Skill: Survivor's Fury
Universal Passive
When dealt a lethal blow, instead of falling you are filled with a final burst of vitality. Rapidly healing you while augmenting all physical attributes by an exponential amount of ten point two three four. Duration of physical boost is determined by base vitality. During this time you are filled with an intense survival instinct, rendering all other abilities on cooldown as you enter an animalistic state focused only on survival. After the ability expires your stamina is depleted and temporarily unable to regenerate.
You meet the requirements for this skill.
"Hmm, so this is some kind of last stand ability? I've not actually seen any skills drop." He didn't mention he had only killed the low rank beetles. "What rank is the power core?"
"It is a C rank mana essence." She corrected while tossing the still slimy sphere up in the air repeatedly.
Jake watched the mana essence or power core whatever it was as she played with it. So far he had only gotten ahold of F rank ones. He wondered what a C rank would sell for. It didn't look any different from the others. Not from here at least. He eyed her odd earrings and remembered the other pieces of gear he wanted to buy. While he was debating on keeping the skill or trying for the power core instead. She spoke up.
"Well can you use it or not?"
"Yeah." Jake admitted.
She snatched the power core out of the air with a grin. "Perfect! Then there is no reason for you to not keep it and me to keep this."
Jake started to argue then shrugged. He could get another power core. Now that the giant beetle was killed he wasn't sure what to do. Other than the small beetles and the big boss one he hadn't actually seen any other monsters. When he looked up she was giving him a thoughtful gaze. "Say… Are you up for some more hunting? I know a spot that would be great."
Jake shrugged. "Sure."
Her eyes flashed and she grinned like the cat that ate the canary. "Uhhh…" He started to say but she had already grabbed his hand and started dragging him off.
**********
Jake eyed the strange, make that very strange monsters. Ella had led him to a small pond, roughly the size of your normal swimming pool. It didn't appear to be very deep based on the creatures entering and leaving it. There were a few more than a dozen of them shuffling around. Their bodies were flat and round like a half deflated beach ball and nearly the same size. Their skin was mottled grey and reminded him of the skin of seals he had only seen in pictures. That wide round and mostly flat body shuffled around on spindly insect looking legs. Lots of legs. Each one had dozens of them equally spaced out around their circular body. He watched them moving in any direction easily without needing to adjust.
Five multifaceted eyes formed a half circle on one end of the body. Sprouting out from the middle of that half circle was a very slender trunk just like an elephant's. They scuttled through the shallow pond dipping that trunk into the water only to bring something up to a mouth mostly hidden right at the bottom edge of their body below their "face". Jake at first thought they were eating some kind of plant. But then he spotted the green stalks moving, some even wrapping around the trunk or trying to brace against the outside of the mouth. Struggling to keep from being gobbled up.
"So those are the Daddy Long Leg Water Spider Seal Elephants." Ella pointed and Jake just stared at her.
"That can't be their name. Right?" She looked at him completely serious for a whole three seconds before bursting out laughing while he just frowned.
"No. But you should have seen your face. They are Dread Spitters. Wanna guess what their attack is?" She suddenly seemed serious.
'This girl is weird. Like way weird.' Jake thought to himself but out loud said. "They spit?"
"Hey, you might actually be pretty smart." She mocked. "Yes. That is the problem. They have more range than me and hit too hard. They almost one shot me the last time I tried to fight them. They can move pretty fast too."
Jake eyed the Dread Spitters shuffling around. "Don't let them fool you. They only move when they need to."
"So they went right through your shield and still almost killed you? What is your health at?" Jake asked before remembering he didn't know exactly what his health was either.
"Dunno. I'm D ranked vitality though so probably not much. The Ranger class isn't very tanky though." She looked him up and down. "Melee in most games is normally tougher tho. Plus you are a tech type. You already mentioned the shield, magic types don't get a shield, remember? Well, we do but not one that will work on physical attacks. Gosh, don't you know anything?" She gave a look of superiority before resuming her lecture.
"Tech types get a barrier against physical attacks. Magic types get a barrier against elemental damage and status effects. Which sucks if you ask me. I've not run into any elemental enemies. But everything does physical damage." She eyed his small chest plate with envy.
"Anyways. That is where you come in. These things are a bit of a glass cannon. Just keep them distracted and I'll kill them." She smirked as if the plan was perfect. "I mean, you can punch them too if you can catch them. But my snare ability is on a long cooldown so it isn't really worth using for something like this."
Jake finally managed to sneak a word in. "Wait. I never agreed to be your distraction. What rank are these anyways?"
"Of course you did. What else would you do as a melee but tank?" She glanced at the monsters. "D rank… I think. I haven't actually killed one yet."
"You…" Jake started to argue with the girl before just sighing. He didn't know of any other monsters to fight. Plus he needed to learn how to fight something other than beetles.
"Alright. So, what. I just run in there?" Jake finally asked.
"Yeah pretty much. I'm not saying let one hit you but it might be better if you find out how much damage they do before you get too close to them. If it gets bad I'll snare one for you." She smiled supportively.
Jake glanced at the more than a dozen monsters and doubted snaring just one would be helpful. Grumbling quietly to himself he started to creep forward.
Jake glanced back to see Ella give him a supportive wave. He had crept up as close as he wanted to. The monsters seemed focused on their feeding and had let him get about twenty yards from them. Eyeing one of them he thought it looked close to the distance from the pitcher's mound to home plate. Jake wasn't sure if he could throw that far. But he didn't want any closer than that.
Looking around he picked up a soft ball sized rock that actually looked small in his oversized gauntleted hand. Standing up he wound up and threw the ball as hard as he could. To his surprise, the ball took off like a professionally thrown pitch. It smacked into the body of one of the monsters making its flesh ripple like jello.
All of the monsters turned and started trumpeting. Their slender trunks pointed almost straight up as they let out a blaring sound. Half of them moved away while the other half turned to face him. "Well, there are fewer of them now." Half a dozen of the slender trunks stretched out directly towards him. They scrunched up suddenly then snapped out. When they did a roughly spherical object the size of a walnut shot out. It was faster than he expected. Had he not already been diving to the side he would have been mowed down. As it was he was still hit by two of them. They chunked out about a quarter of his shield each.
Jake didn't normally swear. His mother had hated it and seeing the disappointment in her eyes was worse than the inevitable punishment when he was caught. Still, sometimes a situation was best expressed with a swear. Jake was swearing now as he dodged the incoming fire. Dodge might not be the right word. He more or less threw himself to the side to stumble away every few seconds.
"Did you have to piss them all off? Gah, boys are so stupid." There was a twang of the bow as she fired off her first arrow. It hit one of the creatures in the flabby body and it let out a high pitched trumpet but didn't die. Jake glanced over and noticed she was still a good fifteen yards back. He remembered her saying they outranged her meaning if he needed to escape he would need to run at least another fifteen yards. No more than that. By how much did they outrange her? He never asked.