We Hunt Monsters 3, page 19
Heck, he wouldn’t mind being threatened by a thousand disgruntled spirits if it meant gains like this.
“You should probably take another look at those plans you’ve drawn up,” Bob said excitedly. “I want to see how much they’ll change.”
Keith immediately reached for the plans, unrolling the parchment and taking a good look at it. The same purple color shone across the entire parchment – it seemed that a grandmaster was just as good at the actual planning – however, he could now see parts moving on the actual plans.
It wasn’t any of the ink, but rather, ethereal figures appeared on the plans, moving back and forth. Tiny dots represented their fighters, while a single, large one showed the monster. Of course, Keith didn’t have complete data on the creature, seeing as it had only used half of its skills. But from what he’d seen by reading the skill descriptions, he knew that if he could get the right fighters and equipment, they would have a pretty good shot at taking this thing down.
“What exactly is the bonus for getting a skill to level ten sage?” Keith asked, rolling the plans up once more.
“It varies from skill to skill,” Bob said with a shrug. “Some give you bonus stat points, some give a unique effect to the skill, others still will award an entirely new skill or even give you a leveling advantage. All in all, it’s definitely worth continuing to grow it, though I will have to warn you that getting something at the sage level to grow is almost impossible.”
“Even with my grandmaster-level Quick Learner skill?” Keith asked.
“That’s where I’m unsure,” Bob said with a shrug. “How skills interact with one another can be a tricky subject and not something guides like me can calculate. I’d say to just wait and see. The skill itself is extremely useful, and with a seventy-percent increased growth speed, you’re doing really well.”
Keith nodded, pulling his skill list up once more to go through the changes and improvements from each one.
“So, nothing changed with the actual Warmaster skill itself,” Keith said as he looked through. “I’m guessing that if there are world-level weapons, I’d need to be a sage to wield one without restriction, right?”
“Yup,” Bob replied. “But you did get an added effect. An extra damage bonus certainly won’t hurt you.”
That much was true. But Keith could see a bit of a trap here. If his damage output was five-percent higher when he was unarmed, he might be tempted to forgo weapons, even when they would offer him an advantage.
Overall, Peak Health had improved quite a bit, but it was the newly added effect that Keith was most excited about.
“This is basically like a second life,” he said as he read over the effect.
“Kind of, but not exactly,” Bob replied. “Remember, it only blocks a single attack that would reduce your HP to zero. So, if that giant monster punches you, your HP will drop to zero, then be back at one. But, when you smash into the ground, you will definitely die.”
“So what you’re saying is that I’ll need to be fast with my ring of recovery,” Keith said, still sure this was an amazing addition to his arsenal.
His Tactician skill was next, and just by reading it, Keith already knew the effects were amazing. He’d also looked them over in detail already, so he moved to the next. Quick Learner had an effect that would give him a slight chance to skip over entire stages of a skill. For example, if he had a skill at the beginner level, there was a slight chance it would skip intermediate and jump straight to advanced when he moved to the next stage.
His Ranger skill improved pathfinding, and the added effect that cut fall damage in half was nice, though he knew that even half the damage a fall from the top of the cliffside would inflict would be enough to kill him. Though, with his Peak Health allowing him to live on a single point of health, he might actually be able to survive it.
Punisher gave him the small chance to instantly kill someone, and Discerning Eye gave the added effect of reading personal information.
“Isn’t that effect a bit creepy?” Bob asked.
“It might be,” Keith said. “But it’s also extremely useful. Aside from the obvious blackmail, you can tap into someone’s motivations to know what gets them going. There is also a slew of other practical uses that I’m not going to get into now, but suffice it to say that this is basically like mind-reading.”
“Oh, yeah?” Bob asked. “What am I thinking right now?”
“I can’t actually see what you’re thinking, and you know that,” Keith said. “What I can see is that you’re extremely motivated by food, your favorite pastime is hiding and letting other people do the work, and your greatest desire is-”
“Okay! Okay, I get it!” Bob interrupted him, the panic clear in his voice. “It’s a useful addition.”
Keith hid a smile and continued going through his status. The Legendary Monster Hunter skill, now at the master ranks, improved his damage against monsters but also added a second ability, one that would freeze a monster in place once per day.
“Are these abilities considered to be magic?” Keith asked, wondering if he’d be able to use them against Orne.
“Yes,” Bob said, crushing his hopes. “Any special abilities granted by weapons or skills are magic.”
“Wait, so none of my weapons will work?” Keith asked.
“They will,” Bob said. “Weapon effects are fine. For example, your hammers will still inflict crushing damage and the chance for burn, acid burn, or freeze is still good. What won’t work against Orne would be the Triblaze Firefly skill.”
“Got it,” Keith said.
If he wanted to defeat Orne, he would need to come up with the perfect weapon and armor combination to take him down, and now that his Tactician skill was at the sage level, he was confident he’d be able to pull one together.
He went through the remainder of his skills, noting improvements in the Rough Wagoner and Judgment skills. However, it was the addition of the Prodigy skill that had him most excited.
