Tanaka place Vanguard on the floor, she begins to give a strange command to it.

T-"Hmm...can you grow spike, Vanguard?"

Vanguard wiggle its body and its body starts to grow spike, it bounces in excitement and tries to snuggle Tanaka.

T-"Woah!Hey! Not with the spike buddy!"

Vanguard then stops bouncing and retracts its spike, it then rolls toward Tanaka's leg. She picks it up and observes it carefully, making sure Vanguard has retracted every spike and won't accidentally prick her. While holding Vanguard up, she gives another command.

T-"Turn into a sword."

Vanguard's body starts to wiggle oddly and it flattens itself while reshaping itself to that of a sword, it then proceeds to harden itself into an actual mithril sword. Tanaka hold it by the handle and swing it around, it feels a little strange but it works nevertheless. 

T-"Okay, now turn into liquid."

Vanguard revert to its blob slime appearance, it tilts its body and twists its body around, slowly flatten itself into a pie shape and suddenly its body starts to melt and fall through Tanaka's hand and splash on the floor like a pile of melted mithril. Tanaka bend down and poke at Vanguard that's a puddle of mithril, as Tanaka pokes it, its surface would constantly form numerous wave as if it's giggling.

T-"Alright Vanguard, turn back into a slime."

The puddle of mithril starts to grow in size higher and higher, it slowly turns into a giant slimy slime with a gaping maw, two slimy arms stretch out and attempt to hug Tanaka. Tanaka crosses her arms and tilts her head, Vanguard waves its arm around as if it wants affection.

T-"Yea...no, I have no idea how to pat you in this form, turn back into a blob Vanguard."

Vanguard seems disappointed and it reverts back into a blob form slowly, it then bounces up into Tanaka's embrace. Tanaka pats its blob head and proceeds to leave the room together with Vanguard. This time Vanguard swallows up Tanaka and turns into a set of light Mithril armor, Tanaka glace around her body and it feels extremely comfortable. As Tanaka descends to the lobby of the inn, most of the players around would stares at her as they don't see mithril armor that often. When she left the inn, she realizes that all of the agents from the Church Of Purity seems to have left the town, Tanaka looks around to make sure they are really gone and then he equips her ring.

Tanaka then leaves the town via the eastern exit and head toward the Jungle Stalker dungeon once more, this time she is even more prepared for the boss with Vanguard's new upgrade. As she reaches the entrance of the dungeon, she notices there's a few spider roaming around the area, she thought to herself the dungeon must have spawned most of the spider back now.

 

Tanaka enters the dungeon and this time she doesn't use the same strategy as back then, she throws a rock at one of the spiders and lures it closer to the entrance. When Tanaka is in range of the spider, the spider sprays poison all over Vanguard. Tanaka first checks Vanguard status and confirmed that it didn't take any damage nor is poisoned by it, she then proceeds to check her own status and find nothing unusual.

T-"Ha, Jungle Stalker, prepare to meet your maker."

Tanaka quickly kills off the lone spider with her mallet and rush toward the swarm, the swarm immediately counter-attack by spraying poison by it doesn't affect Tanaka and Vanguard at all. The hardest dungeon for a beginner has transformed into a one-sided massacre where the player kills her way to the boss chamber while the spider panic and attempt to protect the chamber with their life. Not soon after Tanaka has arrived at the queen chamber, it seems the Queen is aware of the commotion and immediately lunges toward Tanaka with its giant spikey leg. Tanaka is knocked back by the surprise attack and suffered some minor damage.

HP: ███████████████████▒

T-"Hardcore mode? Nothing can stop Vanguard and me." 

Tanaka dashes around the open gaps of the queen as she smashes each of its legs brutally, causing the queen to collapse to the ground, she then walks toward the queen head and smashes it. The head is destroyed and its body slowly turns into pixel and perish, no loot has dropped and Tanaka is not disappointed, she knows her luck will not always be there.

Once again it turns into a routine where Tanaka clears the dungeon over and over again, with every 30 minutes she will be able to kill the queen then it's back to grinding on the small spider again. She has grind so much that she managed to reach level 13 and learned her first-ever skill. Tanaka opens up her skill menu and checks what skills she has learned.

[Echo Destruction - Passive]

Hitting an enemy with a blunt weapon will have a 10% chance to create a shockwave around the victim, the shockwave will deal 40% damage of the regular damage to any entity within 7 feet of the radius.

Cooldown - NaN

 

T-"That's handy, it will be a breeze to deal with these spiders now."

She immediately tests her skill by smashing a spider with her mallet, the 1st and 2nd spider didn't trigger the passive skill, however, the 3rd spider did trigger it, and a circle of golden shockwave emerges from the spider and knocking the surrounding spider away. Tanaka smiles and continues the slaughter, then the system notification appears again.

[Jungle Stalker slew: 10,000]

[A new variant of Jungle Stalker will now spawn around the dungeon and Eastern part of the training forest, this spider is named 'Guerrilla Roamer' and they travel in groups.]

[Guerrila Roamer]

Level range 10~12

This spider travels in a pack of 6~8 roamer, they don't have the poison spits of Jungle Stalker nor do they explode on death, however, these spiders can turn themselves invisible and their attack will have a 25% chance to inflict slowness.

 

Right as Tanaka finishes reading the description, a roamer appears behind her and stabs her from behind. When she turned around, the spider has vanished.

