Virulent Souls All-Tox

"Get in there," I growl to the slightly resisting quill bear as I throw it into the clan store for ten thousand points. The one quill bear was quickly followed by two others. These giant ice rats turned out to be harder to capture than birds or lizards or scorpions, their pure mass and ability to grow bladed ice quills made it hard to ensnare them in my silk.

However, they had only appeared for my small scouting party of three twice today. The other five or six confrontations had all been with the usual monsters or what another rare or even elite type that we met only two or so hours ago. This mob was something like a giant primate or troll with arms about as long as its entire body and large tusks and spikes of ivory grew about its head and shoulders.

Despite the strength of my three-man scouting party made up of Lil and Go and most of our familiars, only four of these bipedal creatures appeared. Just the other night two had been attacked by over twenty mobs evenly divided between scorpions and ice birds. However, four of these mobs were comparable not just to me but to my two main teammates?

My danger senses had been tingling all over and I struck first, unleashing Mana Slash in a single broad crescent that felled all of the trees ahead of us for about thirty yards. This was actually counterproductive, though, since the wagons would have to travel around those trees. However, only two of the level sixty Ice Trolls were actually hit.

The other two simply leaped about fifteen feet straight up in the air during their brisk but cautious loping strides while the first two tried to take the hit as if testing the waters. Both of them were halved at the waist despite crystallizing the coarse hair of their shaggy bodies into armoring that was focused on diffusing mana.

Although, it probably was not as strong as my own fifty-percent-plus magic resistance and as well as their natural defenses were not quite up to par on my most buffed physical and magical attack. If I had to guess, the increase of their defenses from that ice skill could only negate as much as the clan's buff to my attacks. The rise in defenses probably never even entered the eyes of Imperial Order's buffing.

Each troll was worth a base amount of two hundred experience and sixty gold apiece. One-hit and bisecting almost doubled my experience from either troll, leading me to wonder how much experience and gold a single troll would be without my clan buff at the very least. The two that survived, though, were quickly engaged by Go and his scorpion.

Both trolls stood about seven feet tall and had numerous spiky growths protruding about the head and neck and shoulders, making most of my usual critical hits ineffective. For Go who was armed with a pair of epic tri-axes that melted away the fur armoring about their arms and chests with ten and fifteen percent of their health per swing, these mobs were actually on the tank side.

Sure, he did not prioritize Strength the way most warriors of his class and combat style would but he was outfitted with enough equipment to have at least two hundred Strength. He had a hundred more Agility to match his preferences, so no matter how far the trolls reached or how they tried to coordinate it was nearly impossible to touch him. Then, of course, there was Lil who buffed him from the side and struck out with supportive single target attacks to the trolls' faces.

These mobs naturally had a high health pool and their magic resistances meant Lil did around five percent of its health in damage per attack, but what turned out to be more troublesome was the age-old vitality and regeneration of fantasy trolls. They could regain between two and three percent of their health every other second. Once their health dropped below half apiece, I struck out with my silk.

Only one troll was captured, though, because the other seemed to use a skill that made icy winds erupts outward from its body with small blades of crystalline ice. After it freed itself from the silk and sent its companions rolling about the remaining silk, Go had no choice but to dispatch this enemy. Luckily, the use of its own skill caused some form of disorientation for about a second.

That one second was all the opening Go needed to reach the staggered troll and bury the triangular faces of either ax in either side of the troll's chest. After striking the heart that afford the troll its insane vitality, the seemingly stronger of the two trolls was dead and the remaining troll was set aside to be Oleander's familiar. She was the only person in the group that preferred a non-combat role, so a familiar that could carry her through combat better than an actual mount was perfect.

Lil was unhappy with what she considered to be outright favoritism, but it was easy enough to console her by reminding her how much time I had been making her spend with me. Papi was quickly upset by this, but after reading a private message about shutting up his daughter who was supposed to be my main healer to begin with quickly ended the conflict. We did not really have much time for fighting among ourselves, anyway.

