Jaycee stepped back and looked at everyone who watched him carefully. Yes his levels were lower than everyone else. But his combat ability was not known to any of them and he had surprised them fully.
Only Percy could have dispatched such a powerful beast with such oppressiveness. Looking at the beasts Percy gestured to Jaycee. The man had been stopping them at every beast killed to allow Jaycee to practice harvesting the best parts. He would try and remove all the usable hide and horns and teeth and things that stored extra energy.
The first few times he had shown awful results only creating gray rarity materials. His cutting lines were jagged and reduced the quality of the material. But he was steadily increasing his skill by just practicing. There were obvious things he did wrong that he would correct on his next go through.
And many things he felt would come to him with time. But the other party members were starting to get annoyed with having to stop constantly. Dion was sat on a log with Lady healing his arm which had been heavily damaged.
After a few minutes and some speedy skinning, Jaycee had mostly finished everything and unfortunately discarded the materials on the ground. They weren't valuable enough to carry around and he mostly was doing it for practice right now. Zeke didn't enjoy the time he spent waiting for Jaycee.
Most of everyone else was patient enough especially with Dion wanting to rest. Zeke sighed loudly as Jaycee put his tools away and began to follow behind Percy who was congratulating the team on their performance.
He was a good leader who didn't seem to stray from taking on a less lawful approach to life. It was clear he knew that Jaycee, despite not appearing to be incredibly impressive, was at the same level as him.
Neither of them had seen the others max either. Jaycee had leveled up his Profession to level 3. After a few minutes of avoiding unnecessary fights and navigating the dark forest they were nearing the dungeon location.
Just then Jaycee felt something change, similar to how he had felt things when he was attacked by the wave of beasts. Suddenly, faint strings appeared in the air. They were fading in and out of view but some of the strings stood out. But there were a bunch of vibrating flashing red strings that stemmed from their archer. Jaycee dashed over his hands flexing to create several layers of his shields over the man.
He was confused but seconds later a shadowy energy passed over them. A large tiger with black color patterning slashed at the man's throat just for it to crush through a few layers of shield. Jim, which is his name, barely dashed out of the way with a speed skill. Using identify Jaycee saw,
'Shadow Blessed Tiger Level: 25'.
Jaycee threw up more shields as the beast immediately turned its attention to the next most vulnerable. The barriers were strong but the more than double the difference in levels overpowered him easily.
He crashed to the ground as the paw hit his last line of defense. His hands wrapped around the beast's paw and pressed back just barely saving himself. Thankfully, during the week, Jaycee had developed a similar skill to the skin shield skill he was offered before.
He used his own hexagonal technique and had slightly strengthened the skill. His arms were worked to their maximum as the beast nearly crushed him in less than three seconds since it revealed itself.
Finally a large golden palm was planted into the side of the beast shoving it to the side. But the attack did little more than move the beast. Jaycee erupted in flames forcing the beast to retreat backwards where Percy stood. Immediately the tides turned as Percy let loose against the beast.
He moved so quickly and with such power that he himself seemed as strong as the tiger. As Percy stabbed it in its flank it yelped and fled. The shadowy energy poured from its body as it suddenly disappeared without a trace. Jaycee watched as his adrenaline dropped suddenly.
What the hell was that? Why was something so strong in this area? The strings slowly faded out of view as the red flashing stopped. But still the energy swirled around Jim so he wasn't finished. Jaycee wasn't even going to make a guess as to what it was until he got more examples.
The only reason he was able to react so quickly was because of the flashing strings. He assumed that red flashing meant bad and it was centered around Jim. That was all he knew. "Holy shit." Jim sat on the ground slightly shaken.
His class gave him a bunch of increased Perception, yet he couldn't perceive the thing sneak attacking him. Of course they had a large level difference, but Jaycee had reacted. He had to be better. Or he wouldn't survive.
Percy looked in the direction the beast had come from and scowled. "Dammit. We keep getting caught off guard. Jim and Dion stay closer to the middle now." He said.
