When Ingram opened his eyes and saw the group of people had become much more anxious. Ingram stood up and felt a wave a weakness wash over his body, ‘Why do I feel so weak?’ As Ingram woke up a bit he saw two unfamiliar symbols that seemed to be floating at the corner of his vision. When he focused on it a description popped up,
{Hungry: All Physical Stats decreased by 20% until Satiety is over 50 points.
Dehydrated: All Physical Stats decreased by 20% until Thirst is over 50 points.}
Ingram opened his stat window and realized his Satiety and Thirst had fallen below 30 points. ‘I guess not eating or drinking all day actually has an impact on my stats. That makes sense, but I feel like it should take longer. I mean I go without eating for days in the real world and I’m fine, this game is strict. I guess I should borrow some supplies from the adventurers, I mean they are free for all adventurers protecting Yonder and I fall under that category.’ Ingram is a man of action, so he did as he thought, but came across one minor problem. ‘I forgot, I can’t reach through my barrier due to it’s permeability being None. Never mind, I don’t need them I’ll be fine, I don’t even use Physical Stats anyway.’ Ingram thought and got used to the feeling of hunger as he wander around looking for two he was listening to earlier.
Ingram found them by following the messy footprints on the forest floor, but the crowd had followed them so Ingram circled around and saw the reason for their gathering. As a precaution he started the process of summoning six barrier magic circles, for a grand total of 2,148 MP. ‘Oh, the Beast Hoard got this close already. I suppose it’s almost time for my Barrier Magic to make its first appearance.’ Ingram arrogantly thought, but his shaking legs gave away his actual emotions, dread and fear. Suddenly a loud wolf’s howl broke through the tense atmosphere signifying the entrance of humanity into the bloody maws of the Beast Hoard. “Remember, your personal safety takes precedence, but try not to retreat too far! We must keep as many traps for when we get tired and need a break!” Tony roared as he began to violently attack the wolves that rushed towards them, knocking them back with one violent sweep of his spear.
Ingram swallowed the lump in his throat from the sight of humanities initial struggle against the altered nature of this strange world. Thankfully his only reliance, his barrier magic circles had appeared above his hands,
{Judgment x3: Magic Circle is 86.67% accurate. Barrier strength is decreased by 13.33%.
Perfect Barrier Strength: 1,259.52 | Penalty applied, New Barrier Strength: 1,091.62
8 Proficiency Points gained.}
{Judgment x3: Magic Circle is 100% accurate
Perfect Barrier Strength: 1,259.52
10 Proficiency Points gained.}
At first the front line held, but one of the newer Rank C adventurers got knocked back by a large boar that rushed forward for the kill. Seemingly out of a Mage’s instinct Ingram instantly summoned a Two-Meter Plate Physical Block Barrier in front of the fallen Adventurer. The adventurer was shocked to see a faint grey plate appear in front of him, but the boar didn’t seem to care as it continued Charging towards the fallen adventurer, but the moment it touched the barrier all of its momentum faded away and Ingram had a familiar and a unique system prompt appear,
{Physical Block Barrier blocks 168 points of physical damage from a [Life Level: 25] Common Boar.
Judgment: Barrier strength is higher than the damage dealt, Physical Block Barrier remains intact.}
{You gained 16 Points of Experience.}
Ingram was shocked, the adventurer was shocked, even the boar was shocked. ‘I can gain Exp from blocking damage?’ After he got over his shock Ingram felt a wave of excitement as he realized he found his way of gaining experience. ‘I get one experience point for every ten damage blocked. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, who cares if John_Doe2619 gained a teacher in the Martial Emperor, I can get strong all on my own, I don’t need anyone to light my path.’ Ingram mentally vented as he retracted his barrier and decided to climb a tree to get a better view of the battlefield because he realized while his magic circle has to be within fourteen meters of him, the distance his barriers can appear in are based on his line of sight.
This brief interlude went unnoticed by due to the chaotic fights happening all around them. Ingram would tell you he quickly climbed a tree, but he’d be lying. It took him a two minutes to find a tree he thought he could reasonable climb and another three minutes to slowly learn how to climb a tree while trying his best to keep an eye on the chaotic battlefield so he can grind for exp… save people from their immediate peril. All in all he didn’t need to summon another barrier even after he managed to climb a tree, even if he fell a few times, which made him feel like it was a waste, but it was still early into this fight for survival.
