[Roots of Magic]

Mana cost: 0

Cooldown: 5 minutes

Effects: Decrease the mana cost of all skills by 30% and decrease the cooldown of all other skills by 20%

Note: Roots of Magic will be automatically canceled if the user tries to move his legs or is affected by a strong crowd control effect

Right after reciting the incantation, with a satisfactory smile, Five lowered his eyes to take a look at his feet. As he expected, he found his lower body surrounded by a layer of semi-transparent threads, connecting his body to the ground. The pale blue threads looked so frail and fragile; for a moment, Five was even tempted to try moving his legs to see if they would really break.

While this was happening, Ariel was silently observing their surroundings, acting as a strong deterrent to all the assassins hiding in the shadows. Although no one dared to take any actions yet, Ariel did not lower her guard at all; she knew that even with the Roots of Magic activated, the situation did not improve by much. Especially since in the corner of her eyes, she quickly noticed the actions of the other players blocked by the layer of ice!

The players facing the layer of ice only had two options to overcome it. The first one was to simply wait for the ice to melt; depending on the environment, the ice could last for 30 seconds to 5 minutes and in this case, the ice would melt in just 1 minute. However, even one minute was too long for them and as a result, the players naturally opted for the second option.

In perfect synchrony, all the mage players began to attack the layer of ice, causing it to crack and melt. The range of a mage was limited and could not reach Five yet, but they could still deal with the layer of ice. Just a few fire spells were enough to completely get rid of it, but the process still took a few seconds which was more than enough for Five to cast the Roots of Magic.

The latter was naturally aware of the situation but there was nothing he could do about it. He was a lonely man standing against a large team of players. Furthermore, he was even at a lower level than most of the players; aside from the wide range of skills he had, he was at a complete disadvantage.

Five never thought of being able to defeat the players; his only goal had been to locate the player named Two and to get rid of him! He did not know the conditions to break the Earthbound Curse, but chances are, killing Two would also dispel the curse!

"First things first. Let's check if there are any hidden assassins nearby. This meeting is really going to cost me a lot of DP..."

With a calm expression, Five rapidly took out two small bottles and hurriedly drank them one after the other. The Roots of Magic allowed him to cast a few additional spells, but it was still not sufficient. He could only supplement his lacking using a Mana Recovery Potion and a Mind Boosting potion; one temporarily increased his mana recovery rate by 30% while the other increased his Wisdom by 3 which would impact the damage dealt by his spells.

If physical classes needed to spend a lot of gold on their equipment to constantly repair them, the magical classes spent more on consumable items that could temporarily boost their power.

With his mana source more or less secured, Five immediately activated a priest spell: [Light Bulwark]. A faint transparent barrier quickly surrounded him and Ariel; as he could not move, he needed a shield to protect himself. Ariel alone was not enough but with the light bulwark, he would at least be able to block a few attacks.

Different from other shields, the light bulwark did not absorb a fixed amount of damage; instead, it blocked 5 hits regardless of the damage that would have been dealt. It was especially effective in this situation as in the distance, Five could see several rangers activating their [State of Focus]; the Ranger's version of Roots of magic that highly increased the user's range of attack and accuracy.

"Ariel, are you ready?" asked Five.

"Yes!"

Hearing the harpy's answer, Five quickly used the buffing skills of the priest class: [Empower], [Haste], [Excite], [Open Mind] and [Hidden Strength]. They were all single target spells that would temporarily boost the target's attributes and naturally, the target in this case, was Ariel.

Five still had a few other buffing spells in his arsenal but considering that they targeted areas instead of individuals, it would be a waste of mana to use them just to boost Ariel.

With Ariel receiving a considerable improvement in strength, Five immediately used a mage skill. Mages were particularly vulnerable to sneak attacks, as they stood in the backline, it was easy for assassins to get rid of them; it was especially true if they were immobilized by the roots of magic. Fortunately, the mages were not completely helpless against the assassins; they still had a few spells especially designed to counter them.

