BXBX NOVEL Chapter 55: [Training Camp!]
Aiming with the basic wooden bow, I then looked at the incoming flying targets in front of me. I then pulled the bow with all my might and shot the three arrows at them.
-Puck!
-Puck!
-Puck!
The three targets broke down in mid air, before I shot another three, breaking three more targets. And then before I could shoot another three, the last 4 targets crossed by me, resulting in failure.
\'6, huh? Should I work on speed or increase the number of arrows at a time?\' I thought as if I increased the number I can shoot more enemies at once, while increasing the speed would result me killing monsters faster.
"That\'s so cool! You can shoot three arrows at once!" A girl with long black hair looked at me with her eyes brightened up. She looked a bit older, around 25 or something. Reminded me of Alice if not for that different personality of hers.
"Well. I have been thinking of using 5 arrows at once, but I was wondering if I should go for faster speed instead?" I spoke out my dilemma, to which she made a confused expression.
"Isn\'t it easy? You should always speed over numbers. We are going to face stronger enemies in the future, so it will always be better to kill them before they reach us," she said, making me realize that she was right. As the strength and the speed of the monster increases, it doesn\'t matter if there were 5 monster of 50. If they are too fast, I would die before I could even draw a single arrow.
"But what if there were multiple weak monsters?" Another person appeared behind that black haired girl, a nay blue haired bulky man in his mid thirties. He was tanned and wore a kimono with two swords tied to his waist. Reminds me of a Samurai.
\'Damn he is cool!\' I thought as my eyes glittered a little observing those swords.
"Unless he is working alone, I don\'t think there would be a problem as long as he has a party member who has an area damage related skill," that girl spoke again, while both the Samurai guy and I nodded at her words.
"All right, Boss. Check if this works for you so that I can go check my own thing," that guy spoke as he looked at the swords before that girl nodded and then took out a crossbow from her back.
She then set the target number to 100, before aiming her crossbow in that direction. And then pressing start, she saw 10 targets coming towards her at a rapid speed.
-Tur! Tur! Tur! Tur! Tur!
-Put! Put! Put! Put! Put!
Half the targets were blown away while the rest half crossed the mid section. She the focused even more as her eyes narrowed and then the speed of the crossbow increased and….
-Tur! X 5
-Put! X 5
And within a single second, 5 of those targets broke down within the next second, as 10 more appeared. She shot again and those targets broke down into pieces once more. The next second 20 more appeared and 20 more dissappeared into pieces…
I saw the speed of the incoming target increasing instentanously each time the targets were broken. But as if she already knew where those targets were going to come from, she broke them all down within the next few moments.
And not even 10 seconds later, I saw a perfect score on the board as she looked at it with a beaming smile on her face, while I could only observe with my eyes wide open.
"Don\'t take it to heart, kid. Hunting with a crossbow was a favorite sport of our Boss. With the added stats of the tutorial the absurdity has only increased," that samurai guy spoke with a knowing smile before he looked at the girl and asked,
"Boss. Are you going to increase your speed, too?"
"Not really. I can do better with a higher grade Crossbow. Plus, I trust him. He will get me something that increases both my speed and my firepower… So for now, I would be increasing something that I need even more than that. I will be increasing my Precision and accuracy," she said, making me perk up my ears even more.
It seems like they have put much more thought in this than we could have done so. And since she told me to focus on my speed, I guess I will be doing that for the time being.
"Thank you for your advice," I bowed politely to which they smiled and nodded before the Samurai guy spoke," all right, Boss. I will be leaving then. See you in 6 hours."
And then he left from there, leaving me and that \'Boss\' girl behind, as we both went back to our own practice.
…
[Julia\'s POV!]
-Slash! Slash! Slash!
"Julia! Your turn!" Samantha spoke as she cut down the vines of those giant plant monster, exposing his red core that he has been hiding.
I took out a throwing knife as I applied a certain [Skill!] that I learnt in the Tutorial that worked well with my [Gift!].
[Blood Poison Applied to the Weapon: Throwing Knife!]
[Gift: Poison Nature has been activated!]
[The Poison\'s Grade has increased by 1!]
[The Effect of the poison has increased by 100%!]
[The duration of the Poison has increased by 100%]
That throwing knife reached all the way to the core, attacking the monster. I don\'t know the potency of the increased poison, but given it was a weakening type poison that restricts once power, I guess an increased version of that poison should make the enemy weak enough to be taken down by my team members.
"WE GOT A HIT! EVERYONE ATTACK!" Olivia shouted as she created a huge fireball in the air. She learnt this skill from the [Tutorial!], and was somehow able to increase its grade by one. She said that it was related to her [Gift] that allowed her to understand the nature of the mana skills that she used.
That way she could use it to understand and improve the mana skills that she had. Resulting in a more powerful version of the skill. In fact, if someone that was least affected by the [Skill Limit!], it was her as the rest of us had at least 4 or 5 of our Slots filled with useless basic skills.
Others followed Olivia\'s call as they too began throwing in their attacks at that monster. It was good training to improve our timing and coordination, as for the next 24 hours we wanted to be as connected as possible.
\'Though I still think, we should also learn how to function alone,\' I thought as I wondered ways to improve my individual strength. Certainly increased poison efficiency wasn\'t really the best set in the arsenal to go solo.
Though the guy who could have answered my concern… Adrian. I was glad he was alive but…. Just where was he right now? On that note, my eyes looked at the two boys who were standing outside the training area.
Tristan told me how he died at the beginning of the tutorial, right after we got out of the highschool safe zone. I remember him being defensive against Adrian, but that just because of the rumors surrounding Adrian on how he was in the mafia before. It was funny now that we think about it.
But Reyan… he didn\'t die until much later in the tutorial. There was no reason for him to bad mouth Adrian or get jealous of what he has or what he doesn\'t have. I am glad that there wasn\'t an infight between them but…. As much as I have seen Reyan, he would have surely killed Adrian if he got the chance to.
\'Or perhaps not kill but cripple?\' I sighed as I wasn\'t any better either. Being in mind control of that monster or not, what I did was wrong. Should I even be forgiven? And was I worth-
"JULIA!!" Shouted Samantha as she jerked my body, waking me up from my thought process.
"Uh! Sorry!" I apologized.
"It\'s okay. Just don\'t think much about it. I know that mind control thing has given you PTSD but please remember that you have friends with you, okay? Baby! We don\'t wanna lose you!" She spoke as she looked at me with a worried expression.
-Slap!
I then slapped my cheeks(face) tightly as I looked at them with a determined expression.
"Sorry girls. I was late. Let\'s get back to work, shall we?" I spoke out loud with a confident voice.
"Yay! Let\'s go!" The girls shouted as she looked at me with a bright smile before we all went back to the main area where we were going to restart the entire fight, trying to finish it within half the time we took this time.
I took one last look at Tristan and Reyan. They were asking if they could join my group, but all the girls disagreed. Adrian is an exception because of his nature and power, but now that we have reached this point, we want to keep this group made up of girls only.
\'Well. I will help them out for the sake of friendship, but I guess I should advise them to find their own method in this whole mess without depending upon the others,\' I thought as I then moved with the girls for another round of fight.