[Red Mushroom - Level 14]
Lumi dashed forward, landing a clean first strike and flipping himself back off the mushroom. Immediately afterwards, he sidestepped, knowing what was coming. A body slam as the mushroom launched itself forwards, and missed.
"BACKSHOTS!" Lena screamed as she sprinted in. She jumped straight at the mushroom's back with her sword aimed downwards.
Her blade made its way about an inch into the creature's back, before she lost all momentum and fell, losing grip of her sword. She landed hard, bounced once, and groaned. "Ow."
The mushroom turned to her.
"Oh no." she whimpered.
The mushroom headbutt her with its cap.
Her health plummeted, losing 44 out of her 50 HP.
"AaAaAAh! It's attacking me!" she shrieked.
Lumi immediately took the opportunity to slash wildly, as fast as he could. He purposely avoided stabbing, letting the blade run on the mushroom, slicing as it went through. Slicing was the purpose of the edge, after all.
Though he did end up stabbing in, but only because he knew what was going to happen. He grit his teeth, steadied his feet on the ground, holding his place.
The Red Mushroom instantly went to turn around to face the one hitting its back. But the turning motion was a fatal mistake…
"EEEAAAAA!" The Mushroom shrieked as it accidentally sliced its insides open from the turning motion, though it also sent Lumi flying.
[HP -4]
"Darn!" Lumi exclaimed as he was sent flinging off to the side, though he kept his grip on his sword strong. Even if the launch seemed to rough him up, it barely affected his hp bar.
[HP: 64/68]
Seeing the back of the enemy exposed to her, Lena started wildly swinging, avoiding stabbing since it got her sword stuck last time, and instead focusing on slicing open the mushroom. "Oh yeah! Take my backshots!"
Feeling the enemy attacking its back, the Red Mushroom was about to turn around, before it saw Lumi charging at it with a sword. It hesitated for a second-
Swish.
A sword made its way up the Red Mushroom's eye. Lumi immediately lunged to the side, taking his sword with him.
"AGGGGHHHH!!!" The Red Mushroom shrieked again and puffed out a spore cloud in front of itself, hoping to hit Lumi. Yet Lumi had dodged ahead of time.
Lena gathered her strength and gave her sword a strong slash down, cutting through the cap partially, and leaving a deep slash mark down.
The Red Mushroom stiffened up, and then fell to the floor, motionless.
Lumi immediately looked over to his panel.
[EXP +18]
Lena had one too.
[EXP +15]
[Level Up! 1 → 2]
"I leveled up!" Lena immediately exclaimed, "Hey, hey, I leveled up!" She gazed over at Lumi intently. "What should I put my points into?"
Though her enthusiasm was a bit much, Lumi still helpfully replied, "For your skills, the only two skills remotely worth putting points in right now is Nimble Foot, and to a lesser extent, Recovery. Regarding your stat points, well, what type of class do you want to be?"
"What are you going to do?" is what Lena instantly replied.
"..."
"..."
"...I'm becoming a magician," Lumi replied slowly. "So I'm putting my points into INT." He paused, and continued, "It'll be important that you feel comfortable with the path you choose. Even if others do well doing one thing, what works for everyone differs. For example-"
"I have 14 INT now!" Lena exclaimed, having already dumped her points into INT as soon as she heard what Lumi did.
"..." Lumi stared at her enthusiastic face for a bit, before simply asking, "Why?"
Lena grinned and puffed up her chest, explaining, "Because you clearly know what you are doing! Out of everyone, you got the first monster kill, and the first level! If I copy a top player, it should be fine, right?"
Before Lumi could even begin to refute that logic, Lena continued, "Plus… magicians are like the biggest fantasy class I could be! Anyone can swing a sword in real life, use a bow, stuff like that. But who can cast a spell? No one! I wanna cast spells!"
Lumi took a small sigh of relief.
At least she had another reason… It's best for people to choose paths that truly fit them. Blind copying isn't the smartest, it can bring many issues.
Still. I've clearly been underestimating the influence of those system-wide announcements. I thought nothing of them. First kill? First level? Ultimately, they were meaningless. They could easily belong to whichever idiot skipped the tutorial and then charged at the first enemy that by sheer luck was a low level.
