Arena
Waking up nearly as disoriented as his first night Lance reached up and pulled down on the thin string that controlled the singular light bulb in his cramped monotone room. Lifting himself up from the tough mattress he was laying on, Lance stood up and began stretching.
Surveying his new home Lance thought to himself "I can't believe I'm still here", before shifting his gaze over to the cute little Skeletonshell Turtle that was still soundly asleep curled up next to his pillow.
"I should probably go check out Slurms Arena and see if there are any bounties like Levi mentioned yesterday, I still have that system quest to kill a beast so I guess it only counts if my own pet kills it" thought Lance while getting ready for the day.
Glancing over at his alarm clock he noticed that it was already 10:00am, "Damn, I forgot to reset the alarm clock yesterday, luckily I only overslept by a couple hours" Lance thought while finishing up his morning routine.
By this point Turt had woken up due to all the noise in the bathroom. Slowly pushing himself off the mattress he accidentally fell over and rolled off it directly onto the concrete floor. Now upside down Turt could only lay there cutely swinging his legs while waiting for his master to come an save him.
Lance had heard the sound of Turt's fall but when he turned around and noticed that the little guy was stuck on his back he couldn't help but let out a little laugh. "Turt I wonder why nobody adopted you before me, you're literally the cutest little guy I've ever seen" Lance said aloud while making his way over to Turt to assist him.
Picking Turt up, Lance sat back down on the edge of his mattress and decided to pull up his system quests and review them.
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[Quests]
[Kill Your First Beast, Reward: Unknown]
[Cultivate a Beast to Tier 2, Reward: Unknown]
[Reach Level 2, Reward: 5 System Points]
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"For now the only quest I can easily complete is to kill my first beast, reaching Tier 2 isn't happening anytime soon and I don't have a clue how to gain exp for myself either" thought Lance while glancing through his few quests.
After dismissing the Quests tab, Lance stood up and left with Turt in tow to began making his way to Slurms Arena, "With how hard Levi and Rein advocated for this place yesterday hopefully it lives up to their words" Lance thought while casually strolling over to the Arena which luckily was only a few minutes away from his dinky apartment.
Finally seeing the large arena ahead of him, Lance quickened his pace with Turt in hand. The giant building seemed to be made out of some sort of grey concrete that was without any cracks or crevices which made it one of the only buildings in the slums that looked surprisingly maintained.
"Levi said there's a bounty board inside so hopefully I can find some easy targets for me and Turt to hunt, I wish I had gone in with those two yesterday and let them show me around some" Lance thought while pushing open the large double oak doors that led to the inside of the arena.
Looking inside, Lance could make out a large oak room that resembled the inside of a tavern with large circular tables laid out all over the left side of the room, there was even a bartender but he didn't seem to have any customers at the moment.
While the left of the room had the bartender, on the right there was a large wooden board with various different papers nailed to it all with different depictions of countless items and beasts.
Walking closer to the large wooden board Lance could make out a few common beast names and depictions of them, such as The Rubble Rat, Crushcoils, and even Green Slims.
After looking over the board some more and reading through a few descriptions Lance thought to himself "Rubble Rats just look like bigger and more ferocious rats while Green Slimes should be pretty self explanatory, sadly there aren't many depictions for Crushcoils, but luckily they're all normally in the lower end of Tier 1 so they shouldn't pose much of a threat to me"
One of the few descriptions of the Crushcoils that Lance could find though described them as large insect beasts with tough dark scales covering their backside along with a soft underbelly, they also had multiple sharp legs which could be used to attack their prey.
Obviously there are lots of powerful monsters lurking in and around the slums but the goal of the board is just to help protect the people by letting tamers clear out some of the more common beasts they couldn't handle while also informing them of the common dangers around these parts.
"It looks like if I can bring back any of those 3 beasts corpses, I can exchange them for a few spirit crystals" Lance remarked after reading through the details on a few bounties.
