MMORPG: The Elementalist

The first attack had hit its target. Frost Arrow had caused 58 Magic Damage to the Black Wild Boar. Soon after that, the Water Element that froze had covered over the entire body of the Black Wild Boar. That sort of small skill was effective on monsters with low Frost Resistance, so a Tier 1 monster need not be mentioned. The monster entered the frozen state straightaway. Judging from the density of the ice, Qin Ruo could roughly determine that the time the monster would stay frozen should be enough for Xiaoxiao to cast two more Tier 1 Magic Attacks…

As expected!

The moment when Frozen had taken effect, Xiaoxiao had already relieved herself of her nervous feelings as she swiftly cast another Frost Arrow (Tier 1 Magic Attack has a cooldown between 0 to 1 second). The Black Wild Boar which had its Defense weakened a bit had lost 74 HP after getting hit by the attack.

The moment when the Black Wild Boar came out of the frozen state, Xiaoxiao had done casting her second wave of Water Elementalism. She waited for the perfect opportunity to perform the attack on top of the Black Wild Boar"s head…

After repeating the same cycle of attacks four times, the Black Wild Boar had finally let out a miserable roar as it became the first “gigantic monster” to fall at Xiaoxiao"s hands. Xiaoxiao"s face appeared to be glowing with an excited sweet smile. She turned her head around and looked at the others.

“How was it?”

“Sister Xiaoxiao is so impressive and awesome!”

The little demonic brat sucked up to Xiaoxiao with a very sincere att.i.tude. Little Kitten also praised Xiaoxiao, but then Little Kitten was able to notice that Xiaoxiao"s eyes were already fixed on the big thumb up that was lifted in the air by Qin Ruo as he smiled.

After receiving encouragement and praise from her crush, Xiaoxiao instantly felt fired up. She continued to use the previous method as she continued to lure and slaughter the Black Wild Boars one by one. Along with her getting used to the pace of controlling her skills, and none of the Black Wild Boars able to resist the Frozen state, Xiaoxiao had slowly disregarded the need to take defensive precautions.

When she had completely depleted her MP bar this round, she only felt contented as she ran back to the others still filled with enthusiasm. Her face was red. She sat beside Qin Ruo and the two other girls, looking as if she was eager to get back into the fight with the Black Wild Boars right after she had recovered her stamina and vitality.

“Sister Xiaoxiao, did you come up with that method by yourself?” Gold Digger Babe quickly came closer to Xiaoxiao and asked her a question that the others had been curious to know the answer to it.

Xiaoxiao moved her face over a bit.

“I"m not that good. That"s something that I found on the forum. There"s this one post that teaches Tier 1 Elementalists how to use all sorts of Tier 1 Elementalism in battle. After that, I"d found the column for Aquamancer and so learned a few tricks from there. I heard that it"s very effective against low-tier monsters. What"s wrong? Is there anything wrong?”

“Urgh, I see.”

Gold Digger Babeblinked her eyes as she seemed to have understood something.

“Hmm.” Xiaoxiao then looked at Qin Ruo and explained, “But it"s really difficult to remember though. If it weren"t because I saw Ruo use Tier 1 Elementalism back at the Goblin Mines, I would have forgotten about it.”

Qin Ruo nodded and interrupted her, “You"ve used it well. But you can"t rely on learning all sorts of Elementalism from others only. You"ll have to explore and discover on your own about them sometimes.”

Xiaoxiao only responded with a simple “Alright”.

Suddenly, she felt that this game was actually quite interesting. At least, it was not the same as she thought it would be, a bunch of people surrounding monsters and killing monsters repet.i.tively…

While Xiaoxiao was daydreaming, Gold Digger Babe suddenly said, “Oh right! Brother Qin, try out your Tier 4 spell now, quickly! Let"s see what effect it does!”

Qin Ruo nodded and stood back up on his feet. Coincidentally, he also had the same thought. Ever since he had advanced into Tier 4, he had never gotten the chance to practice it yet. The first AoE spell that could be used continuously, a spell that could be used swiftly and controlled to change its shape, and also Aquabarrier that was deemed to be capable of absorbing Physical Damage by 30% at most and Magic damage by 20%…

There were so many more. Every single spell looked like a target that Qin Ruo could not wait to try out.

But the Elementalism that concerned Qin Ruo the most was Intermediate Elementalism… Because he might be alone most of the time, the Tier 4 spell that required a long time to cast would not be the best option for him when engaging into a battle alone.

Casting a spell that one had never use before would take a longer period of time. So, right before he walked into the horde of monstrous Wild Boars, Qin Ruo calmed himself down. He followed the rare fragments of scenes that appeared in his mind as he was beginning to sense the Water Element in the surroundings. Only when he had clearly sensed the active situation of the Water Element in the surroundings did he start casting his magic slowly…

The three ladies were just standing beside Qin Ruo. Although they did not know what was about to come, the three of them were somehow holding onto a very serious and cautious att.i.tude in their hearts while Qin Ruo was casting his magic. The process was very long, but at the same time, it also made the three ladies more curious than before. The thought that Gold Digger Babe had on her mind was even more unusual. While feeling curious, she was staring at Qin Ruo without even a single blink as she quietly said to herself, ‘Could this be the greatest difference between a pro and a rookie?"

About seven to eight seconds later, a layer of frosty aura began to spread out from Qin Ruo"s body.

“Barrier!”

Along with a gentle cry, the frosty aura all around him instantly ceased to spread further as a layer of blurry and frosty Frostbarrier visible to the naked eye had formed about half a meter away from his body. The Barrier was white and frigid as it seemed to remain partly invisible and partly visible. Along with Qin Ruo"s white equipment that was gleaming with violet light and the calm expression on his face, he looked abruptly graceful and mysterious to the few ladies as they were looking at him.