Even though we were making great progress by normal means, we were still between twenty and thirty miles out from the mission area and Melopmene's cheat of a map marker. That was two or three days of traveling into increasingly stronger and stronger enemies who were now starting to come up about five levels above the rest of my team. Even with the speed of my magical attacks with buffs and over-level ratings at level fifty-eight, two trolls had evaded my sure-kill attack with room and time to spare.

If a group of trolls were to attack the wagon while we were all in one place, I could not say for certain if numbers would not prevail. In a fight against twenty trolls, we would lose at least one wagon even if we saved the dragons pulling it. If one of the three main healers in the group had a subpar performance due to personal reasons, we would end up in weakened conditions while repairing the wagons or dividing everything we needed to carry among the mounts.

As one of the off healers like Merch and myself as well as one of the main combatants, Papi could appreciate how his own position would become all that much harder. Especially when considering, after a brief totaling, that the trolls had about as much health as several of our teammates even with our accessories. Merch, Agnes, Oleander, and Ivana had less focus on their physical stats outside of Agility which meant their Endurance was lacking.

Now that we had enemies like the trolls to deal with, the scouting team numbers were increased to five with the additions of Ivana and Merch as archers. With the extra two mounts, we could also clear a path through the forestry with much more ease. This, of course, raised our travel speed at the cost of wagon defense.

With the appearance of trolls, though Cweeper and Hermes were given much more active magical and melee roles instead of working on training their archery skills. Even if their specs meant one arrow would at least cripple a troll, it was simply more efficient to have them cut trolls in half with their divine martial skills. Killing them faster simply left less room for risks.

Luckily, the wagons themselves only had one caravan confrontation today and it was up against numerous ice birds and rats. The birds were pesky with their ranged attacks, but they focused more on attack the defenders than the wagons. Between Cweeper's magic and Hermes' 'scythe', neither species lasted longer than half of a minute.

After this event, though, there were now at least fifteen of every enemy type we faced captured and inventoried in the clan store. Except for trolls, which was something of a blessing. If we faced large enough numbers of trolls to put about ten of them in the clan store, then the caravan would have been crushed. Unless, of course, I had Hermes dismember limbs for capturing but that would probably leave too much of a lasting trauma on the trolls.

For us on the scouting team, we constantly clashed with numerous species of beasts and had to travel through five different event locations throughout the day. One of them was a nesting ground for multiple variations of tree dragons from armored and frosted to an elite Ascending Tree Dragon that was developing gliding wings through its evolutions.

With the sheer size of the ascending dragon, I was forced to tank its magical breath attacks while the others cleaned the rest of the field. While killing it would have probably been easy, this was the first creature I had come across that was large enough to bear the weight of our 'mobile fortress'.

Even if the beast was currently incapable of carrying a fully armored Stonewall, making it an Infected Winged Lizard raised its stats by ten points alone. Then came the buffs from being our and our clan's familiar as I transferred ownership of the giant veined dragon lizard to Stonewall. Now there was no question of the beast's ability to bear burdens.

Because I had to focus my attention on the event boss, most of the other creatures in the nest become raw experience and materials. However, the others still retained the presence of mind to be somewhat selective with their killing. This way, when it was down to the last handful of tree dragon variants they stopped killing and started capturing.

Aside from the lingering idea of catching trolls, the group came to a firm consensus after making camp for the night that we would no longer set aside so much of our- my- attention to capturing the wildlife. While it did give enough experience that I was only a few thousand experience away from level sixty requiring sixteen thousand experience, the experience for capturing monsters was distributed only to the person who made the catch. My capture experience was all my experience.

Sleep came after cataloging everything that we had gained throughout the day, relying on our merchant and alchemist to handle organizing the different means for medicinal, positive magical, or 'negative' magical herbs or materials. If something cured or healed or generally treated, it went into this pile. If it increased resistances or strengths or abilities, it went into that pile. Everything that had damaging or negative effects went into my pile.

