Chapter 21

Most monster strength can be roughly gauge by their appearance. Their size, their color, and their weapon. Big monster tends to have high strength but low speed. Small and skinny monster tends to have high speed and agility. Monster with color different than their common species tends to have magic or special skills. Monster with weapon tends to be smarter and use weapon arts. If an adventurer met a monster they never met before, they usually estimate the monster capability roughly this way.

However, this method won't work against special monster where their small body can exhibit massive strength and their huge body can move at high speed. Special monster can easily be recognized when a monster has weird gems embedded in their body.

"That is not a normal slime," said Mateo.

The slime that usually can be found in the prairie was smaller than the one inside the dungeon. The normal slime inside the dungeon was triple the size of the slime they can find in the prairie. By rough estimation, the slime inside the dungeon will be much stronger than the prairie based on its size.

"We need plans, we can't just barge into their group and kill them like we thought," said Lilia.

"We need to know how strong one of them is," said Ethan and he continued, "Lilia, tie a rope to your arrow and shot one the slime."

"Why a rope?" asked Lilia.

"I get what you are trying to do Ethan. With their Null: Physical Resistance, they won't get any damage from the arrow. When the arrow hit the slime, we can use the rope to nudge it a bit to get the slime attention and lead it further from its group. We can test its strength if they are alone," said Mateo.

"Then, I will shoot the slime at the outermost of that group," said Lilia. She then brought out her quiver from her storage. Ethan give her the rope they prepared earlier in the city and she tie the rope to one of her wooden arrow. Lilia brought out her longbow out of the storage too. She stands straight, using her left hand to hold the bow and her right hand pulled the bowstring. Lilia showed a beautiful pose with her slender body. Taking a deep breath, she concentrates on her target. She let go of the bowstring and the arrow shot towards the slime and hit its body.

'Impressive. We are quite far from the target. I thought she will miss since its only almost a month since the awakening ceremony. She won't have much time to train with bow since her clan specialties is not bow. Her pose is beautiful too. She must have been in a lot of battle,' said Mateo in his mind.

"Nice, it hit. Lucky," said Lilia happily.

'… Maybe I'm wrong,' said Mateo in his mind again.

"Just like we thought, the slime did not get any damage and it did not even realize we attack. Wooden arrow won't cause any damage so, Lilia don't use wooden arrow but I think iron tip arrow won't work too," said Ethan.

"We will be testing it, let's bring the slime here," said Mateo. Ethan then, pulled the rope and got the slime attention. The slime saw Ethan and went towards him.

"It is coming, let us retreat a bit further, I'm afraid the battle will attract more slime," said Ethan. After hearing what Ethan said, they run further from that group of slime and stopped when they thought their distance from the group was enough. The slime kept bouncing towards them and then its body lighted faintly.

"It a skill. Wafu use Null: Tackle and counter the slime tackle," said Ethan. Wafu get in front of Ethan and use Null: Tackle. Wafu run straight towards the slime who also use tackle and they hit each other. The clashed produce a strong wind and Ethan got shocked that Wafu was flying towards him. Gooey saw what happen and jump towards Wafu to receive him. Wafu received lots of damage. Ethan quickly pulled out HP potions to heal Wafu. "I'm sorry Wafu. After this, try to attack that slime when we distract it," said Ethan. Wafu nodded.

Before Wafu and the slime clashed each other, Lilia run towards the side of the slime and shot it with iron tip arrow after the clashed but failed to cause any damage. After that, a metal wolf suddenly appeared and bit the slime. While biting the slime, the metal wolf also held onto the slime with its claw. The slime bouncing around to remove the metal wolf and due to the hard bounce, the metal wolf lost its grip and flew away from the slime.

"With our current power, physical attack won't cause any damage to this slime," said the metal wolf. The metal wolf identity was actually Mateo. Mateo use his beast element magic metal wolf which transform him into a metal wolf. When Ethan saw the metal wolf appeared out of nowhere, he knew it must be Mateo because the Stries Clan specialize in beast element. Lilia however did not expect that Mateo will turn into a wolf and when he talked, she freaked out.

Right after Mateo said that, Ethan immediately casted "Water: Water ball," a ball of water appeared in front of Ethan and shot towards the slime who went to attack Mateo. The water ball hit the slime and the slime stopped in his track. The water ball managed to damage the slime and that made it angry. The slime looked towards Ethan and before it wanted to attack Ethan, another elemental ball hit it and the slime stunned.

"I'm really lucky today," Lilia use her newly learned skill Electric: Elec ball. Ethan saw an opening and spammed water ball to the slime while drinking MP potion because his MP pool was less than 40 and water ball use 20 MP per attack. Due to Ethan spamming water ball, Mateo can't attack and he undo his transformation. Lilia then finished the slime with her strengthened fire ball and kill the slime. Although Ethan kept spamming water ball, only 3 of them hit and the other many missed. His aim is worst because he never tested the skill after he learned it and he waste lots of MP potions. Lilia however use only two magic attacks and both hit thanks to her archery that increased her aims.

'Ting~ Killed a slime. Complete (1/10 000)' Lilia received the notifications.

'Ting~ choose your drops' Lilia and Ethan both got the notifications.

"I didn't get any notification so the one that deals the last blow get the count," said Mateo.

"It seems that is the case," said Lilia. 'Do you get the drop?' Lilia whispered to Ethan's ear. Ethan lightly nodded.

"That means we need to work together and kill 30 000 slime…" said Mateo. "With our current strength, that seems so far away. Ethan's aim is way off and I don't have any magic attack too so I can't really participate in this battle much," said Mateo disappointed.

"I just learn this magic skill and it will get better in the future. Mateo, you don't have any magical talents?" asked Ethan.

"I have one. Ice element," said Mateo and continued, "Ice element is an advance group element, so their skills is hard to get."

"I think there were a lot of ice skills in the market. Ah, I also have one spare. I have Ice: ice ball, do you want to learn this?" asked Ethan.

Mateo look at Ethan, "You know that we can only learn 5 skills, so I don't want to waste my skill slot for weak magic like that," said Mateo.

"Just learn it and when you find a better skill, you can remove it. You need it right now or else the battle forwards will be hard for you," said Lilia.

"You two seems really fine with learning weak magic. Why? I know we can remove it but still after increasing the mastery of that weak magic, it will be a waste to remove and learn new skill," said Mateo.

Lilia quickly reply, "W-W-well, Ethan and I are both hard worker so we don't mind about that." Ethan just smile.

"Okay~ but you are right, I need magic skills now or else, I will be depending on you two too much," said Mateo.

Ethan pulled out the magic skill Ice: Ice ball from his storage and gave it to Mateo.

"This skill is expensive. I will pay you back Ethan," said Mateo. Ethan nodded.