Bandit battle
The first thing James and Iron did was inspect the guards.
[Bandit (common) LVL 5]
250/250
James may not be as high level as they were, but his Agility sure was a lot higher, so deciding to make full use of his [Lightning discharge] skill, he sprinted past as many bandits as he could see and when around 25 were behind him he activated the skill and smashed his sword in the ground.
- 50
Appeared above all their heads, and since they were all low-level close to all of them got stunned for a few seconds, this gave James and Iron forge to take out 2 of them in 1 go.
-29
-29
….
When the stun whore off the remaining bandits rushed towards them, but it was all for nothing, they couldn't even land a hit, every move they made had already long been predicted before they could even execute it, and their higher strength didn't help them at all. After about 3 minutes of fighting the last one of the first group fell, this fast time mainly had to do with the 3 extra uses of [Lightning discharge] that James got off during the fight, this made it so that the fight was already over even before the other group of 25 could appear. James had also managed to level up by killing all the bandits, he disturbed his Stat points following the basic formula yet again and equipped his new sword.
By the time he had done all of this, the remaining 25 appeared, James decided to end this quickly so he rushed in and used [Lightning discharge] yet again, only this time, with his new weapon and extra stats, it did a lot more damage.
-120
Close to half their HP had already been taken off with just 1 move, James and Iron then proceeded to toy with them for the next minute, waiting for the cooldown on [Lightning discharge] to be over.
-120
The second hit killed all the remaining bandits, now Iron was halfway to level 3 and James was close to reaching level 4, the bandits also dropped some loot, but it was only some copper coins, in total, they got 1 silver and 23 copper.
"Okay let's go, we're going to fight the boss."
James then led the way to the boss's tent, where he was just sitting around, not caring about the lives of his members, the second the 2 of them stepped in the tent the bandit leader stood up and started charging at them.
[Bandit leader (common) LVL 10]
1000/1000
James initiated the fight by using [time absorbing slash], slowing the charge so much that it wasn't much more than a light sprint.
-102
While the boss was in his slowed state at the moment of James's attack Iron took the liberty to swing his big sword down at him, hoping to do some damage.
-20
However, he didn't have many combat skills so doing damage wasn't his strong point. James also made use of the little bit of slowed time he still had after the slash and executed [Lightning discharge], hoping to stun him.
-120
And to his surprise it did, the boss was immobilized for a few seconds, giving James and Iron enough time to give him hell.
-68
-68
-68
-20
-20
-20
Now that the boss had dropped below half health it used its berserker skill, raising all of his attributes significantly, but also losing control. Now that he lost control the fight was already over, James and Iron could read his moves 2 to 3 seconds before the boss even knew his moves, his boosted attributes didn't matter. The battle continued for another minute before [Lightning discharge] was off cooldown.
-120
The second the boss fell, a system announcement rang through their ears.
Black Dragon city system announcement: players: one and Iron forge were the first to kill a level 10 boss, they will be given 1 gold coin and one bronze-grade armor piece related to their class.
After the system announcement was over James looked in his bag, curious as to what he got.
[Bastion boots](Bronze rank) (plate armor boots)
Level 3
Equipment Requirement: Strength 10
Defends +15
Strength +3
Agility +4
Durability 45/45
Can be equipped by all classes
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The boots weren't that good, he had nothing better to wear so James put them on immediately, Iron seemed to have gotten a breastplate, and he looked happy with it so James didn't ask anything more.
Now that they had defeated the boss, who didn't drop anything besides 1 silver, the 2 of them went on a hunt through the boss's tent to look for the family heirloom they needed. It took them 10 full minutes to search any nook and cranny of the tent, and most of the stuff was junk, the only thing they managed to find was a Bronze treasure chest, which they assumed held the heirloom. After opening the chest, however, not only did they find the family heirloom, a small black totem with a red gem in the middle of it, but they also found a foraging design for a level 5 plate armor chest plate, and it was a pretty good one at that, having a skill.
James gave the design to Iron forge and went out of the tent, they still had a pretty big day ahead of them so they better get going, trying to convince Merlin of something isn't an easy job after all.
The 2 of them made their way back to the town, this time not bothering to kill the level 3 monsters on the way, now that they were both as good as Level 3 they couldn't provide much EXP anymore.
It took them around 20 minutes to arrive in town, when they did, James gave Iron some money to buy the materials for the breastplate and Sword, the materials couldn't be bought in any shops, but plenty of players were walking around with them in their inventory thinking of it as junk. Especially in this town, one of the level 1 leveling areas is a goblin nest located near a copper and Iron mine, so they occasionally dropped some. And since 99% of players are level 0, and would be for probably the next 10 hours or so, so James didn't think it would be difficult to get some ores.
While Iron forge was doing that James was already on his way toward the auction house, this time the streets seem to be less packed, but there were still some players just joining. He saw the majority of the players that were still in town standing in line in places like the mayor's office, waiting their turn to get the beginner quests, in his opinion they were wasting their time, it would take them at least 2 hours to get that quest, in that time they could have already explored a decent bit of the simple combat of gods Domain now that no update has rolled out yet.
When James arrived at the auction house the guards didn't even question him, they led him in without exchanging a single word, at the moment he walked through the door the manager's eyes lit up, but there seemed to also be a hint of worry behind them.
"So, how did it go young man, did you find it?"
The man blurted out as fast as he could.
"yes, here you go."
James saw the man's face lit up as his life had just been saved, he was a little curious but honestly count be bothered.
System: congratulation, you have completed the quest, "heirloom retrieval" talk to the auction house manager to get your rewards.
James then looked back up at the manager who seemed to be in such a happy daze that he had forgotten about the reward, when he glanced at James however, he seemed to have finally realized and went ransacking through his desk, only a few seconds later he came back up with a little, golden statue that seems to represent a lion.
"This is the Blackwing city royal tome, to be honest, it is worth far more than this lousy heirloom, at least to all people, except me. This is the only thing that has enough worth in my possession to show you how grateful I am, you are truly my hero."
James took the little lion gratefully and immediately inspected it.
[Blackwing city royal tome]
A long-lost relic from the royal family of the Blackwing city, it has the power to transport anyone to the city, it also gives you extremely high status in the city, only second to the royal family.
--------------
James smiled when he saw the description, Blackwing city wasn't a normal place, you had to collect a totem that would give you a couple of entries in the city. The main attraction of the city was its auction house, it had 3 different sections, one for anyone, one for only the nobles, and one for only the people with the power above nobles. Of course, the more exclusive the auction was the more expensive and powerful items would be that appeared in the auction held every so often. However these restrictions didn't matter to James anymore now that he had the totem, he could go anytime and visit any part of the auction house he wanted, but the highest one was still way out of his price range. That wasn't something James had to worry about at the moment though, the first VIP auction would be held in 10 days, and the first VVIP one in about 20, he was hoping to get more than enough gold in that time to compete with some rich NPCs in that time.
After getting some more thanks from the manager James left and went to meet up with Iron forge, he was sitting in the main square on a blanket shouting that he was buying ores.
"Any luck Iron? It's time to go so you better pack up."
Iron then let out a loud laugh.
"Lots of luck, I spent close to all 5 gold you gave me and managed to get around 100 sets of materials for both the Sword and breastplate."
James was surprised at how many sets he had acquired for the 5 gold he gave him, but he didn't think too hard about it, it was still the early game, after all, the market was extremely unstable.
Now that they had done everything they could in brown forest town, James and Iron started their journey towards their first Legendary quest.