The next morning, before setting out, I made everybody once again log out in shifts to handle their lives and bodies. Soon it would be around nighttime in reality, so the sooner we could get to sleep then the sooner we could make a final push through the forestry. From our current distance, we might be able to force our way to Melpomene's mark in just today.

As the leader and strongest member, I stayed online while the others took their breaks and simply worked on getting more materials and products ready. Considering how quickly and constantly the danger levels had been rising recently, we once again needed another edge in combat. Until recently, all we had to worry about was ourselves. With several occasions on which Oleander needed to use alchemy to repair wagon thills or wheels, we needed maximum efficiency.

Without allowing my demigods or I to hog all of the experience.

For the sake of increased efficiency, it was time to use the trump cards hidden in the designs of the weapons I made for my friends. This involved melting and transmuting a vast quantity of long vials and small bottles from various different sediments to make a crude crystalline glass. Then, I began assimilating all of the poisonous plants and materials we had gathered both in this region and others.

Despite my Amatoxin and Mycotoxin already made up a great deal of the natural fungal and similar poisons, there were still many more magical variations in this virtual reality world. I acquired a long list of new debuff poisons and even a few curse skills, but most of all I simply acquired a vast array of numerous different toxins. Then, using my replicated spinnerets to secrete poison and venom alike, I filled up the first bottle,

[Successfully Created: Virulent Souls All-Tox]

[+1000XP]

Virulent Souls All-Tox. Since everything that produced the materials I assimilated was technically once alive, it was not entirely incorrect to give it such a name. However, All-Tox, which was obviously short for 'all toxin', was a little presumptuous.

Once I actually inspected the small baby food sized bottle I realized that the compound certainly had its merits.

[Virulent Souls All-Tox(4oz)

Compounded from over a hundred different organic poisons and venoms ranging from the most common to some of the extreme, Virulent Souls All-Tox was designed to not only have a drastic drop in physical health but also a compiling of crippling ailments. After administering into a living body through any means, immediate loss of 50HP every second for ten seconds while applying -10% stats debuff, -20% MVSPD, -10% all resistances, +10% pain sensitivity, and Virulent status for three minutes. While debuffed and Virulent, anyone suffering from All-Tox can make others suffer half of the damage and effects based on proximity]

Five hundred damage over ten seconds was kind of slow for my taste, but considering a critical chop to the chest from Go could reduce a troll's health by more than thirty percent then fifty points overwhelming their passive regen was just fine. As well, dropping their speed and stats separately was everything I could ever ask for in debuffs.

Spending a few minutes and a thousand mana producing several dozen bottles and vials of poison, I soon divided the bottles between my teammates and the vials among their familiars. Then, I took out Hauntings and my alchemy swords to start preparing for poison application. Which required spinning actual webbing out of my fingers.

Trailing my fingers down Hauntings' fullers that deepened as they went down the blade, I at first leave only a thin layer of sticky silk in the shallow beginnings of the fullers that steadily thickened with the fuller depth. Than in the very bottoms I left small wads of silk. Once the weight reducing and balancing grooves on all flats of the sword were lined with web, I simply emptied an entire bottle of All-Tox down the length of my sword and into its scabbard.

Performing a similar trick with webbing and transmutation under the galvanizing and gilding layers of metal to either layer of the alchemy swords this process took about fifteen minutes per layers using alchemy and shape shifting to poke and feed the silk webbing about the blades and points of the layers. Once they were complete, though, a single vial could fill either layer.

When I was finally done with either of my main swords, I gathered up everybody currently in camp and divvied up the poison bottles while helping them prepare their weapons to receive it. Like my fuller swords, the weapons I designed for my teammates came with their own kinds of fullers for the sole purpose of both attack speed and attack augmenting. For something like Go's axes that did not have proper sheathing or scabbards, only a single vial could be used at a time.

Once everybody had logged out and back in, I finally took my own turn to go have an early dinner with my family.

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