Sitting on a thick branch, Ingram had a view of the entire battlefront that the adventurers where fighting on, mostly due to how limited their numbers were compared to the Beast Hoard, but the Beast Hoard’s large numbers worked against them because only a small number could attack at a time and those at the back refused to let the ones behind the main force circle around the humans because they started fighting them. The only thing Ingram was worried about was the very large brown bear silently standing at the back of the hoard. Not that it was charging towards them, instead it was because it wasn’t doing anything, that Ingram was concerned.
His attention returned to the battle when he heard several shouts of pain. A large woman with a halberd was violently knocked by a, thankfully, normal sized bear, but either way, its still an out of control bear. With just a thought another thin grey barrier appeared in the way of the bear’s claw swipe.
{Physical Block Barrier blocks 715 points of physical damage from a [Life Level: 20] Common Bear.
Judgment: Barrier strength is higher than the damage dealt, Physical Block Barrier remains intact.}
{You gained 72 Points of Experience.}
Ingram was slightly shocked to see the bear’s attack power was so much stronger than the boar, even though it was a lower level than the latter. The bear seemed to be provoked by the thin barrier and it began to violently slash at it with every five seconds the attack power seemed to increase. After almost six attacks, with two of them being stronger than the rest, the bear decided to ignore the barrier and focus on the animals next to it.
{4x Physical Block Barrier blocks 550 points of physical damage from a [Life Level: 20] Common Bear.
Judgment: Barrier strength is higher than the damage dealt, Physical Block Barrier remains intact.}
{2x Physical Block Barrier blocks 715 points of physical damage from a [Life Level: 20] Common Bear.
Judgment: Barrier strength is higher than the damage dealt, Physical Block Barrier remains intact.}
{You gained 363 Points of Experience.}
The sudden burst of experience made Ingram smile as he retracted the barrier after the halberd wielding woman stood up and regained her bearings. Ingram scanned the battlefield and realized while it looked like the adventurers were losing they were using the large bodies of their opponents and their nearby allies’ opponents to block the potential attacks of the other animals. Of course this occasionally had a person get attacked by two animals at the same time, but the original opponent of the second animal gave them a cruel blow that always regains their attention.
Ingram continued to look around but it seems those two he saved were fighting much more stably. While the sight made him happy it also made him upset, so Ingram had a complicated feeling as he watched the adventurers defensive line hold from his perch so he decided to look a bit deeper into the Beast Hoard, only to see the giant bear was still silently watching the chaos while the rest of the bears around it dragged their prey in front of it before rushing back into the hoard to hunt again. Ingram only glanced at it before continuing to scan the adventurers in hopes that one of them mess up and he can step in.
‘Maybe I should just toss one of my barriers into the chaotic part of the battlefield. Just think of all the exp I’d get, but I still have to think about the adventurers what would happen if I didn’t have a barrier to protect them when they needed it… I have an idea, since my barriers Permeability is None, I can use my Sphere barriers to encase a creature and passively gain exp while they attack it. A perfect plan.’ Ingram had a small smile as he scanned the battlefield for a perfect test subject.
Ingram settled on a bear, mostly because he couldn’t get the numbers he saw earlier out of his head. With a thought a single bear in the middle of the battlefield was completely encased in the grey spherical barrier and forced to remain in place. At first it slammed its head against the barrier, but once they made contact, Ingram had a three system prompts appear,
{Physical Block Barrier blocks 600 points of physical damage from a [Life Level: 22] Common Bear.
Judgment: Barrier strength is higher than the damage dealt, Physical Block Barrier remains intact.}
{You gained 60 Points of Experience.}
{Do you wish to force [Life Level: 22] Common Bear to bear the cost of this barrier?
Warning: Only one barrier can be forcibly applied to a target.
Y/N}
Ingram had a slightly excited expression as he mentally agreed and he felt the mental burden of the second barrier fade from his mind. From the captured bear sudden burst of anger, it felt some of its mana being taken away from the barrier. Soon a steady stream of system prompts appeared for the next five minutes.
{10x Physical Block Barrier blocks 600 points of physical damage from a [Life Level: 22] Common Bear.
Judgment: Barrier strength is higher than the damage dealt, Physical Block Barrier remains intact.}
{You gained 600 Points of Experience.}
After ten, the giant bear had appeared next to the barrier encased bear and with one violent slap, the barrier shattered and vanished along with the magic circle that created it.
