Everlast Online

Liz made her way through the swamp on her broom, lamenting that keeping herself clean this way prevented increasing the proficiency of her [Traveller] skill because she wasn't actually travelling.

Her hands were, as usual, picking up herbs for her while she made her way towards the rock she had practised potion making on before. She would improve her ability in making potions by creating new types, this would surely boost her funds.

She found back at the stone and got off from her broom; she had limited the amount of summons she brought with her to only 3 warriors in order to maintain time, but this seemed to work against her as a group of people surrounded the rock she was standing on.

"I suppose you think you're pretty tough after tricking us last time." A mocking voice could be heard as the crowd of people split to allow 3 people to pass through, 3 people Liz recognised.

"You lot again." She sighed, not at all taking their threat seriously, "You're worse than those golden radiance assholes. At least they aren't actively looking for me."

Every member of Wolf Fang felt annoyed at how this metre tall child was mocking them. Many intensified the glare they had, trying to intimidate her. Crim was especially mad, she figured she had simply been caught off guard and now with the proper planning she would never lose.

"Hmph. Big words considering how you used a surprise attack last time." Crim mocked, thinly veiling her anger at being looked down upon.

"You keep saying I used tricks or whatever, but all I did was fight you guys after you tried to extort me." Liz hated hypocrites, these assholes had gathered a group of like 30 people to attack someone and after losing the fight now accused their victim of cheating; this mentality baffled her.

"Ha! All we did was try to collect tax on our territory!" BludWulf exploded, clearly believing he had an actual right to Liz's items, "Do you really think you should be so cocky right now? Look around you, do you think you can get away this time?"

In some ways he was right, more than 70 members had gathered to attack Liz, unfortunately this was where his point ended. Most of the extra members were low level, most weren't even level 15 and Liz was supposed to be afraid? Not only was she more than double some of these players' level, she could summon a force that was just barely lower than theirs, not to mention her's was much stronger and finally she was in a more beneficial position. All of the Wolf Fang guild members were submerged in swamp water, while she was completely dry on her platform. There was very little chance of Liz losing and she knew that. So, yes. She did think she should be cocky.

"I do think I can get away this time, yes." Again Liz's flippant attitude annoyed the entirety of Wolf Fang.

"Listen kid. If you empty your inventory right now, we'll stop at just setting you back to zero." Crim spoke, her rage only building, "You should take this offer while we're being nice."

"Again with this..." Liz mumbled, "Obviously I'm not going to do that. Really, when you say that to people do they just go along with it or something?"

In truth, many did just go along with it. Giving up all your inventory, restarting your character and then moving to a different location was easier than upsetting a major guild like this, but of course Liz didn't know this.

"Fine." Crim spoke through gritted teeth, "Have it your way."

The players began to move, but just as Liz had expected, they were slow thanks to the swamp water. This gave Liz ample time to gather her puppet hands, they flew overhead of the players and the magic began.

Crim watched annoyed as her order for attack had gone unheeded, she hadn't expected their agility to be so hindered in the swamp and so had used a typical formation. Tanks and vanguard in the front, long distance fighters in the back; but now, the tanks were blocking clear shots for the mages and hunters, while the already slow tanks were further repressed by the unforgiving terrain.

Crim's annoyance only heightened as she saw 4 hands float overhead and gathered near the enemy, clearly they were not her team's attacks.

Wait... Crim finally realised, looking more closely at the witch girl, There’s more than 1?

Crim's eyes went wild as she saw her tanks being pushed back easily by more and more skeletons wielding large swords. Even more so, since they were just bones, their speed was barely suppressed at all and could quickly challenge the tanks. If that wasn't bad enough a series of bone-dog things weaved in and out of their lines, ripping her subordinates apart with their claws... No, more than that, these skeletons were using skills as well!

How the hell can she have this many summons!? Crim could not understand what was going on, to have this many summons and at this level of strength, that witch girl would need to be as strong as Annie the spirit summoner.

This was an over exaggeration based on the stressful situation, but fundamentally Crim was right. 

"Do it! NOW!" She yelled at Razor, they had one opportunity to turn this around.

The item the 3 of them had found in the [Mirror Maze] dungeon:

[Dazzling Bomb (C-)]

[Explosive that detonates to reveal a bright light. Initial light blinds for 5 seconds. Anyone within 5 metres of blast zone will be inflicted with <Confusion> status effect for 15 seconds]

With this everything would work out, confusion was a fairly powerful status effect and even 15 seconds could be fatal.

