"Are you sure it's here?"
A group of sorcerers, 3 men, two of which were young, and 1 young woman, were flying around the deserted lands searching for something or someone. The weakest of them was only 2-stripes. The strongest was 4-stripes. Their robes were fluttering due to the speed they were flying right now.
"This is where the rumors state he lives. Where exactly does he live? I have no idea. The deserted land spans over millions of kilometers." One of the men said.
"Why was I even dragged with you three? I have better things to do than debunking false rumors." The young sorceress said.
No one truly believed that the 100th hero would willingly live here. But there are always those who believe in such baseless rumors and would go as far as to search for it themselves.
"We know, but can you imagine what we would get if we find the 100th hero? That is if the rumors are true."
"Yeah, it is tempting, but logically speaking, why would a hero hide and live in the deserted lands? That makes no sense."
Having the identity of a hero they are guaranteed riches, fame, power. Who would give all that up to live in seclusion?
"Who knows. Heroes are from another world that differs from our own. We can't comprehend their way of thinking."
"We've been flying for hours now. This is like the time years ago when you heard rumors of a certain naked woman living in the forest, who looked a lot like the princess Harmony."
"It was worth a shot!" The one leading them shouted in anger.
"No, no it wasn't. We found nothing! Nothing!"
"So what? I have a little crush on the princess, is that weird?"
"No, not at all."
"If only that damn Clement didn't kidnap her, I would have still been able to see her from a distance. Poor, Harmony. Who knows what kind of perverted, twisted, vile things that son of a bitch is doing to her." He clenched his fist in anger as he teared up.
Meanwhile…
In a certain part of the lands, were two people riding a horse that was frollicking. No monsters or any other signs of wildlife could be seen nearby..
"Are we there yet?" Asked Harmony in a singing and happy tone.
"No."
"Are we there yet?"
"NO."
"Are weee there yeeeeet?"
"NO!"
"Are. We. There….. Yet?"
"NO!!!"
This went on for hours non-stop.
Meanwhile…
As the sorcerers were flying, they spotted something abnormal on the ground.
"Grass? Growing in the deserted lands?"
They flew for hours and have never seen a blade of grass. And now there were several patches and even more as they continue to fly..
"With the intense heat of the sun, they should have dried up long ago." The sorceress found this a bit interesting.
"Did you forget? The deserted land wasn't always like this. A few hundred years ago, this was once a beautiful land filled with life, it looked no different from a paradise, or so I've heard. Maybe it's finally changing back after so long?"
"I'm guessing it's global warming."
"But this doesn't make sense. The intense heat from the sun is too much for anything else to handle. We can handle it because of the enchantments we are wearing protect us, but that doesn't mean anybody else can live here."
Before they came, some of them left their mounts behind so they wouldn't suffer from the intense heat.
"Correct if I'm wrong, but isn't the deserted lands known for having plain lands, homeless people, and intense heat?" The young sorceress asked.
"Yeah."
"Then where did those hills come from?"
The hills in front of them were numerous in numbers. Some were small, some were as tall as a small mountain, it varied in sizes. Most of the hills now had freshly grown grass growing on top of it, as well as trees.
"That is strange. Then again does it matter? It's just hills." One of them didn't put much thought into it.
"We should rest here for a bit, and get some shade."
"Good idea."
The sorceres flew down and sat behind one of the biggest hills. After venturing through a long and dry journey through the deserted lands, they were tired.
"You think the 100th hero would actually live here?" One of them asked.
"I really doubt it. I cannot even imagine a hero living here under these conditions. Normal people would have run back to seek the kingdom for refuge."
"Many people have already lost their homes from bandits and monster attacks, but mostly from monsters. The kingdom cannot give everyone refuge, which is why people have no choice but to live here."
"It's sad really. The kingdom and the Great Sage do their best to protect the villages, even making more villages for people to live in and granting them more protection, but that means that we occupy more space, and that means less space for monsters and then those monsters attack the villages and destroy them."
"Not to mention the black sun caught people off-guard, and it caused numerous deaths and destruction."
They began chatting non-stop.
Not too far from the group, a certain individual was looking at them from a distance. This is Will.
