The Grind
The tunnels were lit by luminous rocks, placed at intervals along the way. The light coming from these rocks were dim. Fortunately, the compass and the Frost Pickaxes glowed slightly, which worked well in the dark. The party could still see relatively well inside the tunnel as if it was night time, but the sky was clear, and the half-moon was out.
Frost Snow and Ice Irons were very rare ores in the first level. The party mined everything that they could. Some Hermits were crawling around, but the party swiftly killed them. After finishing the remaining hermits, the trio immediately turned back to searching for Ice Irons.
"I only got three," Coco mournfully said as she peered down the path going to the level below. "Guess we have to go down for more?"
"Wait, take a look at your inventory; something seems off." Valec was looking towards the air in front of him as if something was there. His fingers were flickering through the air, searching for something.
Four, five, six. Fotas quickly counted the Ice Irons inside his inventory.
"Wait, the Ice Iron are fragmented. It says you need to collect 5 Pieces to make a Medium Ice Iron!" Coco quickly found the problem at hand.
"If I remember correctly, we need to find Large Ice Iron. It says here that to make Large Ice Iron. We need to bring ten medium pieces back to the Miner Headquarters to create large pieces." This means that in total, the party has already collected 20 fragmented pieces that equaled 4 Medium Ice Iron.
"The total amount that we need is 250 Medium Ice Iron or 1250 Fragmented Ice Iron to complete the two quests." Valec quickly did the calculations inside his head.
"1250 pieces! At this rate, it's going to take us forever to collect them all!" Coco cried out.
"Looks like we have to try our luck on the lower floors to see if we could get more Ice Iron." Fotas picked himself up from the ground and turned towards the cavern leading downwards.
The party walked together, downwards in silence. They watched the area around them for any unsuspecting dangers. The miner back in the village did warn them that there are some dangers here.
Fotas quickly found one of them.
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[Spiked Hermit]
[Level]: 6
[Rank]: Uncommon
[Health]: ???
[Mana]: ???
[Skills]: ???
[Weak point]: ???
[Description]: A Hermit that has been enhanced by the frozen aura of the mines. It gained new found ice abilities that enhances the hardness of its shell and claws.
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"Huh. So that was what's living on this level," Coco said.
"I don't have any information on it. I haven't consumed any substance that relates to this crab. The only thing it said is that it has enhanced abilities towards its shell and claws." Fotas told them of the question mark he saw on the interface.
"Should we just ignore it then?"
"Look begins it, Valec." Fotas pointed behind the spiked hermit.
The Spiked Hermit was twice as large as a normal one, and it was covered in ice spikes. Just beyond the Spiked Hermit, the tunnel widened into a small cavern. There were some shiny minerals inside. Minerals that they need. This crab required to die for them to advance.
The six pairs of eyes focused on the monster in front of them. It saw the party in front of it but haven't decided to attack just yet. The only noticeable thing about the beast was its name, which glowed in orange. Fotas readied up his shields and secured them on his arms. Taking a few steps back, he signaled for the other two to let him test out the waters. As he got close, its orange name turned red, confirming his suspicion that it would turn into an aggressive state if someone got close to it.
He bashed it, knocking it back, but the distance that the hermit traveled was less than a meter. It didn't even flip.
A small static sensation came from Fotas's arm. Confused, Fotas pulled up his interface and noticed that his health went down by 1 HP.
'Even though I smashed it with my shield, I still took some reflected damage. This must be one of the skills that the hermit owns.' Fotas summarized the battle and wanted to continue testing to see if it could reflect skill damages.
"The Spiked Hermit reflects damage a portion of the damage when you hit it. I don't know the exact amount due to my health and defenses being higher than both of you. Attack the crab with your weapon and see how much it reflects for you. Also, Valec uses your root siphoning skill to see if it reflects magic damage." A detailed plan of how to attack the hermit came out from Fotas.
