Chapter 180

Honing the Craft (I)

Cain inspected the chimera-like creature lying in front of them and noticed a few changes; outside the standard window that displayed the beast’s name, race, level, health and such, there were some extra additions all around. The first one was the presence of a new classification: Rarity. Cain frowned, having never encountered such classification before, or even heard of it from the others. Additionally, there were 4 red marks of sorts scattered around the creature’s body, and Cain swiftly recognized them as vital points.

//Evoi the Winged Race: Mixed

Level: 42

Rarity: Rare

Health: 102,000

Traits: Bloodthirsty(B+), Impatient(C), Ferocious(B), Proud(A-)

Skills: Talon Strike(C), Wind Slash(B-), Emperor’s Roar (D), Unending Storm (E+)//

Sighing, he merely shrugged, attributing the new changes to his Path... probably. He was hardly the most knowledgeable ilk in the past, and even less so now that a great deal of those memories had vaporized. Most was stuck haphazardly written on the pages of a notebook in his bedroom, one he’d read every time he came out of the Tower just to remind himself of the events and important places.

“Grab his aggro,” Cain spoke to Emma. “But don’t deal too much damage. I wanna see how far I can push my full combo.”

“A’right,” Emma shrugged, swiftly putting on her full set of armor and going from looking like a low-level tourist to a raid boss in her own right. She charged forward and quickly woke up the creature, causing it to yelp a roar of pain as the massive warhammer dug into its skin. Noting the missing 8000 health, Cain looked at Emma strangely, wondering whether she really was holding back.

Cain’s full combo, at least as-is, wasn’t all that difficult to execute -- first order of business was firing off all 3 charges of ‘Coiling Storm’, totaling in roughly 1300 upfront damage, shaved down to 650 as there was a massive, 50% debuff on damage due to the level difference between the two. Being hit by three consecutive ‘Coiling Storms’ also meant that the chimera received a debuff, ‘Burning’, which dealt roughly 1500 damage over 18 seconds, once again shaved down to 750 due to the level difference.

Next up was activating ‘Ascendance’; as most of the damage of the ‘Coiling Storm’ wasn’t front-loaded, wasting even just a few seconds of Ascendance on it was dampening. Following the buff, Cain used ‘Void Annihilation’, whose damage was virtually impossible to predict. In a perfect world, it would fire off ‘Searing Mind’ each and every time for some truly insane damage. However, even in the worst-case-scenario, if the skill only ever triggered ‘Coiling Storm’, raw damage output was still around 50,000, dampened to 25,000 due to the level difference.

The issue was that the skill could be dispelled, and deal virtually no damage. However, if left unchecked, it was 8 seconds of raw power that probably nobody in his party could come close to matching. And all that wasn’t even including the Ascendance’s buff of 60%.

After the Void, Cain activated ‘Searing Mind’; similarly to the ‘Void Annihilation’, overall damage was difficult to predict due to the raw randomness of the Skill. However, Cain suspected that, optimally, it would likely be his hardest-hitting skill, at least for now.

To finish everything up, he channeled the last of his offensive skills for 3 seconds, Infernal Starlight and with it literally emptied out his Mana reserves from nearly 4500 to just over a 100. The result, however, was more than worth it.

Emma was calmly whacking away at the creature, satisfied with 3000-4000 damage she would deal with the most ordinary swing. However, she suddenly noticed the boss’ health bar dropping like mad and worried she may have accidentally used a skill or triggered a passive. Quickly, however, she realized it wasn’t her -- it was Cain.

Boss 102,00 Health which, for most Conquerors at the moment, would be a monumental hurdle, seemed like a tiny little rock to jump over. Within 11 seconds... the boss dropped dead, causing Emma’s jaw to unlock as she glanced back. Cain, similarly, had a somewhat shocked expression. Though he did expect his damage to be heavily front-loaded, which meant that he could do massive bursts but would then be forced to stick around and suck his thumbs helplessly, this was still a bit too front-loaded. After all, he’d essentially dealt around 80,000 damage within 11 seconds... as a Level 1 nobody. That was a bit above 7,000 damage per second, a number that nobody else in the party could hit, not even Daniel or Jamal. And this was after Cain’s overall damage was dampened by 50%.

Granted -- this was a window of 20 seconds that he had to unload everything... and then do nothing for likely the remainder of the battle. Even still, he suspected, he’d always end up topping the DPS charts based off of this alone. He was only woken from his stupor by an onslaught of notifications that besieged his view, forcing him to exit the haze and rejoin the reality.

//You have slain Evoin the Winged!

Congratulations, you have Leveled Up!

Congratulations, you have Leveled Up!

...

...

Congratulations, you have reached Level 21!

You have 100 free points to distribute to your stats!

...

