Chapter 841: Unique GemNing fought the goblings until he was Level 30. After that, he went over to the worms in the east.
The worm's spawn field was just a field without a dungeon, so Ning fought as long as he could there too, reaching level 35 before he returned to the city.
He was planning to go directly to the dungeon in the north, but it seemed the game wanted otherwise.
He got a notification saying that he had been playing for a bit too long and that he needed to take a break.
When Ning realized that he had been playing the game continuously for over 5 days, he was shocked.
It definitely didn't feel like 5 days. It felt like a single day had passed.
'So long,' he thought to himself. Once he was in the city, he could log out without worrying about leaving behind his game character in the open.
Outside, he would leave behind his character, free for thieves and hunters to steal from him while he couldn't protect himself.
However, in the city, he would simply vanish and reappear when he logged in.
As such, Ning felt no hesitation in pressing the button to log out.
Ning suddenly found himself in a void, confused as to what was happening. It wasn't until the game told him that it was thawing his body did he understand.
[You may return to the game after you're done resting.]
When he finally woke up, he found the capsule door wide open and finally walked out.
Ning felt his brain sting a bit, but he felt no pain as he wasn't capable of feeling pain at all.
'So sleep, huh?' he thought. "I guess I can do that."
Ning jumped into the bed and fell asleep.
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"Divine Grace!" Saphandra shouted, her staff pointed towards a man in crimson armor.
Suddenly, his white wings glowed goldenly, and so did the rest of his body. A buff fell on him, healing him for a portion of his health, and also removing any negative debuffs he might have been facing.
"Thank you, Saph!" the man shouted happily and jumped in front, slamming his chest in front of a skeletal knight.
The skeletal knight turned towards the man and started attacking him. The man was rather slow, and his bulky armor made him even slower.
Instead, he held up a shield and took the knight's attack like it was nothing.
A knight of their own jumped from the side, her golden hair gleaming as if in sunlight, and her glaives slashing at the side of the knight.
Three arrows flew from the back, landing directly on top of each other, every second arrow that landed on the first dealing critical damage.
Finally, the mage that was with them, turned the floor into a pit of ice, that slowed every single movement of the skeletal knight while slowly chipping away its strength.
Bit by bit, the 5 of them managed to bring the knight's HP down and in the end, beat the boss.
A bunch of notifications appeared in front of them all, as Saphandra managed to get a gem.
The description of the gem said that if she embedded the gem onto any items, it would give her a skill in the gem.
As for the skill, she would have to take the gem to a high-level artificer.
She decided to go there.
"Thanks for the help, Saph," the tank came to say. "It's honestly so easy when you're around."
"Nonsense, you could have easily defeated it without me," She said.
"Maybe, but it definitely is so much easier when you're around," the man said. "Dammit! Maybe I should have skipped on being a Neutral faction and went on to become an Angle too."
"Oi, you get to use both Angel and Demon skills. Stop whining," the knight girl spoke up.
"That's from such a small pool though," the man complained.
"Didn't they say the developers would be adding more skills to the pool soon? I'm sure the people who chose the Neutral faction will have a lot better chance than us."
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Saphandra smiled. "I will be leaving now," she said and walked out of the portal that had appeared.
When she appeared out, she was at the opening of an old, decrepit temple in the middle of barren land.
Off to the north, Saphandra could see the city she had come from and walked towards it.
She saw many players along the way, and even some carriages going south from the city.
When she entered the city, there was just a massive number of Angels putting up banners to call for aid in the upcoming war.
It seemed that the demons had already taken over the smaller continent in the south, and it would be a few weeks or months before they decided to come for either of the two continents to the north.
Both Angels and the humans were preparing to fight, and as such there was a call for war everywhere.
Saphandra was still only Level 18, so she couldn't leave just yet, but it wouldn't be long before she would be ready to leave.
She found her way to an analyst guild that was an expert in identifying the hidden secrets behind items that were found in dungeons.
Saphandra walked up the stairs to a room where a man sat, waiting for his customers to come.
"Hi, I want to get something analyzed," Saphandra said.
"Yes, what is it?" the man asked.
Saphandra pulled out the dark-purple gem and handed it to the man. "This," she said.
"Oh… wow," the man said. "I've never seen a gem of this color. Purple… dark at that too. It's a high-level Unique gem for sure."
"Oh," Saphadra was pleasantly surprised. "What skill does it have?"
"Let me see," the man pulled out a magnifying glass and started looking at the gem through it.
"Hmm… hmm… I see," he said. "You are quite lucky. This gem has a fantastic spell that not even the best angels have."
"Oh, what is it?" she asked.
"Resurrection."
Chapter 842: Thunder Lizard's BlessingThe wolves were genuinely terrifying for Ning. Unlike the other beasts he had fought until now, they were fast and did a lot of damage.
Each time he battled a wolf, he had to make sure there weren't any others around. The only time he possibly had an easier time was when the cards he pulled out were Uncommon or higher.
Otherwise, each fight with the wolves felt like a battle to death.
Of course, that was what you got when you went into a level 50 dungeon as a level 35 and started fighting wolves that were between levels 40 and 45.
Each wolf was almost as strong as he was without any equipment. So, he had to be extra careful when he fought.
The dungeon was a massive cave with many different routes and was no better than the maze from the Vileshroom dungeon. In fact, this might even be worse as there were simply too many routes that led to nowhere instead of immediately stopping at a dead end.
However, that also meant that Ning could fight so many of the wolves without fearing running out.
He fought the wolves, took some rest, and then fought some more. As such, he spent away more than 2 hours in the dungeon.
During this time, he killed close to 70 different wolves before finally arriving at the boss's room.
A silver wolf lay on a giant stone in a cave with a massive opening up top. Ning could see the silver moon hovering in the sky above them, giving the wolf even much more of a majestic vibe.
The boss was fast, very fast. It was so fast that Ning simply had no way of dodging its attacks, and after a minute or two of the fight, he died.
10 minutes later, Ning respawned in the city. He opened his inventory to see that he had 70 wolfskins and went right back.
By the time he reached Level 42, Ning had gone through the dungeon 3 times and gathered the 200 pieces of Wolfskin he needed to complete the quest.
"Here it is," Ning pulled out the over 200 Wolfskin and handed it to the Demon tailor.
"Oh wow, you really did it. Thank you," the demoness said.
[Quest Completed]
[You've received 21300 Exp]
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[You've received 6 Gold coins and 39 Silver coins]
"I will make you an awesome belt, just wait," the demoness said. "Come back in 5 hours okay?"
"Okay," Ning said and left the store.
Adding onto the money he had received from other items, Ning now had over 15 Gold coins, so he decided to check what was available on the market. When he opened the setting to go to the market, he remembered about his video.
"They're still calling me a cheater huh?" Ning thought. The video was doing… well? Ning didn't know how to judge numbers.
There were quite a few people in the station, but not all played the game. Even amongst those that did, not everyone watched videos.
This was to say that Ning's video reaching a hundred thousand views likely meant that it was getting quite a bit of traction.
'Well, it's doing better than others for sure,' he thought and wrote a comment.
'There is no cheat here, I just got lucky. If I get lucky again, I'll post the vid.'
After making the comment, Ning went on to the market and started looking for both skills and equipment.
Ning could use up to 7 equipment and he did.
He used Mushroom Hat, Mushroom Armor, Mushroom Shoe, Gobling Bracer, Gobling Spear, Amulet, and a Gobling Earring that gave him some INT and magic resistance.
The worst equipment of the bunch was definitely the Amulet that he bought for such few silver coins. However, it also had Wind Arrows, so he was reluctant to change it.
However, now that he had money, he could most likely find something better there.
He looked for skills first and found a few that he liked. However, he only had 2 more spots for skills after Seed Bullet and the Demon Stats he would get from the humans.
'I can't waste it just like that. I should look for better skills once I have more money,' Ning thought and skipped on skills for now.
Then he went onto the equipment side of the market, filtering by price and type of equipment.
Ning also used further filters to filter it by what stats he wanted in it, whether he wanted a skill or not, whether the skill was active or passive, and such.
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Finally, after a while, he saw a necklace that fit his criteria.
[Thunder Lizard's Blessing (Rare)
INT: 20
DEF: 10
Mana: 450
Mana Regeneration: 3
Level Limit: 50
Chain Lightning: Deals 120% of your INT as magic damage to a single unit, which also jumps to another unit if it is closer than 5 meters from it.
Manacost: 200 Cooldown: 3 seconds
Zap: Every weapon attack that the user deals have a 30% chance of zapping the enemy for 50% of their INT as damage.]
"Wait, 3 seconds?" Ning looked at the skill with a huge smile on his face. He could deal so much damage if he got it. "Plus that Zap skill is brilliant too."
He would happily let go of his amulet and Wind Arrows for this.
"It's 15 gold coins though," Ning thought. 'Also, I won't get to use it immediately, but… it's quite awesome.'
Ning hesitated no more as he bought the item. He lost a massive chunk of his money at once, but that was acceptable with what he was getting out of it instead.
'6 hours huh? I should have the belt ready after that too,' Ning thought. 'I should get my level to 50 by then. After that, I should be able to equip both items.'
With that, Ning went back to the Brownwolf Dungeon. Only this time he decided not to go in alone.
With how high his level was now, he could easily be accepted by any party.
Chapter 843: Removing DebuffNing walked back north, going out of the city when he heard a few demons laying a massive banner by the gate that called for war.
'What's going on?' he wondered and stuck around to see if they were trying to recruit,
"The Demon army is ready to take the north. If you call yourself a demon, go and join the war effort," the demons shouted.
"Let the humans know the terror of our race," another one shouted.
Ning walked up to them. "When is the battle?" he asked.
"In a week. Are you going to join the war?' the demons asked.
"Yes," Ning said. "But not just yet. I'm still weak, so I will have to grow for a day before I can go."
"Good! Your blessed ones will be very helpful to our cause. Come back here tomorrow when you're ready to leave. We will take you," the demons said.
Ning nodded and left.
He arrived at the mountain with the Brownwolf dungeon not long after and looked around for people that were trying to find a party.
Ning found someone that he hadn't seen in a while.
"Brother Triple Shot?" he walked up to him.
"Hmm… oh, brother Energy. It's been a while," TRIPLE SHOT said. He was wearing crimson armor with a dark sword hanging by his waist.
Beside him were 2 people that Ning had never seen before.
"Are you looking for a party member?" Ning asked.
"Ah… ah, yes," TRIPLE SHOT said. "What's your level?"
"42," Ning said.
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"Woah! 42? Really? You must have farmed a lot more than we did then. I'm barely level 36," Triple Shot said.
"Oh," Ning said. "What about the other two?"
"Primal Kite here is a level 38 archer, and Asternum is a level 33 Demon healer. We're now looking for a tank and whatever else we can get," TRIPLE SHOT said.
Ning looked at the man and woman who were the archer and healer respectively.
"I can be the 'whatever' you want," Ning said.
"Really? You want to join us?" TRIPLE SHOT was surprised, given how much the difference in their level was.
"Sure, why not," Ning said. "I only want some help to defeat the boss. That bloody wolf is too tough to do so alone."
