On the Level

A cluster of Mana Darts slammed into the face of the Giant Rabbit as it leaped at Kyle, the magical projectiles ripped into the surprised monster’s flesh before it could react. Normally the Mana Darts wouldn’t have had enough power to penetrate the Giant Rabbit’s skull even at point-blank range but one of them drove through the rabbit’s eye and into its brain killing it instantly.

Spinning Kyle kicked out at another Giant Rabbit wincing as it chose to simply headbutt his leg as it bounced off. Before flicking his chain behind him to trip a third Giant Rabbit that was sneaking up on him.

According to Digby other than the one that he had managed to kill with his Mana Darts the Giant Rabbits that he was fighting were all Level 2. Even though he hadn’t been able to assign his free Stat Points or check his Mastered Spells because Fi was still unconscious he still had the extra Stat Points that he got from his Class’ growth rate, so Digby had suggested upping the level of difficulty.

Having recovered the Giant Rabbit he had kicked away was charging at him once again causing Kyle to roll his eyes, compared to the Amoeboid Giant Rabbits had far simpler attack patterns and his chain wrapped around the rabbits front legs tripping it up and allowing him to stomp on its head once before activating Dodge Roll just in time to avoid the final Giant Rabbit which ending up landing on its stunned companion driving the air out of both.

Kyle pulled back on his chain hauling the entangled rabbit back towards him as he activated Hook knocking it loose of the chains coils and sending it flying into a tree which shook as the monster struck it.

As the other rabbit struggled to its feet it was met with a burning chain as Kyle simultaneously activated both Lash and Minor Flame Enchantment almost entirely depleting his Stamina and Mana causing him to stumble slightly and curse.

“Ah damn!” Kyle was really starting to wish he more Skills that decreased the amount of Stamina and Mana he used, or higher Stats that would allow him to fight longer. But until he recovered from forcibly unlocking Will Made Manifest he would have to wait and rely on the Skills he already had as well as his newly increased Stats.

Kyle tried to steady his breathing the way his father had taught him as the last Giant Rabbit struggled to its feet glaring at him with bloodshot eyes. The monster was looking considerably worse for wear after being launched into the tree but that didn’t stop it from launching itself forwards intent on ripping out Kyle’s throat while he was still suffering from using too much of his Stamina and Mana at once.

Unfortunately for it this was what Kyle had been waiting for and he used the extra flexibility given to him by his Acrobatics Skill to bend out of the way as the rabbit leapt at his throat. The rabbit’s eyes widened as it stared down at the young man as the still burning chain tightened around its neck bringing it violently to a halt.

The rabbit kicked and struggled as the flame enchantment added its own damage to Kyle’s Choke Hold Skill searing the flesh around its neck. The enchantment didn’t last long being used this way and soon spluttered out, but it lasted long enough that the chain had almost burnt all the way through the rabbit’s neck and the monsters body twitched weakly as it finally expired.

Wrinkling his nose at the smell of burning hair and flesh Kyle dropped the lifeless body of the monster to the ground. He had used this method to kill the rabbit due to the danger of using flame related spells in wooded areas but that didn’t mean he found it a pleasant one to use.

“Well done, that was probably your best fight so far,” noted Digby.

Kyle nodded at this, if it hadn’t been for Digby reacting when the Amoeboid had attacked Fi, there would have been very little chance of him killing it without being severely injured. Even without Fi telling him he knew that some of his Skills had levelled up again, as without doing so there would have been no way that he would’ve been able to avoid that last attack so well.

He glanced at his still unconscious companion he had a gentle look on her face as she rested on the velvety fur of Digby’s back.

“How’s she doing Dig?” he asked seeing that she was still unconscious even over half an hour after the fight with the Amoeboid.

Digby turned his head to examine his serpentine friend, “Her breathing has steadied, so I don’t think she’s in any danger,” Digby said calmly.

“But that’s still a nasty gash so I wouldn’t expect her to wake up for a while yet,” he finished as Kyle reached down and stroked the feathers that ran down her back.

“Wake up soon Fi,” he whispered quietly before accepting the skinning knife that Digby offered him.

After Kyle had skinned and butchered the rabbits they continued to look for more targets. It was only a matter of time before Jerald killed the Boss and even now they could hear the occasional angry roar in the distance.

“I saw that you took my advice in that last fight,” noted Digby as they walked quietly through the forest.

Kyle nodded before he had attacked the Giant Rabbits earlier Digby had suggested using his chain in a slightly different way to what Kyle had been so far. One of the things that Kyle lacked was ways to slow down or stun his enemies, both Leg Sweep and Hook had some chance to do this, but he could only use these Skills at very close range. On the other hand, if he developed a Skill that would allow him to weaken an enemy with his chain before it got too close to him he would increase his advantage further. Weapon Skills were often more effective than Unarmed Skills especially if the Weapon Skill was a Class Skill so developing his still low levelled chain Skills was one of Kyle’s main goals while he was in the Zone. Unarmed Fighting was still an important Skill for him for him to develop due to his weapons lack of close-range power, but Chain Fighting was his Classes specialty so increasing it had to be a priority.

