May 25th/Age 749
Diablo Desert
It was early in the morning when Riku and Mina set out. Mina simply followed Riku's lead as he held out a map, pointing towards their destination and objective. The walk wasn't terribly long and luckily, they managed to avoid most of the local and hostile wildlife before they came up to what looked like a tomb made of sandstone in the form of a small pyramid with one clear entrance in and out of the place.
"This is the place. The Ruby Ninjas tomb." Riku said with a smile on his face.
"I've never seen a pyramid before. It looks nice."
"Indeed. It's well built and as you can imagine, it was used as a resting place for ninjas in the desert. So, there could be traps and the like." Riku explained which put Mina on guard for a moment.
"Well, I guess we have to go in." Mina said before the duo entered the pyramid and saw various passageways for them to choose from and the halls are lined with paintings and old-world vases and furniture. "Wow." Mina said before she reached out to touch one of the paintings before the painting suddenly fell off the wall and revealed a hidden hatch, that released a ninja in black clothes.
He looked to be a corpse, but he was still alive and holding a Tanto blade that he used to try and slash at Mina. Thankfully she had enough thought to summon her Mana Ward and block the damage.
"Ice Arrow!" Riku said as he cast a spell and killed the undead ninja. The spell looked to be a condensed and pointed bolt of ice that went clear through the ninja's head.
Sadly, Mina didn't get EXP since she didn't kill it, but she still got to loot the guy.
1x Tanto Blade
1x Ninja Jacket (Black)
"Thanks for the help." Mina said as she equipped the blade and jacket. She now had the Tanto blade in her right hand and wore the jacket over her shirt and it provided her with some decent defense.
"No problem. Its nice to know I'm partnered up with a fellow magic caster." Riku said with a smile as Mina got up and dusted herself off.
"I'm still learning honestly. Now we've really got to be careful." Mina said before they started walking again. They made their way into the next room which was stocked with more ninja gear and a few informational books, but otherwise it proved to be a dead end. However, Mina didn't hesitate to pocket the items she saw.
7x Tanto Blade
3x Katana
31x Throwing Stars
22x Kunai
1x Ninja Instruction Manual
3x Skill Books
2x Ninja Mask (Black)
3x Ninja Jacket (Black)
2x Ninja Trousers (Black)
3x Ninja Sandals (Black)
The room gave Mina a massive hall and she quickly equipped the items she was given and was now looking like a classic ninja. The clothes offered some protection but not as much as actual armor would have. Also, she didn't hesitate to learn the three skills from the skill books she grabbed.
[Short Sword Mastery, Active Level: 1
You have learned how to wield short swords with trained ease and precision. The type of short sword doesn't matter to you if it gets the job done.
Grants 5% additional Slashing damage.
Grants 7% additional Thrusting damage.]
[Long Sword Mastery, Active Level: 1
You have learned how to wield a long sword with trained ease and skill. Long swords are your bread-and-butter baby.
Grants 11% additional Slashing damage.
Grants: 13% additional Thrusting damage.]
[Knife Throwing, Active Level: 1
You have practiced the art of throwing knives, darts, ninja stars and other weapons of that type in order to use them in battle.
Grants additional 5% extra damage with thrown weapons.]
"Awesome." Mina said as she gripped her Tanto sword in hand with a firm grip as she now knew how to properly use her sword, and she took note of the difference in damage based on the sword types.
The long swords do more damage but games like 'fighting souls' have taught her the dangers of using long weapons in confined spaces.
"That's a weird type of magic you have. You just absorbed the books into your body after they burst into gold flower pedals." Riku commented as Mina just looked back at him with a smile behind her ninja mask.
"I have unique gifts. Now let's get moving." Mina said before they retraced their steps and went down another passageway. This time they saw several doors down on of the halls and coming out through two of the doors were two undead ninjas.
Undead Ninja Thrall, Level: 11
Undead Ninja Thrall, Level: 12
Mina used her Tanto blade and charged at the ninjas. She slashed one of them with her short sword, which made him block before she raised her foot and kicked the other ninja aside before he could strike. Mina then followed up with a series of slashing strikes at the undead ninja before it backed into a wall and Mina was able to impale it through the head with her short sword.
