It was an orange ring with a head that was made of an unknown, silvery metal. It was shaped like a round, white moon with a dark blue arrow piercing through its center. Paradoxically, the ring gave off the feeling of tranquility and death at once. Beiming Xue generally preferred hardcore designs over romantic ones, which was why the ring had come under her attention immediately.
I asked, "What is this ring?"
Beiming Xue raised it and answered my question with a question, "Doesn"t it look cool, big bro?"
A muscle twitched in my face. "It looks… okay. What are its stats?"
"Here!"
Beiming Xue waved her hand across the ring, and its stats screen appeared in front of me. Huh, not bad, especially considering that this is a ring; an accessory—
Ring of the Silver Berserk (Purple Gold–grade, Outstanding★★★)
Agility: +132
Stamina: +117
Pa.s.sive: Increases user"s ranged attack power by 15%
Outstanding Property: Berserk, increases user"s critical hit rate by 17%, the effect stacks with other bonuses.
Level Requirement: 150
Reputation: 150000
……
I was stunned by the time I finished reading the entire stats screen. This was supposed to be an average ring even with a pa.s.sive that increased ranged attack power by 15%, but if you took its Outstanding Property into consideration then it was as good as an Earth-grade ring or even a Heaven-grade ring! 17% crit rate was amazing enough, but a stackable 17% crit rate was even more amazing. This one ring made Beiming Xue"s crit rate even more monstrous than before!
Beiming Xue switched on her new ring, checked her new stats and said with a sweet smile on her face, "Oh, this is wonderful. My total crit rate is now 54.9%..."
My heart shuddered in fear when I heard her comment. Holy s.h.i.+t, that"s over 50%! My own crit rate is less than 25%! There is just no comparison!
Of course, if my crit rate was equal to Beiming Xue, it would be my enemies" turn to cry foul. There was practically no one I couldn"t kill with that kind of crit rate and Martial G.o.d.
After we were done looting the battlefield, I left to aggro a new group of mobs. We shouldn"t waste too much time killing the bears, so I tried to maximize our grind efficiency.
Forty minutes and 4 groups of bears later, a dozen or so top-tier, high-level items—a large majority of them added Tactics as well—were added to my inventory. They were pretty popular in the current market right now.
As for experience, I was now sitting at Level 154, 14%. Barring any unforeseen circ.u.mstances, I should be able to level up once or twice per day on this map at least. It was exhilarating to say the least!
"Alright, it"s time to kill the boss…" Beiming Xue said while staring at the bear king at the distance. "Do you want to go first, big bro?"
"Of course."
I gripped the Cyan Netherworld Sword and charged. After locking the boss with Dark Pupils and inspecting it at close range, I shared its stats screen inside the party channel—
Cyanlight Bear King (Earth Rank Boss)
Level: 175
Attack: 3440~5280
Defense: 5100
HP: 25,000,000
Skills: Berserk Rend, Armor of the Wild, Roaring Whirlwind
Introduction: The Cyanlight Bear King is a ruler of the forest. It possesses incredible strength and physique. Legend says that the Cyanlight Bear King could roll off a cliff from the mountaintop and be completely unharmed after hitting the ground. Countless human adventurers had tried to hunt down the Cyanlight Bear King, but they only managed to become its next meals. Even the famous captain of Ironspear Mercenaries died in its paws. Since then, the mere mention of its name is enough to chill one"s blood.
……
Thud!
The Armored Ice Qilin Horse rammed its head against the Cyanlight Bear King"s and stunned it successfully. It was just a Level 175 Earth Rank boss, so my current Attack and Defense stat were enough to kill it. Also, there was only a 20-level gap between us, and my resistances were pretty good thanks to the Earthfire Realm.
"Use Royal Road, Eve!"
Just in case, I gave He Yi the party leader position and told her to activate Royal Road. A 50% boost to Defense was always useful, especially against a brute boss like this Cyanlight Bear King.
Bang bang bang!
I slashed the boss"s chest repeatedly and dealt so much damage that its attention was locked firmly on me. The plan was simple. I would fight as the sole tank with Murong Mingyue as my dedicated healer. It was safer this way, and it kept the demand for skill from everyone else to a minimum.
"Roar roar…"
Humiliated by the human adventurers, the Cyanlight Bear King immediately let out an angry roar and swung its claws three times in a row. However, my Defense was insanely high, and I had Ghost Deity Armor that increased that number even further. Three damage numbers rose above my head in succession—
6829!
6290!
7127!
……
It was an embarra.s.sing amount of damage. I had a whopping 130k HP right now, so its skill only deleted around 15% of my health.
Swhoos.h.!.+
An Instant Heal from Murong Mingyue later, I returned to full health, just like that.
The bear king looked a bit frustrated, so it tried harder and struck with the power of a whirlwind behind its claws!
Buzz!
18290!
Not bad! This time, it did more damage to me and even hurt the nearby He Yi, Phantom Wolf King and Ironwing Dragon for about 25000 damage or so.
Seeing this, Murong Mingyue threw a Pool of Life beneath our feet and healed us all at once. The pressure was instantly removed yet again.
