Chapter 7: Flame Blast

After 100 swings, a small screen appeared before Michael.

[Mission Complete. Talk to the Sword Elder to turn in.]

"I finished swinging your sword," Michael stated to the Sword Elder.

"Excellent! For completing it so fast, allow me to teach you my own special technique!" the Sword Elder declared.

[Sword Elder would like to teach you Strong Slash. Would you like to learn Strong Slash?]

Michael agreed to learn Strong Slash and the screen before him changed.

[Mission Complete.

Mission: Swing a sword 100 times.

Reward: Slash and Strong Slash.]

[Skill: Slash

Grade: C

Description: Use 10 Mana to deal 150% Physical Damage.

Cooldown: 3 minutes.]

[Skill: Strong Slash.

Grade: A

Description: Use 50 Mana to instantly kill any enemy at the same level as the user.

Cooldown: 1 day.]

Michael was thrilled to see that he was able to get the skill he wanted. He knew that his skill Slash was moderate, being at Grade C. All skills were ranked from F to A, with only Unique skills being better than Grade A skills. Skills can also have a plus or minus next to the grade, signifying if it's a high or low tier of the grade.

The cooldown for Slash was extremely good too, being at three minutes. This means that every three minutes, he could use the Slash skill again.

The Cooldown for skills could be reduced by leveling up the skill, but this took time. You needed to use the skill many times in order to level up a certain skill. This also increased the damage dealt by the skill.

It usually took a few months to level up skills, but the skills with longer cooldowns required less uses.

In his previous life, somebody else had completed the 100 swings first and was rewarded by the Sword Elder, gaining Strong Slash.Michael however, just like many others, took his sweet time completing the 100 swings due to how tiring it was.

Michael left the Dojo and walked to an isolated house at the edge of the village.

He walked up to the counter and asked, "Grandma, is there anything I can help you with?"

"Oh, just in time!" an old lady said from behind the counter. "My grandson has been gone all day, and I'm worried he may have hurt himself. Can you find him for me?"

"Of course Grandma. I will find your grandson."

Michael turned around and walked away from the counter. He knew from his previous life that this was a hidden quest, but just like the Sword Elder, somebody else had done it first, and Michael had missed out on it.

Walking outside the village, Michael headed into the forest that was lining the village. He saw tons of other players grouping up to defeat level 1 monsters and couldn't help but chuckle.

Niflheim had a cooldown on respawning, so once you died in Niflheim, you couldn't respawn for an entire day. Due to this fact, nobody wanted to take the risk of taking a monster down by themselves.

Michael opened his inventory and equipped his sword. Due to being the starter sword, it only did 3 damage, but he had received this sword from the Sword Elder, while the others were fighting barehanded after just rushing off to fight monsters.

He walked into the forest and was instantly confronted by a monster.

It seemed to be a small boar, and at first, it seemed to be quite small.

As Michael got closer, however, the boar was shown to be at least 6 feet tall and about just as wide too. The boar turned and charged at Michael after it noticed his presence behind it.

Michael readied his sword and shouted, "Slash!"

With a swift swing through the boar, the boar cut clean in half, killing it.

[+25 Experience]

With just one monster, Michael was halfway to leveling up.

He leveled up faster than the others due to the fact that he was alone. While in parties, exp would be split evenly amongst members, so a group of five would only receive 5 experience each.

Michael made his way deeper into the forest, killing the boars he came across.

Eventually, he reached a clearing in the forest that had a hole in the center of it 5 feet across.

He had already defeated 5 more boars in the time it took him to reach the clearing, only resting after he fought a boar. When he leveled up, he decided to save the stat points that he got from leveling up to apply them later. Every level before level 25 granted 5 stat points.

Looking into the hole, Michael could see a small boy who seemed to be around the age of 6 or 7. The boy was covered in dust presumably after falling into the hole.

"Do you need help?" Michael asked.

"Yes please, could you please help me out of this hole? My Grandma is probably worrying about me," The boy stated.

Michael walked over to the side of the hole where the boy was and pulled him out.

After dusting the boy off a little bit, the two made their way back to the grandma's house, with Michael killing whatever boars the two ran into.

Once they arrived back at the house, the older lady ran outside and threw her arms around her grandson.

"Thank you! Thank you! I don't know how I could ever repay you!" The grandma exclaimed whilst hugging her grandson.

"It's alright, I don't require pay," Michael assured her as he turned around. While his words sounded pretty, his face didn't match them due to the smile plastered on his face.

"Oh, I know! I'll teach you our family spell!" The grandma declared.

Wiping the smile off of his face, Michael turned around. "That would be excellent!" Michael agreed.

[The old lady would like to teach you Flame Blast. Would you like to learn Flame Blast?]

Michael quickly tapped yes.

[Skill: Spiral of Flames

Rank: B+

Description: Uses 25 Mana to deal 250% Magical Damage. 25% chance to Burn enemies.

Cooldown: 5 minutes.]

"Thank you," Michael stated as he walked away.

He started walking back to the forest in order to kill more monsters. Other players noticed that he was going into the part of the forest where the higher leveled monsters were and just figured something happened to him.

Some people even tried to convince him to not go into the forest at all, because he could die due to being too weak.

When those people approached Michael, he just laughed stating, "You may be too weak, but my strength is just fine." They guessed he was just being prideful and left him alone to whatever his fate may be.

After getting past everyone, Michael started to farm for experience right away, wasting no time. He needed to get to level 10 within 9 days now. With that thought, Michael charged straight for a boar and swung.

[+25 Experience]