Chapter 71 – Hidden Challenge Part 8, Bjorn's Letter and Smoke Bombs
“Here’s five phials, sister Rosalia~. That’s all the phials I could find in the kitchen, so it’s five for you and five for Spoon for now, which should be enough~” the black cat with white mittens said as she handed over a few phials to Rosalia.
Meat Shield was right, five was just about enough. You couldn’t just binge the same kind of potion consecutively because consuming a potion started a cooldown. Otherwise everyone could just chug their way to full hp in the middle of a fight and healers would be obsolete and the balancing of the game would be atrocious.
Although the 50 health and mana restoration was about as effective as a light health and mana potion respectively, the 50 divine energy restoration and mild cleansing effect as well as the temporary buff made the item [Phial of Luxuria’s Hot Spring Water] unquestionably up to par as a divine tier consumable. Hell, I could sell this stuff by the thousands if I ever bought a deed for land and set up shop.
What a cool function of the hot spring bath, acting as a renewable source of free divine tier potions. Although, as appetizing as a divine tier potion sounded... I still felt a bit apprehensive about drinking literal bath water. Maybe it was better to think about it as spring water instead.
“Thank you~” Rosalia responded, happily petting Meat Shield. “Oh wow, it even restores divine energy. That’s super useful~”
Stepping out of the water, Rosalia wrapped a smaller towel around her hair and grabbed a strange wooden box contraption, along with three small round dark purple spheres and a pouch. “Bjorn wanted you to have these. He gave me some too, as a parting gift.”
“Where is he now?”
“He’s back in Jagged Dorsa. After you died to the mimic, we decided not to go any further into the tomb, and headed back to his original waterfall base. We made it back after a week of traveling and hiding, and I stayed at the water base with him until the challenge started, which teleported me here.”
“Both Bjorn and I were in the bath when the challenge started, but since non-players can’t join the challenge, and my portal led straight into challenge grounds, the system moved him back to his originating location. So Bjorn is safe~”
“And he even said he’ll talk to the dwarven chief and convince him that not all humans are bad, so we can visit next time as guests~”
I nodded, relieved to hear that Bjorn was safe and sound. I was thinking of recruiting him in the future as a resident if I was ever in a position to establish a settlement. Having a dwarf as cunning and mechanically gifted as Bjorn managing the settlement would boost the productivity of the settlement by several fold. And most importantly, I liked and trusted him.
“Wait… what happened to Siege Tank Golem?”
“Oh, your golem didn’t make it… I’m sorry…”
“His core shattered in the acid rain, but we managed to save his core crystal, so maybe you can find a way to restore him in the future.
Rosalia handed me a red crystal with a wistful look on her face. “I’m really sorry about golem, he was a good friend…”
“It’s alright, he sacrificed himself so we could make it,” I said, although I had a heavy guilty feeling in my chest, as if I let my friend down.
Looking at the bright red crystal in my hand, I thought back on the stalwart rock buddy and vowed that I’d do everything in my power to restore his body.
I carefully placed the red crystal in Bjorn’s hand crafted pouch, then took a look at the contraptions that he gifted me. There was a letter tucked inside the pouch, which I took out and read.
Dear Spoon,
I hope this finds you in good health. Attached are a few items that may help you in your journey ahead. In the pouch are three smoke bombs and one of my favorite homemade contraptions.
To use the smoke bombs, simply crush the sphere in the palm of your hand and then pull the string. This will cause a plume of heavy purple smoke. The mixture is nontoxic so don’t be afraid to breathe it in. I’d prefer if you crushed the spheres in your hand instead of throwing them on the ground, because the bombs can be reassembled rather easily as long as you keep the base of the bomb. To reassemble the bomb, just use a powder made of dried juniper berries and crushed burnt tree bark, which are rather easy ingredients to find. Juniper berries can be found in low hanging shrub bushes in most areas, and for burnt tree bark, simply carve off some dry bark from a tree, then roast it over a campfire for about thirty minutes or until burnt black and flaky. The combination of these two ingredients is highly flammable, and will easily catch fire when exposed to friction from the string pull.
The wooden contraption is a prototype all purpose trap that I’ve painstakingly designed out of necessity. When you throw it, it will explode into a spike trap because of the pressure circuits interwoven into the sides of the wooden cube. However, there is also a thick string spool compartment that you can use to set up more elaborate movement triggered spike executions. I’ve drawn a diagram in the back of this parchment detailing how to use it, but it may be a bit difficult to understand for you humans, since Rosalia seemed to have trouble when I explained it to her as well. The trick is to use the leverage from the tautness of a reverse gordian knot to counterbalance and set up a tense string that will snap backwards when pulled, for example when something walks through it. I’m sure you’ll be able to figure it out. This little wonder has helped me kill four raptors without any effort. Very deadly trap when utilized properly.
Thank you for all that you’ve done for me. I’ll be speaking with the chief to make an exception for you and Rosalia as honored guests at our outpost in Jagged Dorsa. Thor be with you in your journeys ahead.
P.S. tell Cerebi that I will have the most exquisite wild wheat beer prepared for her the next time she visits.
