Chapter 14 - 14. Blade Of Haste
Storm Wind
Class: Fighter / magician
Level 4 / Level 3
Attributes:
- HP = 300/300
- Stamina = 140/140
- MP = 120/120
- Strength = 31
- Dexterity = 27
- Intelligence = 26
- Endurance = 30
- Reflex = 26
- Wisdom = 28
- Luck = 2 (+1)
- Free attribute point = 2
- Free skill point = 2/2
Experience = 14/800 (fighter), 35/200 (magician). Setting 75:25
His Health, Stamina, and Mana had all fully refilled from this level-up. He felt his body refreshed and his fatigue disappeared. The mental exhaustion however, was still there.
His first order of business was to reset his experience setting back to 50:50. After this fight, he realized the importance of range prowess. But he still could not neglect his main melee class, so he just set them for equal distribution. This way, both his classes will improve evenly, with the Magician class trailing not too far behind.
He decided to keep the free attribute points for now. He then proceeded to open his Battle Skill page. From the notification, he had heard that he received a new skill.
There was an additional spell under the Magician skill section.
Magic Shield, level 1/20 (Active skill, melee, require magic weapon)
Create a shield in front of equipped magic weapon. Serve as a shield with defense affected by intelligence stat.
Mana consumed: 1 each second
Good! Now I have another defensive skill, he thought. With this additional life-saving skill, he should be able to reduce the risk when he engaged in melee combat. From the description, it was sort of like having equipped a shield. He wasted no time trying this new skill.
He cast the spell, innumerous starlights emerged from his staff and coalesced to form a triangular-shape-like shield at the tip of his staff. The shield-light floated there and exuded an aura that made him feel secured. He moved his staff and the shield follow. With a sword on his right hand, and a shield-staff on his left, he was technically a warrior wielding sword and shield. Now he could do a proper melee battle.
After some thought, he decided to use the Free Skill points to upgrade both the defensive skills in his repertoire. He increased the level of Parry to level 3 and Magic Shield to level 2. He kept the remaining Free Skill points.
After sorting out his skills, he closed the status window and walked over to where Bill was. Like he had expected, Bill's corpse had vanished, just like the first man he saw who was killed by zombies. There were also several things on the ground where Bill's body was. He crouched down and inspected them.
Egg (normal Cooking Ingredient)
Carrot (normal Cooking Ingredient)
Chicken Soup (normal Cooking Recipe)
As expected from a person with the alias of Master Chef, his inventory was filled with Cooking stuff. He looked around and didn't find the knife and armor of Bill's, this meant that not all items & equipment were dropped upon death. He learned the Cooking recipe and put the ingredients into his inventory. He was about to leave when something caught his eye. He stared at the thing on the ground and didn't know what to think of it.
"Could it be…," he muttered.
He went to where the thing was.
It really was it! He stood there and looked at the piece of saber on the ground. It was the weapon that belonged to that Skeleton Captain. How could it be? He thought that the weapon would have vanished just like the Captain's summoned minion which went away once it was killed.
Could it be that we could take a monster's weapon after it was disarmed? He thought of the possibility.
He Bent down to pick up the weapon, expecting the system to prevent him from touching the weapon, but he picked it up just fine. He inspected it with his God-eye monocle.
Blade of Haste, level 5/15 (uncommon one-handed weapon)
Physical damage: 40
Attack speed: 2
Increase movement speed by 10%
Durability: 40
Requirement: Level 5
No wonder the Skeleton Captain became faster once he held this saber, it was the effect of the weapon. It is an uncommon grade, much better than the Bronze Short Sword that he used right now. Unfortunately, it required level 5 to equip, so he couldn't use it yet at the moment. He stored the saber in his Storage bag.
Afterward, he looked around again to make sure he didn't miss anything. He looked at Bill's house which was already in ruin before sighing and left. He walked towards another area which had less red dot to find a place where he could spend the night.
Another two days passed as Jack make his way to the outer rim of the City. On the way, he battled numerous monsters. Mostly level 1 Zombies and level 2 Skeleton Thugs, but he had also encountered level 3 Skeleton Thugs and on one occasion, a level 4 Skeleton Thug. However, after the battle with the Skeleton Captain, these creeps were practically small fries.
He had leveled up to become Fighter level 5 and Magician level 3. He immediately equipped the Blade of Haste he had gotten from the Skeleton Captain once he reached level 5, his traveling speed increased once he did. He stored the Bronze short sword which durability had decreased to 14 due to the constant combats all this time. He had also received a new skill for his level 5 Fighter.
Swing, level 1/20 (Active skill, melee, require melee weapon)
Deal 120% physical damage to all enemies in a fan shape directly in front of the player
Stamina consumed: 15
Cooldown: 10 seconds cooldown
It was a melee range AOE skill. With the addition of this skill, combined with Magic Shield, he no longer shied away from group fights, as long as the opponents were not higher level than him. He had taken on three monsters at a time, he used Magic Shield and Parry to block their attacks and got them into position, then used the Swing skill to deal damage to all three monsters at the same time.
While waiting for the Swing skill's cooldown, he relied on the Magic Shield and his footwork for defense while landing normal attacks or Power Strike on one of the monsters. In this way, he practiced his melee prowess. He avoided using his Magician range attack during these few days to get used to the melee fights in this world.
In the other VR RPG games, he had a record of dealing with five opponents of the same level, with a narrow win achievement. At this time, even though he had higher attributes due to his double levels compared to opponents of the same level, he didn't dare to take too much risk. He had heard of some apex experts in previous VR games that could take on ten opponents of the same level. Solely relying on adept control of their body movements. Such experts he knew were martial arts prodigies in their real life.
He knew a bit martial art because of following his late grandfather's training during his childhood, but he only treated it as a hobby. His skill was a mile away if compared to those martial arts prodigies. He relied more on his adept understanding of skills mechanics and appropriate utilization of those skills to set himself among the top-tier experts in past VR RPG games.
During his journey, he had gotten a total of 24 copper coins and a pair of Sandals. The Sandals were common shoe equipment that provided 1 defense. Better than nothing, Jack thought when he equipped the Sandals. The drop rates were still very bad. He had gotten more from his scavenging on local stores which he encountered during his travel.
He had gotten 3 bread, 2 junk foods, 3 medicine, and 2 energy drinks, but he had also consumed 2 junk foods and 2 bread. He also found several ingredients within the stores, like carrots, rice, eggs, and cucumbers.
He had busted into a residential house and used its cooking utensils inside to cook Egg Fried Rice. He received a fail on his first try, but still receive proficiency for his cooking skill and his failed fried rice was still edible albeit without the recovery effect. It only served as normal food to alleviate his hunger. He was successful on his second attempt. He couldn't make the Chicken Soup yet as the recipe required Onion, Carrot, and Chicken meat ingredients, he was missing two out of the three required ingredients.
He had still not met another soul since Bill on this entire journey.