{Physical Block Barrier blocks 1,091 of 5,200 points of physical damage from a [Life Level: 51] Uncommon Bear.
Judgment: Barrier strength is lower than the damage dealt, Physical Block Barrier shatters.}
{You gained 109 Points of Experience.}
Ingram was shocked upon seeing the huge number and immediately gave up his idea of encasing another bear. ‘I gained enough Experience for now, I don’t want to provoke the giant Uncommon Bear by accident.’ Ingram decisively turned his attention back to the adventurers. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the adventurers were holding their ground, with a few retreating to catch their breath, but another from behind them stepped up. Ingram decided to look at his accumulated experience while scanning the battlefield.
{Name: Ingram
Race: Human
Mana Type: Mixed Mana
Experience: 1,428
Life Level: 2 (Experience required until next Life level: 99)
Main Class: Basic Barrier Mage [Level: 1/600] (Experience required until next Class Level: 99) [Press to see learnable Magic Circle Components] [11/20 Learned]
Hp: 150/150 | MP: 8,337/12,000
Stamina: 100/100 | Satiety: 45/100 | Thirst: 43/100
Physical Attack: 0 | Physical Defense: 0 | Movement: 4
Magic Attack: 600 (629.76) | Magic Defense: 600 (629.76)
Stats:
Vitality: 6 |Strength: 3
Endurance: 5 |Agility: 4
Intelligence: 40 |Wisdom: 40
Free Stat Points: 0
Free Class Points: 0}
Ingram was a bit shocked with how much mana he had used in such a short time, ‘I used 3,663 MP within a few hours? A bit more than I expected, so I have to use mana to maintain the Magic Circles I fill with mana and manifest, even if their not in use. Okay, nice to know, might as well keep the barriers one then, it doesn’t make a difference either way.’ Ingram mentally sighed as he saw a person collapse from exhaustion so he created a barrier in front of them as he ignored the System Prompt that appeared,
{Physical Block Barrier blocks 210 points of physical damage from a [Life Level: 20] Common Deer.
Judgment: Barrier strength is higher than the damage dealt, Physical Block Barrier remains intact.}
{You gained 21 Points of Experience.}
‘How much experience should I retain for my Class? While I don’t have the time to experiment with a new barrier right now, I want to learn all of the knowledge I can. If I’m calculating this right and the Class Points work as stat points do in other RPGs, I’ll to reach at least Class Level Twenty-four to gain enough Class Points to learn every kind of barrier. That’s not even counting the other sections, I’d need to be an even higher level.’ Ingram looked at his exp and felt it was severely lacking so he took a deep breath, ‘Yeah, increasing my Life Level should take precedence. I can gain more later. A minor goal, have the stats that allow for me to make a barrier that can block the basic attack of the Giant Bear.’ Ingram planned before he focused on his Life Level and started calculating how many levels his current exp can get him.
‘If the experience required keeps increasing by ninety, then with my current exp, I can reach Life Level Seven with fifty-four experience to spare. That should be perfect, though now that I know how strong other creatures are, how strong is my class for my Intelligence and Wisdom’s conversions to be fifteen. I don’t know, but the drawbacks are equally huge, I can only protect myself. Gains and losses… let’s stop thinking about this and level up.’ Ingram did as he thought and started to funnel his exp into his Life Level that rapidly rose to Life Level Seven before he stopped.
