The silence of the deep forest was a stark contrast to the chaotic battle that had just concluded. Lucas found a secluded, defensible spot miles away from the Sunken Grotto and finally allowed himself to process the events of the last few hours. Kael, sensing his master's pensive state, lay at his feet, a silent and formidable guard.
The victory had been absolute, the rewards paradigm-shifting. He pulled up his status screen, the glowing blue panel a welcome sight.
[Player: Lucas] [Level: 7 (+4)] [Class: Tamer]
The experience from a server-first World Boss kill was astronomical. Four levels in a single fight was a pace unheard of in Arcadia's ruthless early game. Kael had jumped to Level 9, his stats now firmly in a tier that could dominate any regular monster in the region.
More importantly, Lucas had a new skill, unlocked at Level 5.
[Skill Unlocked: Designate Target] [Cost: 10 Mana] [Effect: The Tamer designates a single target, analyzing its weaknesses. For the next 15 seconds, all attacks made by the Tamer's summon against that target are guaranteed critical hits.]
A cold, satisfied smile touched Lucas's lips. It was perfect. The skill didn't boost his own pathetic damage; it amplified his true weapon—Kael—by leveraging his own high Intelligence. It was a skill made for a strategist.
Finally, he examined the prize from the Golem's corpse.
[Item: Guardian's Heart (Legendary)] [A core of pure, condensed geo-mana. Used in master-level crafting and rituals.]
His [System Insight] flared, providing the hidden details. [A key catalyst for the 'Colossus' Tamer specialization quest. Requires a Master-ranked Blacksmith and the 'Forge of the Ancients' to be crafted into the 'Aegis of Command' armor set.]
A long-term project, then. Another piece on a chessboard he was only just beginning to map out. He had the EXP, a new synergistic skill, a legendary reagent for his endgame gear, and most valuable of all, a debt owed by Helios. He was no longer just surviving. He was building an arsenal.
Curiosity piqued, he opened the global server forums for the first time. The entire front page was an explosion of posts about the World Boss.
[HELIOS GETS SERVER FIRST ON AWAKENED GROTTO GUARDIAN!!!] [What the hell is a Grotto Guardian? Not on any beta list!] [Video proof or it didn't happen!] [Leak from a Helios member: Said they got wiped, then the boss just 'crumbled.' Sounds like an exploit to me...]
Lucas felt a flicker of bitter irony. His genius was, once again, being mistaken for a cheat. But this time, he was a ghost. No one mentioned a Tamer. Evelyn was clearly keeping her side of the bargain, taking the public glory and the private questions that came with it. For now, anonymity was his shield.
Miles away, in a private room at the Howling Hearth tavern, Evelyn slammed her fist on the table.
"Explain it to me again," she said, her voice dangerously low. Her guildmates flinched.
"We... we don't know, Captain," her warrior replied, his voice shaky. "He just... knew. He saw a weakness we couldn't. The leash mechanic, the flower being its heart... it wasn't normal."
"He's not normal," Evelyn corrected, her mind replaying the entire battle. The calm, the control, the cold, ruthless terms of his deal. He hadn't been a player fighting a monster; he'd been a surgeon dissecting a problem. "He sees the game differently. He's not playing by the same rules as us."
She looked at her team. They had the fame of a server-first kill, but they had no loot to show for it and were now indebted to the very person the world considered "Tamer Trash."
"Find him," she ordered. "I don't want him attacked. I want him watched. I want to know every quest he takes, every monster he fights, every material he gathers. I want to know how he does it."
Back in his camp, Lucas logged out of the forums. The world's reaction was a predictable storm he had no interest in weathering. He had more immediate concerns. The debt from Helios was a powerful card to be played later. The Guardian's Heart was a goal for the distant future. He needed a new, immediate objective to leverage his newfound power.
His mind returned to the intel from the tavern. To the whispers of Guild Scorch. The player-killers who were monopolizing resources and preying on low-level players. They were bullies, using brute force to control the market. They were inefficient. They were arrogant. And they were a system ripe for exploitation.
A wolf doesn't hunt a bear. It hunts the weakest members of the herd, picking them off one by one. Guild Scorch saw solo players as sheep. They wouldn't be expecting one of the sheep to have teeth.
Lucas looked at Kael, who had grown into a lean, powerful predator. He opened his map and marked the location of the Old Quarry, the reported center of Scorch's activity. The path to power wasn't through grinding on mindless monsters. It was through dismantling his rivals.
He was done reacting. It was time to start hunting.