Demonstration Part 2*

Following the hit to the head by the giant hammer, the shadow wolf was sent barreling away and crash-landed into a tree before it fell to the floor. Naturally, this was followed up by a huge damage figure in red appearing over the now whimpering shadow wolf's head.

<Critical>

[-1015]

All persons and monsters in the area were stunned into silence at the scene. While the wolves were growling at the sudden change in the situation, the players were stunned stupid by the site of Kirou's current figure, as well as the high damage figure he just pulled off with one hit of that comically large hammer in his hands.

While everyone else was stunned, Kirou was busy looking over the result of his attack, as well as the weapon in his hand. As if talking to himself but loud enough for the others to hear, Kirou spoke up, "This is a nicely made hammer. That swing felt so nice and the power delivered by the hit was quite good too. If the design wasn't so colourful, I might just try my hand at bartering for it."

The others, sans Navi and the female dwarf still laughing currently, had their jaws hung open. It wasn't until the group of wolves behind them released feral howls that the party remembered that they were still in battle. The others quickly re-engaged their targets but this left a bit of an issue for the group; how to take care of the lone shadow wolf behind them.

While the party may not have wanted to admit it, the tanks were unable to decisively draw the attention of this new shadow wolf while keeping the original five at bay. Luckily for them, there was someone around the back that volunteered for the role.

"You guys focus on your opponents while I keep this one busy." After saying this, Kirou rushed over to the downed shadow wolf with his hammer held high and in great spirits. While the group didn't like this setup, they had no other choice than to go along with it for now.

After making sure that he and his fellow warrior had their five wolves' sights currently locked on them, the brown-haired warrior took a few glances at the backline when he could before speaking, "Navi, Small Pebble, help out Kirou with that shadow wolf." Instead of responding, both Navi and Small Pebble went over to help Kirou in beating down his shadow wolf.

While Kirou wasn't surprised at Navi's presence, he was quite surprised to see that dwarf female coming over to help him out. Well, coming over to help was technically relative. She took out a totem from her inventory and equipped it before applying a few buffs on Kirou who was currently playing whack a mole with the shadow wolf before him.

Upon receiving the buffs, Kirou couldn't help himself as he spoke under his breath after dodging a claw attack from the shadow wolf and giving it a heavy blow to the body with the hammer, "Interesting. I never expected the female dwarf wielding the oversized hammer to be a shaman. I wonder why she prefers using them even though she's a shaman."

After once again dodging an attacking and delivering a devastating blow to the shadow wolf's head, the attack was followed up with a few strikes by Navi who appeared next to the monster that aimed at its underbelly, dealing a few critical damage figures.

Like this, all thirteen people were locked in combat with the six shadow wolves over three fronts. The members of Sanming's group were taking care of the five original wolves masterfully but this paled in comparison to the shenanigans Kirou and his two helpers were up to because all of Kirou's hits kept dealing critical damage figures, followed up by Navi to take advantage of the creature while it was off balance from Kirou's hits and Small Pebble landing a few simple attacks from a distance while maintaining the duo's buffs.

*******

Somewhere in a random nameless forest on the Southern Continent, a certain summoner and his faithful albeit moody minotaur were currently taking on a large group of brown bears. This situation was quite similar to all the other times that he's been founds fighting, except that now his opponents were putting both summoner and summoned beast on the defensive.

Mistaken Fox and his Stone Axe Minotaur had bee travelling for a while since he got that quest from SC Pier City. While he would have loved to make his way over to the northern kingdom continent, he was acutely aware that neither he nor his pet minotaur would be able to survive on the continent for long without successfully advancing to level 20.

It may not seem like it but the gap in strength between a level 19 player and a level 20 player is quite big. Besides the fact that players can unlock specialized classes upon reaching level 20 and doing a series of quests, each player is given stat bonus to reflect this change. If one were to use the words of the NPCs in-game, the threshold of passing level 19 and reaching level 20 can be considered as breaking through the peak of Condensation Stage (level 1-19) and entering the Foundation Stage (20-35).

Not many players know why the system was made like this or who built it, but they do know that any NPC or monster that is about level 20 has marginally greater strength than someone at level 19. Mistaken Fox and his Stone Axe Minotaur were currently experiencing this for themselves at the moment.

Monster: Redwoods Forest(*) Brown Bear

Monster Level: 21

Health: 30,000/30,000

Attack: 100

Defense: 100

Skills: Thick Fur, Heavy Palm Strike, Reckless Charge

The monster was only two levels higher than Mistaken Fox and his Stone Axe Minotaur but those two levels put both summoner and summoned creature in a dire situation. This situation was made worse because Mistaken Fox and his minotaur were currently fighting three of them. The monsters only had three skills each but they seemed to be a lot smarter than usual and kept using those skills in ways that kept thwarting Mistaken Fox and his minotaurs attacks.

Not only that, just the fact that the creatures' defences were so high that any normal attack Mistaken Fox managed to land only dealt double digits while his minotaur barely scraped the triple-digit figure. As for skills, the bears kept taking turns in tanking the Stone Axe Minotaur's skills by using <Thick Fur> to reduce the damage. Couple this with their high attacks, neither Mistaken Fox nor the minotaur knew whether or not they should laugh or cry at the situation.

