NOVEL NEXT Chapter 39: The Countdown Begins...
As the countdown for the ranking of players loomed before me, a sense of anticipation mingled with apprehension gripped my heart.
With the intention of seeing the effects of this announcement among the players in the world chat, I hurridely opened the world chat and started to observe how the players were reacting.
The announcement had stirred a flurry of activity among the players in the world chat, some scheming against others while some busy vying for recognition and glory in the upcoming ranking. But the thing common in everyone's mind was the results of ranking.
It was like a one time opportunity for people to shine and show case what they had gained in this 7 day period.
With the mutated rabbit's ambush fresh in my mind, I realized the importance of blostering my strength and securing my position in this unforgiving world. The ranking presented an opportunity to expose my abilities and carve out a name for myself amidst the chaos and competition.
But as the hours ticked away, I found myself faced with a dilemma. Should I focus on honing my skills and gathering resources, or should I take risk, incubate some more skeletons and create a new dungeon exploration team to venture into new unknown dungeons in search of greater power?
I was contemplating over my next course of actions, the mechanical voice sounded again this time bringing a pleasent surprise.
DING .... LEVEL UP .....
STATUS WINDOW
NAME - AURIEL
AGE - 5 DAYS
SPECIES - UNDEAD
LEVEL - 17
CLASS - NECROMANCER TREE (EVO)
EXP - 123/2972
HP - 980
MP - 1070
STRENGTH - 10
INTELLIGENCE - 10.7
VITALITY - 9.8
SENSE - 10.3
MOBILITY - 3.8
SOUL ABILITIES - 3
SKILLS - 4
SUBORDINATES - 6
ATTRIBUTE POINTS - 30
SKILL POINTS - 24
Along with the announcement from the mechanical voice, I looked over my status window once again and checked. I had reached level 17. It was sooner than expected. This proved how important a dungeon was to get stronger in this world.
Killing Viktor and Elaine also had provided me exp points and absorbing their soul had helped me gain a level. Killing them as well as enslaving their soul seemed too inhumane so I decided to absorb their soul and turn it into my nutrients. And absorbing their soul proved to have more benefits than storing it for future use.
I looked at my skeleton archers with a plethora of emotions rising in my heart as they were also members of dungeon exlporation team that had a huge contribution in levelling up so soon this time around.
With the map in my possession and the support of my skeletons, I felt a newfound sense of confidence coursing through my veins. Perhaps the key to success lay not in rushing headlong into the dangers, but carefully strategizing, creating more skeletons bidding my time until the opportune moment presented itself.
As I mulled over my options, I wanted to see the reactions of people in the world chat. As soon as I opened the world chat, a message flashed across the screen, drawing my attention.
BigDaddy - The first ranking of players approaches. Are you ready to prove your worth ?
These words ignited a flurry of messages within the already calm world chat. Some took it as words of motivation from a fellow earthling while other took it as a blatant threath masked within the words.
Whatever the intention of the one who ignited the world chat might be, the words echoced in my mind, igniting a fire within me. I may have been a late bloomer in this race but I was determined to make my mark and rise to the top, no matter the challenges that lays ahead.
With a steely resolve, I set out to prepare myself for the upcoming ranking, drawing upon the knowledge and resources at my disposal. Every moment counted, and I refused to let this opportunity slip through my fingers.
As the countdown continued its relentless march towards zero, I steeled myself for the trials that awaited, knowing that only the strongest would emerge victorious in the end.
The world chat buzzed with excitment and anticipation, each player eager to prove themselves in the crucible of competition. With the fire of hard work, furnace of opportunity and luck, hammer of destiny, I started melting my old weak self creating a new knife from the remaining scraps that would not chip even in the hardest of the challenges.
But even within the chaos and uncertainty, one thing remained clear: I was determined to seize this opportunity and forge my own destiny in this strange and perilious world.
The countdown had begun, and the stage was set for a showdown unlike any other.
The skeleton archers by my side and a map full of uncharted dungeons in my possession, I felt a surge of confidence. The whispers of opportunity beckoned me to strategize and bide my time, as I knew that patience and cleverness could be my greatest allies at this point of time.
As I was deciding whether to send the two archers into the search for new dungeons or create a new batch of skeletons and then only send them in search for new dungeon, a new idea popped up in my mind. Why not incubate an all archer team and order them to snipe the nearby targets while others were finishing this dungeon.
A stream of continuous exp points could be made this way and sending more skeletons into a dungeon meant a easier and faster exploration of the dungeon.
With a determination I checked my mana points and tab showing my mana points appeared infront of me.
MP - 1070
I learned another thing this time. All the lost mana points would be recovered at once when I levelled up. This meant a glitch in the sytem that only I could exploit. I could incubate more skeletons from the mana points then the skeletons would gain exp points helping me level up faster and this would help me create more skeletons.
With out any delay, I directly activated the skeleton fruit skill and consecutively activated the skeleton archer fruit skill five times consuming 1000 mana points, incubating 5 skeleton archers.
INCUBATING SKELETON ARCHERS ....
AMOUNT - 5
00 : 2 HRS : 59 MIN : 48 SEC
The familiar announcement from the mechanical voice as well the countdown begun like it normally would do.
I breathed a sigh of relief after incubating the skeleton archers as I was in countinuous pressure to make a move aiding my conquest.
My skeleton archers could camaflouge within the forest and kill without being discovered. Beasts would die like flies from the continuous barrage of arrows without knowing what mighty being it had provoked unknowingly.
While I was imagining about a magnificient army of skeletons marching from dungeon to dungeon conquering and plundering everything in sight making me stronger every second, Suddenly a skeleton soldier that I was monitoring before attracted my attention.
My dungeon exploration team had found a hidden room accidently while fighting and they all had come to a stop not making a single move after killing all the mobs inside the dungeon. This was a peculiar and never seen incident as the skeletons had never came to such a sudden stop after entering the dungeon.
This situation required my supervision so I stopped all other things and directed my attention to the skeletons inside the dungeon.