Level 20 At Last!

She walked for a good ten minutes along her way, thinking her work was done for the day. Unfortunately for her, her violent execution of the goblin community had attracted the attention of many beasts in the forest. One of them had managed to chase her down by the smell of blood that she carried in the bundle.

Freya's senses instantly warned her of an attack. She dropped the bundle and jumped away but she wasn't fast enough as a large pair of fangs closed around her leg. The fangs broke through her armor and flesh, fracturing her bone. The beast pulled back Freya and threw her against the trunk of a large tree.

Freya gritted her teeth in pain and quickly rolled away before the trunk shattered. A large black spider, two meters in height and almost five meters in length, was glaring at her with eight red eyes. Her leg bone was fractured, and two large holes were bleeding a large amount of blood. However, the spider didn't stop its attack, and quickly rushed at her, brandishing its two incisors in anger.

Freya was weary from her previous confrontation with the goblins. Her stamina and mana had still not fully recovered. She had ten stat points available, which she immediately invested in stamina and intelligence equally.

This time, being aware of the direction of the attack, Freya was able to barely avoid the lunge and brought down her sword with all her strength on the Spider's head. The eight eyes easily noticed the blade but didn't even try to avoid it, instead used the time to stabilize its form and got into position for another attack. The steel sword clashed against it body and bounced off its body as if it had clashed with steel armor.

Freya's hand was throbbing in pain, she had felt the all her strength redirected back in to the sword and into her hands. She had yet to recover from the shock when the Spider attacked her once more. If she was not injured, she could have avoided it. Yet, with her fractured leg and the proximity of the attack, the Spider crashed into her crossed hands as she tried to block it.

She realized her mistake when she felt the impact on her hands. She may have been superior to her enemy in speed but she was clearly inferior in strength and defense. In fact, the only reason her hands had not been fractured was the 'Bronze Leather Gloves'. The armor on her hands was better than the 'Ranger's Pants' on her legs and had saved her from another injury.

The Giant Spider tried to catch her with its fang and drive her into another tree trunk. However, Freya easily saw through its plan and twisted her body over its head, getting out of its clutch.

"Raging Flame Snake!" Freya shouted as she unleashed her strongest fire element spell. A giant fiery serpent, erupting from her hands, crashed into the back of the giant spider and exploded. The explosion carried the spider, crashing into a tree.

'That Spider is likely a magic beast focused on defense.' Art explained when the smoke scattered and the spider appeared unharmed yet a little wary. 'It even endured your sword like it was nothing.'

'It's an Armored Spider.' Freya explained as she slowly retreated without taking her eyes off her enemy, while also consuming a health potion. 'As they grow stronger, their body becomes more resilient, but if it's able to withstand tempered steel than it is impossible for me to deal with it. They are even resistant to spells.'

While the Spider was resistant to spells, it was not immune to them. That was probably why the spider wasn't attacking as enthusiastically as before. Luckily, by its size, Freya had deduced that it was a male, so she would not have to worry about venom. A female would be twice the size and extremely venomous. The only problem was even after investing stat points in intelligence, she only had enough mana for a single cast of her strongest spell, which was the only one that had a chance to penetrate through the Spider's shell but it would not be easy to hit the arachnid.

The Spider, noticing her retreat, instantly spat a glob of web in her direction. Freya tried to erect an earthen barrier but it was too late, she once more swung her sword to cut through the web. Unfortunately the sword was unable to cut through it and which wrapped around it, sticking to the tree behind Freya. She tried to break free but it refused to budge.

Freya quickly moved away before the Spider attacked her location. Her leg was still far from recovered, so she could only barely avoid the spider. With her sword gone and her mana only enough for one spell, Freya could only run as the spider began to chase after her, but with her injured leg it was not a good plan.

'Listen up, Freya, if you want to live, follow my instructions.' The mage in her head advised.

Freya continued to dodge the huge spider as Art explained his plan. She just barely avoided a lunge from the spider when suddenly a jolt of pain ran through her leg. She froze from the sudden pain, giving the Spider enough time to swat her away with one of its legs.

Freya collided with a tree, her lungs out of breath and her leg in pain. The Spider quickly spat out another glob of web at her to trap her. The mage unable to move tried to erect an earthen barrier as the earth rose before her, but her pain upset her focus, causing the spell to fail.

The glob of web threw her into the tree behind her, binding her to it. The Spider finally succeeded in catching it prey in a trap, began to approach her swiftly to finally finish her off.

Just as it was about to attack the adventurer, its movement stopped. Four of its legs had been swallowed by the earth, prevented it from moving. A smile appeared on Freya's face as the gemstone in the Goblin Shaman's Staff flashed with an emerald light.

"Spear of Thunder!" Freya shouted out her final spell.

The Spider's eyes moved to the sky as a blue flash appeared. Blue Lightning continued to strike a single location in the air until it condensed to form the shape of a huge spear. It was top tier second circle spell, but with her trait had made it so that its power was rivaling a third circle spell.

The Spider desperately tried to pull out its legs from the quagmire but it was too late. The Lightning spear fell with a deafening sound on its head. The electrical energy entered its body, shattering its armor and wreaking havoc to its organs. While its outer shell was quite strong, but its inner body was not as strong.

No matter how much the black spider tried to resist, it could survive the impact of such a powerful spell and when the spell subsided a blue message appeared to Freya.

[You have killed a level 32 'Giant Armored Spider (Infant)'. +6970 Exp]

[You have gained a rare skill book.]

[You have levelled up to level 20! +10 Distributable stats point.]

Freya ignored any other messages, as she only wanted to confirm the Spider's death. She was still trapped in the web and with her mana exhausted, she will have to wait until it recovered to get out of the netting. She focused on her necklace, which had an effect of increasing her mana recovery.

Freya looked at the corpse of her battered enemy. She was relieved that the beast was finally dead. In its arrogance at trapping her, the spider fell into her trap. In fact, her earthen barrier spell had not failed but she only gave that impression. When in reality, she had cast a spell that created a quagmire, 'Snatching Earth!'

When the spider was finally trapped in the quagmire, Freya had unleashed her strongest spell. If it had suspected her behavior, it would have avoided her trap and would have been able to dodge her decisive spell. Luckily, her plan had worked.

As her mana recovered steadily, she gave a look to the staff in her hand that had saved her life. Without it and the 'Necklace of Meditation', she would not have had enough mana to cast her last spell after casting the earth spell.

[Shaman's Wind Staff.

Rank: Rare

Magical Damage: 370

Durability: 54/75

Description: A Magic Staff with affinity towards the wind element. It was crafted by a goblin shaman using the soul gem of a wind attribute magic hawk.

Effect:

1. Reduce the mana consumption of wind attribute magic by 9%.]

Lightning was not one of the four basic elements. It was a variant magic of wind, like ice was to water magic. Therefore, the staff had worked for her lightning spell. She could have used other spells, but none of them were strong enough. None had the sheer penetrating power of 'Spear of Thunder'.

Trapped in the middle of a forest, having exhausted both her stamina and mana, she was helpless. If another beast were to attack her now, she would be dead, even if it was a measly wolf. As soon as she had enough mana, she cast the 'Frozen Aura' spell to freeze the web and easily break out of it.