The Strongest Way to Use ‘Seeding’
The magic ‘Seeding,’ granted to Farmers from the very beginning.
It’s a magic whose power depends on one’s magical energy, allowing any and all plants to take root in any and all existences; in JRO, it’s a broken-tier magic, ranking among the top five.
And now, the ‘Seed of the World Tree’ I planted on the Forest Dragon is the plant that, among all plants existing in JRO, can most efficiently drain an enemy’s HP and MP.
Its speed is 2% every 3 seconds.
The Forest Dragon recovers 1% of both its HP and MP every 3 seconds, so it takes about exactly 5 minutes to completely drain them.
Though, with average player skill, you’d be caught by the Forest Dragon and die within those 5 minutes of draining…
Thwomp! I dodged the Forest Dragon’s claw attack as it swung down with great force.
…My current level is 20. My Growth Stat is also maxed out, so I have more than double the stats of JRO’s record for the lowest level dragon subjugation.
My PS, honed from playing JRO literally to death, is no ordinary thing!!
“‘Tillage: Lotus Root Field’!! And then ‘Grass Cutting’!”
I thrust my hoe into the ground, transforming it into a mud bog, and cut down several surrounding trees to obstruct the Forest Dragon’s path. However, the Forest Dragon, utilizing its overwhelming weight, brushed everything aside and charged towards me.
It was as if it were saying my petty tricks wouldn’t work.
However, while the Forest Dragon has extremely high HP, Attack, Defense, and Magic Defense stats, its Agility is quite slow, and on top of that, it doesn’t unleash wide-range attacks like a breath weapon—it’s an opponent you’d struggle against in a pure slugfest, but it’s also a monster quite weak to the current strategy of using ‘Seeding’ for an indirect attack, aiming for fixed damage and stalling.
Even in JRO, among the dragons that can be defeated with an extreme low-level restriction, this Forest Dragon is counted as one of the weakest.
What an incredibly convenient situation.
It almost makes me think the JRO staff were saying, “‘Farmers’ should use the ‘Seed of the World Tree’ found here to subjugate the Forest Dragon.”
THOOOOOOOM.
As I was running around like that, I heard a thunderous roar from behind me.
It was the sound of the massive Forest Dragon breathing its last and collapsing.
“I-It’s not that I doubted you, but… you really defeated it! A dragon!”
“Phew.”
I wiped the sweat from my brow, relieved that we had safely subjugated the Forest Dragon without any injuries. …I was confident in the stamina of this life’s body, but even so, I’m pretty tired.
“Haito, you’re really amazing!! To think you’d defeat a dragon at your age!! …While you were being chased, Haito, I was really on edge. It was scary, but.
I’m so glad you’re alive—!!!!”
“Oof.”
Ragna lunged at me and hugged me.
Perhaps because I was exhausted from the sudden-death game of tag with the dragon, I couldn’t catch Ragna and fell to the ground.
I gently placed my hand on the head of Ragna, who was teary-eyed while tightly gripping my collar.
“Thanks for worrying about me.”
“Of course! I’m Haito’s future wife, after all!”
Ragna said that and gave me a quick peck on the cheek.
This time, I faced the dragon on a whim and with momentum, but… from now on, I thought I should be more cautious and make thorough preparations.
Because unlike JRO, this world doesn’t have things like continues.
While thinking such things, I decided to collect the materials from the defeated dragon and—that.
◇
In JRO, the evaluation of ‘Seeding’ as an offensive magic is actually quite low.
That’s because, in the first place, even when using the ‘Seed of the World Tree,’ which is considered the most efficient, it takes at least two and a half minutes to defeat an enemy with no HP recovery. On top of that, dragons like the Forest Dragon—which are relatively low-level among dragons, don’t use area-of-effect attacks or breaths, and for which the damage from the Seed of the World Tree exceeds their auto-regeneration—are actually quite rare.
Moreover, around the time this extreme low-level dragon subjugation method was discovered, most JRO addicts, myself included, had already surpassed level 90, so it was faster and more efficient to just beat them down normally. That’s part of the background.
However, if you don’t focus on its performance as an offensive magic, ‘Seeding’ could be called one of JRO’s most broken spells.
I plucked a fruit from the short World Tree that had grown on the Forest Dragon’s back and ate it.
A crisp, satisfying crunch, followed by an overflowing, apple-like sweet taste.
It was a miraculously delicious taste that quenched my dry throat after exercising.
“Ragna, you want some too, right?”
“Eh? Is it okay?”
I give one Fruit of the World Tree to the hesitant Ragna. I’ll take one back as a souvenir for Reina too.
Thinking that, I put the Fruit of the World Tree into my pocket.
This Fruit of the World Tree is a magical ingredient that, when eaten, has an even greater effect of increasing HP and MP than the seed. In JRO, ‘Seeding’ was mainly used to mass-produce these Fruits and Seeds of the World Tree.
Because this skill and item existed, the HP and MP of all JRO addicts were at the upper limit of 65535.
But that was just because the computer’s upper limit was FFFF; whether there’s an upper limit in this world is truly a mystery.
Honestly, when I learned about the infinite mass production of the Fruit of the World Tree through ‘Seeding,’ I thought the devs had really messed up the balancing, and I also thought it was pretty broken…
But, I also have memories of getting easily beaten to a pulp and killed in ‘that field’ I went to after maxing out my HP and MP and surpassing level 100, so I can’t get complacent with just this.
Still, as a JRO addict, I want to at least max out my HP and MP, and while I’m at it, I want to max out Reina’s and Ragna’s too.
Well, this is something where sheer grinding speaks volumes, and it’s not something that can be done overnight, so I plan to aim for it slowly.
And so, after all that, we collected all the Fruits of the World Tree (I plan to take out the seeds and dry them after we finish eating the fruits), and Ragna and I struggled to drag the dragon’s corpse back to the Adventurer’s Guild.
It probably weighed a ton, but by laying down round tree branches, utilizing Ragna’s red magic and my Tillage, and improvising, we somehow managed to carry it all the way.
“I-I’m exhausted.”
“Yeah. Carrying it might have been more tiring than subjugating it.”
I’m seriously wiped out. But, with the subjugation of the Forest Dragon and the submission of its materials, there’s no way we’ll lose this week’s Weekly Assignment.
We’re heading to the Adventurer’s Guild now to report—