This was especially true for summoners. Summons rely primarily on orders from their summoners, except for when they are able to form their own mind, which judging from how the witch is giving orders these ones haven't, so if the summoner is under confusion, so will the orders.

With this her army will crumble! A wild grin spread across Crim's face, she had seen this weapon used against many summoners and most ordered ridiculous things, with some even ordering their summons to attack each other.

The bomb landed right at the girl's feet, Razor's aim being impeccable, then came the light. Crim heard more of her people dying as they could no longer see.

A necessary sacrifice. She thought to herself, Once the light lifts, this fight will be our's!

Soon everyone present could see again and Crim's eyes glowed with excitement as she anticipated her enemies collapsing defences, her face split into a cruel smile she would use to taunt the idiot who dared oppose her.

Crim waited and waited, her smile slowly dropping as the girl did not give out ridiculous orders, the skeletons did not attack one another. 

"WHAT!" Crim screamed out, she could not contain herself. Crim had seen the [Dazzling Bomb] land right at the girls feet, it should have taken effect! But it didn't and the Wolf Fang guild continued to be slaughtered.

What Crim didn't account for were the natural abilities of an undead. The main focus of [Undead Affinity] within an undead's attributes was the regenerative capabilities, but it also came with a decent list of immunities and resistances; one of those immunities being a complete shield against low level mind altering status effects, such as <Confusion>.

Simply put, Wolf Fang's attempt to get revenge would never have worked so long as it was based on the use of the <Confusion> status effect. 

"Retreat!" Razor gave the order and the guild members began moving out of the swamp, there was no point in wasting a level in a fight they couldn't possibly win. Crim shot Liz a glare before following along, her agility being high enough to quickly get out of there.

It was only BludWulf, the most egotistical of the 3 executives who refused to leave. Razor tried for but a second and soon gave up, that idiot would rather die than admit he was weak; the status of Wolf Fang having gone to his head.

And that is what happened, he charged at Liz and was ripped to pieces by a pair of hounds.

"That was slightly productive I guess..." Liz muttered, seeing her level increase to 37, "Whatever..."

With the immediate threat gone, Liz sat down and began making potions, she noticed she needed another alchemy kit so that she could produce multiple potions at once, but that could wait.

She first tried making the status effect potions, of course failing at first, but soon the desired product was produced; and with it 20% proficiency.

Soon Liz could consistently make all 4 stat potions, with the END and STR going straight onto the market to be sold. Many of the AGI and INT followed, but Liz elected to keep some for emergency cases, though she doubted any would present themselves. Soon she ran low in ingredients for the status potions and the [Chameleon Potion]s that she failed to produce, those ingredients being a rare breed than those needed for the HP and MP potions.

So, she made herself some MP potions and set off to hunt some Lizards, unaware of what she had caused once again.

---

The forums went wild as Smokey once again made waves in her actions.

She had just put E-rank potions up on the market, potions that even increase a player's stats!

In the market, the highest ranked potion anyone had seen was one player who sold an F+ rank potion, but even this was not from their own hardwork and instead a looted item that was too low ranked to be auctioned for decent profit. But now, Smokey was selling E-rank potions that she had made, it was clearly there in the description: '[MP potion made by <Smokey> - '

Again the mystery powerhouse shook the ELO community, the speed at which she was progressing through the game was abnormal; even the guild masters of the Mega-Guilds couldn't match up to her. Where the hell has this hidden master been living?

<She's got to be one of the Mega-Guild's undercovers or sum>

<Yeah!!!! Prolly going to do a big event where she joins one of them, even though she already a member!!!>

<Agreed!!! No one could be this good without being a professional!>

<Absolutely! Making potions is so hard and she is already making E-rank potions!>

<Smokey probably has the brewing skill, that is the only explanation for how she got so good at potions>

<Ye. I'm a blacksmith in real life and the game and even I struggle to make items without a skill>

<lol What kind of shit job has you blacksmithing? Lower city behaviour lol>

<Shut up you dik. It's just a hobby>

Like that discourse around Smokey began, mostly among other crafters who knew just how hard it was to make real items without a skill. Many wanted to play lifestyle classes fully, but to do that they needed either a 25% in a crafting skill or to be good enough without one to gain one through achievements. Few people had gained lifestyle classes, but it was occurring more and more frequently now as many became tailors, blacksmiths, cooks and librarians were appearing all over Galdrash among the player population; it was only the potion makers falling behind.

