On the morning of day four, the last day before everybody still alive on the floor got sent to the next, Troy woke up with the sun's rise. Today, he would kill the biome boss.
Getting up, he was sore all over from the fight with the grizzly bear the day before. He left the tree and did some stretches to relieve his sore muscles. Looking at his body, he was bruised all over, had several cuts and scabs, and was dirty. He hoped that the biome boss would drop a chest, and that the chest had some medicine in it.
Standing around, the morning was cool, and the sun was quite beautiful, but Troy had no time to stand and admire, so he left for the last place he found the biome boss. Moving quietly through the forest, Troy slowly closed in on the clearing where he saw the biome boss on day two.
Entering within sight distance of the clearing, Troy climbed up a tree and slowly moved closer. He saw the bear still there, sleeping. Comparing it to the grizzly, it was at least a foot taller. Its claws were at least 3 inches longer, nearing 7 inches. Its fur was blond.
Looking around the clearing, there was no branch strong enough to support him close enough to the short-faced bear, meaning no repeat of yesterday's surprise attack. His bow was both too inaccurate and too weak to penetrate the bear's hide. Not only that, after just two shots, the string was slightly damaged. What the system said about it not being able to fire 100 shots was correct.
He could lure it closer to a tree using lump toss, but bears are good climbers, and if the bear knew he was there, it most likely would not let him onto its back, so Troy would jump and get injured by the fall for nothing. His best chance of success would be to make a spear and sneak up behind it in order to use a natural weakness of most lifeforms. And so he did.
He found a tree branch of a nice, sturdy tree nearby that suited his purpose, cut it using the antler saw he made, and made it as straight as possible. While he was doing this, he debated in his mind over what type of glue to make.
He had three choices. 1-bone glue, 2-raw hide glue, 3-pine tar glue. He had the bones from his last meal sitting at his last camp which he could retrieve, and he had a bear hide he could use a small amount of to make rawhide glue. He almost immediately ruled out bone glue, as it took days to make and needed acid to make properly. Thinking about it, he also ruled out rawhide glue, as it took a few hours of boiling and a strainer, both of which he did not have. Pine tar glue was the right choice in this circumstance, as it only took about an hour to make and could be used for quite a while if made properly. Pine tar was also flammable, so it could speed up his speed of fire starting in the future.
Before he started the finishing touches on his spear, he found a pine tree and made an injury to the bark to collect pine sap. After collecting a good amount in his carved wooden bowl, he lit a small fire and waited until it was just smoldering before putting the sap on. While this was happening, he made a quick trip to his previous campsite to grab any leftover burned wood from his fire. He found a few small sticks that could work for his purposes. He also grabbed a few rocks from the stream next to his camp, making sure they were flat.
Going back to where he was working, he used the flat stones he got from the river to make a decent spearhead. It took him a few tries, but he got a usable* one. When the pine tar was a thick liquid, he crushed the charcoal-esq wood he had scavenged from his fire and added some of them before wrapping the pine tar that was cooling around a stick. He then heated the tip up before mounting the spearhead onto the spear and applying it, letting it cool and then reheating it to make sure it got in all the crevices. He had no thin string, twine, or chewed sinew to tie it with, so he had to settle for just the glue. When he finished, he had what looked like a decent weapon, and the tower seemed to agree.
{Red-oak spear, 2-star: a spear that was made well, it could use a better spearhead, but it will work well enough. 3 attack.}
Using extraction on it, not much happened. A bit of glue fell off the shaft where he had accidentally got some, and a small amount of the stone spearhead disintegrated, blowing away in the wind.
{Red-oak spear, 2-star: a spear that was made well, it could use a better spearhead, but it will work well enough. 3 attack. Passive ability: straight stab-your stabs will be true and straight +2 attack.}
This would probably be broken during the fight, but it would be of great help for a surprise attack. Finishing up, Troy put all his tools away in the makeshift reed bag, leaving it on a tree near the clearing. Going to the side of the clearing the bear faced away from, Troy prepared himself.
Looking into the clearing, the bear was still sleeping, its back side facing towards Troy. Getting into position, Troy took a deep breath before shooting off, spear pulled back, ready to be trusted, add trust it did. Right into the bear's anus. The bear woke with a pain-filled cry, and then cried even more when Troy hit the spear with a kick enhanced by the skill strong kick. He probably ruptured an organ.
Turning around in a pain-fueled rage, the bear swiped its massive paws at Troy, who simply moved backward. This action seemed to anger the bear even more, and in its rage it darted toward Troy, bleeding intensely from its behind.
Dodging to the side, Troy used this chance to jump up onto the bear's back. The bear had none of this, and unlike the grizzly, it was smart enough to find a way to quickly get him off its back. The bear ran full force into the nearest tree, turning only a few seconds before hitting it head-on, resulting in the bear hitting its side on the tree, and Troy being flung off at high speeds.
Hitting a Tree, Troy's momentum was instantly stopped, and so was his breathing. Forcing himself up, he felt pain in his side. 'Great. At the very least I cracked a rib and at the worst a broken multiple.' Not being able to think for long, Troy had to once again dodge out of the way as the bear sped up even further. Remembering the bear's status, he thought it must have just activated the skill fast dash.
Because Troy dodged at the very last second, the bear hit the tree he was standing in front of. As if hitting a tree head-on at at-least 30 MPH was nothing, the bear got up and chased after Troy who was gaining some distance while trying to figure out what to do next.
