpses and activated my Gathering Skill which created what looked like a funnel of grey energy above the corpse which slowly formed a Soul Shard which I took. “That was more impressive than I was expecting.”

I could only use my Gathering Skill on each corpse once at the Skill’s current Level and it only had a 30% chance of working but even with that, I still managed to loot another three Shards from the Terror Chicks. One of them was even a higher rarity than the one that I had Identified earlier which meant that it also had a small Dexterity Affinity as well as the Affinities that the other Shard had. According to Katy those bonus Affinities were somewhat random, and I could’ve gotten one with an upgraded Affinity for something else instead which was interesting.

However now that I was done going over everything it was obvious that Jameson wanted to get a move on.

“Okay, let’s get going. We have more Terror Birds to kill.”