Joshua let out a tired sigh as he stood in front of the large body of the dying centipede. Its flames were burning out and its body had stopped moving for a minute at this point. It was clear that the battle had finally come to an end. For a group as well prepared as theirs having to take nearly three hours to take the annoying beast down Joshua had to wonder how difficult it would be for the average explorer group to take down such a boss. If it weren't for Tank and Brook the fight could have taken a lot longer and he figured it probably would have taken half a day for another group to take the thing down.
Soon enough Joshua finally got the final confirmation that the boss was dead. He could feel the large surge of experience as he broke through level eighty which brought a large smile to his face. Some other members in the group leveled up as well which included Lilly who reached level eighty like Joshua. She still needed to train up some of her beast companions to level eighty, but now the group over all was strong enough to start exploring the other side of the prairie and Joshua was looking forward to that. After they got things all set up for the building of the new base they could get started.
[Congratulations on clearing this dungeon. For having an excellent clear speed you shall be given the highest reward… Members of your group shall all be given a job exclusive skill card.]
After reading the short message Joshua knew that the dungeon didn't have any surprises left in store for them, but he was interested in figuring out what this job exclusive skill card was. It was definitely a new type of reward and soon he confirmed that fact when another system message popped up giving each of them a hundred thousand system points for making a new discovery. "What do you think these things are?" Joshua asked as he turned back to look at the rest of the group. "Seems a bit different from just getting a random skill."
"Well then we can always check it out through the system before using them, but let's head back first. It's already pretty late." Henry said getting nods of agreement from everyone else. Although it had taken a long time to kill the boss, the dungeon itself wasn't actually all that large. It only took them about half an hour to retrace their steps and find themselves back at the entrance to the dungeon. When they came out to where the large archways were located they were all met with the site of stars in the night sky.
"Since we've cleared the dungeon out its safe to say we gained rights to this territory. Might have to tame some more of those lizards later on so guild members can ride them when coming up into this mountain range." Henry said as he started to set up a portal for them all to take back to the hub city.
"We just need to make sure that none of them go beyond the mountain range when they're training otherwise they might run into beast far beyond their level." Joshua said after remembering the size of the creatures just beyond the forest at the base of the mountain. There was no way any of them were ready to take on creatures of that size and strength let alone the rest of the guild members.
"Let's head back. We can go over to the blue print shop and get a room. Then while we check the two new blue prints out that we gained we can also look into this new type of reward. It might be a bit late, but we're all taking tomorrow off anyways so no worries." Adrian said with a smile as he headed through the portal. Everyone quickly followed him through the portal before they headed to the center of the hub city to find the blue print shop. Even late at night the city was full of people out and about trying to get things done. Hell most restaurants stayed open through the night since there was no telling what time hungry explorers might come back from an expedition looking for a place to eat.
The blue print shop had a decent amount of people there, but since they were getting a room instead of waiting in the line for individual scans it didn't take them long to get set up. Once they were in a large enough room they all grabbed a seat and took a load off after the strenuous day. It may have only taken one day to clear the dungeon, but there weren't any breaks involved while they pushed through so that they could finish it as soon as possible. Now that they finally got a chance to catch a breath they planned to take full advantage of it.
"Which do you guys want to do first?" Joshua asked as he looked around the room at the rest of the group that were all lounging in any way that they could. "Should we check out the two blue prints first or should we look into what exactly these job skill cards are?"
"Let's go with the blue prints. At least with them we know what we're dealing with. I'd rather focus on the whole skill card thing after we've all gotten some rest." Aito responded. "Besides it's probably something we'll have to tell the other members of the alliance about as soon as possible if these skill cards turn out to be a big deal."
"You've got a point there." Henry said with a shrug before turning to look at Joshua. "Well then go ahead Joshua. Let's see what your luck gets us this time around. Hopefully it's something worthwhile."
Joshua just chuckled a bit before he pulled the two blue prints out of his inventory. He decided to go with the one they had gained from the path with the metallic lizard at the end of it first. Since they were both decent level blue prints he was expecting to get something good out of them. He placed the blue print on the table where the scanner was located and watched as it did its job. It started to decipher the blue print and a little less than a minute later it was finished. Now Joshua could actually read and see what the blue print was for.
[Metal guardian Lizard – A guardian on the go. This blue print can be used to create a portable guardian at the strength and level of the creature that it is based off of…]
When Joshua read this far into the description he was surprised. It sounded similar to the town guardian that they had gained from the canyon, but Joshua highly doubted it could be as good. The town guardian had a lot of perks to it and the fact that you could only have one per town meant that there were heavy restrictions placed on it, so he was expecting something similar with this new blue print. Before he could get too caught up in his thoughts he decided to finish reading the information on the first blue print.
[…This guardian will take the form of the metal lizard at the level of eighty. It has the exact same abilities as the metallic lizard and can be used as a beast companion of sorts. The major difference is that this guardian has no intelligence and will just attack the enemy that you set it off against. If the guardian is destroyed then the item itself is destroyed and you will have to get the materials to create a new one. This guardian cannot level up and a restricted amount of them can be used at the same time by the system depending on the situation.]
"We'll that's interesting." Julia said after she finished reading all of the information. "Being able to summon one of those giant metal creatures during a boss fight or a territory war could be rather helpful. If nothing else it'd make a big target for our enemies that could get in their way."
"Hmm. That's sound great in all, but it clearly has some glaring limitations. I'm not sure what the amount will be depending on the situation, but the materials it takes to make them on its own destroys any possibilities of being able to just spam them and create an army to fight under us." Henry said with a slight frown. "It could be an interesting distraction to use, but I don't think we can expect it to hold up against a boss class beast, especially as the level disparity grows."
"Guess the other blue print is probably the centipede version of the same thing?" Adrian asked as he turned to look at Joshua. Quickly putting the blue print on the scanner Joshua waited with the others to see if that would be the case. In the end it was just as Adrian had guessed. The other blue print was the centipede version of the metallic guardian which in Joshua's opinion was a bit stronger and the material requirements reflected that.
"Well from what I could tell when fighting the two different annoying creatures I'd have to say the centipede would be more useful against one enemy. The whole having to destroy all the gems at the same time gimmick could end up giving solo enemies a hard time. The lizard on the other hand could be useful in group use. Its gem was more hidden and protected after all." Henry said with a shrug.
"Either way they both have their weaknesses, but are good weapons to have in our back pockets in a pinch." Amy said with a smile before letting out a yawn. Joshua knew it was getting later and most of the group seemed ready to fall asleep soon after the long day so he decided to hurry things along.
Joshua pulled out Job base skill reward in his inventory that came in the form of a card and looked it over for a moment. The first thing he noticed about it was the silver color to it and the large stylized letters on it that depicted a J and a S. The moment he observed it a system message popped up not only for him to read, but for everyone else to read.
[Congratulations on discovering the job skill rewards system. This systems comes in the form of cards that can be used to gain a skill at any time. These skills are specific to the job that is selected when applying the card. The only jobs that can be selected are ones that the user currently has. Any skill gained from a skill card will always come in its best version. Lastly the tiers of skill cards are bronze, silver, gold, diamond, Epic, Mythic, and Legendary. The higher the tier the rarer it is to come by such a skill card. Search through the system public data files to learn more with this new update.]
After reading through that notice Joshua and the rest of the group were surprised. Now they had an entire new branch of rewards they had to look out for going forward.