Chapter 295 - 295. Challenges
He spent another 1000 souls and increased his Mana Bullet to level 6.
During the few days of questing, he had also increased his Mage level to level 20, catching up to his Warrior class and gaining the new spell Arcane Turbulence.
Arcane Turbulence, level 1/20 (Active skill, range, require magic weapon)
Affect an area with a diameter of 6 meters. Energy torrents will run havoc inside the area, causing disoriented status and dealing 100% magic damage every second.
Range: 30 meters
Duration: 10 seconds
Mana consumed: 70
Cooldown: 5 minutes
With this skill, he had a proper AOE spell already. He did not need to continue relying on magic scrolls which consumed lots of coins.
In terms of skills, some of his skills had also increased in grade to their first star. Those skills were Charge, Body Double, and Life Burning Art. Despite no longer using Commander Quintus' Training Ground, he had still practiced these skills diligently whenever he had the chance.
Charge in its first star increased the distance the skill traveled to by another half meter.
With Body Double, each star allowed one time in which the copy was not destroyed after switching. This skill had allowed him to trick his enemies numerous times, Peniel had been right when she advised him to get this skill. With this one star, he could do two times switching, giving him the possibility to go back to his original position again. This should give him more maneuverability in utilizing this skill.
Life Burning Art's star further added the increased attributes by another 10% when this skill was activated, effectively increasing its power.
He did not forget to collect the profit from Ellie's restaurant. Another week had passed since he last took the earning. At this time, he received 28 gold coins, which was more than the previous profit. He thought it made sense since the restaurant business continued to boom and there was also a tax reduction as well.
The lack of competitors which provide high-quality player-enhanced foods could be another factor for the restaurant's booming business. In fact, there were even some players who focused on their cooking skills who came to apply for a job in the restaurant. Jack gave Ellie the freedom to make the decision regarding these players.
Ellie selected some of the applicants and replaced the NPC cooks with these players. These players accepted less pay compared to the NPCs since they received benefits such as a supply of recipes and the opportunity to increase their cooking skills. Of course, the recipe that Ellie gave them were those common ones that could easily be purchased from shops. The rare ones were either learned by her or Bill.
With the additional income from the restaurant, Jack now had a total of 87 gold coins, which was more than he previously had before he spent them uncaringly for the battle with the coalition army. He felt rich again. Yet, the amount was still not enough for him to perform another upgrade to the restaurant. He might need to wait for a couple more weeks for that.
During these few days, although the coalition was acting low-key. It did not prevent some of its members to come looking for Jack. These members were the ones who did not join during the battle in Crestfall Plain, and they certainly did not believe that Jack had single-handedly killed so many of their guild mates.
The coalition's guild leaders had instructed their members to keep mum about the incident in Crestfall Plain. The news of how they were decimated by a lone player would surely ruin their reputations. Yet some of their members still spilled the beans. It was not possible for them to truly kept the lid regarding this matter. Not to mention White Scarfs and Saint Edge had instructed their members to spread the rumors regarding Jack, in order to ruin the coalition's reputation.
Thus, those members who were angry by this rumor and yet skeptical, had come looking for Jack to prove to others that the rumor was false.
Jack gladly accepted their challenges and proceeded to destroy them and send them back to level 1.
These challenges continued for several days until the guild leaders could finally ignore the matter no longer. A strict regulation was enforced on all their members, none of them were allowed to bother the player called Storm Wind anymore. Anyone who disobeyed would get severely punished.
As if getting killed was not punishment enough.
The reason the guilds imposed this rule was not because they did not dare to provoke Jack, but simply because if they didn't, they would continue to lose manpower. A significant number of their members had been forced to reset due to death in the Crestfall Plain battle. Their reputations had also been ruined, which caused a large number of potential recruits to decide to rescind their attempts in joining. Even a small portion of their current members had decided to quit. If they kept on just letting their members go and fight Jack only to get killed, they would soon run out of members before long.
And so the challenges abruptly stopped. Jack was confused and rather disappointed. He did enjoy having those ostentatious players coming to challenge him. Not only could he practice his dueling skill, he could also gain a small portion of loot, and a decent amount of souls. When the challengers were of advanced classes, Jack was even happier. Thus he was rather sad when it suddenly stopped.
However, not long after, another series of challenges appeared. But the challengers this time did not come from the coalition guilds. Instead, many were independent players or representatives of some unknown guilds. As Silverwing had predicted, many would come to challenge him due to the rumor.
Sadly though, most of the challengers were simple players. None of them were those well-known experts that Silverwing mentioned might come to him to look for trouble. Perhaps true experts did not find the need to prove themselves, only second-rate ones did. Jack did not show mercy to these second-rate challengers, he needed the souls after all. He gladly decimated them as they came.
And like these, the challenges slowly dwindled. The rumor of Jack killing every challenger had caused others who originally had the same thought to have a second thought. More and more people now believed Jack was indeed the Demon of Crestfall Plain, simply because of his ruthlessness.
Little did they know that Jack was not really that brutal because they dared to challenge him, he simply saw it as a chance to collect more souls.
Due to the challenges, he had collected another 2280 souls. Not as profitable as the battle with the coalition, yet a profit was a profit, he did not complain. Combined with the stock of 918 souls in his container, he leveled up another three levels of Mana Bullet, bringing it to level 9.
His Mana Bullet had also received another star after this period of challenges. He was no longer concealing his second class, so he freely unleashed all his Mage skills during the fight. Many players started to take notice of his existence who had two classes, more and more started to believe that he might really be the Demon of the Crestfall Plain. Though of course, there were still many who were skeptical.
His Barrier had also upgraded to its first star. The star gave the Barrier an additional duration of 12 seconds, which Jack thought was not so useful. Most of the time his Barrier would run out of its life instead of its duration.
It was almost a week after the battle with the coalition that Jack finally received a worthwhile challenge. He had gone back to Amy's Bakery to rest for the day. It was coincidentally the day where he received another profit from the bakery. This time he received a bit less, at 13 gold coins. He did not complain. Business had good times and bad times after all. As long as it still generated profit, then everything was fine. With these 13 gold coins, he finally reached the 100 gold coins mark.
He was just about to celebrate when he heard the bakery's doorbell rang. The store was supposed to close already. He turned around and saw a familiar face.
It was Red Death from Death Associates.
Jack stared at her in silence as she did the same. Amy who was also in the room, felt that there was something between these two outworlders, so she also stayed silent. The silence was too long that Jack started to feel awkward.
"Uh… Do you want to buy bread?" He finally broke the awkward atmosphere with an equally awkward question.
She was still silent.
Sister, do you come here just to have a staring contest with me? Jack complained in his mind.
"Open your map," she finally broke her silence.
"What for?" Jack asked, confused.
"I will send you a coordinate. Come there tomorrow morning. We will decide who amongst us is the better fighter."