The mail he received from Sophia was a source of both comfort and anxiety. It was a source of comfort as it implied that Sophia was concerned about him in this life too and he finally got some information about the next step in his career. Not knowing what would happen to one's career was always a source of discomfort.
The anxiety was because it told that he would be directly reporting under Xander Drake. Any job that required one to report directly to an authority that high would have a high-risk factor and a lot of responsibility. It was concerning to him that the job would put him in the more danger. He already faced enough threats. Moreover, it might also lower his chances of meeting with Sophia at the base.
"I can't do anything about this now. Let me handle it as I get the official posting," thought Balthazar as he sent a mail to his grandfather informing him that he would be 15 to 20 minutes late. Winston immediately replied that the meeting wasn't urgent and even specified to take his time in reaching the office. It was like Winston didn't really want to meet him.
With that he reverted his focus back from the messages board on his panel to the game. He had to finish up the quest as fast as possible. Even though he got a bit more time now, he couldn't take it easy. Else, he would fail in his plan.
He moved through the forest in search for more beasts that they could take down. He also suggested that they take different routes while searching for the beasts. He wanted Slaine, Roll, Rudra to move and himself to move through the forest while the rest of the team moved along the path towards the city.
He divided the group equally. He went along with the players from the Dreamz workshop as he was most familiar with them. With all of them at level 9 it wasn't that dangerous to move separately. They could at the very least retreat safely now.
"Contact us if you find any other players or any other danger," said Shadow as he went into the forest leaving the other three. He wanted at least one from his workshop and one from the Quiet Fire's team to be in the first three that enter the city only these would get reputation points. His best bet were Rudra and Merlin.
Though all the 12 members who were doing the quest are at level 9 after the fight with the lions. Merlin had the most as he frequently focused on even his trade professions of cook and alchemist. He was the go-to source for resources like food for the team. Thus, his experience was just 200 points short of level 10.
Rudra was like the rest and needed a lot more experience points, but he was the guild leader and if the leader had more reputation points, it would be easy for them to expand and get hold of resources. Even though Balthazar was going to help the Crimson Realm guild, it was always best for Rudra to have a decent number amount of reputation for situation where he might not be available.
Rudra needed a significantly higher amount of experience compared to Merlin. With the six of them in the forest they could have Rudra take the last hit and with the proper experience mode, he could gain experience much faster.
Shadow quickly put any monster he found in a near death state and using the level 5 garrote to choke, he held it till Rudra landed the last hit. In this manner, the rate at which Rudra was gaining experience was steadily increasing.
At the Blackrock town and the other villages and cities under the White Heart City region, many were shocked to see the leaderboards. The board at the Blackrock town was completely dominated by the 11 members of his group. Shadow had long ago opted to not show his name in the leaderboards.
Even in the entire White Heart region, the occupied the top 5 positions. There were members from other groups that had reached level 9 and were competing with him. With the Blackrock town promotion, there was a lot of exchange of goods and resources causing many members also to reach the level 9.
Luckily, none of them knew the best way to complete the quest that allows them to reach the city. Even if they tried to kill all monsters they found, it wouldn't be possible to kill the boss at the city at level 9.
With Shadow helping him, Rudra soon managed to reach level 10 in 60 minutes. Merlin had already reached level 10 by that time. With the two of them reaching level 10, the player in the region were in uproar. Most were spamming the forums with accusations that they have been using some sort of glitch in the game.
Luckily, the game moderators were quick to reply informing that no unfair means were used saving their guilds reputation among the players. Soon, a person called Wandering Hermit that there were others that have reached level 10 but had opted to not be shown in leaderboard. He also listed a few names from various towns indicating why he thinks so.
In the list, Shadow was also mentioned. It was known that Shadow had been playing with Merlin. Also, Shadow had a few first clears, but his name never popped up even in Blackrock village list. Informing these facts, he suggested that Shadow definitely crossed level 10, but kept it secret.
Though there were other who insisted that it might not be so as Shadow already had first clears and had no reason to keep his level secret, they would all be proven wrong within an hour.
Once, Rudra had crossed level 10, Shadow immediately provided him with the stag horn halberd he crafted to Rudra. He decided it is best that they aim for clearing the quest. Even if they didn't cross level 10 by the time the boss died. It wouldn't be hard to enter the city as the cleared the quest. They just need to cross level 10 through trade profession or a few more kills before they teleport to the city from the BlackRock Town.
They went along the path and soon could see the city wall from a distance. They only came in contact with a few isolated monsters like the red fanged cougars, but they could easily take care of these monsters.
As they began to saw their destination, the team started to run along the path in excitement. They stopped caring about other beasts that might come. Only, Shadow knew that it wouldn't be easy and carefully observed his flanks as he was running.
As he expected there were few roars and soon a pair of bears popped out of the forest attacking them from the front. Though these bears were both level 9 elites, Shadow didn't consider them difficult enough for the end of the quest and had the team be on hold instead of actively attacking them.
His doubts soon proved to be true as another bear which was much smaller than these two jumped out of the forest behind them. This was named Sun Bear and was the level 10 boss monster he was waiting for. It was clear that these monsters had the team flanked.
[Forest Bear] (Elite Monster)
Level 9;
HP: 6000/6000;
[Sun Bear] (Boss monster)
Level 10;
HP: 9000/9000;
The forest bears were both about 6 feet high and 8 feet large. Bears usually had high defence and health. It was best for Magic damage classes to attack them. These bears had high damage and lower agility. So, attacking from a distance or classes with high agility are the best options to attack the bears.
