Level Is Everything

Ryou, Luna and Gefa is now trying out their teamwork. Firstly, their attack is initiated by Ryou and when the monster approach, Gefa will take over the aggro as the tank while Ryou continue to dish out damage. As for Luna, she's still trying out her skill one by one. Most of her skill is related to luck and sometimes it brings out a bad result instead.

That is why, Luna is now focusing on her "frost joke" skill. The skill itself will have a 50% chance to freeze all player and monster in 10x10m area around the caster for 2 second. It was a double edge sword as even allies are afflicted with this skill. When Luna first used the skill, Ryou and Gefa are both frozen while the wild boar is not affected. It almost caused the party to be wiped out.

When they first dived the dungeon, Ryou and Luna is stopped by the wild rhino. This monster however poses no threat for them as Ryou damage is now sufficient to kill it in 7 attack. Ryou's and Luna's level doesn't show much improvement but Gefa experience bar slowly being filled up. It was because Gefa's level is lower than them and she earn the same amount of experience as them. It was one of the advantage of a party. Being in a party will help you to increase the other party member level. That is also why some players are now earning money from 'power leveling' service.

While most player decided to go to the world map of Aaru, some of them who have reached level 10 decided to earn some profit by helping other player to get to level 10. Due to influx of player, this kind of job maybe profitable but the downside is it will be harder for you to catch up to others player level because they have wasted their time to power level others while gaining a little experience for themselves in return of money.

Ryou are also satisfied with how things goes for now. Their team work is getting better. He also feels that Gefa is doing her job perfectly. He usually need to watch out for the monster in case its target changed from Luna to him but with Gefa tanking, he doesn't need to do that. Another load of problem was taken off from his mind and he can focus on attacking the enemy. It also made killing monster become faster.

He also doesn't want to let Luna use all of her skill at once because it will make her get confused and having the opposite effect of what he wanted. It causes him headache because he doesn't understand most of Luna skill unless she explains it to him one by one and he won't bother with it for now. If Luna can be proficient in one skill like the frost joke, it can become the team saving ace in dire situation and he want to have that kind of card in hand.

When Ryou's experience bar have reached 30%, Luna have leveled up to level 9 and it was unknown what skill she will learn. Gefa already leveled up to level 8 and their team is doing pretty well. Due to the number of monster at the impossible difficulty level dungeon, Ryou isn't lacking any target to kill and hunt. Although his level isn't increasing as fast as he hopes, the material and drops from the monster is still a good haul since for every attack he did he is basically burning money for every arrow is consumable.

Ryou, Luna and Gefa are now resting at a safe location inside the dungeon. It already took them 7 hours and they have only made 20% progress on the dungeon. It was clear the 5 times monster and 5 times attributes makes it almost 25 times longer than normal. For a normal dungeon dive of the beginner's village dungeon, it usually takes an hour time. For Ryou, Luna and Gefa to finished theirs, it may take 35hours and even longer considering they will need a longer time in killing the dungeon boss.

The dungeon boss itself need around 20 minutes to kill in the normal dungeon. Ryou doesn't dare to calculate how much time will his party need to kill it. There's also another situation that made them stuck. Ryou's arrow is running out and more importantly Gefa have something to do and need to logged out. The problem is, they can't log out inside the dungeon. Either they cleared the dungeon or they give up the dungeon. Without any choice left, they are forced to give up the dungeon.

"I'm sorry, I made you guys give up the dungeon."

"Don't worry. In the first place we don't put our hopes in clearing it. It will be sufficient if we get enough drops and reach level 10."

Not long after they sort out their gains, Gefa logged out of the game. It leaves Ryou and Luna together again. Ryou isn't sure of what to do. He will mostly go to the field and find some monster to kill. He also wants to train his own ability. He realizes that as time goes by, his archery accuracy seemed to go down. It was because he can't keep concentrating all the time. It was also because he only has 1 point in dexterity.

For other archer, the system will aid them in aiming and keeping their concentration high according with the point that they distribute to the dexterity attributes. It was already a miracle for Ryou to depend on his archery skill alone. He however insists on keeping his attributes distribution at strength and instead of depending on the system assistance if he put point in dexterity, he wanted to increase his ability.

He also has a goal while he is in the beginner's village. Which is to kill the tempest wolf. Although he is now familiar with the tempest wolf's attacking pattern, he has suffered a lot of level down because being killed by it.

