Chapter 4

Level one through fourteen monsters practically does not exist in Helion. Why? Because fighting level one Porings were for retarded pussies and the devs knew it.

History and years of experience made them understand that handing out levels to players like an easy lay was not the bestest of route. The devs at the Rainbow Abyss knew this, and they certainly didn't want to raise a generation of degenerate limp dicks like it was 2008.

What they wanted was to produce a generation who could challenge the development team. They needed players who were hardcore enough to flip fuck the game so they could create more ball busting content sometime in the future.

With that premise in mind, the game developers came up with this brilliant idea on how they could insert 'BDSM' seamlessly into the game without anyone noticing the actual intent.

They started with something subtly kinky but small.

How about we give the players starting mobs to toy with? No level one. That should be fun. Right?

Brilliant. I love it. Approved!

Said one sadistic manager. And boy did they dildoed everyone with it. It was actually hilarious.

During Helions first incarnation, the entire player population kept dying on its opening day.

It was a bloodbath at the Lanares Plains and no one was advancing beyond level one at that time. Some thought of doing safe city quests to gain some levels first but only to find out later that the rewards given at the end were just generic items. There weren't any base or job level experience that was included for completing the quest. They got nothing and that was reason enough to rouse the community into a serious uproar.

Everyone was basically stuck at the newbie City. Celesia was practically flooded with a tsunami of annoyed, defeated sulking brats in all four corners of it. However, the RATs (Rainbow Abyss Team) didn't care. Not even one tiny bit.

Helions customer service lines were on fire that day. Soft phones were ringing off the hook. Every single player had one or twenty bad things to say about the game, and the complaints kept coming.

The forum sites weren't spared either. It was practically littered with curses and everything in between.

But the RATs didn't mind any of the trash talks. Instead, they gave everyone the big middle finger and just ignored the entire community altogether.

You didn't like what we did? Then go fuck yourselves! That was what basically what the RATs were saying.

Helions stocks were slowly plunging by the minute and it was very worrisome. But just when everything was about to go south for the games publisher, 4 hours later, the Helion community suddenly got its first ever miracle.

Scoop!

Plastered on the headline was a group of six players who effectively subdued a lone Field Armored Dillo.

It was big news. And the entire community wouldn't stop talking about it.

They all had the same question though like-- "How were the six successful and they weren't?"

The difference?... Well… obviously, the six stopped being spoiled snobby little rich brats and started acting like real civilized individuals. They dropped their illusions of solo grandeur and instead, started asking people for help. Humility was added into the mix. Individual pride was set aside and that was pretty much the answer.

Those first six players figured out that they were humans who were capable of sound communication. That although they have differences individually, they could actually work together as a team to achieve one common goal.

The formula was no rocket science. In fact, it was quite ordinary; and yet, it was also the most effective.

And so, the news travelled like wildfire. Everyone started looking for a party. Even the ones that hated partying got their hands forced. They started acting nice to each in order to survive.

Fast forward to today, the formula would have worked for Cruel too if only he wasn't already twenty-one days late. Most players were level 30 at that point and partying would be very difficult for the synthdroid. Especially with the level gap penalty being imposed.

But he expected this level of challenge. He had planned on soloing anyway from the get go. Although executing it would require some blood, but nevertheless, the tactic he had in mind was doable. Especially now that he has all three relics from Riddle to help him.

Now, there was a reason why Cruel chose Embarcadero as his spawn city. Not a lot of people knew about this information but eighty miles east of the port, exists the Catacombs of Lofar. It was a dungeon hidden away on a tiny forest valley called The Devil's Teardrop.

The place didn't generate a lot of buzz during Helions first and second incarnation for a number of qualified reasons. One, Helion was simply too realistic. A dungeon filled with undead was not exactly something a casual player with a pacemaker would like to try even on a VRMMO setting.

Not everyone had a taste for horror houses. And even the ones that actually did still get scared shitless when they saw one up close and personal, especially when the zombies would start grabbing onto your feet out of nowhere. Now that's mainly the deal breaker for so many.

Second, the dungeon boss drops were garbage. Lofar the Tyrant was a bitch to deal with. He had this one hit killer move called the Devourer and no one would survive this move unless one would eat a cloud candy. It was a kind of dulce that generated an anti-fatal aura when eaten, protecting the user from one fatal attack that was usable for 10 minutes only. Problem was, cloud candies were hard to come by. And if there were stocks of it, the next problem was buying it. It was hella expensive. 120,000 gold each.

Lofar's drops includes a 13.5% chance to acquire a Cursed Ruby, 17.8 % chance to get a Glass Bead and Topaz, 0.1% to acquire Tilesio's Circlet blueprint. Lastly, an unknown (?) chance to get Lofar's Slate.

Most of the time though, only Topaz and Glass Bead would drop after the boss hunt. If one gets lucky, they'll get a Cursed Ruby. Other than that, there was nothing. A closer cost analysis would point out a net loss due to the fact that a single cloud candy costs more than a single Cursed Ruby.

Hunters usually skipped this dungeon for all the right reasons and they weren't wrong.

But Cruel was not there for Lofar. He was there for his minions.

Decaying Wolves were the starting mob of this dungeon. They had an affinity for the shadow element. A lowly demon class, but agile little buggers.

Each one had an ATK (attack) stat of 28-35 points per scratch and bite. And their HP (hit points)?... Well, they got about 1608 of it. Compared to his own HP, which was about 100, Cruel was basically minced meat for these demonic puppers. He'd prolly go down under 3 hits which was kinda sad. Good news was, he had all sorts of secret weapons that he could try in order to bag the little suckers.

