With Shadow leading the way, the team including their new addition Tetsujin went back to continue their quest. Instead of walking across the path, Shadow led him into the forest to the right. The main objective of the quest was not to just walk along the path but kill the monsters.
The needed to have a significant count of the number of monsters killed, else they would have to deal with a large stream of monsters before they reached the city outskirts. So, they quickly made their way along the path and stopped at a point.
"I will aggro a few monsters here one by one. Tetsujin, what skills do you have?" asked Shadow after stopping at the clearing.
"Choke, Toss and Back Throw are the only skills, I have," replied Tetsujin.
"So, you already learnt choke. That makes thinks easy. You are the in charge of mainly controlling the monsters."
"It does have a cooldown, I hope that others also have similar skills," he said looking at Merlin.
"Use semi-automatic mode. It will help you learn the skills. Then, try using manual mode to repeat the same and then you can have the same effect as the skill without using it. And you don't have any cooldown in the manual mode for skill which require physical movements," explained Tang. Ever since Shadow had demonstrated the use of manual mode, she had practices every one of the skills she knew in manual mode and at this point is using only manual mode.
"That can be useful. How do magical classes do it?" he asked Merlin.
"Some of the gestures are necessary along with few incantations. In manual mode we don't need to select target first which allows us to guess the targets path and use a skill at the location where he would move to. But we can't do it without cooldowns," answered Merlin.
"I guess magical classes would have such an obvious drawback when using a technology that allows our thought to make us feel like we are physically interacting," added Shadow. "But on continuous usage of skills in manual mode, you tend to feel tired. I think they have a hidden stamina value based on endurance attribute," he continued as he went into stealth mode.
Balthazar already knew that the manual mode would have this feature and usage of skills without regard to cooldown in manual mode would draw on the stamina value. It is similar to the HP and MP bars but is presently hidden. It would be made visible to the players after the first upgrade which he heard happened a week after the game's launch.
It was done on popular request, so that every player could determine his own stamina. The same would be also done for the magical classes. They also could use the smaller level skills without regard to cooldown by playing the price of stamina. But it was not much popular to depend on it among the magical classes as it required them to put in a sizeable attribute points to endurance.
Shadow quickly found a red fanged cougar, got out of stealth and attacked it with the intention of bringing it back. The cougar was similar to a mountain lion with a thick bushy tail. It had four large fangs, two upwards and two downwards protruding from its jaws giving it a fearsome appearance.
These were relatively isolate monsters that fought anything that the saw including other cougars. Vita-nova always had the monsters and NPC's intellect to be independent and as similar as possible to real-life as is evident from the behavior of the cougars. The monsters also have to eat others to improve their level. They also tend to have similar eating patterns especially those which also exist in real-life.
It was actually considered impossible to find one that wasn't at full health or not injured. It was thus considered easy prey to isolate and attack. With a martial artist using choke on it, it would be easy to make quick work of the cougar.
[Red fanged Cougar] (Elite monster)
Level 8;
HP: 2280/3000;
The red fanged cougar had an attack pattern similar to warg. It also charged quickly at its enemies and attacked either with its claws or by biting into them. Both these attacks result in bleed effects. But unlike the warg, when the cougar bites it would just chomp onto their limbs and toss them away usually towards other monsters to disrupt their co-ordination or just rattle them.
As he came back, he saw that his team had retreated a few metres towards the direction of the village. They were under attack by a troop of monkeys. If he were any late, he might have jumped into the advancing troop of monkeys.
It looked like avoiding the monkey when the go through this area was impossible on the first run. But the number of monkeys that attacked them were lower in number. "It looks like these first attacks are dependent on the number of players in the team," though Shadow.
Tetsujin and Merlin seemed to have employed the same trick as he used before. They had a monkey with them and were using it to attract the others. But the monkey they caught seemed to be slow, almost dying and wasn't able to retaliate.
"What did you do to the monkey?" asked Shadow as soon as he saw them. He was already out of stealth so as to allow the cougar to follow him.
"These things came out suddenly a few seconds ago. With no idea, I told what you did when we fought alongside the Sirius Imperials. Tetsujin immediately caught on of the monkey and used toss to send it to us," began Quiet Fire in an attempt to explain.
"Didn't work. Tetsu used choke and I poured a poison bottle into its mouth," said Merlin finishing her sentence. Merlin chose the trades of cook and alchemy as they can be used in the middle of quest to replenish stocks if he had the ingredients.
