Chapter 24: 23. Second Labour; First Boss

Many system screens appeared in front of me.

[Troll] (Uncommon) defeated x79! Host earned 3700250 EXP.

 

-Host levelled up x4!

 

-Host reached Level 46! 16 MAG, 16 END, and 48 free stat points acquired.

 

[Flame-N-Go] levelled up x4! It reached level 17.

 

[It’s fine!] levelled up x4! It reached level 16.

 

[Burn that Invader!] levelled up x3! It reached level 12.

 

[Kill Them Before They Spread!] levelled up x3! It reached level 11.

 

[Light Steps] levelled up x2! It reached level 16.

 

[Flawed State of Being] levelled up x4! It reached level 8.

 

[Plasmic Torch] levelled up x3! It reached level 6.

 

[Shadow Assimilation] levelled up x3! It reached level 10.

The progress is good, I thought. It might be possible for me to reach level seventy-five by the end of the tutorial.

I decided to save up the free stat points that I obtained this time, and started looting the corpses as soon as I closed the system screens. Unlike last time, I managed to get a single special drop in addition to the regular ones.

[Host gains [Troll’s Mana Essence] x47!]

 

[Host gains [Troll’s Blood Essence] x54!]

 

[Host gains [Troll’s True Essence] x1!]

 

[Dismantle] levelled up x2! It reached level 3.

 

I have heard of its name in my past life, but I’ve never managed to find out about its details. I examined it and bought the detailed description from the system [Shop] for eight points.

I am running low on shop points again, I thought. Too bad the Trolls don’t drop mana cores.

A system window appeared in front of me.

[Troll’s True Essence]

(Uncommon)

Trolls aren’t as strong as they were once before, and they’re in continuous decline. Legends say that a savior would be born one day. A powerful Troll with great talent that could change their destiny! Some rumors mention that he would be able to rival the best mages of humanity if he gets nurtured carefully. If you’re reading this message, then it means that the poor fellow bit the dust. -Raw consumption of this essence gives the user a permanent increase in VIT (+20) MAG (+20). -Raw consumption of this essence gives the user a title.

 

Hehe! Poor Troll, I thought. His essence is very powerful as is, but I am more interested in the possible potion that could be made using it.

After hearing a louder squeal, I stopped dismantling the corpses. Even with my increased mobility due to [Light Steps] and my experience as a former dismantler, I was only able to dismantle about half of the corpses at this point.

I hid the essences that I got and my belongings in a remote place; I knew that the fight would be devastating.

I could see a blurry figure approaching from afar. I concentrated on the creature; its skin was green and it moved on all four limbs. It had seven heads, and each of them screamed constantly as the monster sprinted.

The Hydra, I thought. It’s even more fearsome in person, and its speed is astonishing for its size.

There was a single group that managed to kill the Hydra in the tutorial of my past life; the one with the top three rankers.

They made sure to squeeze all the value of their knowledge, so they sold information on the monsters that they faced to the other adventurers. According to those guys, the Hydra was a monster to be avoided at all costs. It was just like its mythological counterpart; capable of regenerating from injuries that would be fatal to other monsters.

It had seven heads; each of them specialized in a certain elemental type of magic. Full information on six of the Hydra’s heads was available, but the remaining head that was in the middle could do many weird things. Every head regenerated even after being destroyed, and the creature could visibly heal itself as long as it had at least one head remaining.

The only way to kill it was to destroy all of its heads in an instant, I thought.

Rumors said that the mysterious head could uncover stealth; I decided to test that theory on my own. I used [Shadow Assimilation] and hid under one of the trees, waiting for my opponent’s arrival. I felt uneasy because I didn’t have the increased stats from the [It’s fine!] skill, but I had other ways to protect myself in case of a mishap.

I didn’t need to wait too long, as the Hydra managed to get close enough within a couple of seconds.

It looked around, searching for the ‘intruder’. I had my hopes up for a while, thinking that my stealth worked and that the battle would be much easier.

However, I was disappointed. The creature’s middlemost head locked eyes with me for a moment, as its eyes started shining with a bright gold glimmer.

The remained heads regained their focus and looked at me. Each of them unleashed a spell that they’ve been preparing. The attacks were too fast, and their target area was so large that the [Shadow Assimilation]’s short-scale teleportation wouldn’t be enough to save me.

“[Plasmic Torch]!” I shouted and flew up as soon as I could. My speed in this form was quicker than my opponent’s spells, but I didn’t want to depend too much on such a bothersome skill. Besides its negative effects on my mental health, its temperature was as hot as the sun’s surface.

The tutorial is special, as its safety measures could limit the spread of the heat, I thought. I’ll have to be careful when I go back to Earth.

I soared around the sky for a couple of seconds and tried to examine the creature, but it didn’t relent in its attacks even when I was out of its reach.

[Hydra] (Uncommon)

Level: ???

 

As I expected, its level was much greater than mine. A quick transaction with the system [Shop] revealed that it had a level of seventy.

I flew away from my enemy and descended to the ground. I turned off the skill that I’ve been using and activated [It’s fine!]. My naked body started burning with nine hundred Kelvin flames.

I avoided the enemy’s attack, waiting for a suitable chance to strike it with a fire beam. Once the Hydra’s attacks slowed down, I used [Burn that Invader!] with its middle-most head as a target. The majority of its head exploded, and the rest of the body caught fire immediately.

