“Flame Drake? Why didn’t we just try a young dragon? Won’t it be cool to have a true dragon as our guild guardian?” Jack said.
“Do you think a true dragon will be willing to become a measly guild’s guardian? You have to be at least a country for that! Dragon is gargantuan in size, they are not considered large-sized, so your taming scroll won’t work on them.”
“I see…” Jack said, feeling downcast. He was truly hoping that they could have a dragon as a guardian.
“There is also the flame wyvern next to the territory of flame drakes. You can try to tame them if you prefer, but trying to capture a flying monster will be a lot harder.”
“With our limited resources, I think we should just go for the drake,” Jeanny said.
Jack didn’t object. He thought the decision was logical. If they went for the wyvern, they wouldn’t be able to do anything if the wyvern decided to flee before its HP reach 30%.
“Rest early. We will gather at the courtyard tomorrow,” Jeanny said to Jack.
*
The next morning, one hundred players gathered at the headquarters’ courtyard. Most of the core members were there except for non-battle personnel and John. John said he was not joining. The expedition did not need strategies. They were simply going to whack a beast until it almost die and then relied on luck for success. There was no need for him.
Jack asked if it was because there was no exp and no loots since they were not killing their target? John replied there was that as well.
Common members were wondering about the purpose of the congregation. Another thing that piqued everybody’s attention was these one hundred all had elite classes. Even though more and more players succeeded in their elite class trials, elite class players were still not the majority. Also, all these two hundred were at levels 44 and 45, except for Jack.
The curious members asked their friends. Some even directly asked those one hundred who gathered, but they received no answer.
Jeanny had told everyone to keep their mission and destination a secret. There was no telling how many amongst the common members were spies to the other guilds. They didn’t want this hunting expedition to suffer complications due to interference from another guild.
Jeanny checked her bag to make sure that all the required tools were already inside. She then checked the gathered members to make sure that everyone was present. After that, she led them to the teleportation chamber.
Following Peniel’s instruction, they teleported to one of the cities in the Sangrod Empire. The last time Jack went to that region, he departed from a city in Themisphere. The area they were going to this time was on the other side of the Jagara Region which was closer if they traveled from Sangrod.
Their large group attracted some attention. But since they didn’t wander around, they were already gone when those people tried to look for them again.
Everyone in this team had at least an uncommon steed, so their traveling speed was fast. Of course, Pandora still had to slow down to match her speed with the others.
It was frustrating for him to slow down like that, so after half a day traveling, Jack told Jeanny that he would just wait for everyone at their destination. He rode off in speed, arriving in the region within two days. The others took one week to arrive.
Jack complained to Peniel why last time he didn’t come to this place since it took him less time to arrive. Peniel explained that the draconic monsters on the other side were less dangerous for his level at the time. Also, at that time, they had not yet linked with the Sangrod city that was closest to this place.
While waiting, Jack hunted the draconic monsters at the periphery. The flame drake was located further into the region. At the outer mountains, Jack farmed flame drakelings for both exp and draconic essences. These drakelings were special elite monsters around level 40 to 45, similar to the ones he had fought on the other side of the regions but hit harder.
As their name implied, they were young drakes with red scales. They could breathe fire from their mouth. Their strength and defense were high, their speed not so much. Jack, who was already stronger than the last time he came to Jagara Region, had little problem farming them.
None of his class leveled up, it took a whole lot more exp to level up with his current high levels, and he didn’t get any exp pills from this farming to boost the increase. However, his Therras increased another level to 40. Jack always summoned Therras now, allowing it to rake in the exp.
He gained another 200 draconic essences during this farming period.
*
When Jeanny and the others arrived, they found this mountain to be surprisingly peaceful. Jack had already slain all the flame drakelings in the vicinity, thus the quiet. It took draconic monsters a long time to respawn.
“The flame drake is at the deeper part of this region,” Peniel informed as she pointed in a direction.
“All right. Let’s head over,” Jeanny said.
The mountains that both the flame drakelings and flame drakes inhabited were rather low. They also had more flatlands, making them more hills than mountains.
