We looked at the quest board for rank D quests. There were names of new creatures. Moreover for some creatures, only mana stones were insufficient. In fact, even for a horned wolf, now we had to bring back their horn in addition to their mana stone and others required their weapons and such. Another new discovery was ‘magic stones’. I knew that magic stones were ones you supply MP to, so that you can use it, like the light magic stones in inns. But, what surprised me that some of the quest requests wanted them as proofs for the subjugation quests. Apparently, creatures or monsters that were elemental in nature or were made of magic power produce them instead of mana stones.

There was another term called ‘corrupted’ meaning benevolent creatures losing their mind and becoming malevolent due to their environment. The worst part of these corrupted beings was that it was infectious. Thus when a few creatures turn corrupted the rest of their kin abandon them, as there is no other solution. Luckily, it only spreads to the same species, unluckily they can still re-spawn or reproduce more of their own species, and thus need to be subjugated.

Seven rank D subjugation quests wanted magic stones as proofs and three of them were from corrupted species (sprites, pixies and brownies). The other four required mana stones, totaling to 11 different subjugation quests in rank D. 10 corrupted sprites and pixies separately gave 10 silvers. 5 imps and corrupted brownies gave 10 silvers each. Boggarts, changelings and undines gave 15 silvers for 5. Then the ones requiring mana stones were 5 kobold miners for 15 silvers, 1 horned wolf for 5 silvers, 2 kobold warriors for 15 silvers and 1 kobold shaman for 10 silvers. In order of strength:

[Subjugation: Kill 10 corrupted sprites. Proof: magic stone. Reward: 15 silver. Rank: D].

[Subjugation: Kill 10 corrupted pixies. Proof: magic stone. Reward: 15 silver. Rank: D].

[Subjugation: Kill 5 elemental imps. Proof: magic stone. Reward: 10 silver. Rank: D].

[Subjugation: Kill 5 corrupted brownies. Proof: magic stone. Reward: 10 silver. Rank: D].

[Subjugation: Kill 5 boggarts. Proof: magic stone. Reward: 15 silver. Rank: D].

[Subjugation: Kill 5 changelings. Proof: magic stone. Reward: 15 silver. Rank: D].

[Subjugation: Kill 5 undines. Proof: magic stone. Reward: 15 silver. Rank: D].

[Subjugation: Kill 5 kobold miners. Proof: mana stone. Reward: 15 silver. Rank: D].

[Subjugation: Kill 1 horned wolf. Proof: mana stone and horn. Reward: 5 silver. Rank: D].

[Subjugation: Kill 2 kobold warriors. Proof: mana stone and weapon. Reward: 15 silver. Rank: D].

[Subjugation: Kill 1 kobold shaman. Proof: mana stone and staff. Reward: 10 silver. Rank: D].

As horned wolves were third strongest and we could solo it with a little effort, it wouldn't be that difficult to complete these quests even if it’s just Ken and I. Ken and I decided to start from the weakest and work our way up. For today we decided to kill corrupted sprites and pixies. We decided to do five of each, so for now we took 3 quest requests for one and two for the other. By the end of the day that would mean a profit of 75 silvers each. That is, if we can do all 10 by today. Most gave exp between 20-30. Except horned wolves gave 50, kobold warriors gave 75 and kobold shamans gave 100.

Right now I was 60% to level 13 and Ken was 80% to level 12. So by today, even if I don’t reach 13, Ken would definitely reach 12. Who am I kidding? Corrupted sprites and pixies gave 20 exp each. And we’d kill at least 50 (if not 100 of them). So that’s 500 exp each, we might just go up two levels! But dang, we’ll have to kill so many of them… Oh well, that’s why it’s called grinding.

I submitted the five quests and then Ken and I headed to the weapons shop to get him a better shield. His shield was rank F, and was practically a decoration against rank D monsters. So we were pooling together our resources to get him a rank C shield. Ken decided to get a shield with one option: 50% chance of stun for 2 seconds. It was a really neat option, but it took a total of 135 silvers. I had had 95 silvers but was now down to a round figure of 25. Ken paid the rest and he now owed me 70 silvers. I could practically see the tears in his eyes when we also had to pay 2 silvers to sharpen our current dismantling knives.

We left the shop and headed out of town. After checking with the guards, we found out that the kobold monsters lived in caves while the others lived in various parts of the forest and a small lake inside the forest. We headed to the region where the corrupted sprites and pixies resided, incidentally they were located on either end of the forest. So we decided to go to the further end to catch corrupted pixies first. Next time we decided to either catch monsters that were close to each other or the same type of monster.

