After the relative ease of completing my first quest, I decided that I wanted to be productive and do a few more. There was a lot to do in Lophan and I could technically have a good time and relax for longer, but I had this odd sense of duty that pushed me forward. I had grown so used to pushing myself further and further, always chasing my goals, the next evolution, that I had apparently grown incapable of relaxing for an extended period of time. It didn’t help that I simply enjoyed the fighting.

After we’d delivered the fortress armadillo to the blacksmith and I gained my first quest reward in the form of a level-up, I went back to the house to look at the quest board again. Andrius and Orbos had left the house and Nimma still hadn’t returned from whatever she was doing. Not seeing the point in waiting for any of them I dissected the board with the help of Redax. Out of the four of them, he was the one with the most knowledge of the surroundings and which monsters could generally be found where. As such, he was the perfect companion for these quests anyway.

After spending quite some time sifting through the rather ridiculous amount of post-it notes we had decided on a trio of quests that, according to Redax, would lead us to the same general area and could be completed one after the other. He had told me that there was no limit to individual quests that I could accept at one time, so there was no reason to do them one by one. Village and city-tier quests were different, apparently, as I could only have one of each active at one time.

Not wanting to waste any daylight, we were back in town shortly after, running to and fro to find the quest givers and accept their quests. All three of them had been incredibly happy when they learned why we were there, which prompted me to finally ask the question I’d been holding back for a while now.

“What exactly is it that they get when I do their quests?” I had been wondering about this for a while now, especially since the only answer I’d gotten so far was always kept vague.

“Money and system resource allocation priority,” Redax stated in his usual short and snappy way.

“I get money, but what do you mean by system resource allocation priority,” I continued digging as we made our way to one of Lophan’s exit gates.

“You already know that we have a contract with the system,” Redax stated, to which I nodded. I could feel that he was uncomfortable talking this much… maybe I should ask Nimma the next time I had a question. “The contract is mainly for monster research, and most Asphons don’t exactly take part in research like that. The city earns points by completing research, which allows us to request things from the system. Things that we would never have access to, stuck as we are here. The points usually are funneled back into research, to make it more effective.

“Sometimes the points are spent in order to get things that better the quality of life for the rest of the city as well. Lophan is in charge of our points and he is always open to suggestions. But, there’s also another way to get points from the system, and that is to help it out by giving out the quests for the travelers, should one pass through. The one that gave out the quest has priority in deciding how a portion of the points get spent, which they usually use to get something nice that helps them with their jobs or day-to-day life. For example, the blacksmith you just did a quest for? He could request some forging equipment that we simply do not possess the technology to create.”

“Oh, then that means that I indirectly help them get a better life, which explains how happy they are whenever we show up…” I finally had an understanding of the general quest situation. “Good to know.”

Redax seemed pretty happy about the fact that our little conversation was over and a comfortable silence once more descended upon us, as we continued heading further away from Lophan. He seemed to know where we were supposed to go so I simply followed him around. We had collected three quests and if Redax was right, we should be able to complete them all in the same general area.

New Quest!

Recently, a pack of juvenile wyrms has made their nest on a skyscraper. Said nest is right next to a patrol route of the city watch, which is causing a lot of problems due to the territorial nature of the wyrms.

Goals: Hunt down the pack of juvenile wyrms terrorizing the patrol route.

Rewards: 1 level up.

New Quest!

Patrol team Delta feels like they deserve a day off and has requested you to do their patrol for them. Just don’t tell their boss.

Goals: Successfully complete team Delta’s patrol route, defeating any monsters you come across.

Rewards: 1 level up.

New Quest!

It is time for the annual monster survey. In order to keep tabs on the monster population around Lophan’s territory, researchers are requesting bodies of defeated monsters to be delivered to them, as well as the reports of any encountered monsters.

Goals: Deliver at least five different monsters to one of the research institutes. Preferably dead.

Rewards: 1 level up.

I thought it was rather funny that a patrol team could request me to do their job for them, just because they wanted an extra day off. Thankfully, their laziness allowed me to work on several quests at the same time. The nest of wyrms was apparently on their route and, as long as I defeated any other monsters we came across and collected them, we’d have three complete quests in no time.

