Chapter 15: Tower of Wish
Hell Difficulty Tower of Wish, a low level dungeon, with a level cap of 15-20. The team of ten was led by Black Hope the only priest they have. Whether the group was confident or fool, no one but themselves would know.
They arrived at the 2nd floor of Tower of Wish. The monsters and beasts inside the tower change differently depending on the difficulty of the tower. The tower type dungeons were also called tower of trials. There were 2 known towers to the players.
However, the second tower was at the Chaos side so the only tower available to them was the tower of wish. The room was dimly lit that made the atmosphere somber. It was truly gloomy that you would think thank you were on a horror house.
The magic circles lit one by one on the four direction. The ten players followed the formation they agreed. Priest, Mage and Dancer at the middle. While each direction will have a warrior or a dragon knight. Next, the ranger, gambler, and ninja will provide assistance in a direction with a weak link.
The formation itself was good however, they would soon know why the difficulty was called hell.
The magic circle summoned ferocious beasts. The south circle summoned 5 one-horned demon wolves, the east circle summoned 5 frost wolves, the west circle summoned 5 forest bear, and north circle summoned a Red-mane wolf.
Liam was positioned on the east. Frost wolves were one of his prey when he was training. He was lucky indeed. He barely qualified to enter this dungeon because of the scarce experience he get when training.
Liam unsheathed his sword. The beginner sword and clothes were replaced by a new worn-out leather armor and a one handed sword. He was poor so was his teacher. They were only hunting on the wild for their food.
Luckily, the stamina was changed. The wolves howl and they charged towards the ten players.
The mage, Olivia, started to chant her magic. She was using Heroic Mode which was hard for mage, priest, and ranger.
Misha, as the dancer, performed a short dance that buffed the team, raising their speed and strength.
Velkner held his ground even though he was facing three one-horned demon wolves. Zigz helped Velkner and kited the two remaininh wolves. Successfully decreasing the burden Velkner have.
Xavier, the dragon knight, was actually holding his place against the mini boss red-mane wolf. Leonel and Rain was fighting against the five forest bear.
Liam wasn't just standing. The sword in his hand was burning intensely but suddenly it fade away. The sword was suddenly surrounded by a red aura like a grim reaper ready to hunt his prey.
Liam moved like he was flowing water. Yes, this was in fact a stance of a Sword Master. The man and the sword, two different entity but with one objective.
On the onlookers Liam was only dodging and evading the wolves but, in a minute detail he was actually producing his own domain.
Yes, domain was only an NPC use but Liam proved that it could also be used by a player. It was unlike the NPC domain which enclosed a space and make their own but with Liam, he was only attracting the enemies attention on him.
It was like a knight performing a skill called provoke. The wolves kept a vigilance. They had this nagging feeling that they were flowing into the river of death.
Liam slashed the first wolf when he saw that its focus wasn't at its peak. He targeted the weak spot of the wolf. It was ingrained in his bone that he have to make every attack effective and a killing move.
The other wolf lunged at Liam when they saw that their companion was in danger. The AI of this wolves were different like a monotonous movement the AI should have.
Challenging Hell Difficulty has its own downside. The players didn't know but the AI of these beasts were also at Heroic Mode. Thus, they were faced with a real life battle against wolves.
Liam only made a slight movement. The slight movement might looked simple but it wasn't. This proved that his intuition as a player improved greatly after his training. Liam connected the slash. He attacked the wolf three times. Three red number appeared on the wolf's head.
567!
567!
567!
Three critical hits. The wolf's life wasn't even high at the start because it was a agility type monster. The wolf whimper its last breath and slumped on the ground.
The fight on the other side was also intense so they didn't saw how Liam fought. They were immersed on their own enemy. Olivia finished her chant and attacked the red-mane wolf. They have to finish the alpha wolf first so they could lighten the burden of others.
Black Hope only looked at his team's health bar and provide assistance. He was also using Heroic mode but unfortunately, he wasn't on that level yet. He lacked awareness that should have on a priest.