“How exactly will this work?” he asked.
“The effectiveness to skills will just give you a baseline boost across the board,” Bob said. “For example, it’ll boost damage, duration, AOE range, and so on in active skills and give an added boost on top of passive ones. An easy example would be an added ten percent to the twenty-percent boost to speed from the Rough Wagoner skill. So now, instead of a twenty-percent boost, you’ll get a twenty-two percent boost.”
“Alright,” Keith said. “What about the experience gain?”
“That’ll be added on as well,” Bob said. “It applies to everything. Quests, battles, items, you name it.”
“So, if I have a quest that awards me one-hundred XP?” Keith asked.
“You’ll get an additional ten XP on top of that when you’re awarded that experience.”
Keith could hardly contain his excitement. This skill was extremely useful, and its usefulness would only grow. The higher his quest rewards, the higher the bonus. Sure, a ten-point bonus didn’t sound like much, but if he’d added that bonus to his Grandmaster of Combat quest, he’d have gotten an additional twenty-five-hundred XP.
Just by watching the battle between Smith and Orne, Keith could see how much difference levels made because even against the toughest monster on the continent, the man was able to hold his own for several minutes.
This XP boost would definitely come in handy.
32
Once Keith had gone through all of his skills, he opened his status once again to assign his stat points. He hadn’t leveled much in the last few weeks due to the amount of time they’d spent on the road. However, he was planning on gaining at least a few more before the big showdown with Orne.
That was if he could gather the necessary fighters for the job. A quick look through his stats had him splitting his points between strength and endurance, with two going into the former and three into the latter. Once they’d been assigned, he took a look at his new and improved stat sheet.
Status
Name: Keith the Tactical Sage
Race: Sortie
Class: Warmaster
Level: 34
XP: 16,074/24,000
HP: 940/940
STA: 1,760/1,760
Strength - 195 (Base 108)(104 + 2 + 2 Class)
Vitality - 94 (Base 39)(37 + 2 Racial)
Endurance - 176 (Base 101)(96 + 3 + 2 Class)
Agility - 122 (Base 84)(83 + 1 Class)
Wisdom - 17
Luck - 26 (Base 19)
Skills
Passive
Warmaster: Grandmaster – I
Peak Health: Grandmaster – I
Tactician: Sage – I
Quick Learner: Grandmaster – I
Ranger: Grandmaster – I
Punisher: Grandmaster – I
Discerning Eye: Grandmaster – I
Legendary Monster Hunter: Master – I
Rough Wagoner: Advanced – I
Judgment: Advanced – I
Prodigy: Advanced – I
Active
Heatstance: Intermediate - VII
Static Rush: Intermediate - I
Heat Flash: Beginner - IV
Golden Hammer: Beginner - IV
Hammerrang: Beginner - V
Cleaving Earth: Novice - IV
Equipped Items
Armor
Sola’s Regal Helm
Sola’s Regal Pauldrons
Sola’s Regal Breastplate
Sola’s Regal Bracers
Sola’s Regal Gauntlets
Sola’s Regal Greaves
Sola’s Regal Pants
Sola’s Regal Boots
Desert Cloak
Total Armor Rating: 152
Weapons
1) Sola’s Triblaze Crusher
2) Nightgale’s Silent Cleaver
3) Land Dragon’s Fury
Other
Sola’s Second Wind
Sola’s Mighty Choker
Sola’s Ring of Regeneration
Sola’s Ring of Endurance
Gregamore’s Ring of Brutality
Ring of Vitality
Silverion’s Ring of Time
Umbral Ring of Endless Shade
Trickster’s Ring of Negative Spirit
Sola’s Band of Vitality
Lucky Hoof
One interesting thing he noticed was that the name of the ring given to him by the Trickster had gone through a name change. Curious, he pulled up its description, noting that the intertwining red script had vanished, leaving only the original line of green.
Name: Trickster’s Ring of Negative Spirit
Quality: Legendary
Item Type: Ring
Effects: Prevents spirits from appearing before you. Immunity from direct spirit attacks.
Value: 1,650 large gold
*This item is soulbound
It seemed that once the effect had been used, the ring lost a tremendous amount of its value. Still, a ring that could block spirits from manifesting before you was worth a lot of money, especially to someone on their naughty list.
With his status now closed, Keith laid down in bed, stretching his arms high overhead and letting out a low groan. He was exhausted, and when he thought of everything that had happened in the last few hours, that was hardly surprising.
Bob was still scrolling through his status, muttering about how they were soon going to take over the world, but Keith ignored him, allowing his mind to drift to the battle and trying to find the best weapons and armor to take that monster down.
It really didn’t take all that long for him to come up with something. In essence, the monster dished out huge amounts of damage using blunt force or kinetic energy from its roar. There were likely magical attacks as well, based on Orne’s skills and skill description, though he hadn’t actually seen them in action, so the damage could be greater than anticipated.
What he needed was something that was strong against kinetic damage and magic. As for effects, he’d be looking for something that increased strength, agility, endurance and vitality. He also wanted additional effects that could absorb kinetic power and turn it to his advantage. However, collecting the parts for something like that might be difficult, if not outright impossible.