Troy decided that he would wait for the bear's skill to wear off before going for an attack. This resulted in a game of cat and mouse that lasted for 5 minutes, going in and out of the clearing and between many trees, before the bear slowed down. Seeing this, Troy tried to find an opportunity but saw very little, so he tried something stupid.
Running towards the bear, he tried to get his right blade into the beast, but only got a shallow cut. Putting more force into his blade, he got a bit deeper but was unable to get to the point that he could easily cause major damage by pulling the knife along with him and running along the side of it. His only chance was to get on top of it and get his blade into its brain, wait for it to exhaust itself, or wait for it to bleed to death through the ass.
While getting the brain through the eye would be the fastest option, he really did not want another free flight on bear airlines, so he would have to wait for it to bleed to death or get it when it exhausted itself. The problem with the latter option was that he only had 31 stamina points left and after using appraisal on it, it had 45 stamina points left. He would have to find a way to make it die quicker, as he had no guarantee of getting away from it.
In order to make it bleed out faster, he started to harm it every time he had the chance to. Using appraisal he saw as its health slowly dwindled. 43, then 40, then 38. Slowly, Troy cut its health down, one stab, cut, and laceration at a time. Ten minutes later, its health dropped to 30. Half an hour of running and risky maneuvers later, it was at 25 health, with one of its legs no longer functioning properly. Because it could no longer run at speed high enough to throw him off by hitting a tree, Troy climbed up its back, using the right blade as an anchor.
Incensed at Troy being on its back, it attempted to send him flying again, but could not get enough speed to do so. While the bear was trying to get him off, Troy slowly made his way towards the head of the bear, using his blade to keep himself on by stabbing it into the bear's back every time he moved.
Getting to the head, Troy used the left blade, which he had not used throughout the fight to preserve the special ability sneak attack, and stabbed it into the bear's eye with as much force as he could muster. Blood shot out at high speeds, all over Troy's face. Troy used his other hand and kept hitting the pommel, pushing it deeper, as more and more blood came out, splattering him from his head to his chest, slowly panting him red, yet the bear would not die.
Yanking his blade out of the eye, Troy went for the other eye. If he could not hit the brain through the eye, he would blind it to make the rest of the fight easier for himself. Thoroughly destroying the eye using the same method, he then retrieved his right blade and jumped to the ground. Now that the bear's eyes were destroyed, and it could not locate him through smell as blood was all over the clearing, it could only rely on hearing to locate Troy. As long as Troy was careful with his footsteps, he could sneak up on it and land bigger, more impactful blows easier.
Putting this into practice, Troy snuck up to the bear, and by the time he was heard, he had stabbed it with the left blade. With the bear now unable to see, all attacks with it were unexpected and triggered the special ability, allowing Troy to more easily damage the creature.
After a time, Troy decided to end the fight. Sneaking up behind the bear, he grabbed the exposed shaft of the spear, and ripped it out, ignoring the bear's pain-filled roar. The bear turned around, trying to attack the perpetrator of its pain. Troy was there with the spear in a position to thrust. When the bear moved its head to face him, he struck. He trusted the spear at its head, aiming for the first eye he attacked. The spear went in, before stopping. Troy pushed harder, feeling a crackling, and then the spear broke through the skull of the beast, penetrating its brain, killing it. The spear broke in the process, but Troy did not care. He had won against a biome boss, alone.
As the bear collapsed, so did Troy. He had 5 stamina points left and was entirely beat. In front of the bear, a silver-gray chest appeared. A chest had dropped.
The allure of the chest beat his exhaustion, and Troy got up moving over to the chest. The lid was extremely light, far lighter than the stone and wooden chests he had opened, and recalling the first time he apprised the bear, he figured it was a tin quality chest.
Inside the chest were two bottles of liquid, a metal water bottle, and two rings. Grabbing the bottles first, he got the following notification from the system watch.
{Bottle of bone mending juice-low-low quality, Bottle of flesh regeneration brew-low-low quality acquired}
Troy nearly drank them, before stopping and deciding to use extract on them.
{Bottle of bone mending juice-low-medium quality, Bottle of flesh regeneration brew-low-medium quality}
Troy was unsure of the effects going from low-low quality to low-medium quality had on the medicine, but he was happy anyway. After drinking them, the pain where he had injured his ribs receded and all the wounds on his skin healed. Looking at the miraculous effect of the medicine, Troy was amazed, but quickly snapped out of it to look at the rest of the loot. Taking one of the rings he nearly choked after seeing what it was.
{Low tier 1 axillary equipment, 1-meter storage ring. A space ring with one square meter of storage inside.}
This was an item people would kill to get. He would never mention he had it to others. Looking at the other ring, it was also something important, though it was not at the level people would kill to get.
{Low tier 1 axillary equipment, Ring of small mountain spring. Can pore out 100 gallons of cold spring water a day.}
A source of clean water was extremely important in the tower. This would save him heaps of trouble in the future. Picking up the last item, it was just a normal water bottle, but would still be useful. He then looked at the last piece of loot he got from this fight, the corpse itself. Going up to it, he used extract, and felt a larger amount of mana than he usually felt leaving his body. He was about to check what stats he got from the corpse when he felt a pair of eyes on his back.
Turning around, he saw a 2-meter tall wolf with the fur color of a fox. Throughout its fur there were streaks of red-orange flames flickering and moving in the wind. Its eyes were a deep green and carried the haughtiness and arrogance of a king looking at his slaves. When Troy used appraisal on it, he felt a deep dread.