Xiaoxiao and Little Kitten felt a flash before their eyes as they produced a peculiar absent-minded expression. The little demonic brat who had a casual personality observed Qin Ruo from head to feet. Deep in heart, she commented, “Hehe, now this is the brother-in-law that I, Xin Qin, recognize! He"s kinda handsome from the looks of it!”

Qin Ruo had confirmed the attribute of his Frostbarrier again. Absorbs 15% Physical Damage and 10% Magic Damage, immune to all Debuff Effects, 200 Defense (When being hit, automatically absorb 5% of the Damage and transform the damage points absorbed into Damage dealt on the Barrier).

That was truly powerful!

Qin Ruo could only sigh along with all sorts of feelings welling up in his mind. With merely Beginner-tier Frostbarrier, it was already much more powerful than the max level Tier 2 Aquabarrier. Other than that, as long as the Frostbarrier was not completely shattered or destroyed, he would not need to worry that he would be inflicted with all sorts of additional effects from any Physical or Magic Attack. That was the only one Attribute that concerned Qin Ruo the most. (Of course, that would exclude some special situations)

But the weakness of the Tier 4 Barrier remained as obvious!

The amount of MP required to activate a Tier 4 spell was generally great to begin with. The activation of a Frostbarrier would already require him to spend 10 MP. After that, every 2 seconds, he would automatically spend 3 MP. In other words, he would be spending 1.5 MP every second. He would be wasting much more MP than he would by activating an Aquabarrier (1 MP in every 2 seconds)! So, under normal combat status, it would be very difficult to maintain the activation of a Frostbarrier for more than a minute without the support of using Potions.

And that limitation had also caused players who had chosen Elementalists as their Cla.s.s to focus on high MP builds so that they would not be inferior to Cla.s.ses such as Summoners.

Qin Ruo had no opinion on that. He just heard from others that the Mastery Points for this Barrier skill would increase at an unusually slow rate though. That could really cause players to feel disheartened. Tier 4 Barrier would require to be activated and maintained for over 30 seconds in order to increase one Mastery Point. Meanwhile, a player would be required to acc.u.mulate over a thousand of Mastery Points in order to advance from Beginner to Intermediate. If a player did not consume Potions and recover his MP by meditation, even if the effectiveness rate had reached its maximum effect, players would still be required to spend several days to accomplish that achievement… Other than resting time, players would need at least ten days in order to grind enough Mastery Points to reach Intermediate tier. After that, players would need another two thousand Mastery Points in order to advance into Advanced tier. The time to achieve that would definitely be a few times longer than before.

Upon setting his thoughts on that, Qin Ruo frowned. He held the Frostbarrier around him while walking toward the few Yellow Wild Boars that were not far from him. He then said to himself that it would be better to let the nature run its course. Or else, he would spend months just to grind for one Barrier skill. How could he afford to waste so much time then?

The training opponents that Qin Ruo was up against were Tier 2 Yellow Wild Boars, Level 23, Thunder-type monsters.

The moment he approached them, the Yellow Wild Boars that lowered their heads to count the ants on the ground immediately lifted their snowy white fangs as they looked toward Qin Ruo cautiously and locked on to him. They then let out deafening roars as they started charging over toward Qin Ruo while they were snorting.

Qin Ruo stood firmly on his feet. He ignored those Yellow Wild Boars that were charging right at him as he remained focus on getting into the scene that flashed through his mind. He focused to cast his spell, condense the snow… and used Transfigure…

Boom!

The Barrier trembled. Qin Ruo"s first Magic Attack was not yet ready. The Yellow Wild Boars, however, had already charged into the attack range. A white lightning bolt had struck on the Frostbarrier as sparks were produced.

Qin Ruo did not concern himself with that, though. But then again, he felt a bit disappointed at the moment. This was indeed a Tier 4 spell. The progress to cast it was so long that one would find it difficult to endure. If he ever encountered monsters during normal days, he could have cast out several magic skills at the monsters during this period of time!

Fortunately, he had picked those Tier 2 Yellow Wild Boars as his targets. Even if he was without a Barrier, Qin Ruo could have easily endured a Yellow Wild Boar"s normal Physical Attack and Magic Attack. He had no need to worry about any danger.

Finally…

A loud and clear cry of an eagle was heard rising up into the air above Qin Ruo"s head!

The few ladies behind him witnessed the sudden appearance of a snow eagle displaying power and grandeur. At the moment, it seemed that Qin Ruo was bestowed with the soul of an eagle. The snow eagle was fluttering its snowy white wings and stretched out both of its claws that looked as sharp as a blade. Its posture looked astounding as it soared high in the sky and lunged forward at the Yellow Wild Boar as swiftly as lightning!

Snow Eagle Dive!

Gold Digger Babe had been in H&G for the longest time among all others. The moment she saw it, she was able to recognize that this was a single Magic Attack with quite a powerful impact and belonged to a Tier 4 Elementalist. The only downside was that the time required to cast that it was just too d.a.m.n long, not to mention that the control would require more effort, unlike those other spells that could directly lock on to the desired targets. That was the reason why this spell was not favored by Aquamancers and was seldom used. Sometimes, a few of her slightly noisy annoying cla.s.smates in her Clan would only use that skill out to show off a bit. Now, however, the skill was being cast by Qin Ruo…

The Yellow Wild Boars let out a miserable roar. A few deep icy b.l.o.o.d.y holes appeared on their bodies after they were struck by the snow eagle that lunged down from the sky! They rolled off to the side and did not move anymore…