Chapter 182

Honing the Craft (III)

//Striped Boar King Race: Wild Beast

Level: 49

Health: 3,650,000

Traits: Territorial(S+), Passive(C+), Angered(S)

Skills: Stampede(C+), Thicken(B), King’s Roar (A), Defiant(D-)//

Following a quick inspection, Cain confirmed what his memory already told him. After all, in his previous life, this monster was responsible for quite a lot of deaths... but also quite a lot of items that propelled careers of many-a-Conqueror. The key was that the monster ‘respawned’ monthly -- within Tower’s sense, however, it simply meant that an ordinary boar would evolve into a King or a Queen if one is killed. As such, the monster was on the farm list of anyone who wanted to seriously start conquering -- including Cain.

He’d been a part of a massive excursion, over six hundred people in total, that stormed this beast and eventually ended up killing it with some sixty or so casualties. This time around, however, sacrifices weren’t necessary.

Emma unwound like a tightly-knotted rope, her warhammer shining out in a purifying crimson, drowning out the world for a moment as she propelled it over her shoulder and slammed it against the stampeding boar; the creature came to a screeching halt, defying the laws of physics as a body that large should never be allowed to stop so abruptly. Its body began to distort under the massive pressure as it yelped out in pain before being flung back like a baseball. The creature rolled backward good two hundred yards before stopping, prompting Cain to start chasing forward.

He’d already began preparing his onslaught and, the moment he entered his attack range, he activated ‘Ascendance, bolstering his damage from the get-go. Following the three charges of ‘Coiling Storm’, he flung out ‘Void Annihilation’, summoning spatial bubbles all around the creature that popped like fireworks, slamming it repeatedly with skills and draining its health crazily fast. He quickly also used ‘Searing Mind’, superimposing extra casts of ‘Void Annihilation’ as triggers, before finishing off his rotation with ‘Infernal Starlight’, remaining stationary for 3 seconds long channel.

Cain had dumped all ‘100’ attribute points he’d gotten from leveling up into ‘Intelligence’, propelling it to 358 with the addition of the item. This, also, bolstered his Mana to nearly 5900, which meant that he had extra room to keep firing off ‘Coiling Storm’ essentially the moment it came off-cooldown.

Within the span of 20 seconds, as the difference in levels wasn’t large enough to warrant damage-dampening, Cain had managed to dish out ridiculously high 200,000 damage. Emma had completely stopped attacking and turned back at him, starling like a sheep at starlight; even Cain froze, slack-jawed. After all, considering that base damage of each Skill wasn’t really that broken, not even reaching 4000 within a single hit, it shouldn’t have dealt that much damage. However, chance-procs in conjuction with stacking damage buffs and ‘Ascendance’ ensured that damage continued to ramp up swiftly and mercilessly.

Shaken out of the stupor by the beast’s roar, Emma turned back around, cheeks flushed, and unleashed her own hell. Even if she couldn’t deal as much damage as quickly as Cain could, she was still the main attacker -- after all... Cain only had ‘Coiling Storm’ right now, and nothing else. Besides, even with his increased Mana pool, and a fairly decent regeneration speed for his level, he couldn’t fire it off endlessly.

By now, the two figures that were running away from the boar had come to their senses and realized that they were no longer being chased. Glancing back, they saw a tiny, but heavily-armored figure standing tall in front of the boar, easily holding it back, with a figure behind her firing off a school of spells over and over again. Glancing at the massive boar’s health bar, the two nearly toppled over when they saw that there was actually a fairly decent dent in its health -- 3,6 million had fell down to below 3 million within just a minute and a half.

Cain stopped using his Skills for a moment to ramp up his Mana; even if he couldn’t use ‘Searing Mind’ or ‘Ascendance, a combo of ‘Void Annihilation’ and ‘Infernal Starlight’ was still a good chunk of damage every minute. An army of infernal arms surged from the ground and repeatedly struck the boar; even with only 5% chance to fire off a free ‘Coiling Storm’, as there were no other creatures in vicinity to attack, infernal bolts repeatedly came firing off from near Cain, striking the boar.

