Chapter 21 – Looking For New Monsters.

My current goal right now is to tame at least 2 new monster and add them to our party, but there is a problem.

[You encountered a [Akru'n Frog-Man Warrior – Level 33]!]

[You encountered a [Akru'n Frog-Man Archer – Level 32]!]

[You encountered a [Akru'n Frog-Man Apprentice Mage – Level 34]!]

"There is literally nothing else besides the Frog-Mans here."

"Maybe I should had asked locals beforehand about what kind of monsters live here, but it's not like I can return right now while I still have [Notoriety] points with me."

"Well, karma is a b*tch, that what I get for killing innocent people."

Mix opened her status winddown while keep walking forward.

[ Taming Mastery: 183(+25) ] – [ Remanning Points: 112/208 ]

(I currently have 112 unused [Taming Mastery] points and I have 33 unused free stat points.)

(Let's say that average cost of monster is about the same as Min, since she isn't a rare species like Ollie. Min current summon cost is 43, if I were to get two new monster that have level 33, the cost should be 86 points, right? That would leave me with 26 points remaining. If I were to put all my remaining free points into [Taming Mastery], I would instead end up with 59 [Taming Mastery] points remaining.)

(Should I be aiming instead to tame 3 monsters instead? No.)

(The cost of each tamed creatures increases by 1 every time they level up, after few levels I would be probably forced to put one of the monster back to the book for the long time. Let's just aim for only 2 monsters for now.)

[Bhu'n Frog-Man Taming Arts]

[Skill level: 1] – [Progress Rate: 11%]

[Skill type: Passive]

[This passive skill possess 3 effects.]

[First effect. Increases the odds of successfully taming creature that is either: amphibian, reptile or insect type creatures by X% (X = Current skill level)(X = 1)]

[Second effect. Decrees the cost of [Taming Mastery] points used for: amphibian, reptile and insect type tamed creatures by Y% (Y = Current skill level)(Y = 1). The reduced cost is then rounded up after it's reduced, example: cost 26 – 10% = 23,4 -> The current cost is 23.]

[Third effect. Each creature under your control will receive Z% Negative Status Resistance (Z= Current skill level multiplied by 0,5)(Z = 1 x 0,5 = 0,5).]

[This skill will receive progression rate whenever: You tame amphibian, insect or reptile type monster. Whenever the tamed creature you control that is amphibian, insect or reptile fights or/and defeats an opponent. Whenever you manage to evolve your tamed creature that is amphibian, insect or reptile.]

([Bhu'n Frog-Man Taming Arts] is a skill from the skill book I got from the mayor. The first effect increase the taming odds against specific race of enemies. The second effect decrees summoning cost of the specific monsters and the third effect grands buff to all monsters under my control.)

(Should try and find the amphibian, reptile or insect monster to tame, so the skill effect can reduce their summoning cost?)

"Speaking of monster types. So far, I only encounters: amphibian, reptile, insect and mammals. Are by any chance those are the most common type of monsters in this country? Even here I only encounter amphibian (Frog-Mans) ever since I got here."

"Honestly, I was thinking about some sort of plant monster or something appearing here, since this is the forest with giant trees, elves lives here with nature and stuff like that. An fantasy monster."

"AGHA!"

"Just like this guy." – said Mix while pointing her finger at the humanoid tree monster next to her.

"…." – Mix and the tree monster stared at each other in silence.

"Oh…."

"Em…Are you friendly?"

The monster tried slashing Mix with its claw but Mix quickly dodge attack by jumping backwards.

"Nope. Not friendly. Definity not friendly." – (How did that bastard got so close to in first place? I didn't noticed him until he was right next to me and Min didn't alarmed me, meaning she didn't heard anything approaching us.)

While Mix was still thinking how the monster got so close to her, before she realized she was already surrounded by 6 foot tall tree monsters in all direction.

(!)

(When did they – No wait.)

(This guys were waiting, this is ambush set up by them.)

[Walking Tree – Level 32]

[Walking Tree – Level 34]

[Walking Tree – Level 33]

(The ones with lowest level are level 32 while the highest level one here is level 34. There is 12 enemies but I don't know if there are more hiding in waiting somewhere and I still don't know how they got so close to me without noticing.)

"Interesting. This is the second time ever that I got ambushed by the monsters before I know it."

"Ollie, Min, stay away and don't help me. Attack only if anybody of them trying to escape."

Ollie and Min fallowed the order and left Mix, leaving her alone against the monsters.

"Don't disappoint me now and show me what you got!" – said Mix with the smile of the monster on her face.

The creature right in front of Mix tried slashing Mix over and over again but Mix dodged each of its attacks.

