A couple of hours later both Liam and Luna arrived near their guild residence.
Now that Liam was Level 50 and had a mana core, he no longer had any business being near the central areas of the Kingdom.
All the higher-level beasts were in the outer regions. Since their guild residence was also located in one such area, Liam decided to start from here.
When the duo arrived at the zone and the fox flew closer to the ground, Liam looked at the huge acres of ruined black lands.
Nether was still seeping out of it very diffusely. Surprisingly, he was now also able to sense the nether better after the second cleansing.
"Hmmm. There is still that Kingdom quest I need to complete. There is not much time left for that quest. How am I going to make all these lands return to their former glory?"
Liam thought back to the quest that he received from the King and frowned. He had made huge progress in alchemy but this problem still remained.
He didn't have any particular recipe or medicine to make these lands fertile again. He also did not know where to obtain such a thing.
But Liam did have some idea, to begin with. Otherwise, he wouldn't have accepted this venture and sunk so many gold coins into it.
It was just that he couldn't do it. He needed help from others, perhaps someone with access to the priest or paladin class instructors or shaman or hunter instructors.
Both these types should be able to pick up some bread crumbs if they spoke to people in and around their class building.
"Hmmm… Mia and Alex have too many things on their plate. Mei Mei and the others are still in the nether realm. The only person who is free enough to do this is probably that guy."
Liam rubbed his temples as he started getting a headache just thinking about that fellow.
"Nope. I don't have a choice. He is really the best person for this job." He sighed and sent the message out.
The duo then landed near the northern part of the guild residence. From here, there walked over a few miles and found their first target!
A group of wasp nests!
Well if they could even be called that. These nests looked more like small hills, only that they were probably hollow on the inside.
There had been several complaints from the guild that these Level 60 wasps were one-shotting players often when they tried to move in and out of the guild.
The problem had escalated so much that they could no longer even access that gate of the guild residence. The wasps had made that entire area impossible to access.
Considering this, Liam decided to start his training from these wasps.
From the outside, their guild residence might be the dream spot for the numerous other guilds but in reality, they were fat and bloated and had a lot of issues like this.
If these things were allowed to fester, then eventually the guild residence would completely be destroyed.
However, now that he had already taken the first step and reached the next stage, these problems were nothing big.
Liam cautiously circled the area and first observed the magnitude of the enemy he was up against.
These Level 50 beasts were technically no longer an issue to him but there was another problem when dealing with wasps. These guys tended to attack together.
Especially since Liam was planning to attack their home base and clear and uproot their nests altogether, he had to be very careful. Otherwise, their entire swarm would be on his ass.
"So there are five hills in total which means at least 100 or 200 wasps."
Liam made this assessment after surveilling the area for some time and also taking note of the wasp size and number of swarms heading in and out every other minute.
"This means that I cannot attack their home base just yet. We need to first attack and clear the smaller swarms of ten or twenty." Luna nodded in agreement.
The duo then backed away to a safe distance and then waited for their first encounter. Not long after, the first swarm showed up.
BZZZZZ BZZZZZ BZZZZZ
"Are you ready, Luna?"
The next second Liam lifted his arm up and folded his fingers like a finger gun, pointing it towards the group of wasps.
As Level 50 beasts, they possessed remarkable speed and agility but right now they were simply aimlessly wandering, not knowing that a sniper was locking on them.
So their speed at the moment was not too much. They were simply hovering around lazily looking for some unsuspecting prey.
However, little did they know that they were going to be the unsuspecting prey. After aiming for the wasps, Liam did not hold back and immediately started the attacks.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Back to back three football-sized fireballs went flying, all three of them hitting three wasps perfectly.
Usually, it would take Liam quite a bit of effort to do this, especially sending out three power-packed attacks one after the other, but now he suddenly found it as easy as swinging his sword around.
He was able to manipulate mana more freely and condensing the attack to form dense rocking punches was also effortless.
-5000
-5000
-5000
Three huge damage numbers floated up. Compared to before when a single fireball only did damage of around 1000, now the effect of the same attack was fivefold higher!
Seeing this, Liam quickly sent out another volley of fireballs. This time as well he condensed it as best as he could and shot them forward.
-5000
-5000
-5000
Another three big numbers popped up and coincidentally with the same amount of damage.
This time since he had aimed all of the attacks on a single wasp, the insect got completely burnt to a crisp, or at least its wings and fell down onto the ground with a thud.
The other three wasps he had aimed also suffered a similar fate and in the span of a second four insects from the swarm dropped down to the ground, charred and struggling.
The other wasps in the swarm immediately became alert and wise to the fact that someone was hiding and attacking them.
They increased their flying speed and started randomly buzzing around like bullets in the air. This was their real speed and at this speed, they were capable of punching a hole right through a thick dense tree.
Now it was much more difficult for Liam to aim at these things. He was also not pleased for another reason. "Hmmm. It looks like I have reached some sort of limit." He mumbled to himself.
From what Liam could see, fireballs were just not going to cut it anymore. He conjured another five fireballs and tested his theory.
He made sure that each and every fireball was nicely condensed and yet when the damage numbers floated up…
-5000
-5000
-5000
Three out of the five fireballs hit their target and all three of them got the same damage numbers as well.
"I need stronger spells." Liam came to this conclusion. It was either that or he needed to conjure a fireball that was even more intense.
This was rather a difficult task because, after a certain point, it was not possible to make the fireballs any denser.
The only way to improve their density and attack power would be to improve the intensity of the flame itself!
And Liam had no idea how to do this. So the other cheaper and more straightforward approach would be to learn better, stronger spells that consumed more mana.
"Let me see… Fire balls, fire bullets, and lava rain. These are the only three spells I know in fire-type attacks."
He then looked at the small fox next to him who was happily doing nothing. "Hey! Don't you know that fire shield skill? Show it."
Kyuuuuu!
Luna immediately displayed her awesomeness. Liam watched it a couple of times but watching it was different from personally experiencing it.
"Alright. I guess there is no need to waste time here. I will just buy or grind the skill books and then learn the skill."
He then jumped out of the spot they were hiding and almost instantly the rest of the wasps shot toward him.
[Ice Wall]
Liam immediately erected four walls of ice which sprouted out of the ground as if they had been waiting a long time for his command.
THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD
The five wasps that were all coming at him like fastballs inevitably banged against these ice walls and were sent back from the impact, crashing down on the ground.
The ice also reduced their moment speed as they struggled back up and once again shot forward. They started repeatedly banging against the ice walls and soon they started cracking.
In the meantime, Liam as well did not stand still.
He had at first given up on learning new skills without getting the actual skill book but as soon as he used ice barriers, he got an inspiration.
In the same way he manipulated the ice element, he started surrounding himself with the fire element as well. However, it quickly proved useless.
Both the elements had very different and very unique vibes. When he tried to handle them both in the same way, the result was choppy and inefficient. The skill was not even executed.
