The Dark Beast Mushroom King hit the ground and generated a loud tremor that almost threw us off-balance, and the second after, its mouth opened and it released a poisonous smoke, which were actually its spores. The mushroom decided that it would be better to poison us to death! I might be a player that could die and revive, but Acorn was an NPC, and it was said that when an NPC happened to die, they couldn’t revive! So, I couldn’t let him die in front of me, I had to make sure he lived.
“Acorn! Pull back!” I stepped back with Belle and saw that his movements were slower than mine.
Acorn was almost caught in the poisonous smoke if I didn’t grab him at the last moment and tugged him backwards. I desperately tried to attack the mushroom to stop making it do this attack, pointing my whole wooden spear-arm and then detaching it from my body and firing it as a projectile! The spear flew quickly out of my body, I felt a slight and near-numb pain, and my entire arm was gone, but the spear of wood reached its target accurately, and hit the mushroom in the head.
CLAAASH!
“GYUUU…!”
The mushroom groaned in agony with its cute-sounding voice, which only made it more eerie to confront, as it began to feel dizzy and tried to take out the spear from its head, but the small arms it had couldn’t reach the spear atop his head, and the damage of the fire and the spear piercing its body only made it slowly lose more and more HP! Alongside that, the first impact of my attack dealt around 15% of its HP in a single blow, that’s insane!
However, my own HP also took a big hit, detaching my body parts and firing them cost me HP, and that time I threw off my entire arm, so I lost a whopping 40 HP! I desperately conjured Verdant Recovery Light on my lost arm and slowly regrew it… into a new wooden spear, of course! My HP and MP regeneration was pretty insane within the forest thanks to my various passive skills, so my HP was back up to normal in just half a minute since I fired the first wooden spear.
“W-Wow, that attack was awesome!” said Acorn. “L-Let me attack as well!”
Acorn suddenly climbed one of the trees at the border of this patch of grass in the middle of the forest and took out two flasks of liquid from his Item Bag, throwing them over the mushroom that was still struggling to get out of the pit it created by itself.
CRASH!
FLUOOSH!
The flasks shattered into pieces over the cap of the mushroom, as both liquids came into contact and reacted with one another, generating an explosion of flames that once more started to consume the mushroom’s body, the flames slowly began to diminish its HP, but it wasn’t going to go down with that alone, the flames from the previous attack only lasted a few seconds after all.
“How many of those do you got left, Acorn?” I asked.
“A-Around three more…” He said.
“Do you have healing potions?” I asked desperately.
“Yes, here! Have four!” said Acorn, throwing four flasks towards me which I caught by extending my hands into a net made of vines, which cost around 60 MP, surprisingly. I caught the flasks, and for a moment thought about putting them inside my Inventory, but that would be bad because I would have to constantly open it to take the flasks, which took time! So I stuck them between my breasts.
I commanded Belle and Loki to stand by and guard Acorn. If they got closer to the mushroom to attack, they’d end up poisoned, which was bad, this thing couldn’t be fought from close-range sadly, so Belle who was a fan of that would only end up dying from poison, and Loki too. Plants were also weak to poison-type, and she’s not a poison-type plant so she’s not immune to it or something.
“GYUUUU!”
The Mushroom decided to finally jump, after managing to crawl out of the hole, it gathered dark energies and then jumped high into the skies, slowly falling down right towards my direction!
BOOOOOMMM!!!
I managed to escape by jumping away, but the mushroom was tricky this time, it quickly unleashed its poisonous spore smoke all over my back while I was running away, quickly intoxicating me and inflicting the Poisoned Negative Status Effect, what a pain!
I put myself back up together and used my own body shapeshifting once again, pointing my left arm at the mushroom and firing yet another powerful wooden spear. The spear flew through the wind, impacting the mushroom in just a second after being fired!
CLAASH!
“GYYEE…!”
The Mushroom was now down to less than 50% HP! I quickly drank a flask of potion made by Acorn and then generated another new wooden spear, firing another one for a second time!
