Chereads / Nexus Convergence (Canceled) / Chapter 74 - Leveling up. Western Forest Hunt

Chapter 74 - Leveling up. Western Forest Hunt

By the time I woke up, it was already around midnight. I slowly wore my robes and made my way downstairs.

In the main hall there were only the four girls drinking tea while chatting. Hearing my footsteps coming down the stairs, they all turned to look at me.

"Where are Oliver and Velor?" I asked, surprised to not see them here as well.

"My brother got bored and went to challenge people of the Blessed Battalion to spars and Oliver also joined him. I'll go bring them back here now that you woke up." Said Lysa before sitting up and walking towards the main entrance.

I thanked her before taking a seat at the table as well. Anna pushed a cup of tea towards me and asked: "Did you sleep well?"

"Yes, thank you Anna." I replied as I picked up the cup of tea and took a sip.

"Are we leaving as soon as the guys return?" asked Anise.

"Yeah. I don't want us to waste any more time. We're first going to scout Kazim City and see if we can safely level up there. If not, we'll try any of the other cities."

As we were chatting, the main door opened and Lysa followed by Oliver and Velor walked in. As they took a seat around the table, I noticed that everyone seems to be in great mood today, even Lysa who was just kidnapped and tortured the other day. I didn't know what happened to bring her mood up, but I was not going to ask her about it and ruin it.

After letting them know of my plans as well, we all walked to the teleportation platform and asked Brenn to teleport us to Kazim City. This way I could save my mana and we can start hunting demons right away.

We said our goodbyes to Anna and Iris who were going to remain here and Brenn teleported us on a small hill some distance away from Kazim City.

"So that's where the demons live? How are we going to do this?" asked Oliver as he looked at Kazim City in the distance.

"You guys start heading towards the city on foot and I'll fly ahead to check out the situation using my invisibility spell. Be careful and try not to fight any of the patrols on the way."

"Can I come with you?" asked Anise just as I was going to fly away.

I shook my head and replied: "No, you need to stay with them and teleport them away if anything unexpected were to happen. You are the only one other than me who can use spatial magic. Don't worry, I'll return after scouting the city walls and surroundings for a bit."

Seeing that she nodded reluctantly, I started floating in the direction of the city while making myself invisible. I decided to fist head towards the big hole I made inside the city wall the last time. That should be where most reinforcements should be gathered.

It took me around half an hour until the crater I created appeared in my sight. I saw a few patrols here and there, but nothing that we couldn't manage, especially now that we had more people.

'Ai, can you save all the troops locations on the map as I pass by?'

[Sure. Their movement pattern is quite chaotic and I won't be able to predict their position with accuracy, but marking their general location won't be a problem.]

'Yes, do that.' I replied and I started flying around the city wall, carefully looking not to miss a single patrol on the ground but also keeping some distance from the ground so I won't get spotted. It took me over three hours until I managed to fly full circle around the city and mark them all, most of the time being spent in the western side of the city because it was covered by a big dense forest.

[Not taking into consideration the ones standing guard atop the walls, I have marked a total of 963 demons only outside the city walls. Their average level appears to be 71.]

I nodded in understanding and asked: 'Can you please make a relatively safe route for us to hunt on? Try to start with the groups containing the lowest amount of wizards. Also make sure they are not that far apart so we don't waste a lot of time on traveling.'

[Sure, it will be done in no time. I'll start with the smallest size, level and number of wizards and work my way up. I'll also prioritize those that a bit further apart than the rest and take into consideration the type of terrain.]

'All right. We'll try to kill them as swiftly as possible so that we won't get spotted by other patrols and more importantly, the demons inside the city. If you discover any mana signature that resembles Azrin, let me know right away.'

[Understood. Route complete.]

Hearing Ai's answer, I teleported at the place the others were. I found everyone sitting behind a small bush eying a small patrol of five or so demons. Since I was still invisible, none of them except Anise, who felt the spatial fluctuations, even noticed me.

"How is it?" asked Anise as she looked towards the place I appeared in, surprising the other three as they also turned towards me.

