Eva cast her Control outwards, scanning far and wide. She wasn't like Draco who had the cheat-like Divine Eyes which could see almost everything within a certain Rank/level.
In fact, if she were a common player, she would have to gingerly traverse the Area Zone carefully while looking out for enemies. But with her Control, she easily identified around 12 Rank 2 monsters within range.
Each of them was alone, as monsters of higher Ranks tended to be solitary creatures unless they lived with their mates. Situations like the orchard and whatnot were impossible if not artificially set up that way.
As Field Zones were natural occurrences, it was obviously unlikely for such a situation to be present normally. Case in point, the current scenario.
Eva turned to the other ladies and looked at them seriously. "We are going to clear out this Area Zone in order to strengthen ourselves. After that, I'll construct a department of the organization when we're done."
"The monsters in this zone are fewer than those we encountered in the Plains of the Colossus, but they are far stronger. They are all 1 Rank above us."
The other three became solemn. Roma and Hikari were generally new to the world, but their time with Draco allowed them to learn the combat standard of the world, and their recent time with Eva reinforced that.
As for Zaine, she was lazy but not ignorant. In fact, apart from Eva, she might be the one who best understood the hellish task they were about to undertake.
The three shared a look and nodded to Eva. "Guide us, