Chapter 28. Second Round with the Lizardman Blood Guard

"What happens if I feed it a lower-level weapon?" He asked another question as he remembered Peniel mentioning about using his Bronze Short Sword to increase this weapon's level.

"If you feed it lower-level weapons, it will increase its experience bar," Peniel answered. "When the bar is filled up, the sword will increase one level. This sword doesn't follow the usual rule of leveling up by smithing. And if you haven't noticed, you will see it doesn't have a level cap beside the weapon's level number like the other weapons."

"So I can level it up as many times as I want?"

"If you can find sufficient high-level weapons," Peniel nodded. "The higher level it becomes, the less the experience bar will fill up by feeding it low-level weapons."

Jack immediately took out all the weapons he had collected all this time. There was his first weapon Bronze Short Sword, then the Bronze Axe he acquired from Ogre, then there were also another level 1 Short Sword and level 5 Long Sword he got during his mad grinding period. All were just common weapons. He got no use for them other than filling up his bag's space, so he decided to feed them to his Storm Breaker to increase its strength.

When he fed it the Bronze Short Sword, the experience bar increased by a mere 1%. When he fed it the level 5 Long Sword it increased by 10%. The percentage increase was much better proportionately if using high-level weapons as the Fairy had mentioned. When he tried to feed it the Bronze Axe, it failed.

"You can only feed it the same type of weapon," Peniel informed him.

'That limits a lot of my options,' Jack thought sadly. He stored the Bronze Axe.

After feeding it the third sword, he had only increased the sword's experience bar by 12%. It was still a long way from increasing one level.

He guessed this was the best he could do in his current situation. He looked at his status window and saw that twenty minutes had gone by since he got the boost. He only had around forty minutes left. He didn't know how hard the fight would be, so he thought that he'd better not waste any more time. He took out his magic staff and prepared to go out the door.

"You really have two classes!" Peniel looked amazed when she saw him wielding both sword and staff.

"I thought you said you know everything?"

"Every basic knowledge," the Fairy retorted. "That dual-class of yours is an anomaly."

"It's a good thing though, right?"

"We'll see."

He was about to charge out before he thought of something and asked, "When I fight, will you be able to give me any assistance?"

"Nope," Peniel answered swiftly.

Jack rolled his eyes at the Fairy's indifference.

"Then do I have to pay attention in order for you not to be harmed? What if one of its attacks hits you accidentally?"

"It won't," Peniel answered calmly. "You won't see me around when you are fighting. I'll be hiding and watching from a separate dimension."

"That's convenient," Jack commented. "What if I die? What will happen to you?"

"I will go back to my home, and consider my job is done."

"That's just heartless," he said. "What about me? What happens if I die?"

"Then you die."

He was depressed; he was hoping to hear otherwise.

"No coming back to life? I thought in games like this you come back to life when you died."

Peniel stared at him and said, "What game? This is real life. If you don't want to die, then fight harder. Now stop wasting time, the boost will be gone if you continue to delay."

After finishing the sentence, the fairy's body turned transparent and disappeared from view, leaving Jack no opportunity to continue with his questions.

"Well, let's get on with it then," Jack said as he lifted both his weapons. He cast Magic Shield and then kicked the door hard. He dashed right out as the door leaf swung violently outward. He braced himself for an attack but found the room to be empty.

"Huh?" He then remembered that he had not checked the opponent's position prior to rushing out. He glanced at the radar in his monocle, and was shocked to see a red dot behind him. He turned around right away and found the Lizardman was already swinging its scimitar towards him. Jack narrowly blocked the attack with his Magic Shield.

His opponent was rather crafty.  Jack never expected it to hide itself beside the door waiting for him to come out. He lost his balance and staggered backward due to the ambush, but found that the blow was not as heavy as he remembered it. The boost was indeed impressive; he would have flown away if he was still in his previous condition.

The Lizardman executed its fierce consecutive slashes again, but Jack had studied this move since his last tussle with this creature. This move must be one of its offensive skills. It was extremely fast and left no room for counterattack or evasion once the first slash connected. Jack's only option was to keep blocking it. But the Lizardman's attack would usually slow down after the sixth slash. That must be when the skill ended, Jack surmised.

Jack counted each blow he blocked.  Once he reached six, he dropped his shield and executed Power Strike. His gamble paid off as his strike caught the monster off guard and hit its body. He scored an 82 damage on the monster, which more than doubled his damage output from the first fights.

In his thrill at scoring such high damage, Jack was momentarily careless and got a slash to his waist. He lost 23 damage. But with the Godly Might regenerating his HP, even during combat, his health quickly returned to full. Even though his HP was only one-tenth of the monster's, he was still at an advantage.

With the boost, he really had a much easier time dealing with this guardian boss. His speed was now slightly faster than the Lizardman's, enabling him to cope with each swift assault and even letting him land a counter-attack from time to time. He continued to grind down the monster's HP. Sometimes he broke from the melee scramble and used his range spells to land a few hits.

Due to Godly Might's decreased cooldowns on his skills' and increased recovery of stamina and MP, he could practically spam all his skills. However, the Lizardman's fast speed and response, combined with its dense skin, made the grinding process very slow. Adding on the round shield on its left hand, which nullified damage from time to time, it took Jack quite a while to wear the monster down to 30% of its health.

Jack looked at the time of his boost; there was just a bit over ten minutes left. He made some quick calculations and worried that he might not defeat the Lizardman before the boost expired. He hastened his pace by sacrificing his defense to frantically attack the monster. They were basically trading blow for blow now, without bothering to evade and block. This was still bearable because of the HP regeneration and increased defense that Jack received from the Godly Might buff.

When the Lizardman's HP was less than a quarter, it suddenly gave a deafening roar. Jack was stunned by the abrupt roar and couldn't evade when the monster twisted its body and rammed its tail into him. He was thrown almost eight meters away before landing on his back.

As he hastily got himself up, he saw the Lizardman had stayed rooted at its place. He could feel the aura around the Lizardman changing. Its red scales further reddened into blood-like color. It threw down its round shield and gripped its scimitar at both ends. It then pulled its hands apart and the weapon magically separated into two identical scimitars. The Lizardman revealed a savage grin and charged forward.

Seeing the monster also had its own buff, Jack didn't dare to be careless. He brought out his Magic Shield again. The Lizardman performed its trademark skill, the six consecutive slashes, using both swords, resulting in twelve lightning-fast attacks. Jack had to rely on both his defensive skills, Magic Shield and Parry, to contend with the assault. Even with that, he still suffered hits from five slashes. He lost a bit over 20 damage from each slash.

'Strange,' he thought, 'The damage isn't much different than before.'

  The Lizardman's buff did not seem to be as imposing as it looked. It only added an off-hand weapon which gave it double attack counts. But with its round shield gone, it would have a more difficult time defending. With that in mind, Jack went back to his previous reckless style, again trading blow for blow.

He used Power Strike and scored just 24 damage.