Second World

The entire week after Jack arrived in the Busculla Plateau was spent with nothing but monster grinding. Apart from sleep and some break time to have a meal, of course.

It was pretty easy to find the Mouseant for grinding, there were plenty of those mounds which were the Mouseant's nests scattered around the shrubland. The good thing about them was that the other nests won't disturb him if he didn't come near them, hence he could control the amount of Mouseants he dealt with.

Apart from their frightening numbers, their other edge was their damage. Other than that, there was nothing special about them. Their attacks were rather deadly. Jack couldn't avoid getting stung by one of them as there were so many assaulting him. He lost more than 200 HP, which was alarming when it came from a non-boss monster. If eight of these Mouseants stung him at the same time, his 1710 HP would be a goner.

Luckily Jack had a pretty decent number of long-range skills combined with his high movement speed, he could still break away from them if things got dangerous. He also had the Superior Body Recovery that kept a small amount of his HP regenerating during combat, so reducing the number of recovery potions he needed to use.

He also applied Poison Salve from time to time. Now that he had a guaranteed supply of Small Poison Gland from Life Runner, he had no reservation in using this consumable. Life Runner had teleported to Heavenly Citadel some days ago. John had sent Jack a message afterward, cursing him for not telling them that Life Runner was actually an orc. Jack was just laughing after receiving the message.

The Poison Salve helped Jack decimate the Mouseants more easily, not simply because of the added damage value, but also because of the poisoning effect. Jack would slash at a group of Mouseants, then used his speed to head to the other side while continued attacking the others while the poison ate at the monsters' HP. When he was back at the first group of monsters, he would slash them again, applying fresh poison effects. With minimum effort, the monsters' HP were slowly consumed by the poison.

Things got a bit complicated if Swordfin Ferret appeared. This monster was not as slow as the Mouseant, but their attack was even deadlier. But as Peniel mentioned, their defense and HP were low, and their attack pattern had not many variations.

Jack was only a bit clumsy when he encountered this Swordfin Ferret the first time. Firstly because the ferret attacked while he was still dealing with the Mouseant's swarm. Jack had to break away from the swarm and put a large distance first to deal with the ferret. Secondly, because the ferret's so-called sword-fin, which was its main weapon, was hidden until the moment it made its attack.

The Swordfin Ferret's backside would open up, exposing a very sharp and long bone. The resulting appearance made it looked as if the ferret had grown a fin on its back. Accompanying the appearance of this sword-fin, was an expulsion of compressed air from the pocket at which the fin used to be stored. This pushed the ferret forward with an unanticipated speed. The process reminded Jack of the Wind Jet skill he used from Magic Scroll.

Any unwary opponent would get sliced into two by this blitz attack, Jack included. It's a good thing he had a high pool of HP, so he didn't get one-shot by that surprise attack. It still gave him the fright of his life, though. He returned the favor by giving the Swordfin Ferret a fierce beating.

After that one time, he was always paying attention whenever the Swordfin Ferret's back started shuddering. It was the telltale sign when the fin attack was about to commence. He would immediately get ready to jump to the side or use his Flash Step skill. That fin attack only went in a straight direction, so as long as he knew about the attack timing, it was not really that difficult to dodge.

Another precaution he took to control the risk was to go around the area hunting the Swordfin Ferrets first. Once all the ferrets in the area were cleared, then he provoked the Mouseant's nest.

Although the activities were repetitive and might be called boring, Jack didn't slow down his grinding. He had always found some kind of fulfillment from this repetitive task. That's how he could spend so much time in past VR RPG games doing repetitive tasks without ever feeling bored.

There were still one or two events that took his mind off from the repetitive tasks. One such event was during the evening of the third day after he arrived at the plateau, where he got a visit from fellow travelers. Not players like Life Runner, but native adventurers who Peniel had mentioned before in the past.

It was a group of four natives. Three men and one woman. The men's garments showed them as physical warriors with one of them carrying a longbow, while the woman was either a mage or a healer.

Jack was a little alarmed when he first met them. All four were level 35 to 40 Elite humans. But one of the warrior males who seemed to be the leader greeted him with a friendly smile. Though Jack was cautious, he did not antagonize them. After some chat, they ended up spending the night camping together while sharing tales on a bonfire.

Jack was hoping the group would offer him aid in his monster grinding, it would speed things up real quick that way. But unfortunately, the group had their own quest so they had to leave the next morning. In the night, Jack made camp a little further away and asked Peniel to stand guard. The four seemed friendly and kind people, but it never hurt to be cautious.

The four left as they informed. No unexpected incident to Jack's relief, who soon returned to his routine activities.

The second event that mitigated his monotony was when he came to the other side of the plateau. He found himself at the edge of a very deep gorge. There was fog underneath the gorge which obscure view below. He couldn't tell how deep the gorge was. Peniel informed him that this gorge was named the Valley of Tempus. The locals tell a tale that everything that fell below would not make its way back up anymore.

Jack looked at the wall of the gorge, they were very steep and had no visible scalable path. Unless one had wings, it's impossible to climb up if one fell down there. He stared at the eerie fog below for a few moments and felt a shiver running down his body. He retreated away from the edge.

With a brutal regime of grinding, which often took him until almost midnight before he stopped to rest, his amassing of exp points went beautifully. He didn't forget to eat Well-Done Steak from Ellie and had its effect active all the time when he was grinding. By the end of the sixth day, he had finally filled up the exp required for his Lightning God Blessing.

He sat down panting. "Finally!" he said. "Now I can level up again. The other players might have caught up to my current level by now. John and the others should have broken past level 30 as well."

It was almost two weeks since he departed. The guild headquarter's protection period should be ending soon. He wondered if the headquarter would be all right. Well, they would call him if there was an emergency. Peniel mentioned that Themetus was around one day of riding from here. So if there was an emergency, he just needed to ride there for a teleport back to the headquarter.

He decided to not leave even after filling up the quota for Lightning God Barrage since this place was such an exp haven. He decided to continue grinding here until he reached level 30 and then took his Elite class test.

On that night, before he rest, he said excitedly, "Now I just need to find a Divine Gem and ten magic crystals, then the Lightning God Blessing will be upgraded. Are they difficult to find?"

"Magic Crystal is a super rare material. Divine Gem is a unique material, but this particular gem is more difficult to find than other unique materials, probably its rarity almost equal a Legendary material," Peniel answered. "Still, even if you somehow managed to collect these materials, I suggest you not immediately use them on that Lightning God Blessing."

"Oh? Why is that?" Jack asked.

"Why do you think?" Peniel asked back.

Jack was a bit confused by her question. He thought for a bit before coming to a realization. "Are you saying that once the skill is upgraded, there is another stage further? It will consume my exp again?"

Peniel nodded. "So you better make sure you are ready to stay in your current level for some time before you upgrade that skill. And let me tell you, the amount of exp for the next stage will be more. I can't say for sure how more since its current stage is already different than my knowledge, but it will be more for sure. I suggest you not attempt to upgrade it before you reach level 40. Level 50 might be better, you will need to be able to grind at a higher level area to ensure that you can get a sufficient amount of exp."

"Well, without collecting those materials, that inherent skill won't be able to be upgraded anyway. So we will think about this again when we do get those materials."

He continued to hoard exp in that place the next day. He finally leveled up after so long. His Mage class increased to level 28. Both his classes were already not that far from leveling up when he got the Lightning God Blessing.. By the end of the day, his Warrior class should also level up.