Author’s corner: HELLO HELLO! New chapter with 100% more noob-saving! And lots of crystals!

ANYWAY, some of you may find this chapter a bit more boring as there is a lot of research going on here, so sorry in advance!

ALSO, on the races’ matter, I added Wraiths due to popular demand. Yeti, Cyclops are also in, and I really have no idea on how I hadn’t though of them before… And garudas! Because brawny birdmen are OP!

ALSO(2), I couldn’t put the SS up today, had an unexpected thing to do the afternoon, so kind of messed up my timing…

Have a good read!

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Okay, I took another good look at the situation before going into panic. To tell the truth, these three named lynxes probably are not anything too powerful, any normal player should be able to take them on without much problems.

The thing is, I am five levels below them and, besides my sword, everything I have equipped is a super underpowered beginner’s gear. Which means that, I am anything but a normal player right now. I clearly do not have the necessary stats to take on the three of them at the same time.

Of course, I still have Yuu with me, but her level is even lower than mine is. I have no doubt that she can take one of these cats alone, after all, I’ve seen her taking a lynx head on once when she messed up one of her shots and hit another one, she literally played around with the lynx. If it is a one on one, she can more than hold her ground, but I have my doubts if she end up pulling another one. Even if she has good abilities in the real world, you can’t just ignore the stats in here.

I let out a long sigh. I do have an idea on what we need, more than equipment and level, if we want to take these guys right now.

Crowd control.

We need some kind of skill that makes the enemy unable to attack or react to us, this way we can focus on one of them at a time, without needing to worry about all of them attacking us at the same time.

From the way that Yuu is skilled on using ice magic, I’m pretty sure she could come with a way to stop them, but for me, this might take some more time since I don’t have anything I can use as a starting skill, yet.

“Apprentice, now is about time I start talking about strategies with you!” I said back in my instructor voice. Yuu answered immediately by putting her serious face and listening with attention. “On games like these, we usually have something we call, CC. Or crowd control. Do you have any idea what this could mean?”

“Crowd control?” She asked slightly tilting her head in thought. “From the words… Does it have something to do with managing a large group?”

I nodded.

“Crowd control are skills that, usually, don’t do any damage, making them seem a bit useless by newcomers to the game world.” I faked a cough. “That was a mistake that even I made back when I was just starting... But then… What do you think that their true use is, apprentice?”

She cocked her hear while thinking seriously, taking around half a second before shaking her head.

“My apologies, Shishou, but I do not know.” I smiled at her honest response.

“Then tell me, Yuu… If I told you that those tree lynxes up ahead always come as a trio, do you think that we would be able to take them on, as we are right now?” She looked at me for a moment, then changed her gaze to the tree lynxes, observing them for a while, finally she shook her head.

“No, Shishou… None of us is capable of taking on more than one of them at the same time…” I nodded at her answer.

“Then, what if we had one skill that wouldn’t damage them, but actually make them unable to attack us for some time.”

It took a moment for the information to sink in, but after some time she widened her eyes in surprise as understanding started to flow onto her, and she finally nodded in excitement.

“Then, we probably would be able to defeat them.”

I nodded happily, then took us back to the forest to hunt a normal lynx.

My idea was for Yuu to use her frost emission to somehow lock the enemies. We found one lynx and I taunted it immediately.

Yuu started using the skill and focused herself while I held the cat back, after some time she finally opened her eyes, and the mist that had gathered around her ran forward and surrounded the lynx and clustered atop of it, freezing the cat in a large block of ice. I nodded in satisfaction at seeing this, and Yuu wagged her tails happily.

But in this brief moment that she lost her concentration, a crack formed in the ice as the lynx slowly broke free. The kitsune once again focused on the ice and remade it, but she had a slight frown on her face.

“Shishou… My mana…” She spoke slowly, but I understood what she meant.

“Then let him go. If the cost is too high, it isn’t worth it.” She nodded and relaxed, letting the lynx free. As we suspected, he still had all his hp intact, but we did get a nice bonus.

Red-claw lynx[lvl 10]

(Passive) HP: 430/430

-Fury claw

-Shadow step Frostbite: -10% speed -5% attk (2 min)

It seems that her ice magic actually manage to apply a significant debuff on the cat. I looked quickly at her and noticed she had also seen the effects, and smiled at her.

“That is also a kind of crowd control. As long as you hinder your enemies it can be considered a CC!” I entered in front of her when the cat charged at her, and gave a quick slash at it, pulling it’s attention back to me.

