'Clicking. Tapping. Clicking. Tapping. Clicking! Pressing. I'll Murder You'

"I'm picking the next location!" Go calls out irritably while whipping his axes over and around one another to slash and chop into the arms and chest of a mature kobold. "This place sucks!"

The third compass point we found was what looked like a cave and turned out to be a shallow underground wolf's den. Literally, it turned out to be a single large cavern full of mature and juvenile kobolds. Sadly, there were no signs of the even bigger and stronger betas and alpha kobold.

While Go worked on his tanking skills I continued working on my magic, using one hand of lightning to fry two matured while kobolds while using the other to roast a group of juveniles they had tried to protect. I honestly did not understand why Go was having so much trouble with less than a dozen enemies. Sure, the mature kobolds were half a time stronger than hobs but he was a trained half-orc in this game.

Eventually, though, he caved and released a rush of burning air that threw all of his enemies back at the expense of at least twenty percent of his mana. Afterward he easily cleaned the rest of the cavern.

[+330PX]

[Acquired Mature Kobold Tail x2]

[Acquired Kobold Tail x3]

[Acquired Mature Canine x3]

[Acquired Kobold Canine x5]

[Acquired Mature Claw x6]

[Acquired Kobold Claw x2]

[Acquired Mature Kobold Hide x3]

[Acquired Juvenile Core x2]

[Acquired Mature Bezoar]

[Acquired Gold x210]

"Oh, I got a bezoar," I say happily, not even caring for the kobold cores since I was not likely to use their skins for my own armor. "You get anything good?"

"Mature cores," Go replies while hanging his axes at his belt and walking out of the hillside cavern to where our familiars waited. Looking around while slowly turning around, Go picks a northerly direction before saying, "This way. There's an icon that looks like a net but there's no water in this direction. Spider's web?"

"Spider's web," I agree with an inward shudder, grateful at least for the fact that I will not be alone in this fight. "There might be a giant one. I mean, the little ones are called giantulas but the big one is a Gigantula and there might be one there. Hermes needs its fangs and another eye for his armor, though."

"The eye?" Go asks in disgust while leading the way ahead of a large lizard carrying Hermes, Missy, and Cweeper. "It's actually an alchemy ingredient, you can use it in a night vision potion with owl eyes or make a serious toxin by mixing it with some acids like hornet venom or a rodent's gall fluids. Skills are needed to get components like gall, though. For Hermes, though, it's one of the most magical parts of the Gigantula."

"You and Oleander can keep the eyes," Go replies with a visible shudder like the one I had in my head when I heard we were going after spiders next. "What else is the loot good for?"

Staring with the basics as I follow Go's lead from beside Hermes' mount, I say, "The lessers give D grade materials but the big guy gives C grade. The D grade legs and carapace can be used to make decent chitin armor or weapons as they are or transmutation can make them stronger since they're from a somewhat magical creature. The carapace pieces dropped by the big guys, though, have different stats. You can actually soften it at a few hundred degrees and fold it like steel if you work it carefully. However, after more than a single set of folds its liable to break without alchemy."

"How many books have you read, already?" Go asks curiously, looking back at me over his shoulder. "Those encyclopedias are hell on the eyes, Leo, how did you manage it?"

"With a naturally Unbending Willpower," I reply humorously. "It helps to do it while out shopping with Lady Mara and Lana. That way you basically have nothing but reading to do rather than go insane in a tailor's shop. Cweeper, can you shoot that?" I ask curiously, pointing up in the air at what looked like a large hawk or eagle in the distance.

"That thing has to be at least three hundred yards out," Go points out as Cweeper shrugs her new crossbow down from her back and carefully loads it while riding. "It might be coming toward us, but it'll probably see it coming and dodge."

Smiling at Cweeper who was using the soft padding of Missy's masked helm as a rest for her crossbow, I say, "Give it a little extra umph.

Nodding while aiming, Cweeper hold one hand to the side and starts flicking a single finger while using Elemental Claw. She still had trouble producing elements besides fire and darkness on their own so she would usually cycle through different random claw augmentations until she got what she wanted.

This time, she stopped cycling through elements when a larger claw of condensed air capped her finger. Manipulating this air element into a small round ball of compressed air, Cweeper uses free elemental manipulation to place the 'charge' of air at the back of the arrow. Then, holding the crossbow with both hands again, she spent another short moment correcting her aim before firing.

Like usual, the two-foot long crossbow bolt sailed up and out into the air. However, after getting a safe distance away from the ground the air charge suddenly exploded and almost tripled the bolt's speed and force. Disappearing like a short streaking bullet, the bolt flies straight and true right up to the bird.

