Corwin moved his sword through the air quickly, deftly altering the flow of mana through it. He sighed at his ‘low’ mana pool and the fact that it rapidly drained. He actually had the highest mana pool in the game at this point, but it was still small compared to his past life. He nonetheless managed to complete the array with a bit of mana to spare. His completion accuracy was 98%, which meant the array would have 145% effectiveness.

Corwin saw the wizard preparing to cast a skill and immediately used wind charge closing the distance and slicing his swords home. Before he could consider disrupting blow, the staff hit the ground and the wizard had cast exploding fireball. Corwin sliced the fireball with his offhand sword and it immediately exploded. Both Corwin and the Wizard were hit by the blast and took damage. Corwin’s health fell to 80%. Corwin took the opportunity to look his opponent over and liked what he saw.

Alacacier the Wise,Wizard, Superior Lord, Level 7

HP: 21,435/25,000

MP: 50,000/50,000

The fight was going to be quick and explosive. Corwin was disappointed to see a second skill cast, either the boss had three active skills or none of them were suppressed by the falling stats. Corwin decided he was fine with both him and the wizard taking damage from the exploding fireball so he used disrupting blow to cancel this skill and then comboed his thundering slash. He used all his skills and a normal attack to reduce the wizard below 80%, even before exploding fireball was ready for recast. At 80% the wizard cast mana shield and Corwin’s attack started to damage MP instead of HP. Corwin blasted away at the wizard’s MP attacking rapidly and hitting vulnerable areas. After a lucky critical hit the shield shattered and Corwin was back to damaging HP. He hit the wizard with his all his offensive skills except disrupting blow as the wizard once again cast exploding fireball. Corwin slashed the fireball very close to the wizard, and the wizard took more damage from the explosion which dealt Corwin another 10% damage through his parry. Corwin used a health potion, as the wizard fell below 60% and put up another mana shield. Corwin sighed, the fight was taking longer than he thought because of all the shields. He attacked away and brought down the mana shield much more slowly vs the critical hits. While doing so he used disrupting blow to cancel the still unknown spell. A burst of skills brought down the mana shield while Corwin continued to attack. The wizard was down to 43% health before his next exploding fireball which brought Corwin from his recharged full health to 70% and brought the wizard down to just below 40%. Corwin hoped this would be the final mana shield as he didn’t want to deal with mana shield during a berserk.

Luckily, Corwin’s hope was answered. Unfortunately, a rather scary berserk appeared. *SPECIAL BERSERK TRIGGERED: IGNORES ALL SKILL REQUIREMENTS. The Superior Lord had another skill and had it back. Corwin didn’t cancel the familiar yet unknown cast animation, saving disrupting blow for what was surely the most powerful skill. He was frustrated when the spell was cast however. The wizard had cast chain lightning, and Corwin was not in a position to dodge. The three strikes all hit bringing Corwin’s health to 20%. Fortunately, his potion was up and he immediately used it. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t heal above 80% by the time that cooldown was up. The fight continued with Corwin grinding down the Wizard’s HP until that 2nd chain lightning was ready. Corwin timed his vanishing steps almost perfectly, but almost wasn’t good enough and he still got hit. His health fell to 50% with the first blow. Luckily, the 2nd and 3rd lightning bolts missed and Corwin thus survived. Wanting to avoid playing this dangerous game more frequently Corwin activated his rapid blow technique and whittled the Wizard’s health down as aggressively as possible. He saved his skill cooldowns for 5% health. All except disrupting blow which was used to counter the berserk spell. Unfortunately, right after the Wizard hit 5% health and triggered his special skill the disrupting blow failed.

The wizard cast mana shield, and taking him out before the special skill became hopeless. Corwin attacked furiously doing as much damage as possible. But the shield wouldn’t come down. The timer above the Wizard’s head ticked to zero, and the wizard’s special skill triggered.

*PULSE RING*

A ring of light and heat radiated out from the wizard doing 11% damage to Corwin. Just as quickly another followed, and then another. Corwin was powerless to do anything but keep attacking the mana shield. The 7th pulse hit then the 8th. After the 9th pulse hit Corwin had just 5% life. With the 360 AoE effect the pulses were impossible to dodge. Corwin sighed with disappointment at his impending doom. But nothing happened. The Wizard had run out of mana, and thus had no more pulses left in his ultimate skill.