The other thing that Kyle had to think about was mastering his spells, the new ones he had received from the School of Enchantment in particular, right now he only had three of these spells and they were all fairly weak. Not only that but he had to be especially careful about how he used his Minor Flame Enchantment which severely limited how he could use it in a fight despite it being the only enchantment he had that increased his damage so obtaining new spells as soon as possible was also important right now.

“Yeah, I think that I’m onto something there but I’m actually thinking of trying to get a Skill that can hit multiple enemies at once right now as that’s something I don’t really have at all right now,” Kyle replied thoughtfully.

“That’s true, your Mana Darts spell can be used to attack different targets but they’re not very accurate or powerful,” Digby said with a nod. “Just remember though, you’re limited by how much Mana and Stamina you have so having too many Skills and spells at your low Level isn’t necessarily a good idea, that’s why I recommended a new control Skill as opposed to an area attack.”

Kyle nodded, Skills or spells that could affect multiple targets used more Stamina and Mana than ones that could affect a single target even thought they usually dealt less damage.

“Another thing,” Digby continued. “You need to think about what blunt weapons actually specialise in. Despite your chain being quite different to most blunt weapons you can’t forget that it is still a blunt weapon, so you should still be able to get the basic Skills common to all blunt weapons.”

Kyle sighed, and rubbed his head tiredly, he knew that Digby was right, though his chain was a mid-ranged weapon more closely related to a whip than a more traditional blunt weapon it still gained the damage bonus from his Blunt Weapons Skill. It was just another thing that he didn’t really have time to think about right now what with everything that was going on right now.

“I guess I should be glad that I got that invitation to go to the Adventurers School in Greenhearth then,” he muttered to himself drawing an amused look from Digby.

Kyle was very lucky indeed to receive an invitation to the Adventurers School, though many children looked up to Adventurers the reality was that it wasn’t actually that popular a vocation. Even in the whole kingdom of Coronia which they resided in there were only around a thousand Adventurers and on top of that less than three hundred of them had gone to an Adventurer School. However, these three hundred Adventurers were the best of the best, there were classes that one could undertake at the Adventurers Guild offices in larger towns, but they weren’t as comprehensive as the ones provided by Adventurer Schools so being a graduate was essentially the same as making sure that you would be far more likely to survive even the toughest assignments than if you had failed to even enter a School.

Adventurer Schools not only accepted very few students every year, but they had a high failure rate. Only around half of those accepted would make it through to graduation but those that did received not only some of the best tutoring and advice on Skills available but received a higher grade when they became full-fledged Adventurers at Level 5 which was the lowest Level that one could become a member of the Adventurers Guild.

What’s more students could obtain specialised gear made specifically for them by the crafting tutors if they performed well in class as well as buying their own gear that they could earn by taking on the simple requests that students of the Adventurer School could take on once they had proved themselves. They could even make their own gear in the facilities provided by the school ort ask one of the crafting students to help them if they provided the materials.

Of course, with everything that had been happening over the past two days Kyle hadn’t had the time to learn any of this which was why he could say such things without being aware of how much of an understatement they were. Digby chuckled to himself as he imagined the distressed look on Yuliah’s face when she discovered how little he knew about the Greenhearth Adventurer School which was one of the more famous ones in Coronia due to its close proximity to a dungeon that was suitable for low Level Adventurers, the school even used the Dungeon as a staging ground for one of the final tests before graduation.

Kyle glanced at Digby wondering what could possibly be amusing the large companion so much just as something flew past his head and smashed into a nearby tree with a loud cracking noise.

“Holy shit!” Kyle shouted as he nearly leapt out of his own skin looking around to try and discover what the object had been and where it had come from. When he saw the tree, the object had struck his face paled. The object that had barely missed him had smashed into the tough bark of the tree with enough force that it had literally punched a hole halfway into the wood, if that had hit him instead no amount of healing would have been able to save him as it would’ve passed clean through his skull.

Digby looked around in shock, he had been too distracted by his own amusement to sense the attack coming but he soon spotted the culprit sitting on the branch of a nearby tree.

“Slinger Squirrel,” he said catching Kyle’s attention.

Looking up Kyle saw the bushy tailed beast.

“Okay that’s not good,” he said quietly as the Slinger Squirrel pulled a stone out of the small pouch on its belly and prepared to throw it.

Even more than his lack of area attacks Kyle’s biggest weakness currently was his limited attacks at long range. His most powerful attack spell Mana Darts was only accurate enough to use at medium range, so he was limited to just his Mana Bolt spell which he hadn’t spent as much time improving as he perhaps should of.

“No, it’s not,” Digby replied quickly placing his large body between the young man and the oversized rodent as it released the stone in its paw sending the projectile hurtling towards the companion.

This throw wasn’t as powerful as the previous as the Slinger Squirrel had used a Skill of its own to increase the power of the attack but even if it had Digby’s high defence would’ve been more than enough to defend Kyle and the stone bounced off the companion’s side without doing any damage.

The squirrel chittered in rage as it saw how ineffective its attack was on Digby before it froze in terror as it realised just how powerful the companion was compared to it.