The other ninja got distracted by Riku firing his Ice Arrow spells at it. Mina didn't hesitate to rush behind the ninja and decapitate it with a sword slash at its neck to finish it off.
2x Undead Ninja Thralls! You've earned 175 EXP!
"I think these ninjas got weaker after becoming zombies." Mina said bluntly as she enabled auto-loot and grabbed some more stuff from the corpses.
"You think so?"
"Yeah. They are just blindly attacking with hardly any skill. I'm a rookie swordswoman, so a trained ninja would have no problem overpowering me." Mina said honestly. She knew better than to overestimate her own skill.
"Interesting." Riku said back before they entered one of the many rooms of this hall and found a few corpses on the ground that didn't attack them. They also found notes about the ninjas that described some kind of mystical objects in the main chamber of this tomb. "So, this is what caused them to become undead."
"You know about the item the ninjas are talking about?"
"Not exactly. This tomb radiates demonic magic, so that means that the artifacts they have are from the Demon realm. That also means that there might be a demon located in the main chamber acting as a guard for the items." Riku explained in a serious and almost scared tone of voice.
"If that's the case. We'll just have to be extra careful. I'm not leaving this place until I clear out the zombies. The last thing Fry Pan or anyone else needs are zombies attacking them at night." Mina said back in her own serious voice without giving up the fact that this was a videogame style quest.
"I can't leave either. I'm on my own mission to seek out items like this and leaving them in the hands of a demon or a zombie is just plain stupid." Riku said back with determination and pride.
The duo Riku and Mina made their way through the rest of the rooms of this dungeon. They fought a series of zombies before making their way to the main chamber of the tomb, which was sealed off by a giant stone door with a lion emblem in the center of it. There was just a single ninja guarding the room and it stood no chance against Mina as she ended up getting some rewards from this last zombie.
You have leveled up! Level: 9-10! You have gained 5 SP and 1 PP! Your HP, Ki and MP have been fully restored!
[Short Sword Mastery] has leveled up! Level: 6-7!
[Power Strike] has leveled up! Level: 4-5!
[Close Quarters Combat] has leveled up! Level: 7-8!
Getting the CQC skill was a boon for Mina. It made fighting in spaces like this so much easier. However, she didn't know how many times fighting in a confined space would happen, so she simply decided that the skill usage will figure itself out in the future and that she would just focus on how good it was at this moment.
"You, ok?" Mina asked as she looked over at the tired and sweaty Riku.
"I'm fine. I'm just happy that this is the last room. I don't know how much more of this I would have been able to take." Riku said before both teens pushed open the door to the boss room and saw that it was a decently sized circular room lit up with candles and at the end of it on a shrine was a black spherical ball that gave of a black and purple mist.
"Whoa." Mina said as they entered the room and upon closer inspection, they saw that it resembled an old school dojo.
"You have fought well to make it this far." A mysterious voice said to them before they noticed a figure stepping out from behind a series of displayed samurai armors.
This person is clad head to toe in samurai armor that is a metallic grey color. In his hand is a short sword that looked to be completely made from ice and the headset of the armor didn't have a traditional mask. Instead, it was just purple smoke with blood red eyes glowing from behind the smoke.
Tomai, Level: 18
Low Tier Demon/Cryomancer
"Unfortunately, this is where your story ends. My sword Frost Pain will be tasting your blood. So, prepare yourselves." Tomai said before getting into a combat stance.
"Riku, you stay behind me. This guy is no joke." Mina said before she charged towards Tomai with her Tanto blade at the ready before she focused her Ki into the weapon, making it glow with energy that a normal person couldn't see unless they developed the necessary Ki sensing abilities. "Power Strike!" Mina said loudly as she slashed at Tomai, who blocked with his sword in both hands.
The blades clashed but Tomai's sword stood firm before Tomai pushed her back with a kick and attacked with his own combination of strikes that Mina struggled to block.
"Not bad for a whelp. But a fleshling like you stands no chance. Icy Burst!" Tomai said as he released his own special attack from his sword. Mina was harshly sent backwards onto the ground as a powerful burst of snow and ice came from the sword.
