Urgent Mission

Startled, I looked around trying to find the book but it seems to have disappeared. Confused, I started reading the skill book Elemental Ball that I got from the hatchet man from Mark.

After I finished reading, the book stayed normally, but something seemed to change on its surface.

Surprised and confused, I looked around to see if something changed.

"I don't know if the problem lays with the meditation technique or something else is happening"

Dismissing the distracting thoughts, I start to realize that the words I read from both the meditation technique and the skill book are imprinted in my mind, and I can remember every word that's written in them.

Confused, I continued to read the other Skills Books, after finishing the Elemental Weapon Coating, the book also disappeared in a puff of light. Enlightened and with a relieved mind I told myself

"So the skill books have a limited number of uses. No wonder they were so cheap"

After all, if someone got his hands on a skill, they would gain the ability to pass the Skill to others, and profit from it. It makes sense that a limit of readings is imposed in the book, also with the content imprinted in my mind, a single read is enough to remember all the contents.

As for understanding the skill, and mastering it, only hard work and talent will be able to help you.

That makes me wonder how many more uses the Elemental Ball Skill book has. And that Wind Blade Skill Book should be the same.

"forget it, I should start training"

With my mind clear of distracting thoughts, I continued to read the skill books remaining, after a couple of hours, I finished reading the books and both of them disappeared with a poof.

After I finished reading, I started to decipher the meditation technique eager to start training.

The technique is hundreds of times more difficult than the basic meditation technique I learned from school. Obviously, I will have to spend some time mastering it.

Thinking that enhancing my fighting power is more pressing, I stop trying to learn the technique for now.

I started practicing one of the combat techniques I read, without much success. I end the practice for the day and go to Little Rat's room. I knock on the door and wait for him to come out.

"Let's go eat dinner" I say as he opens the door

We go down to the bar and order our meal. As we eat we talk about our training of the techniques, but neither of us saw much success.

"We just started, diligence will be rewarded. Let's continue to work hard"

After leaving those words, we go back to our rooms to sleep.

Days go by and a week has passed, we decide to head to the Adventurers association after breakfast.

Once we get there we find the place crowded with people, we ask around to find out what happened, it turns out that a pack of Roughland Grasshoppers invaded the fields south of the city and a special mission was issued. Everyone can take on the mission, the more monsters you kill, the more rewards you will get. Of course, it will be dangerous, after all, there are many Grasshoppers of different grades in there. If you are unlucky you can get killed by a monster stronger than you.

We look at each other with excitement and say at the same time

"Let's do it"

We laugh and approach the counter to take on the mission. An old man is manning the desk, we state our business, and soon the mission is in our crystal.

"Be Careful, the beasts hunt in groups of three to five and are fast on their feet. As long as you bring their cores, we will exchange them for 40G each, aside from that you can sell the materials from the bodies on your own"

He explains with a tired voice. Of course, the price is only for those beasts at the Beginner Iron Level. Although there's not much difference in the strength of the beast and humans indifferent Level, the difference is more striking in beasts.

After all, in humans, it only signifies that they have more energy in their mana pool, how good they are at fighting and the skills they own are out of this consideration. Of course, someone with more energy will be able to attack more times and with more force.

In the beast case, their bodies are strengthened the more energy they have so higher levels are remarkably stronger than those lower levels.

We leave the place and head to the fields to hunt.

We reach there after around an hour of running, luckily our bodies are stronger than most commoners thanks to the elemental energy in our bodies.

Roaming the place to find the beast, we carefully make our way over, until hearing a sound of plants being eaten.

We separate from each other and head there in a pincer formation to see what's there. We still maintain a certain closeness so if anything weird happens we will be able to help the other.

After creeping in between the crops we reach a small hole in the uniform field, there is a pair of Grasshoppers eating. We make eye contact with each other and we pick a target each.

These beasts are small bugs the size of two human heads, with green exoskeletons mottled with brown. Their element is earth, but it only reinforces their bodies, making it sturdier. No type of elemental attack or defense can be used. They have a small ring of black color in their legs, marking as beginner grade beasts.

We decide to attack them, as we head over I see Little Rat accelerate way faster than me, his legs covered in a thick mass of wind, the Wind Walk Skill. I thought he would learn Wind Blade to start.

As he nears one of the monsters, he puts both his hands together shooting a wind blade at the grasshopper, slicing it in half with it.

Not wanting to be less, I also near the best and raise my hand, as I do so a flash of purple flashes and vanishes, seeing me going at it, the other beast starts dashing towards me.

A couple of seconds later, as it steps near, its leg suddenly steps on a small spot of dirt. Suddenly an explosion ensues.

Skill Elemental Mine, the one I learned in this week of effort, creates a small patch of an explosive element under the ground. the attack is triggered when an enemy steps on it.

The beast's legs got blown away but it's still alive. I near it and cover my katana with thunder, after that I slash at its head, killing it.

Little Rat looks at me with a complicated smile on his face, his body deflating.

"I thought I could surprise you by learning the basics of two skills but you really are competitive"

I can't help but start laughing at his competitiveness, grabbing my stomach from too much laugher I finally calm down

"You're not the only talent of this city, there's also me and Lana" I cheekily spat back

We laugh together and collect the spoils from these two bodies.

We continue walking carefully, hunting the beast we find on the way.

Our luck seems to be good, only finding a couple of Intermediate Level Grasshoppers, that we kill with our cooperation.

After a couple of hours of hunting our backpacks are full, and we don't dare to use the Storage Ring, after all, who knows if someone is observing us here. Mark could have sent some more goons our way.

We start heading back to the city with our haul, but suddenly we hear a girl scream, we exchange a look and head over to check it out.

A couple of meters away from where we were we see a girl our age being attacked by a grasshopper the size of a human, two pairs of wings in its back signaling its status as a Copper Grade beast. Not only could it use elemental attacks of the earth element but it could also fly.

I look towards Little Rat to signal him to retreat, there's not much we can do, and we might get killed ourselves.

What I see is my good brother clenching his fists hard and a look of despair on his face.

He seems to notice me looking at him and his eyes tell me everything I need to know.

He wants to save her.

"I don't know what relationship you have with her, but if you're willing to risk it, then let's do it"

I say in a low voice. "

"I won't let you take the risk on your own, but we might not survive"

Hearing my words he smiles at me, I shouldn't be such a good brother, I grumble.

As we were talking, the girl is in trouble, being continually attacked by the beast and with her element being Earth, her fighting prowess is low.

We start looking for the best way to start this fight, hoping to gain every small advantage that we can.

"Luckily with the time stop ability, I can at least fight it somehow"

As I tell myself this, we start the attack.