{Name: Ingram
Race: Human
Mana Type: Mixed Mana
Experience: 54
Life Level: 7 (Experience required until next Life level: 549)
Main Class: Basic Barrier Mage [Level: 1/600] (Experience required until next Class Level: 99) [Press to see learnable Magic Circle Components] [11/20 Learned]
Hp: 325/325 | MP: 37,200/37,200
Stamina: 240/240 | Satiety: 100/100 | Thirst: 100/100
Physical Attack: 0 | Physical Defense: 0 | Movement: 18
Magic Attack: 1,965 (2,062.46) | Magic Defense: 1,860 (1952.25)
Stats:
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Vitality: 13 |Strength: 10
Endurance: 12 |Agility: 18
Intelligence: 105 |Wisdom: 100
Free Stat Points: 40
Free Class Points: 0}
‘Seeing my stats go so explosively for only five levels makes me feel all giddy inside, like I’m an overpowered protagonist, but all I can do with these huge numbers is defend. It’s good to know that I can restore my physical state by Leveling up.’ Ingram thought with a pessimistic tone as he felt the weakness in his body fade away. ‘Back to the topic at hand, I’m so close to being able to block the Giant Bear. Thankfully this is before use my Stat Points, after I do I’m sure even the Level 51 Giant Bear won’t be able to break my barrier.’ Ingram thought with a malicious undertone before he used seven stat points balance his Magic stats. ‘A Magic Attack and Defense of 2,062.46 at Level Seven is wild, at least for another type of mage. I still have Thirty-Three Stat Points to spend. Oh well, it’s not like I need them for anything else.’ Without an hint of hesitation Ingram threw Sixteen Stat points into Intelligence and the remaining Seventeen into Wisdom. Ingram ignored the rest of his Status Board and focused on what he wanted to see,
{Hp: 325/325 | MP: 36,9400/36,900
Stamina: 240/240 | Satiety: 100/100 | Thirst: 100/100
Physical Attack: 0 | Physical Defense: 0 | Movement: 18
Magic Attack: 1,830 (1,920.76) | Magic Defense: 1,845 (1,936.51)
Stats:
Vitality: 13 |Strength: 10
Endurance: 12 |Agility: 18
Intelligence: 122 |Wisdom: 123}
Ingram clicked his tongue when he realized his stats weren’t enough to block the Giant Bear’s basic attack. ‘With one more level and I’ll be able to encase that Giant Bear… actually maybe not I’s a bit too big for that. I give up, I’ll just focus on protecting, I mean fighting is so bloody, I doubt I’d have the stomach to. This game is quite realistic, in all ways. I didn’t even know that brain matter looked like that, I couldn’t even stomach medical gore let alone this. Perhaps Barrier Magic is my true calling, to prevent injuries so I don’t have to see all that blood and gore, well at least humanities anyway. Oh, someone fell down again, how clumsy. Here let me save you, I’m such a nice guy.’ Ingram shamelessly boasted as he activated a barrier in front of a pale faced woman. The dark grey wolf pounced and collided with the barrier.
{Physical Block Barrier blocks 448 points of physical damage from a [Life Level: 36] Common Wolf.
Judgment: Barrier strength is higher than the damage dealt, Physical Block Barrier remains intact.}
{You gained 45 Points of Experience.}
The pale woman quickly crawled away and another adventurer took her place and Ingram deactivated the barrier. ‘Not like this makes a difference, but I don’t want them to get too comfortable with my barrier being in front of them. Who knows maybe a mage could track it back to me somehow. Huh, another careless mistake, are they running out of steam already?’ Despite his confusion he activated his barrier in front of a fallen man who’s sword was knocked out of his hand by a deer’s rearkick as a boar charged at him.
{Physical Block Barrier blocks 306 points of physical damage from a [Life Level: 48] Common Boar.
Judgment: Barrier strength is higher than the damage dealt, Physical Block Barrier remains intact.}
{You gained 30 Points of Experience.}
‘Are they working together now or was this guy unlucky? Either way, my experience is starting to grow again.’ Ingram mused as his eyes fell onto the large man with the bone-white spear. ‘He’s really strong, just look at that mountain of corpses, but it looks like the big boss is finally starting to move.’ Ingram’s expression darkened as he watched the Giant Bear slowly walk through the battlefield and every other creature seems to avoid it as it made its way to the spearman. Just as he was wondering what to do, the Giant Bear let out a furious roar and the battlefield fell unnaturally quiet. Suddenly the valley behind the Beast Hoard changed, the normal looking trees turned black with flecks of white and their leaves seem to softly glow like the stars.
‘What is that?’ Before Ingram could properly question what was happening, the Beast Hoard retreated, well more like they fled away from the altered forest. Unfortunately, the direction they fled was towards Yonder, even the Giant Bear was fleeing like it’s life was on the line. Ingram’s expression drastically changed, along with all of the other adventurers, but the only one who had a serious expression was the scarred bowman. If Ingram were next to Isaac would have heard, “An anomaly, no they named them dungeons, either way one appeared even all the way out here. What is happening to this world?”
Ingram felt like he had to do something to alter the course of the Beast Tide, but all he had were barriers. Time seemed to slow down as Ingram analyzed all of his options, ‘What can I do? Make a barrier, at their current pace, I only have a few minutes before they reach my tree… If I level up my class I can learn a new size for my barrier, but I doubt six meters would be enough to block this stamped.’ Ingram panicked slightly before he saw the edge of his concealing barrier and got an idea.
