The area that we have to go to in Thornvale is called the ruined castle town. It is a mini dungeon that involves you heading into the castle town, navigating into the castle itself and killing a monster inside the castle library.
The specific monster is called a knowledge eater, and it's a humanoid undead type monster that kinda looks like an emaciated corpse. The monster uses a wide variety of magic, and is completely immune to magic in return.
This is fvored as something having to do with his complete knowledge of all magic, but in game, it kind of just did no damage to him.
Technically you can complete the quest without killing the boss, but that would be no fun. And this would be the first dungeon I have fought before.
The danger rating for the dungeon is just level 10, and I was already level 11 so it should be completely fine.
∴
Chloe and I took our time making it to the ruined castle. This was so the two of us could trigger all of the checkpoints in between the start of Thornvale and the castle, for ease of access ter in time.
There were about 30ish checkpoints in the whole of Thronvale, and about 3 of them were in between us and the ruined castle.
Thanks to the rabbit's hood and my higher level, I was much faster then Chloe was, something I really enjoyed abusing while I ran circles around her.
This would get her to ugh a lot so it was all in good fun.
And whenever we ran into monsters, I was able to deal with them super easy, the like 10 rabbits we fought.
Chloe did cast her buffing magic on me, so she did get to level 1 while we were on our way to the ruined castle.
And for me, this was the first time I was really hunting with someone else. When I went out with Emily and Rose, and when I was in a party with Lilith and her friends, I was still hunting alone.
But with Chole, it was fun just to have someone to chat with while also working.
And since we could talk about the game stuff as well, it felt like I was just hanging out with a gaming buddy back in my past life.
During this time, I also learned about Chloe's life, and her dreams for this world. Turns out that in the game, there was a minigame and quest line I had never ran into before, and she wanted to follow it.
She also asked about my pns, but I couldn’t tell her anything, since I hadn’t formed any yet. I wanted to survive the game, but I had nothing pnned for after.
It was kind of illuminating for me.
∴
Standing in front of the ruined castle town, Chloe and I looked up at the broken gates.
“The lore of this pce says it was built at least a thousand years ago, and fell within one generation of kings” Chloe said.
“Yeah, something like that. And then a bunch of monsters moved in and turned all the dead bodies into undead, eventually leading to the knowledge eater” I say, finishing the lore dump before we headed in.
“Are you ready?” Chloe asked me.
“Yep, it should be easy, I remember this pce like the back of my hand” I tell her, getting ready for the start of the dungeon.
“Then let's go” She says, while heading into the broken down castle.
The dungeon is a very interesting pce compared to the wilds where I have been hunting st week.
This was to be expected, since the two of them treated monsters differently. Dungeons had set spawns of monsters where wilds had random spawns from a spawn table. Thanks to this, I was always prepared to deal with what was coming.
I alternated between my sword and magic to deal with the monsters. They were both undead and beast monsters, making the point that this was the realm of a undead sorcerer that was being overrun by the wilds.
I could deal with all of this alone, but Chloe was supporting me, to make sure that she got some exp and proficiency as well.
ANd within about an hour, we made it to the st room of the dungeon, where our prize and the boss awaited.
∴
Before we headed in, Chloe wanted to make a pn for the boss.
“So, I was originally just going to take the book and run, but it seems that we can change that. You could probably clear this by yourself” Chloe said.
“Yeah, but you won't get the kill benefits then” I say, completely nonchant.
“But how? What level are you?”
“12, but I hit that today, so I was going in here at level 11” I told her.
“Really? How did you level up so quickly?”
“You know” I say. “But hey, let's get going. You look for the book, I’ll fight the boss” I say, while opening the door.
“Um, ok, I'm still confused though” SHe said, but too te.
Walking into the room, I see the boss, seated in a magic circle with several tomes around him, magic swirling around.
When it notices the two of us, the skeletal mage stands and fires magic without any warning. I quickly move to block the attack from hitting Chloe. Quickly focusing on the fight, I rush in to attack.
Using quick run, I close the distance by about half before the next attack comes. THis time I don’t have time to parry the attack, so I dodge roll out of the way. Moving forward again, I close the distance all the way, and thrust forward with my sword.
WIth this I am able to start off a combo against the knowledge eater, dealing a decent bit of damage.
My attack stat is 17 currently with my sword, so its going to take a few combos to kill it.
After my first combo pushed it back, the knowledge eater retaliates with a aoe fire magic attack around itself. Backstepping to avoid the area, I quickly run around the boss, hoping to get into its blind spot to attack more.
A few seconds ter, I see an opening and attack again.
But this time I noticed something with the initial attack of the combo. As it made contact, the bde sparked with bck lightning, the sign of a critical hit.
A critical hit was a luck based event in game that happened about 1% of the time when fighting. This was the first time I had seen one since it can’t happen in practice.
This is also what the first limit does for you. For about 10 seconds, every hit you do is a critical hit.
Using the extra damage from the critical to push a little harder, I try to knock the knowledge eater into back to back combos, getting a little greedy with damage.
But I fail hard, getting hit by the knowledge-eaters retaliation.
“Fuck” I said, once i get out of the attack. My health was still fine, but it did put me into gear for this fight.
No more carelessness.
Pushing forward again, I dodge a few of its attacks, and start another combo. Thanks to Scan, the level 5 ability, I was able to see how much health was left, which was about half.
Our back and forth continues until I nd about 3 more combos, which leads the knowledge eater into its desperation move, a sign it's about to die.
Calling forth a lot more magic then before, it creates a rge bst of darkness magic, and starts to prepare.
BUt luckily this attack can be interrupted by a guard break, staggering the boss.
WIth one st push, I break the concentration on the magic, and deal the final blow to the boss.
*You Killed A Knowledge Eater*
*EXP Gained*
*Bonus EXP Gained*
*Level 12 -> 16*
*Skill Learned: Combo Boost*
*Sword Proficiency Gained*
*Bonus Proffincey Gained*
*You Cleared A Dungeon*
*You Gained 1500 Points*
NamelessAlter
After killing the boss, I gained 4 whole levels, which was pretty good. I also gained a new skill since I hit level 15, which was the first combo boost. Based on the length of my combo, it would do more damage, which made my finishers a lot more powerful, if I had any.
“That was amazing,” Chloe said, walking back over to me with the book in her hands.
“You found the book” I said, cheerfully.
“Yep, one copy of Advanced Magical Theory by El Lu Dracno. Exactly what our teacher asked for.” She said, holding the book up. “We finished a lot faster than I thought, anything else you need to get today?”
“If we have time, can I go grind some bzing shards for one of the spells?” I ask her.
“DO you know where to find them?”
“Yeah, a group of Bzing cores spawn in the first room of a dungeon around here, it will be super easy to grind for them” I tell her.
“Then lets go” Chloe said with a bright smile.
∴
A few hours ter, I had enough bzing crystals for the spell I needed and Chloe and I headed back to the school.
But I got a new message when we left Thornvale.
*You hunted with a pyer character*
*New Game Plus Bonus*
*You Gained 10,000 Points*