I spent the next two hours hanging around the Scout Camp, where a crowd of players were gathering to take their second Guardian exam, which would later become Palladins and Phanatics. When 'Hour X' came, the whole crowd moved toward the mountain. I followed them, not getting too close.

When this ''army'' made its way out of the forest into the snowy foothills, a squad of gremlins, accompanied by a couple of Ice Trolls, appeared in front. As soon as the players saw them, the crowd rushed forward, and the gremlins began to flee. The race lasted about five minutes. The gremlins led the crowd of rams into a narrow canyon, and then streams of snow and rocks rained down on the players' army from above, immediately destroying all of the attackers. I wisely did not run into the canyon, so I was not hurt at all.

After most of the players' army had been destroyed, the main force of gremlins descended from the mountains and easily swept away the rest of the enemy. I found five Gremlins in the agreed place, and killed them in only five strokes of the spear.

Then I returned to the Ninja Master and reported the heroic completion of the task and the treacherous trap of the gremlins. He sighed, but in the end he acknowledged my accomplishment and made me a Ninja.

I spent the next half hour helping an army of gremlins seed the Star Forest with cactus. The crowds of gremlins considered me an ally, but attacked all the other players. The strength of the mobs of these shorties was such that even groups of a dozen players could do nothing against them. As a result, the Star Forest was 'looted and defiled. Now it was taken over by gremlins, who walked around with smug smirks, growing Cactuses and counting the future crop of medicinal herbs wrested from the Mage Guild.

When the entire forest was planted with cactus, I received an interesting systemic message.

*** “The rebellious spirit of Liquid Striped Fluff has rested in peace. Hidden mission accomplished. Reward: None.” ***

Heh, looks like the fact that I kept my promise to take the forest away from the mages turned off some sort of NPC ghost quest that was supposed to be giving me trouble. Well, the lack of trouble is also profit.

After finishing the quest with the forest, which I had self-created, I moved to the City of Crab. I am now at level 8 and my second Ninja profession, so it was a good time to get busy crafting and charging the talismans which I would use. I wanted to be thorough, so I went to the library first, where I studied the guides for the Druid and Ninja professions.

Next, I spent almost an hour wandering around the market, figuring out who was selling what, and how I could use the items I bought to enhance myself. In the end, I had a 'build' of six amulets, for which I bought the necessary spell books, gems, seeds, and talisman blanks. After combining all this into talismans ready for charging, I once again assessed the result.

Because the Druid was primarily a healer, the first spell on the list was healing. At the eighth level I could create talismans that used four gems. Of these gems, one was the 'main' gem, and three were 'additional' gems that enhanced it. But there was another scheme for combining spells. Four of the same spells could be used. In doing so, the effect of the spell and the cost of using it quadrupled. But the downside to this approach was the use of rare and expensive gems.

I used this scheme to make a talisman with the 'Heretic Sacred Healing' spell. It was supposed to restore 1,600 units of health, which I thought was an excellent result. What's more, it only took 0.5 second to apply the talisman, and I could use it again in a 1.5 second.

But there was a downside to that result. Now I had a maximum reserve of 120 units of energy. And using the talisman required 60 units of energy. In other words, I could not use it more than two times in a row. To counterbalance this effect, I created four amulets to restore energy, each containing four 'Energy of Nature' spells. One of those spells restores 6 units of energy in 5 seconds. Correspondingly, 16 spells would regenerate 96 mana in 5 seconds. But most importantly, if there was a summoned plant within 10 meters around me, that number was doubled. So I could restore 192 units of energy in 5 seconds, or almost 77 in 2 seconds. So I could use the healing every two seconds and still regenerate my energy.

The spell for the amulet 'Energy of Nature' could not be learned. It was only possible to obtain it together with the stone. Naturally, the chance of such a stone falling out was very small. But since there were almost no Druids in the game, there was an over-supply, and I could easily buy 16 stones, exhausting almost all of the supplies on the market.

The issue of energy regeneration was solved, but... I had the issue of summoning plants. My current spell 'Grow a Weed' required 5 seconds to use, which was wildly impractical. So I bought a book with a rare spell called 'Flower Field'. It allowed me to grow a 'Flower' class plant in just 3 seconds. And in addition to that spell, I used three auxiliary spells, again only found as ready-made stones. Each of these auxiliary spells reduced the cast time by half, at the same time reducing the plant's health and energy by half. But I wasn't interested in the flower's parameter, because the only thing that mattered was the presence of the flower. As a result, I had a talisman that grew a flower field in 0.375 seconds.

So, I spent two spell slots on healing spells, and I could hope to be an excellent healer for my eighth level. At least I could heal myself. To make sure I didn't die from a single hit, I charged the remaining three amulets to increase my health. It was pretty standard with three amulets, each of which added 500 health. On top of that were my native 100 health and the small bonuses from the purple clothes I'd picked out for myself from the huge collection I'd recently collected from the players' corpses in the dungeon. In total, I ended up with 1,950 health points.