‘Wait, could I make my own barrier size?’ Once the idea appeared in his head it refused to go away, so Ingram instinctually activated his Barrier Magic Circle Creation skill and began to draw a new Physical Block magic circle. Once he got to the size he drew the line, but instead of Two Meters, he wrote Thirty Meters. Shockingly the Magic circle began to fill with mana with his command and a System Prompt appeared along with a world announcement,
{You have created a new Barrier Magic Circle Component all by yourself.
You have obtained 10 Merit.}
{The First Player is the first to create a new Magic Circle Component.
They are rewarded with 100 additional Merit and a One Rank Increase to the Magic Circle Creation Skill.}
{The First Player was the first to gain Merit.
They are rewarded with a hint on how to use Merit.}
While Ingram was shocked, another man was furious. “What? I didn’t know that was an achievement! This is nonsense, he gained One Hundred Merit just for that! That didn’t appear before, only the one for creating a new spell from scratch did!” Adams roared, shocking the others around him, but he ignored them. Adams clenched his teeth and venomously spat out, “Ingram. I have to speed up my original plan. The Dungeon near Yonder shouldn’t have been entered yet. I still have a chance to gain the Merit for being the first to enter a dungeon and completely clear a dungeon. Fighting that tree is going to be a pain, I need to speed up my leveling speed. I should join the Adventurer’s Guild a bit earlier than I originally planned. His existence is creating variables I didn’t think about.” Adams venomously whispered before taking a deep breath and walking towards the Adventurer’s Guild.
“What was wrong with that guy?” One player asked while his friend shrugged before he quietly spoke to him, “Do you think that guy is an Alpha Tester? I mean I thought I heard him say something about how this didn’t happen before.” The first player’s eyes lit up and he quickly looked for Adams in the crowd, but didn’t see him. He sighed with a hint of regret before he whispered back, “I wish you’d said that earlier, imagine if we became his friend. We’d level up so fast with his help, we missed an easy opportunity to gain some experience.” The second player shrugged again before he answered, “I don’t care. All I want to do is play this game my way, who cares if he’s an Alpha Tester. That knowledge will only help him to a certain point. I believe we can find our own way of playing this game. First things first, we need to find the class change NPC.”
Adams would never know his own words created even more ripples as the players near him gain a new motivation to play the game, instead of just savoring the experience of the foreign sensations. As a side note, when Adams learned that their was a beast tide, he felt his intestines twist with regret as the magic pouch tied to his felt heavy with the countless scrolls he extorted and bought missed the perfect place to gain a huge wave of experience. Instead, he got roped into a different quest, [(C~F) Yonder Town Defense].
Ingram was slightly shocked to see the World Achievement for just replacing the word Two with Thirty, but he didn’t have the luxury to patiently read them. Instead he dissolved the remaining five Physical Block Magic Circles and rapidly created six Thirty Meter Physical Block Barriers for 2,700 MP.
{Judgment x6: Magic Circle is 100% accurate
Perfect Barrier Strength: 3,857.27
10 Proficiency Points gained.}
The eight point eight seconds felt like an eternity as the Beast Tide did its best to push past the adventurers. Ingram had an illusion that he could see where the barrier would appear when he created it, perhaps it was instinct or something, but he followed it and created a ninety meter, two layered barrier in front of most of the Beast Hoard. Ingram didn’t want to accidentally create a barrier on top of an adventurer, so he moved them back a bit. Ingram felt the sweat from his forehead slowly roll down his face as he took a few deep breaths to calm his anxious heart as the Beast Tide Collided with the Barriers.
‘That was stressful, I can’t rest now. I have to keep making barriers to ensure that the Giant Bear doesn’t rush to Yonder at least until I level up again. I should climb a bit higher to completely surround them with my barriers. Just let me take a quick break.’ Ingram sighed sat on the branch, more like his legs gave out on him. He watched as all of the adventurers killed their enemies, to be more specific the stronger one killed theirs and helped the weaker ones. After they did they all looked at the thirty meter tall translucent wall that divided them from the frenzied Beast Hoard. Ingram felt a headache coming on from the many, many system prompts that kept appearing before his eyes.
After they all faded away the experience gained was huge, but he also lost a barrier from the Giant Bear slamming into one of the barriers.