I flipped the parchment over and took a look at the diagram, which was insanely complicated. From what I could gather from a cursory look, the string system was what allowed the wooden box to explode after being thrown. I saw him use it against the mimic, but as a thrown weapon it was rather useless. The real value in this contraption came from its trap mode. Anything that could kill something as deadly as a raptor without any endangerment of the user was an item of interest to me.
The purple smoke bombs were immediately useful and rather self explanatory, especially because now I had [Blood Lust] to track player movements through a smokescreen, as long as they were wounded. What a useful gift. Next time I saw Bjorn, I’d have to give him something equally valuable.
Now that I was thinking about my time with Bjorn, I suddenly remembered that there was a locket in the real treasure chest next to the mimic chest. Summoning my inventory, I took the locket out and examined it again.
[??? Locket]
[Your lore is not high enough to properly identify this item. Please bring it to a shopkeeper with an adequate lore level.]
I put the locket on.
…
Nothing happened.
Maybe it was a treasure, but for now, it had no use for me. I stored it in my inventory and spoke to Rosalia.
“Gonna go now, I’ll see you later.”
“Bye~ take care, and be safe~”
Summoning a portal to the outside, I stepped back into the old castle courtyard with a new pouch fastened onto my belt.
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Dozens of dead bodies littered the hill above, as the melee intensified in fervor during my absence. The fighting had made its way down to the courtyard as well, as the level 86 orc player from before dueled a fighter and a rogue by himself. They didn’t notice my entry, so I snuck to the cover of a nearby tree to reassess the situation.
Using my demi-human enhanced vision and blood lust trait, which allowed me to see vague red mists leaking from open wounds, I saw that at least seven of the dead bodies on the hill were caused by [Backstab]. It had to be the work of that level 90 assassin from before, although I didn’t see her shimmering invisible form stalking around the battlefield.
I quickly looked behind me, just in case I was her next target. Nothing.
Since I was sitting relatively safe on nine tickets even after giving Rosalia two, maybe I could sit back and use telekinetic whip control to attack from a distance while they were busy fighting each other.
Sshkk.
-70 health.
An arrow embedded itself in my back, momentarily shocking me in pain. I heard the whistle of a second arrow head towards me, and immediately threw myself to the ground and barrel rolled to cover on the other side of the courtyard’s pillar.
A moment later, another arrow whizzed past the pillar I was hiding behind. Just a few meters in front of me in the courtyard, the level 86 orc warrior struck down the rogue with a powerful mace blow to the head.
Why the hell did the archer go for me instead of the easy targets up ahead? Well, I guess they looked a bit better armored than me, so maybe that was why…
As another arrow whizzed past my face, I noticed that the angle that it came from had changed, meaning that the archer was moving.
“Summon cat.”
Meat Shield plopped next to me, as I kneeled down and half whispered to her.
“Can you tell me where the archer is? I don’t want to poke my head out.”
Meat Shield nodded, peeking around the corner before reporting back to me. “She’s walking down into the courtyard. In about thirty seconds she’ll have a good angle on you, so you’d better move now~”
Summoning love whip in my left hand, I threw the whip in the air and telekinetically controlled it to float towards the general vicinity of where the archer was shooting from. Another arrow flew towards the whip, which was my signal to go. Taking advantage of the second or two that it took her to notch her next shot, I sprinted out into the open and located her.
I spotted her instantly, because she was standing out in the open. Level 81 female archer with a dagger strapped onto her hip, wearing the [Steel Guild] insignia over her leather ranger armor. Seeing that insignia instantly pissed me off, but I knew that the guild had grown to a point that this particular archer probably never even met Steel Slice.
She notched another arrow and let it loose straight at my head.
“Shadow.”
Bursting into a cloud of mist, I sped directly towards her with adamantite poleaxe in hand. The archer gasped and wavered for a moment from seeing my nightmarish ability in action, and shot another arrow that passed harmlessly through my cloud. After seeing that her bow was ineffective, she unequipped it and drew her dagger, which gleamed a deep blue. It was made of mithril, and looked rather expensive.
A moment later, I reemerged right in front of her with my poleaxe cocked back.
“Hyaaa!” I shouted, stabbing forward with my poleaxe. The spear tip dug into her leather armor, and blood dripped down the fresh wound.
112 damage.
I followed up with a slash, which barely missed her, and then another forward thrust that pierced her again. She tried to counter with a dagger swing, but the range of my adamantite poleaxe gave me an inherent advantage over her dagger.
107 damage.
Thanks for the chapter
"reverse gordian knot" Sure that totally makes sense
dwarven engineering
Thanks for the chapter. who is Haerim again?
she will come up again in about 15 chapters I think, it's the first girl spoon used his [restrain] against
@tastytots The kinky girl outside the secret tunnel, got it
@Coolcid78
. . . We seem to be forgetting something. [Spoon] is a THIEF——So why doesn’t he use his [Pickpocket] Skill?
Just binge read the whole story until this point and i really have to scratch my head at the lvl system.