TRIPLE SHOT scratched his cheeks a little and added Ning to the party. "You're fighting that one alone too?" he asked.
"Too?" Ning asked.
"That video. That was you, right? The one that defeated the Vileshroom Dungeon so fast," TRIPLE SHOT asked.
ASTERNUM and PRIMAL KITE got curious as well when they heard that.
"Oh yeah, I got lucky there," Ning said. "I'm trying hard here too, but it's hard to get lucky a lot with only B- on LUK stat."
"Oh, how did you get lucky?" TRIPLE SHOT asked.
"My class is luck based. I can either use a very strong skill or use a useless one that places a debuff on me instead. It is so random and frustrating," Ning said.
"And you have a B- LUK stat? Brother Energy, you need to change your character soon," TRIPLE SHOT said. "That's what I did too after all."
"Yeah, I've thought about that, but decided not to in the end. What's the point of playing a game if you want to have the easiest time," Ning said.
"I guess that's one way to look at it," TRIPLE SHOT said.
The group waited around for a while, looking for someone to tank them until they found one.
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A woman named GIFT LORD wore heavy armor and carried a shield, and she was the tank that joined them.
At Level 40, she was generously invited to the party. After all 5 of them were there, they went in.
They immediately started fighting as soon as they saw the first wolf.
GIFT LORD aggro'd the wolf, and while it was distracted, Ning, TRIPLE SHOT, and PRIMAL KITE attacked it.
Their overall damage was about 600 damage per second, and so within 5 seconds, the wolf died.
"Bursting it down with all the spells and attacks honestly makes it all too easy," TRIPLE SHOT said.
"I didn't even have to do anything," ASTERNUM said with a chuckle in her voice.
"You should keep an eye on the HP and heal me if I take too much damage," GIFT LORD said to her. "Also, I don't know if the wolves have any sort of debuff or not, but you will have to help me there."
"They don't," Ning said. He had fought them many times, so he knew what they had and what they did not. Still, he turned around to look at the girl. "You can remove debuffs?"
She nodded. "Not all, but most, yes," she said.
Ning wondered, could she remove his debuff?
Ning pulled out a common card, and while it was useful, he sacrificed it to try out what he had just found out.
Immediately, a debuff landed on him, reducing his vision by a lot. He could barely only see about 5 meters ahead of him.
"Asternum, can you try and see if you can remove this debuff?" he asked.
"You have a debuff?" ASTERNUM was confused. How did he suddenly have a debuff? Still, she saw through the party panel that he did indeed have a debuff and quickly used her skill on him.
Ning felt his vision clear as he could see more of the surrounding. Hell, his vision had even gotten better as he seemed to have gained a slight temporary buff.
'So I can remove these debuffs,' he thought with a smile on his face. If this was possible, then he knew exactly what it was that he wanted to buy from the market next.
"Let's keep going," TRIPLE SHOT said. They went deeper into the dungeon and fought off a lot of wolves before finally finding themselves in front of the Boss's room.
They all took a deep breath before opening the door and walking in.
Chapter 844: Fighting the BossThe Silver wolf sat on the giant stone, basking in the moonlight this time around. It turned its head when it saw them come in and jumped from the huge stone onto the ground below.
Ning and the others got ready to fight.
"Remember to heal me when I start bleeding," GIFT LORD said as she slowly walked forward before any of them. She was the tank, so she had to stand before the wolf.
Ning took his spot in front of the Ranger and the Healer, to the side of the tank. He didn't have any specific role in this fight and was whatever the game wanted him to be.
So, he pulled out the first card to commence the battle.
[Battle Horn: Sounds a horn of battle that increases you and your allies' Attack Speed and Movement speed by 20% for 20 seconds.]
'An uncommon card?' he thought with a surprised look on his face. "Activate."
All 5 of them were suddenly buffed with this new skill, and Ning was buffed twice, as Fate's Aid activated after the Battle Horn too.
GIFT LORD slammed her shield on the ground and taunted the Silver wolf. The wolf immediately focused on her and jumped at her.
Just as the wolf slammed into her, Ning, TRIPPLE SHOT and PRIMAL KITE all attacked at once, emptying their skills on the beast as if it was their last chance.
The Wolf was hit by a few attacks, but it managed to dodge quite a few as well. That was the advantage of quite a high Agility.
Ning launched forward with his spear and jumped behind the Silverwolf, stabbing it in the back.
The Back Attack passive from his spear helped him deal 10% more damage, and with over 160 stats in his STR stat, the damage was close to 150 after all the reduction.
TRIPLE SHOT used some sort of skill to slow down the boss and charged at it, too, but the Wolf was still too fast for his Swordsman class.
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PRIMAL KITE however managed to land every single one of her arrows, sometimes even shooting a volley of them at the boss.
Unfortunately, it seemed that her STR stat wasn't as high, and as thus the boss had quite high physical resistance against her.
The Healer on the other hand had no damaging spell and was thus on the backline doing nothing but healing the tank.
The Silverwolf was still taunted by GIFT LORD, so it jumped at her, and this time scratched at her using its sharp silver claws.
The girl protected herself using a skill, but the boss still managed to scratch her and as such, she got the bleeding status.
"Heal me!" she shouted and continued fighting.
The healer used her healing spell and healed the tank, but then when she tried to dispel the Bleeding debuff, she found that it was undispellable.
"I can't get rid of your bleeding, take care," ASTERNUM shouted back.
GIFT LORD looked at her status. She was bleeding about 100 HP a second, and it would last 10 seconds. The healing spell had healed half the lost HP back, but she still needed a lot more.
She needed to be careful about how she taunted the wolf now.
Ning had the highest level here and as such, even when he didn't have the best STR stats, he was still comparable to TRIPLE SHOT.
So, when he continuously fought with the wolf, dealing even more damage than TRIPLE SHOT could thank to his skills, the boss's aggro started shifting from GIFT LORD to him.
Ning realized it not long after that the boss was staring at him, looking to kill him.
'Shit!' he thought and pulled out a card desperately to survive. As soon as the card came out, he smiled when he realized what it was.
"Activate!"
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Suddenly, Ning blurred for a second as 3 different Nings appeared in the place where Ning had stood previously.
The four party members looked towards Ning and saw 1 real Ning and 2 illusory ones, made entirely of light, very easy to discern.
However, to those that were not his party members, None of the Nings looked any different from each other.
As such, the Wolf had to now kill all three of them to find out which the real one was.
All 3 of the Nings simultaneously moved in 3 different directions, confusing the wolf.
The first Ning jumped directly at the wolf and tried to poke its eyes out. The wolf easily dodged and used its hind legs to kick at the 2nd Ning that was running past it.
That Ning barely dodged the attack, but that let the third Ning rush to the back and deliver a stab.
The Wolf took a large amount of damage from the illusion, as even though it was an illusion, the card that Ning pulled out gave his illusions 100% of his damage.
Furthermore, they could hit critical strikes as well.
The three Nings, along with TRIPLE SHOT and PRIMAL KITE easily brought the wolf's HP down to 50%, at which stage the boss entered its second phase.
The wolf jumped back onto the giant stone and cried to the moon. Suddenly, all around them, wolves appeared.
At first, Ning was ready to fight, but then he realized that they were made up of wind, with some level of illusion to make it look real.
Some of the wolves were far away, while some were close to him, and overall, there were about 40 of them in the room.
Ning readied his spear to fight and the wolves started moving. The wind wolves rushed towards them all at some static speed and Ning dodged to the side while slicing at one of the wolves.
However, his weapons easily passed through, doing nothing. He turned around again, looked at the other wolves that were coming towards him, and got out of the way.
He saw the others try to hit the wolves too, but they simply weren't damaged.
"Oh," he thought. "Just dodge them and don't bother with attacking."
Chapter 845: Level 50The group moved around, easily dodging the wind wolves that came after them. After learning that attacking didn't work and that they only needed to dodge, they focused their entire attention on keeping track of the wolves.
One of the wolves crashed into one of Ning's illusions, destroying it immediately. A while later, the 2nd one was destroyed.
Ning was focused on protecting himself so he couldn't really care about his illusions at the moment. One good thing that did come out of the two illusions dying was that they realized that wolves disappeared after striking with something
Bit after bit, as they dodged, GIFT LORD noticed something. As the slowest person on the team, it was easy for her to see it.
The wolves were getting faster and faster as time went on. When she told the information to the rest of the groups, they realized that as well.
Ning pulled another card and frowned as it did not help him whatsoever. Going invisible at the moment was the least of his desire given how incredibly useless that was in avoiding the wind wolves.
As they got faster and faster, GIFT LORD was the first of them to make a mistake and get struck by the wolves.
"Woah!" she cried out in surprise. "I took a flat 500 damage. I think it might be Absolute Damage."
'I have 3000 HP, I won't need to worry just now,' he thought. GIFT LORD was struck again, and ASTERNUM healed her.
TRIPLE SHOT was hit too and ASTERNUM took damage from one of the wolves. As they got faster, GIFT LORd took another instance of damage, taking exactly 500 damage even when she used her skill to block the attack.
Suddenly, the wolves disappeared.
"Why did they disappear?" GIFT LORD asked.
"They might have been on a timer," PRIMAL KITE said. Like Ning, she had been able to continuously dodge the wolves.
"It was either a timer-based skill or one that disappeared after a number of hits," Ning said.
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"It's supposed to stop after we took what… 5 damage from the wolves?" GIFT LORD asked.
"7," TRIPLE SHOT said as he looked towards Ning. "Your illusions should count as well, right?"
Ning nodded. "If I'm right about the amount, then yes. But it very well could be a timer," he said.
The wolf jumped back into the fray and the fight continued. Ning's skill activated, making him invisible to everyone but himself.
As such, he sneakily went behind the wolf and struck it on the back. Luckily, he also did critical damage at the same time.
GIFT LORD taunted the beast even further, and the rest of them continued fighting.
When the beast was around 20% HP, it entered its 3rd phase, which was simply the wolf becoming even faster and harder to deal with.
Ning used magic damage when he could as most of it was hard to dodge, but in the end, the boss was still too swift.
GIFT LORD had about 20% remaining HP by the time they finally managed to defeat the boss. ASTERNUM quickly healed her, as the notifications started flowing in.
Ning looked at what he had received. Aside from observer stone, and exp, he also received a claw-type weapon.
It was quite a good weapon, but unfortunately, he didn't like it. He could have accepted it a little if it were a sword or an axe, but a weapon of such short range as a Claw was unforgivable.
Especially because of how useless it would be when it came to fighting multiple monsters at once, instead of just a single boss.
"I should be able to find one better later on," he thought.
Once they walked out, the five of them rested for a while to gain back the HP and Mana that they had spent and restarted their fighting all over again.
They did their dungeon run quite a few more times, and in that time, Ning's level slowly improved. By the time they entered the boss's room on the 8th run, he was already on level 49, ready to enter Level 50.
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They started fighting the wolf quickly. By now, they had managed to grasp the boss's fighting style and had gotten stronger as well.
So, it became relatively easier to fight with the boss that hadn't improved in all of this time.
The 5 of them worked like a well-oiled machine, easily chipping away at the boss's health, bringing it down to 50% very quickly.
