The moment that it died, Michael shoved the giant bear-shaped treant into his fifteenth bag-slot. When the elemental-beast vanished, a brightly-glowing, Bloodworm-Goblin quickly fell to her knees while panting loudly.

Each of them received fourteen experience for killing the level-seven, rank-E, Elite. Sarah started laughing maniacally, before shouting “Yes! Hahaha, I’ve finally leveled-up! Wow, I even managed to increase my Darkness Affinity!”

Elina ran over to them and yelled “I can’t believe you guys actually did that! I’ve definitely never heard of anyone killing a treant that way before… but more importantly, the two of you managed to defeat an ‘Elite’ that was not-only higher level than you, but also a higher rank! It’s even stranger that Michael was just throwing rocks at it the whole time!”

She was a lot more excited about the victory, than the two people who did most of the work. The one-armed Human suddenly started laughing hysterically, as he pulled out a small green bead and asked “I wonder if I’ll turn into a giant tree-bear-man?”

Seeing what he was about to do, the frantic Priestess shouted “No, stop it!” but Michael completely ignored her.

Unfortunately, a barrier appeared, followed by a notification: “Warning: Players must be at least level-ten before evolving to rank-E.”

Which caused him to curse “For fuck’s sake! Damn it, this is such bullshit!” before grabbing the falling mana-core and storing it back into his fifteenth bag-slot.

Then Elina scolded “How could you just arbitrarily forsake your humanity like that? What good is being immortal if you get transformed into some kind of monster? Do you plan on living in the wilderness forever?”

He snickered and told her “Calm down~, besides, what’s wrong with being a badass tree-man? Well, it would suck if my sex-drive disappeared, but I guess I wouldn’t have to masturbate as much… There are pros and cons to everything.”

Sarah grumbled “Both of you shut the fuck up for a second and help me decide on what to use my stat-points on.” as she stared intently at her status-screen.

Michael immediately said “Your mana-situation is pretty shitty at the moment, so put one into Wisdom and the other into Intelligence.” Without waiting for Elina’s opinion, she listened to his advice.

[Companion Information

Name: Sarah
Titles: The Tree-Hater
Level: 6
Experience: 8/60
Age: Adult
Race: Bloodworm-Goblin
Rank: F
Class: Thief
Specialization: None
Profession: Unemployed]

[Stats

Health: 30/30
Mana: 15/15
Stamina: 15/15

Mana Regen per minute: 20
Health Regen per hour: 30
Strength: 2
Vitality: 3
Endurance: 3
Dexterity: 3
Agility: 5
Intelligence: 3
Wisdom: 2
Perception: 2(+2)
Charisma: 2

Willpower: 5
Luck: 3
Aura: 1.5

Attack Rating: 5(+11.5)
Defense Rating: 1.5(+1)]

[Passives

Immune System Boost Level 5: Resists Level five infectious diseases and illnesses.

Superior Regeneration Level 1: Organs and bones that have been lost, can be completely regenerated. Recovery speed is dependent on the amount of mana consumed.

Cutaneous Respiration Level 1: Able to absorb oxygen through the skin, as long as it’s properly hydrated. Effectiveness is dependent on Vitality.

Darkness Affinity Level 3: Dark environments increase the speed of health and mana recovery. Increases damage to enemies with Light Affinity by 30%.

Dagger Mastery Level 3: Increases Attack Rating while wielding knives, short-swords, and daggers by 15%.]

[Spellbook

Shadow-Step Level 3: Teleports into the target’s shadow. Range is dependent on Agility. Costs ten mana-points to activate.

Shadow-Cloak Level 2: Creates a shroud of darkness around the caster and all allies within range. Range is dependent on the Aura stat. Costs one mana-point per second.

Hate-Strike Level 1: Channels Dark-Mana into the caster’s weapons, polluting the enemy’s body and soul with destructive energy. Damage is dependent on the Aura stat. Twice as effective on enemies of the Light affinity. Costs five mana per second.]

Michael started laughing hysterically, and said “That fucking title… congrats?” Neither he, nor Sarah truly understood how difficult it normally was for adventurers to level-up, gain achievements, or reach higher ranks.

In fact, just killing an Elite usually required an incredibly powerful team of five, and sometimes a small army of relatively weak humanoids. Elves were an exception, since they had plenty of time to safely train for dozens or hundreds of years before ever facing any kind of danger.

