Chapter 8: Chapter 8: COMBINED SPELL, RARE REWARD, AND THE FOREST RULER’S SLAP
After the golden light from our level-up faded, the Eastern Forest returned to its natural silence. I was about to step deeper in search of the next prey when Arthur’s movement suddenly stopped. His steady footsteps froze on the mossy ground, and his eyes looked vacant as he stared at a transparent blinking screen visible only to himself a sign that he was receiving a Private Message (PM).
Arthur’s expression turned somewhat sour and awkward after reading the message. He scratched his golden hair even though it wasn’t itchy, then glanced at me with a guilty look.
"Something wrong?" I asked flatly, while slinging my hunting bow back over my shoulder.
"Ah... well, Syl," Arthur cleared his throat awkwardly, his fingers playing with the handle of his large sword that was still resting on his shoulder. "My main party members just sent me a message. The party leader said, ’Where are you? Hurry up, the others are waiting. We’re going to hunt in the Northern Zone now.’ They’ve apparently gathered at the northern gate to challenge a group of Orcs."
Arthur looked very conflicted. On one hand, he was a hardcore player committed to his fixed party in pursuit of server rankings. On the other hand, he had just reunited with his best friend whom he hadn’t played with for a long time, and our hunt had been going very well and enjoyably.
Seeing the clear hesitation in his bright blue eyes, I could only smile faintly in my heart. I knew Arthur’s personality well; he was loyal to his friends, but he also had his own world in this game that he needed to maintain. Besides, my style of play from the beginning had never been about fierce competition.
Before Arthur could open his mouth to choose or apologize, I spoke first:
"You should go. From the start, I’ve always played casually. I just want to enjoy the scenery and gather materials in my own way."
Hearing my understanding words with absolutely no hint of offense, the tension in Arthur’s shoulders instantly melted. He breathed a sigh of relief and nodded firmly.
"Alright... sorry, Bro. Let’s play together again next time!" Arthur said enthusiastically.
Before he actually left, Arthur opened our party interaction panel. His hands moved quickly across the virtual screen. Instead of fairly distributing the loot, he transferred all the spoils we had obtained earlier from ant shells, high-quality wolf pelts, fangs, to piles of copper coins directly into my inventory.
[System: Party Leader ’Arthur’ has transferred all Drop Items to you.]
[System: Party ’Golden Lion’ has been disbanded.]
"All the drops from earlier are for you as starting capital for your profession," Arthur said while waving his left hand, his right hand still holding the large sword that reflected the sunlight. "See you later in the city, Syl! Don’t die alone in this forest!"
His sturdy body turned around and dashed away, breaking through the forest bushes at high speed to catch up with his party members waiting in the brutal Northern Zone. The silhouette of his armor and large sword slowly disappeared behind the dense trees, leaving me alone in the silence of the Eastern Forest.
After Arthur left, the atmosphere around me changed completely. This forest no longer felt like a noisy battlefield, but rather a very peaceful and breathtaking fantasy world. I walked leisurely, making every footprint on the dry leaves almost completely silent thanks to my skill.
While strolling and enjoying the cool breeze playing with my silver hair, I occasionally bent down to pick up various herbal plants growing near tree roots. Every time my fingers touched the plants, a small notification would appear, increasing my ability to recognize flora in this world.
However, my attention was suddenly diverted when my gaze fell on a giant tree standing firmly before me. The tree had an extremely large trunk with rough-textured bark and lush green leaves. Driven by curiosity as someone who had taken the Carpentry profession, I stepped closer and placed my right palm on the tree’s surface.
Instantly, a semi-transparent information window appeared in front of me, displaying anatomical details of the tree that I had never seen before:
[Material Assessment]
Type: Oak Tree — Common
Hardness: Average
Durability: Average
Flexibility: Low
"Oh... so the trees in this forest can also be appraised?" I muttered softly, a smile of amazement forming on my face.
This system was incredibly detailed. As an aspiring carpenter, information about hardness, durability, and flexibility was the main foundation for determining what products were suitable to be made from the material. Oak wood with low flexibility but a solid structure like this would be perfect for heavy furniture or basic wooden shields.
"What a shame..." I sighed deeply while looking at my slender, pale white palm. "With my current pure stats, I won’t even be strong enough to lift a heavy lumberjack axe, let alone chop down this giant tree."
The (STR) stat of this body was truly pathetic. To gather wood independently, I would have to think of another way perhaps look for a special axe with low STR requirements, or rely on buying materials from other players in the future.
Rustle... Rustle...
The sound of leaves being brushed aside from the front cut off my thoughts. My instincts, trained as a former archery athlete, made my body move reflexively. With extremely smooth and silent movement thanks to Slow Walking, I immediately stepped back and hid my slender body behind the shadow of the large Oak tree.
I peeked slightly from behind the trunk. From the dense underbrush, a stout creature stepped out with heavy footsteps. It was a wild boar with stiff, needle-like black fur and a pair of sharp, upward-curving lower tusks.
[Wild Boar — Level 9]
"Level 9 wild boar," I whispered in my heart.