I kept blocking the lynx’s attacks while we thought of another idea, the debuff greatly decreasing it’s danger. Although the frost block is a very good skill, from the looks, it consumes too much mana for it to be used for long periods of time. We need something cheaper.

An idea came to me as I noticed that all of its attack are charge-dependent.

“Yuu, freeze only its front paws!” I said with excitement. It seemed that she understood my idea, as she quickly nodded and focused herself once again.

This time was much quicker, as soon as the feline stopped for a brief moment the mist gathered at his feet and a small ice block fused it with the ground. The cat meowed surprised and tried to yank it free, to no avail, then it tried to claw it free with his back legs, but the lack of a good position didn’t help him. In fact, Yuu used this to freeze the third leg and left the cat standing in an awkward pose while hissing in annoyance.

“How’s mana?” I asked her while lowering my weapons.

“It costs around 3 mana per second to keep it up, Shishou… But my regeneration is around three and a half, so I will not have any problem to keep this up!” She said with a happy voice, I nodded while petting her.

“Do you think you can keep casting the ice lances meanwhile?” She blinked for a moment, then focused herself and soon a lance started to form besides her. I couldn’t help but notice that it took a little longer than usual for it to get to its full size.

After that I tried pulling another lynx and have her freeze both of them, but it seemed that it was a bit more than what she could handle, so we quickly finished the new lynx then went back to the first one.

After one hit, the ice locking his claws in place shattered and he broke free. I wasn’t really surprised for that, since it’s usual on online games that long duration CCs can be broken by damage, but Yuu seemed really angry at it.

We quickly defeated this lynx too.

So now we could completely lock one of those lynxes in place and take our time on the other two. But I still wasn’t sure about our odds, after all, Yuu’s stopping power is greatly reduced, so I’m still anxious about going there yet.

Ideally, I should have an CC of my own so I could use on another one, but sadly that is not the case, as I don’t plan on having magic on this character…

Wait, when I think about it, do the crystals I got from mining count as magic or as consumable?

Usually, when it comes to games, I am kind of a tight hand when it comes to consumables, holding until the last second before using them. But I have nothing against using them on this character, as this is the way of monster hunting.

Now that I think about it… Wasn’t I planning on doing something with these crystals when I got them? After testing them earlier, I kind of became depressed as how useless they looked… But I didn’t really spend all that much time testing them, right?

“Yuu, I hope you don’t mind, but I will try something and it might take some time… Is that a problem?” She blinked surprised for a moment, then she nodded.

“I do not mind it, Shishou… In fact… I want to try something myself… ” I looked at her, then nodded.

“Then, I’ll be at that last clearing we found, there is something I want to test.” She nodded, and we each went on our way.

As soon as I reached the clearing, I sat on the ground and started by taking all the crystals from my backpack and setting them on the ground organizing them on lines and columns.

…

Now that I take a look at them, there sure are a lot of them… The one I have the least is arcane, with twenty three, and my most numerous are water and chaos, each with thirty seven. All the others were something in between… I wonder how many I would need to actually craft something.

Anyway, I already had tested these crystals earlier, but only by using them individually… So let’s start seeing if I can activate two different crystals at the same time.

I picked a crystal of chaos and one of water, held then in one hand and tried activating them like I did earlier, but nothing happened.

I sighed in dejection; there goes half of my ideas… Anyway, if I can’t activate two different crystals at the same time, can I do it with two identical crystals? I picked up another water crystal and dropped the chaos one before trying once again, but nothing. I was kind of expecting for the crystals to summon two, but not even that!

For a game with a large amount freedom, this is kind of depressing…

Then, what about a piece from a single crystal? I tried breaking one water crystal with my hands, and surprising me, it actually pretty much breaks apart in the middle!

I pick one of them and start by trying to activate it, but nothing! God dammit! Does nothing works? And did I just waste a whole water crystals?

I sigh loudly and sit kickback on the ground thinking… And I had so many plans for these!

As a last try, I pick both pieces from the broke crystals, and try using them together without much hope… And, finally! It actually works! A water ball shots forward and crashes at a nearby tree while the fragments in my had disappear… actually, wasn’t it larger than the one made by a normal crystal?

But this is strange… Why is it that using two identical crystals does not work, but using two fragments does? Maybe it’s because the two were originally the same?

I test this hypothesis by breaking two more water crystals then swapping the bottoms, and then I try using it. And it works just fine! And yes, the ball does seems bigger than before…

I verify this by picking the remaining fragments and breaking them even further, then I gather all the fragments in my hand and use it.

A large ball of water appear in front of me, and slowly advance forward before hitting a tree and breaking itself. Altough the size increased greatly, it seemed to me that it lost a lot of impact in exchange… Does this apply to the other crystals too?

