Eli blinked back to his volcano after his magic settled and ran to his hunting ground around the largest volcano in an attempt to push himself to get to level 50 before the monster event. Until he ran into something he hadn't seen before, it was a large monster, kind of like a seven foot tall raptor with four eyes and very long claws on its front arms, it was also far more anthropomorphic than previous monsters. The thing about it that threw him off was that it was acting with more intelligence than previous monsters, after a few exchanges, all of them where neither had taken a hit, Eli was able to focus enough to get the system to identify it.
"Cunning Raptor - Level 58"
"Territory King Minion"
Something about what was happening made him feel like he wasn't going to do so well in this fight, but with all of his past victories and accomplishments, he needed to at least try. One of the more worrying aspects of this monster was that it had very clear and expressive facial expressions. However, Eli pushed past his gut feelings telling him to run and forced the fight to continue. They kept clashing but the raptor-man was better than him at balance and kept diverting his attacks and would swing with his other arm to keep him from following up. Without dual wielding he wasn't making much progress, but he has always been able to outlast everything he has fought so he kept pushing. Attack with his cudgel and have it diverted, dodge the other claws, reposition and go again. Over and over this happened until he realized that the raptor wasn't wearing out, and it wasn't using any skills, it was trying to wear him out before it started trying.
Eli stopped using the lowest magic cost smash and just worked at hitting the monster, putting his balance weapon skill up against its balance. They danced like this until he finally tried an air detonation just above its back, he was able to cast it but the raptor noticed too quickly and repositioned before it could do damage. But this gave him a brief opening and he wasn't going to waste it. He charged towards it heading for its left leg and let loose a smash, but right as it was about to hit the raptor it changed from a dinosaur-like shape to a humanoid shape. It lost its dinosaur shape almost entirely and would pass for a human if not for the scaly skin and the too wide mouth with extra teeth.
The transformation made his attack miss and he jumped back a few steps. The newly formed monster was wearing loose pants and a scarf/ascot cloth thing around his neck. It didn't speak but it smiled like a snake that just found an unguarded bird's nest filled with eggs. Eli got a very sudden and intense bad feeling and the dino-man disappeared from in front of him, right before, however, Eli's bad feeling told him that he was going to get hit so he used blink to back up three feet. The monster's skill had him reappear to Eli's left with his claws slicing through where his torso had just been.
The monster had a look of victory on his face, only to notice that he missed entirely and his look changed to puzzled. By the time it noticed where Eli had moved to, he was already half way through a smash swing. He made contact but, the skill couldn't do more than crush down on its left shoulder cracking some bones, it retaliated and Eli had three claws stuck in his gut, stopping his swing as he reeled from the pain and shock of how fast this thing could move in its new form. Eli jumped back and as he did he formed the defense avatar using a large amount of magic in the process. A visually identical duplicate appeared between them, the only thing that told them apart was that Eli's hair was shoulder length straight thin and jet black. The avatar's hair was the same color but instead of strands of hair, it was more like feathers, thin flexible and narrow feathers.
The monster was fooled by the avatar and it disappeared again, but Eli didn't feel like he was going to be attacked so he remained motionless and then right as the monster struck the avatar he figured out what it was doing and threw his cudgel at it, he began channeling smash and draw back his fist. Before the monster could react to the fact that it again hit the wrong target his weapon landed on the side of its head, and just as that happened he blinked to the other side of him and his first landed opposite of the cudgel. The monster's head was crushed in between them, killing it instantly, but not before absolutely destroying his right hand, it was reduced to pulp hanging on tendon strings.
While the pain was too high to focus, he ignored his system windows and looted the body and ran. There were so many dangerous monsters here that would mean certain death for him without his right hand to hold his weapon. He ran as fast as he could until he cleared the hellish zone around the large volcano and found a place where he could hide for a few hours. He just sat there holding his hand and admonishing himself for that stupid move. If the dino-man would have dodged he still would have destroyed his hand and it would have killed him. It wasn't stronger than him, it was faster and a more skilled fighter. It was only luck and Eli mostly noticing what it was doing that allowed him to get the jump on it.
Two hours later the pain had dulled to the point where he could focus so he began with his system windows.
"Skill - Ashen root Avatar has increased from level 1 to level 2"
"Skill - Chaos Blink has increased from level 3 to level 4"
"Skill - Bone Cudgel has increased from level 3 to level 4"
"You have gained experience"
"Your magic level has increased from level 49 to level 50"
"Class upgrade available"
"You have looted - Ascot of the unforeseen protector - Epic - Neck"
Eli decided that upgrading his class was more important than a neck he wouldn't wear so he opened that and took a look at his options.
