Zectas Volume V: The Sequestered Seminary of Sawtorn (18 page)

He ignored the similar windows as they kept popping up.
After killing all of the monsters at the center of the forest patch, Smoke turned to Igniz. "This is it, Bud!"
Equipped with the Digger's Wand, Smoke started widening the pit. His Cunning of the Dire Fox alerted him of hostile monsters nearby, but none of them came close to attack him.
Undisturbed, he targeted several trees that were caught inside his pit. He had Igniz burn them with a sea of firewalls. He spent the next hour doing just this until he finally had a massive hole in the ground.
"This should be big enough," he said to Igniz. He signaled his dark ember sprite, and together the two of them headed into the trees.
With his power chainsaw bow out, Smoke hit all of the monsters within range. Badger dogs, lemurcats, and servals alike, none were discriminated by their attacks.
Due to their larger size, Smoke could easily target the badger dogs and lemurcats, but the servals were a different story.
Luckily, Igniz's flame attacks annoyed the fiery house-cats and turned the servals' flames into an angry red, making the fiery cats chased after Smoke as well.
Despite being tailed, he calmly traversed the forest patch in a clockwise manner. His Cunning of the Dire Fox indicated that there were close to seven-hundred monsters chasing after him.
The lemurcats were fast, but they were not close to Smoke's speed. Only the servals could catch up to him. Their attacks dealt 600 damage points, quadruple the damage of the santelmos.
Injured, Smoke relied on his well timed Hyper Jumps to evade the servals. He ran around the Harceleur Forest for fifteen-minutes more before heading for the center.
He stopped using his Hyper Jump ability, and braved the back attacks of the servals. Smoke incured a damage of close to 30% of his maximum life bar.
All of the pursuing monsters were gaining in on him. Yet, Smoke did not change course. When he got to the center of the forest, he dove straight into the pit that he had dug earlier.
The servals immediately behind him, leapt without second thought. This made the other monsters do the same.
Smoke then opened his hooded cloak and glided safely upward. Yet, the monsters on the end started to slow down. He pointed both his palms at them. He slightly raised the ground, creating an inclined plane which slid the monsters into his pit.
Igniz then started creating a sea of firewalls, but only the badger dogs and tiger-like monsters were damaged. Whereas, earth-spikes protruded in and out on the bottom of the pit, damaging both lemurcats and servals.
One Smoke's sharp earth attacks skewered several monsters in one go, inflicting the Bleeding status on them.
The trapped monsters used their claws to climb up, but Smoke's earth-spikes suddenly protruded from the walls and sent the monsters hurtling down.
As Smoke and Igniz began killing the monsters inside the pit, several notification windows popped up once more. He planned to ignore them until they killed the last one, but one of the windows would not be denied.

Smoke smiled. Seeing that particular window could never be a bad thing. Yet, he kept on piercing the captured monsters with his earth-spikes.
It took him thirty more minutes to kill all of the monsters. He then eagerly checked the summary of the notification windows.

It took him one-hour and thirty-minutes to kill two-hundred-seventeen servals. At this rate, it was almost like he could kill two servals in under a minute.
However, his mana bar was completely depleted, and his life bar was left with 60%. Not to mention that his satiety bar was already at a dangerous level. He dove into the pit and started brewing a rejuvenison soup.
While his meal was still cooking, Smoke started collecting the loot dropped in his trap.

"No rare items at all," he grumbled to himself. He grumpily sat down and began drinking his rejuvenating concoction.
While the soup may have helped with his HP, he needed to spend another twenty-minutes for his MP to be fully restored. With his satiety, life, and mana bar filled, Smoke leapt out of his deep pit. He winked at Igniz, and together they headed out on the other side of the forest.
The two of them repeated the same process for the next seven hours, giving him a total of 2,540 servals and one more level up.
His current level was now at 112.
"If this training is just grinding, then I could do this easy," said Smoke to Igniz, while the two of them were resting near his brewing rejuvenison pot.
"I really appreciate the boost in experience as well," said Smoke.
Deeply contemplating at his character window, Smoke stared at the unused 40 points that he had not used in his last four level ups.
"What do you think? Should I use all of them on Int?" he asked Igniz. "After all, I am playing the role of a Mage at the moment."
Igniz replied with his typical purple-flame shrug.
"Fine," said Smoke, annoyed. "I'll do all of the thinking myself."
He clicked all of the unused stat points into Intelligence.
"There, it's over," he said, hesitant. "But I know that this would be really useful."
He looked at Igniz and raised his eyebrows. "What? Not convinced?" he asked Igniz. "Alright, let me check. Regen Window."

A wide grin appeared on Smoke's face. "See? What did I tell you!"
With this, his MP regeneration could now completely compensate for his Earth Manipulation or Fire Manipulation and then some.
As a daily habbit, Smoke then proceeded to do the exercise that Eleve taught him. He directed his palms at the flames under the pot, and began creating up to eight flickering flames. He spent one more hour of this tedious exercise before stopping.
"Okay, I think I'm gonna call it a day, Bud," he said to Igniz. "You're free to attack the badger dogs, but don't try the lemurcats, okay?"
Smoke then logged out of Zectas, as he planned on getting a quick power nap of an hour in the real world.