Bears usually fought by swiping their claws against the players. They had a huge frame and even being hit by their limbs usually result in throw back and stun effects on the players. They even ram into the players when their health is low. The only advantage against them is their low speed.
The sun bear was about 4 feet high and 5 feet large. It had golden fur instead of brown, wore a helmet and plate armor around its torso and carried a sword. All bears high strength and defense. The different kinds of bears only differed in other aspects. The only exceptions were two kinds of bears - sun bear and starlight bear.
These two kinds of bears are humanoid. They could speak and use armaments like humans. They also move very fast with quick, agile movements. It is easier to take down 4 bears than one of these sun bears. They were similar to players in most aspects but had the physique of a bear.
With most of the team being level 9 players, Shadow left them to deal with the forest bears. As long as they maintained a reasonable distance and attacked, it is not hard to deal with the forest bears. He also put Rudra and Merlin in charge of one forest bear each. These two being at level 10 will have an advantage over the bears.
Shadow ran to handle the sun bear himself. Although it was a boss monster, it was two levels below him. Moreover, a monster could never match a fight against a seasoned veteran like him. He cast a shadow clone and used Red Rage skill as soon as he attacked the bear. Like always he cast the clone to use cheap shot skill.
The sun bear was a humanoid similar to the worgen. Though it didn't physically look different from the other bears. It was able to use a sword. It wasn't an easy task to fool the sun bear into not observing the shadow clone. That is why he used the red rage skill so that the visual effect of the skill would distract it. He had to keep at a distance from the rest of the team. It would certainly cause disturbance in their coordination of the group in fighting the bears.
He immediately had the clone cast cheap shot to stun the bear and began to lower its health. He focused his attack on joints of the armor first. It was always best to disable or remove the armor of the monsters to lower its defense. Striking the joints that held the armor pieces together was the best option to remove plate armor.
Removing the armor could best be done while the monster is stunned. It is a lot harder to aim at the tiny joint when the monster is trying to evade. With the repeated cheap shot from his clone and himself, he managed to remove the armor and helm in 6 seconds and began to attack the sun bear rapidly.
The sun bears main advantage was it speed and movements. Most of its defense was provided by the armor. Without its armor it began to lose health rapidly. The sad thing was that it couldn't even match its speed with Shadow. At level 12, his agility was more than high enough to deal with it.
He could easily stop its attacks and deal damage to it. It slowly began to lose health and within three minutes, its health went below 50% which put it into a berserk state. It started to attack the others in its desperate state instead of attacking Shadow who was the only one who inflicted damage to it.
It ran around and tried to attack others, but Shadow being faster than it easily got hold of it and kept it at bay. Yet due to the berserk effect, its speed clearly increased by at least 20% and it was getting harder for him to hold it at bay.
He tried to control it with the garrote. Though he wasn't able to loop the garrote wire around its head, he managed to loop it around its limbs. But still it could not control it. The bears have limbs which could smack at players who are using chok and are on their back. So, it was a futile attempt to control using choke or garrote.
He had only on option left. It was the halberd that he made. It could be used to control and pull away the bear by the hook like gaps in its head. He already had enough strength attribute to use it even though it is a two-handed weapon. The flaw with the halberd was that without the appropriate skills, he could hardly deal decent damage and the frequency of attack also was quite low with this weapon.
The good part was that, Rudra who always played berserker had made good use of the three new skills he learned recently. Using the harpoon tackle and whirlwind strike, he managed to already push the bear they were fighting away from the other two.
With him being at level 10, his attacks had a stronger effect on the bear. The halberd could also be used for these skills and the best was already on its last legs. With a shattering strike, Rudra quickly put an end to the monster and five more were ready to help Shadow.
The remaining also were able to control the bear in a decent manner but they didn't have enough firepower. Tetsujin who could usually control the monsters using choke skill failed as the bear could smack him away with its arms even when he was on its back. This wasn't possible for wargs or cats.
Due to this, they had to change their fight style. They were using tanks for cover and attacked the bear with magical long-distance attacks. This wasn't a hard task, but it definitely took a long time to kill the bear in this manner.
"Join the others to finish off the other bear," said Shadow as soon as he saw Rudra finish one of the bears. He was quite confident in his capabilities to keep the sun bear away. Though the damage he inflicted was quite small, engaging it in a fight at a stalemate was an easy job.
With all 10 of them attacking the other bear didn't even last for a minute. After that the same fate awaited the sun bear. The sun bear though was fast enough to evade even most of the level 10 players, it couldn't handle escape the co-operative effort of the 12 players and died within two minutes of the 12 players joining to kill the sun bear.
With the sun bear dead they have been done with all the monsters in the quest. All that was left is to go to the gate at the wall and inform the guards about the town head's quest and finish the quest. They quickly made their way along the path in the direction of the city wall.
The soon came to a junction where a large number of paths from various towns and villages joined. A few meters away from the junction there was a large watchtower and check post. This check post is the teleportation point that would be available for the players at level 9 to teleport to. They can't directly teleport into the city till they reached level 10.
Even after the death of the sun bear, none of the others managed to level up. The others could only register at the check post for the completion of the quest and come back when they have managed to reach level 10.
Shadow quickly went to the check post and pulled out informed the guard about his quest. The quest reward was based on the number and type of monsters, a player helped to kill. The experience gained was dependent on this. Thus, there was a good chance for most of the team to level up. Even in his previous life, situation where someone managed to complete the quest without reaching level 10 were rare occurrences because of this. He immediately heard the notification.
Quest completed: [Clear a path to the city] (Difficulty: High)
Performance: Moderate;
Experience gained: 700;
Rewards: Gained access to the White Heart City.