A few days have passed and nothing much has happened. There was a field monster however. A level one Salamander, a tiny creature about the size of a chihuahua, it was black with an orange underbelly and red eyes. Whenever it touched grass the grass would smolder and when a person or animal would come near, it would use a skill called ember. A small flame, in which a small flame would fly forward, but it would barely do one damage and not even inflict burn.
The giant lizard was killed immediately by Daniel who recognized the monster and made progress on his quest. Plus he understood the potential ecological disaster that would show up if he let it stick around, and heaven forbid it grew and found a mate.
Rewarding only 5 XP and 0 gold, this thing was barely worth the effort, if it weren't for his quest, he'd just let animal control deal with it.
"One down, nine to go, jeez this is going to take awhile. At this rate It'll take me about a month to actually complete my quest." I was wondering around thinking about things to do, 'I didn't really want to go to either of the monster nests, plus neither of them would be any good for some time, I do school like normal and I do other normal 16 year old stuff other than of course, this whole monster hunter business.'
Just then I saw a faint blue glow similar to that of when the goblins showed up, but this time it took a different shape, it was quadrupedal, and tall. It's legs were underneath it sorta like how a dog stands, and while it was hard to tell do to the solid color without much to give a sense of depth, it was definitely growing a snout. Eventually it finished forming and the blue glow shattered off of it's skin. It was almost as tall as me and had white fir around its eyes, making a sort of streak that ran down its neck across its sides and all the way to the tail.
[Level 5 Dire wolf
Hp: 30/30]
"Ugh, better than nothing I guess"with a single quick double cast and lightning bolt, the wolf was dead
[killed Dire wolf
100 XP 20 gold. 1x dire wolf fang]
[you have defeated the alpha of a dire wolf pack, the rest of the pack will now hunt you down, as a prideful and incredibly intelligent species, these monsters don't take kindly to their leader being killed.]
Meanwhile a few more Dire wolves started spawning, as apposed to the first one these guys were as big as a regular wolf, but their fur was all black and non of them had the white streaks. There levels were also level 2 with 15 health each, with five Dire wolves I cast double cast twice and shot off another lightning bolt, instantly all 5 of the Dire wolves were killed.
[level 2 Dire Wolf (x5) killed
200 XP, 32 gold, and 2 Dire Wolf fangs.]
Selling the fangs, I managed to squeeze put another 30 gold
"And with that, I only need three more field monsters. Man, this is boring." I flew home since I didn't feel like walking and once I went inside I flopped right onto my bed.
Of course as if waiting for the perfect moment to inconvenience me the most, my phone got a notification. A text from my friend saying "Hey, How's your day been? It's been kind bleh, for me." I responded in turn "Same here, I just got nothing to do. Sure I could go out and hunt monsters but, I mean you can only kill the same five small sand worms so many times before you get bored." After a few seconds I got a response "While I may not be a monster hunter I totally get it. It sounds exciting at first, something that breaks the monotony, something that lets you hunt monsters and level up like in a video game, but I mean until dungeons and raids show up you are just mindlessly grinding which is no fun."
After reading the message I realized he was right. When you get a new game you play it for hours because it's fun, then you get used to the loop, and over time it becomes less and less fun, eventually you might pick it up later but until more stuff gets added or you grind out enough to advance, you are stuck in one spot forever. This? This is no different. I level up slower and slower, and I can only go so far in a reasonable amount of time, even now everyone is just waiting for high level areas to show up, but no one is strong enough to deal with them. So for now we have to wait until some reaches the point where high caliber monsters are a regular thing. After this realization I sent Blurry Blade a message
[Goblin Stomper: Yo, get to rank E already I want more field monsters in the area, the nests are cool and all but you get tired of them pretty fast.
Blurry Blade: My guy, it has literally been a few days since you last asked for a strength update, I have used the small sand worm nest once since then, level 7 is over 1,000 XP that'll take forever at this rate, just hold on. If you want to battle more monsters, instead of killing them, make a make shift self replenishing dungeon or something idk, scoop up a bunch of monsters and bring then to a cave, throw something they would probably eat into the hole and release them, then lock them inside with a lot of food, come back and see what kind of place they got.
Goblin stomper: that us actually a good idea, I'll try that.]
Knowing that I don't have the skills to do this kind of thing, I went to the skill shop and bought a few skills.
[Telekinesis:
Mana cost: 20 per second for every Kilo in weight.
Description: using your mind you can pick things up and manipulate them in the air]
[Earth molding
Mana cost 50 per cubic meter of earth altered
Description: mold the ground near you to your whims, you can do anything from mold stone into statues or basic weaponry. To creating castles and caverns. A signature spell of an earth mage.]
[Improved analysis
Mana cost: 20
Description: Get a detailed report on a target, including their skills and some basic facts. This skill can be resisted with any anti spying skills.]
[Monster study
Passive
Description: when a monster is analyzed, basic information is added to your memory, the more you observe the more you can learn about a given species. Including things like it's learned and natural behaviors as well as their preferences]
This is everything I'd need to create an artificial dungeon, now I just need a monster type, and a place to have them stay. An issue for future me, as for today, I sleep.