7 Bread and Butter

Jay stealthily snuck up to the clearing, scouting for any threats or enemies.

As Jay watched, a large fat rat exited the large burrow. It began feasting on the remains of a level 1 soap rat.

Jay had shivered seeing the rat eat its own kind like it was any other snack, then suddenly he got a notification.

< [Hidden Quest Requirements met] >

[Alone]

[Under level 5]

< [Quest Acquired: Slay Stench-Rat Molodus] >

[Reward] 1 Level up

[Reward] 50 Gold

Heh, the dungeon thinks I’m solo. My Don’s must not count. The rewards are pretty good, too - especially since I was planning to do this, anyway.

Smiling, Jay checked that rat’s stats.

< [Stench-Rat Molodus - Level 5] >

[50 HP]

<[Skills]>

[Slippery] (Passive)

- The rat uses swamp slime to its advantage.

- Crowd control skills have no effect.

[Piercing Bite]

- 5 pierce damage

[Tearing Claws]

- Bleed

- 4 flat damage over 4 seconds (Can stack 4 times)

[Toxic Aura](Passive)

- The stench of this creature poisons those around it.

-1HP/second

- 3 metre radius

[Poison Immune] (Passive)

<[Description]>

[Both king and dread of the soap rats; living in the stench-swamp, it has become one with it. “You only adopted the stench. I was born in it.”]

Jay raised his brows at the description.

Weird... It’s not much different from the other soap rats - well, except for its massive health and its dangerous passive ability. And those big-ass fangs. Maybe it’s better at fighting, like that other level 3 soap rat... I’ll need a plan.

The rat was about the size of a cow, its belly scraped the ground as it walked while half of its long tail was still in the burrow. It had 2 large fangs pointing out from the middle of its top jaw, while its fur was thick - filled with slime, green mold and decaying wood. If you looked closely, you could even see small mushrooms nestled in some parts of its fur.

Jay got the Don’s circling around to the other side of the clearing. Entering the clearing first, he got the fat rat’s attention.

“Hey! Rat!” Jay was not very creative with his taunt, but it worked.

The rat stopped chewing on the corpse, dropping it from its jaws and stepping on it as if it was just another decaying log. It hissed at Jay as its fur on its back rose.

Jay noticed a slight mist around Molodus. Jay took another few steps forward as he controlled the Don’s to break cover and attack Molodus from behind. Molodus charged at Jay before the Don’s could attack, so the ambush failed.

Jay dodged the charge, stepping to the side as he slashed at its side.

-1.

Likewise, Jay took 1 damage after coming into contact with the rat’s toxic aura, his skin burning slightly.

The Don’s caught up to Jay, bones rattling. As the giant rat turned around, they pounced on it, but slid off because of its fur.

The rat clawed at one of the Dons as they got up to attack it.

The Don didn’t suffer a bleed since it was undead and had no blood; it was merely slowed down before retaliating with a bite and endless claw attacks. The other feeble creature had already started attacking; damage numbers started appearing above the rat’s head.

-5

-6

-4

-5

Each feeble creature could do 2-3 damage per second, but the rat king would not let them just attack for free.

Turning to the side, it planted a foot on a Don, a cracking sound coming from the feeble creature’s ribs. The pressure forced the hunch out of the feeble creature’s back, making it go flat and straighten up - though it didn’t seem to take any notice of the pain, which surprised the rat, as it never stopped attacking - Its attacks being just as fast as the other minion.

-5

Annoyed, it smashed its large tail against the other feeble creature, sending it flying off into the swamp.

Hmm, guess I better step in.

Running at the rat, Jay twirled his knife and stabbed at the rat’s forearm. Pulling it back, it released the feeble skeleton. However, the skeleton it continued to bite and claw at the rat.

-1

-2

-2

The rat was dying. It was already down to 20hp. It panicked as the other Don ran back from the swamp and was about to slash it - but to everyone’s surprise, another soap rat was chasing after the Don.

Thinking quickly, Jay had the incoming Don attack the soap rat while he distracted the rat boss.

Being bitten, he felt bones crushed in his off-hand. He grabbed his knife and stabbed in through the rat’s eye.

[Critical hit!]

-2

The rat was now blind in one eye, and started being more defensive - though there was still a Don which had been attacking it the whole time.

-1

-2

The rat boss slashed at the Don to no effect - it was a bleed attack - the Don’s had no blood.

Jay noticed the Don still had a cracked rib cage from when the rat stomped on it.

[Shell Restoration]

The green mist swirled around the Don as the king rat stepped back in shock, wondering what was happening - though the Don continued to attack.

Jay noticed the rat’s toxic aura stopped burning him as the mist swirled.

My mana must disrupt the mist somehow.

Hammering on, the Don’s killed both of the soap rats and then moved over to slay the rat king with some help from Jay.

As it was about to die, Jay had the last hit as he jumped at the rat with both hands gripping his knife.

The blade stabbed into the rat’s skull as it spasmed.

Panting as he caught his breath, “Finally, we did it. It wasn’t too hard to be honest - but I guess no one fights this bastard solo. That would suck.... if you weren’t me, heh.” He said, chuckling as he opened his notification.

[Quest Complete]

1 Level up

50 gold

Suddenly, he felt stronger, smarter. His corroded skin healed along with his broken arm.

He felt like he had a stronger link to his undead - then he received another notification.

< [Level 5 - Class Skill Acquired] >

[Necrotic Ring] (Unique)

[Description]

Bone storage.