(Not slow, but not fast either and simple attacks on top of that.)

The next swipe attack made by the creature was not dodge by Mix but instead blocked.

(I took some damage even though I blocked but not that much really. It doesn't seems to have lot of attack power but not the small amount either.)

"Now your turn. Try not to die too early."

Mix used both of her axes to cut off both arms of the creature when it tried attacking Mix, she then used both of her axes to cross slash the creature in the chest.

[You have slain: Walking Tree – Level 34.]

(It defense don't seems to be that big either but not small as well I say.)

(I think I get the deal with those guys, all of their stats are evenly balanced.)

"Oh, now that think about, I should probably try using this as well."

[You have equipped: [Two Handed Great Iron Axe].]

"Let's try using this bad boy now."

The three Walking Trees launched themselves at the Mix from three different direction, in responses Mix took a posture while grabbing the axe with both of hands and moment later she then spined her weapon around, cutting in half all the monsters around her and killing them all as well

"And that makes the total of 4. What are you going to do now? Are you going come at me or not?"

All the remaining enemies begined charring straight at the at the Mix while two enemies stayed behind and instead punched the ground.

"These guys are-"

Before Mix could finish her sentence, she noticed ground cracking beneath her and moment later tree root appear from the same spot, launching it self at the Mix like a spear.

Mix made an quick step backwards to barely dodge the attack, the attack itself flew and scratched Mix armor, creating loud screeching sound in process. She then noticed the second attacking coming from behind her, she tried using her weapon to block the attack, but before she could do it the plant root was already launched and pierced her shoulder.

"Bastard."

Mix used the axe to cut the tree root that pierced her shoulder and then grabbed the part that was still stuck in her and pulled it out.

[You are bleeding! You will lose portion of your HP every second.]

(This attack seems very similar to the mayor skill, but it's obvious different thing. The first attack went in straight line and didn't try to chase me when I dodged it. By the look of things, it has limited range and can only be shot in single direction.)

(Only two enemies punched the ground and only two attacks were launched.)

The remaining enemies that were rushing at Mix, finally got her within their attack range and begined attacking Mix.

Mix tried desperately blocking the attack using her giant axe, but most of her attempts were unsuccessful and end up having lose her HP bit by bit.

(Damn, I thought it would be much easier blocking would since the weapon is bigger, but I can't block in time attack coming from different directions.)

"Ok, screw defense."

Mix stopped defending herself and begined attacking monster one by one, cutting and destroying them with each strike. She no longer blocked enemy attacked but instead tried dodging them, but in the end, she still took damage by some of the attacks.

Mix slew one by one each monster near her until all of them were slain.

"And that 10. Man, I took way faster to beat them then I thought, but I still got hit way more than I thought I would in process."

[Level Up! You became level 38!]

[Tamed creature: Min had level up! Min became level 34!]

[Tamed creature: Ollie had level up! Min became level 35!]

The two remaining enemies that were staying behind begined charging at the Mix, she in response change her weapons back to two axes.

Mix rushed straight into enemy on right and quickly deal multiple blows to it, without killing it but lowering its HP to 17%.

"[Tame]."

An square like pattern appeared beneath monster and moment later:

[You have successfully tamed: Walking Tree – level 33.]

"That's one."

Mix then rushed towards the second opponent and did the same thing again, attacked multiple times without killing the monster."

"[Tame]."

[You have successfully tamed: Walking Tree – level 33.]

"It's over. Let's quickly grab a potion before I bleed too much." – said Mix while collapsing on the ground and taking out potion from inventory.

"Let's check their stats first. [Tamer Book]." – A book like object appeared in Mix hand.

[ Race: Walking Tree ]

[ Gender: Non]

[ Level: 33 ]

[ HP: 830/830 ] [ MP: 440/440 ] [ SP: 440/440 ]

[ Main stats ]

[ Physical Defense: 47 ] [ Magic Defense: 47 ] [ Strength: 47 ] [ Agility: 47 ] [ Intelligent: 47 ] [ Health: 83 ] [ Magic: 44 ] [Constitution: 44 ]]

[ Free stat points: 0 ]

[ Skills: [Forest Resident] [Nature Fang](Level 1). ]

[ Taming Mastery Cost: 43 ]

[Forest Resident]

[Skill type: Passive]

[Increases the user stealth by 25 if the user is not moving and it's currently in forest type area.]

[Increase user regeneration rate of HP, SP, MP and other. The regeneration buff gives 1% of each HP, SP, MP and other energies maximal amount. This effect only activates in forest type areas.]