The boss jumped back onto its seat at the top of the massive stone, and they waited to see what phase it was going to.
There were two possible phases. The first one was where wind wolves would run around, and deal damage to whoever they struck.
The other phase was the one that started to take place.
Ning saw the Silver wolf open its mouth and shoot out a blade of air that could cut the ground too.
The blade was silver in color like the wolf, and so it was visible. The blade was as fast as the wind wolves could move at their max speed.
However, there was only ever 1 blade so it was easy to doge. Well, easier at least.
Ning and PRIMAL KITE dodged easily, but TRIPLE SHOT, ASTERNUM, and especially GIFT LORD still had some hard times dodging it.
The boss only shot out 20 different Air blades, so once they ended, the fighting continued.
Ning and the rest jumped back into the fray along with the boss and hut it until it was down to its last few HP.
A single arrow from the Ranger killed the wolf in the end and the dungeon was cleared.
Ning looked at the clear time and sighed. He hadn't gotten any sort of records here.
He shook his head and focused on the many notifications that came. Most of them were ones he was used to, but one, in particular, was not.
He read the notification with quite a bit of surprise in his eye.
[Congratulations, You have received a Class Quest.]
Chapter 846: Class Quest"Class Quest?" Ning spoke out loud in surprise.
"What? Did you already receive your class quest, brother Energy? Ah, you must've hit level 50," TRIPLE SHOT said.
"Yeah, I just received it. What's a Class Quest exactly? I already have a class though," Ning said.
"Ah, you must not know," TRIPLE SHOT said. "Every level 50, 150, and 300, there are 3 different Class Quests you have to complete to improve your class. More specifically, your main skill is improved by a level, and for the rest of the skills, you will have a chance on your own to level them up as you wish."
"Yeah, you get to level up your skill of choice every 25th Level after completing your quest," ASTERNUM said. It seemed she was familiar with how the game worked as well.
"I see. Thanks for explaining," Ning said.
"Anyway, what sort of class quest did you get?" TRIPLE SHOT asked.
"Ah, wait, let me check," Ning said and looked at the active quests in his list.
[Class Quest: Get Lucky
Pull out a Legendary card from the Deck of Infinite Fates and activate it.
You lose the ability to gain Exp until you complete the quest, and can't level up.
Reward: Deck of Infinite Fates will level up.]
"Dammit!" Ning cried out.
"What… what's wrong?" the party asked.
"Sigh, remembering how I said my class is luck based?" Ning asked. "Well, they want me to get super lucky. Impossibly so."
"Do you have no chance?" they asked.
"Well…" Ning thought for a moment. "I may have one chance."
Ning came up with an idea when he really thought about it. "Do anyone of you have a Rabbit's foot?" he asked.
"I do," ASTERNUM said. "Do you want to improve your luck?"
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"Yes," Ning said.
"Here you go." The girl transferred over the foot and it appeared on Ning's inventory. He quickly pressed 'Consume', but instead he received a notification.
[You cannot consume more than 1 Rabbit's Foot every month.]
[Time Remaining: 28 Days 14 Hours 44 Minutes]
'Dammit!' Ning thought. "I can't eat it. It has a timer."
"Oh, did you eat one already? Then you will have to wait," ASTERNUM said.
"Can I keep it, please? Just in case I can't pass my quest by then," Ning said.
"Sure, I don't mind. It doesn't help me much anyway, since I already have an A LUK stat," she said.
"Thank you," Ning said.
They walked out of the dungeon, and Ning was forced to leave the party now that he was level 50. He could help them as Level 50 was still allowed, but he had no incentive.
As such, he said his goodbyes and left the area.
As he was walking back to the city, he saw a notification pop up saying that he had acquired the necklace 'Thunder Lizard's Blessing'.
It was a necklace made up of white string and silver metal with a deep blue gem in it that seemed to crackle with lightning.
He quickly switched it with the Amulet he was wearing. He could no longer use the Wind Arrows, but the Chain Lightning and Zap skills more than made up for it.
He went to the demoness tailor who more than happily gave him the leather belt, that per her words had come out amazing.
The belt was thin with fur on its inside and looked quite comfortable. Ning opened the stats of the belt and checked.
[Wolf's Arcanic Brown Belt (Rare)
INT: 30
AGI: 10
Spell Damage Amplification: 8%
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Mana Regeneration: 4
Double Cast: Your next spell has a 20% chance of casting twice. If triggered, the spell goes on a cooldown 1.5 times as long. ]
"The hell? It's almost like the belt was made for me," Ning thought. He couldn't think it was not with how the belt had come out to be.
If not for him, it was at least something made for classes that fell into his group.
Ning looked for what he could switch it with, and quickly switched it for a pant he was wearing, a common item he got from the wolf. It was an okay item at best, so he saw no qualm in changing it.
Then, Ning went around to various shops selling what he could. He needed to leave the city to start being able to use his skills, so he quickly found the perfect place to leave with.
"Join us in War!"
"Bring glory to the Demon race!"
"The ones blessed by the Demon lords are most welcomed."
Ning went up to one of them, who put him on a carriage that went north where the war was happening.
When the carriage was filled with 10 different demons, they left.
Ning sat there, with 9 different demons who started socializing. He joined in on the socializing a bit, but most of his focus was on picking out his cards.
As the carriage went along, he pulled out many cards. He even managed to pull out a rare card too, but not a single unique one came out.
Especially because as he went along, his Fate stack depleted and he was no longer capable of pulling out any Unique or Legendary cards even if he wanted to.
He needed to be on the field, fighting for a while before he was ever capable of summoning any Unique or Legendary cards at all.
After all, by default, his chances were 0%.
He soon stopped as his chances truly became 0 after his Fate Stacks ended, and he just sat there, talking with the others.
As he talked, he came to learn a few things from the demons that weren't actually players, but just NPCs.
Apparently, lord Besailach was planning to attack Winterheart in a few weeks' time. The city he was going to attack in a week was actually a smaller city around WinterHeart.
It seemed that they were planning to defeat the bunch of small cities and then attack Winterheart, the biggest fortress in the north from all sides at once.
Chapter 847: BesailachNing started worrying a little the more he learned about the plans of the demons. He had been planning to somehow kill Besailach before he even attacked Winterheart, but if Ning was forced to instead fight the humans that were not in Winterheart, then he would be cursed.
As if his bad luck wasn't cursed already, he didn't want to lose his character altogether, as that was what would happen if he attacked a human that wasn't attacking him first.
'If push comes to shove, I will have to fight defensively,' Ning thought.
Ning fell asleep multiple times before he and the others reached the campsites of the demon, from where he could see the Winterheart city in the distance.
This area was cold, and as such, the land was full of snow. The trees carried a white top and so did the tents of the demons.
However, he also saw a big bonfire at the center of the encampment, around which the major figures of this demon army stayed.
'So… this is where Besailach is,' Ning thought to himself. He quickly checked his quest page and read the quest again to remind himself of exactly what he had to do.
'Kill Besailach without being seen,' he thought. 'Before he destroys Winterheart city if possible.'
Ning looked at the massive amount of demons, working their regular job, and even some humans that were kept as slaves to perform petty labor.
A demon soldier came to take them to their camps where they would be staying for the foreseeable future. They had to go through a sort of Orientation program where they were told the general status of the situation.
The demon army was doing good, but the humans had a few too many blessed ones that were helping them fight back.
They all stayed in the city of Winterheart and as such were a pain in their asses as they came to harass the demons whenever they could.
Many had decided to leave for the other 2 continents, but quite a few had decided to remain back and fight against the demons.
Ning was sure quite a few of them had valuable quests that required them to fight in the upcoming war. Maybe, just like him, they had a quest to kill Besailach too.
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Which was to say that he was going to have competition very soon. That would certainly be annoying.
Ning stayed throughout the orientation and then went around the camp, looking at the various things.
One thing he was looking for was where Besailach stayed. He did find the tent, but there were demons all around, so it was hard for him to get inside.
Ning checked their stats too and from what he could see, they were both around Level 50 and had a very good set of stats. That could only mean that Besailach's stats must've been better.
Ning pulled some cards from his skill for a while until he finally got one that was useful.
Invisibility.
Ning ran back to Besailach's camp as soon as he could and used the Invisibility skill to hide in plain sight and went up to the tent without being seen.
Ning made sure to tuck in his wings as he silently walked past the guarding demons and went into the tent.
Inside was a massive war table with maps and tiny figures on top of it. The demons were planning on how to attack the stronghold.
"We can't send everyone there, we will be spread too thin," an old demon said.
"No commander, me must send everyone. if we don't send everyone to the battle the day after tomorrow, we have a very low chance of winning," another demon said.
"Be as it may be, we also need to have a place to return to," the first demon said.
A young demon with crimson wings that seemed to capture the light inside of it moved closer to the table and looked at the map.
"So… you are worried that if we attack, then the camp will remain unguarded, and you are worried that if we don't use all our power, then winning is difficult, right?" the demon asked.
"Yes, commander," both of the demons spoke at once.
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'Commander… Besailach?' Ning thought as he looked through his invisibility.
"Then there is a much simpler way," Besailach said. "All you have to do is—"
Besailach paused mid-speech and suddenly looked ahead of him, straight towards Ning.
"Who goes there?" he shouted loudly.
Ning was surprised. 'How did he know I was here,' he thought.
"Yes, commander?" the two guards from outside walked in and as they did, Ning walked out quickly.
Besailach, his generals, and the guards quickly ran out of the tent to search for who had just walked out, but all they could see were the various demons that were working around the Bonfire.
"Commander, did you sense something?" they asked.
"Someone was spying on us," Besailach said. "We will have to be more careful."
Ning had already run far away and was on his way back to his own tent. His invisibility faded once he was back.
"Dammit!" Ning thought. "It's going to be hard to complete this quest."
Ning hadn't managed to hear what the plans for the war were or what the demons were going to do, but he had managed in doing one thing.
He had managed to use his Observer stone on Besailach and it had worked. Ning now knew the exact stats of the demon commander.
And it was terrifying.
Each of the Demon's stats was over 200, and he had an HP of over 30 Thousand.
The demon also had INT, so he was sure to have skills, which would make it hard to kill him. That was without even considering how many people would be around him to save him.
Ning couldn't help but frown when he thought of ways to kill the Demon Commander.
"Yeah, I definitely need luck on my side to do this."
Chapter 848: Super ChargeNing pulled out a card in the jungle.
[Vile Veil: Shroud yourself with a veil that makes your enemies miss half their attacks. Any attack that does land deals 30% of your INT as damage back to the enemy.]
"Not bad," Ning thought. "Sacrifice." He still decided to get rid of it anyhow.
[Fate's Joker (common) has been activated.]
[You take 20% increased magical damage.]
Ning sighed. "Super Charge!"
Suddenly, a skill activated, and a bright blue light shined on top of him.
[All removable debuffs have been removed.]
[Attack speed has been increased by 40% and damage taken is reduced by 20% for 20 seconds.]
The newly acquired Fate's Joker debuff had been removed as well. Ning was quite happy about the new skill he had acquired himself.
