Hikari: Rise Of The Weapons Master

"This was the first place where I killed monsters," Zack muttered from the sky as he looked at the Acidlent forest in the distance.

The two eagles gently bent flew down to the ground and allowed the duo to get off before launching themselves into the air once again.

Zack and Emma then started moving towards the forest while taking out their weapons. Since the two-level cap was there, they could only fight beasts at level 2 while hoping to win.

However, they could also fight level 3 beasts with the use of their skills.

"What was the first monster you killed?" Emma asked casually as the duo walked through the path that led to the entrance of the forest.

The path that Zack had taken in the past led to two places, Acidlent forest on the right and Poisonlent forest on the left.

The forest on the left had ferocious that only level 20 or higher players could beat. Maybe he and Emma would go ahead and fight in that place once they managed to climb to level 20 once again.

[ The Forest of Acidlent ]

Compared to the past, almost no information was available on the forest which forced players to rely on their guts.

This also meant that low-level players would enter places without having much knowledge about them and might get a surprise.

"Let me do something real quick." Zack went near a tree and sat down while Emma just raised her eyebrows and stood beside him.

The former opened up the forums to see the latest trending posts.

[ Conspiracy or not?!

The player Lin Fan has vanished off the rankings and so has WolfHeart! Not only that but there is a new emergence of players in the game that weren't there before. What are the game developers planning for us? ]

The post had more than a million upvotes and was the third most trending post.

The second one was based on the appearance of the new names in the rankings. A person was saying that he met one of the people in the eastern continent who wasn't allied with any side.

There was a whole theory posted in the comments section and that's exactly what the game developers had wanted. Furthermore, the forums were only there for the eastern continent in Hikari.

This made things much more mysterious since no one knew anything about the other continents. Some people even thought that the eastern continent was the only continent with players.

But they were very much wrong.

The top trending post was made by Hikari's account and was the old post about guilds which was still pinned.

Till then, nothing new had appeared in the game but Zack knew that the developers were definitely planning something major behind the scenes.

He then began typing on a holographic keyboard in front of him as he created a post that was pretty short.

"That's actually a good way to get some cheap money…" Emma muttered as she read what Zack had written in his post.

[ If any of you noobs want to level up, go to acidlent forest. The base level to explore is 3 but even level 0 players can level up here.

My credibility? I used to be the number one player.

I will also reveal more secrets if you give me a 10000 dollars donation. ]

That's what Zack had written in his post before he posted it. Next to his name, which he had written simply as Zack, there was a purple crown.

A purple crown meant that the player used to be a top player and had fallen from his or her place. If Zack was still at the top, he would have a black crown next to his name.

"The only other information I would reveal is that you would be able to go ahead and beat slimes using a certain strategy. There are many new players inside the game because even those who didn't trust Hikari are now playing it."

"And they are finding it hard to level up so they will pay the money thinking that they would be able to gain more money after leveling up. That's a genius move if you ask me but what will you do with the money?" Emma asked since as far as she knew, Zack was already richie rich.

"It will go into education and donations and no, I am not doing a saint's work. I am going to be donating all of this inside the game which will lead to us getting more reputation and glory." Zack replied as he posted his offer on the forums.

"Now while that is happening, we should go ahead and start grinding levels." He then stood up and looked at the entrance of the forest again.

A few months back, he had started his adventure from the very forest and he was going to do it once again.

But this time, his path was going to be full of even more thorns.

The duo then walked inside the forest while using their echo detection. A slurpy-moving sound entered their ears as Zack and Emma turned towards the right to see a water slime watching them with interest.

[ Water slime (level 2): A common water slime. ]

Standing in front of them was the first beast that Zack had killed. In fact, the level of the beat was also the same as the one he had killed in the past.

"Well, you are a level two beast so…" He raised his right hand in the slime's direction as Chastiefol burst into action.

The golden spear pierced the liquid slime in one strike and killed the creature on the spot.

[ Player Zack has leveled up ]

He immediately distributed the points to his vitality stat and increased his hp. Now, he had a total of 30 hp and due to the balance changes, the hp changes had also widened.

Zack then turned back to see WolfHeart shooting earth slimes with fire arrows from afar. She managed to one-shot two such slimes and leveled up too.

They were level 1 players now which was still not that big of an achievement. They were literally at the bottom of millions of players.

"So, from being the top players to killing slimes again. What a fall we experienced." Emma said with a sigh as Zack remembered the story of the fallen angel due to which he had reincarnated in the past.

He then opened the forums again to see how many people wanted to buy his offer. Surprisingly, there were quite a few of such players who wanted to buy the information and had privately messaged him.

But as he scrolled through the replies, Zack couldn't help but narrow his eyes.

"Emma, I think more players are going to come here soon." He looked at Emma with a grim expression as he turned the forums screen in her direction.

The latter looked at the comments Zack had opened up and her expression turned grim too.

"So we leave now? Never mind that. I know you planned something again." She remembered that almost everything Zack did had a reason behind it.

"There will be those who will want to take our weapons or do something like that. Because of the level cap, we won't be able to defeat them however, Daedalus and Icarus can easily do that." He explained with a smile but Emma had a question in her mind.

"What if they declared guild war on us?" She asked while raising her eyebrows as Zack's smile widened.

"Then they would be bigger fools. Daedalus and Icarus count as our beast companions as well as the guild's beast companions which means that they will be able to fight too."

"Then it's going to be easy," Emma replied with a smile on her face as they decided to go back to grinding again.

Zack wanted to reach level 20 on that very day. He decided to go ahead and open the quest the king had given him to see the remaining time.

[ Pearl Of The Henson Family: The daughter of the Henson family, Pearl Henson, has been kidnapped by members of an unknown organization.

She must be brought back to the capital while capturing the kidnappers will be a bonus

Time limit: 19 days

Note: The kidnappers have been identified to be able to hear beasts easily. Traveling on foot is compulsory. ]

"So only a day has passed by since then…." Zack muttered while looking at a level 5 earth slime in front of him.

For a level 1 player like him, killing a level 5 slime seemed impossible. But honestly, it was possible if one used the moves correctly.

"Emma, want to help me beat this slime?" He asked as the hunter notched arrows in her bow and looked at him with a smile.

"There are a few more coming this way so why not."

And with that, she released ten arrows forward before chanting under her breath.

"Moon Shower!"