MMORPG: The Elementalist

“Darn! Remove the mist! I can’t see him!” A Bowmaster stood on a tree with a bow and arrow, yelling.

“Elementalists, run to both sides. Withdraw the mist and lead the mouse away. The shower of arrows did not do much damage.”

The Bowmaster hiding in the bush was obviously the leader of the team. At the same time as the instructions were shouted, three condensed Tier 4 skills were shot from the bowstrings toward the steady Qin Ruo in the center of the ambush circle, who had not even shifted half a step.

One out of the three Elementalists had been marked, while the remaining two immediately responded to the Bowmaster’s instructions. They frightenedly cast magic behind their backs, while dashing left and right struggling to flee, and at the same time praying in their hearts that the three Bowmasters could quickly get rid of the Aquamancer.

However, this was obviously unrealistic.

If they were given few more seconds to calmly think things through, they would quickly be able to recall that on the official forum one hour ago, there was a video post of Qin Ruo’s Frostrampart which could trap several Bowmasters and Elementalists together. Furthermore, it was done while he was in stealth mode.

The three Bowmasters stood their ground and did not flee for several reasons. One reason being the leader who had his heart set on the five pieces of equipment on the ground waiting to be looted. He yearned for the Dark Gold equipment on Qin Ruo’s body as well. The second was the fact that the two Bowmasters on the tree were utterly stuck as they were magically elevated and positioned there by the Elementalists before the battle even began. Abandoning them would mean betrayal as they were . Without a clear understanding of the situation, fleeing was not an option he could leave with.

However, they would soon realize that they had made a grave mistake in the situation!

The Dark Mist had just then dissipated!

An Elementalist was harshly thrown onto the ground by an angry Poochie.

Did someone just call it a mouse?

It was that Bowmaster!

At that moment, Poochie abandoned another Elementalist who was rushing from over twenty meters away and immediately turn around to leap toward the unlucky Bowmaster who had issued the instruction, calling it a mouse.

Not knowing that this move exactly fits the concept of “Defeat the enemy by capturing their leader”.

Qin Ruo secretly praised it in his heart.

Furthermore, with the intact Frostbarrier and Darkfrost Shield, the three Bowmasters’ attacks were easily taken down. Two wolf skulls staggered left to right, and shot upward in the direction of the tree branch where the Bowmaster stood.

The two were also cunning as they promptly withdrew and hid behind the tree and waited for the water wolf skulls to fly over to them from the side at high speed. They then hurriedly turned over and continued to condense skills.

“Look out!”

The Elementalists who had run far away then witnessed the water wolf skulls turning around and moving toward their bodies, which made them shriek aloud. Unfortunately, the Bowmaster was unable to react in time...

Bop!

As the water wolf skulls flew from behind and knocked over the two Bowmasters who were standing on the tree, their bodies were abandoned and flung out. At the same time, white light rose from their corpses—the Special Roasted Snails’ effect was still running. With a single attack being 270 points and above, killing the Bowmaster was effortless.

Bop! Bop!

Equipment and corpses simultaneously fell to the ground. Fortunately, Poochie which was victorious in battle had also arrived at the same time.

The three Bowmasters from Demon Faction had all fainted, with only one remaining Elementalist who was scared out of his wits and stayed rooted in his position for half a second. This Elementalist subsequently let out a scream, turned around, and continued to flee, which led to Poochie chasing after him again.

Qin Ruo, who was not bothered to follow along to see the outcome instructed Poochie to bring back the rewards after killing the Elementalist. He subsequently brushed the dust off his lapel, and with a serious glance at the surrounding corpses of Dark Cyclone and the others, shook his head and sighed.

In an unfeasible environment, Elemental Perception: Water could not be activated. The current surroundings was indeed a lot worse than in the Underground Frostlake! Furthermore, the situation just now was too careless.

Along the way, his team had effortlessly wiped out seven members of the Demon Faction without any loss. Yet through this battle, he had immediately become a lone fighter. Recalling this, it sounded ridiculous. Thinking about it, this group of Demon Faction players’ strength could be considered as the weakest among the opposing faction’s players, as it did not take much effort to kill them off. Yet, these group of weak players was able to avoid being detected and had chosen the most direct and effective method of ambush. With this strategy, they were able to kill off Dark Cyclone and five other players, completely wiping out a six-man party.

Qin Ruo sighed and glanced momentarily at the tree where the two Bowmasters had been earlier, thinking in his heart, ‘In the Graveyard of the Gods, one really cannot be careless!’

These were the weakest players. What should he do if he had encountered quick-witted and strong players? Predictably, he would be killed instantly and be returned to Savis Town.

“...”