Without Arthur acting as a Tank on the front line to withstand the monster’s pure attacks, facing this high-level creature alone was clearly very difficult and dangerous for a fragile Elf like me. If its famous charge with knockback and stun effects hit me, this battle would end in an instant.
However, instead of feeling afraid, a spark of interest lit up in my blood-red eyes. This was an excellent challenge. Standing alone in the middle of the forest without any disturbances was the perfect moment to try a mechanical experiment that had been spinning in my head for a while.
I lowered the hunting bow from my shoulder and gripped the cool wooden center with my left hand. My right hand moved to my waist, pulling out a sharp iron-tipped wooden arrow. I nocked the arrow onto the bowstring and slowly drew it back until it touched the corner of my lips.
I regulated my breathing until it became very steady and calm. My focus locked completely onto the wild boar’s neck area, right where its main blood vessel was located.
"First... [Power Shot]," I whispered inwardly.
Hummm...
Instantly, the stamina energy in my body was drained, triggering a very dense blue-golden glow at the tip of my arrow. The air around the arrow shaft began to swirl, creating a small vortex that indicated my strongest physical attack skill was active and ready to be released.
But my experiment didn’t stop there. I didn’t immediately fire the shot like I usually did when with Arthur. I held the increasingly heavy bowstring, letting my stamina drain slowly, while my right hand began chanting a different elemental magic spell.
"Now... [Wind Arrow]," I whispered softly.
I tried to do something that had never been written in any basic game guide: casting elemental magic directly onto a physical arrow that was already under the influence of the Power Shot skill.
In the first second, I felt a tremendous energy distortion at my fingertips. The pure wind elemental mana energy, which normally manifested as a floating transparent magic arrow, was now forced to merge with the physical wooden arrow shaft already enveloped by the Power Shot aura. The game system seemed to experience a micro-pause while trying to calculate this unusual mechanical combination.
However, thanks to my very high (INT) and (DEX) stats, my energy control was at an extremely precise level.
Whooshhh!
My experiment succeeded! I couldn’t hold back the amazement in my eyes as I looked at my weapon’s current appearance. My physical wooden arrow was not only glowing from the Power Shot aura but was now completely enveloped and layered by three rotating transparent wind arrows spinning at high speed, creating a terrifying air-drilling effect at the tip of my bow.
The bowstring vibrated violently under the pressure of the two overlapping energies. My stamina bar continued to drop. I held my pure breath and focused all my remaining concentration on manual aiming.
Ding!
The game’s built-in aim assist suddenly appeared in my field of vision, projecting a bright green trajectory line toward the wild boar’s body. However, as usual, I completely ignored the system’s assistance. The aim assist only calculated static coordinates and didn’t account for the wind drill rotation I had just created myself on the arrow. I shifted my aim slightly lower, waiting for the moment when the wild boar lowered its head to sniff the forest floor.
Three... two... one...
SWUSSS!!!
My fingers released the bowstring. The sound of this shot was no longer like a small cannon blast like before, but a sharp, deafening roar of a whirlwind.
The combined physical and magic arrow shot forward at an incomprehensible speed. The ten-meter distance between us seemed meaningless. The air path it traveled even left a vacuum trail that sucked in and shredded the surrounding leaves into tiny pieces.
JLESSS!!!
The arrow struck precisely at the top of the wild boar’s head, piercing through its hard skull without any resistance, then continued straight down through its throat and embedded thirty centimeters deep into the dense forest soil.
WREEEKKK!
The Level 9 wild boar only managed to let out one short, shrill squeal before its stout body was lifted into the air by the brutal wind momentum and slammed rigidly onto the ground.
Its health bar, which had been full, was instantly drained completely.
[-310!!! Critical]
A glowing red damage number of enormous size jumped above the scene, accompanied by a brilliant digital light spark effect. The wild boar’s body froze, then shattered into golden light particles blown away by the forest wind, leaving behind several loot items on the ground.
I stood frozen behind the Oak tree, staring at my bow and then at the damage number still lingering in the air with an extremely shocked expression. Three hundred and ten damage points?! The damage output was truly beyond my highest expectations. The pure combination of the piercing physical power from DEX-based Power Shot and the sharp rotational and elemental penetration effect from INT-based Wind Arrow created an absolute penetration attack capable of ignoring the wild boar’s physical defense stats entirely.
While letting out a long breath to calm my rapidly beating heart from the excitement, I stepped out from behind the Oak tree and walked toward the monster’s death spot. On the ground lay three ordinary loot items: a piece of wild boar meat, its tusk, and some copper coins.
However, among the ordinary items, one object immediately caught all my attention. It emitted a soft, beautiful purple glow a very sacred visual marker in the game world indicating an item of high rarity.
I knelt down and picked up the object with trembling hands. It was a wrist bracer made from ancient hardened vine strands resembling black wood, with a small sapphire gem emitting faint magical energy in the center.
I immediately opened the item identification window:
[Glade Walker’s Bracer]
Type: Accessory — Wrist Bracer
Rarity: Epic
Usage Requirement: Level 5
Attribute Effect: +5 (DEX)
"Oh my god... am I really this lucky?" I muttered while staring at the bracer in my hand with wide eyes.
