Cactus and demon worms

"What took you so long to take care of them. That one actually put his hand on me and not only that but you made his commoner blood touch my new dress. This dress costs more that your life so next time try not to get it messy" replied one of the girls, ignoring the death around her, though her life was in danger and still is right now.

"Since it is your fault for not killing them faster, it is now your responsibility to get us to the capital. And for messing up both our dresses you will have to be our man servant until you work off your debt to us" chimed the other sister as Shawn stood there looking at them.

A look of deep annoyance flashed across Shawn's face, he did not really kill the bandits to save them. It was more like a situation of mutual benefit but these girls are actively trying to make him regret helping them. They must be mad to even consider talking to him like that after seeing what he just did, they were either delirious or insane, maybe a little bit of both.

The girls simultaneously felt a monsterous presence being directed at them, it was so powerful they felt like their feeble existence was being consumed by something greater. The pressure was so great that the girls fell to their knees in exhaustion before passing out. [Intense Bloodlust deactivated], Shawn then gathered all the supplies from the bandits, though the gear they wore was of poor quality atleast he got some more metals which would be useful eventually.

While Shawn was taking the bandit's equipment he found the gold that they had robbed and as he touched it he could feel that it was a weapon material. He knew his level was too low to use it right now but sometime in the future he would need gold to build a new weapon.

After confirming that he could not use the gold he placed it in the carriage before throwing the two girls inside. Leaving them here without money just laying on the floor was essentially a death sentence. Even though they were demanding and ungrateful that didn't really mean they deserved to die, so Shawn opted to allow them to live. Not out of sympathy but out of standing nothing to gain by killing them. Both of them together would give him 6 exp which was ridiculous to even consider.

Plus there was another benefit to stopping here, those Unicorns that the bandits had released would be great in making his journey much shorter and with his mana sense he could already tell where all the creatures were before entering the forest. Greater mana sense was so useful up until now that he had no idea how he would repay Nicholas for teaching it to him.

With the Unicorn now captured, Shawn rode for a little over a day taking a few breaks in between before reaching the desert. Shawn set the horse free to roam around and feed on cactus until he was ready again. And with that Shawn entered the Chitin desert also referred to a the insect hell, hoping that a fountain of expirence awaited him.

[Fire negated : overheat status negated : stamina drain negated], it seemed like the fire immunity from the chaos God came in handy after all.

It didn't just protect me from fire attacks but it protects me from all fire based affliction and now that I actually think about it ever since coming into this world I have never been hot thought Shawn as he aimlessly wandered looking for something to distract himself with.

The blistering wind picked up around Shawn blowing sand into his face, causing him to squint, sand dunes stretched out for miles. It was a desert but they should have called it a wasteland there was nothing as far as the eye could see, which was definitely strange. In fact even the cacti which were all present when he first reached the desert was no where to be seen. As Shawn was moving through the barren wasteland he felt a presence approaching him at great speed, from the amount of mana being released it was roughly around the strength of a moon bear or a little greater.

Shawn readied himself as the creature approached him, he could feel that the presence was burrowing through the sand. 50m, 10m, 5m and then it stopped, the small sand dune that had been coming towards Shawn began growing until a centipede type creature burst from the ground spraying sand everywhere.

The creature was about 15ft in length and had gigantic pincers growing from its body. The pincers were definitely the most threatening thing about the creature, the pincers were about 3ft long and were serrated. It was a gross looking creature with black shiny plating which covered all visibile parts of it's body. The creature threw back it head and ached forward prompting Shawn to flash step out of the way and as he did a slimy green liquid splashed at where he once stood.

Shawn threw Cro-Van hoping to do some damage but the knife just logged itself right in the creature's torso and the creature screeched, slightly more annoyed than angry. Shawn without giving the creature time to attack again jumped up to where he threw Cro-Van (9ft up) and pulled down with all his might splitting the creature's armor and slicing it straight down the middle.

And with one final death thrall the creature collapsed to the desert floor.[250exp] Now that Shawn had the chance he inspected the creature, he was surprised. [Juvenile Desert Chilopoda : 250exp : dead : harvestable (crystal)], Shawn then grabbed the book and asked about the information he just learned.

The desert Chilopoda are insectoid monsters that generally roam the Chitin Desert in groups. They can grow up to 25ft long with pincers of up to 8ft. They have tough chitin armor that covers their entire body and are very territorial outside of thier own group.

They have a tendency to spit bile and stomach enzymes at their opponents to weaken and blind them. Their chitin plates are impervious to bile, acid and poison but can be broken with sufficient and concentrated force. Bile and enzymes will begin digesting and breaking down the the tissue of whatever biological matter it comes in contact with, it helps them with digestion of preys. Not immediately lethal unless it enters your eyes or mouth.

Upon death their monster crystal can be harvested from their corpse, the crystal is usually in the head or chest of most monsters. Crystals are only present in monsters D rank and above because only those above D rank have magic potential. Chilopoda produce brown crystals....

Crystals can have a variety of uses which include, being used as a source of power, can be sold to merchants and can also be used in crafting gear and weapons by a forge master. The quality of monster crystals can be determined by three factors the rarity of the monster they came from, the purity which is decided based on wheter the color is clear or not. Clear crystal are less valuable and expensive. The clearer the crystal the less magic was stored within it.