Mina saw her red HP bar flash before her eyes and it put her on alert, but she also now dealt with the Lesser Frostbite debuff. Her body felt stiff and hard to move, but she knew she had to try because Tomai was coming towards her to attack again.
So, in a wild moment of random thought, Mina tried reinforcing her body with Ki before moving to block and thankfully her plan actually paid off and she blocked Tomai's sword slash with her own blade and her body hardly even buckled under the pressure. But again, Mina was knocked aside by the demonic swordsman.
"Ice Arrow!" Riku cast his spell and hit the swordsman in the back, which grabbed his attention.
"Fighting from a distance won't save you from this bitter cold." Tomai said before he raised his off hand and fired what looked like a snowball at Riku, who dodged and evaded the ice attack that froze the ground that it encountered. Mina didn't waste the chance given to her though and she quickly stood back up and reached into her inventory to pull out another Tanto blade.
So, now that she was dual-wielding two swords, Mina charged at the demon and attacked with a flurry of strikes. They were a bit clumsy, but she didn't care since her flurry was putting Tomai on the back foot before she charged up both swords with her Power Strike technique and with all her strength, she knocked the demon's sword away before viciously slashing him with both her sword.
The enhanced sword blades cut through the armor a bit. Showing that it wasn't even a sturdy type of metal. Mina finished her combination of attacks by kicking Tomai away from her and his sword before she stashed both swords away.
"Your finished." Mina said loudly before she focused her Ki and summoned her Ki Ball and fired at the demon along with Riku firing one last Ice Arrow at him. Both attacks landed and engulfed Tomai in a cloud of smoke.
When the smoke cleared, Riku and Mina saw Tomai face down on the ground that now had several cracks on it from the impact of the attacks and from Tomai's own body hitting the ground.
"Damn you humans." Tomai cursed in a weak voice. "I found these ninjas after they stole a demon stone. I made them my playthings. To think that weak humans could harm me…I let my guard down too much."
"Humans aren't playthings. Were people and we deserve respect." Mina quickly said in an exhausted voice as the demon chuckled.
"Fool. You think this is a great victory. I'm nothing more than a stray foot soldier. Demons much stronger will emerge and kill all of you off."
"Too bad you won't be with them." Mina said before she re-summoned one of her Tanto swords and with another Power Strike boost. She stabbed clear through the heart of Tomai or at least where she thought a heart would be and killed him.
You have slain the boss 'Tomai' and gained 2,000 EXP! 1x Random Skill Book, 1x Frost Pain (Short Sword)
[Power Strike] has leveled up! Level: 5-6-7!
[Short Sword Mastery] has leveled up! Level: 7-8-9!
[Ki Ball] has leveled up! Level: 1-2!
[Ki Manipulation] has leveled up! Level: 4-5-6!
You have developed the skills [Dual-Wielding] and [Ki Reinforcement]!
[Dual-Wielding, Active Level: 1
You have two hands and that means you can use two swords. Now you have the power to strike with two swords at the same time.
Doubles the damage modifiers for sword skills when active.]
[Ki Reinforcement, Active Level: 1
You have focused your Ki into your muscles and made them stronger and more durable than before.
Grants 30 Armor while active.
Cost: 70 Ki with a 30 Ki per minute drain after 60 seconds to maintain the skill.]
You have gained access to the Gamer Store after reaching level 10!
[Quest Complete!
Name: Dungeon Calling
Rewards: 4,000 EXP and increased REP with Riku]
Mina was almost taken back by the amount of information she had seen in front of her. She also knew that she used up a chunk of Ki which is why she felt exhausted, yet she wasn't empty of Ki quite yet. She also walked over and picked up the sword Frost Pain and looked it over.
The blade was made from some kind of enchanted ice and Mina knew that a sword like that could be pretty useful when she learns more about magic. She knew that in games a sword like this would have special effects or act as a magical focus of some kind.
"Thanks for helping me, Mina." Riku said before he walked over to the shrine where the demon stone was, and he raised it above his head before throwing it onto the ground and shattered it into pieces. "Now nobody else can mess with demonic magic."