I felt overjoyed as the flames would deplete the mana of the Hydra till it became unable to use magic.

However, I opened my eyes widely as I saw the monster’s reaction to my flames. It started shedding its skin and emerged with light burns. There wasn’t enough time for the flames to fully penetrate the outermost layer of skin, and the opponent’s regeneration was strong enough to combat the fire.

The flames scorched the skin, but the Hydra wasn’t injured much.

Sly creature, I thought. However, I am sure that this ability takes a lot of mana to use.

I evaded all the magical spells that the creature attacked me with, and I wasn’t close enough for its mighty physical attacks to reach me.

Whenever my skill’s countdown ended, I used it once more. After the Hydra shed its skin three more times, it stopped using magic and started sprinting toward me.

It got much more aggressive, and its speed increased as it chased me around the battlefield. I had to increase the temperature of my flames so that my speed would be great enough to keep the Hydra at bay.

This is my chance to try the effect of my trump card, I thought.

I moved away from my enemy and shouted, “[Shut-Down!]”. Suddenly, my body and mind started feeling cold and everything seemed much clearer. It felt similar to post-nut-clarity, but I didn’t have enough time to think about useless stuff.

Five seconds, I thought. Let’s see how this goes.

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I willed the temperature of my flames to raise to Ten Thousand Kelvin. [Plasmic Torch] was an environmental hazard, and this was on another level.

Everything around me started burning, and so did the creature. Its movements looked very slow, and I could even see the Hydra’s most minuscule motions.

I jumped toward my opponent’s rightmost side. I slashed at three of its heads using both of my arms; they turned to gore and blood started pouring from the wounds very slowly. Before I dropped to the ground, I propelled myself using a burst of flames to reach the other side of the monster.

I used the same motion to slash at the remaining heads; it was enough to destroy them completely.

I willed my flames’ temperature to return to a tolerable level before the [Shut-Down] skill’s effect ended. As soon as five seconds passed, I felt nauseous and threw up immediately.

I guess suppressing pain has its side effects too. I thought.

I looked up at the Hydra, or what remained of it. Except for its heads, most of its body looked to be in a good condition.

As expected of a creature from the Myths, it died standing. I thought.

[Congratulations, Host Jason Stubbs is the first to kill an [Area Boss] in the whole tutorial!]

 

[Host Jason Stubbs gained some tutorial points for the achievement!]

 

[Hydra] (Uncommon) (Level: 70) defeated! Host earned 8100000 EXP.

 

-Host levelled up x7!

 

-Host reached Level 53! 28 MAG, 28 END, and 84 free stat points acquired.

 

[Flame-N-Go] levelled up x1! It reached level 18.

 

[It’s fine!] levelled up x1! It reached level 18.

 

[Burn that Invader!] levelled up x1! It reached level 13.

 

[Flawed State of Being] levelled up x1! It reached level 9.

 

[Plasmic Torch] levelled up x1! It reached level 7.

 

[Shut-Down] levelled up x1! It reached level 2.

 

Heh, so Stella and her underlings didn’t kill an Area Boss yet, I thought. That was unexpected.

I grabbed my bag of holding and equipped my items, then I opened my status screen to verify my current stats.

Host: Jason Stubbs	HP 500/500 (1 HP/520 seconds)
Class: Living Crematorium	Mana 2600/2600 (8.47 mana/1 second)
Level 53: 205415/1379000	Stat Points: 204
STR: 15	VIT: 90
DEX: 15	AGI: 17
MAG: 264 (+30)	END:395 (+10)
Class Skills:	General Skills:
[Flame-n-Go]: Level 18	[Zoom]: Level 2
[It’s fine!]: Level 18	[Shut-Down]: Level 2
[Burn That Invader!]: Level 13	[Light Steps]: Level 16
[Kill Them Before They Spread!]: Level 11	[Shadow Assimilation]: Level 10
[Dismantle]: Level 3
[Plasmic Torch]: Level 7
[Flawed State of Being]: Level 9

 

I had many corpses to loot and a lot of free stat points to allocate. There was also something that I had to discuss with Petra.

This new life might be great, but it’s exhausting sometimes. I thought.

*

I dried my wet hair using a simple skill and sat on my rocking chair. I had my bathrobe on and the popcorn was ready. The heat from the fireplace made the atmosphere even more suitable to watch some stuff.

I opened a system screen and established a connection to a certain host. His [Shop] was a one-way backdoor to his logs, so it didn’t take much effort to stalk him.

It seems like I was right on time, I thought.

The host had gloomy eyes and a neutral facial expression. He was facing a creature many times his size, but he didn’t look afraid.

It looks like he’s bored, I thought. I guess he’s just like me in that sense.

The fight was somewhat funny, especially the part in which he burned a large part of the forest to kill a single enemy. His class was destructive without a doubt, but it got even worse when he evolved it.

It seems like this guy’s past as a butcher would haunt him forever, I thought.

He avoided attacks seamlessly, and even those that managed to hit him weren’t that serious. His increased regeneration rate healed every single injury.

It didn’t take him too long to kill the Hydra by cutting off all of its heads.

Traditional, I thought. And boring!

He tried to contact me earlier today, but I pretended not to notice. Interestingly, he managed to meet those guys! I didn’t expect them to have noticed his existence so early, but they’ll do anything to acquire more helpers.

As for me? I am just enjoying my time here.

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