RETURN OF THE SHADOW - Chapter 184

“What?! We just managed to get our first pair of fireglows,” said Roll who had just collect one fireglow in a container and gave it to Shadow. “Do we really need to get back to the city?”

“The ash panther is it alone?” asked Shadow.

“Yes. The cinder wolves are a pack of ten or more. They are converging from opposite sides along the edge of the forest like us,” replied Slaine who was still perched on a tree checking the surroundings using his scope. “Can’t see anything else on the ground or skies for now.”

“Move in the direction of the panther. Get into the forest area a bit. Roll you go and scout while keeping an eye on the ash panther. I will try and distract the ash panther. Keep a look on me. If it looks like I am failing get back to the city,” said Shadow. “Else move further in that direction as we have previously planned. I will join you later.”

“We can help you. You don’t need to take on the panther alone,” suggested Rudra.

“No. I plan to use a doppelganger skill to distract it and none of you guys compare in movement speed to me. Even, I might have to use some fireworks to escape,” said Shadow.

“There is a high chance of it realizing and following you back,” said Slaine.

“Yes. That is why I plan to lead it to the cinder wolves and use explosives to create a fight. If it were some other set of beasts on the other side instead of ash panther we would need to give up. All the cat type beasts attack everything in their view without discrimination. Ember horn deer will move in groups and it is hard to fool an entire herd to attack. Firehawks would simply notice my real form escaping from the sky. If it isn’t ash panther, I would have no thoughts of continuing either,” said Shadow.

“Ok. Fine. Let him try it out,” said Rudra before the rest suggest anything else. “Got a few smoke bombs. They have a radius of 3 metres and would persist for 5 seconds. You might be able to use them for this,” he added giving a few shadow bombs to Balthazar.

Shadow separated from them to pursue the ash panther. He was being directed continuously by Slaine who had been observing the ash panther with his scope and also the nighthawk which he bought recently.

He had to attract the attention of the ash panther and not let the cinder wolves and ash panther meet at the site of the dead salamandrid whose sounds attracted them as his team would definitely be noticed and attacked by them if the beasts hear them walking. So, they moved a certain amount of distance towards the direction of the ash panther and hid behind some shrubbery or climbed a tree and stopped their movement to avoid any noises. They had to be fast in all their preparations as the panther reached close to them within 30 seconds.

Shadow went directly in the path of the ash panther instead. The beast roared and followed him immediately. He quickly led it towards the cinder wolves. The wolves were also alerted by the roar of the panther and started running towards him.

Shadow had expected that this might be the situation and had already used his Shadow clone which he had hidden and instructed to get away. He had expected to meet the cinder wolves in 20 seconds or so, but the wolves were already in his view in half the time.

He quickly used a smoke bomb on himself when all of them started to attack him and began to attack both the panther and the wolves for a couple of seconds before swapping with his clone. He had lost a quarter of his health in the two seconds when he fought them in the smoke which showed how much the beasts overwhelmed him. The ash panther attacked the cinder wolves and his clone without any discrimination as he had expected.

After their narrow escape they continued with their attempt for another hour and half. They had managed to collect few more herbs and ores and four other fireglows in this time before a cast of firehawks noticed them. They decided to immediately withdraw and used their hearthstones to teleport as soon as they noticed the flying beasts which were all above level 20.

“How many fireglows do we have in total?” asked Rudra as they convened at the city. Though they wished to stay at the fringes of the forest and volcanic area, they got quite a good haul and all of them managed to get to level 16. It was a good use of time of night. Most of the night-time was usually spent by them on secondary professions. Most players other than ones who are good or those who professionally develop their secondary professions wouldn’t be very good at them and could only get a meagre amount of experience for the time spent on it. They could only use to practice fight at the colosseum in the night if they didn’t want to spend on secondary profession. So, the trip they made is still better than any other thing they could do when they compared the experience they gained. They made way to a nearby hotel and took a room to discuss it privately.

“Ten. There are ten of these. Five with each of the nighthawks would actually provide a decent amount of lighting even if the birds fly above the trees,” said Shadow. “We can continue farming in the forest.”

“I don’t think the light will be useful even if we have five in a container. We need the intensity of the light to increase if we need to be able to see from above the trees,” said Slaine.

“I know. The only way the intensity increases is with the growth of the insects or when they are feeding or in proximity of food they eat,” said Shadow pulling out the past made from salamandrid meat that the master tamer had fed the fireglows before.

“The reason for having them grouped is somewhat silly, but I want to try,” started Shadow. “I heard that fireflies in real world tend to glow their brightest when they eat or mate. So, when I noticed that it was glowing brighter at the pet store when it was being fed, I decided to try and check if the other thing also works as this game is quite close to real-life. Thus, I wanted to have them five in each of the containers to play the odds as I got no way to distinguish between male and female.”

“Hahahaha,” laughed Roll which was soon followed by the others. Shadow’s thoughts did indeed sound very ridiculous, but they didn’t know that the game was actually designed to mimic as many features of the real world known to man as possible. Even the minor behaviour patterns. Not only of insects, but also the beasts like panthers. Most wouldn’t focus much on it right now, but later such thoughts would be considered logical by most who played the game.

