Chapter 11: A Familiar Face

Everyone was excited to begin divvying the loot but a sudden glow quickly stopped them in their tracks.

Everyone had earned a sizeable chunk of experience with each of them leveling up once. Hegen quickly put his free points on agility as he was not lacking in strength for the near future.

Satisfied, Hegen brought his attention back to the group just as the others were doing the same. They were all excited and chatting merrily about their haul. They quickly examined the item's characteristics and were not disappointed. In total there was 1 epic item, 2 rares with one even being a skill book, and 6 uncommon items. Although there was not a jackpot drop, bosses generally dropped larger amounts of items than regular monsters. Just before they were able to examine the specific details of the loot, they were interrupted by a popup that appeared before each of them.

[Congratulations on being the first group to clear a Rare Boss. Would you like to broadcast your group's name and member names? Yes/No]

Everyone quickly looked up before agreeing to announce their name. It was automatically input as Dynasty.

[Congratulations to Dynasty for being the first group to defeat a Rare Boss. Rewarding +15,000 Exp, +50 silver, +25 Free Attribute Points]

Excitedly, everyone quickly distributed their new points, including Hegen who decided to use 15 on Agility and 10 on Wisdom. His attributes now looked like this.

[Name: Hegen

HP: 450/450

Race: Human

Titles: He Who Creates

Level: 7

Exp: 16,350/10,000

Skills: 9 Trigram Fists (C), Consecutive Lightning Strikes (D), Blade of the Flowing Ocean (B), Breath of Speed (F)

Strength: 32

Vitality: 15

Agility: 50

Wisdom: 35

Charisma: 8

Free Attribute Points: 0]

Looking through his character sheet, Hegen noticed that he had earned a new skill directly after his Agility reached the 50-point threshold.

[Skill: Breath of Speed

Grade: F

Type: Passive

Effect: Increase perception by 50%]

'So that's where the increase in perception came from.'

Hegen had already noticed that his senses had become clearer but he wasn't quite sure of the reason. He was satisfied with his stats and looked back towards the group where the others were already inspecting their loot that they had been so rudely interrupted.

[Item: Ring of Silence

Grade: Rare

Attributes: +50 Agility

Passive Effect 1 (Death's Silence): Your movement creates significantly less noise.

Active Effect 1 (Silent Whisper): Quickly and silently move behind an enemy within 10 yards. Your next attack deals 300% of strength.

Description: The ring of a devout apostle of death. There are said to be many rings from this apostle lost in the world, maybe collecting more would do something?]

[Item: Great Axe of B'yorn

Grade: Unique

Attributes: +80 Strength, +60 Agility, +60 Vitality

Passive Effect 1 (Giant's Valor): +20% Strength

Active Effect 1 (Giant's Roar): Let loose a roar that increases all ally Strength by 20% and Vitality by 10%.

Active Effect 2 (Earth's Tide): Send forward a tide of rocks up to 20 yards away dealing 200% strength.]

[Item: Rare Mage Skillbook

Grade: Rare

Attributes: N/A

Skills: N/A

Description: Allows a mage to learn a rare skill.]

The others let Hegen get the first choice of items as it was only fair since he did the most work out of the group. He immediately decided to select the Ring of Silence as it fixed his Agility problem. The others also let him take the skill book as he was the only mage in the group capable of learning it. After he selected his items, the others had an internal auction for the remaining items. Maniac ended up winning the axe by barely outbidding Demon and sacrificing his take on the rest of the items.

The rest of the uncommon items were split between Demon, Style, and Slumber before they were finished. Tidying up their new equipment, the group decided to roam around the Silent Forest for a while longer, enjoying the good leveling spot. They encountered a blind wolf pack with a One-Eyed leader again, but this time with their new equipment they decimated the wolf pack one-sidedly. The increase in attributes earned from the equipment was nothing to scoff at and this was shown by the incredible difference in strength.

Where Maniac struggled to hold onto the One-Eyed Leader before, he was able to easily push it back, even using a single hand to hold his shield as he swung his new axe in the other. The wolf pack didn't drop much equipment, only allowing slumber to upgrade a piece of armor he was wearing, but it allowed them to get accustomed to their new weapons. After roaming around Silent Forest for a little longer, they decided to make their way back to the village.

Just as the village appeared over the horizon, the group heard a familiar voice call to them from the side.

"Did you really think that you would be able to insult the Ouroboros Guild and get away with it? Well, think again!"

Turning to face the voice, the group quickly noticed that it came from Harrowing Owl, who was leading someone else.

"Are these the people who stole the boss from our guild?" asked the woman behind Harrowing Owl.

"Yes! My group was about to kill the Silent Devourer but these guys showed up and killed us and stole the loot. That's probably how they upgraded their weapons!" Harrowing Owl quickly lied to the woman.

"Oh?" The woman turned to face Hegen and the others. "If you guys give us your equipment then we'll let you go."

In response, Hegen simply chuckled.