NOVEL NEXT Chapter 72: Mid Quality Mine
Alexa led Maria in the direction of her former home. Along the way, any monsters that they encountered were immediately taken care of by Maria.
She didn't have her Calamity with her, but using Greed's Shackles and her skill [Angel's Rage] was more than enough to take care of some mobs.
She had been constantly using [Angel's Rage] for a long time now and she was able to find some peculiarities of the skill. Maria was able to find out that her somewhat broken skill had some restrictions on it.
She hadn't noticed it before, but there was a limit to the number of feathers she was able to shoot out. The limit for each of her wings was 10 feathers per activation, which means that because she now had 3 pairs of wings, Maria was now able to shoot a total of 60 feathers per skill activation. The total amount of damage dealt on one target would be 6300 Pure Damage.
Although there seemed to be a limit, there was still no cooldown on this particular skill of hers. The only cooldown would be the time it would take before all 60 of her feathers disappeared after having struck her target.
"W-wow! Big sis, you're strong!" Alexa exclaimed in awe.
All of the monsters that she would normally avoid were now being dealt with single-handedly by the big sister that she decided to follow.
Seeing her awe, Maria looked back at her and asked, "Do you wanna grow stronger like me?"
"Y-yes!" Alexa eagerly replied.
"Good! Here, take this!"
Maria pulled out a weapon that she got from a random drop from all of the monsters she killed before and gave it Alexa. Naturally, the weapon was only a level 5 Wolf Tooth Dagger, but it was enough.
She tried adding Alexa to the party and fortunately, it worked. Maria quickly looked for another monster and after finding one, she quickly lowered the HP of the monster and pinned it to the ground with her feathers.
She turned towards Alexa who was waiting behind her and said, "Alright, now go ahead and kill this thing!"
"O-Okay..."
Maria didn't need to do this, but if Alexa didn't take the last hit, she wouldn't get any EXP due to the level difference between them. It wasn't like this before but after the recent update, high leveled players were disallowed from 'power leveling' any low-level player.
Since more and more players were constantly joining the game, 'buses' or more specifically, the act where newbies would join a party to quickly level up, had become a norm recently. The devs for some odd reason didn't quite take a liking to this.
In the recent update, they added a restriction for leveling where if a monster was killed by a party of players, the EXP distribution would only occur between the players who didn't exceed a 20 level difference between the player who took the last hit.
So this meant that if a high-level player took the last hit of a monster that their party was hunting, the players in that party who had a level difference of more than 20 levels wouldn't be able to gain any EXP, and the same worked in vice-versa. If the low leveled player took the last hit, then the higher leveled players wouldn't be able to gain any EXP.
Of course, it didn't completely abolish the concept of 'power leveling' for the newbie players, but the increase in levels would at least be regulated and there wouldn't be any cases where new players would be able to get to a high level overnight.
The average level of players at the current stage of the game was around level 40 to level 50 and the main story of the game still hadn't quite progressed that far despite many players constantly searching and completing many 'main' storyline quests.
The game's story would slowly reveal itself the higher the players' level became. The devs didn't want the high leveled players going back to low-leveled areas to help their friends and instead focus more on their levels and quests so that the game would progress.
Maria was eagerly waiting for Alexa to quickly kill the monster, but she had forgotten one slight problem.
"Hmph!"
-0
-0
"..."
"..."
Maria and Alexa looked at each other rather oddly. It was a moment later before Maria suddenly realized why this was happening. The monster was too high-leveled.
Alexa was only level 5 and the weapon she was using was only level 5 as well. There was no way that her damage at that level would be able to bypass the defenses of the level 50 monster in front of her.
The stat difference was just too big. Even if Maria lowered the monster's HP to 1, Alexa still wouldn't be able to kill it because the damage she dealt was 0.
"Ugh...I'm an idiot... I forgot about the stat difference..."