CLAASH!
“GYUU…!”
The Dark Beast Mushroom King left out an agonizing cry, as it got angrier than ever, its eyes grew redder and it suddenly gathered darkness atop its cap! Suddenly, a large sphere of darkness formed, and it was fired directly at me!
“Wood Shield! Wood Shield! Wood Shield!!!”
TRUUM! TRUUM! TRUUM!
I desperately conjured the Wood Shield Spell, as three thick shields made of hardened wood emerged one after another in front of me, protecting me from the sphere of darkness which impacted and destroyed the first two like nothing, but having lost its speed and force from hitting them, the third managed to block it before it exploded into black smoke.
BOOOOMMM!!!
“GYUU…!”
The Mushroom seemed tired, and it was surprised when it saw that I had actually managed to survive. It got even angrier, so it fired a deadly sphere of darkness directly towards me as fast as it could! The sphere of darkness flew towards my direction, trying to crush me once more! Did this thing have infinite MP or something?!
BOOOOMMM!!!
The sphere of darkness clashed over the floor as I managed to barely jump away by shaping my legs into spring-like branches and jumping several meters into the distance like a rabbit would.
CLASH!
I fell pretty badly though, as I lost 20 HP by just dropping into the floor. Ouch! I took out another flask and drank it desperately, while I heard the angry sounds of a brave squirrel child.
“You bastard! Take this! Triple Explosion!”
CRAASH!
Acorn suddenly threw six flasks, three containing red liquid and three containing black liquid as all the flasks shattered over the head of the mushroom, and the sheer amount of oil and combustion liquid made up for a loud explosion!
BOOOMMM!
“GYUUUUUUU!”
The Mushroom was greatly surprised and impacted by the explosion; its HP was already below 20%! It was time to finish off this bad boy once and for all! I pointed out my arm at it- no, my two arms, and shaped them as wooden spears, firing both of them at the same time! The spears flew through the wind, piercing the mushroom’s face a second after being fired!
CLAAAAAASH!
“GRRYYYUUUU…!”
The mushroom quickly lost all of its HP with my double attack, as its HP Bar quickly depleted to zero! The Dark Beast Mushroom King slowly dissipated. Its entire body exploded into black smoke, leaving behind item icons that flew towards me and were stored inside my inventory.
Ding!
[You defeated the [Dark Beast Mushroom King: Lv7 (ELITE)]!]
[You gained 2500 Gold!]
[You acquired the [Dark Essence] x3, [Black Core] x3, and [Mushroom King Soul] x1 Items!]
[You gained 3500 EXP!]
[Your Race and Job Level has increased from Level 4 to Level 5!]
[All Your Stats have increased!]
[You gained Skill Points and Stat Points]
[You acquire the Title of [Big Game Slayer]!]
[Loki] Level has increased from Level 1 to Level 3!]
[Loki] has learned the [Vine Attack: Lv1] Skill!]
[Belle] Level has increased from Level 2 to Level 4!]
[Belle] has learned the [Aura Attack: Lv1] Skill!]
[Big Game Slayer]
Acquisition Conditions: Defeat a Boss-type Monster.
Equip Bonus: +50 HP, +50 MP, +20 All Stats
A Title given to a brave player capable of defeating a Boss-type Monster! It can be done alone or with a party. You have proven your courage as a warrior and you’ve managed to defeat one of the menaces of this world, the gods are cheering for you!
Oh wow! I acquired a new Title too! And it had some nice bonuses compared to the other two I had previously… I guess killing monsters was really the way to progress better in this game… Although I couldn’t say I had a good time with this. At the very least I ended up not consuming all the potions, there were two left, which I quickly gave back to Acorn.
“W-Well… That was tiring…” he said. “I saw my life go through my eyes back then.”
“Yeah… I want to go to sleep…” I sighed. “This was quite too tiring for me.”
“That was incredible though, I didn’t think that you could do such a thing as firing wooden spears so precisely!” he said. “I never thought that Dryads could do such a thing!”