He had scoured the market for quite a while on his way to the campsite, and once he did find the appropriate skill, he had bought it.
It had taken half a day for it to come to him, and now that it did, he was testing it out in the forest, where the most prevalent monsters around were giant moles.
[Super Charge (Uncommon)
Places a buff on you that removes all debuff and gives you 40% more attack speed and 20% damage reduction. Lasts 20 seconds.
Manacost: 250
Cooldown: 140 seconds]
Ning fought the moles in the forest for a while as he tested his new skills, and see if they could remove just the common debuffs or all debuffs.
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It removed all debuffs from himself as he had hoped. What it didn't remove were the buffs that felt like debuffs, primarily the ones from the cards that transferred stats around or similar ones.
There was simply no way to remove the effects of the cards once it was activated.
"Well, at least I can freely choose to sacrifice a card now without worrying about the debuff," Ning thought.
He fought the moles some more. This time, it was primarily to just hopefully get lucky and get a legendary card as fighting was the only way to have a chance for that.
But, since his luck wasn't so good, he didn't manage to do it at all. Although, he did pull out 2 Unique cards, so the previous rabbit's foot was definitely working.
Ning then returned back to the camp where a new notice had been spread around.
They were leaving the camp tomorrow.
'Is that what they were talking about yesterday?' Ning wondered. The point of contention the other day was that if they attacked the city they were going to be attacked in the campsite, which would have to be left unguarded.
But if they left a few to guard here, they would lack in manpower in their offensive battle.
It seemed Besailach had come to a conclusion to instead just shift the entire demon army to the city instead of leaving any behind in the campsite.
'I see,' Ning thought. 'Then the war is tomorrow.'
He needed to not only think of a way to kill Besailach but also to somehow not break his oath while doing so.
'I just hope no humans attack me,' he thought. Although, he wasn't very worried, as he had been cursed with the same oath for thousands of years already.
After all, he would be punished if he killed anyone innocent. But then, even harming triggered the punishment, so maybe this one was worse.
Ning shook his head and waited for the war that came very soon.
Tomorrow had arrived before anyone knew it, and the entire demon army marched in the dead of night before the sun even rose from the east.
Their movement was already being passed along by the scouts of the Winterheart city, and somehow the city next to it was ready for battle.
They already knew about the demon's attacks, which was to say that there were traitors amidst the demons.
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It was obvious who it was to Ning and the others. It was the players for sure. They were transferring information back to their friends either in-game or out of it.
They were likely even just sharing it on the forums, intentionally or not, and letting the entirety of the world learn about the attacks that were happening.
Still, the demons were not phased at all. Giant trebuchets suddenly lit up with fire at the end and hurled burning rocks onto the city.
Smaller catapults started hurling explosive materials too.
The people from the city used their skills to block what they could, but the attacks from trebuchets and catapults were too strong for them to stop.
The humans weren't unprepared either. They also had their own Trebuchet and catapults, and they even had a line of archers waiting to shoot at the enemies.
"FIRE!" Ning heard the faraway shout, and the arrows blotted the morning sky.
Thousands of arrows fell at their location, and Ning quickly pulled a card to see if he could protect himself.
The card was useless, so he sacrificed it and fortunately gained a buff to improve evasion.
Most of the arrows that were meant to hit him missed, but quite a few still landed on him due to his bad luck.
Fortunately, he had over 3000 HP now, so he wasn't going to die so easily with a couple of attacks that deal 150 damage each.
Still, he pulled out a potion and drank it immediately to heal back the health he had lost.
Another volley of arrows fell from the sky and Ning quickly found a fallen demon, who he used as cover.
"Attack the archers!" one of the generals shouted, and immediately the demons started sending powerful attacks onto the city.
From within the demon ranks, a few walked out holding a giant battering ram, and quite a few other demons protected them.
Everyone else did what they could for the battle, while the battering ram was taken to the front of the city where the gates were.
As long as they broke through the gate, the city was sure to be theirs.
Chapter 849: Demons vs HumansA fire burned at one place, while lightning struck another. Steel clashed against each other, swords against swords, spears against shields, arrows against armor.
Demons and humans had started fighting against each other once the battering ram destroyed the gates. To not let the demons get into the city, the humans had to come out.
Once the humans were out, the archers were forced off of their stations as well, since the chance of friendly fire would be quite high in such an all-out war.
Ning was glad. While he was looking at war, one with both sides fighting to the death, it wasn't horrible like real wars.
For one, there were no cries of pain and despair, as the pain was not something the players could feel, and despair was something that the NPCs were simply not programmed to feel.
There was no blood as anyone that was attacked just took damage to their HP or got inflicted with a status.
Even the dying folks were just on the ground, unmoving. Once they did die, the people would simply turn into light and vanish from the battlefield.
Ning looked around the battlefield from the way in the back. The fight was big, but the demons were winning for sure. They were slowly encroaching upon the human lands, and soon they would enter the city.
Although, Ning was sure that most of the people were already evacuated from the city just in case.
'Let's go and see if I can kill the big boss of this war,' Ning thought and moved forward.
He rushed forward, looking for Besailach wherever he could. As a commander, Ning didn't believe he was the vanguard, but he would certainly have to be close enough to give commands.
So, he walked towards the front of the war.
Suddenly, a man came from his right side, swinging swords. Ning dodged in time and backed away, but the man still came for him.
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Ning saw that the man had dragonfly wings, meaning he was a player and thus from a neutral faction.
'He's trying to kill me… so I can do it, right?' Ning thought.
He dodged the next sword attack and struck the man in his chest with his spear. The physical damage Ning dealt to the man wasn't a lot, 150 at best.
However, the magic damage that Ning managed to proc, more accurately the ZAP skill from his new necklace alone did 130 damage to the man in front of him.
This was the first time Ning was fighting against another player, so he was a little surprised at how much damage he dealt to him.
'Wait, players don't have passive magical damage reduction like the monsters, do they?' Ning thought. He only then remembered that his magic damage would do quite well against the man.
Ning wanted to use Chain Lightning, but there were other people besides the man he was fighting, so he stopped.
Instead, he just attacked with his spear, dealing a massive amount of damage to the man while constantly dodging his attacks.
The man had realized that Ning's AGI was far higher than his so before he could die, he ran away.
Ning turned away from the running man, ignoring him, and went on his way to find the demon commander.
As he got to the front, the fighting got more severe. Ning was attacked multiple times, and a few of those were even just demons themselves.
He wasn't sure if they were confused due to all the fighting and were programmed to fight back, or they were the traitors that were trying to cause dissonance in the ranks.
It could also just be players that just wanted to see and sew chaos in the battlefield and so they randomly attacked whoever they could.
Ning defeated most of them, but he never really killed any. He instead kept his search for the Demon Commander, and after nearly 15 minutes, he finally found him.
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The young Besailach stood on top of a moving platform that made him higher than everyone on the battlefield. From there, he could see everything that was happening and thus ordered people to fight accordingly.
Ning tried to get closer, but the number of humans that were trying to make their way to the demon was absurd.
Ning understood that he wasn't the only one that was likely given the task to kill Besailach, but it was still very surprising just how many people were given the task.
Ning started pulling out his cards while fighting the humans that attacked him while thinking that he was one of the commander's bodyguards.
Ning, unfortunately, couldn't act like he was not as he had to stay there for the right time to kill Besailach. He had come to understand that Besailach didn't just have to die, he had to kill him.
After all, given how many people there were that got the quest to kill Besailach, his life was all but over.
However, the quest Ning got still had a losing condition where if he failed to kill Besailach, the quest would disappear. For a non-timed quest, failing to kill Besailach would have meant he could do it all over again.
However, if someone else did his task before himself, then he would have most likely failed.
And for the sake of 'Demon Stats', he could not fail.
For the sake of that skill, and for the sake of gaining better rewards in the future by making a connection with the humans, Ning had to kill the demon commander by himself.
As such, he stayed by the demon's side, fighting against the horde of enemies that came towards him.
Ning pulled another card.
[Double Cast has been successfully triggered.]
[Immolation: Each one of your attacks has a chance to put a burning status on the enemy that deals 30 damage every second and lasts 4 seconds. The status stacks independently]
[Flower Rain: Rains flower petals from the sky that heal everyone in an area, including the enemies. Heals you and your allies for 100% of your INT, and heals your enemies for 50% of your INT.]
Chapter 850: Fighting A WarriorNing looked at the two cards he had just received. Immolation was great, no doubt, but what about Flower rain?
Healing everyone around you, but your party themselves heal for twice the amount would be great, but Ning had no party here.
The card did say any ally, but he had none of those either. Besides, why in the hell would he ever want to heal Besailach?
"Activate," Ning spoke softly to himself, immediately followed by, "Sacrifice!"
He activated Immolation and sacrificed Flower rain.
[Fate's Joker (Uncommon) has been activated.]
[Each one of your attacks will now have a 12% chance to stun them for 2 seconds. Lasts 180 seconds]
'Woah!' Ning thought. '3 minutes? Is that because it shares the cooldown with the first skill?'
If that was true, then if there was a way to improve the first skill's cooldown, he could have buffs or skills that lasted longer.
Although, Ning wasn't sure he would like it as much.
The war continued as he fought against the humans that attacked him. Being both immolated and zapped from time to time, no one could fight against him for a long time.
That was until a man with a cleaver appeared in front of Ning.
He was a little thin to be carrying a giant cleaver the way he was carrying it, but since this was a game, who cared?
Ning got ready to fight with the warrior with his cleaver and... absolutely no armor at all. The man raised his cleaver and cut down on Ning, but it was so slow that Ning simply dodged it.
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He stabbed the man in the chest, dealing his normal damage plus Immolation damage. Ning ducked away before another attack arrived and struck the man once more.
This time, he proc a Zap as well. The man burned slowly, and Ning wondered why he was even here when he was so slow and weak.
In fact… how did he even get in this deep?
Just as Ning was thinking that, the man struck once more. Ning dodged again, attacking back, and wondering, 'Why is he not leaving yet? He knows he's weaker than me, right?'
Everyone he fought before had left after realizing they couldn't beat him as he was, so why hadn't this man?
The cleaver fell on him again, and once again, Ning dodged and attacked.
This went on for a few more seconds, precious seconds which were bringing him closer and closer to not having any buffs.
Then, Ning started sensing something weird.
He dodged the man's attack in the nick of time and stabbed back. He managed to stun the target for 2 seconds, however, the man got out of his stunned phase in 1 and a half seconds.
Then, he swung his cleaver again, and this time, Ning couldn't dodge at all. The cleaver was too strong for him.
It was too fast for him to dodge.
Ning struck back with his spear at once, dealing mutual blows to each other as they both took hefty damage.
Ning couldn't help but be surprised that he took 280 damage in a single strike. 'Damn! What was that?' he wondered.
As he was getting back into the fight, the man with the cleaver was already in front of him.
Ning jumped backward, but he was already up against many other demons, so there was nowhere to go.
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As such, the cleaver landed on him, dealing another 280 damage to him.
'Dammit! How is he doing close to 300 damage each time?' he thought. Without Ning's damage block passive, he would have taken all of the 300 damage without a doubt.