Alexa was still quite adamant at trying to kill the monsters so she continuously stabbed the knife in her hand into the monster but it couldn't even pierce through its skin.
After a few more stabs and seeing that she couldn't even damage it, Alexa naturally slumped down in dejection. She gritted her teeth in frustration and was about to resume stabbing the monster in front of her, but Maria quickly grabbed her wrist and stopped her.
"Stop it, Alexa."
"B-but—"
"It's pointless because you're too weak right now. We'll go look for some weaker monsters for you to fight. You don't need to feel bad. However, you should remember this. Remember that you're weak and remember your frustration because you're weak. Use it as motivation to get stronger, okay?"
"Y-yes big sis..."
"Hehe, I was like you before. However, instead of frustration, I felt despair~ Anyways, dry your tears, Alexa, we'll go hunting later! First, we should reclaim your old home!"
"Y-Yes!"
The duo continued along their way and Maria took care of all the monsters in their path.
*DING*
[Your follower, [Alexa Garm Lv. 5], has gained absolute admiration of your strength and is now determined.
FAV+200
Loyalty has increased by 1 point!]
*DING*
[Your follower, [Alexa Garm Lv.5], has learned the skill [Tenacious Spirit]]
[Tenacious Spirit
Rank: A
Passively increases all stats by 5% and increases the rate of EXP gained by 10%.]
"W-what the heck? I want this!" Maria exclaimed in shock after reading the description of Alexa's newly acquired skill.
She felt that it was a cheat that all of her stats were passively increased by 5% and her EXP rate was increased by 10%. The 5% increase to all stats didn't matter too much to Maria, but the 10% EXP rate did.
The absurd amount of EXP she needed to gain even 1 level was harrowing so any kind of boost was welcome for her. It was too bad that it was her that gained the skill but her follower.
"Haaahh...I wish I had it..." Maria mumbled jealously.
"Grrrahhh!!!"
Maria looked up and saw a monster rush at her. She flourished her wings and sent a flurry of feathers to strike at the monster. She then flung out her Greed's Shackles and constricted the monster. She then proceeded to take out all of her negativity on the monster by swinging it around and smashing it against the trees, rocks, and monsters that would come to block her way.
[You have gained 55,674 Exp!]
When the monster finally died, Maria let out a breath and happily said, "Phew! I feel much better! We should hurry though, night is about to fall!"
After spending quite some time on this new planet, the day was finally about to end and the night was approaching. Alexa also saw this and she started rushing ahead. It seemed that she was quite afraid of the night.
Maria chuckled when she noticed this, a vampire who was scared of the night. It was hilarious.
"Wait...didn't Ash say that low-ranked vampires have low-tolerance to sunlight? Then how—"
"Big sis, the cave is just past that n-shaped rock over there!" Alexa yelled and pointed towards the distance.
Ahead, there was a large rock that resembled an archway and past it, Maria could see a cave. They had finally arrived at the cave where Alexa used to live in. When they stepped past the rock archway, a notification prompt immediately popped up in front of Maria.
[You have discovered a Mid-Tier Mine!
Clear all of the monsters inside the mine to occupy it! (0/100)]
"Ooh! It's hunting time~"
Maria was just about to enter the mine but stopped short of the entrance.
'Since the game is so realistic, let's try something.' Maria thought before turning around and telling Alexa to step back a little.
The little girl naturally complied and stepped back until she was just under the rock archway. Alexa was a little bit puzzled at what her big sis was going to do that even she needed to back away from her.
"Alright, let's try it."
Maria readied herself. She took a deep breath and—
"KYAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH~~~"
—activated her skill, [Scream of Pain], and directed it into the mines. Thankfully for her, things went as she had hoped it would and a stream of damage numbers popped up in her [Log] as well as the counter to her conquest of the mine increasing.
[Clear all of the monsters inside the mine to occupy it! (47/100)]
"Hehe, I'm glad that worked. Time to take care of the rest~"