“M-Me neither, but I seem to have the power to shape my body into any sort of plant… So I just thought about something long and sharp that can pierce through things with strength, and my arm magically covered itself with wood and shaped itself very sharply,” I said.
“Incredible…”said Acorn, as if his admiration for me grew more.
After that, we moved to gather the sap, which came out of these trees. Acorn took out a knife and began to carve the wood of one of the biggest trees, until suddenly, large quantities of sweet and golden-colored sap gushed out like a literal river! Acorn quickly filled five bottles with it and then I closed the tree wound with Plant Manipulation, regrowing the wood back over the wound. Trees were living beings, so of course they got wounds, it was important to heal them as the spirit of the forest!
“And done… We cannot abuse this too much, taking out too much from this sap would kill the tree because this sap is like a tree’s blood after all, thank you for healing it for me…” said Acorn. “And thank you for giving us some of your sap, sir tree!”
Acorn petted the tree respectfully, it seems that the people that lived in this forest were very respectful of life and treated trees as sacred living beings which they had to respect for the things they gave out, they were venerated.
We mounted over Belle and then, we headed back to the village. It was where Acorn stored the other items after all. The sap we had gathered until now was inside of my Inventory where they could be kept secure until then, according to him.
And after that, we decided to have a small dinner to fill up our satiation meters, which were plummeting to almost 20, we were really exhausted and very hungry! There was a lot of fish left from the big Pike, so I decided to cook some fried fish fillets and made a small fish stew with mushrooms and acorns. We also decided to use some of the sap and made tea with it, it was very tasty!
[You cooked [Blue Pike Fish Fillets]!]
[You cooked [Blue Pike Small Stew]!]
[You gained 100 EXP]
[You gained 200 EXP]
Ah, sweet, I even gained some little EXP out of it, how nice.
Now, to the important part! While I enjoyed the food with Acorn who was preoccupied reading through a book rather concentratedly, I looked into my Status.
[Player Name]: [Planta]
[Race]: [Dryad: Lv5/30]
[Race EXP]: [600/5000]
[Job Class]: [Farmer: Lv5/20]
[Job Class EXP]: [600/5000]
[Satiation]: [100/100]
[HP]: [90/90 -> 130/130]
[MP]: [370/370 -> 390/390 -> 490/490]
[STR]: [22 -> 32]
[VIT]: [22 -> 32]
[DEX]: [22 -> 32]
[AGI]: [40 -> 64]
[INT]: [59 -> 83]
[WIS]: [60 -> 80]
[LUC]: [40 -> 50]
[Race Skills: 6/10]
[Spirit of the Forest: Lv1], [Photosynthesis: Lv1], [Green Magic: Lv2], [Life Drain: Lv1], [Plant Companion: Lv1], [Daughter of Nature: Lv1]
[Job Class Skills: 6/10]
[Agriculture: Lv1], [AGI UP: Lv1], [Tame: Lv1], [Cooking: Lv1], [Farm Animal Companion: Lv1], [Fishing: Lv1]
[Summons: 2/2]
[White Goat (Female): Name: Belle: Lv4], [Carnivorous Amber Lotus Flower: Name: Loki: Lv3]
[Tamed Monsters: 0/2]
None
[Skill Points: 24]
[Stat Points: 20]
[Equipment]
[Spirit of the Forest Robes]
[Bracelet of Nature]
[Crown of Spirit Wood]
[Seed Pouch]
I had gained a nice amount of Stats! Although it probably seemed that way because I didn’t check my Status before it showed the increase from my level up from Level 3 to Level 4 as well… but still, how sweet! Now, should I spend some of these Points I got? What Skill should I get now? Or should I level up some more? I wonder what didn’t cost a lot of MP even if it was high leveled… It wasn’t that recommended to max out Skills early on because their full capacity couldn’t be achieved with low stats and low MP, so it would be a waste, Skill Points needed to be spent wisely!