Sure, his DEF stat was low, but to deal over 300, the man in front of him would have to have over 250 stats in STR. Was that it? Had the man invested everything in STR, and ended up with a class where he didn't have much in some other categories?
But from his own attacks, Ning could tell that the man had quite a high DEF stats too. Then why the hell was his attack speed so high now?
Surely he didn't use any skills right?
Ning got out of the way as the next cleaver fell and hit the demon behind him. He had managed to dodge in time, which meant the man's attack speed was back to being slow again.
'What? Did his spell end?' Ning thought and got back to fighting. He struck the man, dealing damage once again and shot him with Seed Bullet at close range.
Just around that time, his card effect ended and so did his buff. So, Ning pulled out another card, hoping this one would be helpful for him.
[Frozen Field: Reduces health and mana regeneration for everyone in an area around you, ally or enemy, including yourself. At the end of the skill, you receive 2% of all the healing and mana restoration that has been reduced in a single burst.]
Healing… he definitely needed that. He would get his Hp back if he could outfight the man in front of him for a while. So, he had to hope for the best and use this skill.
"Activate!"
A white halo made up of snow spread out from Ning, landing on top of every single person or demon in the area. They felt a chill and wondered what had happened.
Everyone around him suddenly saw a debuff land on them, which was simply irremovable. They noticed who had landed the debuff on them, as the ring of halo had yet to lose its light and so, all of them were now angry and hateful towards Ning.
Fate's Aid activated too, allowing Ning to deal critical damage from time to time, but seeing how many people were now preparing to fight him, that seemed the least bit important at the moment.
The demons only shouted at him, not attacking at all, but the humans were different. Those who could attack from afar did so, sending arrows and skills toward Ning.
'Shit!' Ning thought. With no regeneration, if he took a lot of damage here, he wouldn't be able to heal for a while.
'Should I just run?'
Chapter 851: One Way LeftIt was fortunate that the wrath of men couldn't last for long with how easily distracted they were by the fight that was happening.
So, Ning managed to get out of the situation without making too many attackers.
He fought the warrior a few more times, long enough for him to realize what was happening.
'He gets stronger the lower his HP is?' he thought. That was the only explanation. And with HP regeneration being reduced by 80%, the man wasn't healing as much and was thus getting stronger by the second.
'Shit! I really can't do this,' Ning thought and slowly backed off into the fighting demons until he was side by side with them.
"This man is trying to go for the commander, kill him!" Ning shouted at the demons, and successfully managed to grab the attention of 2 demons who joined him to fight.
The warrior fought against the 3 of them, but they had so slowly back away. He very much relied on his ability to get stronger by having low health and a passive skill that improved his health regeneration the lower it got.
However, with it reduced, every instance of damage that landed on him remained for a while as he wasn't able to heal relatively quickly.
Still, the man's attack speed was fast, so he fought off the two other demons helping Ning and finally walked towards Ning, all battered and bloodied.
Ning fought back, but with such little health, the man dodged each one of his attacks and landed each one of his attacks on him.
Ning's hp slowly fell and he was sure he was going to die when all of a sudden, he felt rejuvenated as all HP and Mana that everyone else should have recovered in the last 2 minutes suddenly fell onto Ning.
At the same time, Ning pulled out a card from his deck and activated it.
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[Reflection: Reflect 100% of all damage you take. Lasts 20 seconds.]
Ning fought the man and dealt him damage, and at the same time, the man hit him, dealing damage to himself once again.
Ning hit and got hit on for a while before the man realized that he was on his last leg. When he understood that, he tried to leave. He activated something, allowing him to fly into the sky and away from the battle.
However, that only gave Ning a chance to use his skills without worrying about breaking his oath. He shot out Seed Bullet and at the same time used Chain Lightning from his necklace.
[Double Cast has been triggered.]
Two massive bolts of lightning arched from Ning's hands directly onto the man, dealing over 500 damage at once.
The warrior was far enough from others that the Chain lightning didn't move onto any close targets, and with so much damage taken at once, the warrior died.
Ning sighed in relief and retreated a bit to take a breath. He was extremely fatigued and as such, he had to take a few minutes to catch his breath.
The demons won and Besailach survived. Unfortunately, Ning got no chance at all to attack the demon commander, and the war ended with the city under the demons.
Ning couldn't help but sigh, but at least the commander wasn't dead yet so he still had a chance.
'But how the hell do I kill him without ever being seen?' Ning thought. He had assumed that it would be easier in the chaos of war, but that only made things chaotic for him as well.
And killing while the Demon Commander was alone wasn't a possibility and he was on constant guard from assassins already.
'There are only two possible ways,' Ning thought to himself. The first one was to finish his class quest, get stronger, and then kill the commander.
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Even if he had to fight the commander face-on at the moment, he definitely would as he would be capable of that.
As for the other way, Ning didn't even consider it a way because of how much luck was involved.
But then… maybe that would be the reason why he would succeed.
The city's eastern side was surrounded by demons who had camped outside the city to guard the demons against attack from Winterheart city.
At the same time, demons slowly came from the south and continued to add to the ranks that would fight in the war.
Sooner or later, the army of the demons would dwarf that of the humans who had no other place to spawn into.
After that, the demons would attack, and Winterheart would fall.
'I have to do it before that before the city falls,' Ning thought. He was starting to get annoyed with how hard the quest was.
He had taken residence in a small house that was given to him for his work in battle. He walked out of the house and went down the narrow street full of demons until he came out on the other side of a bigger street.
He took that street out of the city and went towards the forests in the south where he was going to train and hopefully pull out a Legendary card.
Ning trained there for days and days as weeks passed, but he simply wasn't lucky enough to pull out any Legendary cards.
The 1% chance simply didn't proc at all. Ning left the game multiple times during this period and went around the station to treat himself to some tasty food and drinks, returned back to his room to sleep, and then go right back into the game.
Before Ning knew it, close to 4 weeks had passed and today was the day of the battle for Winterheart city. The chances of the demons winning was quite high, but they could be reduced if they lost their commander.
For the sake of his quest, Ning had to make sure the commander died today. So, with a sigh, he went onto the battlefield once again.
Only this time, he had a definite chance to kill the commander.
Chapter 852: Assault on WinterheartNing stood amongst the demon army, ready to launch their assault on Winterheart city.
Everyone was riled up since so many more demons had joined the rank, ready to attack the humans on the other side.
Beyond this point was nothing but ocean, as Winterheart city was one of the fortresses that protected the continent from naval threats to the north. At last, they never expected the threats to come from the south and not the north.
"Demons! Today, we shall conquer this land of men, and make it ours," Besailach shouted. His words worked as encouragement, buffing up the group of demons around him with improved stats all around.
"Today, we fight for our glory, and to transform this land in the image of our home. Today, the men shall know hell!"
""YEAH!!!!""
Without a second wasted, the demons rushed towards the Winterheart city that men protected.
War broke out, one that was far bigger than the war from a few weeks ago.
Ning stood where he was, without going anywhere, staring directly towards Besailach in the distance.
After all, today was the day he was to kill the demon commander.
He stayed behind as the war raged on in front of him. Demons ran past him, many dying to the humans, and many killing the humans.
Ning, however, didn't move even a single bit. All he did was watch the Demon commander who stood on top of a platform, giving orders to his troops as well as improving their morale.
That was incredibly effective. With so many people motivated to fight, there was no way the demons were going to lose at all.
Trebuchets and Catapults launched fiery projectiles toward the city walls, trying to knock them down.
The city itself had massive cannons on top of the walls, attacking back the horde of demons.
The fighting got big real quick, and sounds of battle and abilities flew off from everywhere.
Armies of demons and humans clashed with each other, each trying to become the victor. However, the demons were slowly starting to overwhelm the humans and it was getting obvious who would win here.
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Ning frowned. One of the requests the humans had made to him was to kill the commander before he took over the Winterheart city. However, as things were going on, it wouldn't be long before he would win the war and Winterheart would fall.
"Sigh, I can't sit around. I have to try and do something at least." Ning pulled out some cards, hoping to land his luck before his actual turn came around, but nothing of the sort happened.
[Truth Seer: Lets you see invisible units. Lasts 30 seconds.]
"Well, whatever," Ning thought and used it.
At first, nothing changed for him. However, when he looked around, he noticed multiple humans with dragonfly wings or butterfly wings making their way toward Besailach.
Ning was surprised. "Why are they not attacking them?" he thought. That was when he realized that he was the only one who could see them.
"Oh, it only works for me huh?" he thought. "I wonder how useful it would work if I were at a party."
There were nearly 6 men and women, currently approaching Besailach, ready to attack, and yet no one was there to protect him.
Ning moved forward, not to save the demon commander of course, but to attack him when it was time.
He stood just out of range and watched the whole thing unfold.
The 6 humans launched their attacks from their invisibility, only revealing themselves right before the attack landed.
Besailach and his demon guards were expecting an ambush, but the attack still came to them as a surprise.
6 different attacks landed on the Demon Commander at the same time, removing nearly 1000 of his HP at once.
But a thousand out of 30 thousand was nothing for the commander at all.
The guards attacked, but the commander didn't stand still either. He pulled out the sword by his waist and sliced it in front of him.
A massive fiery sword carved its way through the air and landed on one of the men that had attacked him.
The man was occupied with his fight against the guards, so he wasn't able to block in time.
The man lost over 600 HP in a single attack, giving him a scare he had never before felt.
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"He's strong. We need to work together," the man shouted, and even more, people came running in to fight.
Soon, the battlefield was concentrated around the Demon Commander who was attacked from time to time with skills that he couldn't block against.
Soon, he had to disembark from where he was standing and joined the fight on the battlefield himself.
Humans gathered from everywhere to fight him. After all, it was the demon commander that was responsible for the war.
If they managed to kill him, the demons would lose their leader, and as a headless army, they would be easy to defeat.
So, the Demon Commander became a Boss on the battlefield as everyone attacked him.
Ning got close too as he watched the health bar over Besailach's head. It fluctuated between dropping and increasing as Besailach healed for some reason.
But overall, he was losing HP. So even though it was slow, he was dying without a doubt.
The humans continued to add up as they attacked him more and more, and Ning waited for the right time to kill him.
Besailach was fated to die here, so all he could do was wish that it was he who could do it.
For that, however, he needed luck on his side. Without it, being the one to kill him amidst so many people was just impossible.
Fortunately, luck was on his side today as he opened up his inventory and looked at the Rabbit's foot.
"Consume!" he clicked on it.
[You have consumed Rabbit's Foot.]
[Your LUK stat has improved from B- to B]
[Your next luck-based event has an absolute chance of being successful.]
Ning smiled to himself and pulled out his next card.
Chapter 853: Quest CompleteA card appeared in front of Ning. An Orange card with such brilliance that he nearly forgot what he was doing for a second.
He clicked on his belt in the inventory and clicked 'Equip'. Because the belt had 'Double Cast', which was quite a bad skill when the next luck-based event gave him the best result.
Had he kept the belt, he would've likely double-casted instead of getting a Legendary card. So, he decided to take it off.
Once he equipped it back, Ning looked at the card in his hand. He read the description of the Legendary card and frowned a bit.
