Chapter 143 Wood elementals 3

Jay was checking out the adventurers in the other nearby fields.

In the other field was Stephen. While he had a limp, it seemed that he maintained some leadership ability within himself – and now without being a dick about it either.

The limp seemed to benefit him more than it hurt him; it made him wake up and realise he needed people – despite having turrets to defend himself.

His formation was a little different to Jay’s.

Three rock turrets slowly turned left and right, as if scanning for threats. They were evenly spaced in a line facing the forest.

Stephen’s team consisted of eight melee users with one ranger. He simply had the turrets interlaced between a wall of melee troops, while the ranger stood behind them with himself.

He casually glanced back across to Jay’s field, but had no expression on his face while doing so – it was like he was studying Jay.

“Good to see he’s changed” Jay quietly mumbled to himself, glad to see that he was seemingly a better person now.

Some people would respond poorly to a thorn in their side, sinking into despair – others would be changed and become stronger.

The figurative thorn in Stephen’s side was of course what Jay did to his achilles tendon. Soon he would learn how to heal it, but for now he had a painful limp.

Either way, Jay didn’t care. Stephen would sink into despair or become a better person, either way it was a win-win to Jay. The old sneering know-it-all version of Stephen was slowly dying, replaced with a more reserved person.

As Jay and his new troops waited, they all began to talk quietly while still roughly standing in formation, remaining prepared for battle.

“Nice axe. You must have high strength.” one nodded approvingly..

“Thanks, yeah. Nice mace… got any passives?”

“It causes bleeding” He cheekily smiled back.

The dagger girl turned to Jay, “So, you’re a one-handed swordsman huh?” she smiled.

“Oh, how did you guess?” Jay said playfully as he raised his sword-wielding hand and scratched his head with a single finger.

“Well, I’ll trust you to have my back.” The girl chuckled, glancing at the gauntlet Jay had before turning to chat with the others.

Jay didn’t have his shield out for obvious reasons – it would scare the shit out of everyone and probably raise far too much suspicion.

After all, what kind of level 9 adventurer would have a semi-sentient bone shield that made people feel anxious when it stared at them with its hollow beady eyes?

Jay only planned to take it out when absolutely necessary, and stash it away before people would even notice a greyish-white spot appearing in their peripheral vision.

Thankfully Jay had also learnt the passive parry ability which had a 2.25% chance to activate – however, this didn’t mean he couldn’t actively try to parry too. For now this was a preferable alternative to using the shield.

The dagger girl turned back to talk more, but Jay heard something.

“Hang on a second,” he held his hand up, silencing her as he stared into the forest.

A few leaves shifted, blowing out of the forest on the edge of the farmland. It appeared normal but he was sure he heard something.

“They’re coming.” Anya said, gazing down the sights of her crossbow while pointing it at the forest.

The sounds were now getting louder, and soon enough they could all hear it.

*crrrr~ …. Squeak!~ Burrr~*

It sounded like wood rubbing against wood, large branches twisting against each other, groaning sounds of bending tree trunks in heavy winds.

Next, it sounded like rain. Heavy rain – despite the bright sunny day.

Millions of tiny pattering sounds of leaves and twigs on the forest floor all soon creating a crescendo of white noise.

That’s when they saw the first enemy emerge from a woodline, then the second, then there were hundreds of them all swarming out.

“Get ready.” Paul smiled from behind the group, not sounding very serious at all as he stood casually with his hands in his pockets. It seemed to be entertaining for him.

Jay laid his eyes on the knee-high creatures, though they were just out of the analyse skill range.

The wood-based elementals almost didn’t seem real.

They were spherical rolling balls of brown sticks; each of the sticks pointing outwards like tiny spears – perhaps distant cousins of sea urchins.

Floating around each of them were pieces of brown or yellow bark which looked like razor sharp leaves.

Periodically, the ball would stop rolling as pieces of the flying bark would clump together above the ball and form an eye-shape before turning back into flying bits of shrapnel again. The ball would then readjust its direction and continue on its journey.

“Such a strange creature…” one of the girls mumbled to themselves.

Jay ignored their comment and gave one last instruction.

“Call out if you need any help, we’re in this together.”

With that, he got into a crouched position, raised his ossein arming sword and prepared.

Unbeknownst to everyone else, Jay had some teeth clenched in his hand. Slowly and silently, he was covertly pumping necrotic mana into them.

Doing it this way wouldn’t let any of his glowing necrotic mana escape – while the spell itself would simply look like an exploding rock spell of some sort when he launched it.

Besides, if anyone asks about his spell, he could just shrug and say ‘privileges of being viladore’s student’ with a haughty smile.

The wood elementals rolled over; they weren’t very fast. They didn’t travel at a high running speed, but more at a brisk walking pace. It seemed manageable for now, so Jay took the time to analyse one of them.

<[Wood Elemental – Level 1]>

[HP 10/10]

[Damage]

– 3 (Spikes, Piercing)

-1 (Spirit-Bark)

<[Skills]>

[Observe]

– The wood elemental takes a moment to observe its surroundings and plot its course through the forest.

– Allows vision

– Immobile

[Helical Frenzy]

– Each of its three pieces of spirit-bark respond to danger, swiftly spinning around its weak wooden body.

– 1 damage per hit

– 4 second duration

– 900 degrees per second spin speed

– 10 second cooldown

<[Description]>

[A magical entity that has found it can interact with a specific material, granting itself a pseudo body. There are many bodies like this, but this one is mine.]

The creature itself wasn’t that threatening. Jay could easily end it with one swing of his sword – the problem was how many there were.

It was like a sea of these balls of sticks.

All the way from the stream running along the north-west side of the farmland to as far as Jay could see south, little spike balls were appearing out of the forest like a brown tide threatening to wash over Losla.

“Shit…” Jay thought, seeing the magnitude of the number of these creatures. It was nothing compared to a real war, but this was the largest battle that these young adventurers had seen; it would be a long battle.

*Crack!~ Doon~*

Despite there being no clouds in the sky, the rolling sounds of thunder and snaps of lightning reverberated from somewhere south of them.

Jay recalled that the adventurers had been sent to the north-west side where the battle would be low level and easy, while the south-west side was where the brunt of the attack would be.

He could only imagine what the south-west side of Losla was like right now, where the battle was the most intense.

DROoooooo!~~

The deep horn at the association had continued to sound out this whole time, summoning more adventurers; hoping more would answer the call after leaving the dungeons.