After a few minutes of fighting like this and getting nowhere, except maybe closer to death, Mistaken Fox finally did something he hasn't done since he got the minotaur. Taking a moment to allow the Stone Axe Minotaur to tank all three brown bears, Mistaken Fox backed off a bit and withdrew his minotaur back into his talisman form. This action left the brown bears stunned for a moment. Taking advantage of, Mistaken Fox immediately turned tail and ran away, leaving the bears stunned for a second before deciding to give chase.

This chase went on for a few minutes before Mistaken Fox finally managed to escape that forest and break away from combat, allowing him to find an area to rest. As for why he didn't even bother to attempt <Stealth> during this escape, Mistaken Fox knew that it wouldn't help as he had unintentionally triggered the initial combat with those bears after walking by them in stealth, to begin with. When they found him then, they never saw nor heard him. Instead, they had sniffed him out.

After finally managing to catch a break after such a difficult situation, Mistaken Fox collapsed with his back against a tree as he spoke, "Damn. If that's the strength of a normal level 21 monster on this continent, I really will have my work cut out for me when I start that quest later. I need to hurry up and get to level 25 so that I can equip Brother Kirou's gift, otherwise, I'll always be fighting such creatures under a massive handicap."

It was roughly twenty minutes later that Mistaken Fox regained the strength to stand up. After doing a few stretches, Mistaken Fox went in a random direction away from the previous forest. He had to continue levelling up. After walking a few feet, Mistaken Fox's figure disappeared from few, clearly entering <Stealth> once more.

*******

The fight that had started roughly half an hour ago has finally come to an end. The group of thirteen was currently staring at the bodies of the six shadow wolves that they had just defeated. It wasn't an easy feat but they did manage to succeed in the end with no casualties. The group from Sanming managed to show off their superiority over other players with such a feat, but that group was now staring at Kirou as if he was a freak.

Minus Navi, who already knew about his strength and the brown-haired warrior who's received her reports and knew about him to an extent, the others never expected to run into a freak such as Kirou. While it may have looked like Navi and the female dwarf, Small Pebble had helped out with that single shadow wolf, they were all aware of the fact that Kirou wasn't a tank and he was able to maintain the shadow wolf's hatred on himself during the enter assault. The shadow wolf never once glanced at either Navi or Small Pebble, allowing them to attack the creature all they wanted while Kirou beat it to death with that oversized hammer.

Having become the centre of attention, Kirou shrugged before turning to Small Pebble and spoke, "I believe it's time I return this to you. While it was fun using a giant hammer to fight, I've had my fun, so here." Following those words, Kirou sent a trade request to Small Pebble who accepted and returned the giant hammer to her.

Staring at Kirou in surprise, Small Pebble's body had operated on autopilot to retrieve the hammer and only spoke afterwards, "No... no problem. I'm glad my hammer was able to help."

Kirou nodded his head at this before turning to face the brown-haired warrior and spoke, "I believe it's time for me to give my demonstration now, right Sanming Sect Master?"

The brown-haired man stared at Kirou for a moment before speaking, "Very well. We've managed to secure enough corpses." The warrior then addressed the group as he spoke up, "We have enough corpses for three attempts. You guys are free to compete with Mr Kirou here three times to see whether or not he has the skill to pull off what we saw in those videos and see whether or not he'll be able to help us with our plight. I'll say this from now, regardless of the result, none of you should make a fuss over this and will go back to doing your own duties. Do I make myself clear?"

The other eleven players answered in unison, "Understood Boss."

"Good. Now then, who'll be going first?" asked the brown-haired warrior as he faced his group of players while Kirou walked around, examining the six corpses. A few of the group members saw his actions and while they weren't sure exactly what he was looking for, sneered at him inwardly for trying to show off.

It was at this point that one of the thieves stepped out, a male by the name of Short Fuse. He looked at Kirou's actions, sneering inwardly at his actions before speaking, "I'll be the first to challenge him, Boss."

The Sanming Sect Master could guess what Short Fuse was thinking after seeing his expression but did nothing as he spoke, "Very well. Have you decided on a corpse yet, Mr Kirou?"

Kirou stopped looking at the corpses for a moment before shaking his head in disappointment. It seems that none of the corpses was up to his standards. The others, besides Navi, mistook this as his having second thoughts and is trying to come up with an excuse on the matter. Only Navi was aware that Kirou's eyes were currently judging the grade of the corpses and trying to guess the type of materials he would receive.

Releasing a helpless sigh, Kirou could only reluctantly speak up, "Let's just get this over with. Since this is just a test then the quality won't be as important as the quantity."

Hearing his words, most of the group sneered inwardly, especially his first opponent, while the brown-haired warrior had his eyebrows furrowed. 'Could it be that he's a fake?' was what he thought but he decided to wait before making any judgements.

As for Navi, she was currently laughing at the others on the inside. 'This should be quite the entertaining show, seeing these guys get such a blow to their egos. Alas, it seems like none of these materials will be in perfect condition so I can't blame Kirou for not being as enthusiastic about it.' Those were Navi's thoughts as the two competitors got into place before their respective corpses.