WHAM! The tendrils connected with my shields. My [Greater Pyro Shell] didn't explode.

“Looks like I don’t need to ask Kezo for—” The Monkey Idol shot spikes out of its mouth and lashed out with its vines again. I was caught off-guard and wasn’t able to block them. This time, my shell did explode. “Okay, to be fair, my shell was already damaged.” I should be tanky enough to take this guy on with some [Greater Pyro Shell] spamming.

Lvl. 4 Greater Pyro Shell: Glorious blessings of the ancestors coat you with a formidable barrier of protective flames that boosts your defenses and absorbs (68% of incoming damage) up to the amount of Ancestral Shroud/Energy spent to summon it added by (21% of Armor). When the barrier expires or is depleted, the damage absorbed is dealt to nearby enemies.

Grants: +225 Armor

Cost: 23% of Max Ancestral Shroud for Mardukryon; 15% of Max Energy for other Races

Duration: 18 Seconds

Cooldown: 7 Seconds

“Let’s do some monkey business!” I grimaced as I looked around. Nobody else was here. The Crobels had gone into hiding. The only one who heard my awful embarrassment of a line was Moa Manot. This cemented its demise.

I cast my barrier and charged at the Monkey Idol. I zigzagged to avoid the flying thorns and blocked those I couldn’t evade. As I neared the boss, I inflicted it with [Withering Brand] boosted by [Enfeebling Burden], Ocadule Shards that Kezo had given me.

Lvl. 6 Withering Brand: A long-forgotten incantation that targets an enemy with a curse, reducing its Movement Speed, Attack Power, and Magic Power by 30%.

Cost: 75 Energy

Duration: 15 Seconds

Cooldown: 7 Seconds

Lvl 1 Enfeebling Burden (Link): Enemies under the effect of linked debuff-type skills will suffer an extra 5% more of their debilitating effects.

By lowering its Attack and Magic Power, I was boosting my survivability. [Withering Brand] should have a massive effect on it because it had minuscule buffs compared to monstrous high-level bosses.

A thirty percent reduction of Attack Power might not matter much to a boss with a three hundred percent Attack Power boost—MCO sets off the same modifiers first before applying them—and other buffs to boot, but it was a big deal to weaker monsters. Moa Manot undoubtedly had increased modifiers as a boss, but [Withering Brand] would chunk off a large part of it.

My [Ancestral Constitution] was at full stacks, and I strove to Head-On Block incoming attacks to lessen the damage I suffered. Additionally, Head-On Blocks using my [Reinforced Pavise] improved my physical damage reduction.

With all of these defenses, my shell lasted for several seconds before exploding, comfortably long enough for the skill to cooldown. My shell constantly exploding was the main component of my meager DPS. The downside was that my AS was getting depleted at a fast rate. To remedy this, I cast [Healing Touch] even if I didn’t need to heal. Although this skill costs AS, it also generated [Rejuvenation Charge].

Rejuvenation Charge (Base duration 10 seconds):

Each Charge will add (Max counter [4]):

+3% Healing Increase

+3% Healing Received

+5 Ancestral Shroud per Second

I cast [Penitent Fortune Healing], the skill granted by the third rank of my Aritu Form Ocadule, to help keep the charges consistently up. Golden chains coiled around me.

Lvl. 1 Penitent Fortune Healing: Concentrating on a penitent prayer to the ancestors slows your movement (-15% Movement Speed) and reaction speed (-30 Evasion Rating). But in return, good fortune showered upon you by the ancestors allows you to perform healing feats beyond your skills. When using [Healing Touch], there is a 20% chance to cast it twice on the same target. (Heal over Time buff does not stack for a target.) If it does, generate +1 additional Rejuvenation Charge.

Requires: Healing Touch Lvl. 3

Duration: 6 Seconds

Cooldown: 12 Seconds

[ Status | Penitence Misfortune: Reduce Movement Speed by 20%, Reduce Evasions Rating by 60 points for 7 seconds ]

I was going to facetank Moa Manot, so I had no issues with its penalties. Someday, when my build with [Cloak of the Plaguespreader] was completed, I’d spread that penalty to others so we could all suffer at the same time.