{You gained 11,690 Points of Experience.}
Ingram sharply inhaled from the sudden surge of experience before he got excited, ‘That’s just from the front line, about one third of the total number of beasts. It’s kind of unfortunate that they killed so many of each other, I could have gotten more.’ Ingram clicked his tongue as he hastily leveled up his Life Level. As he did so, the other adventurers were in shock upon seeing the huge barrier suddenly appeared and stood in their way. “What is that thing? It blocked the beast tide, it even stopped the Bear King.” Tony said after a while of swallowing his saliva to moisten his throat. Isaac was just as confused, but Liz spoke up before he could respond, “It’s some kind of magic. I’ve never heard of it before, but it has to be. That’s the only explanation that makes sense.” She spoke with such conviction the the other two believed her without an ounce of hesitation.
“Do you think this is the Magic Tower’s?” Tony asked Liz, but she decisively shook her head. “There’s no way. My family is one of the five core families that built all of the Magic Towers and there was no such magic embedded into them at any point. This strange magic had been appearing regularly throughout the battlefield. After I retreated to regain my Mana, I heard a group of people discussing how a much smaller… whatever this is I’ll call it a shield for simplicity’s sake, anyway, this shield seemed to suddenly appear in front of them saving them from a beast’s attack.” Liz began to move towards it, but Tony forcibly pulled her back. “What are you doing? It’s dangerous to get to close to an active spell, you know this.”
Liz shook his hand off but patiently explained her thoughts as she approached the barrier, “I’ve been looking at it for a while and I came to the conclusion it doesn’t have any offensive capabilities, only defensive. If it were otherwise, the beasts that collided with it would have been injured, at most they seem dazed from its sudden appearance.” Tony looked at the large translucent wall and then the beasts behind it. At first they were angry that something dared halt their escape until they saw the massive barrier that stood in their way and they froze with some of the weaker one’s collapsing from fear. Only the Bear King seemed to recognize the barrier and flew into a frenzy wildly attacking the remaining barrier that stood between it and it’s escape from the dangerous forest behind it.
Unfortunately for him, Ingram had already rapidly leveled up to Life Level Ten and when he filled up the experience for Level Ten, he got a sudden Advancement Quest, leaving him with 9,902 Exp to spare.
{Personal Life Advancement Quest
Chose one task to accomplish to Reach [Life Level: 11] and Unlock a Sub-Class Slot.
If you wish you can choose more than one.
For every additional quest completed, you gain a better reward.
1. Block 100 Physical Damage (100/100)
2. Block 100 Magical Damage (0/100)
3. Block 100 Spiritual Damage (0/100)
4. Use a Physical Status Resist Barrier to Resist 10 Physical Status Afflictions (0/10)
5. Use a Physical Concealing Barrier for 10 Minutes (10m/10m)
6. Use the Physical Repelling Barrier to Repel 10 Entities (0/10)
7. Use the Physical Isolation Barrier for 10 Minutes (0m/10m)
8. Use the Physical Reversal Barrier to reverse 10 Entities (0/10)}
Ingram was slightly shocked to see such easy quests but he wasn’t complaining. ‘I’ll think about it, for now I should check my new stats. Status Board.’
{Name: Ingram
Race: Human
Mana Type: Mixed Mana
Experience: 9,083
Life Level: 10 (Experience required until next Life level: 0)
Main Class: Basic Barrier Mage [Level: 1/600] (Experience required until next Class Level: 99) [Press to see learnable Magic Circle Components] [11/20 Learned]
Hp: 400/400 | MP: 47,700/47,700
Stamina: 300/300 | Satiety: 100/100 | Thirst: 100/100
Physical Attack: 0 | Physical Defense: 0 | Movement: 24
Magic Attack: 2,415 (2,558.69) | Magic Defense: 2,385 (2,526.9)
Stats:
Vitality: 16 |Strength: 13
Endurance: 15 |Agility: 24
Intelligence: 161 |Wisdom: 159
Free Stat Points: 15
Free Class Points: 0}
‘Nice, I can finally block that large bear, but I realized that sometimes the animals seem to hit harder than usual, what if the giant bear can do that too. If this is the case then I can’t stop the bear, I can stop the rest though.’ Unfortunately for Ingram the Bear King of Yonder was done waiting. It started rushing forward knocking the other animals out of his way as he charged at the weakest point in the barrier wall, the place where it broke one earlier. Ingram had a bad feeling so he hastily removed a barrier from near the edge of the ninety meter wall and summoned it behind the barrier the Bear King was charging towards.
