After the duo left the area where they met the woman, they made their towards the east gates where Rohan was waiting for them. At Rohan saw the two of them he decided to explain some last things before they started their test.
"You guys made it here a bit early, so since you are here, I should explain some extra stuff. For starters, the way the mission will count your kills. The way this will be done is that the first 10 Sea Wolf kills will count normally towards completing the bare requirements of the test, but any other kill past that will not count towards the kill, so don't bother trying to get more kills. You still have the option, but it is just a waste of time.
Next sting is the way we will determine the quality. The quality will be determined by the 10 carcasses that you will show us and from that, we will determine the grading of the quality part of the test. As for condition, we will check the condition of your equipment to see how it has been used, how much it has been damaged and just in overall, to see how much you are caring about your equipment, after all, you can't fight enemies with a blunt sword."
Soren's thought on that last sentence was: 'But I did. And I did it decently.'
"Any questions?" Rohan asked.
"Just a couple. Am I allowed to return to city during nighttime?" Soren asked curiously.
"You are free to do so, but you will be wasting time, so it is not optimal for you. Hence, I would suggest to not spend much time in the city. What's the other?"
"Ummm... When's the time... for the... summoning ceremony?" Soren asked nervously.
"The ceremony will happen at midday, so in around 24 hours by now, at the sea god's temple."
Soren gave a sigh of relief and said:
"Thanks, that was all I wanted to ask."
After the three of them waited for a bit, a ringing noise came out of nowhere. The moment that noise came, Rohan took out a shell that looked like a phone, pressed a button that stopped the ringing noise and said:
"Alright, the mission has started guys. You have 72 hours to complete it, so thing i can say to you is to take care and good luck."
After Rohan said that, he left towards the streets and disappeared out of their sight, while Soren and Lavenza left the city, towards the east coral forest where the fort was. After the duo left the city, the started swimming for quite a while. Thankfully their first encounter was a Sea Wolf that a passing through the area. Soren up until now never tried to check the Sea Wolf, since the fact that Lavenza managed to beat it alone, while being at a big disadvantage, it's threat level was very low. Now though, he wanted to see at least its status, to have a decent idea about dealing with them, as efficiently as possible.
[Sea Wolf
Race: Mer-Beast
LV: 4
HP: 70
MP: 6
STR: 12
VIT: 7
SPD: 19
INT: 6
WIS: 1
RFL: 10
LCK: 6
Skills (A): Claw Swipe LV.3, Bite LV.4
Skills (P): Body over Mind
After seeing those skills, Soren was a bit suprised to that that these Sea Wolves had garbage stats, but he remembered that he was comparing adult wolves with Lavenza, the baby form of one of the most powerful sea creatures. So it wasn't that suprising seeing those stats. But there was something that caught his attention.
[Body over mind: Changes the constitution of the body and mind of the user with giving a more powerful body, but a weaker mind.
6->10 HP per VIT, 2->1 MP per INT]
That ability seemed pretty interesting, since it have more health, in exchange for MP, forcing the enemy be more of a tank than usual, but thia kind of ability seemed to benefit only beasts.
"Wait Lavenza." Soren suddenly stopped.
"Kyuu~?" Lavenza looked a bit confused.
"Let me do this fight alone. I want to fully test myself out with the new equipment." Soren said with a serious look on his face. Lavenza decided to hide on top of one of the nearby coral trees, while Soren was getting himself ready for battle.
Once he got ready, he picked up a nearby rock and threw it at the wolf to grab its attention. The wolf itself felt the rock hit it on its head and saw a lone merman staring at him back, like he was being provoked. Of course the beast fell for it and now it locked itself in combat. The beast's first attack was a claw swipe towards Soren's torso, but Soren himself decided to guard against that attack with his arms. The damage to the arms was completely mitigated by the armor with only a light scratch on the armor and after testing the defensive capabily of the armor, he decided to on the offensive. After the wolf saw that its claws were ineffective, it decided to charge with its fangs out, towards Soren's head. Of course, Soren wouldn't sit and take it head-on. He waited for the attack to come and once the beast was close to him, he dogded to the left and sliced upwards with his right hand on the wolf's head, causing to be completely detached from its body in the next moment.
