Chapter 6 Safety In Numbers

After the first boss the packs get larger. The 5 points from his level up that he put into INT really helped though, doubling Cain's mana pool and giving him some leeway to fire arrows and still Summon the Golems if they're destroyed or the party is ambushed and they can't get back on time.

Cain's archery is getting better too. Arrows are hitting home more often than not, and Cain no longer has the constant fear of hitting an ally, his aim has become better than that. Sure, in a group they won't take damage, but that's wasted mana.

The second boss is a single giant wolf. Straight forward fight, "Just kill it" or so says the tank. This is Cain's time to shine. Hitting this boss is like shooting at a barn, impossible to miss.

With the warrior taking all the damage, there's no need to save mana for the Golems, so Cain fires poison arrows as fast as he can, stacking up poison effects on the boss and rapidly draining its health.

One of the mages receives a mana regeneration necklace in his inventory, whooping in excitement. All things increased mana are a mage's best friend in this world.

Cain got a few tradable goods worth over a silver each, but no gear upgrades. In fact, he's not even sure what the drop rate on them is.

The game system that the transfers get has a lot of unanswerable questions, from the loot to the actual function. Even the dungeons themselves are a mystery to the residents of this village. In short, most of them can't read, don't go to school and don't really know much of anything at all. 

After the second boss, the spacing of the packs changes, forcing parties to pull multiple groups at once or risk being ambushed by the other group. 

"Cain takes left I'll take right" The tank says, sneaking along the wall. This series of pulls proves to be more challenging than expected, the large number of monsters overwhelming the ability of what the single target flame strike only mages can quickly kill.

Cain wanted to take care of it with arrows, but backing away caused the groups to turn on the ranged members, so he had to stay up close with the sword, killing what he could without a sword based damage skill.

The final boss is a test of teamwork. Small puddles form on the ground and you need to break the film on the top of them before they can solidify into slimes. So either someone runs around clearing them, or everyone gets the ones nearest them and the group stands in a circle around the room while killing the Goblin shaman boss.

The Golems are more than happy to attack all the puddles, so the group just calls for assistance and Cain sends a golem to the new puddle while firing arrows at the shaman.

It's a loud and complex process, but effective.

The boss drops and the party receives an announcement [Member Cain Has Received D Rank Skill Book Light Foot] well, that's annoying, the system announcing the good loot.

It's not bad though, it passively increases base movement speed by 30 percent.

"Wow, you actually got a skill book. I've never seen one drop before" Misha says in awe.

"Only usable by Hunters and Rangers" one of the mages adds "Is it even useful to you?"

"Yeah, my class can use both Hunter and Shaman Class books" Cain smiles. A movement skill will really help with some of these pulls, and the first boss.

"Congratulations man. Let's go get dinner to celebrate". With that they head back out of the dungeon to sell their drops and find a suitable spot to eat.

18 silver and change. This dungeon really does pay better than the other, even in a group. It's too exhausting to want to run multiple times a day, at least with their group, but it's still not bad.

Both him and Misha had leveled up again after the last boss, plus that new skill. Being in a group is the way to go, now if only he could have more summons. According to the [Summon Lesser Golem] tooltip, next upgrade would be 4 small Golems at level 20, but he wasn't sure when he would get greater Golems or anything else.

Strangely, the system lists the skill as "Partially Implemented" and not as a level or rank, like Cain would expect. He hasn't really asked about how skills work for the others though, maybe every class is a little different. 

Relations within this group were strained at best, and he didn't want to start an argument. Both mages insisted in only leveling up flame strike every level, so they could max it out and get explosion at level 30. It honestly made them pretty useless, as their mana capacity suffered without points into mana cost reduction, they put all the spell skill ability points their class offered into a single spell, nothing into mana regeneration, no upgraded multi target abilities, nothing.

Flame strike took over half their mana, so it couldn't be quickly cast again, every 5 seconds they would cast a flame strike, just keeping up with available mana.

Before Cain arrived they had many problems with the warrior being unable to keep mobs off the group. The group had invested into his gear heavily, but it was only recently he'd started getting better, after the pressure on him eased. He was not an aggressive person, the role of tank didn't suit his combat style.

With Cain only level 12 at the end of the run, he still couldn't take up the duty fully himself, he needed a bigger, tougher golem.

They gathered as usual for the next two days though, and with some luck on the second day, things were starting to look up. A shield dropped that increased the chance monsters would attack the wearer by twenty percent.

Perfect for their timid tank.

Then at the end of the day, he went from level 29 to 30, his second level up in three days. The mages were still two levels behind him, and everyone could see they were frustrated waiting for level 30 to get the spell they truly wanted. After level 30 they promised they'd start taking the first rank of other spells every level and increasing their utility.

But they'd have the massive damage of [Explosion], which they described as being in the second tier of their spellbook, saying it was something most mages didn't unlock until much later in their travels, often after level 60 if they balanced their abilities for different targets.

They were all tired by the start of the fifth day. But Misha reached level 20 in the early pulls of the dungeon and brightened everyone's mood. Level 20 added a slow casting very large heal to her instant heal and heal over time abilities. Unlike rookie mages who got to put points into spells every level, Priestesses in the lower levels just took what they got and had to like it.

Then Cain reached level 20 and things really changed in the dynamic. Along with a fourth small golem, he gained the [Summon Greater Golem] spell, which created a slightly larger than human sized clay golem that had a stomp ability, interrupting enemy abilities. It could stop the Wolves from howling for reinforcements.

The first boss went down with ease, Cain now free to shoot arrows while the Golems held the commanders, so after the fight Cain took a moment to check his stats before they continued.

[Name] Cain

[Level] 20

[Class] Puppet Master

[Race] Human

[Skills]

[Summon Lesser Golem]

[Summon Greater Golem]

[Poison Arrow]

[Light Foot] Passive

[Stats]

[STR] 45

[DEX] 15

[CON] 40

[INT] 25

[HP] 160

[MP] 125