Adaline informed him that several people had recently arrived near his base. Will made a small hole on the ground and peeked through it. The group of sorcerers had no idea someone was there with them.
"Looks like hiding is the only thing I can do for now. I'll hide underground until those rumors about me start dying down."
Will did a good job at hiding his entire base. The only problem was the camels who didn't feel like living underground. But at this moment Will didn't care about his livestock, hiding his identity was more important.
His entire base camouflaged itself perfectly between the stone hills. No one would ever suspect a hidden base was beneath the hills.
"Adaline, keep a close eye on those sorcerers. Tell me when more arrive or when they leave."
Adaline nodded.
Will did not place any sentries outside his base since that would obviously give away his location. All of his sentries were still at his base. But they would only attack if someone were to somehow break in the base.
"Now, for the moment I've been waiting for."
Will made sure to make a giant cave big enough for dragons to fit it. It was hidden right under his base.
He got his bracelet and took out a corpse of a cyclops. There were no more than 9 in his bracelet but only took out one because they were too big to fit in his hidden base at the same time.
"This is how many I killed when I ventured in the south. Plus some orcs, plant monsters, and ogres."
Will took out a giant, enchanted knife. This knife is meant for carving monsters, like how hunters skin animals.
{Gold-knife: Enchanted}
{Enchantment: Cutting-edge V: Increases the blades sharpness}
Since a monster's skin is tough, especially dragons, it required something much more than an ordinary knife, and this knife was perfect.
It was called a knife but it's more like a blade, it was purely made out of gold except the handle, which was made out of exotic wood. The blade was as long as Will's arm.
Will could have made a knife made out of steel-grass, but he wanted to see how each blade does, this includes iron, copper, steel knives. He needed to know which metal is the sharpest, most durable, and performance overall. And also because he was bored and just made some enchanted knives because he felt like it.
Will took the hearts of all the cyclops one by one. When he finished with one, he stored the meat and bones in the chests and proceeded with the next one. He gave a few of their corpses to Adaline who enjoyed devouring them.
"I can never get used to that smell. God it's so gross!" Will found the smell of a cyclop's insides disturbing, it made him shiver in disgust.
"I remember Jasmine said something about monster essence. Which is how magical items are made, from using the essence of monsters. But, I have no idea how to extract a monster's essence."
Will has come to realize long ago that magical items are indeed overpowered in their own ways, his magical gun that he stole from Clement, a ring and a bracelet that acted as a sort of inventory so he could store his items inside including the chests. His cloth of teleportation was another magical item. They were all useful and powerful.
"I also need to fix this magical gun. But I have no idea how to get the last material in order to fix it."
{Handgun(magical)]
{Crafting recipe: requires: 20x iron bars, 30x-low tier mana ore, 10 steel bars}
Mana ore is something he has never come across. The only reason he knew about this new ore is because this gun was made from it, which meant that the moment he touched it he had unlocked materials related to this ore.
But, he never bothered looking at it mainly because he had absolutely no idea how to get it. He had forgotten about it until now which is why he never mentioned it to anybody.
"Cobalt, mana ore, man I need a lot of stuff to advance further. Oh well."
Will took out only one dragon corpse out of his ring out of all the ones he bought from the hero Josh Jones. But, that would prove to be a mistake on his part.
Once the dragon popped out of his ring, it fell on the ground making a large *thump* noise that the sorcerer's outside heard. Will stood still from fright, he was looking forward to this so much that he had forgotten the sorcerer's outside.
"Did you hear that?" Asked the young sorceress.
"Probably my stomach. I'm starving."
"No, not that, listen." The group of sorcerers quieted down but heard nothing.
"I hear nothing. What did you hear?"
"A faint noise, like as if something heavy hit the ground."
"Something heavy? Axel, I think your mom fell and she caused a huge earthquake that could be heard all the way from here."
"Oh ha ha ha, very clever." Axel laughed sarcastically and then splashed a cup of water at his friend's face. They then began having a small water fight between them.
"Don't waste water!"
Will didn't move an inch for a while. Once he realized that they didn't bother to pay attention to what the sorceress heard, he resumed to what he wanted to do, take out the heart of a dragon.