First up, Cruel needed a speedster for practice. He spotted one isolated pupper just right at the edge of the cave entrance. Any other race would've had a hard time navigating through these dark corners, much more spotting an enemy from a distance. Thankfully, not to Cruel, it wasn't.

There was a reason why he chose to be a synthdroid during the avatar creation process. He specifically chose this race for its passive bonus race skill, which was to see through infra-red eyes when it gets pitch dark. And as a heal bomber who would probably be stuck fighting against the creatures of the dark, this passive was one of his greatest arsenal.

Although there were setbacks to being a synthdroid, he'll have to push that problem at the back burner for now and deal with them later. What was important to Cruel was to start amassing gold as soon as possible. He still owed his employer 3 million worth of it and the clock was running.

Without any moment wasted, Cruel made a beeline towards his target.

The zombie pupper he had chosen wasn't any push over either. It was quick to pick up on his metallic scent.

Like a prelude to a crash, Cruel acted like he was going to smash the pupper's face head on using his bare fists. The act prompted the zombie pupper to respond in kind by launching itself forward, both its lethal fangs and claws were out.

It was obviously going for the big bite, but unexpectedly, Cruel made a sudden side step towards the right that made the pupper miss its mark. The zombie wolf failed to snatch the synthdroids neck by a hair's breadth which was fucking exhilerating if someone recorded it and play it back in slow motion.

'O-ho-ho. That was so fucking close. I almost jeezed my pants.'

The math to this miraculous dodge was rather simplistic. A decaying wolves HIT stat was around 24. To dodge this, one needed to have a FLEE stat of at least 25 to survive. But in order to be 100% scot free, one needed to have 34. An extra ten points would always seal the deal. Combining the movement speed and flee stat from his Kuku' s Blessed Boots, 2x Simple Novice Rings, plus his Cerrutis Tail relic, the level one heal bomber easily tallied a combined FLEE stat of 26.

But that was not enough to properly dodge. He needed more. And the answer came from a simple bottle--- the Wind Dew. A bottled consumable solution brewed from mixing a portion of wind essence and wind sprite blessings. It adds a temporary +15 points of flee for 15 minutes which Cruel was more than happy to have. He got this concoction for free from the church where he got his miraculous 20 point charisma from.

Instantly, after ingesting the solution, Cruel started outrunning the once fast moving hell spawn pupper. Thanks to the potion, he had plenty of allowance to dodge every bite and every scratch that the decaying wolf threw at him for the last three minutes. Knowing that, he concluded the dodge test to be over.

It was about time to pull away and exit from the aggro.

Now all that was left was the nuke test. And this test would probably make or break his farming bank.

Just to give everyone an idea, a single heal mine would cost about 1000 gold per plate in the market. If you assemble it on your own, it would prolly cost less; about 200 gold each if you were lucky enough to get most of the ingredients for free. So practically, you are nuking a gold nugget every time you plant a heal mine on the ground.

This was why heal bombers got their bad reputation. It was probably the reason why they were not even considered as viable healers because cost wise, the class sucked big time if one would focus on the expenses alone.

But Cruel had his own work around for that issue. He just wished that he could sustain it long term.

'Alright. So, one heal mine has over 900 output of nuke power when ignited. In theory, two of these should be good enough to wipe them out clean. Even if I factor in their magic defense (MDEF) of 22, the nuke should be potent enough. I guess I have to lure some of them to find out, huh?'

When Cruel mentioned 'some', he actually meant thirty. Covering a quarter of the entire first floor map section, Cruel easily lured about thirty of his targeted count. Each time he spotted one, he'd flick a pebble towards it, pulling the aggro in a pinch.

As a precaution though, the synthdroid maintained a two metre distance between him and the ones that were hungrily trailing behind him. It was the safest distance that he could muster using whatever was stacked on his flee stat without breaking the targets aggro.

Running around like a crazed coyote with monsters in tow for four straight minutes, Cruel somehow reached an early saturation point. With a dash and a roll, he ended the nuking test by squeezing the red trigger on his right.

'DETONATE!' he muttered under his breath.

Suddenly, just inches behind him, a burst of blinding white light exploded on all four corners of the cave. It came from the two heal mines he planted in advance on that same exact spot where he skidded for safety.

A yelp in unison were the last words he heard the puppers shouted before eventually succumbing to the power of the light. What followed right after that were some series of overlapping texts and crazy system notifications which overwhelmed his screen.

You have leveled up…

You have leveled up…

You have leveled up…

You earned 102 gold…

You earned 102 gold…

You earned 102 gold…

You earned 102 gold…

And the craziness kept coming. To drown out the messages, Cruel thought of opening his playlist. He picked up a Rhianna song which was kindof popular back in the early 2018. Cruel blasted it off mercilessly out of his skins built-in speakers just right after hitting play.

Yayo, yayo

Moo-la-lah

Yayo

Bitch better have my money!

Y'all should know me well enough

Better have my money!

Please don't call me on my bluff

Pay me what you owe me

Ballin' bigger than LeBron

Give me your money

Who y'all think y'all frontin' on?

Like brrap, brrap, brrap

The bass line echoed through the walls of the catacombs and Cruel was living for it.

Mood.

"Damn… I wish I had a cigar…."

With no one looking around, Cruel shook his bootie with abandon like it was 1979.