[Congratulations! Player has accepted a Unique Quest: The Dragon's Heart.]

[Quest: The Dragon's Heart] (Unique)

Quest Details: Blacksmith Grimson has asked you to recover the Draconic Heart from the hidden location. Retrieve it and give it to Grimson.

Reward: The Forger's Book

This time, she had struck gold. Not only did she get an opportunity to get a Legendary Forging Talent, she also got the quest to get Forger's Book.

"Alright then, let's set off!" Sera said looking at Dream Raider. He nodded.

"How long will it take?" he asked Sera, with a quite skeptical look on his face. 

"Umm, It's 6:38 pm right? So uhh around 2 AM we can complete half of the quest." Sera said with an indifferent face.

This shocked him. One silver for that time period was a bit less than he had expected. But, what intrigued him was the thing which will take her roughly eight hours and yet shouldn't complete it.

Looking at the concerned look on his face Sera said, "Don't worry. We will divide the Equipment we will get during this mission. 90% me, 10% you. Also, any skill books related to your class, you can take."

This further dumbfounded him. She was willing to part with skill books! His numeration was definitely more than 1 silver if he got skill books and 10% part of the loot. 

"What's your level?" he asked, looking at Sera.

"Why do you ask when you have a Basic Identification Skill?" Sera asked.

"Wait, how do you know I have a Basic Identification Skill?"

"Are you serious? Every ranger gets a basic Identification skill." Sera replied nonchalantly.

"I know but I don't remember telling you that my class was Ranger." Hiirochi said with a confused look on his face.

Sera flinched, hearing his words but quickly tried to maintain a calm posture Before replying to him.

"I have one Identification skill as well."

Although she didn't possess one, she just mentioned it to avoid his question. Even if she said "I heard you were a ranger in the future" he would most likely make fun of her.

"Anyway, my level is 3. Let's keep going," she said, being a bit frustrated. Regretting her decision to bring the identification skill into the conversation and wasting a few minutes.

He then closed his mouth and nodded.

An hour later.

After scaling to the north of the Willden Mountains, they entered Barren land. It had a shit ton of monsters there roaming. Gnomes and other species.

"Stand by unless and until I ask you to engage in the fight. You do have Power Arrow Thrust, right? Charge it for now and shoot when I tell you to. Charge it to maximum," Sera instructed before approaching a monster.

[Monster: Gnome Minion] (Rare)

Level 9

HP: 50,000/50,000

"Is she Insane? That's a level 9 monster we are talking about!" Dream Raider thought in his mind. He was struggling to fight with level 4 monsters of the Elite rank and yet she was challenging a level 9 monster. If you die in a battle, you lose a level and drop a random piece of equipment of yours or an item from your inventory. Unless everything is soul bound or something.

She then charged towards Gnome Minion. It was a bit smaller than her. And there were some problems with fighting a level 9 Monster. First, level suppression. Second, an astonishing attribute gap between the two.

As soon as the Gnome Minion discovered her, it charged towards her with a great speed. The Gnome Minion used a short sword to attack her. It was very fast. Sera quickly changed her path trajectory and sliced a bit of the skin of Gnome.

-38

"Tch, the level suppression." She cursed inside her mind before using Ghost steps and vanishing in front of the Gnome. The Gnome however, somewhat kept up with her, blocked the majority of the hits. It gradually took damage but grazed Sera's body twice dealing an astonishing -250. 

Materialisation!

She quickly materialised Bread in her hand and consumed it. 

Time passed… 

-32, -31, - 1(blocked), -23, -34………

After a few minutes of fighting, the gnome's health was around 63%..

[Monster: Gnome Minion] (Rare)

Level 9

HP: 31,500/50,000

"What is that technique? Doesn't that make you invincible practically?" he thought as he looked at Sera fighting the Gnome.

He was wrong, Ghost steps was a good technique indeed but it didn't make someone invincible.  

The Gnome Minion was now a bit tired. Not too long after, Its HP hit 50% and it backed up a bit.  Before charging up for something.

"Now!" Sera ordered him. As soon as he got her signal, he released his arrow which he had charged up. It collided with the Gnome which was charging up for something.

-103

 Suddenly, it stood there senseless.

[Monster: Gnome Minion] (Rare) (Weakened, Stunned)

Level 9

HP: 25,000/50,000

Sera immediately charged, using all her attack skills she had been saving up.

Windblade!

Chop!

-812 (critical)

Lightning Chop!

-842 (critical)

Earth Splitter!

-1,236 (critical)

She then carried on with a barrage of attacks.