You have received ‘Feathered Belt(C-)’, ‘Mane of the Beast(C)’, ‘Stinger(D)’//

Cain sucked in a cold breath, his determination to get his hands on any and every Mana-restoring affixes rising. That was his literal gate at the moment -- Mana. If he had enough Mana... he could just spam at least 3 of his Skills repeatedly to maintain an incredibly high DPS, even if not as high as the one he’d have during the peak.

“... dude,” Emma looked at him strangely. “What the fuck? Aren’t you cheating? You can literally 1 shot a boss that was like 40 levels above you... what the fuck?” she repeated again, appearing as confused as Cain was inwardly.

Did I get lucky with the procs? He pondered but swiftly realized that, if anything, he actually got somewhat unlucky with them. He snickered suddenly, just for a few moments; then, a simple snicker turned into a slightly strange laugh, prompting Emma to look at him even more oddly.

“Man, I’m gonna be fuckin’ shit up in the future...” Cain mumbled.

“Oh, so this isn’t normal? I mean, you did just undergo like a big Awakening or whatever, right?” she asked.

“No,” Cain shook his head. “I’m sure, though, there were others in the past that could do this, but they’d need good items alongside a good Path. I mean, there’s also the fact that I shouldn’t have undergone Awakening until at least the 5th floor, so it’s natural that I’m a bit... uber down here.”

“Any of the items dropped any good?” Emma sighed, figuring it was best if she didn’t bother with it, asking about the items. Cain took a swift look through them and only kept ‘Feathered Belt’ tossing the other two into the inventory. He didn’t take a peak into Rick’s warehouse just yet, leaving it as a last resort in case he didn’t find anything good on his own.

//Feathered Belt (C-) Waist

Level: 38

Requirements: Intelligence 150

+20 Intelligence

+11 Vitality

+1% Damage Reduction//

Though it was hardly anything special, the item still increased his intelligence by 20, which was better than nothing. Cain stretched and sat down, lighting up a cigarette as he ventured deep into his thoughts. This prompted Emma to stretch lazily and join him, taking out a book and flipping it two thirds through, preparing to finish it.

Cain, in the meantime, mused whether it was more beneficial to go completely into the front-loaded framework, or was it better to spread it out; as it stood, he really did have the potential to one-shot a great deal of bosses, but that would fade quickly once bosses’ Health stopped being additive with the higher floors and began multiplying. By the 10th Floor, they’d already be facing creatures whose Health ran in eight digits and no matter how certain of his burst Cain would be at that point, he was not going to deal literal millions of damage within any ‘short window’.

That didn’t mean, however, that his current set-up was worthless; rather, he could expand on it, creating 4-5 similar windows to cycle through and maintain his insane DPS. The problem was... Mana. His current cycle swallowed nigh every last bit of Mana he had, and it was only going to get worse. However, if he could somehow resolve the Mana issue, he’d have no limits; he could shorten the windows and increase the damage further, cycling through a specific set of 5-6 Skills in a sort of infinite cycle. For instance, creating variations of ‘Void Annihilation’, and maintaining a Skill permanently on the target.

He woke from his stupor and sensed some weight on his back; glancing over his shoulder, he saw Emma leaning onto him, reading a book in silence, her lips pursed together.

“Watcha reading?” he asked.

“Love and Fury,” Emma replied. “Damn, this bitch Claire is fuckin’ nuts. First off, she fucked her brother, recorded it, and then blackmailed him for years; eventually, on his wedding night, she snuck into his room and killed both his wife and him, pinned it all on her mother, kidnapped her 6-year-old nephew and then raped him for years until he turned 17, when he tried to kill her. She managed to kill him instead and... well, that’s how far I got. I kinda don’t wanna continue, man. What if she gets a good ending? .”

“... what the fuck?”

“I know, right?” Emma said. “And to think, it started off as a cutesy family story. Man, ‘Love and Fury’ my ass; more like, ‘what the fuck and excuse me would you kindly tell me what the fuck is going on’.”

“Why the hell are you reading that shit, then?” Cain asked.

“... I can’t put it down.”

“...”

“It’s addicting,” she said, sighing. “It’s like -- yes, the last 8 paragraphs describing a rape scene involving a 6-year-old were enough to scar me for life... but... it looks like there’s gonna be a twist on the next page, y’know? I just can’t stop.”

“Jesus, why not read Twilight and Shades like other embarrassing moms? You’re fucked up.”

“Oh, miss me with that shit ‘Mr. Public-pissing-porn-videos’,” she glared at him for a moment and rolled her eyes. “The amount of crap I consciously chose to ignore about you in high school, shit, I should be awarded a fucking medal for it.”

“... you googling ‘my boyfriend accidentally spat into my bellybutton, can I get pregnant’ beats any and all crap I pulled off combined.”

“...” though she said nothing, Cain could see the swelling, red cheeks as she tried to hide her expression, prompting him to smile. He fell silent, as did she, leaning against each other surrounded by the tall and green nature, and the rather gory corpse they chose to ignore. All in all, though, it was perfect, the rekindling.