Seeing long grass blades and multiple purple trees growing from the sand on the ground, Jake was moving through the forest with Kevin, Smith, Diane and Max along with other third year students.
The students were yet to see any beasts and they had already walked a good distance away from the haven they had been teleported to.
"Don't you think we should..." Kevin was saying before being shushed by Jake who was holding the pair of daggers he had purchased earlier and was carefully looking around.
"Something's here." Jake said, standing still and turning around.
Hearing the low growling sound coming from somewhere in the grass, Kevin stood still like the rest of his group and began looking around, trying to identify the exact location the sound was coming from.
"Move!" Jake shouted and quickly pushed Smith to the side before putting his hands in an 'X' format in front of himself and getting pushed back by the creature that jumped out from the grass.
Sliding to a stop and holding the daggers in front of himself, Jake clearly saw the creature that had jumped out from the grass.
The creature was on four legs, as big as a human and had three huge horns coming out from the top of its head with a thin but long tail. It had very thick brown fur and its razor sharp set of teeth could be seen through its open mouth.
"The first beast I've ever seen." Kevin said with the absence of fear.
"Yet you don't look particularly scared." Max said.
"Why would I be? Jake's here." Kevin said to Max.
Hearing another growling sound coming from behind them, Jake and the members of his group turned around with caution and saw another beast, which looked just like the first one, come into view.
"There's two of them?" Kevin asked, shocked.
"Scared now?" Max asked, also shocked by seeing the two beasts.
Looking at the system messages that had appeared when he saw the first beast, Jake was secretly excited.
[Primary ranked beast encountered]
[System Quest: Kill the primary ranked beast]
[Reward: +1 Stat point, +500exp]
'If this is the amount of exp I get from killing one beast, then I'm really going to love this expedition.' Jake thought, looking at the beasts now moving closer, getting ready to pounce. 'The problem now is killing the beasts.'
Seeing both beasts jump towards them from both sides at the same time, Jake grabbed the two front legs of the beast and was able to stop it from moving but not before sliding back by a few feet.
The daggers Jake was holding had a small ring at the bottom of the haft which he put his forefingers in to have a better hold on the daggers.
"You guys deal with that one," Jake shouted to Max, Kevin, Smith and Diane, "I'll take care of this one."
"Yes boss." Kevin said and came out from behind Max, who had used his force field magic to block the pounce from the second beast.
Lifting the beast as high as he could, Jake slammed it onto the ground with all his strength and immediately used his daggers to attack it's head.
Seeing the dagger pass through the beast, Jake quickly delivered a side kick which hit the beast on one of its legs and broke the leg.
'So it can't use its magic continuously and in quick succession. If it could it would have avoided the side kick the same way it avoided the dagger.' Jake thought as he looked at the beast move back in pain.
Running close to the beast and easily avoiding a swipe of its paw, Jake sent a strike to the head of the beast with his dagger and after the dagger passed through the beast again without the beast receiving any form of damage, Jake used the other dagger to stab the beast in the head.
With the blue blood from the beast splashing on his hand and the beast falling to the ground, Jake saw some system messages appear in his line of sight.
[Quest Completed: Kill the primary ranked beast]
[Reward Obtained: +1 Stat point, +500exp]
[Congratulations, you are now level 5]
[You have been rewarded with +1 to all stats]
[Jake Cayden]
[Level: 5]
[Health:150/150]
[Species:Human*]
[Strength:34]
[Speed: 35 +2]
[Endurance:42]
[Mental Moxie:20]
[Mana:30/30]
[Magic:29]
[Element: None]
[Ability: Magic mimicry]
[Exp: 353/1500]
After leaving Max's back because Max had used his force field to block the attack of the beast, Kevin Smith and Diane had surrounded the beast.
They could tell it was a primary ranked beast from the marking of a single ring which was on the tail of the beast so they were not very scared to fight it.
After trying to use his magic to possess the beast while it was preoccupied by Max, Diane and Smith, Kevin was surprised to see he was not able to possess the beast.
'So my magic isn't strong enough to possess a beast yet?' Kevin thought to himself. 'I have to work harder.'