Other players clearly don't see it that way. My name is now in the minds of countless players, as a 'top player.' Or at least, hopefully that is the case. I can't gauge it specifically, because Lena is clearly… not normal.
"I talked to the NPCs in town, Elenora." Lumi lied. "There's three magician paths being offered there. The first two are elementalists. The first focuses on ice and lightning, the other focuses on fire and posion. The last is a support class, it ends up as Bishop at Rank Four."
"Rank?" Lena questioned.
Right. Lumi mentally chastised himself. No one knows anything.
"Classes are separated into ranks. So at level ten, we can get our Rank One class. We follow that until level thirty, which is when we can get our Rank Two class. And so forth. I'm going to release a guide on the basics later." Lumi responded. "After I get off for today, I'll type that out and release it. You'll find it quick, look for it later. It'll answer all your questions."
He continued. "Though, there are also other magician paths to take. Elenora, however, doesn't offer them. I've heard from my friends who have also been playing, that there's a floating island with a knight order that offers a unique path, and some idiot even went to another continent and found another one there!"
"Oooooh…" Lena took in the information with starry eyes. "That's really cool! We have to go around and find the possible classes ourselves!" She stopped for a bit, then, growing thoughtful, asked, "Hey, how did your friend already make it to another continent?"
"I dunno." Lumi made nonsense up. "He didn't specify."
"Ah gotcha." Lena nodded. "Thanks for the information! I've got it, I'm gonna be that Bishop class. I like support. It just makes sense to me I think. I can do it. Can I go now?"
Lumi shook his head. "I tried, but they said I wasn't strong enough. I need to be level ten, that's why we're grinding."
"Oh!" Lena nodded, enthusiastically. "Right! And that's why you needed me to poke their backsides with my hard sword! Okay okay, it's not exp for the sake of it. You have a reason. Okie Cutie~"
She put her sword up. "Let us continue!"
"Yeah." Lumi nodded.
As strange as she is, she was quite helpful. She both damaged and distracted the enemies. Killing it with her was over twice as fast as it would have been alone. He didn't mind the lost XP from XP share at all. The total XP for hunting in a party is higher after all. At most, he would have gotten around 22 by himself.
"Wait!" Lena suddenly stopped him, even after she had already declared her intent to keep hunting with him. "Real quick, can I add you to my friends list?" She quickly opened up her friends menu, sending him a friend request.
"Oh yeah, sure." Lumi nodded casually. As insane as Lena was, it seemed to be working out. It didn't hurt to have additional connections and people to call on, especially since this friendship had already been cultivated. And lastly, she seemed to want to be a Bishop. As a support class, he might need her in the future!
Lumi opened up his friends list…
"What is this!?"
[12571 Friend Requests]
"Nonsense!" Lumi couldn't help but exclaim again.
"Hi hello what?" Lena asked out, not knowing why he was so surprised all by himself.
"I made a small mistake." Lumi admitted, setting his friend requests to disabled, so no one can send him further requests. "I may have over twelve thousand friend requests."
"...why?" Lena asked, before realizing, "OH! Because you got doxxed with the announcement, giving the whole game your username! Right!" She nodded to herself. "That was a thing that happened, yep! Indeed! An event which occurred!"
"Right." Lumi responded wearily. He searched for her username specifically, and added her back.
Lena's name popped up in his friends list.
"Yay!" she cheered, spinning in place. "Now we're officially friends! And that means you can't ditch me unless you remove me, which would be very mean, so you won't do it, right?"
Lumi sighed softly. "Right. I won't."
"Good!" Lena nodded. "Now, I don't wanna slow down your progress any further. Shall we continue?"
Lumi gave a small smile despite her antics, and nodded. "XP share works in such a way that having you here still increases my gains, despite you talking a lot. But yes, let's continue."
He activated Nimble Foot and instantly started rushing towards a corner with seemingly nothing in it, stabbing into a hidden Red Mushroom.
"Killing time!" Lena exclaimed, rushing in after him to do her job.