Many couldn't even buy the potions to study as larger guilds bought them up, either to use or study for themselves. 

Seeing Smokey's proficiency in potions only made these powerful guilds increase their search for the mysterious player.

Very little was known, only that she was a girl and had extraordinary abilities, both as a fighter and an apothecary.

---

The person in question was currently prodding at a chest she had found in a lizard nest. All of her warriors were occupied and no matter how hard they tried the hounds could not open this one. It was rather laughable if one had the full context.

Not only was the strongest player in the game a tiny little girl, but she was currently crudely balancing on top of a skeleton dog while using a broom stick to try and open a chest. 

"YES!" Liz cheered as the chest popped open, though slightly annoyed it was not trapped besides all the effort used to open it.

Inside was the 1000 gold that was always present, but like the first chest there was something else.

A rolled up piece of paper, tied at the end with a piece of string; despite how decrepit it felt the item was well preserved.

[Swampy Jungle Map (D)]

[Map of the entire Swampy Jungle]

Liz excitedly opened the scroll to see and just as described, the entirety of the swampy jungle was depicted on it.

"Yes!" Liz cheered, looking over the map, it even showed the average level of lizards in each nest and the locations of ones she didn't know about deeper within the jungle. More than that it even marked down the locations of 2 dungeons in the deeper parts of the swamp.

Liz began following the map to the next location, deciding that the closest den was a high enough level for her to make a decent gain in ability. Liz quickly found herself in the foliage just before a level 42 lizardmen nest; she was about to put the map into her inventory, thinking about the inconvenience of it, when a thought went through her head:

Can I use my [Mapping] skill on it? She had never heard of someone doing so, but maybe no one had tried.

And so she did, she gripped the map and activated [Mapping], like usual a radar washed out over the area, not filling anything in on Liz's internal map as she already had the section she was in charted. Liz felt confused as surely she could fill in her own map by using another, it was simple referencing.

So liz once again used the scan of [Mapping] once the cooldown ended, however, this time she focused her intent purely on the map in front of her instead of just scanning the environment, this seemed to work:

Without hesitation Liz hit yes, gaining the complete and finished map of the [Swampy Jungle] within her skill; then something even better occurred. [Mapping] reached level 10, and was now level 10, this presented an opportunity for Liz:

Liz was excited about her first skill evolution. She knew that like most things in ELO, skills would evolve, she just didn't expect [Mapping] to reach its level so quickly; honestly she hadn't expected it to be a skill that maxes out at level 10, but she was glad it was.

Liz was once again unaware of how insane her speed of improvement was; [Mapping] was one of the hardest D-rank skills to level in all of ELO, having to scan hundreds of times and see a difference in scans every time. This was exceptionally hard when [Mapping] was only applicable to fields and dungeons, what it came down to was a series of lucky coincidences and a good use of ability.

Firstly, the [Swampy Jungle] was incredibly large, as such mapping it would constitute the necessary usages to reach the max level. However, for a normal person that would have taken months, but with Liz's [Voodooist] skill she was able to delegate the task and have her skeletons do the work for her, getting it done in just over a week. The final series of luck was that Liz had reached level 9 before scanning the complete map as this only counted as 1 scan, even though she completed an entire 50% of the map with it.

"Let's see what is available to me." Liz said, explaining the evolution tab:

Seeing an A-rank skill Liz knew exactly which one skill she would be taking. 

As she took [World Map] her skill changed, it was a skill much like [Voodooist] with no level or proficiency meaning it could only be upgraded with special items. As she looked she saw the map she had changed.

She still had the entirety of the [Swampy Jungle], to the detail the map item had, but she no longer had the other places she had chosen to scan.

On her walk back, Liz had constantly scanned the path to Barview and the city itself. All she had now was the swampy jungle and a wider map that showed the continent she was on, it didn't even have the names of the country she was in. She would need to fix that later.

From what she understood, 'loose data' referred to city names with their general sizes, but not any of the details about them; not even the country they were in. She would need a bigger map to discover that.

"Onwards!" Lix laughed with high spirits, this game had just gotten even easier for her.

So, on Liz went charging through different dens in order to raise her level, quickly raising past level 40 and getting a new skill. By the end of the second week of hunting, Liz had reached level 43.