Moving the corpses of his opponents around and own party members with a heavy heart and looking at the equipment on the ground, Qin Ruo carefully collected two rare Gold equipment and one Violet equipment with decent attributes and put them in his almost-full backpack. Dark Cyclone’s and the others’ backpacks of equipment can be ignored as those were quite common Violet equipment. It was believed that their harvest had been lost countless times along the way...so, considering that, they did not lose out very much.

The only worry that Qin Ruo had was that without Dark Cyclone and the others, drawing the Boss away would be more difficult upon reaching the waterfalls where Cerberus resided.

Forget it. Even if Dark Cyclone and the others were here, they would not have been able to achieve the goal of stalling the Boss, given that the opponent was a Tier 5 Elite Miniboss...

Eventually, Qin Ruo chose to abandon this somewhat unrealistic goal and used Aquamorph to teleport out of the forest.

It was a better choice to head back and scout the situation before making any decision. If needed, he could use the Sealed Mana Core to call forth “that creature” to help deal with any problem that pops out. The only thing that he should keep in mind was the value of the treasure that the old man had mentioned. If the value was only equal or less than the value of a Sealed Mana Core, it would ultimately be a loss for him.

Leaving behind the ground filled with corpses and abandoned equipment, the forest once again became silent.

***

It could not be denied that without Dark Cyclone and the rest, Qin Ruo’s movement became much faster and more stealthy. Additionally, the monsters at the second level of the Graveyard of the Gods were different from the first level, whereby they moved about similarly using chains to surround players and cut them down one by one. The monsters here were more menacing and could not be separated, so they were relatively easy to avoid.

Qin Ruo, with his mastery of the water in the air, traveled at high speed, avoided several monsters and very quickly reached the designated location. The distance toward the waterfalls was closing in, and even the rumbling sound of splashing waters could be heard from the front.

The sound was getting louder and the ground was faintly rumbling, like a flood of water gushing out from a dam—shaking heaven and earth.

“I’ve arrived!”

Qin Ruo then halted his footsteps. Through scanning everything with Elemental Perception: Water, the strong confidence in dealing with the Vampire Leech and tens of Demon Faction players, returned to his body.

‘Ha!

‘Finally...

‘It is this feeling!’

Qin Ruo closed his eyes, and in one moment, body and mind was completely relaxed. With the abundance of surrounding Water Elements, Elemental Perception: Water had spread out rapidly; from the surrounding grass and trees to every insect hard to be seen by the naked eye, everything all around came under the scope of the perception.

“Well, well...”

As Elemental Perception expanded to its limit, Qin Ruo’s lips slightly bend upward into a nice arc.

“There are other groups of players.”

Drawing from his elemental perception, Qin Ruo effortlessly sensed and perceived

everything within a hundred-meter range. With the waterfall within his range of perception,

he was able to see with great clarity the two parties in direct confrontation with each

other. He quickly identified the two parties from their clan insignias pinned to their

chests. They were mainly from Netherspirit’s Claw and Hall of Heroes.

There were more than thirty players right then, staring at each other with the aura of hostility in the air. The atmosphere grew so tense everyone was only one pull away from unsheathing their swords to start a war.

He had a distaste for Netherspirit’s Claw League members. From the League’s Clan regular member, Crackpot, to Holy Clan’s Ron’s Mistress, Grieving Arrow, to Netherspirit’s Claw’s Tier 5 supreme champion Dark Dragon... All the members he had met did not leave a good impression.

Seeing the confrontation between members of Netherspirit’s Claw and Hall of Heroes, he naturally was rooting for the latter. From the intel he had gathered from Hall of Heroes’ Field Commander White Wine, all the fifteen clans of Angel Faction’s three great leagues had an agreement

to work together as a group, so how did this confrontation even happen in the first

place?

Amidst his confusion, Qin Ruo sneakily moved closer to the battle scene. Such a situation was not a bad thing to him. He even wanted Netherspirit’s Claw members to struggle more.

As his Elemental Perception heightened, Qin Ruo gradually understood. The goals of these people were the same as him, which was also the treasure to be found in Cerberus’s lair. During the confrontation, both sides have arranged for people to pay close attention to the direction of the waterfall.

In that direction stood a black monster with bulging muscles on its four legs, three heads, and three pairs of eyes respectively flashing with blue, blood red, and miserable green. It was very calmly looking at the direction of the three in front of the waterfall.

Cerberus!

Upon locating his target, Qin Ruo shuddered. Just as he was using Elemental Perception to carefully observe Cerberus, it twitched a little as it seems to notice something. With speed, the monster turned its head around. Three pairs of eyes locked onto Qin Ruo and glared at him from hundreds of meters away!

“Oh crap!”

“The Boss is looking this way!!”

A few Bowmasters with good eyesight immediately felt alarming pressure from a distance, and fearfully cried out to remind their own people properly in the middle of the confrontation.