(Jake's PoV)
After all the preparations had been done, I left New Bastion for Adrian's Vale. I need to reach the Vale as soon as possible.
I know it may not be possible as I have neither escorts nor flying skills to make my journey to the Vale easier. I had to fight the monsters in between. There are a lot of monsters in between.
I reached the Vale but it took a little over three hours. I can say that the travel was pretty decent.
First, it took only three hours because many monsters were already cleared. Almost every new awakened is here. Though they would rather dive into a dungeon to improve themselves, there are many who would kill the actual monsters.
The monsters in the dungeons are not real monsters. They are just manifestations created by the dungeon core. So they won't give any loot, just experience. Dungeons are the best way to level up faster.
I believe it is how Davidson was able to level up so much faster but as I said there are some cons with this. You would level up but there would be no loot.
This type of method is suitable for someone who has big pockets. For someone like me who has no background here, I need the loot to buy anything. Moreover, my main weapon, Bow and Arrows is a deep pit.
Arrows were consumables and in most cases would be gone after one or two uses. Of course, they don't cost as much as swords, staffs and other weapons cost but in the long run, Arrows would dig a deep pit for my earnings.
I need the loot and that means no dungeons for me, at least not until I can get some better weapons that don't get destroyed after a use or two.
From what I learned, there are Bows that use Magic as their weapons.
There is Fire Arrow, Frost Arrow etc..., that uses the Energy Points that I have instead of actual arrows. Sure they are only for one-time use but Energy Points can be recovered naturally.
There are potions to do that if I want to recover at a faster rate but most of the time normal recovery is more than enough.
The problem was that these low-level Bows couldn't do that. I can use those skills if I get my hands on them but these low-level Bows would break after a few uses.
I would be in a situation where I would need to replace my bows instead of my arrows. It would be a worse situation than before.
So, even if by chance I get my hands on such skills, I can't use them until I get better Bows.
Anyway, to buy such a Bow, it would cost a lot and for that, I need a lot of loot. The blessing was supposed to increase the loot but to this day, there was not much of an increase. Sure I would get loot for every kill without a waste but they would net me a few coppers.
if I go like this, it would be years before I could get my hands on a good bow. If I want to exact my revenge on that bastard, then I would need something more than a good bow.
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The second good thing was that I was able to increase my level by one and now I am at level 11. This is very good as my stats improved by a lot not just by levelling up but also the extra stats that I got from the hunt.
With the increased stats, I was more than sure that I could easily complete the quests. The only difficult ones would be the Apes as they are very agile and should be the last on the list to hunt.
Vale Apes are like monkeys and their mode of travel is by jumping through tree branches. They have a very high-speed attribute.
Even Vale rats are a problem as they would run away into underground holes if they see that they can't defeat their enemies. If they do that, it would be almost impossible to find them again.
So hunting them comes last, just before I return to the New Bastion.
I didn't just come here to complete the two quests but also to reach level 20 and be eligible to take the Rank-1 trial. After all, my goal was to reach Rank-2 and also reach level 60, so that I could start to level up in Tarro as well.
I need strength there more than here to survive.
It's not just that bastard but there are various bastards that live on Tarro. Many are envious of others or attention seekers. Both are pretty problematic to a safe and peaceful life.
Only through strength can one have a peaceful life. This is something that I understood very well. if my parents were stronger than that bastard, would they have died?
The answer is No.
Even if he was able to stab them in the back, the other would have finished that bastard. I would have at least one parent growing up, rather than being an orphan.
So strength is everything and that is something well proven many times.
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There is one major benefit that I gained in this three-hour journey. It was a surprise for me as what I learned was pretty fantastic and didn't know that such a thing was possible before.
It is about my skills, at least the ones that I got due to my blessing.
When I first got them before, they all appeared pretty basic. There were no ranks or anything that would indicate what level they were.
I thought that because they were skills gained through a different method than usual but now that is very much changed.
I got the same skill I had before from one of the monsters. Normally as I had that skill I thought it was a waste but then something changed in the skill. It is more powerful than before but that's not what I was ecstatic about.
Something else caught my eye. It is...