It had been expensive to repair his gauntlet. More than the value of a measly C rank power core.
Clive turned out to be the bartender's name. He actually laughed when they told him about how much trouble they had with just a normal monster.
"Monsters in each of the progressive regions are stronger than the last of course. The cores aren't always indicative of the strength of a monster's combat power either. Some C rank might be harder for you than a B rank. Mostly it was a bad match up. Elementals are always a tough match for any of the tech types." He tapped the blue green capsule from the processed mutagen. "But they almost always give a spirit mutagen. Or monster essence whatever." He made a face. "Anyways. There ain't no such thing as a useless attribute for anyone. It is good to raise all of them when you can. But that said. Tech types get far less out of Spirit than magic types. Specifically, the caster ones that rely on spells instead of weapons. You should trade this with another player. You should be able to get a decent deal. Spirit is the rarest to get. There aren't any good sources for farming them in bulk."
Clive picked up the glass he had been cleaning, Jake was pretty sure it was the same as last night. "Wait, the robot in the tutorial said we couldn't hold on to mutagen. They decay if we log out?"
Clive shook his head. "You didn't ask the right question. Those scrap bots don't have much of an AI. The mutagen will decay. You can save them once they are processed."
Jake bit his tongue to keep from swearing, thinking about how he could have saved all those useless intelligence mutagens from the tutorial area. Eventually, he said. "What do you think Cass?"
"We should sell it if we can. You need to upgrade your armor still." She eyed his right hand. His gauntlet had gone back to being fingerless gloves after being repaired and his health had filled up already. "Maybe we should see about finding other players to work with as well. It is too dangerous just the two of us."
Jake missed the worry in her words. "I dunno. If we group with others we have to share. I think we work pretty good together." He was thinking about not only the gear they wanted but those expensive vehicles.
"Let us at least take a look." Cass demanded sounding more like her school self.
"Sure."
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They checked the looking for group board. There were plenty of people who had put up requests both on the physical board and the holodesk. Jake realized they should have read through them more carefully before. He gleaned a lot of information from it on where and what to hunt. They pointed out various popular hunting grounds, monsters, and even what types of loot they were looking for or weren't interested in.
Just like he had done in the past with Ella it seemed most people grouped up and split rewards based on their needs. It made sense. It also mentioned gathering materials he took as crafting materials. That reminded them they had forgotten to ask Clive about the Elemental Heart.
They learned that the crafting of weapons or armor took a crafting core. A rare type of power core. But that was just for starters. After that things like the elemental hearts could be used to modify or specialize the equipment. Also, in the case of the heart, it was a reagent for certain abilities. Jake expected it to be spell abilities. But Clive pointed out there were tech ones that required it as well. Elemental Ammunition was a tech skill available to Cass which allowed her to use certain reagents to enhance ammunition in the field. Giving them various effects based on the elemental reagent used up.
Jake was annoyed there weren't any skills for him to learn from this location either. But apparently, Cass had a fair number she could purchase. It was just another thing they needed credits for. Clive recommended they look at the trading board for skills others might be willing to sell. Jake was tempted to check but already had too many things on his shopping list. The idea of adding more gave him a sour expression.
When they actually tried to join up with other players they discovered most were very interested in Jake at first. Melee characters were apparently very rare and his Power Claw class was unheard of. That is until they found out he had all D rank attributes and no active skills. A few offered to let them tag along but their attitude was so condescending or arrogant that neither Jake nor Cass wanted to go along with them. In the end, they decided to keep hunting as a duo. Jake also swore he would get an attribute ranked up no matter what. He hadn't realized how big a deal the players made out of them.
It seemed since that was the only measurable way to compare players' strengths so it became the main way they appraised each other. The only other metric they used was gear or active skills. Since their gear was basic and he had no active skills it only made things seem worse. Again, it came down to money. He needed money for equipment or money for skills. But to get them he needed to kill monsters. But to do that efficiently he needed help. He was really glad to have Cass. Her long range and high damage that bordered on broken was a huge boon. Though it just made him feel a bit useless.
It also didn't help everyone seemed to know he had to be piggybacked out of the tutorial and acted as if Cass was the more veteran player. Jake found himself disliking them and Cass seemed fine with it just being the two of them.
They ate a quick lunch of the bitter tasting nutrition chips before heading out again. This time with a destination in mind.
They had a decent understanding of the local monsters now thanks to taking some time to collect information. One of them had seemed perfect for them. Jake wanted to up his vitality some more. Not only would it give him more health and regeneration. According to Clive, a high enough vitality would actually make him harder to injure in the first place. Somehow that would affect his gauntlet's durability. There were no more basic upgrades beyond the one for his weapons. He would need to get a player to upgrade them or craft him new ones. Either way would cost a lot.
So for now he wanted to boost his vitality. They also wanted to boost Cass's speed. Her rifle did amazing damage but too often they ran into the issue of her being in the wrong range bracket. She needed an easier time getting to the range she needed for the specific enemies.
So they had picked out a monster called a Rock Roller. Apparently, it was a type of lizard that curled up into a ball, its outer body covered in a rock appearance similar to the beetles Jake had fought in the tutorial zone. It had a high speed but was easy to handle as its only attack was rolling like a huge ball at enemies.
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The Rock Rollers turned out to be pretty easy for them to farm. Their exterior was heavily armored making them difficult to damage for most players. But Cass's weapon had such a huge amount of armor penetration it wasn't a big deal. That said even she couldn't kill them in one shot. Normally shooting them would cause them to unroll and flop around in agony. Her bullets were easily able to rip through the hard armor as long as she stayed in her short range. Once outside the perfect sphere of armor they formed Jake could close in and finish them off.
They quickly got into a good pattern and found themselves killing Rock Rollers until Cass ran out of ammunition. Cass would attack from long range while a group of them were grazing on the stubby bushes. In the area, they were located all the bushes had little pink flowers on them that the monsters seemed to enjoy. Normally moving in groups of three or four.
Cass used her ability to identify weaknesses on the first one. Since their weak points were static she actually only had to remember where they were. They all seemed to share the same ones. Unrolled they had a few, their small anteater looking heads being the primary. Once they rolled up Cass found a single weakness. When they curled up their sides had a small gap right in the middle. But since it was only visible when one was at the side of them and not when they were rolling right at you it wasn't of much help.
She would attack a group while they grazed, even killing one right off the back with a lucky hit to their head sometimes. Then she would hit rolling ones as they got closer to Jake. Unlike the baboons, they would target him when she was farther away once engaged. She timed her shots to hit them right before they got to him. As they uncurled they normally skidded to a stop right at his feet where he finished them off.
The first time one got to him before she could shoot it both were worried about how it would turn out. Jake dug his feet in and attacked head on. His fist smashed into the rolling monster and he was knocked back. He managed to keep himself from being knocked over though. The combined force of its roll and Jake's blow caused the monster's shell to cave in around his fist. After that, it was easy for Jake to finish it off as it uncurled in a daze. He was slightly reassured by the fact that he seemed to be able to kill one alone if needed. Still, when four or more of them were rolling at high speed towards him he was glad not to be alone.
Compared to the Earth Elemental they were a cake to hunt. And profitable as well. All together they managed to kill twenty two of them before Cass ran out of ammunition.
They didn't get anything but cores and mutagen. With a fourteen to eight split in favor of vitality. Cass insisted he take all the vitality even though he pointed out health worked for everyone. But as usual, he didn't argue too hard, he really wanted one of his attributes to rank up. Especially after how everyone else had acted about his straight D rank attributes.