A smile appeared on my lips as I made myself visible once more and said: "There are quite a lot of patrols, but it's doable. I've also worked out a route with Ai in which we can hunt…."

I proceeded in explaining my plan and route to everyone in detail. This time we were going to hunt together as a party and use swift deadly attacks. Since the demons were quite sensible to mana, we settled on Oliver and Velor going to strike first while Anise, Lysa and I will be joining the attack right after. Once any of the wizards on our party's mana got under 30% we were going to retreat and rest.

Everyone agreed to the plan and we started moving around the patrol in front of us since it had two demon wizards and headed towards the first target on the route set up by Ai. The hunting will begin in the dense forest on the west side of the city walls.

A patrol of ten demons were moving in formation through the forest. Compared to the last time I came hunting with Anise, now they seem to be a lot more focused and serious.

"Oliver, since you are the fastest of us all, I want you to slow down your speed and take out one of the demons at the same time as Velor. Once you each manage to kill a target, move towards the next and we'll also start attacking from here. Also, I want you Velor to only use mana after the first strike."

Seeing Oliver and Velor nodded in agreement, I turned towards Anise and Lysa.

"You should try to use attacks that are not too flashy and might attract the attention of any other demon patrol that happen to be passing nearby. Lysa, if you don't know any low range spell, you can just stay on the sidelines and I'll distribute some world energy to you."

"It's fine. I can also help." Replied Lysa with confidence.

'Ai, I also want you to take care of experience distribution. For the moment make sure everyone receives the same amount of experience. We just care about everyone progressing evenly.'

[No problem.]

Seeing that everyone was clear on the plan, Me, Anise and Lysa stayed put while Oliver and Velor moved to hide on the patrol's route. It wasn't long before they both jumped out of a bush they were hiding in and managed to decapitate two demons in an instant and dashed towards the next closest two.

Me and Anise quickly launched a few wind and water blades towards the remaining demons and Lysa shot what looked like a laser ray out of one of her fingers. In less than ten seconds, all the demons were dead and we all regrouped atop the wiped patrol as I buried the demon bodies using earth magic so others won't notice too fast.

"That was easy." Said Velor with a proud look on his face and I had to agree. Everyone worked together perfectly and we each got two killing blows. Lysa's laser was the thing that surprised me the most and even gave me a few ideas to try to recreate it using light magic instead of divine, but now wasn't the time for that.

I nodded and we all started heading towards the next target. In around two hours, we easily cleared all the demon patrols inside the forest that had no wizard demons in their composition, but since we were a little greedy, me, Anise and Lysa were a bit low on mana and decided to rest for a while.

After creating a small underground chamber with small rooms for each of us, I teleported everyone inside and decided to check my status.

[

Name: Ethan Knott

Age: Avatar 19;

Race: Avatar Human;

Soul: Tier II;

Experience: 210/2 000 000;

Health Points: 700/700;

Mana Points 210/1310;

Level: 67;

Vitality: 70;

Strength: 73;

Dexterity : 71;

Intelligence: 131;

Resistance: 69;

7 free stat point

———

System Points: 413 429 350;

Spirit: 1050;

]

Seeing that I gained four levels and the others also got around five or so, I was quite pleased with the results and so were they.

"It was quite easy, can't we take on patrols with wizards as well?" asked Velor as soon as we arrived inside the underground room. Everyone turned towards me for an answer and I started carefully considering it.

'Ai, what do you think?'

[After the constant practice, your chances of silently taking out a party with no wizards are at 95%. If the party were to include a maxim of two wizards, your chances will stay the same since Oliver and Velor can take out the wizards before they could react. If the party has more than two wizards, your chances of taking them out decrease to 87%, but the main problem will be if the wizards use a large area of effect spell and alert the other patrols nearby. Also, all these probabilities are only calculated for demons under level 75.]

'I see. Can you tell me the patrol distribution inside this forest?'

[There were a total of 13 patrols with no wizards but you already eliminated them all. There are 6 left containing a single wizard, 3 with two wizards and one party containing 4.]

'Good, I want you to alter the route so we can clear the forest completely.'

[Acknowledged, but remember that if they discover that their patrols are getting wiped, the situation might change.]