He looked back at the Demon commander that was being attacked and waited. In a minute now, the card in his hand would activate on its own. Ning hoped that the conditions were fulfilled by then.
He stood there, watching the Demon Commander fight as he slowly lost his overall HP and dropped to 40%.
'Just a little more,' Ning thought and waited. He didn't know how much magic resistance the Demon Commander had, so he needed to be careful as the skill he had received was magic damage.
He waited a bit longer and saw the demon commander slowly lose his HP up to 20% where he changed to another phase and started to attack.
However, Ning was waiting for this moment. He pointed the card towards Besailach from quite far away and spoke, "Activate!"
Suddenly, the orange card disappeared in a burst of light as it flew towards the Demon Commander while a bunch of notifications suddenly covered Ning's vision.
Before anything could happen, Ning turned around and left. He couldn't remain there for the demons to find out it was him.
A massive orange lobster pincer appeared out of nowhere, surprising everyone on the battlefield as it grabbed onto the Demon Commander.
Besailach looked shocked, even scared and his eyes turned towards the one that had brought on this hand. He looked towards Ning that was already walking away.
The pincer snapped and passed through the Demon Commander without dealing anything physical damage to his body. However, it did deal magical damage, and that was why Besailach fell to the ground, lifeless, for the damage was fatal.
Ning smiled when he saw the notification pop up. "That's a good skill," he thought to himself and walked on.
[Fatal Pincer: A pincer made up of mana grabs onto the victim dealing damage equal to 80% of their missing health. If the total damage taken exceeds the target's current health, the target dies without the possibility of being saved.]
Ning had waited until the Demon Commander was 20% so that it was a guarantee that he was the one that killed him.
Finally, after walking a bit further away, Ning looked at the notifications he had received.
[Congratulations, you have activated a Legendary Card.]
[Upgrade LUK: 2/100 ]
[Class Quest Complete.]
[Your access to Exp has been reinstated.]
[Deck of Infinite Fate has leveled up]
[You have killed Besailach.]
[You have received 120,000 Exp]
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[You have Leveled up]
[You have Leveled up]
[You have obtained a Rare Title 'Demon Bane']
[Demon Bane
Title Rank: Rare
Every third instance of damage dealt on a Demon will do twice as much damage.
The title doesn't need to be equipped to be in effect.]
[Quest Complete. Visit Gariin to get your rewards]
[You have received Besailach's Boots]
[Besailach's Earrings (Unique)
12 To All Stats
Magic Resistance: 10%
Peek Perception (Passive): Let's you know if someone is looking at you for a long period of time in a 10-meter area. ]
Ning took off his mushroom hat and wore the earring. It didn't have any good skill, but the 10% Magic Resistance was a godsend in his mind.
Once he wore it, he looked at the next thing on his list.
"My skill leveled up too," he thought. He opened his skills list and looked at his main skill.
[Deck of Infinite Fates - Main Class Skill
Type: Active
Level 2
Pick out two random cards from the Deck of Infinite Fates, each of which has its own unique effects. You may choose one card to use and discard the second one.
You have some chance to pick out cards from Common to Legendary Rank.
The highest tier card will activate on its own 1 minute after being picked.
Chance to pick Common Cards: 65%
Chance to pick Uncommon Cards: 23%
Chance to pick Rare Cards: 10%
Chance to pick Unique Cards: 2%
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Chance to Pick Legendary Cards: 0%
Manacost: 200 Mana
Cooldown: 2 Minutes starting after the card is activated or sacrificed. ]
Ning looked at the list weirdly for a bit. "2 cards?" he thought. He pulled out cards from the deck randomly, and two cards appeared in front of him.
One glowed white, while the other glowed blue.
"Oh, a rare card," Ning thought. "Wait, so I get to have more chance now, huh?"
He could only choose one card to use while the other one would simply go away without working.
"I leveled up my luck stat too. So with B it should be about average right?" Ning thought. He wouldn't have to worry about having bad luck all the time now.
"I should get to Level 75 as soon as I can. That way I should be able to level up my next skill. I should probably level up Fate's Puppet so that my chances improve," Ning thought to himself.
He opened his player profile to see how far he had come now.
[IMMORTAL ENERGY:
Level: 52 (17000/53000)
Class: Puppet of Fate
Race : Demon
Title: Trenzelgor's Curiosity 2 more
STR : 205
INT : 308
VIT : 161
AGI : 207
DEF : 111
HP : 3550/ 3550
MP : 3530/ 3530
]
His stats were getting quite a lot better than he would've imagined. 'My DEF is still bad, but the others look good,' he thought.
Once he was done looking at them, he activated the Blue card which gave him a burst of movement speed, so he ran towards High Castle to the west, where he would meet Gariin and the other humans to receive his rewards for killing the commander.
Chapter 854: High CastleNing arrived at the location called the 'High Castle'. It was a defunct fort, left to ruin long ago, not far from the northern shore.
Ning looked around to make sure he was in the right place, but his map had said so, so must've been.
Suddenly, an arrow fell next to his feet, clearly intending to hit him.
"Wait! I'm not an enemy," Ning shouted. "I'm with you guys."
"Bullshit!" a voice came from in there. "Why would a demon be working with us?"
"I was given a task by a girl named Gariin. Ask her if she's here," Ning said.
The voice inside didn't speak for a moment. Then it said, "Wait for us to confirm. If you move in the meanwhile, we will kill you."
Ning sighed and stayed there while the humans went to confirm. After 2 minutes, a woman came running, this time with no wings behind her back.
When she saw him, she looked surprised. "You… you really came. Don't tell me you did it," she said.
"Of course, why else would I be here," Ning said.
"Captain, what's going on?" the men started asking.
"Stand down, that's a friendly demon," she said. "Come, let us sit somewhere quietly and talk."
Ning nodded and walked in. As he went it, he saw that the ruin he was walking into had been lived in for a few weeks at least.
However, the humans hadn't seemed to plan on fixing it anytime soon.
The woman took him to an upper floor, high in the castle. As Ning walked up there, he saw the north through the broken walls in the circular staircase.
He saw people cutting down trees left and right, all working to make massive ships.
"Sit," the woman said. Ning nodded and did as she told him.
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"So, you say you killed him. You killed Besailach?" she asked.
"Yes," Ning reiterated as he made himself comfortable on a chair next to a giant table.
"Do you have any proof?" the girl asked.
Ning frowned. "A proof? What sort of proof would you want?" he asked.
"You said you killed him, then you must have proof to back your claims right?" she said.
Ning continued frowning. "I'm not sure I have any," he said. "I killed him while he was distracted fighting others in the middle of the battlefield, and left right after."
"Well, if you don't have any evidence that you really killed him then—"
"Ah! No, wait," Ning quickly stopped her and pointed to his earrings. "I forgot I did get something after killing him. This earring belonged to Besailach, and I got it after I killed him. This should do right?"
The woman looked at Ning's earrings for a bit and frowned. "That does look like it might belong to the commander, but I must say I do not know much of what he wears, just what he looks like," she said.
"Come on! You didn't actually expect me to bring his head, did you?" he asked.
"I did not, but—"
"Leader!" A voice came from the staircase, and both she and Ning turned around to look at the person who had just arrived.
The one that arrived was a man from before, but next to him was a panting man that was trying hard to catch his breath.
"Harrand, you're back? What's the news?" she asked.
"Winterheart won, leader," the man said in between his breath.
"It… won?" the girl looked surprised.
"Yes, leader. Their commander died mysteriously, so they lost morale and were thus defeated," the messenger said.
"What do you mean 'mysteriously'?" the woman asked while glancing at Ning through her side eyes.
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"Just what I say, captain. One moment he was fighting 2 dozen fighters with still 20% of his health remaining, and the next moment he just died from a giant crab hand. No one knows who killed him or what."
"Some people are trying to take credit for it, but they've been unable to prove it," the messenger said.
"See?" Ning said. "I told you."
The woman looked back with shock in her eyes but said nothing to Ning. Instead, she looked back at the messenger and said, "Good work. Rest for now."
She then turned towards the other man that had come with the messenger. "Send someone to give my message to the city of Winterheart," she said.
"What message would that be, leader?" the man asked.
"Tell them… to abandon the city. Tell them we will have ships prepared within the week and will come around by the fort to pick them up," the leader said.
"Yes, leader," the man said, and together with the messenger, they left.
Ning looked confused. "Why would you want the city of abandon why they won the war?" he asked.
"Won the battle, not the war," she said. "We've already lost the war. While this victory looks promising, deluding yourself in the possibility of winning is the last thing we can afford to do right now."
"What do you mean?" Ning asked. "Do you worry about another potential invasion?"
"Potential? Hah! You don't know do you?" she asked.
"What do I not know?" Ning asked curiously.
"Winterheart was the last city to be attacked because the demon commander was amateur and couldn't take care of things as quickly as he should have, unlike the others," she said.
"Others?" Ning's eyes went wide when he realized what the woman meant.
"Yes, Winterheart was but a single city to have survived the assault. Every other city in the continent has fallen to the demons and as such sooner or later, they will come for it again," the woman said.
"Then… you will be leaving?" he asked. He recalled the ships outside of the castle and finally understood why there were so many of them.
"Yes," the woman said. "This continent is in the hands of the demons now and a human like us has no place here at all."
"As such, we are leaving for the Starsoar continent," she said. "Do you want to come with us?"
Chapter 855: EquilibriumNing thought for a while, but the answer was obvious. "No," he said.
"Of course," she said. "I would've been surprised if you accepted. I wouldn't know how to take a demon with us anyway. There's simply no way to hide your wings."
Gariin then brought out something from her inventory and tossed it at Ning. "Here you go. While I can't confirm you did kill the commander, all evidence point to you, so there's no point in doubting you."
Ning grabbed what was tossed and looked surprised. Suddenly, a burst of notifications rang out in front of him, telling him that he had completed the quest.
The woman tossed a pouch of coins next to him, but Ning didn't look at that at all, but instead at the Demon Stats skill in his hands.
Without hesitation, he learned the skill and used up one more slot of his skill slots. Now, he only had 1 more remaining.
Ning read the description of the skill once more and got happy again. It was a skill that gave you a random stat for killing either a high-ranking Demon or anything over 20 levels than him.
"The demons have already started preparing for a voyage to the north. Will you be joining them?" the woman asked.
"Uh… maybe," Ning said. "I'm in no hurry though. I might wait around for a while."
"Alright, do as you wish. If you want more work, come find us in the Starsoar continent," the woman said.
"Sure," Ning said. "I'll be leaving now."
He walked out of the castle and left the humans be. Soon, the humans will go to the other continents, and not long after the demons would likely follow to conquer the whole world.
This war was nothing. The real war would start once everyone gathered in the other continent.
'Starsoar huh? I will have to train a while before I'm strong enough to move there.'
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Saphandra had left the north 2 months ago and had come down to the south after news of demons in the other continent had spread.
The demons were going to attack the southern cities of the continent, so she was here to fight back against them.
In the last nearly 4 months she had spent playing the game, she had managed to level up to 108. As time went on, it got increasingly harder to level up due to the lack of proper dungeons.