Half the bird's health was gone in an instant and it started spiraling down to the ground. "Can Ivana do that?" I ask curiously as the lizard and I break into a hard trotting pace that forces Go to start running. "I never taught her that, but thanks to Blood Binding she already knew what I wanted!"

Then the bird hit the ground and its health bar simply vanished.

[Acquired Sun Eagle Beak]

[Acquired Sun Eagle Tail Feather x3]

[Acquired Sun Eagle Wing x2]

[Acquired Sun Eagle Crest]

[Acquired Sun Eagle Talon x3]

[Acquired Sun Eagle Core]

[Acquired Gold x100]

"Holy shit, that thing was worth a hundred gold," I loudly call out as I slow down to read the notifications, no longer needing to run to finish the kill. "I bet it's actually a high grade monster, I haven't even read about it yet. Can't wait to see what the parts say," I find myself musing while opening my menus to check their item descriptions.

Apparently, the sun eagle was a magic bird of the light element that could fly across half a continent in a day without rest and were a B grade monster. As well, parts like the beak and crest had alchemical properties for crafting Strength and MVSPD potions while the tail and wing feathers could make naturally swift and true arrows even without Craftiest. However, what caught my attention the most were the pair of wings I had acquired from the first kill loot.

While the other items besides the crest and core had Uncommon and Rare qualities, each of these were purple Epic grade pieces. More importantly, at the bottom of the wings' description for general crafting purposes were two bold words that read, 'Can Assimilate'.

Assimilate?

Every fiber of my being cried for me to take the wings out of my inventory and use the Cordycep power of assimilation on them. However, I could see Go watching me while I studied the new parts from the corner of my eye. If I took them out and ended up turning into a plagued bird man or something, I would never hear the end of it.

Instead, I simply took out the beak, a single tail feather, and two talons to give to Hermes. Unlike last night when he had waited til we returned to camp to work on his Raiment, Hermes simply took his upper dress off before using some twisted spider silk cordage he made last night to adorn the stretched hand skin across his chest with. Over his heart hung the sun eagle feather while to either side of it were two thick and long talons angling downward and away.

Framing the edges of my hand's skin were pieces of broken spider chitin and protectively laminating the entire dress was a thick gauzy layer of spider's silk that raised it defenses by ten points alone. Now that he was no longer a proper redcap assassin and understood my needs for him were much different than his old life, he had started making his armor more permanent to survive multiple battles in. Of course, I would one day attempt to simply remake it with his help.

"How often do you need to do that?" Go asks as I take out a shiny, amber colored chicken's crest from my inventory and give it to Cweeper to play with. "The giving him parts thing. If you get attacked by more of them, or if the rest of us do, we can build a team of them."

"The armor is made up of all his successful assassinations," I reply with a shrug. "Technically, he should be collecting his own parts. However, I really just give them to him to see what happens when he uses them. As a medium, I might one day be able to crack the code behind some of the Raiment's powers. Otherwise, I guess just give them pieces of the rare stuff."

"What about the spider's silk? Is it strong enough for us to use?" Go continues pestering me for information about parts until I finally took out a sample of all the giantula pieces I had and gave them to him.

"Gigantula silk is what I would make our stuff from, it's got elemental resistances and an insane impact absorption," I reply as he studies his own inventory windows. "Also, your Appraisal skill will never grow if you keep using the system to get item information. I at least use Appraisal on the menu rather than clicking."

"Tapping," he argues carelessly.

"Clicking," I declare defiantly.

"Tapping."

"Clicking."

"Tapping."

"Clicking!"

"Pressing."

"I'll murder you," I warn my oldest friend with a laugh.

Conversation continued picking up and dropping off in seriousness as we traveled, even whenever we found ourselves confronted by twelve-foot serpents with tags that said Meadow Wyrm Viper. Luckily, there were only five of them despite our own numbers. Between the magical attacks coming from the back of a large armored tree dragon as well as Go and my evasive reflexes, the vipers only lasted for a few moments and we worth about fifty experience apiece.

[Acquired Wyrm Viper Skin]

[Acquired Wyrm Viper Fang x3]

[Acquired Wyrm Viper Pits x7]

[Acquired Wyrm Viper Acid]

[Acquired Wyrm Viper Core]

[Acquired Gold x40]

Since I only acquired a single skin I only gave Hermes a pair of fangs that he dressed his chest with at opposing angles from the sun eagle talons. His defense rating did not change any but he suddenly gained an Antitoxin perk. He was now five-percent resistant to poisons and venoms.

