"Wow, this is the SloC Forest?" Liam gazed in awe and amazement at the bizarre sight in front of him. There was an abundance of trees just like a normal forest but the leaves on the trees oozed a sticky green substance.
Liam and the others took this as acid when they saw it, and according to the teachers watching over all of the students, it indeed was acid. It didn't take them long to realize it themselves as they could see smoke rising from under the acid. Although, the true terror of it all was the smell that came along with the acid.
'What is that?' Liam thought to himself while pinching his nose and breathing through his academy uniform. The smell coming from underneath the acid was by no means to be taken lightly at all. Some students couldn't bare the smell thanks to their weak stomachs and vomited on the spot.
"Since we aren't in any real danger unless we run into the semi-boss of the forest, we're free to explore right?" Michael asked the teachers. It was obvious that he wanted to quickly get away from the acid's smell. The students all looked up at the teachers with pitiful faces hoping for them to say yes.
'Yes, let's hurry. This smell is indeed horrible.' One of the teacher's said. To the teachers, the effect of the smell was many times weaker so they could easily put up with it but at this rate, the students might have to go back to the academy early.
Without hesitation, the students divided into their preferred groups and quickly left the acid covered area. Liam and the others followed suit and quickly left the area, hoping to find someplace with a little less acid coming from the trees.
"There's a cluster of slimes up ahead." Dean said while pointing ahead. The slimes looked harmless as they somehow moved around, it was a mystery. The group quickly dashed forward and engaged in battle with the group of slimes which lasted a minute or two at most.
Balls of fire reaching terrible temperatures were shot forward, immediately destroying 2 slimes. A strange symbol appeared in front of another slime which immediately caused it's outer-layer to turn dark purple. The slime's body began eating away at itself before nothing but the core was left.
A sword was sent slashing down at a slime that had no chance to resist the mighty force of the slash. The slime was split in two right down the middle. Another slime was unfortunate enough to be within Liam's range as it for some reason split into four pieces without an ounce of resistance.
In such a short time, a group of 5 slimes was quickly eradicated by Liam and the others. The group quicky went ahead and collected the cores for an unknown reason.
"Why do we need the cores again?" Liam said. He never paid attention to Mr Hilbert's combat classes except for when a test was coming.
"We can sell them or give them as materials to a blacksmith to create magic items. Although, with such low-quality ranked cores, we'll need around 200 to make a single item." Lisa explained. She wasn't aiming to try to mean or anything, it was the truth.
Magic items were incredibly expensive, both material wise and price wise. Normally only well-off individuals had the chance of acquiring a magic item. It was also known that magic items could be found in tombs or dungeons, although only strong individuals were capable of raiding those.
The group finished collected the cores when all of a sudden a window popped up in front of them. It was the window that appeared every time an enemy was killed.
[2 Slime Minions Defeated. +13 Experience.]
['99x Experience Multiplier' has been activated. Calculating total experience gained…]
[+1,287 Experience.]
Liam stood still momentarily in slight shock before swiping away the windows. He expected this to happen, although it could be said that he still had a small sense of doubt. To see something so outrageous happen in front of his eyes, he chose not to speak.
Liam calmly, although with shaking hands, opened his status panel.
[Name: Liam - ]
[Age: 18]
[Race: Human]
[Level: 4 (537/550) ]
[Class: Curseman]
[Attributes: hp - 200, mp - 300, str - 13, def - 15, agi - 19, (view more) ]
[Skills: (p)99x Experience Multiplier, (a)Double Diagonal Slash, (a)Crescent Slash]
[Arts: (a)Low-Ranked Curse Arts: Withering, Decay, Hollow,]
'Immediate jump to level 4?' Liam could barely hold back his emotions at this point. He killed two slimes and received such rewards, it was simply unheard of in all of history! His stats looked more or less how he'd imagined, it was safe to say that his strength multiplied nearly 3 times.
The rest of the group swiped away their windows and divvied up the cores equally before heading on to find more slimes to defeat. Their objective for coming to the forest was mainly to level up and get stronger. The entire group, whether they noticed it or not, had a grudge against the Sun Crow.
The group proceeded through the gooey trees of the forest in search of their prey. It didn't take long for them to run into another group of slimes and it was clear now that there were little to no loners.
The group didn't have to prepare themselves as they never let their guard down after the previous encounter with the Sun Crow in case something like last time happened again. Whether possible or not, they weren't willing to test if any one of them could come back to life after death.
With a split second, multiple attacks were sent towards the group of 7 slimes. The slimes were caught off guard, thus 3 slimes immediately dying on the spot. The other 4 slimes were fortunate enough to sense the attacks quicker than the others and evade them.
The slimes responded to the previous attacks in a hostile manner as one of them released an acidic fluid from inside their body at the group. It was exactly as the acid dripping from the trees at the entrance of the forest. The group immediately realised the acid because of it's horrible stench and dodged it.
Liam waited no more than a second before activating [Double Diagonal Slash] on one of the slimes, killing it instantly. The skill had a little bit of space, while also requiring the user to get close to their enemy if they wanted the skill to successfully hit.
The group retaliated with a flurry of counterattacks thrown at the slimes. Although the slimes anticipated the attacks, their body's reaction speeds were too slow as they were helplessly slaughtered.
The group cheerfully went and collected the cores of the slimes. Core collecting was usually much messier than just picking it up. But since the core of a slime was surrounded by a clear layer of jello(?) and extremely flammable, it was easy to get to.
Usually a person would have to cut open the body of a monster and dig through the intestines and other parts of the body to find the core of a monster unless they knew specifically where it was. Once again, windows appeared in front of all of them, making a grin appear on Liam's face unconsciously.
Just as they were happily dividing the cores, another window appeared, displaying a frightening message.
[The Slime King SEMI-BOSS has awakened.]
[The Slime King SEMI-BOSS has become enraged.]
The group immediately heard students yelling and shouting in the distance as they all felt a terrifying shake in the ground.