Chapter 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 ratio to 50:50. This fight had convinced him of the importance of ranged prowess. But he still could not neglect his main melee class, so he just set them for equal distribution. This way, both his classes would improve evenly, with the Magician class trailing not too far behind.
He decided to keep the free attribute points for now.
He then opened 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, requires magic weapon)
Create a shield in front of equipped magic weapon. Serve as a shield with defense affected by intelligence stat.
Mana consumed: 1 per 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 shot 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 secure. He moved his staff and the shield followed. With a sword in his right hand, and a shield-staff in 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 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 had fallen. Like he had expected, Bill's corpse vanished when the battle ended, just like the man killed by zombies at Trigitech. There were also several glowing things on the ground where Bill's body had been. 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 Bill's knife or armor. This meant that not all items and equipment were dropped upon death.
He learned the Cooking recipe and put the ingredients into his inventory. He was about to leave when he noticed something glowing off to the side. 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 is it!' He stood there looking at a saber on the ground. It was the Skeleton Captain's weapon.
'How could it be?' He thought that the Captain's weapon would have vanished just like the summoned Thug.
'Could it be that we can take a monster's weapon after it is disarmed?' He thought of the possibility.
He bent down and reached for the saber, expecting the system to prevent him from touching it, 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 was an uncommon grade, much better than the Bronze Short Sword that he was using right now. Unfortunately, he needed to be at level 5 to equip it, so he couldn't use it yet. He stored the saber in his Storage bag.
Afterward, he looked around again to make sure he hadn't missed anything. He looked at Bill's house which was already in ruins, sighed and left. He walked towards a different area that had fewer red dots to find another place where he could spend the night.
*
Another two days passed as Jack made 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 fry.
He had leveled up to become Fighter level 5 and Magician level 3. When he reached level 5, Jack immediately equipped the Blade of Haste he had gotten from the Skeleton Captain and stored the Bronze short sword whose durability had decreased to 14 after days of constant combat. His traveling speed increased once he did.
He had also received a new skill for his level 5 Fighter.
*
Swing, level 1/20 (Active skill, melee, requires 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
*
It was a melee range AOE skill. Having this skill and his Magic Shield, he now took on group fights with up to three opponents at his level or lower.
He avoided using his Magician range attack during these two days to get used to melee fights in this world. He used group fights to improve his melee prowess with his new skills. When taking on a group of monsters, he used Magic Shield and Parry to block their attacks and to herd them into position. Then he used the Swing skill to deal damage to all the 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 monster at a time.
In the other VR RPG games, he had a record of dealing with five opponents of the same level, with a respectable but narrow win percentage. In this game, even though his double class gave him higher attributes than 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 who 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. Though he knew a bit martial arts because of following his late grandfather's training during his childhood, he only treated it as a hobby. His skill was miniscule compared to those martial arts prodigies. Instead, in those past VR RPG games, he relied more on his adept understanding of skill mechanics and appropriate utilization of those skills to be included in the ranks of apex experts.
During his journey, he had gotten a total of 24 copper coins and one more item: a pair of Sandals. The Sandals were common shoe equipment that provided 1 defense.
'Better than nothing,' Jack thought when he equipped the Sandals, 'still, the drop rates are very bad.'
He had gotten more from his scavenging in stores he passed during his travel. He had added 3 loaves of bread, 2 junk foods, 3 medicine, and 2 energy drinks. However, he had also consumed 2 junk foods and 2 loaves of bread, so the net increase in his stores wasn't too great.
He also found several cooking ingredients within the stores, like carrots, rice, eggs, and cucumbers.
He had broken into a residential house and used the cooking utensils inside to cook Egg Fried Rice. He received a fail on his first try, but still received proficiency points for his cooking skill. As well, his failed fried rice was still edible, albeit without the recovery effect. It 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 and he was missing two out of the three required ingredients.
He had not met another soul since Bill on this entire journey.