That night, Jake slept even more than usual, but only because he didn't have anything to do after tidying his apartment. As usual, he woke up alongside the sunset and then went for a run. Also, as usual, he logged in around eight in the morning. Jake always logged in to the same place, two hundred meters away from the crystal server and one hundred meters away from Luke's show, and it was there that Lana and Louise were waiting for him.
"I am starting to think that you two have too little friends…" Jake said.
"Look who is talking," Lana said. "Anyway, are we going to the new map today?"
"I suppose…" Jake replied.
"What is the name of the place?" Louise asked. "Based on the name, maybe we should get some new gear."
"The Hellish Desert," Jake replied while he wondered if he should buy the item that Luke mentioned yesterday to get a new class."
"Aw, come on… another hot place?" Lana protested with a dejected expression on her face. "Give me a break."
Jake was beginning to see a pattern in those maps. In most of the, it was pretty hard for the players to locate themselves and even more so to find the dungeons. Now that he thought about it, the crossbow will be essentially useless if the monsters have some resistance against fire magic.
"Well, I suppose it can't be helped," Jake shrugged.
Since they had no business with Luke today, they headed toward the crystal server, and there Jake found the list of missions he could access now. While on the fourth map, he could access only two types of missions, survive and hunt, on the others, he already could clear the dungeons as well.
Clear the Giant Bats' Dungeon – Reward: 150 fame, 1500 coins, and a magic weapon.
Clear the Deadly Bees' Dungeon – Reward: 200 fame, 2000 coins, and a magic item.
"It doesn't seem like we can obtain new special classes in the second and third map's dungeon," Jake said. "Well, it makes sense since it would make too many people to go in those places."
"We can always clear the dungeon later, let's go explore a new plane!" Lana said.
"You talk as if we were tourists…" Jake furrowed his eyebrows.
Nevertheless, Jake chose the second mission of the new map. Kill five hundred Hard Scorpions. It seemed a bit risky, considering that they had no idea how tough those opponents were. Still, it was better than wasting time, considering that he could gain more coins by forcing himself to succeed. If they succeed, each one of them will gain two thousand extra coins and two hundred points in fame. Considering the rewards alone, one would think that the difficulty was on the same level as defeating the fire slime boss…
Nevertheless, they soon were teleported to the new map, and the group saw themselves standing in the middle of a desert. The map was quite weird, though. There were many tall dunes around them, so fighting in such a place would be quite difficult, just like moving around.
"Wow… the air is quite hot here, makes it hard to breathe," Louise said.
"The sand is also… sandy?" Lana said while stepping around to get a good feeling about the place. "It would be awesome if the fourth map were inside a pyramid or something… this area is just too boring."
"Well, the inhabitants of this area appeared to make us feel welcome," Jake said and then unsheathed his sword.
Hard Scorpion Lv 08
Health: 100/100
Mana: 110/110
Stamina: 90/90
The monsters weren't as big as the snow wolves, but they were pretty big, like one and a half meters long and wide, but they were short. To compensate for that, they had a tail that was as big as their body. Their carapace also seemed pretty sturdy, and on each side of their bodies, they had five pawns that also looked surprisingly sharp.
The weirdest thing about them, or perhaps natural, it was the fact that they didn't come walking… they emerged from the sands. That was a bad sign… because there was the chance that they could ignore the formation of Jake's group and then attack first the backline. Nevertheless, three enemies appeared in front of them, and Jake dashed toward them. However, Jake had to stop pretty soon when the enemies moved their tails and fired small bullets of poison.
Jake protected his face with his katana and scabbard against two shots while he moved his head to his left side to dodge another. He didn't suffer any damage, but he saw some smoke coming from his sword and scabbard… they would lose durability quite quick if he focus on blocking instead of dodging.
"Keep your eyes open, I can't block these attacks every single time," Jake warned the girls behind him.
The monsters tried to approach when Jake blocked their attacks, and he confirmed that they were slow. It was only natural, given that most parts of their bodies were covered in the carapace. Still, before attacking them first with his sword, he hit the faces of two of them with Mana Blade. Meanwhile, Louise froze the face of another with Ice Arrow. The attacks caused a lot of damage and made the monsters flinch, so Jake used that chance to pierce the face of one of the monsters with all of his might.
Class: Squire Lv 05/ Gladiator Lv 01/--
Race: --/--/--
Fame: 610
Health: 63/106 (0, 04)
Mana: 22/87 (0, 04)
Stamina: 11/90 (0,04)
Strength: 36
Dexterity: 06
Speed: 22
Intelligence: 06
Endurance: 16
Control: 05
Mentality: 08
Luck: 03
Recovery: 26
Willpower: 11
Coins: 6822
Status: 00
Skill List
Active Physical Skills: Bash Lv 03, Dash Lv 01, Mana Blade Lv 04
Passive Physical Skills: Hyper Body Lv 07, ????, ????, ????, ????, ????, ????, Pain Resistance Lv 02 Bronze Skin Lv 01, Swordsmanship Lv 07, Concentration Lv 01, Lesser Vampirism Lv 04, Improved Recovery Lv 09, Stamina Boost Lv 01,
Spells: Analysis Lv 01, Appraisal Lv 04, Barrier Lv 01, Stealth Lv 01, Meditation Lv 01
Support Spells: Fire Resistance Lv 11, Earth Resistance Lv 01
Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om