Level 1 Fallen

In the end, they had me accept three porters into my group. All three were unarmed lizardfolk, though I was certain that they would be able to at least have the strength to escape on their own if they needed to. One of them was red, one blue, and another green.

Granted, now that I had this backpack, I didn't strictly need the porters. I had the inventory space myself to store a large number of materials now. But, I was still not that interested in most materials, and it would benefit the town for me to sell them the meat and such for a cheaper than normal price. Even not counting the platinum piece that I would be withdrawing from the bank to pay back Diane, I wasn't exactly hurting for money. I had more than enough for my own expenses.

Thus, I led the trio out of the city, looking back at them. "Where is a good place to farm a lot of monsters?" I asked, and they looked at each other.

"If you're looking for both quantity and value, I must ask what your level range is." The red lizardfolk asked politely, and I thought about it.

"If I'm protecting the three of you at the same time, I should be able to deal with any number of monsters at or below the seventies range." The trio seemed surprised when I said that, but I didn't mind revealing this much. If I went all out, I could probably eliminate a level one hundred monster, but that would require me to give up protecting the three of them. Considering that, anything below level eighty should be acceptable.

"In that case, if we travel north to the base of the mountain, there is a nest of Sand Vipers. They are individually level forty, but they attack in large groups, and each one is roughly three meters long."

I nodded my head, accepting their explanation. I opened my encyclopedia, reading through to find these Sand Vipers. "They have a crystal in their foreheads?" I read aloud, thinking. "I'll keep the crystals as my share of the harvest, and you three can keep everything else."

The trio blinked in confusion, the blue one speaking out. "Are you sure that's enough? We won't be able to help with the fighting, after all."

However, I simply nodded in response. "It's fine. The crystals are the most valuable part of the Sand Viper. On average, it should be about equal to what was promised to me as my share of the reward." That said, I planned to siphon off some of the blood and venom sacs to keep my promise with Diane. It wouldn't be hard to say that the harvest failed once or twice and the sacs were lost.

Since we had an agreement, the three of us quickly made our way to the north. Along the way, we fought a few Ruby Scorpions, which I promptly killed, trading the materials directly to the trio. Thankfully, the fluids could be preserved if we did it through a direct trade, so there was very little loss.

Half an hour into our journey, we finally made it to the outskirts of the nest. I could see dozens, maybe even hundreds of vipers slithering around, their scales blending in neatly with the sand. If not for the tracks they left behind them, or the glistening gem on their foreheads, it might be hard for normal people to spot them.

Just to be safe, I used Detective Analysis, making sure that none of the Sand Vipers were unusually strong, and that there weren't any hidden below ground. What I found was a dungeon hidden at the heart of the nest, no doubt where the creatures came from. However, aside from that, there were no underground or unusual threats.

With that in mind, I pulled out my Bloody Wind Bow, and took aim. Since I had such large targets in front of me, there was no harm in practicing with my Empty Bow Expertise. I didn't want to make my Martial Intent-X too obvious, after all. My previous day's work was far enough from the city that it could be mistaken as basic Ki Projection.

Thus, I began to fire my arrows. Each one sailed through the air like a streak of yellow light. About half the time, I was lucky enough to score a kill-shot with one hit, but there were quite a few snakes that managed to withstand the first strike and charged at me. For those, I used Killing Stare to freeze them in place, finishing them off with a second shot.

My arrows continued to launch, one after another, as more and more snakes were slain. Since I was firing from a distance of more than a hundred meters, I had plenty of warning if any of them decided to charge at me. And naturally, I was prepared, though it looked like that wasn't necessary.

For roughly five minutes, I was constantly firing my arrows, only stopping when there was no more movement from the nest. "One of you, come with me to collect the materials. Another watch the nest for any signs of movement. The last one, keep an eye on the surroundings, just in case a random monster wanders in." I ordered, moving towards the closest body as the red lizardman followed behind me.

There were quite a few materials worth harvesting within these monsters. Not just their blood, venom, and the crystals embedded on their heads, but also their scales, fangs, and meat. If all of the parts of a Sand Viper were sold with a normal harvest, they would fetch about two gold. At least, that's the result I obtained when appraising the materials it gave me. From that, a normal Sand Viper Gemstone was worth about twenty silver.

After harvesting a total of two hundred and seventy-two Sand Vipers, I received over fifty gold's worth of gems, though most of them had some level of damage to the gem to reduce their value. I could still get more than thirty gold if I sold them at the vendor.

At the same time, I snuck twenty liters of blood, and twenty venom sacs for Diane. While dismantling, I made sure to take my time, separating each individual piece to maximize my experience gain. If I could have, I would have put the dismantled parts back into the corpse just to continue gaining experience.

Either way, I managed to grind another twenty-five levels of Dismantle, bringing me up to forty-three in total. With another nest like this, I might have actually reached the next skill evolution.

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"Are there any more nests nearby?" I asked, my hand itching to level up the skill again. According to my estimate, I should be good enough to pass the final trial now, but that didn't mean that I would be able to get a good rating on it. To guarantee that, I would need the next evolution.

The red lizardfolk hesitated, looking at the silent nest. "There is one more of note, but it is further up the mountain, and we might not be able to make the trek with you."

Seeing my questioning gaze, the man explained. "There is a wyvern nest near the peak of the mountain. The wyverns are level eighty-five, so they are above the level you said you could fight while protecting us. Additionally, there are less of them, only fifty or so according to our last scout report. But, they are larger, and their materials are more valuable. A fully harvested wyvern can go for five gold. If it has nurtured a Dragon Scale, that scale alone can sell for ten gold."