Liam with the four remaining wolves unleashed his 2nd skill. The Heroic Mode have a lot of advantages if you could do it properly like: completion and execution of skill, critical strike on vital parts, special effect, and creating your own skill.
There were still a lot of hidden advantages that were still unknown but Liam also knew that on Heroic mode you could display your full potential in battle.
He wasn't an amateur anymore. He read and studied the guides and information he could on his free time.
The 2nd skill Liam on his arsenal was called Hundred Sword Cut. It was a visible sword intent produced by the power of hundred slash. It was the new skill Liam created after performing hundreds of thousands slashes in a one monotonous movement.
It was his first created skill. The flowing river skill was his own domain so it wasn't counted as created skill. It was an active skill per se but it was an active skill that continually consume mana and could only help him raise his evasion.
While Hundred Sword Cut was his first damaging skill that he created. Hanz never taught him any skill. He said 'you have to find your own style' bullshit that Liam always heard after he advanced to Sword Master.
So he only have 2 active skills and 4 passive skills.
Sword Mastery(Master), Sword Master Aura, Peerless Swordsman, and Intuition. When he changed class he reverted into level 1. Fortunately, Liam's starting stat was 4 to all attributes and his extra attribute and skill point when he completed his first quest was still there.
Compared to normal classes, which could gain 13 attribute points and 10 before the 1st awakening, he could gain 20 attribute points. He also gained 3 extra passive skill at the beginning.
He also gained something from his rigorous training was the passive skill intuition but it was still low level.
Liam dodged easily the wolves. He performed the skill stance then unleashed the skill after he saw that they were once again pouncing towards him.
The ground Liam was standing cracked because of the vibration of Liam's skill. The wolves felt an overwhelming pressure that made them froze for a bit. But that small time was all Liam needed. The skill connected to the first wolf then overpassed him like a wind until it arrived at the wall.
The wall made a grinding sound before a cut was formed on it. Gushes of blood sprout on the wolves and they were cut into two. If you looked closely, you'll see a bloody red numbers.
300!
300!
300!
300!
300!
300!
300!
300!
300!
300!
Ten slashes. The skill released ten slashes but only looked a one slash. The skill Liam used was totally overwhelming. Liam never paid attention to the damage because he knew that once he released it, the wolves were finished.
Black Hope saw Liam's performance. He was overwhelmed by this poor looking fellow. He gulped loudly and quake in fear. He never saw someone like him. Even if there were powerful rankers in the game, he never felt fear standing with them.
Rain also looked at Liam's direction, he suddenly performed well after being invigorated. He stepped back and unleashed arrows after arrows.
Not only Rain, but Xavier, Zigz, and Leonel forgot to hold back because of the intensity of Liam's skill.
The battle ended after 3 minutes passed when Liam concluded his battle. Silence once again pervaded the group.
"U-um, I think we should challenge the first boss on the 3rd floor." Black Hope said sensing the atmosphere was stifling.
Without a word, everyone stepped on the magic circle that was glowing. The start of the showdown of the strong started after that brief fight.
No one would ever thought that, it was the start of the new legend of the arising heroes.
On the monitoring team, they were also flabbergasted about the event taking place on the big monitor. The AI issued a code red that major event would take place.
The monitor displayed the performance of the ten players, no, to be exact, it displayed the might of the five players on the monitor.
Those five players were in fact, 5 powerful individuals that weren't on the rankings. Liam and Xavier only finished their advancement recently. Rain was a beta tester so they knew how skilled he was. Leonel was another powerful expert since the launching of virtual reality games. While Zigz was a new arising player.
They actually looking forward to Velkner, Misha, and Olivia's performance because like Liam, Leonel, and Xavier, they were also having an important quest inline with the first arc.
The planning and development team also left their work and watched the encounter of 8 arising stars.
A laugh sounded out of mouth of one of the monitoring employee. "We need a popcorn!"
Yes, a good movie needed a good popcorn…