Corwin smiled with satisfaction, and lay into the now unshielded Wizard. With the wizard slowly recovering MP he was able to easily defeat it. Happily comboing out his techniques and skills at the end for practice.

He looted the wizard, but did not get a lucky trigger. Instead he found 4 mana crystals bringing his total to nine, and a silver tier level 7 array scroll for the basic magic suppression array. He happily learnt the new technique and with nothing to do with only nine mana crystals he sat down to rest. Corwin half wished these superior lords could drop regular items, imagine being able to kite his character out in full silver gear at this stage in the game. But the other half of Corwin knew array’s weren’t a small thing. Without the special power of the staircase casting an array would freeze a player leaving the vulnerable to attack, but in team fights could be used to suppress powerful summons or elite enemy players. Scrolls for arrays were rare enough that one couldn’t get them without encountering some lucky chance. The hardest of all professions to nurture was an array master, and Corwin was getting a powerful head start with the opportunity to learn ten array scrolls.

He hoped the fights wouldn’t get more difficult, while acknowledging his poor luck nearly did him in. Corwin got into a confident positive mood and with his stamina, HP and MP fully recharged he proceeding onto the next stair.

He looked at the enemy on the stair.

Belephegorite, Junior Named Sloth Demon, Superior Lord, Level 7

HP 100,000/100,000

MP 80,000/80,000

Those stats were terrifying, but Corwin knew that the array he had available would surely be the basic five pentagram demon suppressing array. The five-pentagram array was quite powerful suppressing both all stats and all hidden stats. Corwin fought demons often in his past life and more advanced versions of this array were quite familiar to him. He quickly reviewed what was missing in the basic version and got quite familiar with the parts he had to draw.

His sword filled with mana as he began to draw the powerful array.

Corwin Swordborn

Spoiler : Level 7: 40% of level 8

Str: 177 (base:5)

Agi: 207 (base:35)

Con: 177 (base:5)

Int: 85 (base:5)

Cha: 85 (base:5)

Lck: 37 (base:5)

Cnc: 37 (base:5)

Sta: 37 (base: 5)

Def: 545

MDef: 333

HP: 1939/1939

MP: 1295/1295

Gear:

MW: Iron Tier Level 7 Longsword, +14 Str, +14 Agi, +14 Con

Base Damage: 56-64, Durability 24/25, Requirements: 42 Str

OW: Iron Tier, Level 7 Shortsword, +14 Str, +14Agi, +14 Con

Base Damage 42-49, Durability 25/25, Requirements: 42 Str

MA: Iron Tier Level 8 Plate, +16 Str, +16 Agi, +16 Con

64Def,32MDef, Durability 48/48, Requirements:36 Str

LA: Silver Tier Level 8 Plate Cuisse, +32Str, +32Agi, +32Con

128Def, 64MDef Durability: 64/64 Requirements: 64 Str

B: Iron Tier Level 6 Plate Gloves +12 Str, +12 Agi, +12Con

48Def,24MDef, Durability 29/30, Requirements: 36Str

G: Silver Tier Level 8 Plateboots +32Str +32Agi +32Con

128 Def, 128MDef Durability 128/128, Requirements: 64Str

RR: Silver Tier, Level 8 Ring of Hidden Attributes (+32 All base attributes, +32 All Hidden Attributes)

LR: Silver Tier, Level 8 Ring of Elements (+32 All base attributes,

Ignore 1.6 Levels, Ignore 1.6 Equip Levels

AM: Iron Tier, Level 8 Amulet (+16 All base attributes)

Skills:

Time Manipulation, Special, Tier 0, Level 0

Space Manipulation, Special, Tier 0, Level 0

Thunder Slash, Rare, Tier 0, Level 1

Wind Charge, Rare, Tier 0, Level 1

Disrupting Blow, Rare, Tier 0, Level 1

Double Slash, Uncommon, Tier 0, Level 1

Slash, Common, Tier 0, Level 1

Pierce, Common, Tier 0, Level 1

Parry, Common, Tier 0, Level 1