After another confrontation with kobolds that ended without any cores or bezoars, we finally reached our destination. However, what we came across was not some kind of spider's nest but instead a temporary named location called Trapped Trappers' Camp.

As the name implied, it was a small camp of several large tents and wagons that were now ruined and scattered about. There were some areas of the ground that were largely soaked and only partially dried with a few strewn parts or innards here and there. Sleeping on the cleaner far side of the camp from us was a literal dog pile of various kobolds.

In the middle of this pile was one large bestial body that stood about seven feet tall with a massive wolf's head on an only slightly humanoid body. On all sides of it were four slightly smaller betas while piled around them were numerous juveniles. Sniffing about the edges of the camp while the others slept were a handful of matured kobolds, bringing the overall number of enemies to around thirty.

Afraid of speaking for worry of alerting the canine enemies, Go and I coordinated through party messages that also alerted the others to what we would were up to. We received a few jokes and tips from the others who had already been through similar event locations today. However, we already had a plan in mind.

Converting my entire body into a Spore Shoal large enough to hide a small ground from view, I instead drifted low to the ground among the grass into the cleared hilltop camp without ever making a sound. Once I was within the patrol circuit of matured kobolds, I divided my cloud body into parts just like the hand I had teased Go with. Then, I let these smaller clouds drift out from my hiding place and into the paths of all five patrolling mature kobolds.

Ten seconds later, five bodies choking on spore clouds filling their faces fell to the ground as only their heads were Assimilated and Corrupted. Once the sentries were taken care of ten seconds later, Go and the others started creeping up to the hilltop while I put my body back together.

[+40XP*5]

[+40*5 Devour XP]

[Devour Leveled]

[+50XP]

Once Go and the others had gotten to the hillside, Go gave out a warrior's Battle Cry to provoke the enemies while buffing the speed and attack of himself and our familiars for a few minutes. Once he sounded the alarm and the other kobolds started bolting up and awake, I leap out of hiding behind a ruined tent and unleash one hundred Mana Points into a single Quick Quake that covered a third of the camp and started sinking the awakened kobolds.

Most of them were up to their knees before they knew it while I started slinging twenty mana's worth of Splash from either hand to further soften the ground and trap the kobolds. However, the alpha was built different. The second that seismic activity started after I showed myself he had leaped from the ground and straight toward.

He cleared half the distance in that one leap but landed right in the path of my first two ten-gallon Splash attacks. Ten gallons was not light by any means and in combat I could sling water for at least half of my overall Strength in force depending on its concentration after receiving Elementalism. The alpha got slid back ten yards before it even knew what hit him while three other splashed filled the ground around and behind it.

The others were racing into the camp, now, and creating even more distraction as the kobolds fought to free themselves from the dense much I was making. The juveniles were secured almost to their shoulders and the betas were struggling to remain only waist deep. The alpha, though, was using its incredible leg strength to leap up and out and forward a few feet before splashing back down up to its knees.

"Valiant effort, old chap," I say as I time its next jump and flick out an Air Cannon that smashed into its chest and threw them ten yards back all over again. Then I emptied all but thirty of my mana into a small but steady gale of subzero wind. Go and the others did not even enter the quaked ground to fight, they just surrounded one side and harassed from safety.

Once the muck was safely frozen over and the kobold pack was safely frosted into the ground, I let the others go out and feed on the easy kills while collecting a giant serving of assists. If I had more mana I would be able to finish one of these event locations by myself without ever actually fighting. As it was, I needed to continue training my skills and raising my magic stats to suit such needs.

[+821XP]

[Acquired Alpha's Accessory]

[Acquired Alpha's Tail]

[Acquired Alpha's Bezoar]

[Acquired Beta Tail x2]

[Acquired Beta Hide x2]

[Acquired Beta Canine x4]

[Acquired Beta Core]

[Acquired Kobold Tail x5]

[Acquired Kobold Canine x10]

[Acquired Kobold Hide x6]

[Acquired Kobold Bezoar]

[Acquired Kobold Core]

[Acquired Gold x720]

[Elementalism Leveled x2]

[+80XP]

"So close…" I say sadly, having reached almost two thirds of the five thousand experience needed to reach level thirty-one. "Another group event like this and I just might level up again. I checked the forums earlier, the top fifty highest leveled players right now are just entering the forties. We're so close!"

"I'm still level twenty-seven and only just reached it," Go sighs almost sadly. "You really do get the best stuff when you go hunting."

"You picked the location, though," I argue while giving him a dead fish expression. "But, at least we know nets and stuff are probably trapper camps like this. Alright, my turn," I say while our familiars start picking through the camp for loot and materials, turning slowly around while looking for an even location.

However, my compass bar was currently empty.

*