It was around that time that she realized that the best way to level up was by fighting the demons in the war.
So, for the last month or so, she had been constantly on the battlefield, leveling up an entire level in a single day.
The drop from the fights was also not that bad.
She left the city she was staying in and walked over to the tents where the angels and humans were camping before the demon army on the other side of the desolate land.
Quite a few people stared at her for her brilliant golden wings, but she didn't give much thought to their staring.
She walked with a normal gait, using her newly forged staff with a deep purple gem crested at the top of it.
She arrived in front of one of the tents and went in. Multiple angels were gathered around a map, making plans for the battle today.
"We should attack this side. I've seen weaker demons here."
"Why don't we flank them from this side? We can kill the ranged damage dealers that way."
"No, we will be stuck behind enemy lines. It is too risky."
The angels there kept talking over each other, giving suggestions and criticism about each other's plans.
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Each one of them had wings behind their back, but none of them were as big as hers. After all, she was the only player in this room.
"Miss Saph, you are here," one of the angels with a gentle smile said. "Please, come and give us your thoughts on the matter too."
Having received a unique class known as the Divine Saintess, Saphandra had received skills that benefited everyone in a mass area. Her skills included healing people, removing debuffs, and instead buffing them, making them immune to spell and physical damage.
She also had her main skill, Fariel's Blessing, which allowed the effect of any of her AOE skills to be better in every way the more people that were affected by her.
It could be improved by 5 times at most, but that alone was amazing. When the high angels had noticed her, they had taken her into their camp to receive her help.
Saphandra nodded and walked up to the table to look at how the war was going on.
The demons had taken up the cities to the south surrounded by a forest and had advanced even further up to come towards a city in the desert.
This was where the humans and angels had lined up to stop the demons from advancing even further.
She looked at the high Angel that had called her. This man was someone that was easily over level 300, and yet he was still incapable of killing all the demons here.
Rather, he didn't.
"If I cast a big area debuff spell on the demons, they will have no chance but lose. We can slowly drive them back that way, and we can win this war," she said.
The high angel kept his smile but he still shook his head. "You should know by now we can't do that, right?" he asked.
Saphandra frowned, but she didn't let it show up on her face. "Of course," she said.
With the manpower that was here, defeating these demons would be an easy task. But that was not what the angels were here for at all.
They were here to keep an equilibrium between the humans and the demons so that the humans could continue to rely on the angels and their faith would empower their 10 gods.
The demons were terrible, but the angels weren't without flaws either.
Chapter 856: Leveling UpNing spent forever getting from Level 52 to 100. Just those few levels had taken him over 3 months as earning experience got harder and harder as time went on.
He traveled the continent, going to various places to try and find better dungeons, but no matter where he went, he couldn't find anything above level 80.
As such, he had to spend that last 20 levels hunting monsters on the outside and using what little exp he could get to grow.
It was only after he reached Level 100 that he finally gave up on growing anymore in this continent and decided to change continents.
He arrived at one of the ships that were sailing for the Starsoar Continent to the northeast and got onto it.
"10 days to reach the other continent?" Ning was surprised. He didn't remember any of his previous sea voyages taking this long. But then, the only time he did travel by ship was in Nulwurn, and that place was littered with islands everywhere.
In Soaring Star Online, however, there were no stray islands in the ocean, and every island was right next to the continents, almost attached to it through a bridge or some other thing.
Demons walked the deck of the ship, going about their ways. Some chatted, some quarreled, and some spoke of their dreams to become an apostle of the Demon lords one day.
Ning simply stayed there, listening to them all.
As he sat, he remembered something and opened up his skills page.
He looked at his main skill, Deck of Infinite Fates, and how it was level 2. Then, he looked at his other skill, Fate's Puppet, which was also level 2 thanks to his gaining a skill point after he had reached level 75.
He received a skill point every time he crossed 25 levels until 150, so he used his first point on his Fate's Puppet skill to improve it. As such, it had become better now, a lot better.
[Fate's Puppet
Level 2
Type: Passive
Gain FATE stacks whenever you kill an enemy. Killing enemies with a higher level than yours give 2 stacks each. They all stack independently.
Each Fate stack increases your chance to summon a Rare card by 0.2%.
Each Fate stack increases your chance to summon a Unique card by 0.1%.
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Each Fate stack increases your chance to summon a Legendary card by 0.02%.
Can stack up to 100 Fate stacks.
Change in the chance of pulling a high-ranked card will be used up from Common cards only.
]
The skill now affected rare cards as well, and thus improved it by a lot.
Since the chances were taken from Common card's pull chances, his effective chances had changed to become much better than how they looked.
With Legendary cards having a 2% chance, Unique cards having a 12% chance, and Rare cards having a 30% chance. Adding onto that the Uncommon chance of 23%, the new chance to summon common cards was 33%, as long as he could keep his Fate Stacks at 100 at all times.
He now had less than a third chance to draw Common cards, which with his average LUK meant that he was going to pull the other cards more so often.
Especially now that he was summoning two cards at once, even though he could only use a single one, he had twice as good a chance to summon an amazing card.
Ning was satisfied with this, so he moved on to his next two spells.
Having reached Level 100, he had obtained a new skill point and he had put off deciding which one he needed to improve.
Both of the skills were amazing in their own regard. Fate's Aid was brilliant in giving his attacks critical strikes, so if he were to upgrade here, the chances of his attacks dealing more damage were obvious.
However, his other skill, Fate's Joker wasn't unimpressive either. While it did look like it had a high chance of giving him some debuff, that was only when he summoned common cards.
If he summoned any cards other than that, the chances of him receiving a buff were high. And as he had noticed, the better the card he sacrificed, the better the buff was.
As such, Ning stood there, contemplating his next course of action.
"Hmm… I'm a puppet of fate, huh? Then let's leave it up to that," Ning thought. He turned around to look at the group of demons on either side of the deck.
They were standing there with harpoons, ready to hit any fish they come across.
Ning thought, 'if the one on the left gets fish first, I will go with Fate's Aid. If the one on the right gets fish first, I will go with Fate's Joker.'
He waited for a bit as the many demons tossed their harpoons into the ocean, trying to hit a fish, but they couldn't.
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It was only after nearly 20 minutes did someone finally managed to catch a fish. It was a small one, but a fish nonetheless.
"Well, that settles it then," Ning thought and pressed level up. When the skill improved, he checked it out with a bit of surprise.
He wasn't expecting it to turn out this good.
[Fate's Aid
Level 2
Type: Buff
This skill activates whenever you use a card from your Deck of Infinite Fates. Your chances for critical strikes and critical damage will improve depending on the rank of the card you pull.
Removes your ability to crit normally.
Rank : Critical Chance / Critical Damage
Common: 30% / 250%
Uncommon: 30% / 300%
Rare: 30% / 400%
Unique: 40% / 600%
Legendary: 50% / 850%
Buff lasts until the cooldown of Deck of Infinite Fates is no more.
]
"Wow!" Ning thought. There was a general 10% improvement in the chances on all fronts, with the highest now reaching 50% chance. It was unlikely he would ever sacrifice a Legendary card, but who knew?
"The critical multiplier is not bad either," Ning thought. "I hope I will get to see what dealing 850% will look like soon enough."
Chapter 857: The Mines of MartholNing arrived at the Starsoar continent 10 days later and was ushered into the Azure Keep where the demons had already taken over.
It had been over 3 months since the war back in the Garland continent was over, but he didn't expect them to take over a few cities up north already.
He walked through the war-torn streets and looked at the shops on either side. He needed to find a good quest quickly and earn some experience to level up.
Getting a quest was not necessary, but it was the easiest way to get free exp. And since the shopkeepers here were desperate for materials, Ning found this to be the best way to get a quest.
He walked over to a blacksmith and spoke, "Brother, do you need any help here?"
The demon blacksmith turned around and looked at Ning. He ignored the face but looked at the wings behind him.
"A blessed one? Do you wish to help me?" the Demon blacksmith asked.
"Of course," Ning said. "I want to help those who we can in these times of need."
The demon alchemist thought for a bit. "Your thoughts are commendable, young man," he said. "Very well, if you wish to help me, take this and get me some Black Iron ore."
[You have received a quest.]
[Quest: Mine some Black Iron ores.
In the mines of Marthol lies a deposit of many different types of ores. Find Black Iron ores amongst them and bring them to the Blacksmith Delan.
The more the ores, the higher the reward.
Reward: 10 Silver and 500 Exp per ore. If you bring back over 500 Ores, Blacksmith Delan will make you an equipment of your choice.]
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Ning looked at the pickaxe that Delan was handing him. He slowly moved his hands and took it.
[You have accepted the quest.]
"Great!" the demon suddenly shouted. "Now leave and don't come back until you've found some ores."
Ning was startled a bit but quickly managed to find his composure and thanked the blacksmith for the quest.
Then, he left.
"So… where is Marthol?" he wondered and opened his map. His map had been upgraded to show the different locations he knew or had a quest for.
This was to say, aside from the Azure Keep, the Blinding Forest to the east, and the Marthol mountain range even further east, he knew no other location on this continent.
He walked out of the keep, and his weapon was automatically equipped for him. In the last 3 months, he had let go of spears and had started using this sword.
Ning wanted to continue using spears, but they simply weren't as great as this sword which had a simple quirk.
1 in 5 times, it allowed him to ignore the enemy's defense completely and deal the lowest damage he could without any obstruction.
Which was to say, he had a 20% chance to deal absolute damage using the lowest roll of the attack, which was 130% of STR in almost all cases.
Ning looked at the stats he had at the moment and nodded to himself when he saw nearly 400 in STR. If he attacked and proc'd the 20% chance, he would deal 520 Absolute damage.
If he were to crit at that very moment, then even at the lowest, he would deal over 1500 Absolute Damage easily.
That sounded like a lot of damage, however, the monsters and dungeons were also becoming increasingly harder and harder to beat.
Previously, you could just run into a dungeon, kick a few butts with your buddies, and left.
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However, now it had to be strategic. If you didn't plan out most of how you were going to fight the boss, you would be in a lot of trouble as the bosses got increasingly faster and stronger, and even their skills were hard to avoid.
Still, killing them gave him quite a few good equipment. Thanks to the many pieces of equipment that he had changed in the last 3 months, his stats had gotten rather good.
Even his DEF stat, which was pretty much trash was now above 180.
The most impressive improvement was perhaps his INT, which was closing in on 550 stats at the moment.
He needed 101 thousand exp to level up, but Ning thought that was possible, especially now that he was out of the other continent and into this one where the demons seemed to have started a fight against the humans and angels.
Ning walked out of the keep and went east. He walked into the Blinding forest and fought off some monsters along the way.
It was starting to get much easier now that his attacks dealt higher critical damage.
The Blinding forest was named as such because of all the golden-leaved trees in the forest that reflected light around the forest, fully illuminating it even with the least amount of light.
If looked at during the middle of the day, the forest would get so bright, that one would assume it would blind them.
The beast Ning fought here were giant birds that loved to perch on those very trees and attack whoever entered the forest.
They were all of the different types, with different elemental attributes to each of them, but their fighting style was the same, so Ning had an easier time defeating them.
