After analyzing that battle while he was skinning the frozen grizzlies, Jake realized that perhaps he had been neglecting his strength a bit. It was a fact that the monsters had been getting stronger. Still, he could count on the fingers of a single hand the number of times he increased his strength without relying on passive skills or the bonuses of the classes. It was time to plan a bit ahead...
"There are too many parameters that I can't ignore, so I guess this can't be helped… Instead of forcing through my way with burr strength, I should use my head a bit more," Jake thought.
After storing the fur, some of the meat, and the claws in one of his magic boxes, Jake began to move again. He had to move for a while to finally found some monsters, but he frowned when he saw them suddenly rising from some piles of snow nearby some trees.
"Were they sleeping there?" Jake thought while frowning. "Their fur must be quite resistant to cold…"
He was already planning to use the fur like that on his armor to help him with the cold during some storms, but Jake didn't expect that it would be that useful… Nevertheless, Jake drew his sword and then waited for the enemies to come. After using Concentrated Strike for ten seconds, his entire right arm began to hurt. Still, he only felt bones cracking twenty seconds later when the enemies were upon him, and the bonuses exceeded his own strength.
Jake swung his sword and then hit the left side of one of the monsters, the creature tried to block the strike with one of its arms but ended up losing that, and the sword also cut the monster's torso almost up to its halfway point. That monster was out of combat and was going to die in a couple of seconds, but the other two managed to attack Jake.
Jake used his shield to block both claws, and once again, he felt like he had been big by a twenty meters tall metal pole. The beasts charged at him again even before he could stop moving, and this time, their claws began to emit a cold wind. That couldn't be good… Jake enchanted his shield with fire magic and then used Explosive Touch when he blocked the attacks.
A small explosion happened, and while Jake was pushed backward again, but the Grizzlies also suffered some damage on their claws since they didn't chase Jake. He used that chance to charge at them, and when they were busy waiting for their claws to recover, Jake used Full swing, and he opened a large wound on the monster's arm when it tried to block the arack. The beast grunted, but then the other pointed both arms toward Jake and then fired some Ice Arrows.
Jake almost got caught off guard since the first group never used that kind of spell. Still, he blocked them all with his sword. The beast kept firing until it ran out of mana, and then the wounded beast took the place of the other. Jake wasn't surprised that they wanted to keep him away, but he soon moved toward them. During the charge, Jake fired several Mana Blades toward the wounded beast, and then he attacked the other. The monster had planned to use both arms to stop him, but then Jake summoned his lance and used Sonic Blows. The fast and heavy attacks impaled the arms of that creature and almost pierced the chest of the second one.
After wounding both creatures like that, Jake had an easy time finishing them off. While he was working on getting the fur and the claws, Jake was starting to think that those creatures would be easier to attack with arrows or magic. They had some resistance against physical and magical attacks. Still, they weren't skilled enough to react against a barrage of those… Naturally, some elemental arrows and things like lightning magic would be a better way to handle them while ignoring their fur.
"It might take a while to clear the dungeon if I keep wasting this much time against those things…" Jake thought.
In the next fight, Jake used his shurikens and Boomerang Shield to blind the Grizzlies, but they could protect their eyes well with their arms. Fortunately, that made them wide open for attacks on their hearts, so Jake used that in his favor.
"Come to think of it… that announcement made me forget that, but I have that new skill," Jake thought.
When Jake found new monsters, he tried to use Currency Damage. Although he could only use it once per second, it still caused quite a bit of damage before the enemies approached him. The only problem was the fact that he couldn't control the place where the damage was landing. He was planning to weaken the monsters' defenses by targetting their hearts or heads, but their entire body suffered the damage. The only good thing about that was that few spells could work against that skill and the other downside was the fact that the monsters didn't drop coins after they were killed…
"I guess this will only be useful against large numbers of monsters since players and bosses usually have tons of coins," Jake thought. "Well, there are many times that I was overloaded with coins and wanted to save time killing monsters faster, so this will be useful."
After a while, the skill began to level up quite fast, and the number of encounters increased as well. Unfortunately, the enemies always appeared in three groups, so Jake used Currency Damage quite often. However, he soon stopped using it when he reached the base of the mountain where he believed the dungeon was, and there he found many of those piles of snow that the Frozen Grizzlies used to hide. It was time to save time in a more efficient way, even if he had to suffer a bit for it.
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