This fight would be way easier if I had suitable tanking gear. I could probably stand and survive this boss without using my shields if I had better equipment.

Don’t be tempted, I rebuked myself. Wait for level twenty. Numbers increasing was a lovely sight, but I should put on blinders to focus on bigger numbers up ahead. Delayed gratification, delayed gratification.

“Left!” I slapped away a touchy-feely tentacle. A small burst of light indicated that the bonus of my [Reinforced Pavise] was activated. “Now, right!” As long as I had the Pavise’s buff up, I preferred using my [Thorny Worn Targe] despite its lower Head-On Block value. I was tanky enough to sacrifice blocking some damage for more retribution.

From another perspective, offense—killing the boss faster—was also defense. I also stomped on the Monkey Idol every chance I had to squeeze every bit of damage I could deal. Green smog bubbled beneath Moa Manot. [Gnawing Rot], also linked to [Enfeebling Burden], was hard at work shredding its defenses.

Lvl. 7 Gnawing Rot: Spread a festering miasma over a small area (maximum of four), causing any enemies entering it to lose 97 Armor and Magic Resilience (maximum 545), 2% Armor and Magic Resilience (maximum 10%). The effect of the decay persists for 13 seconds after leaving the area.

Cost: 85 Energy

Duration: 45 Seconds

Cooldown: 5 Seconds

“Woohoo! Look at me, Mum,” I said, chuckling, “I’m boss hunting solo! Herald Stone, Big Boy Boss Hunter.” BBB? That wasn’t a fitting title for me. Herald Stone should always be AAA! Now, that sounded like a credit rating agency reviewed me.

Mother Core Online had many open-world bosses—those that could be found all over the game world, in contrast to those spawned in an instance for a player or a party.

So far, I have encountered Buvalu, the level seventy-four Mirdabon boss. That bastard supposedly didn’t have an assigned area but just roamed willy-nilly. I had the misfortune of meeting it because of a quest.

In contrast to Buvalu, level fifty-eight Zoar Elab was hanging out at the Silent Plaza, waiting for anyone to come over and fight it. I also met the Rotted Cedarlyon, a mini-boss we had to look for in a specific area.

Moa Manot was yet another kind of open-world boss. It would appear only after somebody tripped its specific triggers. There were probably other bosses waiting for their triggers to be discovered. Who knows, maybe there’s a way to awaken the Mountain Guardian again?

At level seventeen and situated near the village, Moa Manot must be the weakest boss on this mountain.

Its individual strikes weren’t powerful, but its high attack speed made up for that. It also had three moves it could simultaneously do—its signature vine whips, pesky projectile thorns, and the laser that occasionally beamed out of the statue’s eyes. These were all baby versions of what Zoar Elab could do.

A fortunate consequence of rapidly hitting me was that my retribution damage furiously nibbled at its health. It was like a giant ice cube that was melting. It would take a long time, but Moa Manot’s health bar would eventually melt away to nothing.

Time and patience.

“I can facetank you for hours!” I declared. “I will never move from this spot—Woah! What are you up to?”

Moa Manot stopped attacking. It sucked its vines back into its body like someone slurping spaghetti. I ceased my attacks, carefully observing what was about to happen next.

Its eyes glowed gold as it vibrated, noisily humming as an old truck engine started after decades. Muffled crunching sounds followed. I cautiously parted the shields in front of my body to have a better look. The soil beneath the statue shifted. Next, the ground beneath my hooves grumbled like an upset stomach.

I retreated a few steps—an awkward and difficult task as my anatomy wasn't made for backward motion—moments before the immediate area around Moa Manot exploded. A wall of vines circling the boss burst out of the ground, branching into a giant crown of thorns.

Recalling my fight with Zoar Elab, I knew what was next. I spun around and galloped away.

Checking behind me, I saw that a wider circle of thorny vines had sprung, followed by another and another. The ripple expanded so fast that the outermost ring caught me. Two hardened tendrils skewered my belly. One popped my [Greater Pyro Shell], and the other took away a fourth of my health. Was it even possible to Head-On Block this attack coming from below?