T-"It's like PVP against assassin all over again..." Tanaka grumbles as she looks around.

Tanaka then notice 2 pair of dim green light slowly creeping toward her, she pretends to not see it and when it gets closer, she steps forward and smashes it with her mallet. The Guerrilla Roamer scream in terror as it perishes, Tanaka then smiles as she now knows that even though these spider can turn invisible, their eyes will still glow slightly. After killing the first roamer, she realizes that she is surrounded by 6 other hidden roamers.

T-"Not going to give me a break huh..."

Tanaka quickly runs away toward her cheese spot, it is the spot that can only fit her and one spider at a time, as she runs into the hole, the roamer quickly chases after her and one of them enters the hole while the other cramped outside. Tanaka then turns around immediately and smashes the roamer that entered and a shockwave emerges from it, the other roamer gets knocked away and as they flip around their invisibility seems to wear off. Tanaka now also knows that these roamers will reveal themselves upon taking damage, after they reveal themself it has become as easy to deal with as the jungle stalker. This, however, has caused Tanaka to change her strategy, she now has to deal with the jungle stalker swarm while watching out for roamer ambush, few hours go by as she clear the dungeon with much more effort.

After clearing the dungeon the 17th time for the current day, a fang finally dropped from the queen loot. Tanaka quickly grabs it and head toward the secret chamber, as she enters the chamber the notification once again appears on the spider carcass.

[The spider carcass may be used with the fang!]

[Will you use the fang on the beast carcass? Y / N]

[Warning: Doing so may bring change to the world of Gaia and new events may appear all around the game, you may also receive a long-term quest upon the usage of the fang.]

Tanaka presses on the Y icon without hesitation, the fang vanishes from her inventory, and the spider carcass glows in green. The chain around the neck of the 4 skeleton starts to glow and it breaks off from the spider's legs, then a loud noise is heard.

*Clank!Clank!Clank!Bang!*

The stone wall that connects the secret chamber to the queen chamber is slammed shut, it is then the 4 skeleton starts to glow in orange and a strange aura fill their skeleton body, they stand up as if they are alive again and a huge orange sword manifest next to them stabbing into the ground.

 

The skeleton pieces slowly merge together by the aura, its skull twitches around in a strange crazy manner. Each of the skeletons picks up the sword next to them, and they all point their bony finger at Tanaka.

AR1-"You have ignored our warning, now you will pay for thy sinsssss!"

AR2-"For eon, we have seal away the beast with our soul, yet you have given it the strength to raise againsssss!"

AR3-"Your soul will be used as a shackle, eternally bound to the beastsssss!"

AR4-"Do not resist and accept your punishment, be grateful as your sacrifice will save the worldssss!"

The four Ancient Risen slowly walks toward Tanaka in a clunky manner, they raise their sword and point it at her. 

 

 

As one of them gets closer, Tanaka swings her mallet right at its skull, its skull shatter and its body crumble, however, a tether line of aura emerges from one of the risen that's still standing and connects itself to the fallen skeleton. The skeleton on the ground immediately rebuild its crumbled pieces and revive itself as an Ancient Risen again, it grabs its sword and proceeds to creep toward Tanaka.

AR4-"It's useless to resist, we will never fall as we have bound our soul together, accept your fate and perishssss!"

T-"This is troublesome indeed, doesn't mean I can't win though."

Tanaka has experience dealing with soul bound enemy before, the tricks are to destroy all of the bounded targets together in one attack because if even one remains the rest will revive instantly. The risen behind her begin yelling and slash its sword at her.

AR3-"Aura slashsss!"

A wave of aura emerges from its attack, the wave strikes toward Tanaka and she barely dodges it, the aura grazed her left arm and she suffered minor damage.

HP: ██████████████████▒▒

T-"Tsk, I hate mob that can use skills."

Tanaka dashes around the room as she dodges the risen relentless attack, she shrinks down her mallet and smashes at one of the risen until cracks start to appear from it. She would then switch her target and continue her assault, eventually, she has done enough damage that all 4 risen has cracks all over them.

The risen stares at Tanaka as they notice something is off, Tanaka suit of mithril armor is nowhere to be seen on her body. As they are confused at where the armor has gone, Tanaka then yells something.

T-"Vanguard! Do it now!"

Vanguard emerges from the hidden corner of the room and pierces through two of the Ancient Risen, Tanaka then enlarges her hammer and swing at the remaining two Risen.

AR1-"NOOOOO!!! CURSE YOU MoRtAlsssss"

The Ancient Risen yells as it perishes, this time all 4 skeleton crumbles down on the ground as the aura vanishes into pixels. Tanaka sits down on the ground and pants, it is one of the hardest fights she has since the reset. Vanguard transforms its spear into slime and jumps onto Tanaka's lap, Tanaka gently pats its head.

T-"You did great buddy, we should do this more often haha."

Vanguard wiggles showing signs of happiness and feeling proud of its achievement. Just as Tanaka finishes talking to Vanguard, the spider carcass perish into pixels and a gold contract appears over it. Tanaka gets up from the ground and approaches the contracts, the contract enters her inventory and she inspects it.

[ Toxic Yokai Tsuchigumo contract L (Legendary) ]

Tanaka's eyes open widely as her hands shake in excitement...