He didn't search for these beasts; if they didn't attack him, he didn't go looking for a fight. As such, despite the Blinding Forest being a couple of kilometers long in either direction, he got out of there relatively quickly and was on a flat grassland.
He was in Marthol now, and to the east, he could see the barren mountain which housed the mines. Ning could see demons there that had already taken over the mine.
He walked up the slightly inclined plane towards the cave and arrived at the cave's mouth.
"Oh!" Ning was surprised when he saw what was in the cave's mouth. There was an opening there, but not one he had expected to see.
The Mines of Marthol was in fact a dungeon.
Chapter 858: Dungeon MiningNing looked at the dungeon gate and frowned. "So it is actually a dungeon huh? And it even accepts people up to level 150. I wonder if I will even be strong enough to handle any fight inside."
The solo clear record was about 15 minutes, so the mine was surely very hard for him.
"Well, I'm not here to beat any records but to mine some ores. As long as I ignore the monsters inside, I should be able to do my job. If they turn out to be weak, then I can think about fighting."
Then, Ning entered.
He arrived in a massive cave that was about 10 meters wide and equally high. Multicolored ores shined from all around him, asking him to mine them.
Ning took out the pickaxe and looked at it.
[Regular Pickaxe (Common)
Can be used to mine metal ores and minerals.
STR: 30
VIT: 30
Rocky Stab: Has a 30% chance to deal 200% of your STR as Absolute Damage to rocks ]
"Oh," Ning thought. "So it works based on my STR value?" If he did damage to rocks then surely it used his STR stat, right?
He activated a random Uncommon card to get a chance to deal critical damage on hits.
He walked up to a wall and got ready to use the pickaxe. He hit the wall once and suddenly a number floated in front of him.
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22%.
Ning was surprised. "That's not damage, is it?" He hit the same spot again and the number jumped to 45%. His suspicion of what was happening grew and he continued hitting 3 more times until the percentage reached 100.
[You have mined 1 Star Gold Ore.]
"Star Gold? Not Black Iron?" Ning thought. "Did I hit the wrong spot?"
Ning looked around at the wall where the colors weren't as prevalent and everything was dark. Surely this location had Black Iron, right?
He struck the place once and the number that appeared was 14%. "Oh, that's quite low," he thought. "Do these numbers have to do with my damage perhaps?" He wondered if he hit something rare.
He continued hitting the same place and slowly the number went up to 100 before an ore dropped in front of him. Ning looked at the notification that appeared in front of him and frowned.
"Obsidian ore? Not Black Iron?" he thought. He moved a little too the left and hit another spot, which he quickly cleared, only to end up with Abyssal Silver ores which were also black in color.
"Goddammit!" Ning thought. "How the hell is my luck so bad? I thought I had it average now."
He struck the wall again, and finally, he got a Black Iron ore. "I have to mine 4 different times just to get one of these? Dammit, that's just wrong," he thought.
He continued mining for a while and realized just how many ores there were in this dungeon. Aside from Black Iron, there was Star Gold, Abyssal Silver, Obsidian, White Gold, Scarlet Lead, Dry Tin, Light Zinc, and many more.
Ning realized that there was a percentage of the ore in every single wall of this mine, which was to say that he would need to have the incredible luck to get Black Iron every time.
Getting in on his fourth turn was in fact him getting lucky. Otherwise, normally it took anywhere from 8 to 9 tries to get it on average. At worse, Ning even went through 20 different turns without gaining a Black Iron ore.
Still, the rest of the ores weren't useless, and he could probably sell them. So, he continued mining in the cave despite the whole dungeon being ahead of him.
It took Ning a while to realize that because he had spent quite a lot of time mining here, he was taking longer and longer to mine for a specific ore.
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So, he left the place and went further into the cave in search of better ores.
He found a rather colorful place with a lot of metals in the cave and got ready to swing his pickaxe when suddenly the walls moved.
Ning backed off and watched in shock as a giant, boss-sized monster made up of the rock there appeared in front of him.
Without hesitation, Ning used his Observer stone to see how strong the beast was.
From what Ning could see, the beast was named Ore Golem and was made up of the rocks and walls in this place. It had 130 levels, over 500 STR stats, and over 600 DEF.
Fortunately, it had no INT, but it did have high vitality, rendering it to have a rather high HP. It also had mana so there were skills, but Ning wasn't sure how strong the skills could be.
Ning was about to equip his sword when he remembered Pickaxe's skill. 'Oh!' he thought to himself when he finally realized why there was an Absolute Damage value for rocks.
This monster was the reason.
Ning activated a card that gave him full mana and got to fighting.
"Chain Lightning!" he shouted, dealing over 600 damage at once. "What?"
Ning wondered why he did so much damage when he just had 500 INT, but now was not the time to think about that.
Ning ran forward, dodging the beast's slow attacks, and hit it with the pickaxe. Unfortunately, due to their difference in STR and DEF, Ning was barely able to deal 150 damage to the beast.
For a person with over 400 STR, his damage was disappointing, maybe even demotivating.
Ning looked at the beast's HP and frowned when he saw that he had barely chipped 5% off it after those two attacks. The fight was going to be tough, but he wasn't discouraged.
Ning slid underneath the beast before jumping onto its back and started hitting it with the pickaxe. Occasionally, he dealt about 800 Absolute Damage, immediately removing a massive chunk of the beast.
If he could continue that, he would be able to beat that in no time.
Chapter 859: Screw this!Ning's last hit dealt 800 damage once again to the Ore Golem, finally killing it.
[You have defeated an Ore Golem]
[You have received 320 Exp]
[You have received Star Gold x 2]
[You have received Light Zinc x 1]
"Oh, I could get ores from these monsters too?" Ning looked at his notification with a thoughtful expression. "No, I got too few for it to be worth it."
He looked at the wall again and started mining it. After mining about 10 different ores, the wall started taking way too long to produce anything, just like last time.
So Ning moved on to another wall that shined with many lights and tried there. 11 different ores came out this time, and only 1 of them was Black Iron.
Ning frowned and tried again. Out of 10, he got 1 Black Iron.
Once again.
He mined another wall. Out of 10, he got 0 Black Iron.
Once again.
He fought an Ore Golem and got 0 Black Iron.
Once again, and again.
Ning was annoyed by now. Even the most patient of men would be annoyed, and Ning was far from being one.
He was less annoyed about his improved luck being not as useful, and more so about the fact that despite having a quest, the game wasn't prioritizing him to get more Black Iron by default.
Did the game truly expect him to mine here for 2 weeks just to finish the quest? Ning certainly wasn't thinking of doing that.
He mined the walls some more and fought the Ore Golems some more, but no matter how much he fought, he was barely getting any Black Iron Ores at all.
Getting unlucky time after time was starting to get frustrating now.
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"Urgh! Screw this," Ning thought. "System, get me the highest LUK stat possible."
"Yeah, I'm certain. Do it," Ning said.
Suddenly, Ning saw a notification pop up in front of him.
[You have ??? ???]
[Your LUK stat has upgraded from B to SSS]
[??? ???? ???? ???? ?????? ?? ???!]
[Congratulations! You have reached SSS grade LUK.]
[Class Upgrade available.]
[Would you like to upgrade your class to 'Master of Fate'?]
Ning looked at the words in surprise. 'Improving my LUK stat upgrades my class?' he thought with a surprised look.
He saw the color of the words 'Master of Fate'; it was Orange.
'A Legendary class,' Ning thought to himself with surprise. There were exactly 10 Legendary classes, and Ning had somehow managed to land on one.
"Wait, I would've had to wait until my LUK was SSS before I got this?" he thought. "What bullshit! I did right cheating."
Ning looked around at one of the walls in the cave and walked up to it to hit it. He only hit it 3 times before he was done.
Black Iron ore dropped in that single turn.
"Is that what's supposed to happen? Or… did I get lucky?" Ning wondered. He hit the wall again and got Black Iron again.
"Haha! It works!" Ning cried out in happiness and started mining wherever he could find the ores. He got so into it that he even forgot there was a class upgrade waiting for him to accept or deny.
Soon Ning understood that he was in fact getting lucky. The game wasn't supposed to give him all these ores just like that. He had to work for it by mining for a long time.
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However, thanks to his luck 9 out of 10 times, Ning was getting Black Iron. He was so much happier now that he understood he didn't have to work so hard for a bunch of rocks.
As he mined, Ning came across another Ore Golem.
"Well let's get this over with," he thought and pulled out a card.
Suddenly, two cards, one Purple, and one Orange flickered to life as they appeared in front of Ning. "Woah! I don't even have a 0.5% chance of summoning a Legendary card. Is this how good SSS grade LUK is?"
Ning looked at the card.
[Interchange: For the next 120 seconds, all instances of your damage will either deal physical damage or magical damage. You can change it 2 times entirely.]
"Activate!" Ning used the card.
The golden light shined and a few notifications appeared in front of him. One of which told him he could choose which damage to deal with, with 3 choices entirely.
"So, I can change it twice after I choose here, right?" Ning thought as he looked at the beast in front of him. With how high its DEF stat was and with how it had absolutely 0 magical resistance, it would be stupid of Ning not to choose to deal only magical damage here.
Once Ning choose it, he jumped onto the Golem and swung his pickaxe down on it.
[You have dealt 800 Damage.]
[You have dealt 256 Damage]
[You have dealt 5100 Damage]
Ning paused for a second. "I'm sorry… what?" He looked at the notification and tried to make it make sense. He looked at the numbers briefly and finally understood what was happening.
The 800 damage he dealt was the Absolute Damage he dealt through the pickaxe's passive. The 256 was his damage from the 'Zap' skill that was passive to the Thunder Lizard's Necklace where he had some chance of dealing 50% of his INT as magic damage.
Finally, the 5100 damage was his normal damage, unblocked by anything, that had successfully landed a Critical strike.
With his luck, every hit would be a critical strike, and with him pulling a legendary card, every critical strike would do 850% of his normal damage.
In just 3 more hits, Ning finished off the Ore Golem, shocking himself at what incredible speed he killed it.
The loot was also quite good, giving him another 5 Black Iron.
Ning continued his way through the dungeon, fighting golems, and mining ores before he finally came across the Boss room of the dungeon.
"A level 150 boss. Can I even defeat it?" he thought. "Hmm… should I upgrade my class now?"
Chapter 860: Master Of FateThere wasn't much information about what his new class was going to be like, so Ning was a little concerned.
"Still, going from a Unique to a Legendary class surely couldn't hurt, right?" he thought to himself.
So, without hesitation, Ning clicked on the notification and tapped on upgrade.
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[Your class will change to 'Master of Fate'. Are you sure?]
"Yes," Ning said and tapped it again.
Suddenly, orange light shined from all around him as notifications from the game drowned him. The blue panels were so many that it looked as if that was all he could see.
Ning pulled himself back from the moment and looked at everything with a distant eye. He ignored useless notifications and focused on the important ones for now.
Firstly, his class had indeed changed, which had also given him a Legendary Title.
[The First Legendary
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Title Grade: Legendary
Charm: 300
Charisma: 200
Leadership: 200
Status Resistance: 20%
The title does not need to be equipped to apply.]
:3
