“Phew…”
After releasing the Sword Skill, Rozen’s body was stiff for a short while, then gradually returned to normal.
That was what happened when a player used a Sword Skill. After a skill was executed, the user was temporarily rendered rigid in a state called a Post-Motion, during which the user was made vulnerable to any counter-attacks. The higher the level of the Sword Skill used, the longer the «Post-Motion» period was
In addition, after a Sword Skill has been used, the skill entered a Cooling period, which was displayed as a cooling icon at the bottom of the player’s view. Until this period ended, the same Sword Skill cannot be used. However, any other learned skills that were not in a cooling period could still be used.
However, the post-motion could be reduced by using certain equipment or learning certain skills, but it couldn’t be reduced to zero.
“Woo!”
The Rainbow Butterfly circled around Rozen’s head, which seems like it was happy for Rozen too.
“Phhsssh!”
At the same time, in another direction, Kirito also defeated a Little Nepenthes and took a slight breath after entering post-motion like Rozen.
The two looked at each other, and they both smiled.
“What are you slacking off for?”
“You too.”
After exchanging a little banter, they checked the window that popped up in front of them to check what they gained after killing the monster.
As they predicted, the Little Nepenthes granted quite a lot of exp, almost twice the Crazy Boar gave, and the materials it dropped could be sold to NPC for quite a hefty amount of Cor.
“At this rate, I’ll be able to earn back the Cor I spent earlier in three hours, plus I can get a bunch of exp.”
So, Rozen continued to delve deeper into the forest to find the next Little Nepenthes, and so did Kirito. In addition, he used Searching skill to distinguish the Little Nepenthes from other monsters.
Thanks to the “Paralysis Powder” that Rainbow Butterfly had, and the Bronze Sword with quite high attack power, Rozen’s grinding efficiency was higher than Kirito. When Kirito killed his seventh Little Nepenthes, Rozen was already at his tenth.
Then…
“Zheeengg!”
When the tenth Little Nepenthes that turned into polygon shards in front of Rozen disappeared, Rozen heard a certain sound, and his avatar glowed in golden light.
A window popped up in front of Rozen.
“Congratulations! You have leveled up!”
Rozen finally reached level 2.
“Woo!”
The Rainbow Butterfly immediately let out a pleasant cry.
“Congratulations.”
Kirito also congratulated him.
“How about you? Are you almost there?”
Rozen then accessed the main menu and checked his stat points.
After leveling up, he got three additional stat points which could be freely allocated to STR and AGI.
Rozen was wondering for a bit and then asked Kirito behind him.
“What did the leak site say about the best build for One-Handed Sword?”
Kirito then immediately answered.
“2 points of strength and 1 point of agility!”
As expected of a game enthusiasist, Kirito easily answered that without hesitation
But…
“That is the most ideal stat allocation for normal One-Handed Sword user!”
Kirito replied while fighting a Little Nepenthes.
“Because the biggest advantage of one-handed weapons is the ability to equip a shield on the other hand!”
As Kirito said, although players couldn’t equip two weapons at the same time, they could equip one weapon and one shield, provided that the weapon the player equipped was a one-handed weapon, such as a one-handed sword, a one-handed axe, and so on.
The stat allocation that Kirito mentioned was efficient for that end.
But using shield also caused a huge disadvantage. That was because shield was heavy, naturally the player who used it will move slower.
That was why…
“If you don’t want to lose your flexibility and reaction speed, give up on using the shield and switch to speed!”
Kirito shouted while using the Sword Skills called Horizontal toward the Little Nepenthes in front of him. The glowing sword cut through the monster’s skin.
After pondering for a moment, Rozen then decided.
“Switch to speed?”
That was not necessary.
Although Rozen didn’t want to rely on brute force to finish off the enemy, his tamed beast couldn’t deal significant damage to the enemy, so he had no choice but to deal the finishing blow himself.
But if Rozen simply wanted the raw power, he would’ve choosen axe or hammer, but he didn’t.
Therefore, Rozen decided…
“2 points of strength, 1 point of agility.”
This will ensure that he had enough attack power while maintaining a certain degree of flexibility.
Even though Rozen followed the recommended build, he decided to give up using shield.
As he said before…
“If I’m not attacked, there’s no need to think about defense.”
Rozen turned his head and looked in a certain direction.
There was a Little Nepenthes who noticed him and charged straight at him.
He saw the monster charging at him and murmured.
“What a coincidence.”
Rozen then slowly walked toward that Little Nepenthes.
then…
“Huh?”
Kirito, who has just defeated a monster was surprised when he saw Rozen.
because…
“There’s a monster in front of you! Rozen! Open your eyes!”
Kirito shouted desperately.
Yes.
Rozen closed his eyes while approaching the Little Nepenthes.