-103, -107, -112, -101, -103

"Charge up again!" She yelled. A few minutes passed by. It was 40 minutes and they had been fighting with the same monster.

It now had 1% HP

It had only 482 HP left. Sera continued with her attacks. 

It now had 17 HP left now, while landing her last hit she dropped her guard a bit because it was going to die anyway.

Her sword went past the Gnome Minion.

-0

"Are you kidding me?!"  

"GO!" She yelled as loudly as she could. The -1% Absolute Accuracy had triggered while attacking.

He quickly released the arrow which made its way towards the Gnome. Before it, due to its speed, the gnome went for a stab to kill Sera. Due to quick reflexes, Sera lifted her weapon and took the attack head-on.

-389

Sera had survived with 2 remaining HP.

The arrow hit the Gnome and it died.

Her experience soared from Level 3 to 68% of Level 4

"..." Sera was speechless. The real problem wasn't her miscalculation. She had foolishly taken the risk when she had a life saving skill, defense blade. Usually this should have been an instinctive reaction for her but somehow she forgot to do it. This meant her ability had regressed a lot.

Dream Raider reached 6% of Level 4.

They had instantly risen to level 4. Sera was a little down but soon overjoyed, on the other hand, Dream Raider was shocked.

Sera wasn't overjoyed that she had reached level 4. She was overjoyed because of the Drops.

A Strange-Iron item had dropped. It was an Armor with an additional ability and a passive ability!

[Defense of Steel] (Strange-Iron) 

Level 5

Category: Weapon 

Defense: +103

Movement: +5%

Strength: +9

Agility: +10

Endurance +29

Critical: + 5

Critical Damage: +1%

Additional Skill: Nullify

Upon use creates a barrier around the user of damage equal to 50% of the user's HP.

Passive Ability: Strengthened Body

If the user receives damage, the player has a 10% chance to get a temporary 1% extra defense. Can be stacked up to 10% or ten times.

Durability: 30/30

She quickly equipped the Armor and noticed a series of notifications popping up.

[Congratulations! Player's Endurance has exceeded 20 points. Rewarding with a Hidden Skill]

[Congratulations! Player's Strength has exceeded 20 points. Rewarding with a Hidden Skill]

[Skill: Harsh Struggle] (Active)

Cooldown: 2 Minutes

Skill Description:- Increases max HP by 10% for a short amount of time.

[Skill: Double Chop] (Active)

Cooldown: 30 Seconds

Skill Description:- Deals Sword Damage two times.

She had accumulated 6 Free stats from leveling up. She quickly called her status and distributed 4 points in Strength and 2 points in Agility. 

She then looked at the other loot. There were two tier 1 scrolls, 3 level 5 Bronze-ranked Equipment, A Mysterious-Silver weapon meant for Rangers.

It was a red-black textured level 5 Bow which looked cool and the stats of it were good too.

"Here, take this. Just for this mission." Sera said, as she passed the bow to Dream Raider.

He accepted it, and suddenly was filled with joy when he looked at the stats. 

[Bowier] (Mysterious-Silver) (Bow)

Level 5 

Category: Weapons

Attack: +73

Movement: +100

Accuracy: +2%

Strength: +8

Agility: +7

Dexterity: +5%

Additional Skill: Death Arrow

Upon use, User can shoot an arrow which hits the weak point of the target. The Arrow has Death Aura embedded on it which debuffs the enemy with -5% Attack, -5% Movement, -5% Defense.

"Are you sure?" he asked. "Only for this mission," she said, rolling her eyes.

Then they grinded a few Gnome Minions for the rest of the time.

And time passed, just like that.

Roughly five hours later.

[Quest: Basics of Forging] (Hidden Quest)

Quest Details: Required to kill:-

30 Quartzia Francus

30 Gnome Warrior

13/30 Gnome Minions

Reward: Forging Talent

Sera was level 6 now, and experience from these monsters had reduced by a considerable margin.

Dream Raider was level 5. They collected a lot of equipment, weapons and tier 1 scrolls. Eight level 5 Bronze Equipment, Four level 5 Bronze weapons, Two level 5 Mysterious-Silver Equipment, One level 6 Mysterious-Silver shield. Three skill books had also dropped. One skill book was a common "Break Arrow" skill for the Ranger class which Sera passed to Dream Raider.

He learned it, afterall skills were rare. Even common skills were good.

"Let's go." Sera said to him.

"Where to?" Dream Raider asked with a confused look on his face.

"To the Frivelmont Fortress," She replied calmly.