Both Cain and Selena immediately stopped as the monster blocked their way. The Crimson Cobra slithered around and it lifted her head observing the two small creatures. Her eyes flashed crimson red as her tongue hissed; to her, those two looked like mice.
“Stay back for this, I will deal with it alone.” Cain was both excited for EXP and the new move he had been brewing since he reached third-tier magic. “Hold this for a moment.” Selena was surprised when Cain gave her his sword, was he intending to fight it with just magic? She was awaiting him to unleash a big raging ball of flames.
[Elemental Weapon], Cain created a sword of lightning and gripped it with both hands taking a low stance. With a deep breath, he kept an eye on the Cobra.
[Haste] [Lesser Empowerment] [Swiftness], [Enchanting: Ringing blade]. It was only for a moment that his sword screamed. [Thunder Step] CLAP! Thunder clapped as Cain zapped at super speed cutting the Cobra’s head in one slash.
It happened in the blink of an eye. He was standing on the other side before the Cobra’s head had even touched the ground. Thud! The Cobra’s body fell alongside its head in a big splatter of blood. Selena stood there with her mouth open, she had seen him use thunder step before but this was the first time she saw such a big monster get taken in one attack.
CRACK! As Selena looked at Cain’s hand, the sword he had just conjured was shattered. As it faded into nothing, Cain looked at it as if in deep thoughts. “The edge was off then?” he mumbled.
He hadn’t heard that thing in a while, the giant snake was an A-rank after all. Last time the EXP from it diminished into nothingness as it had fought Daraku, Selena, Sofia, and Cain. ‘Now I only need two levels so I can raise my stats, it’s going to be a grind.’
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“Cain, what was that-nya?” Selena rushed at him leaping over the Cobra’s corpse, “It was loud-nya!” She was jumping in excitement.
“I just slashed him when I was passing, I failed though, my blade broke!” Cain looked at his empty hand, it was still trembling from the impact.
Cain took his sword back from Selena and gazed at a small plant with its blade, it was cut. “To cut, you need the slicing motion, you move the blade from one end to the other.”
As Cain moved at an extreme speed by the Cobra’s head, he angled his blade horizontally so it will perform a cut with his movement speed instead of a regular slash.
Now there was another angle, swordsmen call it edge alignment. It’s the angle at which the blade strikes, the angle between the edge and the surface and it needs to be a right angle. If it was off by a bit the blade will twist and hit with its flat side, potentially breaking or twisting the user’s wrist.
Cain failed his edge alignments because of how fast he was moving and because the snake wasn’t staying still. For that, his blade shattered, and his hand in now trembling due to the immense pressure that fell on his wrist. He lacked the dexterity to perform such fine movements, as at such a speed even the slight fault in the edge will have great repercussions.
“Look at the Cobra’s neck,” Cain said pointing at the Cobra’s poking spinal bones.
The bones were shattered and not sliced, it was a clear indication of his failure in performing such a move. “But it was still amazing-nya!” Selena said as she inspected the bones, “I don’t think I could achieve such a wound even if with a big sword-nya!” Selena said looking back at him.
“I bet you could, 19 in strength is terrifying enough. It’s just that you can’t put much strength behind your attacks due to your low weight.”
When two entities cash, the lighter will get pushed away. Selena is lighter than the Cobra so her attack power will throw her backward instead of cutting the cobra. There were three main ways to deal with such a problem. Get heavier, get more skilled, and lastly get faster. Selena lack in all of them.
Takeshi for example has his heavy armor and years of skill and experience behind him. Cain has the speed generated by [Thunder step]
“Let’s hurry; we better kill as many as we can! We have to level up quickly.” Cain said as he marched ahead.
“You say as if it’s that easy-nya, how high do you want to get-nya?” Selena was doubtful about this whole leveling thing, she know people who took years just to raise a level. Less to her knowledge, she who always hunted alone was a prime example of power leveling. Reaching level 8 at her age was considered a genius. Regular people can barely take on a wild doge in a one-on-one fight so it was rare to see adventures hunting monsters alone.
“I hope to reach level 17 in less than two months, which is the goal!” Cain said with a genuine smile, he truly thought it was possible.
“17-nya!” Selena gasped at him just spitting high numbers. that was higher than her father was. “Females at our clan will lose it at your sight-nya!” She yelled with her eyes sparkling, imagining herself walking back to the village with Cain being stronger than anyone there.
Cain laughed, it wasn’t just him, he will have them all reach such a level by that time. “Let’s move on, I have to reach that level then!” He said.
Selena was thrilled about the idea, it will help her get back on everyone in the village and show her father that she was right about the clan males being too weak for her.
…
Back at the forest edge, a new fight was taking place. A medium-sized slime rushed with all its might toward the blond woman poking it with a stick. “It’s gross, and it smells bad!” Alice yelled as she dodged an acid splash from the blob. Slimes were blobs of disgusting goo that resembled snot and smelled acidic. The one she was fighting having a decomposing rat inside of it emitting foul odor made it worse. Alice’s aura was weaker than to kill the ever-regenerating slime, she needed to touch him with her hand to apply [Cursed Decay]
“Kill it already then, stop crying!” Sofia yelled back at her from a distance. She was fighting a slime as well.
“It’s easy for you to say, fighting with spells from far away!” Alice replied as she jumped away, looking at the grass melt with a sizzle from the monster’s acid.
“Look at Gracie, she is also fighting from close range!” They looked at Gracie. Both she and the slime haven’t moved from where they started the fight. Gracie had kept dodging its attack in place with graceful and dexterous moves, most importantly, she didn’t seem to be bothered by either the smell or gross look of the creature.
In a moment, Gracie stabbed the slime in the core with the dagger Cain left with her. The creature splatted on the ground like water as its core was destroyed.
“Lady Alice, please hurry as I need you to heal my hand,” Gracie said as the skin in her hand got burnt by the acid.
“I’m your master! Don’t you see that I’m busy?” Alice cried her eyes out.