"Wave of truth, flow around me and reveal my enemies. Echo Sounder."

...

[Wind Wall]

[Wind Fury]

When she heard Five casting the spell, Ariel immediately followed her master and used her own skills. She already knew her job was to deal with the assassins nearby but doing so would leave Five exposed. Unfortunately, she focused mainly on aggressive skills and did not have many defensive skills; the only one she knew was Wind Wall.

[Wind Wall]

Mana cost: 50

Cooldown: 10 minutes

Effects: Creates an invisible wall of wind that blocks all physical ranged attacks for 10 seconds

Wind Wall was completely useless against spells but at the same time, it was the bane of all rangers. With the skill activated, even with their State of Focus, the Rangers would be unable to harm Five for the next 10 seconds.

10 seconds was a very short period of time, but it would be more than enough for Ariel to deal with the nearby assassins. The harpy was very confident in herself, especially since Wind Fury boosted both her movement speed and attack speed.

Ariel quietly watched as a formless wave suddenly flew out of Five's body. The wave was completely harmless and did not deal any damage; its only effect was to reveal stealthed characters. And as Ariel expected, just a few moments later, several silhouettes appeared around her.

Echo Sounder only revealed the assassins' location; it did not provide any information about their levels or equipment. Without hesitation, Ariel charged at the nearest assassin who was crouching on the ground, waiting for a good opportunity to attack.

Unfortunately, before he could even react, the assassin's head was cleanly severed by the harpy. The unfortunate player did not even have time to understand how his location had been revealed before he was greeted by the game over screen. He wanted to warn his teammates but unfortunately, as he was dead, he was unable to send any messages.

Ariel did not waste any time after dealing with that assassin. She quickly looked around her and saw 5 other silhouettes spread around Five. Taking advantage of the fact that the players were still unaware of that their locations had been revealed, she once again attacked the nearest assassins.

The players were quite smart and very quickly, they understood what had happened. They initially believed that the first assassins had simply made a mistake and consequently revealed his position but when they saw their second teammate being viciously attacked by the harpy, they immediately took actions.

Although they were all part of the same team, the players were not crazy enough to help their poor teammate. They were all assassins; while their damage output was high, their defenses were laughable. Looking for trouble with an NPC 10 levels above themselves would not be different from directly suiciding.

Instead, three assassins courageously rushed toward Five while the remaining one chose to quickly retreat and stay away from the crazy harpy.

The assassins did not believe they would be able to escape this situation. However, even if their fate was sealed, it did not mean that they would go down without a fight; at the very least, they would cancel Five's Roots of Magic. As long as they contributed to the fight in some ways, they would receive some rewards later.

Five was aware of the situation and was already prepared. When he saw the blurry silhouettes charging at him, Five immediately started to chant several incantations. The assassins were strong but without the element of surprise, their threat level decreased significantly.

A series of projectiles appeared in Five's palms and quickly flew toward the assassins. Five was not expecting to be able to defeat the assassins; after all, they were several levels above his own. His only goal was to delay the assassins just enough for Ariel to deal with them. With all the skills available to Five, even if he had to cast them in three separate directions, the assassins still had a hard time dodging the attacks. They were forced to either dodge and lose a few precious seconds or to bite the bullet and lose some HP.

Ariel was fast but so were the assassins. In just a few seconds, only one assassin was left standing. However, that one assassin had already managed to close the gap between him and Five. Ariel shook the blood off her right hand and quickly dashed toward the remaining assassin. Although the assassin was not very far from her, covering that short distance would at least take her 1 second.

Fortunately, Five reacted quickly. It would be troublesome if he was hit and had to cancel the Roots of Magic. The 30% mana cost reduction did not sound like much, but it was thanks to that buff that his mana pool was not empty yet. It was dangerously low, but it was enough to cast his next spell: [Earth Pillar].