“You alright Kyle?” Digby asked glancing at the young man who had frozen upon seeing the squirrel prepare to throw a second projectile.

Kyle glared silently at the companion.

“What?” Digby asked.

“Did you just put yourself between me and that squirrels stone with Fi still on your back?” Kyle growled.

“Huh, well yeah but I made sure she was safe see?” Digby replied shrugging his shoulders. Sure enough there was an area of Digby’s back that was covered in porous rock where Kyle knew Fi had been lying.

“Oh, okay then what are we going to do about the squirrel?” Kyle asked as he watched the frightened creature back away, every hair on its bushy tail on end as it watched Digby with its beady eyes opened as wide as possible.

“Well so long as you don’t let it fully charge it’s Windup Skill you should be fine,” Digby replied with a shrug.

“Wait, it has a Skill?” Kyle asked in surprise. Usually only monsters above Level 5 had a Skill that was one of the main differences between monsters above Level 5 and those below. As far as Kyle was aware the only reason a monster below Level 5 could have a Skill was if it was a Variant.

“Yeah, that’s right, it’s Windup Skill increases the power of its throws by 20% for every second it spends charging it, so if you don’t let it charge the Skill up you’ll be fine,” Digby stated, a Variant may be more powerful than a normal monster of the same Level but compared to the Amoeboid this Slinger Squirrel was far weaker, in terms of Stats it wasn’t even equal to a Level 2 Giant Rabbit and relied on a surprise attack using its stones to attack from range.

“Well before that, can I even catch it before it gets away?” Kyle asked.

“Huh?”

Spinning around Digby watched in surprise as the Slinger Squirrel fled through the treetops at high speed and was quickly out of sight.

“So that’s a ‘no’ then huh Dig?” Kyle said smirking at Digby who grumbled to himself and started walking away.

“We’ll have to be more careful now,” Digby sighed glancing upwards. “Where there’s one of those things there’s always more.”

Kyle swallowed remembering the power behind the first stone that the Slinger Squirrel had thrown, he really hoped that they weren’t all Variants.

Not long after this as they stopped to have a drink of water they heard a yawning sound coming from the protective covering of rock that Digby had decided to keep over Fi just in case he had to jump in front of another stone.

“Hmm? What’s this?” FI said in surprise as she tried to move and found herself trapped under a porous layer of rock.

“It’s alright Fi,” Digby said quickly to forestall any complaints from Fi. “I’ll remove it now.”

Once he had done so Fi slowly moved her coils checking herself over for injuries. Only finding the gash on her side that was already starting to heal over due to the potion she had been force fed she breathed a sigh of relief.

“So, what happened after I passed out?” she asked raising her head to look at Kyle who was looking at her with a relieved smile on his face.

Kyle quickly explained everything that had happened while Fi had been unconscious and other than cringing when he got to the bit about his narrow miss involving the Slinger Squirrel leading Fi to silently glare at Digby while Kyle finished his story.

“Well Digby, do you have anything you want to say for yourself?” the little serpent asked in the most dangerous tone of voice she could muster with a thick layer of bandages wrapped around her.

Digby continued to scan the treeline unable to look her in the eye.

“No not really,” he replied as the silence grew awkwardly long causing Fi to shake her head.

“Fine then,” she sighed tiredly deciding to drop the question for now.

“I guess we’d better sort out your Stat points then Kyle,” she said bringing up the screen. “What do you think you should do?”

Statistics

Name: Kyle Fergusson

Race: Aethereal Human

Level: 2

Class: Chain Fighter

HP: 95/95

HP regen: 0.9 p/s

MP: 120/120

MP regen 5.3 p/s

SP: 100/100

SP regen 5 p/s

Str: 9(7)

Dex: 14(8)

Agi: 15(10)

Con: 9(8)

End: 10(8)

Int: 10(10)

Wis: 9(9)

Will: 8(8)

Exp to next Level: 17%

Unassigned Stat Points: 3

Kyle rubbed his chin as he considered his options, his Intelligence, Agility, Endurance and Willpower had all increased due to the amount of fighting he had been doing over the past couple of days once again driving home how important actual fighting was to his development so part of the problem he had with not having enough Mana or Stamina had been partially dealt with but he still wanted to increase his Intelligence and Endurance further.

Making his decision he placed a point each into Intelligence and Endurance increasing his Maximum Mana to 132, his Stamina to 110 and his Stamina’s regen rate to 5.5 per second before placing the final point into Constitution increasing his health to 107 telling him that he had increased his Physical Conditioning to Level 7 and his health regen to 1 per second. That close call with the Slinger Squirrel had really driven home to him how important having a high HP was to surviving sneak attacks, it wouldn’t be enough to defend against a fully charged Windup but having a bit more health was never a bad thing anyway.

“Are you sure?” Fi asked to confirm his selection. She didn’t disagree with any of his choices, his Class provided a larger number of Stats than most so when it came to the distributable points she was perfectly happy to see him increasing these ones further, especially his Constitution.

He looked over his Status once more and nodded he was happy with his decision.

Fi smiled as she closed the screen, now it was time for the ting that she had been looking forward to for years.

It was time for her to finally get some new Skills of her own.