In a different part of the forest,
A young man with his teammate were exhausted after a boss battle, "Hey Rey! What's your level?"
His silver haired friend answered, "It's level 72, how about yours Andrew?"
Andrew spoke, "Level 69, say 'nice' and I'll slash you Rey."
Rey raised his wand jokingly about to cast a spell, "Don't try it you slow tank, however its nice that you've improved so fast."
Andrew smiled since his teammate helped him on his improvement so much, because of Rey, Andrew had leveled up at a speed comparable to his starting days. As a lone tank previously for two months, he leveled up fast until he reached the level 40s, before meeting and becoming friends with the silver haired teen, he could barely level up twice in the week where he leveled up to the 50. Until he met Rey that is, once He and Rey partnered their constant fights with bosses allowed for both of them to quickly level up. Rey also is thankful of Andrew since his last party fell apart due to most of the team being greedy for loot, however what Rey truly wanted was to level up fast and be on the top of the mage rankings once they were released. Snapping out of his thoughts, Rey shared the stats of the loot from the earlier battle.
[Player 'Rey' is sharing the information of the undead knight's loot drops]
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Knight boots- (mass produced) -100 physical DEF
Requirements - 100 strength to be able to run
Knight's one handed sword- (mass produced) - 75 damage -
Requirements - 40 strength to use with control
Higher ranking knight's helm- (High quality) -150 physical DEF and 30 magic DEF
Requirements - 50 strength
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"Hey Rey! Can I have the knight's helm?", Andrew asked.
Rey thought about it, he thought about the potential price of the helm and answered, "Yeah, but We'll have to fight a lich later okay?"
Andrew showed a straight face at Rey's condition considering Liches are monsters with at least the level of 100 and are great mages, which meant that getting hit could take half the health of a fully armored knight at level 50. If this were a normal MMORPG game the lich's health would be at least 10,000 with great resistance to magical damage, however Lothaedan was a game which used more than just health points to tell if you are about to die. If they found a lich with an unarmored upper body they could beat it in one slash with a sword aimed towards its unguarded spine.
Rey had the plan of looking for liches and targeting unarmored ones until they found the items Rey wanted. Andrew knew that Rey was amazing at finding the weaknesses of enemies, and Andrew knowing that became an offensive tank that could give enough time for Rey to strategize and this was the duo's tactics.
They needed a bit of time to rest however, just fighting a boss minutes ago meant that they were exhausted. Normally if a player were to level up, they would fully restore Mana, Health, and 50% of Stamina. However as a player who is already above level 50, the restorative effects of leveling up were cut to half of players compared to players with a level at or lower than level 49. This didn't matter much of course, they only needed ten minutes to fully restore their stamina which was drained to 10%. If they beat the knight longer than they originally had, they would forcefully be sleeping until stamina restored at 50%. Due to both player's daydreams their stamina had been restored to 80%, they could now walk which allows them to save time from having to rest by walking, this allowed them to traverse the forest much sooner as the only downside to walking rather than standing completely still or sitting down was the difference in the recovery of Stamina, this was a good move for them as they would likely spend much more time on waiting.
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As they ventured deeper into the forest the sunlight was blocked by more and more foliage, this was no problem as Andrew gave Rey some sticks and proceeded to light one on fire, as to maintain his Mana instead of constantly having to waste his mana on [Light magic]. Finally after a few hours of sneaking through dangerous monsters they found what they been looking for a lich.
Seeing the lich both Rey and Andrew nodded their head, first firing of a strong but uncostly [Wind Slice]. Of course, the magic hit the lich dealing only [2750 points of damage], the surprise attack hit and the lich was sent back, it summoned rotting men from the ground wearing burnt and rotting leather armor. These were clearly NPC that have likely been lost, and unfortunately attacked by the lich a few weeks ago.
The corpses had holes, and some had his intestines poking out of his belly, it was hard to see because of the dark but, maggots had been feasting on their flesh. Yet they were alive, rotting, being feasted, and unable to control their bodies. Rey thought to himself that this is a game, trying not to think about the zombies. Wishing to free them from their nightmare situation, he used his magic to decapitate them, the lich didn't allow that however, knowing of the magic Rey had used the lich used his own to lessen the impact to his soldiers, the sharp wind still cut their neck, however the force was weakened and it only cut the flesh but not bone. The zombies let out a blood curdling shriek, to which the zombies held tears to their eyes, this meant that they felt sensation yet unable to move, this continued to enter Rey's thoughts and made him mad. What the lich had done was a violation, to allow them to feel their bodies yet be unable to control themselves was unacceptable. Just as Rey was about to erupt in rage, Andrew rushed to the lich, aiming for its unprotected spine, sensing another human the lich blocked the attack with his staff, the lich made mostly of bones was unable to resist. Yet the attack had been redirected into the air. Maneuvering through the air, the greatsword hit the lich's skull, it's skull craked a bit dealing [10000 points of damage. The lich unable to feel pain, prepared a fireball, which he had compressed and thrown towards the slow knight, Andrew turned around who saw the sheer size of the ball of fire, in a second the ball exploded erupting anything at a radius of 5 meters.
Rey was unable to discern what happened, what he saw was an explosion of fire and cast a spell to rain, using his passive buffs he had, he used it to finish the Lich. [You have beat a level 104 lich] [You and your teammate have gained a level]
[Your teammate Andrew has healed his severe burns]