Redax suddenly slowed down, pointing at a marking on a building to our right. The city used these markings as waypoints for the various patrol routes. Of course, the teams knew the routes by heart, but the markings were there as insurance. Just in case a team lost their way due to a fight or another team needed to substitute in for an unfamiliar patrol route. In our case, we had been shown the route on a map, but we’d still use the markers just to make sure.

As per our instructions, we slowed down and started scanning our surroundings for any monster presence. We were told to only engage if it was unavoidable since the monsters usually kept each other in check by fighting each other. Still, we would need to report any unusual activity back to the commander on duty when we returned. I wasn’t sure what constituted as unusual activity, though, so we’d just report just about everything and let them figure it out. I was itching for a fight so I’d probably take out a few monsters anyway, even if they didn’t give out any XP. I could still eat them for attribute points, after all.

Also, fighting was fun.

I was somewhat curious about what kind of skills Redax was using to scout the area, but it was starting to feel awkward to talk to him. He obviously didn’t enjoy talking very much, for whatever reason, and I wasn’t about to pry. If I really needed to know, I could probably ask somebody else from the team. No need to antagonize the poor guy. As for me, I kept watch on the area with my void feelers.

This particular mutation had turned out to be a great investment, as I could “see” any present monsters around me, even through walls. Well, almost anything. The feelers weren’t infallible, as Redax had proven time and time again. The guy somehow managed to evade my senses when he was trying to, which served as a reminder that I shouldn’t grow overly reliant on a single one of my senses. It’s better to employ everything at my disposal instead of trusting one sense too much. I had even sealed my ears as soon as we left the city. Sure, hearing an enemy coming would be nice, but I was still wary of sonic attacks.

I was confident that with my eyes, vibration sense, and void feelers, I would spot just about anything. If not, Redax was still with me, and I didn’t need to hear in order to understand the void language anyway, so communication wasn’t an issue either. As we continued on our patrol for a while, a sort of game started to form between us. It was about who could spot a monster first and point it out to the other. Redax usually found them first, probably because his skills had a higher range than mine did, but sometimes he seemed to miss a few. The first time I’d pointed one out he had been incredibly surprised and after confirming that I was telling the truth, his competitive spirit seemed to awaken.

I occasionally took out a monster that got a bit too close, taking the corpse for my research survey quest. Dispatching these monsters was almost laughably easy and I could tell that Redax’s attitude toward me was slowly shifting. Of course, he didn’t start to talk or anything, but I could tell that he was starting to relax a bit. I’m not sure if he was on edge because he thought he needed to provide protection or something and was on high alert the whole time, but I was happy that he seemed to be a bit calmer.

About an hour into the patrol, we finally reached the area that was infested with wyrms. Redax stopped me before we entered their territory, pointing out the skyscraper in question. I could see several small forms flying around the skyscraper’s roof, zipping around with a respectable speed. Details were hard to make out, but they didn’t look all that big. I guess that’s where the juvenile part came in. Still, they would definitely at least be tier seven. Underestimating them would get people hurt, even if they weren’t that big.

Well, not like they’d pose much of a threat to me. Probably.

On our way here I’d been thinking about how I wanted to tackle this particular quest but held off on making any concrete plans until I saw the actual situation. Now that I was here and could see the sheer number of wyrms flying around up there, at least three of my possible plans went down the drain. There were a ton of these things flitting around the building and they reminded me of those large flocks of birds back on Earth that looked like they were creating liquid shapes in the air when they flew overhead.

I sat there, considering my options before eventually settling on a course of action. Redax had been silently waiting for me, taking a step back and letting me do my thing.

“Alright, I’ll head out,” I warned Redax. “Actually, you should probably put some more distance between us, it might not be a good idea to be too close.”

Redax nodded and jumped backward off the roof we were standing on, disappearing from sight. I waited about a minute before I covered myself in a void cloak, summoning a void portal shortly after. The portal spat me out in the airspace above the wyrm nest, giving me my first good look at the critters.

Juvenile Wyrm (T7)

Lean, mean, killing machine. Wyrms only lay eggs every one hundred years and, for everyone's detriment, they seem to all be on the same biological clock. Massive flocks of them gather when the time has come, laying thousands of eggs in close proximity to each other. Their presence is already devastating, but if the eggs cannot be culled before they hatch, the locals are faced with a whole new problem. Thousands of tiny wyrms scour the land, devouring everything their tiny teeth and claws can reach. To make matters worse, these little guys are pretty adept at casting magic.