{{Regeneration rate: Each HP, SP, MP and other energies possess their own regeneration rate. The regeneration rate will restore specific amount of points every 1 second. Example: if the regeneration is at the 1, the target will receive 1 point every second. If the regeneration is at 3 the target will receive 1 point every second. If the regeneration is at 0.1, then target will receive 1 point after 10 seconds. You get the it right?}}

{{Stealth: Stealth mechanic influences your hiding skills. The higher your stealth is, the hard it is for opponent to detect you. There are some skills with detection, if the detection is equal or higher that stealth, then the stealth will not work against them. Your detection against opponent will increase if: You are looking directly at them or/and if they are close to you.

Stealth may hinder or block completely [Check].}}

[Nature Fang]

[Skill level: 1]

[Skill type: Active]

[Cooldown: 5 Minutes.]

[Cost: 100 MP]

[User attack the ground with it/his/her hands to create a signal. The signal will travel using travels on the ground surface. When signal travel to the set location then an plant root spike will be launched at the set directions at high speed. The set location and the set attack directions are chosen by the user.]

[This skill deals 300% + X% of your current [Intelligent] as Physical – Nature Damage. This skills also ignore 10% + Y% of opponent(s) [Physical Defense] (X= current skill level multiplied by 10)(X=10) (Y= current skill level)(Y=1). This skill also possess increased penetration effect.]

[This skill cast range is 15 + Z meters and the length of the spike is 3 + Z meters (Z = current skill level multiplied by 0.5)(Z=0.5).]

"Two skills huh. One passive and one active. The passive seems very useful, but it only works in forest type areas. The active ability seem pretty good as well, it deals 310% of the [Intelligent], so 140,7 damage, right? And it also ignores opponent defense a bit, I was wondering how that damaged that much."

(They don't seems too good or too bad either, so I will make them our party members for now. My honest opinion is to just take one and release the other but, I don't know when I will encounter any other tamable monster any time soon, I already explored a lot and so far, this was the first tamable monster I found. Best option as of right now is to keep both of them and if something interesting pops up I can just tame it and release one of them or keep them.)

(And who know, maybe they will evolve into something very overpowered in future or may seems way useful than I think. Either way I have to wait and see.)

Anyway, I did my little test and proven that two handed close combat weapons are no go for me.

Two handed and one handed weapons have both their down sides and up sides.

One handed weapon:

Ups:

-You can move your arm faster – you can block and attack faster.

Downs:

-You sometimes need multiple hits to kill opponent and each hit damage is reduced because of target defense.

Two handed weapon:

Ups:

-Deals way more damage that one handed weapons.

-Longer reach.

Downs:

-Your attacks are slower and it's harder to block against the attack from different directions.

Every single hit that connects have its damage reduced based on target defense. Since you hit multiple times the foe with one handed weapons, each attack damage is reduced but two handed weapons don't have that problem.

-4 attacks with one handed weapon – damage is reduced 4 times.

-1 attack from two handed weapon – damage is reduced only 1 time.

The two handed weapons are bigger and can be used as pseudo shield, however I noticed that I can't sometimes move them in time to block attacks from different direction, I did not manage to block in time because of weapon heaviness.

Since I lack any defensive type skill, I focus on dodging and blocking attack, however with two handed weapons I can't block very well and rely on dodging alone won't work for me. I probably would be able to block the attack better if I invested some of my stat points [Strength], since it will make swinging heavier weapons much easier.

But I currently putting most of stats points into [Taming Mastery] or I distribute them equally from time to time into all of my stats, since I still don't know what stat will be most useful for me in future besides [Taming Mastery].

Well there is also the fact that I can't use one handed crossbow when I'm using two handed weapon, since I won't have any free hand left, unless there is some kind of skill that lets you grow third hand or something.

It's not like the two handed weapons are bad or anything. If you are looking for damage then two handed weapons are your thing. If you have some sort skill that increases your defense like Ollie or have a support in party like those player had, you can pretty much cover for one of two handed weapons downside.

Well anyway, I won't be using two handed weapons, expected two handed crossbow since I need it for long range combat.

[Please set new tamed creature names.]

(Now what should I name you two? You don't posses a gender or anything. You look identical as well. Hmmm….)

"Let's go with Rlr and Lrl."

[Tamed creature: Walking Tree has been granted name Rlr.]

[Tamed creature: Walking Tree has been granted name Lrl.]

"You can stop hiding now, come great your new teammates."

Ollie and Min who were hiding, revealed themselves and approached Rlr and Lrl, they greeted the new party members with opens arms.

(Now that I finally tamed new 2 monster, making our little group party of 5. It's time now to pick up the pace.)