"Thanks for your patronage," Luke said. "Did I already say that I am impressed? I have never been in a group making so much progress like you guys."
"What is with you so suddenly? It is giving me the creeps…" Jake furrowed his eyebrows.
"Now you understand what I feel when you act so nicely," Lana said.
"There is no need to be suspicious. I am just giving a few words of praise," Luke said. "I can't wait to see you guys catching up with the veterans."
"It isn't like this is a race… still. Are we to expect on more advanced missions?" Jake asked since Luke touched on the topic.
"Lots of fun," Luke replied with a smile on his face.
That was enough for Jake to understand that Luke wouldn't reveal a single thing about the missions ahead in the game. Still, Jake was having a hard time imagining his party catching up with the first players… However, after thinking for a while, he understood that lots of headaches would be waiting for them since it would be weird if there were a lot of PKs in higher leveled missions.
Once their shopping was done, they headed toward the crystal server, and they noticed that the place was bustling with even more players that afternoon. While it was Saturday, Jake didn't imagine that he would see so many hardcore players like him playing in the afternoon and soon in the evening.
"May3be Luke knows what is going on. Shall we ask him?" Lana asked.
"Nah, it probably won't affect us in any way, so it doesn't matter," Jake replied.
Jake selected the second mission of the Deadly Forest, and then they were teleported. As usual, they were teleported to a random place where neither of them could know which direction would lead them to the center of the forest.
"Let's take it slowly for the time being and focus on mastering our new gear," Jake said.
Little by little, the bees began to move toward them. Using Fire Wave, Louise burned some of them in a couple of seconds, thanks to Lana's support. Jake only learned that now, but the area of effect spells could be controlled pretty well. The caster can make it appear and disappear with a single thought. The only problem was the consumption of mana. For example, Fire Wave creates a three-meter-long wall that consumes ten points of mana per second.
Although Jake didn't have to run, and he certainly didn't need any extra strength, Lana still used Hermes' Blessing and Thor's Blessing on him. Jake's strength reached a level where he basically could cut down the bee's sting and then behead in only two strikes.
"As expected… the level of difficulty decreased exponentially," Jake thought.
The level of the bees increased by three, but they still couldn't resist Jake's full power. That being said, things still were bound to become quite intense the more they approached the center of the forest and the boss.
Jake looked around after defeating a few dozen monsters, but he really couldn't see them coming from any particular direction. So, he had to reach the center of the village by following the hard path.
"I suppose we can take it easy for today," Jake shrugged.
Things would end faster if Jake hurried toward the center of the village, but he didn't have to until they decided to clear the dungeon for good. Not to mention, Lana and Louise were deep in thought. While Jake liked the silence, things only get weird when two chatterboxes stay quiet for too long.
"Why are we just walking?" Lana asked. "Knowing you, I thought we would head toward the center of the forest as fast as possible and then decrease the number of enemies."
"We can do that other day when you two are more focused on the task," Jake said. "For the time being, use this chance to clear your head and level up your skills. You will need Hermes Blessing to catch up with my speed in the next few days, so use it as much as possible."
"We won't be able to level it up too much, but I think you should lend us those rings too, just in case," Lana said.
Jake nodded. The skills of the ring of strength and speed should come in handy even in the hands of mages. So once Jake mastered them, he lent them to the girls. That being said, just recalling the previous day where they had to run for quite a while and were still unable to keep up with Jake made them feel like sighing.
Congratulations! The class Swordsman has leveled up. Your strength and health have increased by two points, and your mana, stamina, speed, and endurance have increased by one point.
Congratulations! The skill Hyper Body has leveled up.
Even though Jake was going easy, his skills still were leveling up quite fast. Nevertheless, such thoughts disappeared from his mind when he found an exit from the forest, and then he found those snow mountains again. However, they didn't find only the snow wolves. They also found dozens of players hunting the monsters and then heading to a certain mountain, apparently.
"I never saw a big group of players like this outside the crystal server town," Lana said. "What are they doing?"
"Maybe it is related to what we saw earlier in the town…" Louise said.
It made sense, but Jake couldn't understand why a guild of that size would attract so much attention when they were only on the fifth map of the game. Did that mission has some special reward? Or was there another reason for that? Jake was really curious about it.
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