Chapter 44

“I can finally start earning some money!” Leviene said to a simmering Ruse Maren who went into a rage induced killing spree nearly beating her half to death a few minutes earlier. Half to death because Leviene’s dodging skills are top notch, learned through all the times her mother tried to drag her back for a scolding and failed.

The said pissed off Ruse Maren ignored her idiotic cousin, pulled her starter sword from the scabbard flew over to the mobs and started fighting.

Although Leviene was eager to start farming, she stood where she was and watched Erica. She was curious. How well can Erica fight?

Yes, Erica did beat her up, but that was because Leviene wasn’t fighting for real. Leviene never got physical with her relatives, Erica included, so when Erica launched herself at her, Leviene dodge and block.

From the angle of attack and the strength of the blows, Leviene believe Erica will have a hard time with the swift and agile pixies… and she was right.

Erica is a socialite. She never played an MMORPG before. She doesn’t know the rules of the game or how to pull a mob. Like a bull seeing a red flag waving in front of her, Erica charged into the group and started attacking.

“What a newbie mistake.” Leviene thought to herself while she continued to watch the fun from the sidelines.

Leviene wasn’t sure how intelligent the mobs are in Arashia but she can say for sure they are smarter than the preprogrammed mobs in most MMOs out there.

Sensing their overwhelming superiority over Erica, the mischievous side of the pixies came out to play. They didn’t mindlessly attack Erica. They teased her. When she’s fighting one mob, the other pixies approached her from the back, zipping quickly under her clothes like a rat climbing up a curtain, pulling her hair and being an all out general nuisances.

Leviene couldn’t help herself. She laughed her butt off.

“Quit laughing and come help!” Erica yelled at her stupid cousin.

Seeing that Erica’s life was below 50%, Sylphie cast a HOT spell on Erica, slowly recovering her HP while catching some aggro from the pixies. Sylphie began to earnestly fight the mobs.

Leviene sigh as if she was asked to give up one of her treasure, “I guess I better start farming.”

Leviene started off with Altreyes first. Grinding those pesky pixies was fun. Asalia was a hawk in the air, nabbing pixies left and right, holding them out to Altreyes to attack with auto attack.

Altreyes doesn’t have to actively go after the mobs. It was presented to like a subject paying tribute to a ruler. The said ruler will keep the thoughts to herself else she faced a rebellion.

From Asalia’s expression, her silly thoughts were seen by the ghost.

Try to conserve mana as much as possible.

“I know. I know. You don’t have to harp on it.” Altreyes grumbled. There is a downside to grinding with a spectral entity that knows her better than she know herself.

After five levels, Altreyes went after her own mobs while Asalia killed her own. Players get the experiences if the mobs are killed by their pets and a ghost are classified as pet in Arashia.

While Asalia killed the pixies with ease, Altreyes was having a harder time at it. It was hard for Altreyes to try to kill the mobs in the air. It was mentioned before, the z axis is a no no for the short Perrian Let. Altreyes is a great gamer. Unfortunately, although the rules that govern Arashia mimic a virtual reality game, the fighting mechanics are reflected in the real world. In short, the experienced gamer got her butt kicked hard by mobs she considered no better than a mosquito.

There is a difference between being present a mob to kill and going after the mobs herself. First of all, Assassins are an ambushing melee class. She can sneak up to the pixies using camouflage but she has to give up the grinding machine called Asalia.

The biggest advantage Altreyes has now is compromised. Altreyes has to fight the pixies head on. Altreyes wanted to kill the lower level pixies for experience points since she did gain five levels with Asalia’s help but when she changes to her other characters, she has to wait for the pixies to respawn, which reduce her efficiency. Killing the higher level pixies might yield less experiences point per time spent but it does benefit the secondary stats, dexterity and precision.

Altreyes stood still, waiting for the pixie’s curiosity to overcome their caution enough for them to approach her. When enough of them were in close range, she unleashes… auto attack.

In her haste to allocate her skills in the ghost tree, she didn’t think of a combat situation where she needed to attack without the aid of her ghosts. She has seven ghosts, so it is it make sense to strengthen them as much as possible.

However, the Assassin forgot that from level 1 to level 25 she is only working with one ghost!

It wasn’t a problem for Altreyes because as a player level, they get one skill points and one stat points per level. In the case of stat points, a player get one extra stat points on top of what they get every ten levels.

In theory it works out well, in practise, not so much. Altreyes need to allocate her talent points during battle, which is… quite a good idea. “Let’s let Asalia get some hands on experiences while I power both of us up.”

After running with her tail tucked between her legs, literally at that since her tail is tucked between her legs, Altreyes found a safe spot to open up her skill tree.

Altreyes immediately put 9 points into Ghostly Enchant to fulfill the 10 point requirement in the Ghost Tree:Weapons to access the second layer of skills.

From the second layer of skills, Altreyes got:

Haunting Slice - Slice the target for 100% of damage plus 25% of damage as a bleed effect over 10 seconds. Bleed portion is considered dark attribrute.