"Good. Now let's head back to Fry Pan. I could use some rest." Mina said before they headed out and soon returned to the Fry Pan Community where they got some much-needed rest.
May 26th/Age 749
Fry Pan Community
Mina was up early in the morning and behind one of the common houses as she decided to finally do some reading. The first thing she did was use the random skill book she got yesterday.
[Snowball, Active Level: 1
You can harness your mana into an icy spell to dish out some cold damage.
Range: 5 Feet
Deals additional 15% cold damage.
Cost: 30 MP]
After gaining that skill Mina summoned up the Gamer Store and sold all the unimportant stuff she looted from the dungeon and ended up with a nice amount of Zeni. But she didn't buy anything and instead took out the ninja instruction manual she had gotten and started reading the book while sitting on the sand covered ground.
The book was a decent read honestly and it instructed Mina on how to act like a proper ninja and what she could or couldn't do with her Ki regarding ninja techniques and what not.
"Your up early." Riku said as he walked up to Mina while rubbing his eyes a bit.
"I guess I am. I'm just doing some reading and maybe sneak in some training too. This ninja book is really helping me learn about what I could do if I want to become a ninja." Mina said back as Riku chuckled.
"Well, more power to you I suppose. It was nice meeting you Mina."
"Are you leaving?"
"Yeah. I did what I came here to do, and my journey isn't done yet." Riku said before he stretched out his arms a bit.
"I'm actually on a journey of my own. What do you say to teaming up for a while?" Mina asked which caught Riku off guard for a moment.
"What?"
"I'm serious. If we travel together, we could watch each other's backs." Mina said before Riku regained his composure.
"That would be fun, but my teacher wouldn't approve of it. She told me to do this mission and reunite with her as soon as possible. She's like the boss of my journey and what she says goes." Riku explained.
"Well, that's a shame. Good luck Riku. I hope we can meet again some time." Mina said back to the teen before he waved goodbye and made his departure from Fry Pan.
For the rest of the day Mina trained herself physically with her martial arts and swords play skills. She also spoke to the Ox King about her boat and managed to get some people to help fix it. When that was done, Mina took out a capsule and stored the boat away inside of it before stuffing the capsule in her inventory.
Afterwards Mina talked with Ox and let him know that she would be leaving and that the next time he would see her. She would be ready to train with Roshi.
And just like that, Mina took off and left Fry Pan.
June 3rd/Age 749
Marsh City
It took Mina several days to escape the blazing hot desert and luckily enough she didn't encounter any bandits on her way out. Apparently, the Ox Kings territory is still respected and feared, so it wasn't too great a task to leave the desert since she had a safe supply of drinking water with her.
By this time, she made her way into a nearby city settlement where the people seemed friendly but also scared and it didn't take long for Mina to learn why.
The city is being controlled by people known as the Rabbit Gang. She found out after overhearing people talking about the group.
"This isn't right." Mina said to herself as she looked on at the scared people of the village.
[Quest Alert!
Name: Rabbit Season
Objective: Defeat the leader of the Rabbit Gang and stop their reign of terror.
Rewards: 3,000 EXP
Do you accept this quest? Y/N?]
Mina didn't even hesitate to hit the yes button. She knew that this might be dangerous but after dealing with a demon. Standing up to a criminal didn't seem like such a big deal to her.
Luckily enough she still looked dangerous and put on the intimidation factor. She was dressed in her ninja uniform now instead of regular clothes. The outfit reduced the heat on her body from the scorching desert heat and frankly she thought it just looked cool. Adding to that fact that she could magically summon her weapons meant that she could easily scare the gangsters into submission.
"Well, what do we have here Fred?" A voice said from behind Mina; she turned around and saw two strangers behind her. One was tall and thin with fair skin while the other was rotund and short with dark skin and both are wearing blue soldier outfits with bunny ears on their heads.
Muk, Level: 5
Rabbit Gang Enforcer
Fred, Level: 6
Rabbit Gang Enforcer
Mina saw that both were armed with guns on their backs but aside from that, she didn't see these two as much of a threat.
"It looks like we have a ninja in our town." Fred said with a chuckle before he moved closer to Mina. "A girly one at that. So, girly, why don't you come with us and enjoy the perks of being in the rabbit gang?"
