7 people sat around a thin stone slab on makeshift chairs fashioned out of tree stumps. All of them had similar expressions on their faces as they looked to the floor silently. Anger. Though the room was completely silent, the anger from the group spread to become a tangible miasma, affecting Klein, who was the weakest amongst them, the most.
After a while of the ensued silence, the eldest of the group, Grimanth the shaman, slammed his fist onto the table and roared in anger not befitting of his age.
["THOSE BASTARDS!! How dare they do that to our people?! My people! Chieftain, they must be destroyed, we must eradicate them from the face of this forest!"] {Grimanth}
The elderly Gnoll began to pant heavily as he returned to his seat, meeting with gestures of approval from the other elders as he did so. While he was regaining his breath Wulfarth began to voice his own opinion.
["Master, I agree with Grimanth, these scum must be removed from this forest completely! We need to repay them in full, but we can't be hasty about this. As you have explained, we don't know how many of them there are, we also don't know of their fighting force within that number. Preparations will need to be made before we make any sort of move."] {Wulfarth}
Faruth nodded his head briefly before sinking into the same silent thought as before. After roughly 5 minutes of thinking he began to elaborate on his plan to the important figures within the village.
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The meeting within the stone slab room finished long after the sky had turned dark and lasted for what Faruth could only assume was several long hours. Though they didn't all agree to his plan when he first explained it to them, after discussing with each other and adding things on, they managed to come up with a solution that they could all agree on.
Although the village wasn't planning on attacking the Lizardmen yet, preparations were being made until nightfall each day. The main part of the preparations could only commence once the constructions had been completed for the village's infrastructure. Even then, after the five days had passed, the only buildings yet to be completed were the [Basic Pen] and the [Basic Farm], which would only take another day to finish.
In the attack against the Lizardmen village, Faruth's forces would be small in number but as elite as possible. His forces would consist of a vanguard, including himself, Rath and Drath, Alneth, Marth and Wulfarth flanking the Lizardmen from behind the village, Grimanth acting in a support role with his shamanistic curses and buffs and finally, Frothen and the two female hunters, along with Hoki and Droki assisting them from the rear.
Because they were only small in number, Faruth decided to train them to the standards of the three soldiers currently in the village. Whilst this training was taking place, Wulfarth and Rose, the female Gnoll suitable to become a spy, were assigned with scouting out the village. They were expected to find out everything about the enemy village. Their troops, their equipment, the number of prisoners they had captive, the strength of their leader. As much information as they could possibly gather.
Back at the village, the training would consist of the labour that the three soldiers had been doing for the first day, in the hopes that they could get their constructions finished in the expected time frame. After that, The three hunters, led by Wulfarth would be taken out into the forest to practice working together and being commanded, whilst also procuring supplies for the group to use during the fight.
Hoki and Droki, the elderly mages, would be led by Grimanth in practising the accuracy and power of their magic, while he would teach all of the group how to best respond to an increase in strength in the middle of a fight, preparing them to use his buffs more effectively.
The final training group would consist of Faruth, Alneth, Rath, Drath and Marth. While they would not be doing labour in the form of lifting resources from one site to another after the constructions had finished, they would be following a strength building routine that Faruth and Alneth had worked together to create.
At the end of the day they would still spar and exchange pointers on their styles of combat with one another, but their period of training would be considerably shorter than when they were semi-construction workers. To replace this period, Faruth would lead them deep into the forest in the hopes that they could find beasts to hunt, which would both speed up and allow the process of evolution to occur within the group.
Even then, while the soldiers were training, the non-combatants were being taught the [Basic Toolmaking] skill by those that had it, in the hopes that they could aid them in making traps and equipment for the battle to come.
Faruth instructed them on the weapons that would be required for the battle to come. A pair of makeshift gauntlets for Alneth, a spear for Marth, Bows and arrows for the three hunters along with slings as back up and a pair of hammers for Rath and Drath. Faruth already had his own sword made of iron whereas he didn't have the knowledge or the technology required to make staves for the mages of his village.
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Days passed by as the village followed this training regime, the Gnolls became more and more tightly interwoven with one another as a village and the soldiers became stronger and stronger individually.
As his own preparation for the battle ahead, Faruth decided to allocate the SP and AP he had gained from levelling up after defeating Fulbash into his abilities. After defeating Fulbash, he went up by 11 levels, giving him 55 AP and 11 SP to allocate freely.
After a while of thinking, he placed 20 of the 55 points into Agility, bringing it from 88 to 108. Just as he did so, the ever familiar window popped into his vision once again.
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[[Congratulations! Your base Stat of [Agility] has passed 100! You have been given the choice of three passive skills to go along with this increase, please choose one!]]
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[[Light Step]]
[[Increases movement speed by 5% per level]]
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[[Wind Rush]]
[[Increases the speed of all physical attacks by 5% per level]]
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[[Masking Breeze]]
[[Increases the combined Stats required to be discovered while in [Stealth] mode by 5% per level]]
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After thinking for a short while about the battle ahead, he decided to choose [Wind Rush], immediately adding it to his pool of skills. He then chose to put 26 AP into Strength, bringing it to 100, after which a similar menu of skills appeared. Of the strength skills, he chose [Stone Fists], which increased his physical attack by 5% per level. To finish it off, he added the remaining 9 points into Endurance and swiftly moved onto the skills.
Thinking solely for the battle ahead, he put 1 skill point into [Cleave], 1 into [Strong Blow], 1 into [Slash], 2 into [Beast Strike], 2 into [Stealth], 2 into [Appraisal] and 2 into [Instincts], raising his skills up considerably. After all had been finished, his status was as follows:
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[[Name: Faruth]]
[[Age: 19]] [[Level: 14]]
[[Race: Kobold]] [[Title: Village Chief]]
[[Job: Nature's Herald]] [[Affiliation: None]]
[[EXP: 243/10,000]] [[Stage: 2]]
[[Status: Healthy]]
[[Village Status: Leader]]
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[[Blessings:]]
[[Blessing of the Conqueror]]
[[Blessing of ???]]
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[[HP: 4650/4650]] [[MP: 2352/2352]]
[[Stamina: 10,800/10,800]]
[[Attack: 294]]
[[Defence: 311.5]]
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[[Strength: 100]] [[Endurance: 75(+1 in the village))]]
[[Vitality: 62]] [[Agility: 108(+1 in the village)]]
[[Intelligence: 42]] [[Wisdom: 56]]
[[Charisma: 36]] [[Luck: 22]]
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[[Skills:]]
[[Active:]]
[Appraisal lvl.5]
[Beast Strike lvl.3]
[Slash lvl.3]
[Strong Blow lvl.3]
[Cleave lvl.3]
[Resource Harvesting lvl.1]
[Basic Toolmaking lvl.1]
[Basic Potionmaking lvl.1]
[Stealth lvl.4]
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[[Passive:]]
[Mana Control lvl.1]
[Weapon Knowledge lvl.1]
[Bestial Strength lvl.3]
[Instincts lvl.4]
[Exploration lvl.1]
[Directional Awareness lvl.2]
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