Chapter 41 - First Clear of an Elite dungeon

After giving them the treasure chest, Pecandor went into the forest. They got hold of another black iron treasure chest. They quickly opened the chest and three items were visible in it. A small token with picture of five treants on it, a small parchment which looked like a recipe and the third was a long staff with a black jet lignite on the top.

[Token of Baron Pecandor]

Level 0

Requirement: Can only be used by a member of the light faction.

Vitality +10%

Allows third grade citizen access into the great forest of gaeta skogar.

[Poison of corruption Recipe] (Basic poison recipe)

Required Materials: Corrupted poison ivy, blue weed

Effects: Reduces Strength and Agility by 20% for 10 seconds. Not stackable.

[Lignite staff] (Black Iron Staff)

Level 2

Requirements: Perception: 6,;

Intelligence +8; Vitality +5

The token of a Baron of the great forest is something that guilds would fight over for because of the access it provided. Balthazar knew it would be worth a lot if they ever sold it. Its value would probably rise by a large amount after a few months.

"Hold on to the staff," said Balthazar throwing the staff to Quiet Fire. "Tang hold on to the token. I will make good use of the recipe."

He immediately learned the recipe. With his experience, he could easily craft a basic potion. In a couple of minutes, he easily managed to create 3 bottles of the poison. Though he wasted a couple of sets in his first two attempts, the rest were all successful.

"It is best we use them on our weapons when we are fighting Vultarc. He is faster than Vultusk and even stronger," said Balthazar giving Blinding and Tang a poison bottle each.

"Are we sure, we want to attempt killing Vultarc? We had such a hard time with Vultusk," said Quiet Fire addressing the concern of the rest of the girls.

"It is best we try it out. We got an antidote from his poison. It is hard to kill him. We have an unseen advantage. I already know about its patterns and can lead you through the fight. The hard part was the poison knives thrown by Vultusk and fighting Vultusk and Vultarc together after it loses 50% of its health. We already killed Vultusk and have a quest item to deal with the poison," said Balthazar explaining the situation.

"I guess it is best we try. It does provide good equipment and experience in case we win. If we die it is just a little bit of experience," said Blinding in support of Balthazar. She also wanted to finish the dungeon and take down the pride of the Sirius Imperials. She wanted to show it off to the boyfriend who broke up with her.

"I am fine with it," said Tang shrugging her shoulders.

"We also get the first clear awards and our name goes on the boards," said Balthazar. That was the icing on the cake that convinced Quiet Fire and Little White Feet.

Without any delay, Balthazar led them to the clearing and another path. This path was had very little light and had a canopy of foilage of corrupted trees preventing sunlight from passing through.

There were also a few packs of corrupted rabbits. But with the poison applied on their blade, the fight became a lot easier. There was another treasure chest hidden in the forest by the path. Balthazar managed to get to it while he was scouting and opened it.

It was another white treasure chest and he only found a couple of raw materials in it, corrupted poison ivy and a jet lignite crystal. One could be used for making poison and the other is a good storage for Mana. The jet lignite could be used in making mage weapons, tools and also as a core to deploy small scale spells.

He quickly put them both in his inventory and continued with killing the corrupted rabbits. As they went further in the trees grew taller. Some of them even had faces on them that had their eyes and mouth open in horror.

"This area looks like it had been copied out of a horror movie. Look at those trees," said Little White Feet pointing to one of the trees with a face. "It is really creepy."

"Oh! Come on. All the games always had a very creepy and chilling story lines. This game is just a bit more immersive and experient than the others. It all matches with the plot of dead treants of Pecandor's family," said Balthazar.

A few minutes later, he stopped and said, "We are near Vultarc. Eat some bread and have water. Fill up on your health and mana. He is a Lepusvir of ranger occupation. So be long distance attacks would be the ones that take down his health. Both Quiet and Little Feet get ready, focus only on attack. Blinding will act the primary healer as her range is shorter."

"That would be a lot of stress on a paladin wouldn't it?" asked Quiet Fire.

"Let me explain. Vultarc would be just attempting to shoot you with normal arrows and penetrating shots. He would be running around us and shooting at us. I would be following him and call out whenever he is shooting. Try your best to avoid the shots. Sometimes he would run towards other and strike at you with his sword. Tang and Blinding need to tank those strikes. His aggro will be mostly towards mage and priests because they will be the main damage dealers in this case. Tang needs to use provoke whenever he does that."

