Second World

"What happens if I feed them a lower-level weapon?" He asked another question as he remembered Peniel mentioning about using his Bronze Short Sword to increase this weapon's level.

"If you feed them lower-level weapons, it will increase its experience bar," Peniel answered. "When the bar is filled up, the sword will increase one level. This sword doesn't follow the usual rule of leveling up by smithing. And if you haven't noticed, you will see it doesn't have level caps beside the weapon's level number like the other weapons."

"So I can level it up as many times as I want?"

"If you can find sufficient high-level weapons," Peniel nodded. "The higher level it becomes, the less the experience bar will fill up by feeding it low-level weapons."

He immediately took out all the weapons he had collected all this time. There was his first weapon Bronze Short Sword, then the Bronze Axe he acquired from Ogre, then there were also another level 1 Short Sword and level 5 Long Sword he got during his mad grinding period. All were just common weapons. He got no use for them other than filling up his bag's space, so he decided to feed them to his Storm Breaker to increase its strength.

When he fed it the Bronze Short Sword, the experience bar increased by a mere 1%. When he fed it the level 5 Long Sword it increased by 10%. The percentage increase was much better proportionately if using high-level weapons as the Fairy had mentioned. When he tried to feed it the Bronze Axe, it failed.

"You can only feed it the same type of weapon," Peniel informed.

That limited much of the option, Jack thought sadly. He stored the Bronze Axe back. After feeding it the third sword, he only increased the sword's experience bar by 12%. It was still a long way from increasing one level.

He guessed this was the best condition he could get at his current stage. He looked at his status window and saw that twenty minutes had gone by since he got the boost. He only had around forty minutes left. He didn't know how hard the fight would be, he better not waste any more time. He took out his magic staff and prepare to go out the door.

"You really have a second class," Peniel looked amazed when she saw him wielding both sword and staff.

"I thought you said you know everything?"

"Every basic knowledge," the Fairy retorted. "That dual-class of yours is an anomaly."

"It's a good thing though, right?"

"We'll see."

He was about to charge out before he thought of something and asked, "when I fight, will you be able to give me any assistance?"

"Nope," Peniel answered swiftly.

Jack rolled his eyes to the Fairy's indifference. "Then do I have to pay attention in order for you not to be harmed? What if one of its attacks hit you accidentally?"

"It won't," Peniel answered calmly. "You won't see me around when you are fighting. I'll be hiding and watching from a separate dimension."

"That's convenient," Jack commented. "What if I died? What will happen to you?"

"I will go back to my home, and consider my job is done."

"That's just heartless," he said. "What about me? What happened if I die?"

"Then you die."

He was depressed, he was hoping to hear otherwise. "No coming back to life? I thought in games like this you come back to life when you died."

Peniel glanced at him and said, "What game? This is real life. If you didn't want to die then fight harder. Now stop wasting time, the boost will be gone if you continue to delay."

After finishing the sentence, the fairy's body turned transparent and disappeared from view. Leaving Jack no choice to continue with his questions.

"Well, let's get on with it then," Jack said as he lifted both his weapons. He cast Magic Shield and then kicked the door hard. He dashed right out the opened door as the door leaf swung violently outward. He braced himself for an attack but found the room to be empty.

"Huh?" He then remembered that he had not checked the opponent's position prior to rushing out. He glanced at the radar in his monocle, and was shocked to see a red dot behind him. He turned around right away and found the Lizardman was already swinging his scimitar towards him. He narrowly blocked the attack with his Magic Shield.

His opponent was rather crafty as well, Jack never expected it to hide itself beside the door waiting for him to come out. He lost his balance and staggered backward due to the ambush, but found that the blow was not as heavy as he remembered it. The boost was indeed impressive, he would have flown away if he was still in his previous condition.

The Lizardman executed its fierce consecutive slashes again, but Jack had studied this move since his last tussle with this creature. This move must be one of its offensive skills. It was extremely fast and left no room for counterattack nor evasion once the first slash connected, he could only continue to block it. But it would usually slow down after the sixth slash, that must be when the skill ended.

Jack counted each blow he had blocked, once it reached six, he dropped his shield and executed Power Strike. His gamble paid off as his strike caught the monster off guard and hit its body. He scored an 82 damage on the monster, which was more than double from his last endeavor.

In his thrill due to scoring high damage, he got careless and got a slash to his waist. He lost 23 damage. But with the Godly Might regenerating his HP even during combat, his health quickly returned to full. Even though his HP was only one-tenth of the monster's, he was still at an advantage.

With the boost, he really had a much easier time dealing with this guardian boss. His speed was also now slightly faster than it, enabling him to cope with each swift assault and even making a counter-attack from time to time. He continued to grind the monster's HP. Sometimes he broke from the melee scramble and used his range spells to land a few hits.

Due to Godly Might's cooldown decrease and stamina/MP increased recovery, he could practically spam all his skills. However, the Lizardman's fast speed and response combined with its dense skin proved to be very resilient. Added with the round shield on his left hand which nullified damage from time to time, it took him quite a while to wear the monster down to 30% of its health.

Jack looked at the time of his boost, there was just a bit over ten minutes left. He made some quick calculation and was worried that he might not make it in time to defeat the Lizardman before the boost's duration was up. He hastened his pace by sacrificing his defense to frantically attack the monster. They were basically trading blows for blows now without bothering to evade and block. This was still bearable due to the HP regeneration and decreased damage received from the Godly Might buff.

When the Lizardman's HP was less than a quarter. It suddenly gave off a deafening roar. Jack was stunned by the abrupt roar and couldn't evade when the monster twisted its body and had its tail rammed onto him. He was thrown almost eight meters away before landing on his back.

As he hastily got himself up, he saw the Lizardman stayed rooted at its place. Its red scales further reddened into blood-like color. He could feel the aura around the Lizardman changed. It threw down his round shield and gripped its scimitar with both hands. He then made a pull and the weapon magically separated into two identical scimitars. It revealed a savage grin before charging forward.

Seeing the monster also had its own buff, Jack didn't dare to be careless, he brought out his Magic Shield again. The Lizardman performed its trademark skill, the six consecutive slashes, using both hands, resulting in twelve lightning-fast attacks. Jack had to relied on both his defensive skill, Magic Shield and Parry to content with the assault. Even with that, he still suffered hits from five slashes. He lost a bit over 20 damage from each slash.

Strange, he thought. The damage was not much different than before. The Lizardman's buff seemed to be not as imposing as it looked. It only added an off-hand weapon which gave it double attack counts, but with its round shield gone, it would have a more difficult time defending. With that in mind, Jack went back to his previous reckless style, to trade blows for blows.

He used Power Strike and scored a 24 damage.