Elina stared at the two of them while reminiscing about the terrible battle, where nearly her entire clan of five-hundred was wiped out, trying to defend themselves against a rank-E, level-ten ‘Boss.’ In the end, herself and her siblings were among the few lucky survivors, and each managed to acquire ‘Rare’ soulbound equipment.

Of course, the power of that miscellaneous treant, and the monster that nearly annihilated a small army of veteran Cat-Tribe adventurers, were in completely different realms. However, she had still never seen someone crazy enough to crawl inside of an enemy and attack them from the inside.

While she was lost in her thoughts, Michael said “Meow-Meow, move your fucking foot.” He was crouching down in-front of the Priestess and trying to grab at something that she was standing on.

After she hissed at him, he simply pushed her out of the way with the top of his head, and picked up the strange object. When he tried to ‘Scan’ it, a message popped up: “Unidentifiable Glass Ball.”

However, Elina snatched it out of his hand, then smirked and told him “If you promise to stop being so rude to me, I’ll tell you what this is…”

Unfortunately for her, the moment she used her ‘Scan’ spell on it, he was able to identify it as well. The one-armed man grabbed the fist-sized, clear, crystalline sphere, and read “Arcane Orb: Increases user’s Intelligence by two and Attack Rating by ten; deals Arcane damage upon contact with enemies. Soulbound to Michael, and can only be utilized by him. Rare Quality, requires level-five.”

Sarah walked over and asked “What the hell is that thing?” while tossing her two broken daggers onto the ground.

The priestess tilted her head and muttered “Arcane-Mages use wands and staves, just like any other class specializing in magical attacks. This ‘weapon’ is weird though… I’ve heard of Arcane-Warriors who can use strange flying swords, and Archers that can guide their arrows over a great distance, but this thing…”

Michael channeled a very minuscule amount of mana into the orb, and it began glowing in myriad of colors: like a prism. Then he immediately threw it at the cat-girl’s forehead, causing zero damage, but creating a loud thumping noise, and making her fall backwards onto the ground.

He quickly caught the rebounding sphere and then used ‘Telekinesis’ to make it float above his left palm. Elina yelled “What’s wrong with you?!” as she hurriedly stood back up, and glared at him.

However, he just sighed dramatically and grumbled “So basically, I could have gotten a badass katana, or some sort of OP magical staff… Yet, the Arcane ‘Goddess’ decided that a fucking rubber-ball was more my style?”

Sarah was laughing hysterically at the freckled woman, while also ridiculing the divine ‘weapon’ that Michael received. He muttered to himself “Well, at least this is probably better than using rocks and stones… Hmmm, so that’s how it is then? Is it a Class-specific thing, or maybe it’s based on the gear that the person was using when the monster died?

“Actually, it’s almost as if there was actually someone, or something, monitoring us… I mean, Worm-Girl coincidentally gets a hardcore perception ring, when she’s blind and constantly bitching about leveling-up so that she could see again. On the other hand, I’ve been spending most of my time throwing shit, and have also been complaining about how I wanted a weapon.”

Elina was still angry, but she took a deep breath and managed to calm herself, before telling him “The Goddesses are always watching us. They would obviously know exactly what we need, and bestow upon us divine artifacts that were specifically created for our own personal use. When we die, our Soulbound equipment stays with us, and disappears from this world along with our souls. Such items cannot be stolen, given away, lost, or destroyed… Strangely enough, they can be sold, but only directly to the Goddesses themselves. There’s no reason to ever do that though; most veteran adventurers, who manage to find better weapons or armor, would simply keep them in their homes. Why would anyone sell divine artifacts for a few coins anyway?”

As she was talking, a level-six ‘Bengal Tiger’ roared at them and rapidly approached. Michael yelled “Shut up ya damn cat!” and the Priestess actually started crying. It was impossible for him to influence her with his ‘Intimidation,’ but his target was behind her body. Then he looked at the girl and said “Not you, for fuck’s sake, are you deaf? Maybe you’ve just gotten so used to hearing these bastards, that you just completely tune them out… Actually, what’s up with that? In the world I came from, there were literally only about three thousand; that was on the entire planet. Yet, in this little patch of jungle, these assholes are like cockroaches!”

Next Chapter!