Yes, a quick test with a chaos crystal shows-me this. By the way, a chaos ball kind of look like a distorting, black colored ball with an aura that changes randomly.

Hmm… Maybe the crystals only activate when there is a set amount of mass activated? That does seems to be the case. And the more broken they are, they deal less damage but gathers more element… This sure is mysterious…

If mass is the only restriction, does this mean that as long as I have a set mass, I can combine any kind of crystal I want?

I test this out by breaking an earth crystal and a fire crystal and picking half of each. When I activate them… A ball of magma! YES!

So I CAN actually combine crystals! Then, I guess its back to the original plan.

I start by checking a couple of combinations that might be useful for me, and I discover that fire and wind actually creates a small explosion!

I made a quick test on the lynxes to see if the bomb-ball would work well…

Not so lucky, they only deal a small amount of damage… Around eight or so. Not worthy losing a whole crystal for that damage, I quickly dispatch the lynx and go back to the clearing. On a sudden idea, I pick the two small leather pieces I got from the normal skinning and cover another bomb-ball around it. I test what happens, and much to my surprise, it actually activates instantly, blowing up.

-10 (280/290)

My hand hurts…

But it’s a good sign, I can speed up the bomb-ball explosion by enveloping it in leather…

Back at the camp, I start by seeing if I can combine even more crystals. And yes, I can. By combining a half piece of light, with a quarter of order and a quarter of fire, I got myself a ball that explodes by emitting a laser forward from where it exploded!

Still low damage, though…

But at least things are getting interesting!

I hunt a few more lynxes and do a quick normal skin to get the leather pieces before going back to the clearing. When I get there, I notice Yuu approaching from the other side with a wide smile on her face. It seems that whatever she was doing actually ended up well.

She sees all the crystals laying on the floor and look at me inquisitively, I only smile while I show her the combination of another laser-ball before enveloping it in leather. I jokingly pointed it to her when I activated… And…

-8 (282/290)

+8 (140/140)

Really? A healing laser? This is new! Does the explosion deals damage and the laser heals?

Both me and her looked shocked at this discovery. But I soon smile and go back to testing the crystals, and yuu helps me by giving some tips on what I should try next. Most of the times, the result is just a simple mixed-element ball, but once every a while an interesting combination pops up. Like, mixing wind, fire and order give us a thunder ball; water, order and chaos makes a spiked ice ball that clings for a moment before exploding; and two fourths water and one fourth earth and one fourth order, that makes a slime ball…

Yes, slime. Weird, huh?

By the way, the thing I wanted to do earlier… Hehe. I actually managed to do it! I made five of it and they are now tied on the belt beneath my scale-mail, since I can’t put it in the inventory being an unrecognized item. We tested for around one hour or so, and we only stopped when Yuu suddenly got a call. She excused herself for a moment and her character suddenly became lifeless as she answered the call to her cellphone hooked to the D-lute. I waited patiently for a moment, then I became curious… how does it actually works? I mean… Isn’t there a time speed difference?

I could just wait here patiently, but patience isn’t my forte. And since the crystals were starting to run low, I decided to store them back into the inventory while getting rid of any broken ones that couldn’t be stored.

After that I laid back on the ground and started to stare at the starry sky.

…

..

.

Five minutes already…

I AM BORED!

I WANT TO DO SOMETHING!

I start to roll on the ground in agony as the boredom starts to consume me.

I mean, I could go and hunt a few lynxes, but I kind of feels that it would be rude for me to leave Yuu here alone meanwhile.

The sound of fight wakes me up from my tantrum. I stand up and look around before following the source of the sound.

When I get there, I see a party of a warrior looking guy, a ranger looking guy and a mage looking girl. They had aggroed one of the lynxes and were fighting it. But it seems that they were having troubles.

Whenever they attacked, the lynx would simply jump out of the way and dodge the attack before countering with a charge. I was actually surprised about this, since I had never seen it dodge my attacks like that.

Is it because I usually wait for it to attack me, and then I counter?

The thing is, they were having a bit of a hard time, as the lynx wouldn’t stop with its agile counter, and it slowly whittled away their health. But since they are higher leveled than me, and have better gear, the damage didn’t seem all that high.

Filthy casuals!

Anyway, as I watched the fight, where only once in a while one of their attacks landed, after some time the lynx dropped below 50% and it made it’s usual Roaow (Roar+ meow! I’m a genius!), and it got enraged.

The three of them flinched for a moment, but soon proceeded to attack the cat again.

The lynx dodged an arrow from the ranger, then made a low hiss.