The required apparatus for the skill were little and could be carried in inventor. The other two of his trades were herbalism and foraging which would supplement his other two skills. So, he was the main potion source of the group.
"I hope you didn't get any other monsters here. We are already being pushed back by these," added Tetsujin who left the poisoned monkey to Blinding white and began waving his tonfas to attack.
The cougar that he pulled to the team would only serve to their detriment in this situation. "Don't attack it when it comes out. Let it follow me and go back a bit," shouted Shadow as he ran into the troop of monkeys.
A few seconds later, a 4-foot-tall red furred monster with fangs jumped out of the same place as Shadow. With his team already retreating, the spot where the cougar came out of, was right beside the monkeys.
The red fanged cougar which came out of the trees suddenly got into the midst of the monkey following Shadow. The cougar that bumped into a bunch of monkeys squeaking and throwing stones only saw it as a large buffet to eat and quickly pounced on the nearest monkey changing the nature of a fight.
With one of the monkeys being treated by the cougar as food, the focus of the remaining monkey changed from the players to the new predator in their midst. Chaos immediately ensued as few of the monkeys started attacking the cougar. The cougar being a very aggressive kind of monster retaliated and kept jumping from one monkey to other while swiping its claws and fangs at them.
Shadow already knew that the cougar wouldn't focus on them as the monkeys were better food than them as they were higher leveled and eating them would enable it to increase its level. This behavior of monsters also extended to tamed monsters/pets. His team most of whom were three levels below it wasn't appealing at all compared to the monkeys.
With the cougar taking the attention of the monkey, Shadow's team got the break they needed. Shadow used cheap shot and threw another monkey to his team. But this time instead of using it as bait they directly decided to kill the monster.
With the cougar charging at the monkeys, biting and swiping its claws at the monkey, they didn't need the previous plan and all they needed was to quickly hold down and kill the monkeys as much as possible to gain an advantage. Luckily for them, the cougar seemed to have an interest in the monkeys more than the players and as long as they didn't attack it, this wouldn't probably change.
Even Tetsujin being a martial artist could use skills like choke and toss to stun and pull out individual monkeys and they soon began to increase their kill count. But, as the number of monkeys decreased, they realized that the odds were against them and started to retreat.
Once the monkeys reached the trees beside the path, they started to swing their way into the forest. They were a lot faster on the trees than they were on the ground. The cougar wouldn't be able to attack them now.
By this time, they managed to kill 14 of the monkeys while the cougar itself killed three of the monkeys. Each of the monkey was level 7 and was two levels higher than the team providing extra experience. These few monkeys provided enough for everyone in the team except Tang and Little White Feet to raise up by a level.
The cougar which realized that it can't catch the monkeys came back on to the path. looked at the team, who were looting the monkey corpses. With the monkeys gone, the team became its new target.
A monster which tends to follow and hunt other monsters wouldn't allow players to safely retreat. Though the team were a bit apprehensive to fight such a monster, Shadow had no issues combating the cougar. He had original meant to temper his team with the cougar but due to the monkeys he had to deal with them first.
Despite, the red fanged cougar was also injured by the monkeys during the fight and its current HP was about 1800 HP. Moreover, even Tang and Little White Feet needed only little experience to move to level 6 and killing a level 8 monster would definitely provide them the required experience.
"Get ready Tetsujin, need you to help control it," said Shadow Tyrant in the chat. He had already moved into stealth when he saw the cougar returning. "I will stun it and at the end of stun, you need to control using choke and toss," he added.
Due to the enhanced stealth provided by the mask of shadow, he could fool any monster 5 levels above him. The cougar couldn't perceive him either. He was already waiting for the cougar and quickly got by it side and used cheap shot to stun it signalling his team to attack.
The team attacked frenziedly as they wanted to kill it as soon as possible. The cougar fighting the monkeys by itself had left a formidable impression on them. Shadow had also used his clone skill to increase the DPS.
Also, their attacks wouldn't be as effective as a higher leveled monsters would have better defences and also control skill tend to not have the expected efficiency. But luckily magical attacks seem to have better effect than the physical ones.
Both Merlin and Shadow immediately noticed this and commanded all those who had magical attacks including priest to continuously attack and not do anything else. The cheap shot would normally stun for four seconds, had the cougar stunned only for 3 seconds due to level difference. Luckily, Shadow had his clone ready increasing the stun for another 3 seconds with its cheap shot.