They only had a few more hours of daylight, so Jeanny divided the group into two teams. One was to search the outer area for a safe place to camp at night. The other team who was mainly formed of elite classes from rogue and archer, went deeper to scout their target.
Life Runner was included in the second team, who went to scout their prey. His Hide skill was especially useful for approaching the flame drake. Otherwise, they would be in trouble if these flame drakes had a higher detection range compared to normal monsters.
The scout team spread out to look for prospective targets. If they found one, they called for Life Runner who would turn invisible using his Hide skill. He would then approach the target and use Inspect.
Life Runner was now a level 44 Assassin. He originally planned to be a Technocraft, as he was not so eager of close combat, but Jack persuaded him otherwise. Jack said that his Hide skill was perfect if combined with Assassin’s high burst damage. His Hide skill allowed him to get near someone undetected for as close as three meters, which was very close, before using his Assassin’s skills. He would most likely be the king of ambush in this way. That was, of course, under the condition that he was not ambushing someone like Jack who had God’s Eye monocle or mana sense ability.
Jack himself formed a third team, against Jeanny’s wish, who went and continued exp farming. His team was formed mostly of The Man and his underlings.
The first team found a cave that looked safe. The cave went rather deep, after venturing deep enough and finding no monsters, they decided to make their camp at the mouth of the cave. Of course, they still posted sentries at the deeper part of the cave and outside. In case a monster approached, the main camp won’t get caught unaware. The sentries were rotated amongst the players.
At night, all three teams reconvened inside the cave to rest and discuss their target for tomorrow.
From the few hours of scouting, the team had seen three flame drakes. The three had varying levels; level 48, 51, and 54. All of the three were rare elite grades. The level 54 one was slightly special, as its name had an extra word of Grim.
Peniel informed them to forget about the Grim Flame Drake. A monster with this prefix was far tougher than the normal one. She reminded them about the Grim Sand Drake which despite losing to Duke Alfredo, still gave the duke a run for his money.
The scouts informed that the three they had found were all situated afar from each other. There were also no other critters around them. So they could fight freely without the worry of attracting other monsters.
After some discussion, they decided to go for the level 48 Flame Drake. It was not just because its level was the lowest. They should have no problem bringing down level 51 Flame Drake’s HP to 30% if Jack called Arlcard. The problem lay with the limitation of their capture tools. They only had six Tame Draconic Guardian scrolls and four Giant Capturing Cages.
The success probability of taming a guardian went up with the user’s level of Tame Pet and Master Tamer skills. But it would also go down the further the target’s level with the user. Jack was the one to use the scrolls. His level was only 43, he would have a lower chance of taming a level 51 monster compared to a level 48 one. There were other beastmasters with higher levels in the group but their Tame Pet and Master Tamer skills didn’t go past level 10, so Jack was still their best chance.
It would be bad if they squandered all their chances because they were greedy. Getting a level 48 guardian at this stage was great already. Peniel informed them there were ways to improve the guardian levels, so the priority at this time was simply to catch one. The level was not a problem.
*
In the night while everyone was resting, Jack did his routine of mana sense training before sleep. Since his improvement, his area of perception had increased. When he fully focused his sense, he could send his consciousness to roam further than he normally could, similar to an out-of-body experience.
He sent his consciousness outside the cave. He could see the sentries keeping guard. Sometimes a Flame Drakeling came near, the sentries then band together and defeat it. Watching his guildmates fight the drakeling, he could see Domon’s training bore some results. Their movements were more refined, their attacks accurate.
When the drakeling fell, Jack’s consciousness returned to the cave. He then decided to wander deeper into the cave. He reached the place where the sentries inside the cave were keeping guard. He tried going further in. He was trying to see how far his mana sense could reach.
He felt like he was moving in a thicker air the further he was from his body. Until at one point he couldn’t move forward an inch even when he focused all his effort.
‘Guess this is my limit,’ Jack thought.
When he was about to return to his body and rest. He sensed something.. He aimed his attention at where he felt the sensation and saw two glowing red eyes staring right at him.