With a violent roar, it shattered the first barrier before it was stopped by the second. Ingram began to sweat as he rapidly started making ten new thirty meter barriers and started the process of filling them with Mana, for a grand total of 4,500 MP as he glanced at the thirteen system prompts.
{Physical Block Barrier blocks 5,085.59 of 7,800 points of physical damage from a [Life Level: 51] Uncommon Bear.
Judgment: Barrier strength is lower than the damage dealt, Physical Block Barrier shatters.}
{Judgment x10: Magic Circle is 100% accurate
Perfect Barrier Strength: 5,085.59
10 Proficiency Points gained.}
{Physical Block Barrier blocks 2,714.41 points of physical damage from a [Life Level: 51] Uncommon Bear.
Judgment: Barrier strength is higher than the damage dealt, Physical Block Barrier remains intact.}
{You gained 780 Points of Experience.}
Ingram was sweating as he anxiously waited the required time for the ten magic circles to appear, but there was a group that was much more anxious than he was, the adventurers. “Liz, why does the shield keep shattering?” Tony asked as he tightened his grip on his heavy spear, but Liz was still touching the barrier’s surface as she answered, “I assume its because the caster is weaker than the bear king. On the up side, the Bear King’s aggressive movements and roars scared off the rest of the Beast Tide that are running to the sides away from Yonder. All we have to do is kill the Bear King and we can go home much earlier than planned.” Liz said as she summoned a red magic circle that summoned a bright red fireball with a diameter of one foot before sending it flying into the barrier, only to watch it seamlessly fly through it like it didn’t exist. Liz’s eyes lit up as she watched the fireball collide with the Raging Bear King. When they collided, the Bear King roared in pain as it’s mind clearly felt that there was an entity capable of killing it beyond this strange wall, so it immediately shrank to five point four meters and ran to the right of the barrier, not daring to look back.
The adventurers were shocked, Ingram, who finally had his ten Magic Circles appear, was shocked, even Liz was shocked. She wasn’t expecting for the Bear King to be such a coward that it immediately ran away upon receiving damage. She did take away 27.1% of its total hp with a single careless attack so, naturally the bear would run away to preserve its life.
Everyone misjudged how strong the bear was due to its large size it gave itself with its mutation skill, when in actuality a C-Rank Party on the verge of B-Rank could easily deal with the Level 51 Bear King, an A-Rank party member is overkill. In this way, the Beast Tide was concluded, but a much more severe problem appeared in its place, a Dungeon. A place where Variants, or Monsters, appeared in large numbers along with mutations that give them strange Innate powers that make them stand out from the Ordinary Animals.
Ingram looked at the magic circles that cost him 4,500 Mp and gave a self-deprecating smile as he had them float behind his head. ‘Out of sight out of mind. Who knows, the beasts might come back, I can hold on to them for a while just in case.’ Ingram sighed as he slowly started climbing down the tree as the adventurers all looked at each other, safe and sound with more than a hint of confusion filling their eyes. Tony’s loud voice echoed across the blood-soaked battlefield, “We did it. We protected Yonder from the Beast Tide!” Upon hearing his words the other adventurers snapped out of their dazes and began to cheer loudly, while some of the smarter ones got to work butchering the Beasts that were slain on the opposite side of the barrier wall.
Ingram watched it all with a pair of distant eyes as he slowly made his way back to Yonder, but not before removing the remaining four barriers. ‘I gained a lot of Experience today. Today was a good day. Now, to get to work on completing these Advancement Quests. I want to see what I’d get for doing all of them, I have a feeling I’m going to be stuck at Level Ten for a while. Now, should I learn though Class Points or Effort?’ Ingram began to think about the future, as he left the field not caring that he was the most important person for today’s victory, but something did remember, the system.
{Quest: [C+] Urgent Request from the Guild Master has been completed.
You have done the most to ensure Yonder’s safety, there will be a twenty percent increase to your reward.
Due to your Low Level you have been reward with 49 Merit for completing a Quest beyond 49 Life Levels beyond your starting Life Level.
[Unclaimed Reward: A 60% chance to improve your Innate Skill by one Tier and 49 Merit.]
Claim Reward?
Y/N}