"Once, he loses 50% health, he will start using poison. So use the antidote as soon as his health goes down by 50%. He will also start fight in close combat after that. Then, we will move back to the strategy we used for Vultusk. Luckily his close combat damage is worse than Vultusk. His attacks stun rather than deal damage," finished Balthazar and moved forward.

They saw a dead treant in a clearing ahead. It was about 9 feet tall. The clearing was in the shape of a perfect circle and surrounded by tall black trees except for the path they entered it. There was a small hut made of wood on top of the dead treant directly opposite the entrance.

"You have killed enough of my pets to garner my attention," said a voice in a weird squeaky accent. It came from the hut on top of the dead treant. An arrow suddenly whized in the air hitting Blinding in the chest. The force of the hit pushed her a bit back

"Oww! That hurt!" she cried out in pain. "It was like someone struck me on the chest with a hammer."

"Yes, it will become worse in higher levels. As the level difference between the monster and you increases, the worse the effect will get. Vultarc is a level 3 boss. That is a penetrating shot. It brought down a sixth of your health. Try to evade or block all shots. Even if they don't reduce your health by much. They hurt a lot. Keep on the lookout for the small flash of light that appears before the shot," said Baltahzar.

Vultarc showed himself at the edge of the platform. The Lepusvir was thin and 7 feet tall carrying a bow with a sword strapped on his back. It wore nothing on his body other than the belt the held his sword. He gazed at Blinding with its red eyes and said, "Next time, I will make sure it passes through your head. Hahaha." It was all very frightening except for his squeaky voice.

[Vultarc - Lepusvir] (Boss)

Level 3

HP:3000

Balthazar immediately went into stealth and asked the rest to begin shooting at Vultarc. But to their dismay Vultarc simply took a step back and avoided the shots. All the shots hit the treant body. "Haha, I doubt you can hurt me like that," said Vultarc.

"How can we attack him if he hides like that?" asked Quiet Fire.

"I am on my way onto the platform. Hold your fire and evade if he shoots. I will kick him down," said Balthazar in the team chat. Once, Balthazar saw Vultarc attack Blinding he immediately remembered that Vultarc would hide behind the treant to avoid fire.

To overcome this scenario, someone has to attract his attention by shooting at him from the ground, while the other needs to attack him from behind. There are footholds for getting onto the top of the treant body which could be used to climb onto it silently. Thus, he immediately went into stealth once he saw Vultarc shoot at Blinding. Usually stealth wouldn't work but due to his passive skill he decided to bet on it.

If the stealth works, the team could save a lot of mana which would be wasted in their attempt to distract Vultarc. The most common cause of failing to kill Vultarc even after Vultusks death is the deficiency of mana among the long-range professions due to this wastage. If Balthazar manage to sneak up to Vultarc without support from the team, it will become a lot less stressful. Else, the fight could continue for hours and he had spent already about 6 hours in the game. He needs to gain as much an advantage as possible in this life.

Balthazar was already halfway to the top of the treant body. As he reached the top of the treant, he saw Vultarc making another shot. The top of the treants body was levelled and flat. He slowly made his way to Vultarc and waited till he made the next shot. He wanted to make sure that Vultarc would fall down and it is best if Vultarc gets near the edge when he is making his next shot.

A few moments later Vultarc drew another arrow to make a shot. Balthazar quickly ambushed Vultarc by attacking Vultarc's ears with his dagger while he used his sword as a lever to trip him off the treant body.

The Lepusvir was completely surprised that someone managed to sneak by its side. It fell down with a loud thud and lost its bow as it fell down. As Quiet Fire and Little White rained attack on it, it quickly got up and ran towards its bow. Balthazar who also fell down along with Vultarc saw Vultarc lose its bow immediately ran towards the fallen. He tried to kick the bow away from Vultarc as he attacked Vultarc with his dagger and sword.

Though Balthazar had tried his best to stop Vultarc from reaching the dagger, he hardly could do it for more than a few seconds. Vultarc pulled out his sword and attacked Balthazar with it. Balthazar immediately pulled his distance from Vultarc and Vultarc took his bow. Then, he began to shoot arrows at Balthazar and his team.

Though it was hard, Balthazar managed to evade the arrows without any injury while managing to attack Vultarc. The poison he used on the daggers reduced Vultarc's agility allowing Balthazar to escape Vultarc's attacks.

With Balthazar close to Vultarc, the Lepusvir spent most of his focus on Balthazar allowing Quiet Fire, Blinding and Little white feet to bombard it with their attacks. As it's health went down by 20%, Vultarc made its way back to its hut and shot at the team while hiding in the treant.