[Two Ring Functions - Transplant/Shift]

[Transplant]

- Bones can be added to or extracted from the ring. Bones can be quickly extracted from corpses and added to the ring.

[Shift]

- The ring changes form.

No mana cost

“Bone storage, huh? How useful. It would be nice to have a more detailed description though. Hopefully, I won’t have to carry around the bones from these guys,” He said, patting one of the feeble creatures’ skulls.

Looking at the huge rat corpse, he looted it first before casting [Necrotic Ring] on it.

[Molodus Coat] - Melee attackers are poisoned.

[Molodus Claws] - Gem - Add bleed damage. Scales with weapon.

[Poisonous Moss]

[Large Fangs] x2

Distracted by the loot, he didn’t notice his spell having an effect.

Immediately, the skin twisted and roiled as parts bubbled and popped.

Shit...

An explosion resounded through the marsh, making the surrounding reeds and swamp grasses become temporarily flat as the force spread over them.

Blood, organs, viscera and goo covered Jay once more.

In frustration, he almost willed the Don’s to kill himself, ending it all. Quickly, still holding his breath and closing his eyes, he jumped in a nearby stink-rat marsh pond he noticed while fighting.

The water was as filthy as ever, but still better than his current condition.

Coming up for air, he took a breath and screamed

“You fucker!” Perhaps the whole marsh heard him roar.

Breathing heavily, he angrily spat out “These fucking skills causing blood and piss to squirt everywhere all the time. What the hell is wrong with necromancers, why do they do this shit? Freaks! All of them! They need to be punished!”

It was on this day that Jay swore to eliminate every other necromancer he would come across.

After taking a moment to calm down, he noticed the skill was working - the bones from the rat king were all floating around him along with small wisps of the green gas, similar to the ring of Saturn - they were in his orbit. He read his new notification.

< [Necrotic Ring Function 1] >

[Increased defense 5%]

[Transplant enabled]

“Well, I guess that’s pretty damn cool. It still doesn’t make up for what just happened though,” he pouted.

He tried the second function of the ring next.

[Shift]

Suddenly, the bones all merged and somehow compacted into a small ashy gray-colored ring with a skull imprint. It amazed Jay at the impossibility of it as the ring then flew onto his finger - then he got a notification.

< [Necrotic Ring Function 2] > (Passive)

[Increased agility 5%]

Good. This makes up for it, he smiled, and prolonged his anti-necromancer crusade.. for now.

I guess a bone stockpile and summoning are the necromancer’s bread and butter. It sure beats hanging out in a cemetery or a mass grave all day long too - or even carrying around stinky bones, yuck, Jay reasoned, as he looked as his ring. “I’d better hide you from that noble brat in case he wants to take you, my special ring, my… my precious,” Jay devilishly grinned.

Noticing the rat’s burrow, he strolled over to it, hoping for some better loot.

Surely you gotta have some good stuff - being the king and all.

Checking the burrow, it was mostly decaying piles of junk. Clearly, few adventurers ever came here. Though it was an instanced dungeon, so it’s not like he would have run into any.

Picking up an old battered shield from the muddy pit, he analyzed it

[Decayed Shield]

“Wow, it has no stats? Absolute junk.” He tossed it aside, then as his eyes continued to look around, he noticed a book which was underneath the rotting shield.

It was a peculiar book, as it had no folds or creases in its cover, no signs of ageing, and neither was it blackened or wet like most things in the marsh - it was as if it had just been printed.

Looking at the cover, it was black with a golden ring symbol in the center, though the ring had a crack at the bottom.

Flipping over the front cover, he found the book name

[Escape the Circles]

“Hmm, weird name for a book.” He thought as he read.

After reading the first page, which had text filling it, he found that all the other pages were black, and after he finished the read, he received a notification.

[Immortality Research 1%]

“What? Immortality?” He re-read the first page again, hoping to gain more knowledge, yet nothing happened. The pages behind them were still blank.

Hmm, perhaps I need to understand it and not merely just memorize it like a parrot.

Jay stashed the book away, deciding what to do next. He had already been here for hours and wasn’t willing to spend another second here. After looking around the king rat’s area, he found nothing else except more decaying wood and two more dead rat skeletons to add to his necrotic ring.

This will be enough to summon two more of my feeble creatures, he thought. I guess there’s no point in staying in this dungeon since I killed the boss.

Immediately, the mud sucked Jay under without warning - the dungeon responding to his thoughts as it spat him out again, landing in the same spot he entered, in the cold winter forest.

The clouds were dark, and he hadn’t braced himself for the cold weather outside. Still covered in murky swamp water, he shivered.

“Nope, not again.” Without hesitation he turned to sprint back to Losla before he caught hypothermia a second time, but before he could take his first step, the Don’s flew out of the dungeon entrance - both landing on him.

Ahh shit.

The Don’s caused him to eat the dirt once again.

Annoyed, he was going to de-summon them, adding more bones to his necrotic ring inventory - but he took a moment, and healed his Don’s before he sent them into the woods to hunt monsters so he could passively level up.

Smiling as they left, he cheered himself up “Yeah, this is what a necromancer’s all about anyway - making your minions do all the work.”

In a flash, the Don’s scuttled off into the woods as if they had already picked up a scent and were chasing their prey. “Just don’t come near the city or other humans!” he yelled after them.

Squinting at their bone spines, Jay muttered under his breath “.. weirdos” before he began the run back to the inn, as the gray clouds above cluttered out the rest of the sunset.

“Time for another ruby-gem bath” he half-smiled, dodging trees and bare branches as he dashed through the freezing winter forest.