Not that the mc is lvl 86. After all he killed a couple hundred npcs and players with at least a similar lvl during the whole dwarf invasion fiasco. But how the hell did the rest of the players reach such a high lvl so fast? Like seriously? The whole goblin invasion supposedly cut off nearly all good farming grounds because you couldn't leave the village for more than 100m until you get swarmed by goblins. Even pvp would loose effectivness if you are lvl 50 and pk a lvl 5 player. So how the hell did someone reach lvl 100 in an mmorpg in just 2 months if the difficulty was completly broken(and not just 1 through luck like the mc did but apparently dozens of players are close).
Then i have to ask about the whip and the decomposition ability as well. What influences the damage for this whip? Because sometimes it is portrayed as the mosterslyer 3000 and then again as completly useless garbage despite attacking alread injured parts. Sometimes that gives you a critical because the part is already injured and sometimes it doesn't because for whatever reason the injury doesn't matter anymore. Like seriously if the mc decomposed the armor and part of the flesh beneath and then hits with the whip that's a crit and not 5 damage because of the no-longer existing armor. Sometimes you are writing it like that. Sometimes the decomposed armor doesn't exist anymore so hitting the raw flesh is a crit and gives high damage and sometimes the armor magically reappears so you barely do any damage.
You have to decide for either but both is just confusing
>But how the hell did the rest of the players reach such a high lvl so fast?
30 day death penalty
>>But how the hell did the rest of the players reach such a high lvl so fast?
hidden challenge is not for normal players. only the best players are here, including almost all the rankers. Spoon is already close in level to rankers.
@tastytots ..That's still far too fast lvling by all these rankers. We are 1month and 20 days into the game(maybe a few days more more). Now the goblin invasion slows down lvling through loosing many low level quests and good farming spots which cuts down xp gain by around50%(estimated and only through the lost farming spots and quests). That means the rankers would have reached level 100 in under 1 month which means under 3hours per level(without a single death during the entire time). I don't know when you played your last mmorpg but 2.4 hours for a lvl after reaching lvl 50(after all you can only play 8h per day)? Just not happening. More like 20 h per lvl.
And that is a best case scenario anyway because everyone crowds the still existing cities and farming spots and has to compete for the quest there after loosing quite a few other cities with their quests already. If you get such a quest you are further slowed down by all the goblin patrols you have to slay on the way which give mediocre amounts of xp.
And finally everyone has to search for the good gear as well. Nobody posted all the good farming spots because nobody knew them in the beginning. Best gear is either from bossfights and bosses don't respawn every 5mins or from quests. Both have to be found/beaten first and then the group who did it has to post the location for others to find it...
@matze3 fighting against the monster coalition is actually a good source of experience and what most rankers have been doing (as well as pk, another great source of xp), it's just that the monster coalition has wiped out a lot of other options like dungeons and stuff which are now inaccessible.
Good gear is a different thing, people have decent gear but the truly good gear is still hiding in those dungeons and places that are not very accessible at the moment.
Also note that a lot of the quests that give rewards have been shifted to monster coalition related quests, because this world event is all encompassing. It kind of sucks for the player base having so many options eliminated because this world event is under way but the xp gains are still there
@tastytots But even if it's a good source of xp it also means you get killed quite a lot because the goblins and trolls etc swarm you and you can't get away. Upon death you loose lvl and playtime. Reaching lvl 100 like that means not going lvl 1, 2, 3 ,4 , 5, 6 ,7 but rather lvl 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, death loose 2 lvl 3,4,5, 6etc.
And that slows down the leveling time enormously. If you had unlimited playtime i wouldn't say anything but you capped that at 8hours with additional penalty that you can't continue playing that day. Reaching lvl 100 under these conditions in this time frame? Just not possible. Especially in a new game where the best farming spots etc are not known yet
@matze3
Imagine the dwarf expedition, except just near the capital and not halfway across the map in the middle of nowhere. Players go with the army itself to clear out monsters, it's an all out war.
@tastytots that would still mean that the exp is divided by 50 or however big the expedition is. Considering how weak these goblins are it amounts to 1xp each per goblin. How many goblins do you think they killed in under 2 months?
And yes they could go for harder monsters but they would have to find them first. That means they have to explore the map, crossing their fingers not to run into some boss monster or too strong monster that kills them with 1 attack so that they might find a monster with a similar lvl that got high enough respawns to farm them to lvl up. If there were expeditions for harder monster the army wouldn't have made that little gambit with the dwarven expedition like they did. They could have advertised it just as another expedition so no expedition farming except the suicide mission and goblins.
The whole problem is that you don't exactly know how strong the monsters are and where to find ones suited for your lvl. That means when you see a black monster when you are lvl 20 it could mean it is meant for lvl 50 or lvl 75 or lvl 100 so you have to return there and waste many hours just searching for the right farming spots.
Reaching lvl 100 in an mmorpg isn't impossible within 2 months. However reaching it within 2 months in a new mmorpg with a disaster lvl event and no knowledge of the game world when you start? That is very much impossible with the death penalties and time limits for playing as described