What Are We Looking For?

"Get ready!"

I dashed out to the mineral desert. Standing still with eyes closed, focusing my Qi Sense underground, I felt every inch around me as a part of my body. It was not an easy feeling to describe, nor to get used to. The ground became an extension of my senses, and I would have felt even an ant crawling as if it threaded upon my skin.

After locating my target, I sent out a thin line of Qi. A ripple in the Qi came back as the answer. I jumped away as soon as the ground moved. A huge, scary mouth ate the soil quickly, dragging everything down before disappearing again. Another ripple, and it came for me one more time, and another time after that. I dodged again and again. Going in circles, being careful not to stray too far from the harder ground.

"What are you doing? Are you going to dodge forever?!"

Jiwan barely finished speaking when the worm tried to eat me again, failing. This time, it didn't drill back into the ground, but stood above the surface, rotating its ferocious teeth as a triturator.

"It came out!" The Class Rep shouted.

If you knew how to "fish" them out, Lopworms were easily irritated, coming out to fight if evaded long enough. A thin line of Qi was all I needed to annoy it. However, after changing to the surface, it became much more aggressive and dangerous. Faster than before, the teeth were just about to grab me whole, forcing me to jump to the side.

"What are you waiting for!" I shouted.

Jiwan and the Class Rep reacted with a weird face, as if asking how the hell they were supposed to kill something over three meters tall and a meter large.

"Just hit it, fools!"

The Lopworm's body wasn't armored, but made mostly of muscles. It was not very resistant to attacks after it came out from the ground. However, this type of Monster Worm had a long and flexible backbone, which made it much different from the common worms of the earth.

My companions finally moved. Jiwan punched the worm. The strike hit hard, making it wiggle, but not enough to do good damage. The Class Rep came after him, kicking swiftly in a circular motion. They landed a few strikes before the monster turned to bite them.

"JUMP!"

They each jumped to a side, dodging the worm, which ate another large part of the soil. Jiwan and the Class Rep never stayed in one spot for too long, remembering my warnings.

It was time for me to act and push my abilities further. Enveloping my hand in New Qi, I turned it in the shape of a claw, improving my physical attributes with [physical Boost], and clawing into the monster like a hook.

The monster screamed in pain, a blue blood-like substance oozing out. I lifted it easily despite its size, tossing it as far as I could into the hard s0il. It wriggled in pain once more, making some weird noises, trying to burrow itself into the ground and escape in vain.

"How did you do that?!" Jiwan asked me in surprise.

"Basic Qi manipulation."

"I thought you were a magic class," The Class Rep added.

"Huh? I told you I'm a swordsman! Hey, that thing is not done, don't let it escape!" I pointed to the wiggling worm, still trying to make its way to soft soil.

Lopworms were strong in soft soil, but without burrowing their mobility was gone, and they became incapable of dealing with their own size. The combination between the backbone and a worm's body was flawed. It could only turn left and right in despair.

Jiwan and the Class Rep had no trouble finishing it in that situation. They no longer had to worry about the teeth coming at them with incredible speed, only occasional desperate swings of its unbalanced body.

[Enemy Lopworm died.]

The system announcement sounded in my head. I did not know how it distributed experience or anything of the sort. Most RPGs and games of our time had a set of rules, so if we tested something over and over, we could find out what they were.

But, in this world, even after a lot of research, we found no formula to calculate what gave the system exp or not. Brighter minds than me tried much harder than I was willing to. Yet we learned that fighting, crafting, trading, sometimes even sitting and talking, were all grounds for experience and level-ups on different occasions.

A friend of mine guessed it was something "hard coded" and "hidden" by the system, with several factors ranging from your level, class, goals, and even the situation. Eventually, he gave up on trying to find a rule to exploit and level up by cheating.

Jiwan: "That was easier than I thought!"

Class Rep: "That's because he knew a strategy to deal with it."

The Class Rep stared at me with curious eyes again. She was right. This strategy to deal with Lopworms was created after countless trials and deaths. The adventurers who died bravely so the NOEA could have this information were those who should be praised for this, not me.

"We can't take too long. Those things aren't always alone," reaching to the corpse's mouth, I knocked a few of its teeth out. The longest ones were around 15 centimeters, good enough to use as small daggers with improvised handles. We took one each. "We will use our clothes as handles, for now, and switch when we find better stuff. I just hope it lasts long enough."

I could use New Qi to coat the weapon, holding it better, but Jiwan and the Class Rep were going to have some trouble handling it. In the worst case, they might get hurt, but it was unavoidable for now.

"Get back," the others stepped back. I coated one tooth with New Qi, cutting the worm open, avoiding the blue blood as much as I could.

The Class Rep looked at me with a disgusted face, "I will not eat it."

Jiwan: "We're going to eat it?!"

I laughed, "This is not edible for humans either. They feed on lopworms and minerals after all. I'm going for its backbone."

I dragged the backbone out entirely, severing the connection between bone, muscle, and even the monster's brain, "About two meters long."

Jiwan: "It looks like a bone spear, but it's not completely straight."

"Heh, it doesn't have to be. This bone section will work as a handle. It's very durable, take it," I tossed it to the Class Rep, "Is it too heavy?"

"Me?" She looked a little lost. "It's… lighter than I thought. But shouldn't you use it? I don't know how to use it properly."

"You use it, for now. It will make things easier. I will teach you a few staff and spear moves." I taught her some simple moves from the NOEA style, just enough for her to attack and defend.

I gave her an extra tooth dagger, two to Jiwan, and kept one myself. I ripped some of our clothes for the handle. The Lopworm's smaller teeth could be useful, but we had nothing to carry them around.

"We're ready to go. Let's pick up the pace."

They nodded. We crossed the salt-like desert again, while killing Lopworms and Loplops. I let them deal with the Loplops, and fished out the Lopworms using the method from before. Our bone daggers and the Class Rep's Bone Spear made everything a breeze.

Everyone switched to a Lopworm Bone Spear as our main weapon. The clothes were too fragile to use as handles for our daggers for long. Our improvised weapons made fighting much easier, but I wasn't about to let them become overconfident.

Having experienced many sudden incidents in the past, I no longer let my guard down easily. After hours of experience hunting through the desert, Jiwan grabbed my shoulder.

Jiwan: "What are we looking for?"

"That," I pointed to a spot in front. Jiwan and the Class Rep's eyes lit with hope.

"Oasis!!!"