The Lich's Master

Chapter 8: A Sickly Glow

The sound of metal hitting the rock walls of the caves echoed. The rhythmic sound was quite annoying, and clearly audible even after closing the door leading outside Cacophus’ room. Kyle’s gaze followed the Lich, who seemed to be disinterested in the noise. How he was not bothered was beyond Kyle, but then again, the man was dead. He had been dead for who knows how long, and he was a Lich. If anything, he must have developed quite the patience during the centuries he spent being dead.

Kyle sighed. As much as Cacophus was dead, he was not. And this noise was seriously getting on his nerves. He wanted to ask what the hell the Lich was making his skeletal workforce do, other than meaninglessly expanding the caverns, but Cacophus had (very loudly) asked not to be disturbed as he inspected the crystal fruits.

Kyle already regretted his choice to wait until he was done. He was seriously going through every single fruit, checking them one by one. Every time his bone fingers touched the crystalline surface of the fruits, a low, mildly annoying click sounded. And then, he brought the fruit before his eyes, glaring at it for good few seconds before nodding in what Kyle hoped was satisfaction.

Kyle dangled his legs from the throne. His excitement about quickly advancing in levels had already been extinguished by this seemingly endless wait.

“YES, I CAN TRY AND SLOW DOWN THE VENOM.” The Lich’s sudden words startled him. He blinked a couple of times as he turned his gaze on the cloaked skeleton. “BUT IT WILL ONLY SLOW IT DOWN. THE ORCHARD AND ITS TREES WILL DIE EVENTUALLY. EVERYTHING DIES…”

Kyle took a deep breath. “That’s deep and all, but let’s not get into any existential stuff, ok?” He asked as he hopped down the throne. “How much time can you buy for the elves?”

The two green glows that were the lich’s eyes dimmed for a moment as Cacophus pondered. “A YEAR, PERHAPS…” It was clearly a guess at best. “I WILL NEED TO STUDY THESE PLANTS AND THE VENOM. THEN, I CAN GIVE A BETTER ANSWER.”

Kyle nodded. “Alright, thanks.” He hopped off the throne, prompting Cacophus to shoot a glance at him. “I’ll be off for a bit, you clearly have work to do.” Kyle waved and headed out the door.

Cacophus was clearly going to be busy for a while and Kyle would only serve as a distraction in there. A better use of his time would be to go outside and look for some enemies to fight. He only needed a little bit more experience after all.

He shot a quick glance at the status panel he casually summoned.

‘450/2000 EXP’

“Not too bad,” He muttered under his breath as he walked through the tunnels. It would take him about half a day of proper grinding to get to level twenty. His lips curled up with a smile, half a day was pretty good!

He soon left the caves and headed to the woods up north. He spied a few slimes, and other small, low level creatures scurry away upon noticing him.

If he didn’t know the experience system of this game fairly well, he would have spent some time hunting them down and killing them. But as a person who loved to stare at sheets filled with data, he had done his research before beginning the game. It was quite a detailed system that took many things into account, and it also tied into the damage system.

Only enemies down to five levels below a player’s level would give the correct amount of experience. A creature six level beyond a player would give only half the experience. And a monster seven levels below would only give half of that, so a quarter. And it went on like this. A similar math applied to higher level monsters as well.

A monster six levels above a player would give %10 more experience. All in all, this system heavily encouraged not killing low level mobs. Of course, none of this applied to players. Each player kill gave the same amount of experience and glory unless the killed player had a special rank.

As such, Kyle ignored the level 5 slimes and small critters, and walked up the path towards the foothills of the snow capped mountain. He was well aware of the 20-22 level monster camps not too far away from here. He had seen many players go up there to farm before he became stuck in the game.

Soon, the path he walked split into two. The right side headed further up the mountain, while the left continued on this elevation, snaking through the pine trees covering the foothills. As much as Kyle’s gaze lingered on the right path, he knew he had no chance against the higher level creatures further up. Instead, he walked down the left path, his hand resting on the hilt of his blade.

This game, unlike all other similar full dive games, had no such thing as a move assist. There were no systems to guide his hand and blade. It was all him. The player had to be skilled to win, not the character. That was one of the reasons why the class choice was delayed for twenty levels. The players needed that time to learn how to swing a sword or draw a bow.

A smile appeared on Kyle’s lips as he noticed smoke rising in up ahead. He had found his first monster camp.

He headed off the road, and walked through the pine trees, trying his best not to make too much noise. The pine needles covered the forest floor like a blanket, hiding any broken twigs underneath. Kyle moved carefully, until he reached the edge of the woods, just at the edge of the monster camp.

“Right,” He muttered. This was going to be a challenge.