Next thing, the cat disappeared from sight and appeared behind the mage. All of them were far too confused to understand what was happening, and before they could react, the cat pounced the poor caster and took half of her life in a single attack. The archer tried to attack the cat to take him from the back of his friend, but the cat dodged at the last second and the arrow ended up damaging the mage, leaving her with only a fragment of health left.

From there, the cat changed it’s target to the ranger, charging at him, but jumping away at the last moment, landing on a tree and jumping back at the archer, landing a beautiful claw attack on his face. But the bastard didn’t stop there! He used the archer’s head as a trampoline and went towards the warrior, landing a double claw attack on his face too!

I had never seen that attack! Is it exclusive to when there are two or more persons together?

Anyway, it landed a good distance behind the warrior.

God dammit! Was the lynx actually this strong? It did not seem to me when I was hunting them earlier! If I were to say, they use kind of the same style as me, countering rather than going on the offensive.

It seems that the fact that I am always on the defensive is what actually ends up screwing with their fighting style…

The lynx hissed once again, and started walking towards the warrior. This guy, in a fit of rage, ran towards the lynx while lifting his two-handed axe above his head.

The fool!

I ran from my spot and could only hope that I get there in time.

The lynx started with its multi-hit attack, surprising the warrior who failed to dodge it. But what I saw was actually terrifying. The plate-wearing warrior was taking a lot of damage from the attacks! But how? Isn’t his equipment better than mine?

Could it be that fury claw actually have armor penetration?

This is bad! The final hit will kill the guy!

I ran forward as the first combo of the lynx ended. The warrior, once again entering in a fit of rage starts to lift his axe wanting revenge against the cat, so he didn’t even notice it lifting its right claw.

At the last moment, I arrived at the scene. I put my sword-hand on the warrior’s face and pushed him away while downing my shield arm to prepare to block, activating nature’s bastion as soon as the rip started to appear.

“Wha…” The warrior started to complain, right before seeing the cat’s skills land on my shield and me staggering away.

The three of them became wide-eyed from my sudden intrusion, but any complaint was gone after seeing me save their idiot.

Not wasting any time, I kicked the cat away, which soon got up to its feet and charged me, the intruder.

-3 (202/430)

He jumped sideways at the last moment, and jumped to the tree to my left. I didn’t even let him jump from the bark before bashed him back to the tree, meanwhile I had drawn my sword and activated stab, piercing his chest, but the blade got slightly stuck in the tree’s trunk, so the grip slid from my hand when I tried to pull it back. But since I didn’t want to let the combo go away, I used shield slam on it, making a loud creaking sound as the wood gave in. As the blade got free, I grabbed the grip again and slashed the little bastard downwards.

-4 -44 (critical) -50 (brutal) -18

Combo (x1.2)

-139 (63/430)

I looked at the cat laying on the ground then I looked back at the group. They were all watching at me wide eyed, I frown slightly at their exaggerated reaction and say.

“It’s better to be careful when you hunt...” I looked at the cat that was getting up with some difficulty. “Or you will end up like this …” I said referring to their situation.

Since none of them said anything, I walked away.

I arrived at the clearing just in time to see Yuu’s eyes opening.

“Forgive me for the long time, Shishou… My friend ended up talking a lot more than what I expected…” She quickly bowed while apologizing. I scratched my cheek awkwardly.

“No need to worry…” I said quickly, just in time as a loud creak followed by a loud thud sounded at some distance away, surprising both of us.

“What was that?” Yuu asked surprised.

“N-no idea!”

It… Couldn’t be, could it?

Yuu looked curious at the direction of the sound for a moment, then shrugged. She turned back to me with a slightly apologizing look.

“I also have to tell you, Shishou, but my friend is about to arrive at her home… So I might have to part ways with you soon…”

“Aah… Is that so?” This truly was a pity… “Can we at least try to get the three lynxes at the cave?”

“Sure, she said it will take around ten minutes for her to get ready. So we have half an hour to defeat them!”

I nodded at her, then we departed to the cave where the three lynxes were.

We confirmed our situation one last time, and we made a quick strategy meeting. When we were sure that everything was alright, we walked to the entrance of the cave, Yuu starting to accumulate her ice spears on the way. The three striped lynxes noticed our presence and stood up, baring their fangs and hissing loudly.

I smiled happily while I walked towards them, and put my right hand beneath my chain-mail, picking up a small leather ball. The lynxes looked confused as they looked at my action, I simply widened my smile as I presented the ball to them.

I took a deep breath and said in a grave tone.

“LET! THERE! BE! LIGHT!”

And I closed my eyes.