Getting an Epic rarity drop from a regular Level 9 monster in the mid-zone was an insanely lucky anomaly! The drop rate must have been below 1%. This was an extremely valuable reward for the early phase of the server launch. If I sold this bracer at the city auction, top-tier archer players would definitely be willing to pay thousands of gold coins for it.
Without thinking twice, I immediately equipped the black wooden bracer on my right wrist. The moment it fit perfectly against my pale skin, a warm sensation spread throughout my body, followed by a secondary surprise that made me unable to hold back a small laugh.
Ding!
[System: Special Racial Trait ’Albinism’ has been activated!]
[System: All attribute bonuses from wood/forest-type magical equipment are doubled for your pure body.]
[Your statistics have been updated: +10 Dexterity (DEX)!]
"Hehe... my trait effect really works," I chuckled softly with immense satisfaction.
Thanks to the hidden effect of my Albinism trait that granted double stats, the pure bonus from this Epic bracer didn’t just give +5 DEX, but doubled to +10 pure DEX! This was a massive power jump for a Level 6 character like me. My fingers now felt much lighter and more responsive, as if I could pull even the hardest bowstring with just one finger.
Recalling the earlier hunt and my level jumping three times at once to Level 6, I remembered that I still had 9 (AP) unallocated in my character panel.
I sat leaning against the large Oak tree’s roots, opened my virtual status screen, and carefully considered the point distribution. Because of the success of my combined magic and physical arrow technique (Wind-infused Power Shot), I knew my strength lay in the balance between physical penetration and elemental power.
I allocated my first 6 Attribute Points evenly: 3 points into Intelligence (INT) to increase mana capacity and elemental magic power, and 3 points into Dexterity (DEX) to further strengthen pure accuracy and physical bow damage.
As for the remaining 3 Attribute Points, I chose to keep them in reserve for now, as a tactical backup that could be instantly allocated in emergency situations or when new equipment required specific stat thresholds in the future.
I closed the status screen with immense joy. The combination of rapid level-ups, the creation of a deadly original technique, and the discovery of a legendary Epic bracer filled my heart with extraordinary satisfaction. I was too immersed in my pure gamer enjoyment, until I made one fatal mistake that was most taboo in the mid-zone: losing awareness of my surroundings.
The forest’s previously peaceful silence suddenly turned extremely oppressive. The forest wind seemed to stop blowing instantly, and the virtual birds’ chirping in the branches disappeared completely, replaced by a very heavy and thick atmospheric pressure.
The air around me suddenly grew cold, and a giant black shadow slowly crept down from behind, covering my entire body and plunging the area into complete darkness.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up violently. All my hunting instincts screamed hysterically, warning of absolute deadly danger standing right behind my back.
I swallowed hard. With stiff and slow movements, I turned half my body around to see what was happening.
The moment my gaze turned upward, my blood-red eyes widened in panic. My virtual heart seemed to stop beating. Standing upright on its two hind legs just two meters behind me was a massive brown-furred creature the size of a one-story house, staring at me with a pair of glowing yellow eyes full of wild rage.
Thick white steam rose from its large wet nose, and sharp fangs in its open mouth dripped saliva onto the ground. Above the giant head, a health bar layered with dark red skull patterns floated alongside the identity of the absolute ruler of this area:
[Grizzly King — Level 20 (Area Boss)]
"B-Big Bear... Area Boss..." I whispered shakily. My entire body suddenly felt weak under the [Terror] status effect emitted by the Level 20 monster.
Before my brain could think of an escape plan or move a single muscle in my legs to jump back, the Grizzly King had already raised one of its dinner-table-sized clawed paws into the air. Its blade-sharp claws glinted coldly in the forest sunlight.
WUSH!!!
Without any mercy, the giant bear swung a horizontal slap that was extremely fast and powerful toward my fragile body. The speed of its swing was completely disproportionate to its massive size.
PLAK!!!
The giant claw strike landed squarely on my body. The pure power of the slap was so terrifying that I didn’t even have time to feel physical pain. My health bar, which had been at maximum after the level-up, was instantly drained to absolute zero in a fraction of a second. My albino Elf body was sent flying straight through three bushes before finally shattering into millions of red-light particles in the air.
In an instant, my entire field of vision turned pitch black, losing visual synchronization with the Second World Online. Total silence enveloped me, before a large blood-red text finally appeared floating in the middle of the darkness:
[ YOU DIED ]
Below the grim death message, a small white digital countdown bar began ticking slowly, indicating the penalty I had to endure before my soul was allowed to resurrect at the beginner city’s starting point:
[ Resurrection Cooldown: 00:59:59 ]
I could only let out a long sigh in the darkness of the death waiting room, allowing my consciousness to rest for the next hour. My first hunt in the Eastern Forest had to end with a very harsh slap of reality from the forest ruler: that in this world, no matter how strong the technique you create, one small carelessness in the face of absolute pure power will always result in instant death.
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