The battle was over. The beastmen were finishing off the few bandits who couldn't escape with the carts, they were enraged and left no survivors.
The old man walked up to Rastel smiling. "You look like you're in a pretty bad shape"
"That monk was strong. He only used two skills and he still put me in such a bad position" Rastel said while casting Insta heal on himself.
"He is a natural-born fighter" the old man nodded lightly.
"You're not too bad yourself, but you're still lacking something very important." He then added
"What is that?" Rastel looked at the man curiously.
"Let's deal with the issue at hand first, we'll talk after that" the old man said signaling to the beastmen to gather.
There was a total of 83 beastmen. Lou and her brother came over after the fight finished. She was looking much better and was walking on her own. The old man was talking to an elderly fox beastman who acted as their spokesperson.
"Do you people have a place to go back to?"
"Most of us here are from a settlement up north, while the rest are from the village of Laron. Our settlement was destroyed as they took everyone. We can't return to the village either because the leader of the bandits is basing his operations there." The beastman said sadly.
The old man nodded his head a bit while thinking. After a while, a ring appeared in his hand, brought out from his inventory.
"Just a few kilometers east of here is a path, it is usually patrolled so it should be relatively safe. You will find a small town after walking down the path for a day." He gave the beastman the ring.
"When you reach the town, find the librarian there going by the name Jack. Give him this ring and tell him Oron sent you and tell him of your situation. He would provide you with meals and lead you to a major beastman settlement." He said while bringing out a few more things from his inventory.
The beastmen looked in awe as he brought out stacks of meat and bread from thin air. This was not the first time they saw such a thing.
"Y-You're a summoned?" The beastman looked in shock.
Summoned were beings that appeared to their world recently. They came in different races and were powerful. They grew both in number and strength at alarming rates. To them, the 'residents', summoned were powerful beings. A signature ability of all summoned was that they could take things out of thin air, an invisible magic spatial device.
Oron just smiled at their question and continued.
"When you reach the settlement, visit the elder and tell him about what happened here. From the looks of it, it is far bigger than we think. The beastmen council might want to hear of it."
"Thank you summoned! We will forever remember this debt!" The old beastman said.
They turned to Rastel who was still recovering.
"Thank you too, young mage. We wouldn't have escaped if you hadn't come to save us."
"Don't worry about it, it's just a small thing" Rastel smiled waving it off.
"Take the weapons off these dead soldiers; it would be good to have some sort of way to defend yourselves just in case." Oron suggested.
The beastmen set about stripping off the few pieces of armor and weapons of the dead soldiers.
Lou and her brother went over to Rastel.
"My name is Ral, thank you for saving me and my sister" the young beastman bowed to him.
"It's nothing at all, besides, I wanted to get them back for stabbing me" Rastel smiled embarrassedly.
"May I know your name?" the boy asked as he raised his head.
"It's Rastel"
"I will remember it, I promise to pay this debt one day" the boy nodded seriously.
"Thank you mister" Lou smiled at him.
"No problem girl" he smiled back
"We'll be on our way. Till we cross paths again." Ral picked up his sister and joined the leaving beastmen.
Rastel watched as they left through the trees going east.
"Let's go boy" Oron said as he started moving with Mary.
"Go where?"
"You need to level up to level 5 and get a subclass." Oron waved back at him.
"Subclass? But don't I need to go to a town for that? There are no officials in a village as small as Laron." Rastel was confused.
A minimum level of five was needed to get a subclass. Subclasses were essential if you wanted to be powerful in Age of magic. The stronger the subclass, the better. You could only meet an official of the mage association in the case of mages to get one. Most mage subclasses were element-related, e.g Fire mage, water mage, ice mage e.t.c.
Some advanced subclasses required quests to obtain though they are much harder to acquire. And the quest would be at least B rank. There were also hidden and unique classes that were very powerful but they depended on a player's luck and strength.
As for quests, they were ranked from D being the lowest to SS rank. Namely;
D
C
B
A
S
SS
There were also unique, hidden, and legendary quests that offered high risk for high rewards but they were rare. They boasted danger of A to SS rank.
"Don't worry about that for now, let's just go" Oron said still waving his arms.
He shrugged and followed. They went west through the forest and kept going deep.
Rastel was cautious as they could encounter a beast of at least level 5 here but Oron and Mary kept walking like it was nothing.
When a level 5 bear did see them, it was easily handled by a blast of water from Mary.
'One hit kill!?"
He was shocked! It took her only one blast to take down the bear. Whereas it would take him lots of effort and planning to kill one. Now that he thought about it, Mary was able to deal with all those bandits all on her own when they attacked the warehouse.
'Their levels are much higher than I thought.' he smiled bitterly.
They kept moving until they reached a clearing with a rocky area, level 6 wolves patrolled around the area.
Oron finally stopped here then sat down under a tree at the edge of the clearing.
Grey Wolf
LVL 6
HP: 150
Rastel paused then stared at the man in shock.
"You want me to kill them!?" He asked incredulously.
"What? No! Of course not!" Oron said shaking his head.
"Mary, please be a dear and take out these minions." He asked Mary politely.
Mary nodded her head and quickly dispatched all the wolves around.
As soon as she killed the last one with a blast of water, a loud howl was heard from the top of a large rock in the middle of the clearing.
A large grey wolf standing at about Rastel's chest height jumped down from the rock as it howled again.
AAOOOO!!!!
It howled at them with a menacing gaze.
Alpha Grey Wolf
LVL 7
HP: 300
Staring at the large enraged wolf, Rastel felt fear for the first time in the game.
"I want you to fight him" Oron said casually.
"What!!?"
Rastel stared at Mary as she also sat down near Oron and watched passively.
"I said I'll tell you about what you were doing wrong, fighting with this wolf would help you learn."
"But It's level 7! Not to talk of the level difference it is also a boss!" he complained.
"Listen to me young one" Oron said now sounding serious.