After looking over the board one final time Lance also tell that the majority of the weaker beasts tend to hide out near the outskirts of the slums and among the rubble from the descriptions on the various bounties, any further than that and they would be likely to encounter vastly stronger monsters.
"While I don't know exactly what Crushcoil's look like they shouldn't pose too big of a threat to me an Turt, especially with Turt's ranged attack" Lance thought happily while grabbing a few bounties for each of the 3 monsters and stuffing them into his pocket.
"I'm starving Turt, lets go and take down some of these easy beasts so we can come back and buy us some food, seeing the menu behind the bartender almost has me salivating" Lance whispered to Turt while swiftly walking out of the Arena.
Taking the same path as yesterday, Lance and Turt began approaching the outskirts of the slums side by side, this time keeping a close eye out for any hidden beasts in the rubble. After roughly an hour or so of walking they had reached the outskirts of the slums, a place where people don't often go due to the frequency of beast attacks.
Reaching a large mostly intact circular building with multiple bashed in windows, Lance peeked inside to hopefully spot out a wild beast or two, the bounties had stated that Rubble Rats tend to hideout inside abandoned buildings all along the outskirts of the slums.
The building wasn't extremely large but inside Lance could make out the shadow of a 3 foot long rat alongside its bright pink tail that could be seen wrapping around a large dresser that blocked the beast from sight. Scanning the rest of the room, Lance wasn't able to make out any other beasts inside so he decided to try and circle the building with Turt to possibly get a clear shot on the rat with his Poison Pellet.
Reaching the opposite side of the building Lance peeked inside another broken window in the hopes of making out the full figure of the rubble rat, luckily for him he could see the beast in its entirety from the new angle. Its dark brown bristly back faced Lance while its sharp dark grey claws rummaged through a pile of rubble that sat in front of it.
"Turt shoot one of your poison pellets at it, he won't see it coming" Lance whispered into Turts ear while propping him up on top of the broken window so he could get a clear shot on the beast.
Helping Turt stabilize, Lance could make out the poison pellet gathering inside of Turts skeletal maw, shortly after the thumb sized pellet stopped growing and launched itself towards the Rubble Rat's furry behind.
With a splash the pellet hit the skinny rat's bottom which caused it to start freaking out and quickly try to pull its head out of the rubble that it was investigating moments ago. Once it had freed itself it quickly whipped around and started to scan the circular room for signs of the culprit that had attacked it.
"Damn, poison pellet's a lot weaker than I imagined" Lance thought while taking a peek at the Rubble Rat's status screen.
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[Beast Attributes]
-Name: Rubble Rat
-Tier: 1, low-level
-Grade: Common
-Type: Earth
-Hp: 22/24 [Poisoned]
-Mana: 0/0
{Stats}
-Strength: 3
-Agility: 5
-Endurance: 7
-Intelligence: 1
-Soul: 2
-Magic Power: 0
-Luck: 0
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"Only two damage is so little, Turt can only launch 10 pellets before needing to rest, and that's not even enough to kill this one Rat, hopefully the pellets toxic effects kick in soon and Turt's first skill isn't a complete waste" thought Lance while caressing Turts bony head in contemplation.
"Turt try and shoot another pellet at it when it turns away from us, maybe the poison can stack and actually affect it" Lance commanded Turt.
Turt began gathering a second pellet inside of his mouth while waiting for the poisoned rat to turn back around and face away from them. Once the beast did, Turt released the small pellet at the rats backside for a second time.
After the impact of the pellet another small patch of the rats fur was instantly dyed dark green but now the poison seemed to have an effect on the rat. The beast began shaking as if it was in intense pain and shortly after even coughed up blood, but in an attempt to stop the pain on its backside it tried to rub the poisoned areas against the walls and ground but that only worsened its injuries and quickened its demise.
"Wow that second shot was a lot more effective, this guys health is dropping every few seconds, so as long as we wait a few minutes we should be able to go and claim his corpse" Lance thought happily while watching the rat futilely try to stop the poison.