* * * * * * 

After discovering his method, Smoke spent the next five days honing his luring techniques. He had slightly increased his pursuers to almost one-thousand-five hundred.
During this period, not only did he collect thousands of lemurcat hides, badger dog meat, and serval foots, he also gained two more levels. This time, he allocated all of the stats to Intelligence.
Another eight hours passed, and it was time for him to take his scheduled power nap, but he did not. He was only short three-hundred servals to reach the coveted ten-thousand mark.
"Still up for one more round?" he asked Igniz, to which his ember sprite nodded with excitement.
They gathered the monsters in the Harceleur forest once again. Within these past few days, the two of them had already mastered the in and outs of these woodlands, and the respawn points of its creatures. 
It only took them thirty-minutes to gather a horde of a thousand pursuers. Despite the redundant process, the monsters still fell for their trap, as none of them could live to warn the others who were freshly respawned.
A sea of firewalls and sharp earth-spikes ushered the badger dogs, lemurcats, and servals to their deaths.
After fifteen more minutes, the anticipated notification window popped up.

One of Smoke's eyebrows raised. "Does this increase my attack damage? Fire Resistance? What does this exactly mean?" he asked out loud.
"Igniz attack that lemurcat with a fireball," he suddenly said to his symbiote.
At once, Igniz obeyed. Yet, before the purple fireball could hit the tiger-like monster, Smoke used his Fire Manipulation and redirected the fireball to the badger dog beside it.
A big hole with burn marks appeared on the stomach of the badger dog, and it fell down shortly afterwards, dead.
"It looks like it increased Igniz's fireball damage, but is that all there is to it?" he asked Igniz, to which his symbiote shrugged.
'I better ask Eleve what this ability really is,' thought Smoke to himself.
"You know, you're not a very great conversationalist," he said to Igniz.
As there were still several monsters inside the pit, he decided it was time to return to the elderly HighElf.
Before he left, he luckily remembered that monsters which would give secret abilities, would also drop rare items.
He excitedly turned around and finished off the remaining monsters in his trap with much gusto.
Smoke scoured for the item covered beneath piles and piles of lemurcat hides, serval feet, and badger dog meat.
Then, as he walked slightly away from the center of his trap, he felt something awkward beneath him.

"Another footwear, just can't catch a break," grumbled Smoke, as he watched an emblem of the fire serval prominently displayed on the shoes. He was hoping to get greaves or another accessory since he already had his Lunar Gravity Boots.
He then inspected the serval shoes to compare them.

Smoke stared at the Scorching Serval Shoes window. 'Wait a minute, this could go well with my Hyper Jump ability,' he thought. 'The Lunar Boots are great for aerial movement, but this is better for fighting on the ground.'
He eagerly switched out his footwear and immediately used its active ability, Trailblazer, as he headed for Eleve. Smoke's eyes felt the surge of wind, similar to when he was gliding at top speed. 
Spotting the ancient red-haired HighElf, Smoke began to stop. However, he tumbled down and rolled three times before coming to a halt.
"I guess that's one way to make an entrance," said Eleve.
Igniz was flying fast after him, as Smoke unintentionally left him behind the forest.
Smoke supported himself up with his right hand and looked at the flaming trail he left behind. After three seconds, the fire on the ground died out, but it left black scorch marks on the earth.
"This wouldn't work for a surprise attack," he said out loud.
"No, no it wouldn't," added Eleve. "But I am impressed that you managed to gain one of the sacred fire monsters' abilities, and with two days to spare."
"Well, grinding monsters is relaxing for me," explained Smoke. "But I don't think this ability isn't that useful," he said complacently, as he compared it to his Cunning of the Dire Fox, Agility of the Horned Rabbit, or even his Armor Break of the Armored Armadillo.
"Faux, Faux, Faux, why do you make me think less of you?" questioned Eleve. "Now, I'm wondering whether that dark ember sprite of yours is defective or not. What does it see in you?"
"Have you used the ability?" asked Eleve.
"Yeah, of course," replied Smoke.
"Then why aren't you impressed?" asked Eleve. "It was only a couple of days ago, when your life bar was getting drained in your synergized form."
"Oh, I should have used it that way," shamefully said Smoke.
Eleve slapped her face with her palms. "Come on! Why this guy?" she suddenly shouted to the heavens.
"I just rushed here and didn't have enough time to experiment on the ability and—" began Smoke, but was silenced by Eleve.
She then turned to him and said. "Forget about it! Just try the Serval's Glow again. This time, use it with your Symbiote Synergy."
Smoke respectfully bowed down, and signaled Igniz to merge with him. His symbiote flew straight into his body.
FLASH
Purple flames came out of his exposed skin. His face, hands, and arms were all covered in it.
"Well, check your life bar," ordered Eleve.
"You're right, I'm not losing any HP anymore," said a smiling Smoke. He increased Igniz's flames to a higher intensity, but his life bar was unaffected.
"Now, let's move on to the next phase," said Eleve, and she abruptly teleported both of them to the next location.