Finn also took advantage of their numbers and focused on battling with one monster at a time without assistance.
He asked them not to interfere unless he got seriously injured, and he said it’d be fine if they focused on their own fights.
A portion of the monster mobs were already toughened level by this time, and they were busy protecting themselves.
Still, they couldn’t help but gape sometimes, especially when there were no monsters near them anymore.
Finn... was quite nice to watch.
There was not much of the brute power and strength that they were used to, especially considering the weapon he was using, but his movements were filled with accuracy, dexterity, and even grace.
In a sense, it was a bit reminiscent of the movements he had with his knives in the kitchen.
They watched as an arc of fire appeared when Finn swung his halberd, hitting the monster smack to the face. The flame dissipated a bit, spreading at the point of contact and exacerbating the damage.
ROAR!
"Whoa! That’s Blade of Fire!" one of the adventurers said. "The skill scroll for that is seriously expensive. Even if I save up for a year, I might not be able to buy it!"
Finn’s eyebrows rose a bit when he heard it, but he continued with his battle, steadily battling an awakened monster one after the other, but never at the same time.
The only exception would usually be when the monsters clustered together, in which case he’d cooperate with others. He injured a few monsters with this attack, and he jumped up, taking advantage of the monsters’ weaknesses to hook, stab, and slash them to death.
Then, while the monsters scurry to attack whatever was nearest them, he’d jump up and stab the soil underneath the cluster. A second later, the soil softened, and a few monsters were immediately imbalanced.
A brootrat even appeared like it was drowning in soil .
Since his upgrade, the [Sticky Soil] skill has also increased in its efficiency and area of effect. Before, it could only consume a few legs; now, it could consume a small monster, even if just for a few seconds.
This skill was also familiar to a few adventurers, especially those with earth affinity. "Whoa! Sticky Soil! It’s so convenient! Quick, hit the monsters trapped! It will only last a few seconds!"
Just before a monster could bite Finn and make him prematurely cut off the skill, the nearest teammates attacked the monsters.
One of the people nearest to him was Micc, the thin earth mage of the Lian Adventurer team.
He was quick to react and immediately transformed the soil into spikes, and because it was soft a second prior, he was able to summon bigger spikes than before. They instantaneously hardened into sharp spikes of soil that ultimately impaled a few monsters in a single shot.
Micc was a Tier 3 Charged mage, which was the magical equivalent of Tier 3 Awakened. Killing more than one monster of the same level, even if they were injured, with a single technique, was quite impressive. Even with the assistance of the [Sticky Soil] technique, this still required precise control.
Except for when it came to food, Micc was quite calm and didn’t show off much. Who’d have thought he had it in him?
Marcus and the others were also surprised that some of them were almost hit by their own enemies!
Victor used a skill to expand the protection scope of his shield. While he pushed back a few beasts, he didn’t forget to glare at his companions.
"Focus, damnit!"
The rest of them blushed, refocusing on the task at hand.
Finn smiled at their antics before continuing his own battles. He kept trying out his new skills, and also honed his physique and his reflexes.
People saw Finn seemed dependent on his skill, as if every time they looked at him, he was using a skill. It was not entirely bad, but they did worry about his mana.
However, Finn didn’t mind. Not only had he stocked up his mana potions, but the goal of this excursion was to try out his new skills, and so far, they hadn’t disappointed him!
He had [Blade Proficiency] and [Monster Instinct] to guide his movement, but they still weren’t maximized if his own body couldn’t handle it.
It could actually get quite depressing, as if there was a dissonance of sorts, because sometimes his body couldn’t follow what his brain—one that had been enhanced by the passive skills—was trying to do.
The rest of the teams were not idle, with the peak toughened fighters at the edges, blocking the increasing amount of toughened-level monsters that were approaching them.
While most were in the ground, the archers like Leiah and Miya moved from tree branch to tree branch, though the latter had visibly less flexibility in their movements. She also had to jump down a lot, when there were tree swinging monsters that attacked them.
The tree-swinging monsters, relatively prevalent around the borders of Level 1 and level 2, were the awakened-level Swingrels. They would either swing with their tails or hop along seamlessly from branch to branch.
They were just a little bigger than brootrats, but no less annoying.
At some point, Leiah’s face was scratched by a loose branch while avoiding their attacks. With this bit of blood, half a dozen of them started attacking Leiah rabidly, forcing her to jump from branch to branch and then to the ground.
[Thunder Clash]
A current suddenly appeared in front of Leiah, momentarily stunning them, and this gave everyone a chance to cleanly take them down.
Eventually, most of the mob had been handled, and the team left a few awakened-level monsters for Finn. He mentioned that he wanted to train and catch up to his peers, and they respected that. They also just took it as their break time of sorts.
By the time the remaining two monsters had been taken down, Finn received one of the announcements he had been waiting for.
[Skill Upgraded! Blade Proficiency (Lv2) → Blade Proficiency (Lv3)!]