The Viridian Mushroom boss was the only boss monster of the Dead Woods.
It was a massive mushroom with a greenish-white stem and a large bluish-green umbrella-like head. While it was a mushroom, it had humanoid features to it, with a face and arms.
The face almost appeared drawn onto the surface of the monster, but it moved enough to know that it was indeed a face. Its arms were large branches that came out from either side of the stem, sweeping the ground from time to time.
Even compared to its large body, its arms were nearly three times as long, allowing it to nearly reach the very edge of the dip in which it grew.
Jax remembered what he had read about this monster.
There were exactly three things that this boss was capable of that one needed to worry about.
The first was the attack with its arm. While slow in its sweep, its arms were large enough that dodging it was difficult unless one was fully focused on dodging.
The second attack was its poison attack, which it launched from time to time. It sprayed spores around the location, poisoning its victims. The poison wasn't so strong that one needed to worry for their life, but it did make one's body slightly lethargic, which might as well be a death sentence when fighting the boss.
Fortunately, the spray was narrow, so it could be dodged.
Finally, its last means of attack was to release other mushrooms that could walk around and have them take care of its attackers. That, however, happened much later when it was closer to death.
Its color changed from green to red at that point, so Jax could tell when that would happen.
Jax stepped back a little and hid behind a tree trunk, watching the party of all men that fought down below. Three of those men were warriors, while the other two were sorcerers.
That seemed to be the best party composition for the 10th Carriage.
They needed two people who could go in and attack. One person who could continuously attack from the back with a bow and arrow or anything ranged. They needed one sorcerer who could defend from attacks and deal damage close by. And finally, the other sorcerer would focus less on attacks and more on obstructing the monster from getting an upper hand on the party.
Loma arrived close by, but he seemed to have noticed the situation already and hid along with Jax.
"That's the boss. They found it."
Jax nodded. "Have you fought the boss yet?"
"You mean the party I worked for? Yes, a few times. But they were people who ran around hunting bosses anyway, so it was easy for them to find it," Loma said. "What do you plan to do now?"
Jax thought for a bit. He quickly opened his Ascendant status and went to his spell to check on something.
To unlock more elements, the Sorcerer must absorb a set amount of elemental Navi and use the spell with it.
"Gemma, will that boss have an Elemental Navi stone?" Jax asked.
"Of course. You read about that, didn't you?"
"I just want to confirm that it's a guarantee."
"Oh yeah, it's certain," Gemma said. "But remember, the loot only goes to the person who kills it."
Jax nodded. He thought for a moment, slightly conflicted. The unspoken rule of any hunting ground was that you did not interfere with someone else's monster. However, at this point, Jax wasn't sure if he could afford it.
If he wanted to leave the 10th Carriage within the month, he needed to do something soon. "What happens if I kill it, but I'm not there to gather the loot?"
"You will have about 20 seconds to gather the loot. If you fail to gather it at that time, the loot will become public for anyone to take," Gemma explained.
"Alright," Jax said. "So if I wanted that, I can't just kill the monster. I must go there and get the loot as well, huh?"
Jax wondered if the better thing to do was to wait for the party of people to lose and then take his time fighting the monster. That way, things could be a little less complicated.
"Heads up! We're not the only ones," Loma quickly said, his eyes gesturing far away to the side.
Another group of people had arrived outside the perimeter of the boss's ground at some point and were watching the fight below.
'Shit!'
Things got even more complicated.
Even if the ones fighting the boss right now were to lose, the chance that Jax would get to fight the boss on his own was now abysmally low. No matter how good a person they were to stay behind and watch everything unfold, they wouldn't allow a single person to take over the chance to fight the boss by himself.
"Alright, no more waiting around," Jax said. "I have only one shot at this. I must land the last attack no matter what."
Loma stared at him with a stunned look. "You're doing this?"
Jax nodded. "Stay around, and stay vigilant. I'll see what I can do from the other side."
Jax left Loma there and circled around the crater, moving to the other side where he would be in the boss's blind spot. In that position, even the people fighting the boss from the other side wouldn't be able to see him coming.
He was also opposite the other party that wasn't involved just yet, but most likely would be.
Jax hid himself behind a tree for the time being, waiting for the opportune moment. That would take some time to come since first, the boss monster had to dip in health enough for Jax to be able to kill it properly.
That would only happen when the mushroom's head turned from viridian to carmine. So, Jax waited for that precisely.