The Almighty Ring

When Jiang Fei called Isabella out to go roam around aimlessly, Chen Xi contacted Jiang Fei.

“What’s up? Did Brother Yu come around?”

“I have no idea where that lazy bum went. He’s not even online now. Anyway, I need your help.”

“Wait. Did I hear it right? Are you asking me for help?” said Jiang Fei, a little shocked.

Chen Xi had always been a lone wolf. If she could do it alone, she would. If she were to ask Jiang Fei for help, it must be too tough for anyone to do it on their own.

“Help on what?”

“I got a Class Advancement quest. I tried but failed. I need someone to take the hits,” said Chen Xi nonchalantly.

“Don’t you have your own guildmates? Go find a tank there.”

“I did. You dimwit! Not even the strongest tank in the guild could tank that.”

“What sort of monster are we looking at?” said Jiang Fei.

“A boss. A Level 50 Enhancer Leader tier. It’s an open-field boss. However, the map is small. I can only bring two more players. I brought a healer along.”

‘No wonder’, thought Jiang Fei. An Enhancer Leader tier Level 50 boss would be as hard as the last boss in the Elite difficulty of the Temple of Deities and Demons dungeon.

“So? Coming?” said Chen Xi, irritated.

“S-Sure! Send a party invite.”

Jiang Fei laughed. Chen Xi wanted his help but acted all high and mighty. The truth was that she could not do it without him. It must have been a blow to her pride.

Once in the party, Jiang Fei realized there was one other Priest.

“Hmm. I’m sorry but this guy is out. No offense,” said Jiang Fei.

“None taken,” said the Priest.

“Why not?” Chen Xi immediately chimed in.

“I’ve been doing dungeon runs for so long and even taken so many First Clear achievements. Did you see me bringing other players?” said Jiang Fei.

“True.”

Chen Xi kept quiet after that. After Chen Xi apologized to the Priest and kicked him out of the party, Jiang Fei headed out of the city.

“Give me the location. I’ll be there in a jiffy,” said Jiang Fei as he was already in the air.

Jiang Fei flew to the location Chen Xi forwarded to him. After flying north for some time, Jiang Fei arrived at an abandoned mine. There were hardly any monsters around. The few there were scattered everywhere. Not only were they hard to defeat, they would also drop nothing but air. Hence, players would be here defeating these monster to protect their fellow miners. Besides that, there was hardly a reason to stay in this map.

When Jiang Fei arrived, Chen Xi was seen sitting down on the floor, waiting.

“What’s your advancement?” said Jiang Fei. It should be something good since the quest was too hard for her.

“It’s a Rare Class. An advancement of Assassin,” said Chen Xi, not intending to hide anything from Jiang Fei.

“Huh. What sort of perks does the class have?” Jiang Fei asked. There was very limited information about Rare Class information on the internet. Most of the time, players would have to find the information themselves.

“After advancement, I can only equip swords. The class has high accuracy and high critical rate. Much like a Ranger. However, I can only equip Cloth type equipment. Both Physical and Magical.”

Jiang Fei nodded at her answer and scanned the area. There was nothing within the vicinity besides black rocks.

“What’s the quest asking you to do?”

“See that flat arena there? Once you’re ready, I will summon the boss there. If we can’t win the fight, we can just jump from the arena and the boss would be unsummoned. This can be repeated as many times as we want until we win,” said Chen Xi as she pointed to a large area of flattened black rocks.

Jiang Fei turned to look at the area and sulked immediately.

“That’s the arena? Doesn’t look much like one. If you didn’t say anything, I would have thought it was just an area with some sort of flatten rocks that had been cleared for construction.”

When Jiang Fei descended from the air, he did notice the arena but thought that it was there for another reason, not for fighting a boss.

“The boss is Bandit class with high attack speed and attack. Are you sure you don’t want to bring a healer?” Chen Xi asked. Although she acknowledged Jiang Fei’s strength, she still had her doubts since it was concerning her advancement quest.

“Hmph. Perfect. You should only worry if the boss is a magical type!” said Jiang Fei with a smile.

“Alright then. I take your word for it. Let’s go.”

Chen Xi gave in when she saw how confident Jiang Fei was. If even he could not defeat the boss, they could just jump away from the arena and it would over immediately.

“Take the lead,” said Jiang Fei as he gestured Chen Xi to go ahead.

“This area is weird. The area is not elevated enough that players below the arena should be able to heal the players on the arena. However, when that happens, the system would notify the healer that the target is not in sight. The same goes to anyone who tries to attack the boss from below the arena,” said Chen Xi as she summoned the boss.

“This is to limit the number of participants. If that technique works, everyone could take on this quest easily,” said Jiang Fei. The arena was not large nor was it tall. The entire arena was shaped like a triangle where Jiang Fei, Chen Xi, and Isabella each took a corner. The boss was summoned and it appeared in the middle of the triangle.

“The battle starts now!” cried Chen Xi when the summoning ritual was completed. With a large explosion and a small mushroom cloud, a small, dark Dwarf appeared.

Smash!

-2,602!

-2,602!

-2,602!

Rose Cutter!

-1,040!

-1,040!

…

God’s Wrath!

-55,288!

One after another, Jiang Fei landed skills to quickly stack up Ruthless Barrage. Naturally, God’s Wrath was used when Ruthless Barrage had reached its maximum stack. That sudden burst of damage had completely sealed the boss’ Aggro on Jiang Fei. No matter how much Chen Xi or Isabella attacked, the boss never took his eyes off Jiang Fei.

Only when the boss was locked on Jiang Fei did he take a good look at the boss’ stats.

Dwarven Assassin Gargalin (Dwarf, Enhanced Leader)

Level: 50

Health Points: 1,000,000

Attack Power: 9,800

Skills: Cut, Evade, Lethal Pierce, Malicious Attack, Bone Pierce

Cut: Slice up a target, inflicts Bleeding.

Evade: Increases 50% Evasion for 10 seconds.

Lethal Pierce: Gain 100% Critical rate after a successful evasion. Effect wears off after one attack.

Malicious Attack: Deals powerful damage and inflicts one count of Chained Attack. Can be stacked up to 5 stacks.

Bone Pierce: Deals powerful damage. Increases 20% damage per Chained Attack.

“Chen Xi! There’s no need to worry about this boss. Just attack leisurely!” said Jiang Fei with a big smile.

The boss attacks might not exceed 10,000 but his attack speed was ridiculously fast. The boss overall damage output was not weaker than the Vengeful Temple Abbot!

Lifesteal Demon form!

Even though Jiang Fei himself had passive Lifesteal effect, he could not handle the amount of damage that he was receiving. Gargalin’s attack speed was just too fast even though his attack was low. However, even though Gargalin has a high critical hit rate, Jiang Fei was not afraid of that sort of attack since the damage was not lethal. It was those that had slower attack speed but extremely high attack power that worried him. One critical strike and a player would die. That sort of attack pattern was what Jiang Fei feared the most.