Chapter 35- Preparation

~Mira~

Mira lay awake on her bed, unable to get to sleep. The conversation she’d had earlier today kept flowing through her head like a video on repeat that she just couldn't stop.

“Are you sure we’ll be able to kill something like that at level 200,” Arthur had voiced his concerns when she showed him the monster she had chosen to use the elixir on.

After a lot of planning and forethought, Mira was certain she’d picked an appropriate if slightly ambitious target. It possessed an extremely high vitality, meaning it would survive the elixir for a little longer. That meant they had more time to kill the beast. Letting it die in its own time would be child's play, but her skill told her that would spell disaster.

She only had one potion.

One chance.

And the longer the fight goes on, the less potent the blood becomes.

A fight against a true level 200 beast was tantamount to suicide, Arthur's inflated stats be damned. Such a monster would have undergone a minimum of three evolutions, with each subsequent change raising its danger level exponentially.

It was the main reason why monster hunting became so dangerous as people levelled up. Not easier as logic would lead one to believe. No matter what, humanity simply could not keep up with the growth of beasts. Hell, you'd need a party of three elite rankers at an equivalent level to challenge the beast she'd set her eyes upon.

Fuck, will we even be able to beat it at 29% strength?

“It's probably the easiest fight we’ll be able to get with your insane investments into constitution. Just how is that stat of yours, anyway? The lizard specialises in strength but lacks in basically everything else. Almost an antithesis to your even distribution in physical attributes. With your agility, it shouldn't be too hard to avoid its attacks. It's pretty damn slow. Plus it won't be anywhere near as strong as it would have been if it reached that level naturally.”

Mira had tried to reassure him, addressing all of his uncertainties.

And her own.

Even with Arthur on her side, she wasn't sure that they could take down a monster over a hundred levels above them. At level 72, the lizard's strength would explode up to a level 216 monster after the elixir took effect.

Albeit an unstable, weak and dying monster but a level 216 beast nonetheless. Could they even hurt something like that? The day her questions would be answered was rapidly approaching and dawn was only a few hours away. They had decided to finish the foolish endeavour they had planned as soon as possible, and neither of them needed much preparation.

Mira was surprised to realise that she felt a little guilty about the fact that she had dragged Arthur into her mess. It was a feeling that she rarely experienced, if ever and it was unsettling that a man she had only met recently could evoke such a strong emotion from her.

Perhaps it was due to the fact that he reminded her of her younger brother, or maybe it was because he seemed so naive at times. And yet, he’d suddenly appear so different; like a part of himself that he was trying to suppress made its presence known, a cold calculating adult who had seen far too much in life.

Mira didn't know which was the real Arthur and frankly, she didn't really care. In any case, it would be better for her if he wasn't such a child. It would make their chances of success so much greater and Mira would much rather befriend the much more imposing persona of Arthur Ward than the childish young man he often appeared to be.

I need to get something done. I’ll go crazy if I just continue lying down here. In any case, I don't really even need to sleep with how high my endurance currently is.

It was more a leisurely vice she still allowed herself nowadays. And since she couldn't get any rest anyway, Mira decided to get out of bed and do something productive to raise their chances of success tomorrow. It was time to do some alchemy.

As her skill revolved around poison, she couldn't really create anything that wouldn't cause debilitating side effects if ingested, even if she tried to make something with only beneficial properties.

But she could make some pretty powerful stimulants.

The only problem was that they would probably leave you sitting on the toilet for a week after drinking it. She didn't think Arthur would mind the adverse side effects too much. Well, she hoped not.

She wouldn't tell him just in case.

~Arthur Ward~

Arthur woke up feeling refreshed. He’d managed to get an excellent sleep last night after almost exhausting his ether to power level Frank and Rachel. Using magic drained him in a unique way that physical exertion never could, though he very much preferred the burning sensation of a good workout.

He was almost surprised he didn't feel worse after spending 2500 ether; instead, it felt like he’d just exercised a forgotten muscle and gotten it warmed up properly. Like a new limb, he felt that he was now better adapted to using the strange energy as if the mental stats he'd absorbed from the rodent king was now truly his.

It seemed that expending the vast majority of one's ether reserves had great results in increasing one’s familiarity with the ethereal energy and so Arthur promised himself to do it regularly from now on. Still, I need to learn how to actually manipulate water. As he was right now, Arthur wouldn't be surprised if the system saddled him with a common ranked skill when he finally evolved his water manipulation.

He looked at the time. It was only half-seven and he still had forty-five minutes to get to the agreed-upon destination to meet with Mira. Still, it was always better to be early in almost every case, so Arthur quickly showered and got dressed.

When he left the house, he still had twenty-five minutes to go. With his 118 stat points in agility, that was plenty of time. Arthur began to run. There was nothing quite as liberating as the ancient form of movement and Arthur marvelled at the speed he was travelling at, feeling the wind whip into his face as he passed cars that seemed to be moving at a crawl.

The resistance would have been incredibly annoying, but Arthur's constitution made sure that he was spared from the debilitating effects of wind in his eyes. They would have long dried out by now if that wasn’t the case.

