Chapter 9 : New skills and equipment

After a while, Michael began to train again with Anabelle. First grappling, light weapon mastery, and sword weapon mastery, they went through a lot. Tired, he asked Anabelle to stop. 

"Let's end it here. Thanks for all this huff.. I believe I will catch up in Strength to you soon huff, huff... It would be nice if I could team up with you." Michael told her gasping through his breath, trying to catch his respiration. He had one hand on his side and was crouching in pain. 

She smiled : 

"You have to hurry up to reach level 20 and go to Nebula City then. I will be waiting for you" 

"I promise I will be there."

"Hmn. Right now, the beginner town is just the tutorial. The quests are not that good, and there are not even Dungeons. When we meet in the city, we will explore". She happily replied. 

.....

At night, Michael Connected to Stellarion. He had of course exposed himself to the sun all afternoon while studying so that he could get stats. 

Therefore, he got 4.31 attributes to distribute. He put them all into speed and reaction. Attributes were connected to each other in a certain way, and some more than others. 

Constitution was connected to Strength. If your Strength was high and your constitution low your body would get destroyed if you tried to swing something with that high strength. 

In the same way, a big constitution with low strength could lead to big health problems, like shortness of breath, stiffness and others.

Speed was useless without the reaction attribute, as this attribute would allow the nervous system to be more active and slow down the perspective during combat. 

If you had high reaction but low speed, however, you would see an attack coming but not have the speed to react. 

The same connection linked wisdom and intellect. Therefore, those attributes were connected in some way and it was the safest option to increase them together. 

He increased his speed to 16.46 and his reaction to 15.98.

His stats were now : 

[Strength] = 20,57

[Constitution] = 20,06

[Speed] = 16,46

[Reaction] = 15,98

[Intelligence] 11,2

[Wisdom] = 11,12

Satisfied, he went to sell equipments and buy some things. Arriving at the store, he was relieved that it was not very crowded.

There were different counter so that people could conduct their business. Choosing a counter, he made his way into it. 

"Do you want to buy or sell" asked an indifferent middle-aged man behind the counter.

Immediately Michael showed him all the item he had, including the assassin robe, the armor, the Boros magician staff of excellent quality and the sword he had collected. 

He wasn't quite satisfied with the sword, so he sold it too so that he could buy another one with another armor. 

In total, he received 90 bronze coins on top of the 60 he obtained while hunting, he had in total 1 silver coins and 50 bronze Coins. 100 bronze coins had been converted into 1 silver.

 It was thanks to the excellent quality magician staff that was worth 60 coins on its own. 

"Give me your list of swords and armors" said Michael.

Immediately, the middle-aged man gave him a list. 

After a while, Michael chose one of the best set in the store, the Swift-Striker set for 110 Bronze coins: 

[Swift-Strike sword (excellent)]

[lvl 5 sword

+7 Strength

+15 Attack Speed

+ armor penetration +3

]

[Swift-Strike armor (excellent)]

[lvl 5 armor 

+8 Constitution

+10 defense

+20 movement speed

]

Satisfied with his purchase, he left to buy some skills. He reached the Warrior Cottage. 

In the end, He bought the skills [Triple Slash] and [Tornado]

[Triple Slash(excellent)] 

[Class : Warrior, Rogue]

[ Attack 3 times with rapid 3 slashes, each attack that connect increase the damage for the next by 10%]

[Spirit cost : 10]

[cooldown 15 seconds]

***

[Tornado slash(excellent)]

[Class : Warrior, Rogue]

[Attack the surrounding enemies by swinging your sword around you. +3% damage against all enemies]

[spirit cost : 10]

[cooldown 10 seconds]

With that he only had 15 bronzes coins lefts. 

He left to hunt down zombies again.

....

Arriving at the zombies locations, it didn't take him much time for him to find some of them. He came to test his new equipments and see the result of his training. 

He fought lvl 5 zombies in group and indeed founded them easier to kill. His renewed agility made him dance around them and attack their weakness. 

[Triple Slash]

-Shlick

-Shlick

-Shlick

-40

-43

-48

3 lvl 5 zombies fell at the time with the new skill [Triple Slash]. With renewed confidence, he went deeper. He agroed more zombies, fighting 7 at the same time. 

Others watching were stunned at the display. 1 lvl 5 fighting 7 Zombies. And it didn't look like he was having too much trouble. 

In the end, he was even gaining an advantage.

"Should we invite him to our party?" asked a young male warrior with a red bandana.

3 others were standing beside him. A male priest, a female mage and a female rogue, all of them young.

The female mage Arin frowned. She was the leader of the group. Her ambition was to become a foot soldier after graduation. Therefore, she came here to train. 

All of the other players that were beside her, were people she trusted. She didn't want to put her plan into jeopardy. 

Therefore, she hesitated. After a few seconds of consideration, she answered : 

"Let's ask him after he is done with the monsters." 

Having a strong melee would help them fight stronger enemies. It didn't help that he was handsome and that he was fighting elegantly...

Michael meanwhile, was using his agility to avoid being surrounded while attacking the neck and the head. When he was surrounded, he would use the AOE [tornado slash] to get away. 

Attacking, avoiding, parrying, he was demonstrating a renewed mastery of footwork. 

Annabelle had really helped him, giving him advice and beating the footwork into him. He fought with greater ease and efficiency, making fewer wasted movements. 

After a while the corpses fell into white light, giving some japtems and some coins. 

After collecting the materials, he felt into a brief moment of pondering. He felt good, but he wanted to fight stronger enemies. Possibly elite, or bosses. 

He wanted to level up faster, complete quest, complete dungeons. At Nebula, he would be able to do all that and with Anabelle. For now, he had to be patient. 

"Do you have minute?" 

Arin the pretty blonde mage asked. 

While he was counting the reward, she had approached him. Michael of course knew she had come close. He saw them while he was fighting and never dropped his guard.

Turning around with curiosity, he said :

"It depends. Tell me what you want from me."

Arin looked at her teammates then ask him :

". Let us introduce Ourselves. My name is Arin, I am a level 7 mage, Paul the level 7 warrior with the bandana, Joe is our priest and he is the highest among us at level 8. And Kate is a level 7 ranger. Do you want to team up with us? We plan to use the abandoned city as a hunting ground."

Michael pondered on the proposal.