"Dragon Scale?" I asked curiously, and the man explained further.

"After a wyvern has grown enough, it has a chance to nurture a special scale. This scale possesses a trace of draconic bloodline, and can be used to craft powerful equipment. However, a wyvern with this scale can be considered a lesser dragon, so the northern dragons will visit once every few years to take away those who have condensed a scale."

Hearing that there were dragons involved only made me more interested. If I could get a Dragon Scale for Diane, she might be able to make a potion or scroll with anti-dragon properties for the next time we fought my former player. "Can you three make it back to the city on your own, or should I escort you?" I asked, determined to take that wyvern nest for myself.

The three looked at one another, before nodding their heads. "We're close enough that we can make it back." The green lizardfolk said, before all three used a stealth skill, their figures becoming more hazy.

I watched as they left, making sure that their attention was no longer on me. Only then did I activate Ghost-X and Glancing Steps-X, quickly climbing the mountain. In under a minute, I had reached the top, though doing so caused me to feel dizzy from the elevation shift. My stats were helping me resist the effects, but it still took a few more minutes for me to acclimate.

Now that I was at the peak of the mountain, I looked down, seeing the wyvern nest that seemed to form a ring around the mountainside. While adjusting my breathing, I considered the easiest way to take out all fifty wyverns, while dealing as little damage to the corpses as possible.

My first thought was poison, but… would poison ruin the value of the blood? If so, that would be worse than killing them with my normal attacks. I could combine Thunderstrike and Lightning Bolt. Those two should have good synergy, and it should let me enhance the power of the lightning.

With that thought in mind, I began enchanting my arm, focusing on the two skills. Thankfully, perhaps because of their high compatibility, the enchantment succeeded on the first attempt, earning me the 'Great Storm' enchantment.

Summoning a thundercloud would be visible from the city below, but that was fine. If anyone asked, I would just answer honestly that I knew an area-effect lightning skill. Thus, I raised my arm, focusing on the enchantment. As I did, the sky above the mountain darkened, lightning crackling within the clouds.

Rain pelted down along the mountainside, and the wyverns looked up curiously. This cloud was considerably bigger than the one I made when I first used it, as I had modified the skill when enchanting to cover a larger area.

Seeing that I had the attention of the wyverns, I summoned the lightning from the cloud. Bolts of lightning as thick as my waist descended by the dozen, causing explosive crashes and loud screams. One volley was far from enough to kill the wyverns, but that was fine. After all, I was still in stealth. I could continue to fire as many attacks as I wanted, as long as they didn't escape the skill's range. And getting struck by lightning seemed to make it quite difficult for them to keep themselves airborne.

The wyverns began to scramble at the mountainside, trying to find caves that they could hide in as the lightning peppered them from above. In the meantime, two wyverns let out commanding roars, and I saw that both of them had prismatic scales at the base of their necks. My eyes narrowed, and I concentrated the entirety of my lightning on these two, striking them with continuous thunder until they dropped dead.

This might have felt like bullying, but I called it an honest way to earn a living. Five gold per wyvern, and fifty wyverns? That was two and a half platinum in total, even ignoring the Dragon Scales that I planned to keep!

Once the last of the wyverns were dead, I dismissed the skill, descending to begin harvesting my rewards. Though, just to play it safe, I stored all of the bodies in my backpack first, just in case there were any other monsters that would be drawn by the disturbance. I waited to actually disassemble them until I was back at the base of the mountain, at which point I happily began training my Dismantle skill, saving the two with the Dragon Scale for last.

Finally, when there were just four wyverns left, I received the notification that I had been waiting for. Dismantle had reached level fifty, and was ready to evolve. Naturally, I chose to evolve the skill, which turned into Scavenging Mastery-X. Excited, I looked at the notes for the skill, which looked similar to Dismantle. However, there was an extra note that it had the chance to repair or upgrade materials harvested.

With that in mind, I looked at the final four corpses in my inventory, wishing that I had waited to harvest them until after the evolution. What would the Dragon Scale look like if it was upgraded?

I shook my head, disassembling the remaining four corpses. It was only now, after I had trained it to this point, that I realized just how right Diane had been. It took me a month to evolve my first master level skill, and that was one that I had been using regularly. Admittedly, there were more conditions necessary to activate Dismantle than there were your common stealth skill, such as needing an intact monster corpse. However, it had still only taken me two days to reach this point.

If I had to guess, a normal player at level eighty could at most use Dismantle once every few minutes, maybe even less. However, in just the last couple hours, I had used it to disassemble over three hundred monsters, and that was with taking my time to manually separate every material. I wasn't sure if the mana burden came from putting the monster into the inventory, or from separating the parts, or both. Logically, it was probably both.

From that point of view, it seemed more reasonable that I managed to level the skill up so fast, as a normal player would need weeks or months to dismantle the same number of corpses. If I really pushed it for a few weeks here and cleared out every monster in the area, I could probably turn it into a Grandmaster skill. However, I really didn't have the patience to do something like that for a skill that had no practical uses in combat.

Shaking my head, I dried myself off and made my way back to town to sell the wyvern corpses. At the same time, I took a screenshot of my upgraded skill, as well as the two Dragon Scales in my possession, and sent both images to Diane.