That exchange didn't even last 15 seconds and Soren had already killed a Sea Wolf with one attack.
"Wow, to think that just a normal weapon was enough to deal with a wolf that gave us enough trouble to be using combination attacks. This shows that having good equipment can make battles look like a joke. Come on Lavenza, let's hunt more of them."
After Soren said that, he picked the head and body of the beast and put it in the bag of holding. He also grabbed a cloth that was in the bag, wiped the blood of the sword and continued on their way.
...
In the meantime, a woman with blue hair and green eyes was stalking the duo behind a tree. While she was munching on some cookies, she said angrily:
"Urgh... Don't go hogging all the glory for yourself, fish boy. I hope the Kraken comes to you one day and eats you."
...
While the duo were swimming deeper into the forest, Soren suddenly sneezed and said:
"When did I get a cold?"
"Kyuu~?" Lavenza seemed curious.
" It's probably nothing, I think."
As the two of them were swimming, a little while later, the duo saw a big brown crab from a distance. The crab itself was 2 meters tall, it had barnacles on its shell, had also two big claws and 6 legs. The sigh for both of them was scary, but once Soren scanned the monster, did he truly start to panic.
[Geis Crab (Rare)
Race: Shellfish
LV: 23
HP: 1782
MP: 204
STR: 117
VIT: 162
AGL: 53
INT:68
WIS: 59
RFL: 53
LCK: 81
Skills (A): Water Ball, Water Shot, Water Wall, Water Cutter, Earth Ball, Earth Shot, Earth Wall, Crabhammer LV.7, Claw Grip LV.6
Skills (P): Water Magic LV.4, Earth Magic LV.3, Body over mind II, Mind over Body, Lesser Water Resistance, Lesser Earth Resistance, Lesser Physical Resistance, Hardshelled]
Those stats were scary and adding the skills was downright horrifying for the two of them, so their first course of action was:
"Yeah, no! There is no way in hell I'm fighting that!." Soren said scared.
"Kyiiii~!" Lavenza was scared as well.
Both of them started swimmimg away as fast as their tails could handle, while the crab itself was completely oblivious to the entire situation and continued to its merry way.
After they left the area, the two of them decided to rest a bit. While the two of them were resting, Soren decided to check on the skills of the monster.
[Water Wall: A spell that creates a wall made of water magic. This wall can only be destroyed by fire magic and any other elemental spell that is fired on this, gets destroyed. MP: 15]
[Earth Wall: A spell that creates a wall made of earth magic. This wall can only be destroyed by wind magic and any other elemental spell that is fired on this, gets destroyed. MP: 15]
[Water Cutter: A spell that creates a sword slash that was created by water magic and can be fired as a projectile MP: 10]
[Crabhammer LV.7: A powerful smashing attack that can create terrain damage.]
[Claw Grip LV.6: The user uses its claws to grab onto an opponent and cause damage over time by holding and crushing them on the claw.]
[Lesser Water/Earth/Physical Resistance: Slightly increased resistance against water/earth/physical attacks.]
[Body over mind II: A more powerful version of its previous form giving even higher constitution while sacrificing even more of their mind: 6->14 HP, 2->0 MP.]
[Mind over body: An ability that sacrifices the user's constitution, while increasing their mind power: 6->3 HP, 2->5 MP.]
[Hardshelled: Decreases incoming cutting and piercing damage while increasing incoming blunt damage. -30% cut & pierce DMG taken, +30% blunt DMG taken.]
After Soren saw those stats, he said: "Yeah, for sure I ain't going near that thing for a while."
"Kyuu~..." Lavenza agreed as well while having a dejected expression.