For weapons, he would look for improvements to what he currently had. Improving damage output would be nice, but improving cutting power for his blade would be really useful. Landing critical hits would be extremely important and managing to successfully stack debuffs onto the monster, so it was constantly taking damage would be one of the keys to success.
The use of traps and terrain would also be very important. In short, this was a huge and expensive undertaking, one that would determine whether he came a step closer to a peaceful life with his family on Earth or saw him off to eternal servitude.
“Alright, Bob,” Keith said, sitting up in bed and startling the monkey. “I’m going to need a list of locations.”
Keith laid out what he wanted, and as he spoke, the monkey’s grin grew wider and wider.
“Wow, that sage-level skill really packs a punch, doesn’t it?” Bob said.
“Is this all possible?” Keith asked.
“Oh, it’s not only possible,” Bob replied, “we’re going to make it happen!”
The map opened before his eyes and four spots of red appeared, all within a two-day radius of their current location by carriage.
“These are all locations where monsters of the type we need have been known to frequent. Mind you, it won’t be a sure thing, and you might have to wait a few days for one to show up, but this is your best shot.”
The map zoomed out a bit more, placing a final red dot around three days from the farthest spot on the map.
“This dungeon is where you’ll find the last pieces you’ll need. Without them, you won’t have any kinetic absorption or output in weapons. You’ll also be able to find a slew of useful potion ingredients here. Potions, unlike skills or weapon effects, are not considered to be magic, so loading up on powerful ones is key to taking a monster like this down.”
“Excellent,” Keith said, his eyes roaming over the map. “Do me a favor and pin the location of the bloodring factory as well. We’ve only got a bit of time left before we’re discovered, so we’ll have to stop in for a visit.”
Another spot appeared on the map, and thankfully, it was not too far out of the way.
“Excellent,” Keith said, pushing himself off the bed, having changed his mind about wasting the day away down here.
First, they’d be heading to Suncrow City to report what had happened and leave a message for Gladys. Then, they’d head for Jaina’s Keep to speak with Jelly. If they were going to pull this off, they were going to need her help.
33
“Have the two of you lost your minds?” Jelly yelled, her face beet red. “I’ve already lost most of my members, and now you want me to send the rest of them to an early grave. Do you really expect me to do that?”
It was nearing nighttime, and their group had already gone to Suncrow City to speak with Nuri, who’d known about the disaster. She had been beside herself, not knowing what to do. The worst part for her was that she couldn’t even go to fight the monster on her own, as she was a mage.
Once they were finished with the avatar, they left a message for Gladys to contact them at the guild in Jaina’s Keep once she returned, then headed to speak with Jelly, who was currently on a tirade. Keith couldn’t really blame her. She’d lost most of her guild members in this attack and clearly didn’t want to take any more risks.
“I understand that you’re afraid,” Keith said calmly. “But the only reason they failed was that they had a moron leading them. I already have a battle plan, the monster’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as the best way to take it down with as few casualties as possible.”
Jelly opened her mouth to say something, shut it, took a deep breath, and then spoke.
“Look, I appreciate what you’re trying to do here, but there’s no way I can trust someone I barely know to lead a raid of this scale, especially with your current ranking in the guild. Besides, even if I did let you, we don’t have nearly enough members to make a difference.”
“Not right now, we don’t,” Keith said. “But I do have a few friends who may be able to help us. That is if you have a way to communicate long-distance.”
Jelly clenched her teeth. The woman was clearly distraught. She had suffered a huge loss, and that hadn’t only been a loss for the guild. The men she’d lost had likely been friends and companions. To see so many of them die for nothing must have been heart-wrenching.
“I do,” she sighed. “But the item is extremely costly to make and only has a couple of uses, so I wouldn’t waste it on something like this.”
“What are you going to do when the monster breaks free and wrecks the continent?” Keith asked.
“What?” Jelly asked, clearly confused by the change of topic.
“Exactly what I asked,” Keith said. “How are you going to be able to protect anyone once the monster breaks out of his cage and comes knocking on your front door?”
Jelly shook her head, then began to pace back and forth agitatedly. Keith stood silent and waited. The woman would soon come to the obvious conclusion. Once she did, they could begin planning, and he still had his secret weapon just in case she decided not to.
“Fine,” she finally said, stopping before him. “You’re right. So, tell me, oh wise one, how are we going to stop that monster before it can break free?”
“I’m glad you asked,” Keith said, pulling the parchment from his inventory.
About thirty minutes later, the three of them rose from the table, Jelly seeming a lot calmer about the idea of fighting the monster. It wouldn’t be easy by any means, but she could see a way forward.
“I’ll have Monty, our blacksmith, start working on some lightweight weapons based on the weaknesses you’ve pointed out,” Jelly said. “I’ll also get Garm working on potions and the like. I’ll have word spread around that we’re looking for debuff specialists and non-magical items that can deal kinetic, non-magical damage.
