The desert was much bigger than the swamp they were in before. They had already spent 2 hours walking in the worm desert, as Poe named it. In the start, Ivy had dashed through it with Poe and Lucia following behind, but after an hour or so, Ivy slowed down and started walking normally, Poe and Lucia were both breathing out a sigh of relief.
They were already close to collapsing with all the running, even if Ivy ran from left and right while they only went in a straight line all the way.
With Ivy now killing the monsters in a slower tempo, Poe and Lucia could finally relax and get some fighting experience.
[Sand worm, lvl 22]
Having relaxed with walking through the desert with Ivy killing all monsters that crossed them and drinking some water from time to time to stay hydrated, Poe and Lucia were finally ready to fight.
Poe also found out that Lucia knew water magic, even if it was useless in fighting. Poe wanted to learn it when they got back, that way he would never have to pay for water ever again!
Returning to the situation in front of him, Poe used his mana ball barrage on the sand worm laying relaxed in the sun. Poor sand worm. Never knew that some rude people would come by and interrupt its sunbathing session.
The mana ball barrage hit the poor sunbathing sand worm perfectly and before the poor little sand worm could even relax, five earth spikes came out from the ground piercing through the sunbathing sand worm.
[Gained 0 EXP + 70 EXP: It didn't even fight back…]
Looking at the poor sand worm with five earth spikes sticking out of it, Poe started feeling a little bad. The systems message said it all…
Moving on, Poe and Lucia went for the slithering sand worms instead. This was decided on after observing Ivy fighting closely. The sand worms never fought back and were burned into nothingness, while the slithering sand worms reacted a little before being burnt into nothingness.
When Poe saw the worm-infested desert at the start, he thought it was a scary place, but after being inside the worm desert for some time, Poe realized that it was not so scary.
The slithering sand worms attacked most of the time and even outright ignored people, finding out that slithering around in the sand was much more entertaining. The sand worms on the other hand never attacked people, even if you hit them on accident. They only attacked you, if you started attacking them more than once or if your attack did enough damage. Sunbathing was much more interesting to these worms…
Poe got all this information by observing the surrounding mages and warriors, even though there were less and less the farther into the desert they went, there were still quite a few around.
[Slithering sand worm, lvl 21]
Facing the slithering sand worm, Poe and Lucia was planning how to deal with it, but before they could do anything, the slithering sand worm charged at them.
Caught off guard, Poe threw mana balls towards the slithering sand worm while Lucia tried to make earth spikes erupt from the ground to pierce the slithering sand worm.
The slithering sand worm easily dodged the mana ball while gracefully slithering across the desert sand, as the slithering sand worm moved closer to Poe and Lucia, earth spikes erupted from the ground below the slithering sand worm.
The slithering sand worm easily dodged most of the earth spikes, but was in the end still hit by one on the side.
Seeing this opportunity, Lucia cast another spell and soon a hand made out of earth erupted from the ground slamming down on the slithering sand worm.
"Poe! Use mana ball barrage on it while I have it pinned down!"
Lucia called towards Poe, who was already creating a mana ball barrage. The mana ball barrage was bigger than the once before and Poe felt quite proud while looking at the mana balls above him forming the mana ball barrage.
Hearing Lucia, Poe directed his mana ball barrage towards the slithering sand worm before releasing it.
The over 30 mana balls flew across the sky before falling down on the earth hand and the slithering sand worm.
Lucia quickly stopped fueling the earth hand with mana to let the mana balls do the most damage possible.
The slithering sand worm felt the earth hand weaken and quickly got free. Sadly all it saw when it was free was a large amount of mana balls flying towards it.
*bam bam bam*
The slithering sand worm panicked when it saw all the mana balls in front of it, but was too slow and could not dodge in time. Over 20 mana balls hit it as a result.
[Gained 57 EXP + 65 EXP: from killing higher-level enemy]
[Mana ball barrage reached level 5]: To increase the strength, you increase the number of mana balls inside the mana ball barrage.
Seeing that the slithering sand worm died both Poe and Lucia breathed out in relief.
Moving closer to the dead slithering snake, it slowly turned into light fragments before disappearing into the air. In the place of the dead body of the slithering sand worm, what looked like another slithering sand worm? Curious, Poe decided to inspect it.
[Slithering sand worm skin (damaged)]: Skin of a slithering sand worm, can be used by sand mages to strengthen weaker sand based skills.
Seeing the slithering sand worm skin, Poe had no idea what to do with the slithering sand worms damaged skin and it ended up with Lucia storing it away somewhere.
After fighting against the slithering sand worm, Poe and Lucia found it easier and easier to fight against the slithering sand worms and soon easily killed them off.
Having grown confident in themselves, Poe and Lucia did not think much of the sand worms and slithering sand worms, so when Ivy decided to check out a giant tunnel in the middle of the desert, both Poe and Lucia decided to follow.
They came to regret it as soon as they took the first step into the tunnel.
[*warning* you have awoken the king of the worm desert!]
Seeing the notification Poe and Lucia quickly ran away from the now shaking tunnel, followed by an excited Ivy.