"Alright, out of all of us here, the ones that need to be level up the most are Sky and Komer. The rest of us are already within a similar range. Are you two ready?" Eisen asked his group with a smile, and they both nodded their heads, Komer carrying a simply wand and staff with him to work on his Sorcery, and Sky holding his new Grimoire to his chest, where he seemed to have written down most of the stories that he would like to use in combat.
"Then, the plan is quite simple. If we encounter a large group of monsters, Kirisho will cover them in her mist and confuse them, and I"ll send in my Golems as a Vanguard. I"ll be able to see the monsters with my Mana-Sight, after all. And then, when they seem to be heavily weakened, Sky and Komer, you"re going in and doing whatever you can to fight them. If we find a small group of monsters, we"ll try to restrain them as much as possible, and then Sky and Komer will try to kill them somehow." Eisen summed up, just to make sure that everyone understood what should be done, and then moved his fingers through his beard.
"And once you two hit the point at which you have to work on your level-up quest, we"ll help out with those quests as much as possible to get you two to level 100, and then we"re moving on to the tactics we worked out yesterday. Sound good?" The old man asked with a smile on his face, and then looked over toward one of his Golems.
"Croco, go fly ahead a little to see if you can find any Monsters." Eisen told her, and the young-looking Golem nodded its head and quickly jumped onto her Broom and flew into the sky to do just that. "Ranger, you make sure to pay attention to whatever you can as well. We"re in a pretty thick part of the forest right now, but try your best, please." Eisen asked of the Golem with the Giant bow, who nodded his head and stared forward with his lightly-glowing eyes.
And a little while later, Croco returned and jumped off of her broom to land directly in front of Eisen, pointing the tip of the broom with the lantern attached to it deeper into the forest, and it seemed like Ranger also noticed something and prepared his bow on the medium-setting.
"Alright everyone, move quietly." Eisen told them and then looked over toward Kirisho, telling her to prepare in case there was a large amount of Monsters, and when they reached the area where Croco saw monsters to be, Eisen raised his eyebrows surprised. It was a group of five, so not that many, and the group included five completely different races of monsters, of which Eisen could only recognize three.
A Kobold, a Goblin, and a Lizardman. One of the others seemed to be something like a Bi-pedal rat, and after a quick inspection with his truth-seeing eyes, Eisen confirmed it to be called a "Ratman". But the last of them was one that Eisen had no idea how to react to. Physically, it seemed to be a mixture of a Goblin and a Kobold, and its race was even called "Koblin".
"Huh…" Eisen muttered to himself, remembering that the different monsters here on this central island were supposed to be these humanoid-types, and that some of them even cross-bred. Either way, quickly, Eisen looked to the side to tell them about what he found out through his inspection of them.
"They"re all high-level Rank 3 monsters. They have pretty crude weapons, so they seem to be some of the weaker Monsters on the island." Eisen explained to them, before Sky already began to smile wrily. "Heh… Rank 3 Monsters being the weakest of an area…" He muttered nervously, but Eisen just winked at him.
"Don"t worry, you can deal with them." The old man said rea.s.suringly, before Sky slowly nodded and looked at Komer next to him to make sure he was prepared as well, while Eisen himself wanted to test something else.
He would surely be able to deal with Rank 3 monsters pretty easily even directly unarmed, even if he didn"t have his Golems, so the old man had no issues stepping forward toward the group of five. After all, he first wanted to make sure that they were actually hostile. If not, it would make taking over the island a lot easier.
"h.e.l.lo there, you five." Eisen said with a smile on his face as he stepped closer toward them, and immediately, the five different monsters began to stare at him.
And before Eisen even knew it, they all sprinted toward him hungrily, preparing to take him apart with their teeth.
"Well, it was worth a try. Ranger." Eisen said with a sigh, and immediately when he did so, one of the super-blunt small arrows flew past Eisen and hit the largest of the monsters, the Lizardman, into the center of the chest, which ended up throwing him to the ground.
And while Eisen turned around and made his way back to his group, Deedee and Tank rushed past him with their swords drawn, preparing to cut them down. Or rather, they prepared to cut through their legs so that they wouldn"t be able to run away.
"Eisen, the h.e.l.l was that?!" Komer asked confused, but Eisen just shrugged. "Not all monsters are bad, actual monsters. Just take my cute grandson here, he"s a kind one." The old man said with a smile and looked over at Kiron, who was holding his sword over his sholder to properly carry it, and tried to look away embarra.s.sedly at being called Eisen"s "Cute Grandson".
"See?" Eisen chuckled, and Komer just sighed as he looked back at the five monsters, but was relatively surprised to see that they had been reduced to being nearly-dead already.