I was gliding above them for a while, monitoring their movements. I was confident that I could take out a ton of these guys in open combat, but their sheer number would be a problem. Them being able to fling around magic was also an incredible threat, and I was starting to understand why the Asphons considered them a problem. I didn’t want to imagine what it was like to face off against hundreds of these things doing fly-by bombing on my position. Being peppered by a shit ton of spells every second didn’t sound fun.

Unless I did it, of course.

No, if I wanted to do this quick and easy, I would need to be sneaky. Luckily I had the perfect tool for this. I quickly built the spell matrix for the poison mist spell and started pumping mana into it. My infuser passive once again proved its worth as the spell quickly grew to ridiculous proportions. I had a relative frame of reference from using the spell in the past, and I wouldn’t need to go overboard here. About four thousand mana should do the trick and cover this whole area. My high-tier poison shouldn’t have too much issue taking these guys out since, if I had to take a guess, their attributes were focused on agility, intelligence, and wisdom. Which didn’t leave a whole lot of constitution to defend against my poison.

As the spell charged, I idly wondered what would happen if I pumped my entire mana reserves into the spell. With the bonus from gluttony, I could temporarily achieve more than 300k MaxMP. A few thousand MP could devastate a sizable area, so completely overloading the spell could probably take out a big city easily. I was once again reminded that spells with no mana cap were scary and that the capstone skill of my current skill tree would unlock my potential beyond anything that was even remotely reasonable. I should probably look into mana bolt as well since it didn’t have a cap either, although I was rarely in need of such devastation, and even then, things like void laser or void rend were more cost-effective.

When I was satisfied with the amount of mana in the spell, I dove toward the roof of the skyscraper that had become the nest for the wyrms. In addition to the droves flying around the building, there were even more idling around on the roof. Once I felt I was properly in the midst of the activity, I cast the spell. Crazy amounts of poisonous mist spewed forth, covering the entire area around the building. I really hoped that Redax had put enough distance between us and that he wasn’t standing downwind. The fact that void cloak didn’t get canceled by casting poison mist felt more overpowered than ever.

It didn’t take too long for the first wyrms to drop. The tiny dragon wannabes couldn’t handle my superior poison with their (allegedly) low constitution and started biting the dust one after the other. They dropped out of the air like flies and it only took about a minute for the entire pack to cease existing. Well, their bodies still existed and I started to hurriedly throw them into my inventory, not wanting this chance to go to waste. There were a lot of them and I would get insane value from eating their corpses. One spell that barely dented my mana reserves for what looked to be a hundred or so dead wyrms? That was approximately fifty attribute points, probably more if I factored in my luck.

I had no trouble collecting the ones on the roof, but collecting the ones that fell proved to be a tad more complicated. I took my time to carefully search the area to make sure that I found all of the corpses while letting some time pass for the poison mist to disperse. Once I was reasonably certain that I’d collected as many as I could I went to go look for Redax. I once again cast a void cloak, intent on catching him by surprise once more.

I searched for him in the rough direction I saw him leave, keeping all of my senses trained on any trace of the Asphon. I knew he had a way of evading my void feelers, so I tried some other ways of detection as well. I occasionally stopped searching and landed on the ground, feeling for any minuscule vibrations that he might make while shifting his weight or changing positions. I didn’t think that listening for him would work, but I still occasionally unsealed my ears to take a gander. I spent a good twenty minutes looking all over for the slippery guy, but for the sake of not wasting too much time I eventually gave up, landing in the middle of a street I knew to be part of the patrol route.

“Alright, I give up, where are you Redax?” I shouted, hoping that he was close enough to hear me.

“Behind you,” Redax replied, appearing out of thin air.

“Of course you are…” I sighed. “You’ll have to tell me how you do that sometimes.”

“Maybe I will, maybe I won’t,” Redax said, annoyingly smug. “Ready to continue the patrol?”

“Sure, I already cleared the other two quests, so completing the patrol is all that’s left,” I started hopping along the street, Redax taking the hint and once again taking the position of the guide. I was looking forward to getting back, actually. It was nice to know that I could actually take some breaks and properly relax between all the fighting, no matter how much I enjoyed it.