Cost: 15 mana

Spectral Flurry - Strike target 2x doing 50% of weapon dmg each attack

Cost: 10 mana

With the new skills, she has attack and survivability. Altreyes has 4 extra points left she can use, but she’s saving them for later. She got 5 from her levels and 10 extra points from her quest with Honored Lady Valdis of Tainsoar. Altreyes didn’t notice the extra talent points at the time. It is to be expected. She was more interest in her loot rather than the talents points.

With the new skills in towed, Altreyes became a killing machine.

“Nothing can stop me now!” yelled the exuberant Assassin.

Until her mana runs out.

The benefits of having multiple characters stands out here. When Altreyes ran out of mana, she switched to Rayael, who has a full mana bar to farm.

Fighting as a Guardian is boring. Intense Aggravation, Aggrieved Strike, Aggrieved Strike, dead pixie, rinse, repeat.

Intense Aggravation has a 20 meter range and caused the pixies to come to focus on her for three seconds. Once the pixies focus on her, they zoom towards Rayael without rhyme or reason, intent on beating the moron to a bloody pulp.

Rayael wonder what it is like to be at the receiving end of the skill since those little buggers come charging at her without caution. Is it the way they are programmed or is it the skill that amazing?

Whatever it may be, the Guardian fervently wish she never has to fight another tank class with similar skills. Rayael knows she aggravates her family to an unusual degree and she is honest enough to admit it to herself she doesn’t want a taste of her own medicine. One person in perpetual PMS is bad enough!

No wait, one person in perpetual PMS coming after her is bad enough!

Aggrieved Strike deals 200% of damage with a 1 meter range at five mana. The skills is very good as a spammable attack if it wasn’t for the mana constraints. As a tank class, Rayael put all her stat points into Constitution for more HP.

Rayael regrets her decision right now. “Why did I put all those stat points into constitution?”

The reason for Rayael’s lament can be seen by reading the combat log.

Pixie attacks you: -1 HP.

Pixie attacks you: -1 HP.

Pixie attacks you: -1 HP.

Pixie attacks you: -1 HP.

These mischievious pixies does very low damage. They like the mosquito they resemble, completely annoying and completely useless. It’ll take a while for mobs to get her to near critical conditions where she has to pop into her priest to heal.

Actually, there is a reason why pixies do incredibly low damage. First of all, they are very fast. A new player can’t kill them easily unless they have a killing cheat like Asalia or an annoying method like Rayael. It is also one of the reason why Pixie Hill is deserted as it is. The second but most important part of a pixie attack patterns is their numbers. Pixies attacks in swarms.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, Erica drew most of the pixies attention while Sylphie pick them off of Erica, then later Leviene also started killing the pixies as well.

Erica would have died when she rushed the pixies earlier if Sylphie hadn’t healed her.

Rayael kills decently but her the drain on mana is tremendous.

It isn’t long before Rayael has to change into Leviene.

Grinding on a Priest is a pain. One Void Ball kills the lower level mobs. Getting it to hit? Ha! Void Ball hit the target one out of every four cast. If Leviene wasn’t leeching off Erica and Sylphie as a Priest, she’d still be level 1. Dark Reach had the same hit rate as Void Ball, but didn’t kill as fast.

Leviene was glad when she ran out of mana. She switch back to Rayael to farm, intending to switch to Altreyes then to Leviene. The extra time Asalia can remain after a class change can be used to help Leviene with the kill until her precision increase.

When the short Perrian Let first switched from Altreyes to Leviene, her mana bar on Leviene was full. This means the mana on my alts would regen when she’s playing a different character. She regens 15/100 or 0.15 of her mana per second in at a rested state or in combat. Fifteen because that how much spirit she has. The other characters she is not using regain mana at a rate of 15/1000 or 0.015 mana per second. Leviene’s mana regeneration rate is 150/100 or mana per second if she goes into a meditative state, however it takes 10 second to enter the state and 10 second of drowsiness after exiting the state, during which Leviene will be completely defenseless. Therefore, Leviene will not go into a meditative state unless she can help it.

If the short Perrian Let uses mana efficiently then when she run out mana on one character, she can switch to another character with a full mana bar or close to it. It reduces her down time by a lot. If only there was no down time. Sadly, Leviene doesn’t have enough spirits yet.

Leviene didn’t bother to check the loot the pixie dropped, choosing to equip what she can and tossing everything else into her inventory to be sorted out for later. All her characters could use a gear upgrade since they started farming with beginner gear, read horrible poor me grey, itty-bitty rags and broken weapons. Beginner’s gear isn’t that bad as Leviene made it out to be but considering she was used to one of a kind elaborate gear with amazing specs and looks beautiful on her characters, beginner’s gear is beneath her notice.

Leviene was more concerned with the kill rhythm and earning endurance points to bother stopping every so often to inspect loot and equipping it.

Ah… copper. It will turn into gold and crystal soon enough.

“I will not be poor forever!”