Just when he is thinking on what to do with Luna, she decided to do something else which she already planned.

"Alright Ryou, I'm off to the village's dining hall. I'll be there for quite some time because I want to taste every kind of dish that they serve."

Although players on the beginner's village have their hunger stat locked, Luna still wanted to eat the food inside the game. It wasn't because some food has an attribute boost gained from eating it but it was because Luna's own goal. She wanted to enjoy the game and one of the best way to enjoy it is through eating delicious delicacies.

Right now, Ryou is thinking on what he needs to do. Ryou is already living in a convenient era where everything is assisted by machine. For people who did archery at this age, their aiming is already assisted and there isn't a contest for accuracy anymore. Most of the time it will be a contest of who can launch the most arrow in ten seconds or who can hit the most target.

Ryou on the other hand still relying on the old practice of his family. Where he never used the assistance of machine and aimed manually. To tell the truth, Ryou's accuracy is not losing to the machine but the problem is his concentration that is decreasing as time goes by. After all, it wasn't usual for someone to keep their concentration up for every attack and it put a great burden on their mental state.

Ryou actually have a few ideas on what kind of training that he need. He walks towards the archery range of the beginner's village where he first got info on his father. While walking, he also remembered the time when he starts training his archery.

The three years old Ryou is forced to keep the horse stance and his leg are wobbly. It was clear that it was too much for him to train like this. His body is still young and it wasn't suitable for hard and taxing exercise. His father however doesn't seem to care about that.

"Remember Ryou, keep your stance. The longer you can maintain your stance, the longer you will be able to survive in the battle field."

It was strange for his father mentioning the battle field in this peaceful times where every nation is united to strive for better tomorrow. It was also because his family roots are coming from a famous archer lineage that they still keep on practicing archery in the old ways.

While Ryou is gritting his teeth and tears streaming down his face, he heard his father giving him a lecture.

"Remember Ryou, strength is everything. For an archer, our accuracy is without a doubt need to be as accurate as possible; but our family believe in the importance of strength. It was different from other that believe an archer should be nimble, fast, and quick when shooting, our ancestor believe that an arrow should have strength in it. We don't need to be able to shoot five arrows in one shot. We don't need to be able to shoot ten arrows in five seconds. We only need to be able to shoot one arrow. However, you need to remember this. One arrow, one kill."

Ryou also realized that the terms one arrow one kill can only be applied on the old style battle which is happened more than a century ago. It was on a battle between human where this tactic speaks true. Inside the game like Aaru, Ryou feels that a one arrow one kill wasn't possible since even if his arrow pierced the other party brain, they won't die as long as their HP is still full.

However, as Ryou played the game, he wanted to believe in his father believes. It can also be explained in physics. Dexterity may be able to increase an archer damage due to the nimbleness of the hand that is used to maximize the flexibility of the bow strings at the peak draw. Using strength however will achieve the same goal as strength is needed to be able to draw the bow strings to its maximum limit. Some bow will use a less flexible bow strings which will produce more force when it was stretched.

When Ryou arrived at the archery range of the beginner's village, he has some plan in mind. Firstly, he can change his bow with another one that have a higher damage rating. This however won't require him to practice and this won't increase his own ability.

Secondly, he can increase his strength so he can exert more power when pulling the bow strings but inside the game it can only be increased if he leveled up.

Thirdly, he can practice shooting while moving technique. It is one of the thing that he wants to try out. All this time, Ryou is only aiming while standing still and he realize that it wasn't possible for him to do that every time. In this world where a monster may run after you and not giving you a chance to peacefully aim, he need to have this kind of skill where he dodging the monster while keep attacking. This is one of the ability that he wanted to try out at the archery range.

Another plan in his mind is keep training his mental state so it will be sustained for a longer time. He also realized that it will be taxing and he planned out another option. Using his concentration to the maximum for the moment when he was about to attack. Right now he always keeps his concentration high all the time. From the moment he saw the monster, take out his arrow and aiming, he keeps his concentration all the way through the process. How about if he keeps his concentration low when he saw the monster and take out his arrow; and only maximizing it when he is aiming. This way, he can at least reduce 80% of the mental burden on his brain but he need to get used to this.

Right now, Ryou looked at the target at the archery range and start to execute his plan.