Looking at the beast from behind it, Max decided to attack it while it wasn't facing him. Running to the beast with the intention of punching the beast on one of its legs, Max was stopped by the long tail of the beast which came swinging at him from the side.
He was able to use his force field to protect himself right before the tail hit him but the tail still had enough strength to make his force field bounce off the ground a few times.
When Max uses his force field magic, the force field covers his body up completely which makes it look from the outside as if a transparent ball is spreading outwards from inside him.
Moving to meet the beast after Max was hit away, Smith evaded a pounce from the beast and immediately threw a kick to the side of the beast but was shocked when his leg passed through the beast.
It was as if the beast became intangible for a second which allowed it to land back on the ground without receiving any damage from Smith's kick.
Immediately after the beast landed on the ground though, Kevin punched the beast on the head and the beast retaliated by using its claws to scratch him multiple times on his leg.
Smith had managed to grab the tail of the beast and was dragging it away from Kevin but the beast turned away from Kevin and jumped at Smith.
Max had jumped in front of Smith and used his force field to block the claws of the beast. This time he hadn't been hit away because he was prepared for the attack.
Diane had used the brass knuckles to stab the beast in one of its hind legs while also using her colour magic to mess with the vision of the beast.
Living things see objects with the help of colours and when those colours are taken away from the vision of a living being, it starts seeing in black and white which can make it disoriented for a little while as it adapts to seeing in monochrome.
With Diane however, she didn't just remove the colour from the vision of the beast. She was able to temporarily absorb it into her eyes which made the colours in her eyes shine brighter and swirl around even more than before.
After killing the first beast that had attacked them, Jake had removed its essence from inside the tail which was directly beneath the ring marking on the tail.
Immediately he had removed the glowing blue medium-sized rock which is the beast's essence, Jake could feel the vibe being radiated from it. The vibe would be so overwhelming to some people to the extent that they couldn't even be in the same room as the beast essence.
Bringing out the empty bag from his dimensional ring, Jake put the beast essence into it and returned the bag to the dimensional ring then got up to help the others deal with the other beast.
Looking at Kevin, Max, Diane and Smith fight the beast together, Jake decided to wait for some time before killing the beast.
'We all need the experience. And we're most likely going to run into stronger beasts in the next few days so we all need to improve.' Jake thought.
Since he wasn't fighting and was simply standing to the side while the others fought the beast, Jake was able to notice the increased luminosity of Diane's eyes.
'Did her eyes become brighter? How?'
Seeing that the others had understood how the beast used its magic and the beast was now badly injured with blue blood flowing from its wounds, Jake decided to deliver the killing strike so that he can get the exp from killing the beast.
Running from his position, Jake ran straight to the beast and threw out one of his daggers after evading the tail of the beast. The dagger passed through the beast like the beast wasn't even there but Jake was expecting that.
Now close to the beast, Jake lifted his hand above the head of the beast and brought the dagger down as hard as he could.
A dark red line was seen coming out from Jake's hand and from the tip of the dagger as the dagger slashed the neck of the beast from the top down to the bottom.
As the beast fell to the ground, obviously dead, its head was now almost separated from the rest of its body due to the huge gash that bad been made by Jake.
[Quest Completed: Kill the primary ranked beast]
[Reward Obtained: +1 Stat point, +500exp]
[Stat Points: 2]
[Exp: 853/1500]
'So after I kill two more of these beasts I'll level up again.' Jake thought. 'But what was that red line that came out from the dagger?'
"Dude what was that?" Kevin asked as he came over to take a closer look at the dead beast. There was a little bit of blue and red blood on his body because the blood from the beast would splash on him when he hit the beast or when he blocked an attack from the beast and the red blood was from his own injuries.
The injuries they had sustained had been healed by Smith and Diane was currently taking the beast essence out of the beast's tail.
"How did you produce that red line?" Max asked.
"I don't know." Jake answered.
"It looked like a strike filled with energy." Smith said.
"Yeah. Maybe it's the magic of the dagger." Jake said, remembering the system message he had seen which told him he had mimicked magic.
'Was that the Fatal Strike magic the system said I mimicked? It would make sense because I was holding the daggers when I saw the messages. But that would mean I can't only mimic magic from other people, I can mimic the magic of objects as well.'