"This sort of reminds me of RL craft, where I'd kill a dragon and take its scales and whatever else I could harvest. Too bad that I have to do it by hand like this. It's much more tiring, and more disgusting. Eugh! Never knew that dragons could smell so bad."
Will did his best to ignore the pungent odor of the dragon's corpse. Using the blade in his hand he carved the dragon's heart out. Merely using that blade wasn't enough so he had to use a steel-grass type blade with a level 5 enchant to help him cut down the dragon's scales out of its body, which can be used as a type of armor or shield.
Finally, he was able to harvest every little part of the dragon's body. It only took him 6-8 hours due to its size.
"Whew, finally done. Next time I'll just do the heart." Not willing to go through that again, Will planned on taking out the other dragon's hearts another day.
And then he combined the dragon's heart, and the cyclop's eye, and the super power source generator to finally make the {Cursed power source generator}
The new power generator formed on his hands. It looked honestly creepy, as if it was something out of a lovecraft story.
The power source used to resemble a bit of a small music stand but with all types of jewellery embedded on it. Now it had an eye on the base, it was alive since it was looking directly at Will. And also, one could hear a faint heartbeat coming from it.
"Wow, that's very disturbing. I did not expect this at all."
Will was more amazed than scared at the moment.
"Do my powers originate from lovecraft… nah, no way. Although if I think about it it does have the word 'LoveCRAFTianhorror' in its name, and I do have the crafting system, and there was also that time with Herobrine being a thing that used to scare the shit out of kids back then including me… not only that but Terraria also had those Cthulhu monsters like the eye of Cthulhu, the Brain of Cthulhu, the fish of Cthulhu… Holy crap now that I think about it it might just make sense and I am just completely overthinking this and should stop now."
There was no way that those two could ever be related, only the names are familiar but that's about it.
However, that does not change the fact that this cursed power source generator did look ominous.
"Can you understand me? Blink twice if you do." Will asked the cursed power source generator.
But the giant eyeball did not blink at all. It merely stared at Will.
"Alright then."
Will touched the cursed power source generator to see what new enchantments it could offer him. And sure enough, new and powerful enchants were added, including a new section called {cursed enchants}
Will scrolled through all of the new cursed enchantments.
{Curse of blindness: Grants blindness}
{Curse of diabetes: Constantly grants diabetes}
{Curse of strength: Deprives strength}
{Curse of boundness: Bounds something to the target}
And the list goes on.
"Ew, diabetes? Really? On second thought that might just be pure evil. But how do these enchantments work?"
Will wasn't sure how these new cursed enchants work. Let's say if he were to put {Curse of diabetes} on a sword, would the curse affect the one holding the sword, or the one who the sword cuts down?
Or if he wears armor and applies the same enchant, would that affect the one who wears the armor or the one who attacks him while wearing the armor?
"Only one way to find out."
Will made a sword out of pure stone merely because he had a lot of excess stone left from blending his base with stone hills.
He then hesitated on applying a cursed enchantment on the stone sword.
{Curse of cringe: Constantly recall cringey moments in one's life}
"Ya, this won't work, just by reading the description I'm already recalling cringey moments in my life." Will clenched his eyes shit upon recalling a certain memory from his past.
Many years ago…
Inside of his house, Alex entered the basement where Will had just finished watching a movie.
"Hey, Alex!" Will said.
"Yeah?"
Will wore a sombrero hat because it's the only hat he could find, and also closed his left eye.
"Do ya fear death-ah? Do ya fear that dark abyss-ah!" Will said in a weird and raspy accent for some reason.
Alex looked at Will for a moment, trying to process what he was doing.
"Davy Jones? From Pirates of the Carribean?"
"YES! THANK YOU!"
Years later Alex always brought up that moment whenever he could.
Back to the present…
"Why did I have to show that to not only Alex, but also Sandra?" Will cringed at that thought.
"Then again, those two were probably the only ones who recognized that movie. No one else did when I asked them. Man, those were good times."
Will then decided to apply the {Curse of blindness} to the sword, because anything else seemed too cruel, or disgusting to go through.
However, something stopped him from progressing.