“Dude! I don’t know what to say about that,” said Slaine as he controlled his laughter. In the meantime, Shadow also realized that it wouldn’t be possible for them to accept such a statement. So, he had already took out the containers and the pooter and started to move all of the fireglows to a single container. By the time he moved the seventh one, the intensity of the light from the container suddenly increased.

“You guys satisfied,” said Shadow as he left the seven in one container and transferred the other three into another container. “I am not sure of the exact mechanics of the game, but there are some similarity always between these monsters and real-life beings,” he continued as he tied the container to a leg of his nighthawk as he fed it.

He had also gathered some of the meat from some other beasts that they killed and fed it to the nighthawk. The manager of the pet store had already told them that insects and meat of higher levels are the best food for nighthawks. They would help them grow faster but would not be ready for use for few hours after feeding. The feed the shop sold was also good, but could only be given in limited quantities just to keep the pets loyal to their masters.

“Let us take some time off. Play in the colosseum or go try to craft some stuff. The beasts will calm down after an hour or so. Once, the firehawks start searching for pray, they don’t give up soon and hover around for a few hours,” said Shadow.

“We can continue to farm in the forest with the fireglows that we already have,” said Brick confused by Shadow’s words. They had had a decent increase in their experience points lately and wanted to pursue it. The time, they spent on killing fireglows if they put it in farming in the forest would certainly get them more experience points as they had to avoid most beasts in the area before. If they farm in the forest, they could get an advantage over all other players.

“One light source is not enough. If we are attacked by a horde and one of the beasts takes down the nighthawk, we would all die soon after without proper light. Having the light on us will not be any good either as we will be a target instead and it will be very hard,” said Shadow. “We also need to bet more pets like the python which Perennial bought to have them guard the birds. Some pets for defense and lastly, we need to upgrade the pets and help maintain them at the same level as us. Else, they wouldn’t be much useful. So, feed them some meat or whatever helps before we take breaks at night and do the same in the morning.”

“Can we at least try it out once. We can surely get back the lost experience points, if we hunt at night carefully afterwards,” said Perennial having a sip of the drink that he ordered. Even the others were thinking the same as him though they didn’t voice it out.

“Man. You guys are not thinking this through. Soon, others will also realize it. By that time, we still need to have this as our advantage over the others. The only way for it to be possible is to do it like this. Apart from that, you guys just got leveled up. Use the night to fight in the colosseum,” said Shadow. “You also need practice for PvP. You need real-life fighting skills in this game and that requires a lot of practice. We intend to participate in competitions defeat other players,” said Shadow as he looked at Rudra and the others. “We started a new guild with the aim to make it a first-rate guild or better.”

“Fine, I understand,” said Rudra. “We need some time. Some play time in the colloseum or a workshop would give us time to think about the issue we had at the forest due to lack of light and help us improve. It is good to have some practice.”

“I would also suggest you guys to buy pets and make use of them in PvP. If both players accept use of pets the system would probably allow,” said Shadow. “Try it out. It will help with the teamwork. This is just temporary. I have already been working to develop a proper training centre for the guild. Some of my family’s scientists are also on my payroll currently to help with it. We will get a proper training ground soon.”

“You have an expert who can help train our players?”

“Working on it,” said Shadow. He hadn’t yet got a decent response from Rodrigo who told him that he could contact few of his old mates for the job. “I have some issues with convincing them. They kind of look down on virtual reality and games. It is hard considering their experience.”

The others got up and went to out of the room after they had some refreshments. Balthazar also followed out after some time and went to the market. He had forgotten about something very important which he realized as he checked the pets tab when he fed the nighthawk. He could equip pets with armor or enchantments. He couldn’t find these at pet store, but NPC forgers and enchanters would definitely sell them. He spent about half an hour searching before he finally found an enchanted collar which could be used by his pet.

After that he went to the forging room. He had gotten another design from the Hammer before and he went to spend some time forging a few more of the designs that he had. A few hours later, they went again to capture a few more fireglows. This time, the team had bought more pets. Each of them got an owl or other pets. In another four hours, they managed to capture a total of 18 fireglows, enough for three individual sources of light and pulled back to the forest. They continued to hunt in the forest for the rest till Shadow received a notification that someone was trying to contact him from outside.

“You guys continue. I am being called outside the game,” said Shadow as he logged out of the game. The ship had already been back to Asklepian. Robert had also removed his headgear and was waiting for him.

“Come on,” said Robert. “We are back at the mansion. We passed the trial. Thinking that a small celebration is in order.”

“Seriously? Is it necessary?” asked Balthazar.

“Yes. At such times, a small celebration is expected. I may be in troubles that the others aren’t, but I can’t just completely change my behaviour. My friends and other will find it unusual and will try to dig further or put more pressure. Neither of which is good for me. So, Richard suggested that we have a small celebration,” said Robert. “Moreover, I have also invited Yerman Lewis. He is the kind that doesn’t usually miss a party.”