The ground shook as a pillar suddenly shot from the ground. Earth Pillar was usually used offensively; in this case, Five used the skill to create a wall between him and the assassin. It was a really ineffective way to use Earth Pillar as similar skills existed whose sole function was to protect its user like Earth Wall but the major difference between the two skills was the casting time. Earth Wall could raise the ground and create a wall around its user, but the process was slow!

Had Five used Earth Wall instead of Earth Pillar, as time was limited, he would have at most created a small obstacle for the assassin to jump over but with the Earth Pillar, a giant wall had already been erected between the two. Naturally, as it was a pillar, the assassin could easily go around the earth structure to attack Five but doing so would cost him the precious second, he had and more importantly, he would completely lose the momentum of his charge!

The light in the assassin's eyes started to dim. The moment he saw the Earth Pillar, he knew he would not succeed in hitting Five. His options were simply too limited, and he did not even have time to think properly.

"Since I am going to die here, I might as well try to attack that harpy. I will die for sure but if I can apply a debuff, I should be able to get a few more merit points. D*mnit, if that selfish brat did not run away, I would have easily obtained those 200 merit points!"

When she saw the Earth Pillar shoot out of the ground, Ariel instinctively let out a sigh of relief. "That was too close... I am such a failure! I should have used my wind blades," said Ariel to herself. Since Five was now out of danger, the harpy had subconsciously started to relax. She no longer considered the assassin as a possible threat. Nevertheless, she still rushed toward the assassin to get rid of him.

However, to her surprise, even with the earth pillar blocking the way, the assassin did not stop! Instead, he even accelerated before jumping toward the pillar.

From Ariel's point of view, the assassin was actually jumping right into the pillar but instead of crashing into it, the assassin suddenly bounced back toward her!

It was the rogue's movement skill: [Wall Jump] allowing its user to bounce off a wall horizontally without losing any momentum. The assassin cleverly used that skill to surprise Ariel and at least land one hit! His eyes focused on the harpy as he thrust his dagger forward.

[Internal Haemorrhage]

Although she was surprised, Ariel instinctively attacked the charging assassin with her hands covered with blood. With all the buffs active on her, her right hand easily cut through the assassin's flesh, slicing the poor player in half.

However, despite losing his lower half and witnessing his HP drop to 0, the assassin did not give up and forcefully pushed his dagger forward. His body flew at a strange angle and by coincidence, allowed his dagger to slice Ariel's left calf.

"Success!"

Despite only dealing 5 damage to Ariel, the assassin brightly smiled as his vision darkened. [Internal Haemorrhage] was not designed to inflict any damage to the target. Its main purpose was to apply a bleeding debuff, dealing 1 damage every 5 seconds for the next 60 seconds while reducing the effectiveness of all healing skills and items by 50%.

Five naturally noticed the debuff being applied to the harpy. He had been monitoring Ariel's HP and MP bars during the entire fight. He was satisfied to see that the harpy could still fight for a while.

"Are you alright?" asked Five. At the same time, he tossed her a few healing potions. Their effects would be reduced but it was the only way he had to help Ariel heal a little bit.

"I am fine. I can still deal with them!" exclaimed Ariel as she pointed at the wave of players rushing at them.

"That's good. Listen, we don't need to deal with all of them. You just need to focus on one person. There is a curse holding me here but if the caster of the curse dies, then there is a high chance that the curse will be lifted. His name is 'Two’, but I don't know his appearance yet. Once I find him, I will fire all my spells at him, you will just need to take him out but if you can't then just leave, I can easily revive later but you can't."

"I already know that. You have said it a lot of time but at least, let me do my job as one of your monsters," answered Ariel. She displayed a strong front as she looked at Five. She wanted to prove herself and no matter what Five said, she was ready to disobey him if it meant that her master would survive.

"Fine. Get ready then, they are coming!" said Five. He downed a few mana potions, replenishing his mana pool to deal with the players.