"Your turn." The old man told Sky and Komer, and they slowly stood up and made their way closer into the area. And while Sky summoned one of his Inkstone Creatures to finish the monsters off for him, Komer drew some magic circles into the air with the staff to do so.
And soon enough, the five monsters were finished off, and Eisen looked over toward the young woman that was basically half-backpack. "Shall we get to work?" He asked her, and Bree nodded her head with a smile, while the two of them quickly made their way over toward the dead monsters, swiftly extracting the Mana-Crystals from them.
After quickly was.h.i.+ng the blood off of them, Eisen and Bree put the Mana-Crystals into the backpack before Bree re-filled Sky and Komer"s mana.
"And now, let"s continue." The old man said with a smile, and before he knew it, they noticed the next group of monsters.
And then the next, and then the next. Over the course of the day, not only did the group start facing stronger and stronger monsters, moving on to Rank 4 ones by evening, but Sky and Komer got more used to combat as well, and they were able to go against small groups of two or three on their own later.
Komer was actually confident enough to use his Coins of Fate in the fights. They sometimes ended up hurting him a little, but both Supp and Bree quickly reacted by healing him whenever that happened.
And that somewhat confused Eisen a good bit, to be fair. After all, he himself never actively commanded Supp to do so, and some shallow thoughts aren"t enough to count as a command. That meant that Supp was actually able to properly adapt to certain situations on his own, a clear sign of intelligence.
Something that he wasn"t really supposed to have. But it was the same thing with the other Golems. While they couldn"t grow further without getting their parts replaced just like this, they were somewhat acting as if they were already Ego-Golems, because they were capable of partially thinking on their own. It was most likely part of the effect they had on them, but even then, it seemed pretty weird to Eisen most of the time.
Either way, whenever something like that happened, Eisen simply tried to properly keep all of that in mind for later, so that it would help when trying to figure out what the Great Golems really were. Or rather, where they were.
Due to the large group, and because the only ones to get any experience were Sky and Komer and because they were fighting Rank 4 monsters now, Sky and Komer both managed to push themselves to the Level 90 range by that evening.
And while Eisen was preparing the food for everyone, and Kirisho"s Mist spread around their camp like a ring in order to scare any Monsters that might want to approach off, the two of them were starting to speak about how amazing they thought all of this was, especially the immense increase in their stats.
"Just by getting my intelligence and wisdom this high, my Inkstone Summons are so much stronger now! And I can keep them up way longer!" Sky exclaimed excitedly, and Komer nodded his head as well while activating his Fate Perception.
"I definitely wasn"t aware stats changed this much… My Fate Perception is so much clearer as well, and it seems like I can see more into the distance with it. I still wouldn"t be able to walk around like this, though…" Komer muttered to himself, and before he knew it, golden particles were floating around in front of his eyes.
"Well, Dinner is ready, and I"d prefer it if you could see what you"re eating." Eisen said with a smile as he sat down on one of the benches that he made with his element as well, while Komer quickly deactivated his Fate Perception with a smile on his face.
"Right, sorry. But this is actually really awesome…I can"t wait for level 100! I really want to know what my second Occupation skill is going to be…" Komer admitted with a smile on his face, and Eisen just laughed lightly.
"It"s surely going to be pretty interesting, just like your first skill." The old man replied and began to eat, while Komer just smiled brightly and excitedly.
"My first one was just an information storage… I really don"t know what I"m supposed to expect with my occupation from this point on." Sky then said as he scratched his cheek, and Eisen simply smiled at him. "Don"t worry, yours is surely going to be just as amazing. Now, eat before it gets cold!" Eisen told Sky with a smile on his face, before the old man looked over to the side at Bree.
"Actually, what was your Level 100 skill?" Eisen asked, and Bree quickly shook her head for some reason, "I didn"t get one. I got two skills when I first got my occupation, so I didn"t get one at level 100… Some occupations are like that." Bree pointed out with a light smile, and Eisen slowly nodded his head.
"And you"re really happy with being an Archivist, right?" The old man asked her, and with a little hesitation, the pink-haired Fey-Kin nodded her head.
"Well, I"m not unhappy about it! I like my Scanner and Database skills! And I do like my occupation as well!" She replied with a bright smile, but Eisen shook his head. "That"s not what I asked. You know that there are literally five people in your direct vicinity that can get you an occupation advancement that fits you more, right? Maybe some special form of an Archivist, just in a way that it fits you a bit more."
Slowly, Bree"s head slightly drooped down for a few moments, before she raised it again to look at Eisen with a bright smile. "Thank you! I"ll think about it!"