And lastly the color, generic crystals are gray and brown every other color will increase the rarity of the crystal. All beings that posses magic have these crystals but when sentient beings die their crystals get destroyed as well, preventing them from being harvested.

The crystals thing was quite interesting but the thing that stood out the most to Shawn was the fact that they traveled in groups. Even though killing this one was easy, being ganged up on by a number of them would not be the best case scenario and it would be troublesome especially with that bile ball that they threw around. But there was a solution to every problem you just have to find it thought Shawn as he brought out Cro-Van and began cutting into the Chilopoda.

He found the crystal exactly where the book said and while he was at it he managed to cut off one of the non-damaged chitin plates. He ran a strap across it and threw it across his back for whenever he had a encounter with multiple Chilopoda.

Almost as if on cue four more mana clusters began racing towards Shawn. Knowing that a knife would be very ineffective against more than one Chilopoda Shawn brought out Jack and Jill, just based on how the book described the armor and the fact that his 2x throw could barely penteate it, the razor bullets would be completely ineffective against them. The Razor bullets would surely bounce right off.

As the three Chilopoda surfaced together they all screeched after seeing their "friend" in that state. As they screeched even Shawn had to cover his ears and just like that he realized why they were multiplying, that screech was like a distress call beaconing the location of battle and they were all rushing here to get a piece of the Shawn pie.

Thought these Chilopoda were fully grown with significantly thicker plating the Hand Cannons tore through them like wet paper.[1200exp]. But before those bodies could fall Shawn got a worrying notification. [War God activated] and as soon as he saw that he felt about 13 more mana clusters approaching. And even after those died they threw out more damn death thralls.

54 alloy bullets, 53 razor bullets and 295 health points later Shawn was sitting atop a mountain of Chilopoda corpses. On the bright side he got tons of experience but he was out of alloy bullets and his health was below half. It was night-time now and the desert had gotten so cold he could see the frost growing on the dead bodies of the Chilopoda, but he could not feel the cold whatsoever.

Shawn made an executive decision to head out of the desert for now and go back to Danafall, he didn't really trust sleeping out here. Even though it looked safe he had no idea what other monsterous creature were lurking out here after dark and he wanted to buy some health potions, which were really expensive but on the bright side with all the crystals he had collected he would be able to purchase a good amount. Shawn used a good portion of his remaining stamina to sprint at full speed out of the desert.

About 10 minutes after Shawn had left the pile of corpses a black 8 legged creature emerged from the sand, drawn in by the stench of death. It was a spider monster and it was frenzied by all the food it now had. As the spider approached, a larger spider leg stabbed through the spider's armor with ease before throwing the body off into the distance. A much larger spider, the Brood Mother sat atop the mountain of corpses feasting away ordering her children to wait their turn.

After she had eaten her fill, she screeched, letting them know it was time to eat and only a moment after that all the corpses had disappeared.

The Unicorn which Shawn decided to name cactus considering it's love for the spike fruit was still in the area where he left it. The horse neighed (horse noise) in delight as it saw it's rider return. With the blessing from the nature goddess non-violent low level beasts like Cactus had an affinity towards Shawn.

Creatures like this one enjoyed being in the presence of Shawn, it just felt right. As Shawn approached the horse he got a notification.

[Species : Bovi Uniabus likes you : would you like to tame and make it your mount (y)], unable to see any reason not to Shawn accepted and got a new set of notifications.

[Give the creature some mana to tame], after touching the Unicorn and allowing his mana to flow into the creature, after about a 1000 points of mana a change began to take place in the creature.

The Unicorn's white fur turned Black and it's horn shifted to the side of it's head and another horn grew on the opposite side evening out the creatures look. While the Unicorn looked pure this creature looked almost evil and it's piercing red eyes stared into Shawn almost like it was awaiting an order.

"Let's go Cactus" shouted Shawn as he mounted the Bicorn and rode at unimaginable speeds towards Danafall.

[Status]

Name: Shawn

Title: War God

Level: 8 (3740/25600)

Class: Gun Slinger

Age: 18

Species: Dark elf

Current state: Bored

Points: 6

Passive: Stealth, Futile struggle, greater mana sense,

--Physical*

*mana 4499000

*speed 500

*vitality 500 (105)

*strength 500

*stamina 475

--Shooting*

*range lvl 3

*accuracy lvl 3

--Skills

One Will {all weapons made by your powers are bound to you and can be brought back to your hands at will}

Mana Onslaught

Intense Bloodlust

Mana Barrier lvl 2 {blocks mana attacks}

Flash Step lvl 2 {quick traverse 10m}

--Crafting*

*forging lvl 2 {making weapons}

*building lvl 2 {making everything else}

*luck lvl 2

*transmuting

--Weapons

Cro-Van. {skill : throwing the blade will cause the weapon to move 2x the speed and will return to your cloak after 2mins if you have not yet retrieved it}

Jack and Jill. {skill(9/10): Red dot: After emptying both clips, your next shot from each gun is a guaranteed hit and will deal one more damage}

Razor.

Razor Bullets. (61) {slash}

Alloy bullets. (0) {puncture}

Grenades. (3) {impact, heat}

--Mount

Cactus {Bicorn}