"Choice 1 - Chaos War leader - Supreme - 2 stats to int, wis, res - 2.5 free stats"
"Choice 2 - Chaos War Leader - Legendary - 2 stats to int, wis, res - 3 free stats - skill upgrade"
So he had another upgrade option, although he knew which one he would pick, he knew he should at least think about it first. Same amount of stats so the trade was less experience needed or skill upgrade. With blink being an almost cheat level skill, upgrading it again would mean that it would be even more useful, but with him forming a team he was going to need so much more experience than them to level. He could end up not being allowed in a dungeon because of his lower level, while that would not be good, he still chose the legendary class upgrade.
"You have upgraded your class to Chaos War Leader - Legendary"
"5 to all stats"
"Your Skill - Chaos Blink - Supreme, has upgraded to Legendary"
"Chaos node - Chaos Blink - level 4"
"Spell - Legendary - Cast Varies"
"Picture yourself where you want to be and blink"
"This spell has no cooldown, it becomes unreliable after multiple uses"
"This spell can be used on conjured objects."
Just by looking at the description he did see a big change in the skill, not only did he feel more confident with it, but he could blink his cudgel with it. Paying attention to his Chaos node, it felt more tangible and the skill rune inside the node was vastly more complex. It all just felt more stable, not because the magic was more stable, but because his use of it was. He was excited to check this out but wanted a glance at this stats first.
"Magic level 50"
"Stats: Strength 30, Reaction 34, Vitality 32, Intellect 34, Wisdom 33, Resistance 34, Will 244"
He still had no one his level to compare himself to so that he could judge his strength, but he felt he was doing well and after that 5 to all stats, he would have a better chance the next time he fought one of those king minions. He had been so excited about getting down here to hit level 50 he forgot to sleep, and was now really feeling it. His hand was mostly healed and his magic was back to full so he charged up a long distance blink and was back at his cave. The more magic stats he gained the easier it was to move that distance, but it still took it out of him. He sent a sleepy message to Tara and began to doze off.
************
Tara reread the message again and out loud so Stevens could hear.
"Recon SZ, need know everything"
She had no idea what to make of that, was he planning on attacking it? Or maybe just seeing how prepared they are for the monster horde in 3 days? Either way, when Eli asked for 'everything', he meant it, so she was going to have to keep her eyes peeled and really pay attention. According to the landmarks and the map, they would be there soon, but she didn't want to get too close yet. She stopped the group, still surprised that the other two didn't try anything or try to run away.
Pulling up the map she started to familiarize herself with the safe zone terrain. The whole safe zone was flat grassland and about 30 miles north to south and 40 miles east to west. The east was a coast with nothing but sandy beaches for miles, to the north was the plains zone with sinkholes that she just came from and to the south was what looked like a forest zone with three spots she couldn't make out since zones where greyed out almost completely until you visit a fair bit of them. On the very western point of the safe zone is a one to two mile wide strip of rocky terrain that divides the bigger zones from each other.
Now that she roughly knew how to judge the area and would have an easy time knowing which direction to run if there was trouble, she led them into the safe zone. The first step they took into it caused a bunch of system windows to show up for Them.
"You have entered a contested safe zone"
"Servants cannot claim territory in a safe zone"
"Current claimed territory in this safe zone 0%"
"System store available while inside a safe zone"
"Profession system available inside a safe zone"
"Safe zone rules"
"No killing"
"Territory can only be claimed by a lord, but can be held by a servant"
"Claims can only be made during and immediately following a monster horde event"
Not really knowing what to make of all that information, she just filed it away in her mind and with a slow casual walk, started moving in the direction of the first building that she could see. Tara told Stevens to go through the shop and profession systems while she watched for trouble. Surprisingly, the other two, she never bothered to learn their names, didn't leave. This could be trouble depending on where they ended up staying for the night, since she planned on gathering information all night and not sleeping. They were still Stevens' problem so she would let him figure it out.
A little over a mile inside the safe zone they came to their first set of buildings, they looked like 50 foot long two story warehouses arranged in a triangle with something of a courtyard in the middle. Before they even got close she noticed people coming and going, a lot of people, way more than she thought should be around these buildings since there was no way they would hold this many. As they got closer, they noticed that the people did not look happy and there were smaller building foundations outside the bigger buildings. It looks as if they were crushed into the ground, completely destroyed. Tara brought them to Stevens' attention and he stopped what had been an obvious interaction with system windows and took a look for himself.