Though it was only 6 seconds, the combined attack concentrated on a single stunned monster was rather disastrous for it. By the time, the stun expired it was already in critical health, in an enraged state and chose Blinding White who was right beside its head as the target for its bite and toss attack.
The toss by the cougar left it open to attacks and Tetsujin wasn't one to leave an opportunity, he immediately used back throw, toss and choke attacks in succession leaving it in a state of confusion for another 2 seconds.
System: Your teammate Blinding White bled to death.
The announcement shocked everyone. The cougar had used only one attack to successfully kill a player. It was obvious that it had a very high attack value. Though it was a shocking change, the team continue their attack as the monster was on its last breath. Merlin had also had his terror wave skill ready in case of emergency, but the monster succumbed to assault before that.
"WHAT KIND OF CRAZY BEAST DID YOU LURE!!! IT EMPTIED HALF MY HEALTH IN ONE ATTACK," shouted Blinding White. She had already resurrected and called them as soon as she got the notification that they killed the cougar.
"Sorry, I didn't expect it to have such high attack in its enraged state," replied Shadow. "How could I know that the cougar had such high attack. All I heard was that it had an attack pattern similar to wargs," thought Shadow as he berated himself for not finding out more about the earlier stages of the game. When he joined as a vice-guild leader in his previous life, he focused mostly on the various resource areas and special quests which could improve their funds.
"That was a crazy monster. Why did you lure it?" asked Merlin. He too found it hard to believe that Shadow would do such a mistake.
"It was the only monster in isolation. After the monkeys, I thought it would be best to handle individual monsters. Moreover, its attacks were only charging to swipe and bite. I thought we could easily evade it," replied Shadow.
"It is true. If it is an isolated monster and by its attack pattern, even I would have done the same," said Tetsujin agreeing with Shadow. "We should have been a bit more prepared and expected that the stun wouldn't last that long."
Tetsujin was quite satisfied with both Merlin and Shadow's play. He also saw the potential in Quiet Fire and Blinding White. What killed her was just a rookie mistake.
The ones who were most happy were Tang and Little White Feet, the experience from the cougar had pushed them both to level 6. Unexpectedly, Blinding White who was already at level 6 went back to level 5 due to her death in the wild. Such a death resulted in loss of 10% experience. Blinding just managed to level up after killing the monkey and unfortunately lost experience and went back a level after death.
Even though the team leveled up, Shadow had a small confusion about something. He calculated the experience he received and by his estimates, it wouldn't be possible for them to level up after the monkeys. He didn't cross check at that time because of the cougar, but now he gave in to his curiosity.
He asked Tang to send a quick snapshot of her attribute panel. In the panel, he saw that the experience required for her to reach level 7 was 2300, instead of the 2500 it showed in his attribute panel. He repeated the same Quiet Fire and found the same result. This confirmed his doubts.
"The unique equipment!! It wouldn't give more attributes for a single level up just like that. It forces the player to gather more experience for a level up," though Balthazar. "No doubt, the players who had these complained about them. There would obviously be no free meal. If it really provided more attributes for the same levels, it would be considered unfair."
The more he played the game the more he realized the issues his simple plans had. "It wouldn't be simple even with my knowledge of future. I wonder what other requirements would prop up, if I acquire the unique weapons I had in my mind," thought Balthazar.
On the other side, Merlin had looted the cougar. It didn't provide any weapons but did provide the materials. Cougar fangs, cougar fur and meat. On enquiring, he found that the loot of the monkeys also didn't yield any equipment. It was just meat and fruits.
Luckily, the fruits were directly consumable. Though they couldn't be consumed during combat, they refilled both HP and MP. They also provide a temporary buff of higher HP and MP and fill up the HP and MP faster than bread and water.
As Blinding White was already at the village, Shadow asked her to check for Slaine and meet up with him. She also told him that the credit exchange and auction house had already opened up. Moreover, the village population was already reaching its limits and she advised him to tell his friends to come and register as soon as possible.
Now that most of them reached level 6, Merlin, Tetsujin and Quiet Fire asked to attempt the Hell mode dungeon. It looked like they got a taste for first clears and first kill rewards. That was their previous plan too. So, Shadow also agreed and they channelled their hearthstones to go back to the village.
Though they told that they wanted to go back to village to replenish potions, it was obvious that they wanted to check the auction house to see if they could find anything useful. Especially Tetsujin, he wanted to go to both the credit exchange and the auction house.