'I know. I'll scout again after we finish resting.'

I then proceeded to explain the plan to the rest of the party and we all went to sleep after I paid the lesser spirit according to our contract.

After waking up, I made the other wait underground while I quickly checked the forest for any changes. Luckily, none of the demon patrols remaining appeared to be aware that someone was hunting them down.

[That is the problem when the patrols can go days without sleep and they barely change shifts.]

I nodded and teleported back inside the underground chamber to let the others know the news before we all got out of the ground and started hunting once more. We easily took care of the patrols containing only one or two wizards, with Velor and Oliver taking care of them from the start just as Ai said.

Before long, the only enemy patrol left inside the entire western forest was the one containing four wizards, which according to Ai, also had a higher average level, most of them being over level 75. Seeing that we had around half out mana left, we decided to take care of that party as well and started searching for it.

As we reached the patrol, we started to carefully observe them from a distance while thinking of a plan. There were 15 demons in the patrol, three of the wizards were level 74 and one was actually level 80 which also seemed to be the leader of the group.

After consulting with the others and Ai for a while, we finally settled on a plan and got to work. Oliver and Velor got as close as possible and waited in hiding for the patrol to get closer to them. Once the patrol was in range, Oliver and Velor quickly dashed through the demon warriors and decapitated two of the level 74 wizards before retreating towards us just as we agreed on.

I locked the space all around since we didn't know if any of the wizards were able to use spatial magic and Lysa together with Anise started launching attacks on the demon warriors.

Before they could regroup, we ended up killing six of the patrol's demons, but things were now starting to get difficult and we also regrouped with the wizards in the back and Velor with Oliver in the front. Since the space all around was completely under my control, I could have taken care of everyone by myself with ease but I wanted us to get used to fighting as a party.

As I summoned my staff and worked on using water and earth barriers to block the attacks of the two remaining wizards in the back, the others made short work of the demon warriors. Seeing that the situation was not favorable, I noticed the level 80 moving his hand towards one of his pockets.

I didn't know exactly what he had planned, but I didn't want to take any chances and immediately surrounded his body with a dozen or so relatively small fireballs before exploding them. I made sure not to make a repeat of the last time's incident and, once the explosion ended, I was surprised to see the demon surrounded by a black shield and carrying a small black token in his right hand.

[Azrin is probably coming.]

Feeling spatial fluctuations soon wrestling the control away from my spatial lock, I knew that things we going to get bad for us and I immediately grabbed everyone before teleporting us all away from the forest.

"Why did we run?" asked Velor as soon as we appeared on the opposite side of the city, the eastern side.

I sighed and replied: "I underestimated that level 80 wizard. He contacted someone using some sort of token and I could feel that person breaking through my space lock. I had no choice but to teleport us away. Considering the speed at which he was breaking though my spatial lock, it's quite possible that was Demon General Azrin himself."

"You did good. We can't fight someone that is over level 100 right now." Said Oliver right after.

I nodded and took a quick look at my status.

[

Name: Ethan Knott

Age: Avatar 19;

Race: Avatar Human;

Soul: Tier II;

Experience: 1 800 436/2 400 000;

Health Points: 720/720;

Mana Points 421/1330;

Level: 69;

Vitality: 72;

Strength: 75;

Dexterity : 73;

Intelligence: 133;

Resistance: 71;

9 free stat point

———

System Points: 413 429 350;

Spirit: 1076;

]

Anise was also level 69 and the others were all level 67. The progress was not bad, but we knew things were about to get tricky once again. After they find out we took care of all the demons inside the forest, they will start being more careful once again, maybe even increase the size of the patrols.

"Let's all go to sleep so we can recover our spent mana. I'll go scout after waking up and see if there are any changes. No point in worrying about it right now. All in all, it was quite good progress."

They all agreed and I immediately went to sleep after paying the lesser spirit once more, completing the condition of my contract. Now I just needed to wait for a week to pass and I could finally get rid of him.

As I closed my eyes to sleep, I felt Anise snuggling into my arms and a small smile appeared on my lips.

'This is not so bad after all.'