The next important element of my build was, of course, damage. Here I was not happy with the Druid's skills, but in the end I was able to find a suitable option, but without too much sophistication. That was the 'Rainmushroom' spell. It was used for a 0.25 second and created a 'mushroom' on the ground that would last for twenty seconds. If an opponent came within four meters of this mushroom, the mushroom would 'activate' and after a 0.25 second would 'jump' into the enemy, dealing crushing damage and pushing them away a bit. This spell had no cooldown time, but it was used within a second, which didn't suit me at all. So, I had to buy two extremely expensive gems with extra spells, each of which reduced the time it took to use the spell by half. In total, I could now 'plant a mushroom' four times per second. The third additional spell was a 50% increase in damage. In total, my 'Rainmushroom' could do 450 damage per hit. The energy consumption of using it like that was wild, but my regeneration was good enough.

Another damage-oriented spell was 'Grow a Bush'. It was only used for 0.5 second, after which the bush would 'grow' for three seconds. And after three seconds the plant was ready to perform its 'duties'. I used the seed of the 'Thorn Vines' with this talisman. It would wrap its branches around my opponent, dealing damage and reducing his movement speed by 20%. I wasn't sure how useful this kind of 'pet' would be, so I took it as an experiment for now.

And the last two talismans were loaded with Ninja skills. Since I got this profession, it was worth using the most 'tasty' skill available to me. It was 'Ghost Leap'. After applying this skill, I could move a distance of up to 20 meters and simultaneously hide in invisibility for 3 seconds. When I activated Stealth on my bracelet, 'turning on' the invisibility ate 30 units of energy, and then, every second the bracelet consumed only 3 units of energy. But if the bracelet was activated when I was invisible after the jump, it didn't consume 30 units of energy. The jump itself only cost 10 energy and I could use it every 5 seconds. All three auxiliary spells in this talisman reduced the recharge time of the spell.

My last skill was 'Poison Spit'. This skill threw a 'bomb' of poison gas that exploded on contact with the target, poisoning everyone within a half-meter radius. Most importantly, at the moment of poisoning, the target would fall into a state of 'Confusion' for a 0.25 a second, which was equivalent to loss of consciousness. I was able to use 'Spit' every 3 seconds, it took a 0.25 a second to cast, and the poisoning lasted 10 seconds, though it didn't stack. I was primarily interested in this skill as a substitute for 'Discharge'. The only thing was that it was distance, and I was able to increase the cast distance to 20 meters with the help of additional spells.

I could only use six talismans at level eight, so that was the end of all the spells I could use. I hoped that this set of skills would make me a difficult opponent for anyone. The problem was that it cost a staggering 28 gold coins, which was a waste by the standards of a level 8 player. I don't think that even the leaders of the strongest guilds could afford such an outfit.

==================================

Status information:

Name: Cheater

HP: 1950

HP regeneration: 0.1 / sec

HP regeneration from items and skills: 0

MP: 120

MP regeneration: 0.1 / sec

MP regeneration from items and skills: 38.4 / sec

Stamina: 100

Stamina regeneration: 0.1 / sec

Stamina regeneration from items and skills: 0

==================================

Atributes:

Strength: 0

Dexterity: 0

Endurance: 0

Resistance: 100

==================================

Skills:

1) Heretic Sacred Healing: Heals any living subject.

- Heals: 1600 HP

- Energy required to use: 60 MP

- Cast time: 0.5 sec

- Cooldown: 1.5 sec

2) Grow Flower Field: Creates field of flowers.

- Cast time: 0.375 sec

3) Rain mushroom spell: Creates mushroom which jumps to enemy and explodes.

- Damage: 450

- Energy required to use: 8 MP

- Cast time: 0.25 sec

- Cooldown: 0 sec

- Activation radius: 4 meters

- Activation delay: 0.25 sec

4) Grow a Bush (with Thorn Vines): Creates a bush which slows the enemy.

- Cast time: 0.5 sec

- Grow duration: 3 sec

- Slows enemy movement speed by 20%

5) Ghost Leap: Teleports player up to 20 meters away in any dimension and apply Invisibility on player.

- Energy required to use: 10 MP

- Cooldown: 5 sec

6) Poison Spit: Poisons the target and stuns to short duration.

- Stun duration: 0.25 sec

- Poison duration: 10 sec

- Maximum cast distance: 20 meters

- Cooldown: 2.75 sec

==================================

Equipped items:

1) Bracelet of invisibility (Purple grade): Grants Invisibility skill

2) Cursed Spear of the First Dwarf:

3) …