By now, however, the boar had begun to move and cast skills of his own, prompting Cain to begin using his directional movement skills, digging further into his Mana pool. With all the bonuses from his titles, Cain was regenerating 480 Mana every 2 seconds, number that was halved for when he was in combat, resulting in 240. As such, it was rather difficult for him to pool enough Mana together to fire off every Skill off-cooldown, often having to wait a bit for the Mana to catch up.

Even still, with Emma’s damage that easily toppled his over the course of prolonged fight, the boar slowly began to fall. He was hardly a hard boss, and the only thing he had going for him was the insane health -- likely the highest on the entire 1st floor, possibly even 2nd. Within ten minutes, the boar toppled over and drew his last breath as Cain once again leveled up consecutively, reaching level 34 and adding another 50 points into his Intelligence immediately, finally cracking 6000 Mana.

Ignoring the notifications he got for the items, he turned toward the two that were running away from that were running away from the boar; they were approaching Cain cautiously, fear evident on their faces. Taking a closer look, Cain realized both were kids -- likely not older than 17. Emma joined him swiftly after, having already de-armored herself, donning casual clothes.

“You got anything good?” Emma asked him.

“Dunno,” Cain shrugged. “But I did get the idea of how to polish my style a bit further. It’s too rigid and one-dimensional at the moment.”

“Yup, and it looks very boring,” Emma said. “You moved like twice the entire fight.”

“Tell me about it,” Cain chuckled bitterly.

“H-hello,” both of the newcomers were boys, and both had remarkably similar appearance, so much so that both Cain and Emma immediately suspected they were twins. “Thank you... for saving us.” one of them stuttered out.

“No probs,” Cain grinned. “You guys stole his egg, right?”

“--!!”

“Ha ha, don’t worry, you can keep it,” Cain laughed at their startled expressions. “Just be more careful in the future. When there’s an egg, there’s usually so big-ass monster guarding it.”

“O-okay, thanks!”

“Hm, good luck.”

The two groups separated swiftly after, with the two boys retreating back, appearing to want to move to the entrance, while Emma and Cain moved near the river’s bank and set up a temporary camp. The two sat down and dipped their feet into the rapid and cool waters, enjoying the temporary respite.

This also gave the two a moment to go through the spoils of their battle. Cain got rewarded with two items -- a pair of boots and a single-use item in the shape of a spiraling rock, while Emma got an earring in the same shape.

//Stampeding Boots(B-) Feet

Level: 45

Requirements: Level 40, Intelligence 300

+40 Intelligence

+25 Wisdom

+20% to Mana Regeneration

Passive(0) -- feet become a conduit for Mana, enhancing capabilities of every Skill that runs through feet by 30%//

//Fetching Rock(B) One-time use

Level: 0

Requirements: Titled Conqueror

Use: Attracts every beasts within 4 miles of your location and increases the damage you dealt to them by 60% for 4 minutes.//

Cain set the boots aside for the time being as he needed to be Level 40 to wear them, and focused on the rock. It was a strange thing, he mused; if misused, it would likely lead to death. Though 4 miles didn’t seem like a lot, a lot of creatures were classified as ‘beasts’ -- including some insects, underground dwellers, and even birds. In all likelihood, if he used it right now, he’d attract good few hundreds of creatures that would easily kill both Emma and him. However, he already fashioned an idea for where to use this rock -- there was a specific quest on the 2nd floor that rewarded a permanent pet of sorts if played out properly. The issue with the quest was that actually locating the necessary beats to complete it was nigh-impossible -- everyone had tried the quest in his previous life, including people who had undergone their 2nd Awakening, yet the quest went uncompleted until Cain’s return.

With this rock, however, there was a chance. It’s strange that others didn’t try it; maybe they did and the rock didn’t work? Oh well, we’ll see... For now, however, it didn’t matter; Cain’s focus quickly shifted on the waters in front of him and beyond. Within them, schools of fish swam about as though they were completely calm, and Cain would likely have to kill hundreds in order to get the item that he wants. As such, he also suspected they’d be eating a lot of fish in the upcoming days...