Jack spent a total of two months wandering around the three mountains at the periphery of the Jagara Region. Each of the mountains housed different types of monsters. The second mountain Jack explored had lush forest covering it. The monster that inhabited this mountain was Forest Wyrmling.
It was different than the Poisonous Wyrmling he fought in the first mountain. The Forest Wyrmling was much smaller than its cousin. It also had wings, which allowed it to glide from one tree to another. It possessed a camouflage ability to hide amongst the tree barks. The camouflage was useless though against Jack due to his radar and mana sense ability.
The Forest Wyrmling was more agile. Luckily, this monster did not possess a true flying ability. It could only glide, meaning it needed to climb to higher ground before it attempted to glide. Once it was down on the ground, Jack had an easier time dealing with them.
But since it was fast, Jack could not completely prevent it from running to higher ground by itself. It’s a good thing Jack had Call Wolf Pack skill. His general strategy against this Forest Wyrmling was tricking it into ambushing him. The wyrmling would try to sneak on him from above by doing a diving assault. Once Jack evaded the sneak attack, he summoned the wolf pack to surround the wyrmling while he dished out damage.
The third mountain housed a different draconic monster altogether, Hard-shelled Drakeling. It was like a tiny version of the Grim Sand Drake with a turtle shell for its back. Jack was clueless when fighting this drakeling for the first time. Because after suffering sufficient damage, it would retreat into its shell like a turtle.
In this condition, it received a tremendous boost to its defense. Jack’s attack hardly made a scratch. To complicate matters, the drakeling gained regenerative ability during this time. Not only did Jack fail to deliver damage, but its HP bar was slowly refilling instead.
Jack ended up using Storm Breaker’s Overlimit to break through that tough defense. After killing one drakeling, jack thought it was a waste of time to spend too much time on this monster, so he returned to the second mountain to hunt the Forest Wyrmling.
He still needed to complete his hunting quest on the Hard-shelled Drakeling, though. Luckily, the quest only needed him to kill five. So he went back and forth every six hours when his Overlimit went off cooldown until his hunting quota was filled.
With this experience, he noticed that he needed a skill that had high penetration ability like Overlimit, with a much lesser cooldown time. Something that destroyed the opponent’s defense or ignored defense altogether.
His Therras Beast took a total of six weeks to mature. He continued to feed it pet food to stimulate its growth. When his stock of pet food ran out, the beast reached level 35.
Its grade became rare elite once it matured at level 30. He was slightly disappointed that it didn’t turn out to be a mythical grade as Peniel said it might. But he was still happy to have a rare elite pet.
Combined with Jack’s max-out Tame Pet skill which boosted the pet’s HP, Therras’ HP was tremendous. It had 480,000 HP at level 35. Even though attribute-wise, it was still weaker than the wyrmling, it was not easy for the Therras Beast to get killed. So Jack summoned it out to combat to let it receive exp points as well. He couldn’t keep on relying on pet food to help his pet grow.
Therras was slightly useless against the Forest Wyrmling. But against the Poisonous Wyrmling, it surprisingly proved effective. The Therrast Beast could do a powerful stomp that created a localized earthquake. This earthquake easily forced the Poisonous Wyrmling out of its burrowing. After discovering this advantage, the first mountain had become Jack’s primary grinding spot.
Therras had five active abilities. One was their inherent skill which they possessed once matured. The rest they received once their tamer’s skill increased. Peniel explained that for small-sized pets, every five levels of tame pet skill granted the pet another skill. Culminating at five skills after the Tame Pet skill reached level 20.
As for Medium-sized pets. Tame Pet skill only granted a new skill every ten levels. So a level 20 Tame Pet skill only gave the pet a total of three skills. But Beastmaster’s Master Tamer skill also gave the pet another skill every ten levels. Hence, with both Tame Pet and Master Tamer skills fully leveled up, a medium-sized pet would also possess five active skills.
Since Jack already maxed out those two skills, his Therras Beast had a full arsenal of skills once it matured. One of these skills was the Overbearing Stomp, which had proven its effectiveness against Poisonous Wyrmlings. This stomp did not only create tremor, but also a shockwave that damaged and lifted everyone around the beast into the air.
Its second skill was called Tyrannical Charge. It was a meteorite-like charge that left a blazing trail. This move was very fast and dealt massive damage to a single opponent.
The third skill was Oppressive Wave. It was executed by slashing using the Therras Beast’s massive horns. The slash created a powerful energy wave that dealt damage and strong pushback on everything in its path.
These three skills were ones Jack had already witnessed when he was facing the Therras Beast inside the Valley of Tempus.
The other two skills were new to him. He was glad the Therras Beast in the valley didn’t exhibit these skills. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have managed to get into the cave where he took the Test of Courage.
The fourth skill was Autocratic Roar. This roar dealt damage to a large area around the beast. The damage was small, yet it was the roar’s other effect that made it troublesome for opponents. The roar had a decent chance to cause multiple negative statuses: paralyze, dizzy, disoriented, confused, and fear.
The fifth and final skill was Imperious Pressure. It created a force field surrounding the beast that applied extreme gravity on all enemies within. The best thing was, this field didn’t affect allies. Making it an ultimate ability in a group fight.
With these arsenals, even when Therras’ level was still low, it could hold its ground against the wyrmlings. There was even a time when Jack decided to let Therras fight a wyrmling on its own. Although it had difficulty killing the higher-level monster, the wyrmling also failed to prevail against Therras. With this, Jack had a rough idea about his pet’s survivability. He then joined the fight and finished off the wyrmling.
The levels of the draconic monsters in these three mountain ranges revolved around levels 40 to 45. Most of the monsters were special elite, but there was also an occasion where he saw a rare elite version. He avoided one until his Blade Dancer class reached level 40 and he met one that was also level 40.
He thought it was time he gauged his possibility against a rare elite of the same level. The level 40 rare elite he fought against was a Forest Wyrmling. This rare elite Wyrmling was not only stronger and faster, but it also possessed a skill that its special elite counterpart did not. It could shoot a bullet of high air pressure that detonated upon impact. It’s a good thing it could not do it too often, though.
Jack and the Forest Wyrmling fought for almost an hour without a clear winner. Getting tired of it, Jack summoned the Therras Beast and had it join the fight. He also activated Overlimit. Only then did he win.
Although it took an effort and help from his pet, Jack was gleeful that he could already win against a rare elite of the same level even without relying on his Lightning God Barrage.
By the end of the two months, Jack had reached level 41 for his Blade Dancer class, level 40 for Archmage, and level 36 for Beastmaster. He had set the exp proportion at 35:35:30 respectively. These draconic monsters although were sparse and tough to kill, they still gave a large amount of exp.
With the large exp gain and his nonstop grinding effort, Jack managed to not fall too far from the general players. From his guildmates’ reports, he knew that the average players were now around level 42 to 44, with some top experts having already reached level 45.
With three classes, he thought it was natural for him to get left behind. Due to this, he was amazed again at Master who had managed to keep his level close to the general players even when he had five classes. He wondered then if he could truly win the next time they met. As soon as the thought surfaced, he banished this pessimistic thought. There was little use continuing to compare himself with the man he was trying to beat. The important thing was doing his best without wasting any time.
Jack planned to continue his exp grinding. His target was to reach level 50 and then went to try that elite class inside Valley of Tempus.. At this time, he received a message from John, asking him to return.