{Requires soul stone to apply cursed enchantment}
"Soul stone? What the heck is a soul stone?"
Not sure what it was, Will looked it up on his book. And he actually found what a soul stone was. Apparently when he crafted the cursed power source generator, new things were added to his book soon after.
{Empty Soul stone}
{Unlike its name it does not have anything to do with a soul. Kill any living beings while holding this stone, it also works if you store it in your inventory, once you do the soul stone will fill up. The stronger the target you kill the faster it'll fill up}
{Crafting materials required: Diamond x1}
The soul stone in the book looks like a shiny human skull.
"Oh great. More killing means more work for me. At least they're easy to craft since I can now find diamonds easier… wait."
Will was flipping the pages, when he saw another type of stone.
{Empty: Enchanting stone}
{Enchant this stone with any enchantment you want, it can hold up to an indefinite number of enchants at once, but the more enchants it has the more it costs to apply. You can then apply the enchants that are inside this stone to any weapon, armor, tool you want}
{Crafting materials: Diamond x1}
The enchanting stone in the book looks like a shiny star with 9 small pointed arrows.
"Wait, this is the method to add more enchants to my weapons? But, that doesn't make sense! I clearly went through this book page by page, not missing a single thing, and yet this enchanting stone pops out of… nowhere."
Will realized something, it's not like he missed this page, but rather it was just added at the same time the soul stone was added.
"When I find the one who gave me this system, I will punch his face."
If he had known about this earlier it could have saved him so much pain and trouble mining and killing.
"I wish they added this when I first got my first power source generator and not AFTER I got this cursed power source generator."
If he had known about this sooner, he'd already have maxed out his armor and weapons with enchants.
"But that does require a lot of diamonds. I need diamonds to make a soul and enchanting stone, as well as use them to enchant stuff. Well, back to mining it is."
Seeing as how he was going to need a lot of diamonds and minerals, he was going to start mining to find as many diamonds as he could.
"But first, I need to enchant my pickaxe with all the mining enchantments I can possibly add."
An evil smirk appeared behind his mask. He was going to abuse this power however he wished. It's like having an unfair advantage over people in a multiplayer server in any game, but there was no GM or owner to block his progress.
{Metal-grass pickaxe: Exotic: Enchanted}
{Enchantment: Mining speed+ V}
{Enchantment: Durability V}
{Enchantment: Loot miner V: Increases your chance to multiply the loot you mine by 5x}
{Enchantment: Super drill V: Increases how much you can mine at once every time you swing your pickaxe}
{Enchantment: Auto smelter I: Smelts the ores you mine with this tool as soon as you mine it}
Will got a bunch of mining enchants and applied the most powerful ones to his pickaxe.
Sometimes his enchantments would have a level I enchant instead of a V even though it's technically a maxed out enchant, like the infinity ammo enchant he applied to his gun. Will doesn't know why that is but that's how it is. But it made sense to Will, what would be the difference between a level I or V infinite ammo enchant? Most likely because there is no difference.
Not only that, but his pickaxe looked very different now, as if the blue-fire glow that is surrounding it is brighter, and fiercer than before.
It might be due to the high level of the enchantments and also because he applied a ton of enchantments to it. According to what Jack and Sam told him, in this world it's impossible to enchant a weapon more than once.
"Man, this pickaxe is looking more badass than before. Adaline, want to help me test out this new pickaxe?"
Adaline shrugged her shoulders and went down the mines with him.
"Okay, let's see how this goes."
Will gently tapped the granite layer, and a huge portion of it was gone. More than a two meter radius of that granite was gone and it all dropped on the ground.
"..." Will.
"..." Adaline.
"Holy… this is amazing!" Will exclaimed in shock. Not even Adaline could mine that much in such a short amount of time.
"Oh ya, I am definitely going to abuse this pickaxe for a LONG time." Without giving it more thought Will began mining and mining deeper and deeper. His speed right now improved vastly compared to before, there was simply no comparison.
Even Adaline, who could have mined faster than him before, could only stand back and watch because she could never catch up to his mining speed.
Will watched as all the minerals and ore he mined also multiplied and dropped on the ground, he ignored those for now and continued mining. Grinding is one of his greatest pleasures.