Jaycee noticed that Percy never gave him an order. But Percy knew that Jaycee didn't need to be in the middle, as despite being one of the most vulnerable in the party he had the best defense, aside from the heavy warrior of course.
Percy led them through the thick foliage and up to a large plant covered temple. They went around it until they found the entrance where there were 5 other people waiting. As the two groups came together they seized each other up.
While this was a joint venture, they were looking out for what's best for themselves. The first thing Jaycee noticed was that the other group was much more intense. Their gear was not as good but their levels were higher. Jaycee guessed that with the lower population they couldn't build such a large crafting section in their camp leaving their best equipment to be found by chance in the forest.
Jaycee raised his arm in a friendly wave and found himself embarrassed. They didn't reciprocate his energy at all but remained intense. "It's good to see you all." Percy said as he took the front stage.
A short woman stepped forward. She had large eyes that observed the other group intensely. Her brown hair and large array of knives strapped to her were the first thing he noticed. Her eyes glowed slightly as she inspected them. "We're taking this very seriously. Our camp is under threat from a serious enemy. Our goal is to gain strength from this dungeon first. Merging will only happen if it's what's best for our camp." She said as an announcement.
They stated pretty clearly how they felt about this joint venture and the situation they were in. Jaycee had heard that other camps had a much harder time with keeping beasts at bay. They had encountered king-like beasts that worked relentlessly to unite beasts against the humans.
Percy's camp was fortunate enough to not have interacted with such a creature yet and mostly handled weaker, less intelligent beast leaders.
Percy nodded. "We understand. The most important part of this is completing the dungeon and getting a look at what they could have. Should we get to know each other for better communication?" He asked.
The woman held up a hand, "We should know the basics combat wise but otherwise remain coworkers." She said.
Percy glanced around his team to make sure they were okay with the parameters and nodded. "I agree. Allow me to go first. I am Percy. I chose medium warrior and I now have a class that increases my power and my followers power depending on my skills. This is Zeke my heavy warrior. Hes strong and incredibly tough and will always be at the front line.
Here's my archer, Jim, who specializes in tracking. Dion is my light warrior. He's best at remaining unseen and striking from cover. This is Lady who's been blessed by a god and has incredible healing and defensive powers." He paused slightly at Jaycee. "Finally this is Jaycee. From what I know he's a fire mage." Percy said simply.
Jaycee had eluded him and Percy had failed to get Jaycee to associate officially with their camp. He identified as a free soul, which he knew because his class showed him who was in 'his party'. And Jaycee was never marked as being in his party. So he treated Jaycee more as a visitor in his camp. He was a third party lone figure.
Jaycee bowed slightly. "Offensive large scale magic." He said. He summed up what he did in a party scenario. Normally he would stray away from unnecessary explosively large spells but party situations were different. Lots of times a mage was best at using large flashy spells to deal big damage to the enemies.
He enjoyed the finesse of using magic that didn't obliterate large sections of the forest. If he could he would spare the environment entirely and only hit his target. Her eyes tracked each person and stopped at Jaycee who she looked at confusedly.
Jaycee gave her a look and she broke eye contact suddenly and turned to introduce her party members. "I'm Farrah, a fast light warrior who's good at identifying weak points. Kara is a medium warrior and she's fast and powerful. Jake is a mage who's best at sensing things. Preston is a healer who has potent skills that increase others powers. Lauren is an archer with incredible accuracy." Farrah said.
Jaycee felt like these descriptions weren't incredibly helpful. Eventually the group all merged into one where the mages and healers stood together. Jaycee gripped the staff in the hand as Percy led the way along with Farrah.
They approached the entrance of the temple that had a large screen where they would enter. It read:
Tutorial Dungeon: Eria's Temple
Level:24
Rarity: Red
Complete the Objective in a certain amount of time.
Rewards will be individually distributed depending on performance.
It also described the needs to be in the party attempting the dungeon. There was no level minimum that he could see which was surprising. Double checking with the people around him Percy activated the entrance and they disappeared from where they stood.