"I'd rather barf." Mina said back bluntly which surprised the two gang members and a few people who were nearby.
"Looks like you don't know how things work around here." Muk said before brandishing his gun at Mina's torso. "You do what we say, or you get hurt."
Mina silently activated her Ki Reinforcement and her Mana Ward which caused the gangster to step back in shock as he saw the light blue magical shield appear around Mina. He fired as a reflex and thankfully Mina's shield didn't break.
It cracked a lot, but it didn't break, so Mina cast her ward spell several times over itself before she changed its shape to become something similar to another layer of skin and she attacked the man. She easily disarmed him and brough him to the ground with a powerful high kick. Fred tried to get his gun but couldn't fully reach it and was unprepared for the several punches he got before getting knocked down to the ground.
Mina deactivated her ward and took some rope out of her inventory and quickly tied up the two criminals which got some people to start cheering.
"This ain't going to end well for you bitch. When our boss gets here, you're going to see what happens to people who mess with us." Muk said before Mina slapped the back of his head, making him groan in annoyance.
"Oh, shut up already. Just stay here until the police arrive." Mina said back to the man before a small car pulled up to the scene and it wasn't the cops.
Stepping out of the car was a rabbit man and Mina looked him over and saw that he was the big boss.
Monster Carrot, Level: 7
Rabbit Gang Boss/Carrot Cannibal
"Well, this is a weird site. You beat up my men. Perhaps we can shake hands and come to a peaceful resolution." Monster Carrot said as he walked towards Mina.
"Don't do it! He'll turn you into a carrot if you touch him!" A random man shouted making Monster Carrot scowl in response as Mina took a few steps back.
"I don't know if you can really change a person into a carrot but I'm sure as hell not about to find out." Mina said to the animal type human who looked to be visibly upset now.
"Fine. You know my little plan but it's impossible for you to do anything about it. You can't fight me without touching me."
"Don't you feel anything for hurting all these people?" Mina asked in frustration as Monster Carrot chuckled.
"Of course not. They do what I say, or they get turned into carrots and there is no cure for that. I have dozens of these people in my base and I've been eating each and everyone for months. They taste delicious. Fried, smoked, steamed, boiled, pickled or raw. The terror in their bodies makes them all the sweeter. Rabbits love carrots after all." Monster Carrot said sadistically which made Mina fully understand his title.
Mina felt a large surge of rage boil up within her body before she stood up straight and focused her Ki. She spent time training in Fry Pan for a reason after reading the ninja book and she had plenty of time to practice her techniques while she walked the desert.
"You won't get away with what you've done." Mina said before she extended both her hands outwards and went through several ninja hand signs before bringing her hands together in a clap and focused her Ki into her throat and prepared to dish out her ninja technique. "Spitfire Blast Technique!"
Mina released three baseball sized Ki blasts from her mouth that were alit with flames and Monster Carrot didn't even have a chance to evade from how fast the technique was. The blasts hit him square on and sent the man flying backwards into his car. The sad thing was that the technique had very little knockback compared to Mina's Ki Ball and that proved just how weak the man was.
Fortunately, the man was knocked out cold with a concussion due to how his head put a dent into his car door and sure enough people around Mina started cheering as Mina saw her quest alert appear.
[Quest Complete!
Name: Rabbit Season
Rewards: 3,000 EXP]
You have leveled up! Level: 10-11! You have gained 5 SP and 1 PP for a total of 10 SP and 2 PP! Your HP, Ki and MP have been fully restored!
[Spitfire Blast Technique] has leveled up! Level: 1-2!
The police soon arrived at the scene and happily took the Rabbit Gang into custody. The entire city was happy and any grunts in the gang were arrested as well.
Mina was made the center of attention which she didn't hate honestly and sure enough she was given a nice reward from the mayor in the form of a free dinner at an expensive restaurant.
END!
A/N: One more chapter done and gone. The days are flying by for Mina, but she is growing in tandem with them and now she is journeying around to train herself and make sure that she is strong enough for Roshi's training.
Also, for this story I am altering the power levels a bit to make things a bit more interesting. Please fav, follow and review.