Ken and I were both at level 15 now. Since we both were involved equally in fights, we were almost sharing the exp as 50-50. Till rank E, in party quests exp was divided equally. But from rank D onwards, it is divided according to the contribution. Of course, this had little effect on the four of us, as everyone gets equally involved. It was probably difficult for support classes, though I haven’t met anyone like that yet, so I wouldn’t know. Speaking of level up, Ken and I have each gotten a new skill, since we’ve hit level 15.

Ken has now got the skill ‘Berserk State’ (boost - 20 MP) and I got the same skill that Jared has, ‘Dash (blink - 10 MP)’. So now my skills are:

[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 50% chance of completely dodging. Proficiency: level 2. MP: 20.

Dash: Speed up/blink 3 meters in one direction. CD: 5 seconds. Proficiency: level 1. MP: 10.]

A new term has popped up, cool down (CD). So dash isn’t a skill that I can use continuously. I have to wait 5 seconds to use it again. The skill itself is pretty straight forward, fast transportation 3 meters in one direction. This would be useful for surprise attacks, as well as for dodging. I was excited to try it out.

The next day we woke up around noon, so that we were fully energized for the hunt. In fact, we decided that every two days we’d sleep in, as a half rest day. And today was that day. We took the subjugation quest for imps this time. We had to only kill 5 imps per quest instead of 10, unlike the previous two quests. Although, this showed that the imps would be trickier monsters than the other two, as well.

Imps were about a foot tall and they had blackish red skins. They had pointed ears and noses that would stick out and were extremely prominent and had sharp features. They reminded me a bit of hobgoblins, but were scrawnier and were so skinny that they hardly had any bulk on their bodies, other than their skins.

Imps could only use dark and light magic. Both sort of had features of a combination of elemental spells. They gave damage like the fire spells, were fast like the wind spells, flexible like the water spells and heavier like the earth spells. So, light and dark magic were supposedly all rounders, but their powers were overall weaker than their elemental counterparts. They reminded me of myself (stats) in a way.

It was like  a repeat of fighting the corrupted pixies, except with less variations because they could use only two types of magic spells, whereas pixies could use 4. At one point we were in a slight pickle when we were suddenly attacked by almost a dozen imps. It happened while we were attacking a group of 4 imps…

Ken and I found a group of 4 imps. It looked like we could somehow overpower them together so that’s what we aimed for. Our strategy was that Ken would keep them occupied with his taunt while I would kill them in groups of ones and twos. But, as soon as Ken used taunt, suddenly 4 more imps ambushed us. Luckily I had killed two of the previous imps, instantly. But, we were still surrounded by 6. Ken killed two more using Slash and then we quickly positioned ourselves behind his shield to defend against their spells.

As luck would have it, 3 more imps showed up behind us. Ken was already doing a shield smash towards the previous 6. I somehow managed to activate knock back using my mace AoE on the new 3. After that I ignored them and went to help Ken. He had killed 3 more and together we killed the last 3 from the previous batch. Just then the attack spells came head on from the 3 who were knocked back. Ken blocked using his shield but I was a little further from him. Somehow, luckily, I managed to use my evade skill on time. Although, I was unlucky because the dodge didn’t get activated, so for the first time I actually got hurt from a monster’s skill.

I shouted in pain. Thankfully the attack’s power was 25% reduced due to evade and because I had twisted my body as well, so I was barely hurt. But, the impact still hurt me. Ken and I quickly finished off the last three, so that we could check on my wound. There was a burn mark near my elbow. My armor protected me but the part near my elbow was the place where the arm guards had a gap so I had gotten slightly singed. It looked bad but it was like an itch, was just irritating, but didn’t actually hurt that bad.

Either way, we decided to head back for the day after collecting their magic stones. It was already twilight and we had killed over 25 imps in the span of a few hours. And so, both of us had also successfully leveled up to 17.

By the time we were ready for dinner my wound was already completely healed. I guess this is the brilliance of leveling up and HP regeneration of 1 HP per 5 minutes. I had lost 3 HP out of my total HP of 95. So that attack actually cut around 5% of my health, I was honestly quite shocked with that high percentage of damage for such a shallow wound. But, then again, my HP itself was not that high and I had completely recovered in a span of 15 minutes.

Jared and Jackie had almost leveled up to 20, but were still at the high end of level 19 as of now. They had decided to take a rest day tomorrow. Ken and I wanted to catch up to our almost 3 level difference between them, so we decided to hunt the next monster in our list: corrupted brownies.

Corrupted brownies were also short monsters just like the last few monsters we had hunted. They looked like dwarves, but more young and they wore pointed hats like gnomes. They had only earth affinity so they lived in caves and could only cast earth magic spells. Because they were corrupted, they also had a darkness surrounding them.

Corrupted brownies could only use two spells: earth wall and rock throw. The rock throw could be avoided but the earth wall was the main annoyance along with their increased defense. Since the past few days, every monster (other than the horned wolf) that I had faced, died in one hit. But corrupted brownies could withstand a hit and would then retaliate while we tried to land a second hit on them. Still, our experience guided us and we could easily take care of them so long as there were less than half a dozen at any given moment. We learnt form our mistake with the imps and were extra careful while scouting. ‘If only Jackie were here,’ I sighed. Meanwhile Jackie and Jared were lazing around, chatting with each other.

The day was spent with no incidents and 35 magic stones richer. To top it off, by the end of the day, Ken and I had reached our goal: level 19.

So from tomorrow onwards we would go hunting as a party of four. It would reduce our leveling up speed, but would help in team coordination and synergy. By now our AG cards were greenish-yellow in color.

The moment it would turn completely yellow, we would have completed our quota for rank D quests and would need to complete rank C quests to get the color to lighten. We decided to hunt all the various types of monsters so we would have, by then, done more rank D quests required than necessary to rank up.

The four of us had decided to sleep in late the next day to be in our optimal state for the party hunt. We were all a little excited to be working together once again and to see how the other team (of two) has improved in this short span. So we got together over a dinner of chicken fried rice and barbecue and chatted for quite some time, trying to recall our formations and getting acquainted with each other's skills. All in all, it was a lively discussion.