The moment he started killing those twenty crocodiles, he was deeply immersed in the game, so he didn't notice he was being watched.
Twenty crocodiles, level three each, gave him forty Xp each. He wasn't that lucky this time, as five monsters managed to slip away from him the moment their Hp declined below fifty percent.
So, he got only six hundred Xp, slightly less than he wanted to level up. Just as he was about to collect the materials from them, he noticed a few shadows moving in the distance, coming straight at him.
"Are they players?" he muttered, as he felt surprised to find players at this place beside him. He waited for a few seconds until they reached him, a team made of nine players, seemed ready to try out a dungeon.
"Hello my friend, great job here, are you at level three?" the player, who was carrying two shields in hand asked, as he seemed to be the leader of this group.
Bloom wasn't welcoming their intrusion on his place, and so he started collecting level three materials from the bodies of these monsters, while saying:
"No, but I will soon reach there."
He didn't notice the looks over the players faces, as his gathering speed to materials was more efficient and took shorter duration then what they used to have.
"That's great, we all have reached level two as well, and we want to raise the stakes and head directly towards a dungeon," that shield bearer player said, while inviting him, indirectly to join the team.
Bloom wasn't that welcoming to play with others, but he also wanted to test the dungeons, to see if he could clear them alone or not.
Dungeons were a great way to level up, and by the looks of things, this team had already tried the dungeon and failed.
"Is there a dungeon nearby?" he asked, while he left a monster body, and headed for another. Each monster granted him five different materials of level three materials, which he all stored in his inventory, waiting for the time he would go to the village and use them.
"Dungeon?" one of the players said, in a tone that didn't like Bloom, "there are endless dungeons here," he added, pointing his hand all over the place.
The shield bearer glanced at the player, shortly, before he replied:
"There is one dungeon nearby, level three dungeon, a place we can handle ourselves well in, wanna join us?"
Bloom liked the way this shield bearer handled things, and he wanted to try these dungeons out, so he said, while busying himself with the monsters:
"Sure, let me finish here and we can all move out."
"Nice," the shield bearer said, "I will send you an invitation now," he added. As Bloom was busy gathering the materials, a system prompt came in.
"System alert: player Gored the leg had invited you to join his team, do you accept?"
'Why is this name sounds quite familiar?' That was the first thing Bloom had in mind when he heard that name. He didn't think much about it, as he accepted the add.
"System alert: you are now part of Gored the leg team."
He continued to gather materials, which took a few minutes to finish. He noticed the weird looks from the others towards him, but he said nothing. After he finished, he started to observe the team.
From the first glance, this team wasn't hastily made, and the factions there were carefully selected. There were one from each faction, and two from weapon wielder and shield bearer factions.
With his presence, there would be three swordsmen in the team, which made this class the most popular one here.
"Good, are you ready to go?" the team leader, Gored, said while patting on Bloom's shoulder.
Bloom shrugged his shoulders, in a natural way, as he didn't like this intimate behavior, while saying:
"Sure, let's go."
Gored just smiled and went up ahead while the assassin in the group led the way. As Bloom didn't have anything to do, he opened the list of the team members, and started reading their names and classes.
Just as he was reading, his eyes fell on a certain name, someone who made him feel electrified when he read it.
'No wonder the name of this team seemed familiar!'
This team wasn't known yet, but years to come it would be widely recognized as one of the strongest independent teams in the whole game.
This wasn't a fluke, but it was due to the presence of one player, the legendary carder!
Of course she was now playing in a healer class, a normal light daughter faction class that many had chosen, but Bloom knew in the later days, she would fulfill the requirements for the secret class, and became the legendary carder.
She was a dreadful character that no one would even want to cross path with, much darker than even the darkest liches and necromancers. He didn't know why she ended up being like that, as the female player he was seeing right now wasn't the bad or dark at all.
There was one more thing he cared about regarding this group. It would grow larger in the future, but it was rumored that in the early days, a certain player joined them, the player who would trigger the first mainline quest of the whole game.
The quest to save the shrine!