Balthazar also went into stealth to climb up the treant. But this time, he could clearly see that the Lepusvir was actively looking for him. Still Balthazar knew that it would hardly matter. If Vultarc failed to perceive him the first time, it would fail again. He repeated the same feat of throwing Vultarc down with ease.

The plan was pretty much successful until Vultarc's health reached 50%. He shot an arrow into the sky which exploded in extremely large sparks. Then, he began throwing small knives laced with poison. But with the antidote they received from Pecandor, there were no adverse effects. The fight continued without much issue. Though Vultarc occasionally the team with his sword, Blinding and Tang took turns to block it. As he came into close combat, Vultarc's health fell down even faster as Tang also finally managed to get in a few hits. Thus, its health quickly fell down to 20%.

Vultarc suddenly stopped and looked around. He saw that the usual effects of people poisoned didn't appear on the team. Even Vultusk hadn't responded to his summons till now.

"You detestable primates! You colluded with that old half-dead treant baron. Where is my son? I will kill you to get my answers!" bellowed Vultarc in anger as he was still being bombarded by attacks. At this time, Vultarc got berserk and threw away his bow and knives, his arms and legs bulged and his eyes went bloodshot.

As much as Balthazar remembered Vultarc wasn't supposed to go berserk till his health went down to 10%. It would pose a lot more problems if Vultarc goes berserk earlier. He slightly wished that he had tried the game when it began and not after two years in his previous life.

Being berserk, Vultarc started swinging his sword at the team. When Vultarc goes berserk he changes into a berserker like Vultusk, but it had a longer reach than Vultusk making it much more dangerous.

Blinding tanked a couple of hits from Vultarc and lost 90% of her health. Vultarc didn't care about Balthazar or the others who were dealing it damage. It directly went to attack the cloth armor classes whom Blinding and Tang were covering for.

Within a few seconds, Vultarc managed to bring both Blinding and Tang to critical health. Though it was poisoned from their attacks and his defense went down. It continued to attack crazily focusing on the weakest members first, the cloth armor classes, then it would go to the leather armored ones like Assassins and Rangers. Balthazar commanded both Blinding and Tang to escape and attack rather than continue block for Quiet Fire and Little White Feet. He took an all-in approach as he couldn't do anything else.

But whatever they tried failed due to the speed and aggressiveness of Vultarc. A few seconds later, both Quiet Fire and Little White Feet died. Vultarc then focused on Balthazar, but it couldn't land a hit as Balthazar began to focus more on evading than attacking. As Vultarc was focusing only on attack him, Balthazar lured it towards Tang and Blinding so that they could attack it.

Balthazar began to feel tired due to the continued strain on him. Due to the limitations on his speed,

he felt like he was fighting Salazar again. He slowly began to get fatigued and Vultarc managed to make a couple of hits on Balazar. It was the first time, he had been injured in the dungeon runs. Those hits cancelled his disguise skill.

Both Blinding and Tang clearly saw him change to his original form. Even his name changed in the team chat and showed his as Shadow Tyrant. Also, the number of hits that were enough to even kill Tang only reduced his health by a half.

"What just happened?" asked Tang in a confused way.

"I used a disguise so that I could enter the town. The Sirius Imperials have been after me ever since I completed my quest. Sorry for the deception. How about we continue with killing Vultarc?" said Balthazar enabling his skill shadow clone skill.

A clone which looked exactly like Balthazar appeared and started to attack Vultarc as Balthazar. It was his first time using the skill. He immediately tried to control it manually and he suddenly could feel even the other clone. Though the had half the attributes of the original, it still had enough power to provide enough attack power equal to Tang easily.

Balthazar could also see, hear and feel everything from the clone's point of view/existence. Though Balthazar had controlled creatures in the game in his previous life. This experience was different from that slightly as he could also feel the clone as if it was himself. It also allowed him better control on it due to this.

Soon, Blinding and Tang also joined the fight and helped him with the fight. Slowly they co-ordinated their attacks and whittled away Vultarc's health. But as Vultarc's health went below 5%, he began swinging it at everybody without any consideration to aggro or damage. This caused Blinding White to also die. By the time, Vultarc succ.u.mbed to their attacks, Tang barely had any health left.

"+250 exp"

The death of Vultarc rewarded them a total of 500 exp, which when shared between Balthazar and Tang directly led them to level up.