The pixies were magical beings, fairy like creatures, that were half a foot tall. They had pointed ears and different colored pointed hats. The color on their hat along with their eye color symbolized their elemental type. So blue, red, yellow and green were respectively water, fire, earth and wind affinity. Thus the magic stones they would produce would also be that color.

The only differences between regular and corrupt pixies were their intent (malicious), the darkness surrounding or enveloping them and the fact that their magic was stronger. That’s right, the main thing that we would have to be weary of was their magic attack. I guessed that we would have to be the most careful against the fire elemental corrupted pixies. Speed was the main criteria in this battle and the second would be stamina. The plus point was that their defense was really low and their agility: average.

This was the first time I would see magic. Can’t lie, I was a little anxious yet excited at the same time. We spotted our first targets. Two earth and one water type corrupted pixies. The water type noticed us first and alerted the other two, but it itself died by Ken’s sword. I used the mace AoE and took out the other two together. It was a waste of MP, next time I’ll swing without using the skill, I think I’d still be able to kill them. Our strategy was sneak attacks and close range combat.

The moment we had killed them, the darkness stopped surrounding them. Of the three magic stones two were brown in color and one was blue. It looked like a mana stone except mana stones had sharp edges while magic stones were more rounded. So we continued our tactic, when we couldn’t surprise attack them, we dodged their attacks and ran away then suddenly made U-turns and went on the attack. It worked out but was a slow process, confirming my theory that we couldn’t go to hunt corrupted sprites today. It was too far away, so we decided to stick to pixies. A few pixies later, Ken leveled up to 12. Another few and I leveled up. I decided to allocate one extra stat to stamina, thus making my free stat down from 3 to 2.

Since the battles weren’t life threatening, I decided to use the mace CC and AoE continuously so that they level up. Of course, I wanted to level up the evasion as well, so every now and then when the pixies threw their spells, instead of dodging on my own I would use the evasion skill. But I was only using evade with the water and earth spells. Water, because it was the weakest in power and earth because even if evasion wouldn’t activate, I could fling away the earth balls using my mace as a bat. So much effort just because the evade skill had a 25% activation rate.

We decided to take a short break to eat, as we had the rations, why go hungry? We had half our lunch, and decided to have the rest after two more hours so that we wouldn’t get cramps while fighting. Of course we also took pee breaks while the other guarded, so embarrassing. It was fine if it was Jackie, because we were both girls, but with Ken I felt embarrassed. Well, I’d just have to get used to it.

By now we had killed almost two dozen corrupted pixies. We decided to aim for a dozen more before the next food break and two dozen more before dusk. This would give us exactly 60 magic stones, enough for 6 quests. Since we had taken 3 quest requests in the morning, we could go back and accept 3 more. If we continue our pace we would probably level up at the end of the day. We would get around 360 more exp, so Ken (who was in the middle of level 12) might just make it to level 14 at the end of the day, while I would easily make it to 14.

After hitting our aim, Ken leveled up, we had lunch and then continued our strategy. It was around 4 when I leveled up to 14 and by the end of the day Ken also reached 14. Moreover, my mace CC and evade had also leveled up. [Skills:

Mace AoE: Hit multiple targets with a sweeping gesture. 75% chance of knock back. Proficiency: level 3. MP: 10.

Mace CC: Bash a single target with 25% chance of stun for 3 seconds. Proficiency: level 3. MP: 5.

Evade: Receive an attack with only a half of its power and a 25% chance of completely dodging. Proficiency: level 1. MP: 20.]

We went back around 7, reaching the guild 30 minutes. After completing the regular process and repeating it again we got the reward of 45 silvers each. Our guild cards now sported a shade of deep blue and I had 40/40 completed quests and 2 quests taken. 19 more rank D quests to go. We also accepted 3 more subjugation of corrupted sprites quest requests so that we would not have to come to the AG in the morning.

By the time we were done, Jared and Jackie had arrived. We waited for them to finish, then had dinner together: spaghetti and meatballs. We exchanged stories and it turns out their plan was the same as ours except they had gone for hunting corrupted sprites today. We exchanged tips. Other than the fact that sprites could fly we had used the same strategy as the other. Of course, by fly I meant just a few feet off the ground because they were not strong enough to fly higher.

Another day neared its end as we parted ways for the night. The next day Ken and I made it to the dwelling of the corrupted sprites. Just as Jackie and Jared had said the night before, they had colored wings at their backs, the color depicted their elemental affinity. They looked exactly like pixies… Half a foot high, pointed ears, minus the hats and plus the pair of wings. We took care of them easily enough, as they could barely fly a little over our heads, at most.

Some of them tried to fly away to escape, but when we would kill their comrades, they would start attacking. By the end of the day we both leveled up twice by killing 50 of them. I guess two taxing days of hunting took a toll on us because we only managed to complete only 5 quests.