When Arthur arrived at the cafe that he had most recently visited with his team, he saw that Mira was already waiting for him at a table, sipping from a cup of cappuccino.

She waved him over, and he quickly made his way to the table. Arthur observed that Mira had the same bow with her that she’d been using yesterday and Arthur knew now that whilst she was no master, she could at least use it adequately.

Besides the dangerous weapon on her person, Mira was dressed like a normal civilian would have before the system. The absence of armour would have been deemed foolish by anyone with even a little experience in hunting monsters except in their case, they had one very good reason for their oversight.

In the upcoming fight, it wouldn't matter if they had the best protection Earth currently had to offer. If they got hit even once, they’d be dead. Burst like a rotten watermelon that fell to the ground, protein paste for any monster that found their remains.

It would be game over.

The realisation that he would be dancing on the edge of disaster got Arthur’s blood pumping, but he quickly clamped down on those crazy instincts of his. They would get him killed, and he needed to be calm and collected, not a battle-junky running on adrenaline.

Smiling at Mira, Arthur took a seat at the table.

“So are you ready, or do you need to prepare something with that alchemy of yours?”

Mira slowly shook her head no and Arthur saw that beneath her carefully applied makeup, she had slight bags under her eyes. She’d done an all-nighter, and Arthur hoped her lack of sleep wouldn't affect her performance today. Their survival depended on it.

Mira reached into the backpack beside her and carefully pulled out three glass vials. Placing them on the table in front of her she began to speak, her voice a little husky.

“These are for you. They should help close the gap in power between you and the monster, at least a little.”

She pushed them towards him. When Arthur identified them, he whistled appreciatively. This was some good stuff.

Stimulant of Speed (Common) - Raises agility by 25% when ingested for a 3-hour duration. Can only be used whilst below level 95. May cause stomach cramps if the host has low vitality.

25% was a huge bonus and Arthur was shocked at the power contained within the liquid before him. He was a little leery of the side effect mentioned which he noted that Mira had decided to not tell him about. Perhaps she didn't think it was important enough to mention or thought that it wouldn't affect him with his inflated stats.

That was just one of the goodies the poison alchemist had brought though, and Arthur greedily identified the other two. One was exactly the same as the first, except that it was green instead of red and instead raised his vitality, at the cost of loose bowels. The last one, however, was far more potent than the other two.

It had an uncommon rating.

Stimulant of Constitution (Uncommon) - Raises constitution by 60% when ingested for a 4-hour duration. Can only be used whilst below level 105. Will cause extreme tiredness after its effects wear off and reduce health regeneration by 50% for 12 hours.

These potions would make him much, much stronger and Arthur doubted Mira really knew exactly by how much. After all, he hadn't told her just how insane his stats were, she had just guesstimated from his tanking capabilities yesterday.

Without the aid of these, Arthur suspected he had the attributes of someone who had reached level 140 with a common class. He wasn’t too sure, as he was aware that the number of stats gained per level changed when someone unlocked a class depending on its rarity, just not the exact numbers.

With the potions, however, Arthur was certain his strength shot up to a level 180 common classer at the least, who had specced mainly into his physical attributes. Heck, maybe he could actually tank a hit or two from the lizard with the uncommon stimulant.

Nope, that's not something I want to find out, he strictly warned himself before he got any stupid ideas.

“Stop ogling and just drink them,” Mira snapped.

It seemed her lack of sleep had done no favours for her shitty attitude.

“Wait, you want me to drink them now? Why not wait for when the fight starts?” Arthur asked, surprised at her impatience. "What's the rush?"

Mira rolled her eyes like she always seemed to do when being asked a stupid question. Arthur had realised that she did that a lot around him.

“Because, Arthur. Do you think you’ll be able to get used to the massive changes the potions cause just before the fight? It’ll feel like you're doubling your level and we’ve not got the luxury of giving you time to consolidate your gains,” she explained, adopting a lecturing tone.

She reminded him of his first-grade teacher, Mrs Todds, not a pleasant memory to say the least.

“Are you sure I should do that here?”

Arthur nervously looked around at all the customers gathered in the small cafe.

“What happens if that- what did you call it, that aura thing I have? What happens if it goes out of control? Won't it affect everyone here?”

Mira nodded her head, with an amused smile on her face, finding the young man’s question quite funny. It revealed Arthur’s ignorance about auras and how they worked, but she decided to cut him some slack.

He hadn’t been to the tutorial after all.

“Okay, we’ll head outside to my car,” she said, trying to ease some of his concerns. Not that it even mattered. Unless his stats were drastically higher than she suspected, then his aura wouldn't undergo any significant changes after ingesting the potions.

Then again, it wouldn't be the first time he completely exceeded her expectations.

Walking towards Mira’s car, Arthur was surprised when he noticed that he no longer felt so awkward around the woman. They were very far from becoming friends, but maybe one day they wouldn't annoy each other so much that they actually managed to enjoy each other's company.

Entering the passenger seat of her Mercedes- Arthur was pretty certain that’s what the vehicle was despite his lack of knowledge regarding cars, he waited for Mira to get in before uncorking one of the vials.

It was time to do some drugs.