At the back, Beiming Xue kept changing positions out of habit as she attacked even though she could"ve just done so from a stationary position. One of the most basic requirements to become an elite archer was to learn how to shoot on the move to dodge enemy fire. Only the laziest and noobest of archers would shoot standing still.
Moonlight Stone wasn"t idle either. She chanted her strongest single-target spell, Dragon"s Roar, again and again and dealt 20k+ damage to the boss per cast. It was very impressive.
The boss fight went extraordinarily well. If it wasn"t clear that our party was extremely powerful before, it was now. We had super-tier tanks, super-tier DPS and super-tier healing. We were practically invincible in this fight. In less than 20 minutes, the Level 175 Earth Rank boss had dropped to red health!
……
"Watch out, its HP has dropped below 10%..." He Yi said, "I wasn"t expecting this fight to go this smoothly, hehe. Keep it up, everyone!"
Murong Mingyue put a hand to her chest and ate a Rank 10 Magic Consumable before replying, "Normally, a boss fight that goes too well is unnatural, so watch out for enrage—"
Before she could finish her sentence, the bear king abruptly let out an earthshaking roar and thumped its own chest repeatedly. As a column of cyan light surrounded it, its flesh and bones started expanding rapidly until it was almost 1.5 times bigger than it originally was. It even grew a sharp horn on its forehead. Murong Mingyue"s words of caution had been spot-on!
Amused and annoyed at the same time, He Yi complained, "You and your big mouth, Mingyue!"
Murong Mingyue replied carelessly, "It"s fine, we have Lu Chen…"
Me: "..."
Full of confidence, I let out a loud laugh before saying, "It"s fine, it"s actually a good thing the boss enraged because its drop rate and the quality of its drops increases proportionally to its stats! Just watch, this bear king"s going to give us our first Heaven-grade item of the map!"
I thrust my sword forward and held onto boss"s hate with a Universe Break + Burning Blade Slash combo. The bear king"s arms had become as hard as steel after it enraged, and when it used its Berserk Rend again, it actually managed to crit me twice in a row!
16287!
33284!
38722!
……
I lost over 80k HP in an instant and dipped below 10%. Moonlight Stone was so frightened that she yelped, "Watch out! Don"t let it pancake you, vice leader!"
Her comment nearly made me puke blood as I raised my arm and surrounded myself in a column of red light. Tenacity of the Dead + Rank 10 Saint Spirit Potion, go!
+34463!
+15000!
I had recovered 60k+ HP in an instant, and a Greater Heal from Murong Mingyue later, my HP was back to 100k. Seeing that it was just a false alarm, Moonlight Stone sighed audibly and said, "He survived that? Lu Chen truly is the Unkillable War G.o.d…"
"Dammit girl. Less talking, more fighting!"
I ordered my apparition to go all out on the boss. The pressure sitting on our shoulders was building rapidly after the boss had enraged, but we had Murong Mingyue and me, a super tank with 130k HP. It was definitely possible to kill the boss without losing anyone.
"Roar roar roar…"
Five minutes later, I hit the boss with one last Burning Blade Slash, and it collapsed in a death scream and dropped a ton of loot!
……
Swhoos.h.!.+ Swhoos.h.!.+
Both He Yi and Murong Mingyue leveled up to 150 at once. Once they exited this map, they could complete their sixth-promotion quests and enter the Earthfire Realm.
"Let"s check out the boss"s loot, shall we?" He Yi said to me.
"Yeah."
I walked up and picked up the loot. The enraged boss definitely had higher drop rates because it dropped a total of 5 pieces of equipment. Not bothering to check them one by one, I brought up 5 stats screens at once and showed them to the girls—
Cyanlight Battle Armor (Earth-grade, Outstanding★★★): 1120 Defense, 985 Magic Resist, +155 Strength, +150 Stamina, increases user"s Defense by 27%. Outstanding Property: increases user"s max HP by 4000. Level Requirement: 150.
Cyanlight Helmet (Earth-grade, Outstanding★★★): 1040 Defense, 920 Magic Resist, Strength +150, Stamina +160. Increases user"s. .h.i.t rate by 40%. Outstanding Property: Increases user"s attack power by 15%, Level Requirement: 150.
Necklace of the Green Berserk (Spirit-grade, Outstanding★★): Strength +125, Stamina +120. Increases user"s attack power by 20%. Outstanding Property: Berserk, increases user"s critical hit rate by 9%, the effect stacks with other bonuses. Level Requirement: 150.
Wild Cloak (Earth-grade, Outstanding★): 710 Defense, 440 Magic Resist, Intelligence +145, Stamina +140. Increases user"s Magic Attack by 19%. Outstanding Property: Wild, increases damage of berserk-type attacks by 10%. Level Requirement: 150.
Aurora Dagger (Purple Gold–grade, Outstanding★★): 750~990 Attack, Agility +120, Stamina +115. Increases user"s chance to ignore Defense by 6%. Outstanding Property: Fierce a.s.sault, increases user"s attack power by 14%. Level Requirement: 150.