Chương 127: Grand Endless Grasslands (1)
"Wow!", Tina exclaimed. "She is so cute."
The others also were fascinated by her.
"How did you get her? I heard pets are expensive.", Tina asked. Anybody who would go to their school would come from a poor background. Because if one had money, then one wouldn't live in the slums and go to an unranked school, like theirs.
"Don't tell me you are a member of the Slavers Alliance?", she then asked. This was the only logical guess, why he was able to have such a pet.
Ivan just nodded calmly. Since he had already revealed Vlada, there was no reason to hide being a member of the Slavers Alliance.
"How come you have never before used your pets?", Susan asked investigatory.
"There wasn't really a good reason. Having her around would have reduced the effectiveness of our training.", Ivan answered, giving the reasons that didn't have anything to do with the Alliance's rules.
"Hm, you are right.", Susan agreed.
Having fulfilled their curiosity about Vlada, Ivan then ordered her to fly upwards and look for anything that could be the trigger for the quest.
Vlada spread her wings and slowly ascended. Periodically she halted and carefully checked around her.
It took her fifteen minutes to finally find a small cube floating in the air. After grabbing it, she descended towards the group and dropped it into Ivan's hand.
The cube looked as if it was made out of glass. It was completely clear with only a slight white outline. In its center, a blue dot could be seen.
As soon as it came into contact with Ivan's hand, a message popped up for the members of the group.
<< New Quest: Traversing the grassland (F) (Nightmare Mode) (1)
You have entered the Grand Endless Grasslands, which is filled with danger and opportunities. Your goal is to reach the grand tree, which is the only tree growing on this grassland. All the while fighting against the native monsters of the grassland.
Tasks (Part 1):
- Follow the arrow in the Direction Cube until you reach the grass hut.
Bonus tasks:
- Slay 50 Grass Wolfes
- Slay 10 Grass Vultures
- Slay 5 Gigant Grass Pythons
Rewards:
- Access to floor 6
- 1 Silver
- A random item box (req. Nightmare Mode)
Bonus Rewards:
For each bonus task you fulfill, you will receive:
- 1 Silver
- 1 Small Healing Pill (Normal Quality)
For fulfilling all bonus tasks, you will receive:
- 5 Silver
- 1 Small Strengthening Pill (Normal Quality)
- 1 Tin Lottery Ticket (req. Nightmare Mode)
>>
"Wow!", Tina exclaimed when she had finished reading the quest description. "These bonus tasks really give great rewards."
"Yes, but they surely will be really hard as well.", Susan responded. "But what is this 'Tin Lottery Ticket'?"
"I don't know, but it must be something great since it is only available in Nightmare Mode and requires us to finish all the bonus tasks. Does anyone else have an idea what it could be?", Tina answered and then directly asked the rest of the group. Besides Ivan, everyone shook their heads, to indicate that they didn't have any idea either.
Tina saw that Ivan hadn't shaken his head so she directly asked him, "Ivan, do you have an idea?"
"Yeah. I have seen something like this before, just that it was a 'Golden Lottery Ticket'. It could be used to get something from the 'Golden Lottery Pool'. So this ticket should be a ticket for the 'Tin Lottery Pool'. I just don't know how the items in this pool compare to those of the golden one.", Ivan explained what he knew.
"Then how was the item from the 'Golden Lottery Pool'?", Tina asked curiously.
"It should have been a great one.", Ivan responded. He himself wasn't sure how great the reward truly was.
"That's good. But I think the tin variant should be quite a bit below it.", Tina said.
"Yes, tin is ranked much lower than gold after all.", her brother interjected.
"Right, you are a blacksmith, so you should know more about metals. Do they have a ranking?", Tina asked her brother. Although they were brother and sister, Tom was much quieter than her and usually didn't initiate a conversation, so she had never heard him talking about his hobby.
"Yes, they do. This ranking is even officially accepted by the system. Of course, there are always exceptions and there are always special rules but it generally works to rank metals.", Tom started to explain. "The lowest rank is tin, which is the same as these lottery tickets, so they should be of the lowest rank."
"Ohhh.", disappointed sights could be heard, that the other members of the group emitted when they heard that. Tom ignored them and continued.
"After that comes, copper and then bronze. These three are called the low-rank metals. They are followed by middle-rank metals, iron, silver, and gold. Finally, there are the high-rank metals. Theoretically, there should be three as well, but we only know of one at the moment, which is titanium."
"So gold is quite a distance from the tin, right? Then wouldn't be the reward be much worse.", Tina complained.
"So what? A reward is still a reward and for it being a reward for clearing the bonus tasks on the fifth floor in Nightmare Mode, it should still be something great.", Susan consoled her.
"I know, I know. Then should we get going?", Tina asked.
"Sure.", everyone readily agreed. They had already wasted a lot of time on this platform. They had only a certain amount of time in the dungeon. After all, they had to go home after school and their parents would already be waiting for them. Although even if they hurried, it would be highly unlikely that they would manage to clear this floor on the first try. Luckily it wasn't necessary to search for the quest trigger again when they would try again.
"Then Ivan you go in the front. And Susan on the rear. The others should stay in the middle with Lars and me flanking Tom.", she proficiently ordered their formation, which was also the standard formation for them, when it came to open rooms. Before they had only needed to use it in the large halls since it was better to block the hallways with Ivan and Susan side by side after they had completely cleared them behind them.
It was also the officially recommended formation for five-man parties. Of course, they would generally use the fighter as the rearguard and the tank as the lead. But for them, it was better to have Ivan go in front since he was the strongest and Susan in the rear since her survivability was still much higher than that of the rest.
Because of the way they had to fight since their enemies were much stronger than them, Lars had adopted a fighting style, that focused on swift, sharp attacks, followed by retreating instantly if the enemy made any move towards him. His fighting style was now closer to that of an assassin than that of a normal swordsman.
Ivan recalled Vlada and after they got into formation, they set out.
Now the blue spot in the cube had changed into a blue arrow, which always pointed in one direction and served as the compass for the group.
After stepping from the platform, they were now surrounded by the grass, that was even higher than them. Each blade was thicker than ten centimeters and there were many different sorts. Because some of them were razor sharp it was necessary to use one's weapon to cut free a path for them to walk on. Something that would have been a very tedious process, considering the sturdiness of these grass blades. Luckily Ivan had his crystal dagger, which was sharp enough to easily cut through those grass blades. He had pulled it out after he had nearly destroyed his simple sword when trying to cut a slightly blue tinted grass blade.
"Damn, this grass is dangerous!", Tina suddenly exclaimed. She hadn't been careful enough and a grass blade on the side of the path had come into contact with the leather armor on her arm. It had then cleanly cut through it, nearly cutting into her arm as well.
"Yes, so be careful everyone.", Ivan once again reminded the others.
The sharpness of the grass spelled problems for them. Not only did it hinder their progress, but while fighting, it would also hinder their maneuverability. Since they couldn't easily leave the path, they wouldn't be able to dodge as much as they would like. And while this applied to them, it would surely not apply to the monster who lived here. Which meant that they would be able to attack them from the flanks whenever they wished. All of this led to them being in a dangerous situation.
To be honest there was a relatively simple solution, which was to just ride on the enlarged Vlada. This way they would only have to defend themselves against the Grass Vultures while ignoring the danger of the grass as well as those monsters, which are unable to fly. Of course, this would also destroy the value of this training, so Ivan didn't even mention it, but kept it in his brain, in case of an emergency.
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