The Spiked Hermit was extremely slow, so Fotas intended to use distance and speed to poke toy around with the hermit. He also wanted to see how much damage the hermit could take before it falls. The shield bash that Fotas dealt with the hermit did 24 damage due to a lucky critical hit.
Valec and Coco rushed towards the hermit flanking on the left and right side of it. Valec started by poking the hermit in between the spikes with his staff. After the first thrust, Valec stared off into the air to check something and immediately changed his form of attack. A glow appeared from his right hand, and his staff flashed out, shooting three phantoms towards the Hermit. Being struck thrice by the staff, the crab was knocked towards Coco.
"Coco slash once with all your might and then use
Fotas nodded towards Valec, and Coco, in response, started to attack the hermit. Coco grabbed onto her battle-ax very tightly in anticipation of the hermit flying towards her. Right before it reached her, she swung her ax upwards with all of her power. Due to her particular stat of
CLANG
The feeling of pain never registered. She opened her eyes and looked towards the hermit claw, in front of the claw was a shield. Fotas stood steadily before her; standing straight, he was like an immovable mountain.
"Repulse." From the center of the shield, a dazzling glow emerged. In the next second, the hermit was sent flying again this time; it was blasted off three meters away.
"Are you alright, Coco? Don't let your guard down next time, ok." Fotas turned around and looked at her briefly.
"Sorry about that, haha." Coco rubbed the back of her head and stuck out her tongue.
"Anyways, your brother wants you. Head off over to him, and I will distract the hermit for now." Turning around, Fotas charged forward towards the crab and started bashing at it with his shield.
Fotas attacked again, and again, not minding the damage. It was quite negligible anyway, given his regeneration and defense. Valec and Coco are five meters behind him, talking about how much damage they dealt and how much damage was reflected. After 15 seconds, they finalized their conclusion and started to head towards Fotas again.
"Fotas so my normal attack did around 19 damage, and the <3-Point Thrust> did 16 each thrust. I took 16 damage in total. Four for each attack I did." Valec reported his findings.
"I delt 35 damage with my normal attach and 53 damage with my
"So in total, we dealt around 400 to this, I did a lot of damage with
"How much health does this thing have." Fotas sighed and charged at it again, pushing it further down the tunnel. He chased after it and leaped over it as it snipped at him. Fotas had to get into the small cavern so that he would have space to run around and kite it.
Fotas kept his distance as it followed him into the cavern, jabbing it with his shield then running back a bit to give room for Coco and Valec to charge through.
"No problems at all," Fotas said. "Need to do this methodically and carefully. This way, we don't have to waste any healing pots to deal with it."
After five more seconds, the hermit fell, leaving behind a big piece of cold blueish ore and some of its carapace. It also dropped a few bronze coins right next to the items.
"Oh? Fighting this version of the hermit rewards us with a Medium Ice Iron. This monster also gave us some good experience, and maybe we should cash in on it." Fotas suggested the two.
Not even after a few seconds have passed that a scratching noise made the party turn back. Rubble was falling out of a crack on the wall of the cavern. Was the mine caving in? The three thought of the same thing. Suddenly a claw busted through the wall, opening up a tiny tunnel. A panel appeared on top of the claw, [Lvl. 7 Spiked Hermit].
"Well, just as we were talking about it. It presents itself to us on a silver platter," Valec smiled and readied himself, "This time let me test if it will reflect the damage from my root siphoning."
"Well, the total Health that the
"We should start training on how to do better as a team, how else are we gonna get out of this Snowstorm Barrier together," Coco shouted after them to not feel left out.
Both of the boys looked at her and then looked at each other. After three seconds, they started bursting out in laughter.
"What, what's so funny." Coco stamped her foot down to show her displeasure.
"Nothing, I just realized your right. We need to work together more effectively." Valec wiped the tears from his eyes.
Fotas was still laughing to himself, "I second that."
The three dived deeper into the mines to finish their quest. Each of their faces rested a smile that even the devil feared. A shiver ran down the back of the hermit as if to show it the horrors that it would face in a few seconds. It was said that on that day, hundreds of
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