This time a necessary question was finally asked by a latino woman, "How do we get more powerful when we a lot of us don't even have our martial spirit or skill books yet?"
Leo answered, "Finally a good question. You have levels for a reason. Go out and kill monsters to level up and gain more attributes. Weapons, equipment and skill books all drop from monster you kill. People are also selling them for shop coins or gold and silver coins from the tutorial area."
"It's also important to not overestimate yourself," He came to an abrupt end, "Don't try dungeoning until you're at least level 5. It's also important to not easily trust others, including myself. Anyways, that's it for the questions, I got an appointment after this. Cya!"
And just like that, he left the group of disgruntled noobs at the city spawn.
The middle-aged white man tried to call everyone together, "Hello everybody, some of you may of already recognized me. I am the mayor of Jacksonville, Donald Booker. We are all in a confusing situation and we'll have to get through this together. I was wondering if anyone would like to join my group and I in trying to figure out our way of survival?"
A lot of people were immediately attracted from this statement. They felt like they found a direction to go towards in the current darkness. The only problem was that the direction would be chosen by someone else and they would most likely become cannon fodder.
Max couldn't help but snarl. Now that everyone is disorientated it is the perfect time to recruit cronies. Even using his former status to make himself look trustworthy. I guess these people forgot that politicians are never trustworthy and are always corrupt somewhere.
Ross was a bit skeptical now, "So where are we going now Max? We didn't just come to Florida for no reason, right?"
Max reassured Charlotte and him, "Relax, I know what I'm doing. We're going to hunt some monster then get Charlotte's last ingredient for her martial spirit. Once we make enough gold, we'll go get your last martial spirit ingredient. So let's get going."
Charlotte looked at the two of them, "So what will we be doing first?"
Ross responding matter-of-factly, "Obviously we'll go level up a bit first."
Max also agreed, "Yeah we're not strong enough for where we need to go."
The higher level monster were farther away from the cities, but inversely the lower level ones were closer to the city. Max had already decided to go to the habitat of level 5 monsters as they could still be killed at level 1 as long as you had the skill.
After they asked someone for directions, they arrived at the [Killer Ant] habitat. These guys were mostly level 2-5, but their elites were around level 5-7. Max's goal was obviously the elites.
The vision of the ant hills were quite chilling as they were huge and you could see the huge [Killer Ants] wandering around them.
Ross couldn't but exclaim, "What type of ants live here? There's no way I'm ready to kill those Max. I think we should start on something more friendly to noobs like us. Like that rabbit habitat we just passed."
Although Charlotte was silent, it was easy to tell that she wholeheartedly agreed with Ross.
"Relax," Max reassured them, "We'll party up and I'll go kill them. You'll just be leeching off experience."
The two of them looked a bit relieved until Max continued, "But I won't be doing it all by myself, only the majority. It's really important for the two of you to get combat experience. I won't always be there you know."
Although they accepted what he said, that couldn't stop the tension they felt. It was usual to feel nervous when hunting monsters for the first time, especially if you were going to hunt monster more powerful than you like they were.
As Charlotte and Ross slowed down a bit because of their nervousness Max told to hurry up them, "If you don't risk yourself now, you won't have the strength to control your own future. Now is the perfect time to gain more strength, but you can only gain more power if you can take risks. Power won't just come to you. Come on, let's go. I'll hunt some elites, while you 2 will practice hunting the regular [Killer Ants] one at a time until you get the hang of it"
Hearing that they would team up on only the regular [Killer Ants] and his explanation to survival, the two of them calmed down and recognized the situation but quickly thought of a problem, "Ok, but how are we going to kill them?"
Max told them, "Look at your shop. There should be a free kit of noob items. Charlotte, you pick out a set of armor, shield and sword. Ross, you choose a set of armor and a short sword for now. As you are stuck without any spells or a lot of magic, you will focus on your speed at the start."
With that, the two of them prepared their equipment while Max also equipped himself with the equipment he got from the shop. He bought a set of armor and chose the weapon he was most comfortable with, the halberd.
Although not as popular as the sword, the advantages lied in the fact that it was an axe and spear at the same time. Max mainly chose to use the halberd in his first life for this reason. It was hard to get started, but he learned to master it overtime.
After checking that everything was ready, the group of 3 headed straight into the ant hills.