"Levelling has gotten slower..." Liz mumbled realising she was no longer gaining power at even half the rate she was at before.

Her inventory was close to being full so she decided to go and sell once again. There were no dragon related items in the pile this time, but she did get more hearts which sell at an extraordinary price compared to any other part of the monster. But between her potion sales and her monster hunting profits she was rolling in cash.

Liz was becoming a tycoon; a powerful tycoon with extraordinary strength:

====

Name: [Smokey]

Race: [Abandoned Doll] (Attributes)↓

Class: [Necromancer (43)]

Title: <Defy The Odds> <Bandit Killer> <Lizardman Slayer> <D-rank Monster Hunter> <Learned>

[Reputation: 7100] [Gold: 289,800]

Stats: [STR: 8 (+2)] [END: 20 (+2)] [AGI: 53 (+8)] [INT: 100 (+25)]

Race Skills: [Voodooist (S)] [Puppet Hand (5) (C)]

Class Skills: [Summon: Skeleton Warrior (8) (F)] [Bone Spear (7) (F)] [Summon: Skeleton Hound (6) (F)] [Undead Enhance (3) (F)] [Summon: Golem (1) (E)]

Other Skills: [Mana Bolt (7) (F)] [Dismantle (28) (F+)] [Traveller (0%) (E)] [Sharp Claw (6) (E)] [Heavy Slash (9) (E)] [Apothecary (27%) (C)] [World Map (A)] 

[Inventory]↓ [Equipment Menu]↓

[Player Auction]↓ [Currency Conversion]↓

====

Many things occurred as she continued to grind in the jungle.

<Lizardman Killer> became <Lizardman Slayer> after she killed her thousandth lizardman, buffing the END increase to 10 and increasing the extra percentage damage against lizardmen, this only making the grind even quicker.

Thanks to both her potion and material sales Liz was able to rapidly increase her gold, even after giving a decent amount to Piper in order to maintain their lifestyle; she was also looking for better housing in CIty-Z.

When she finally reached 100 natural INT points, she gained the title: <Learned>; it was moderately useful.

[Learned: 10% Increase to spell damage]

As a summoner it didn't help her main focus of attack, but it was good for increasing her [Bone Spear] and [Mana Bolt] levels. Although [Undead Enhance] was also a spell it didn't gain much help with this title, still Liz was glad to have it.

Finally, her newest skill. Liz loved it.

Liz had not even noticed she had gotten the skill as she was so focused on levelling and so didn't bother summoning her newest recruit, but just from the skill description she knew it had to be something powerful:

[Summon: Golem (1) (E): Expend mana to form a golem to fight for you (0/1)]

When she had first read the skill she was disappointed by the number of summons, but then a thought came to mind.

The number of summons is based on strength... She only had 3 types of summons, and the average fighting ability for the hounds was much higher than the warriors, and they came out with half the number of summons, So, how powerful is the golem going to be.

She didn't have to wait long before finding out as she left the jungle and was again confronted by Wolf Fang, but not in any meaningful way.

"You better prepare to die toda-" BludWulf's ranting was cut short as a pile of rock crushed him into paste. 

When she noticed the encirclement she did not hesitate to try out her new skill, and as the golem formed, so did her smile.

From the circle a 2 story tall pile of rocks in the general shape of a person came and smashed its fist into BludWulf, killing him in an instant. Liz watched as the golem then killed each of BludWulf's meagre gathering, beyond excited at the new powerhouse she had just acquired.

"Awsome..." She muttered, dismissing the summon and continuing into the city, mapping the place as she went.

She noticed a few things about the golem: 1. It was not affected by [Undead Enhance] as such its strength limit was the level of the summoning skill; 2. It was slow, ridiculously slow. The reason Liz won the encounter with just the golem was that BludWulf's subordinates were much too proud to run away; 3. Finally, it was so much dumber than even her other summons. She gave the order, kill and it did exactly what it was told, but not just her enemies, it tried attacking the onlooking players before Liz stopped it.

At the very least it will likely prevent me from ever dying if it acts as a tank. Liz was considering how it would best serve as her minion as she made her way back into the forest, intending to go to at least level 50 nests in order to meet the deadline of the Marquess' quest.

She would get that skill, because if an E-rank necromancer skill is this good, then how strong would an A-rank one be.

Liz couldn't wait!