Trotting back to the boss, I observed the vines as they receded into the ground. The rings seemed to be comprised of roughly the same number of vines. The closer it was to Moa Manot, the denser the ring was, with the innermost rings almost like walls of thorns instead of a line of vines.

If I were a couple of circles closer, more vines would've skewered my large body and probably killed me.

"Lesson learned," I sighed. "Immediately run when there's the slurping sound." Not being able to consistently facetank Moa Manot chipped away at my pride.

The boss had another skill that I had to look out for.

Perhaps common to all Vinereavers, Moa Manot also released a cloud of thorns. Even if I caught most of them with my two shields, Head-On Blocking didn't mean that I completely negated the damage—it was only reduced.

Those fricking thorns do pack a punch! Getting slapped by a wall of them would kill me.

Fortunately, the solution was simple. I had already devised it when I survived Zoar Elab's last phase.

Whenever Moa Manot's statue shell cracked and expanded as the plant monster inside ballooned in preparation to rip the fart of a lifetime, I'd back away as far as I could before it exploded. Then I'd switch to [Buckler of the Invigorated Pygmy], where my Totem Shards were slotted, and summon two Totems in front of me, one behind the other, to catch the thorns.

At only level one, the Totems instantly died, of course. But they'd have done their job as dummies to block some of the incoming spikes.

The remaining that reached me were still numerous. But if I put enough distance between the boss and me, the projectiles would've spread out far enough that fewer would hit compared to if I was closer.

Other than those two dangerous skills, I didn’t need to move, facetanking to my heart’s content.

As the minutes dragged on, something wrong became more prominent. It nagged at the back of my mind earlier, but I didn’t have the space to concentrate on it as I learned about Moa Manot’s moves. Now that I had adjusted to fighting it, I could no longer ignore this other problem.

“One, two… that’s it? I don’t think that was even two seconds!” Morabodry’s description said it had a twelve percent chance to poison for seven seconds.

Moa Manot was slapping and poking me about two or three times a second, but I’d be lucky to see the violet bubbles indicating the poisoned state appeared once every half a minute. The same went for Burn and Freeze, although those two would occur disproportionately more often than poison—about four times more.

There! The boss was encased in ice, although I broke it with my next stomp.

Bosses must have high resistance to negative status, I concluded. This wasn’t unexpected. In the old RPGs I had played, some bosses would even be immune to ailments to add a layer of difficulty.

If that was the case, was it an intentional game design that it was more difficult to poison a boss than inflict other types of negative status?

I thought I could somehow breeze through Moa Manot using Morabodry. With a DoT of one percent of maximum health per second plus some flat damage, I should be done with this boss in less than two minutes. Maybe a couple more if it had some health regeneration. However, I was nearing ten minutes of playing with this damned monkey!

“The devs don’t want us to cheese bosses,” I mused. “Wait a minute…” I snapped my fingers as I nodded my head. Moa Manot continued to attack, oblivious to my epiphany. “This must be what Eclairs wanted to tell me. Poison-making isn't as profitable as I thought it was.”

During our stroll, there were a few times that I caught her with a conflicted look on her face. She did well to hide it. But I was an expert in dealing with people, so I’d easily notice when someone was bothered. I could then adjust my façade accordingly.

At first, I assumed it must be because I reeked of dried sweat. Her uneasiness eventually disappeared, so I next thought she was just uncomfortable with me and then relaxed. It turned out she didn’t want to disappoint me because I was excited about a Masterwork Ocadule I had found. How thoughtful of her.

She shouldn’t have worried, for Herald Stone could face the truth. And the fact was that raking in piles of Artas in MCO wasn’t what I aimed for.

Goal #1—I will become the best tank, crush everyone, and remain standing after every battle.

There was no mention of getting rich there. Good old elbow grease and plenty of patience were my equipment for boss hunting. But I’d work on poisoning bosses even if that was against the devs’ intended design—a fitting challenge for the Great Herald Stone!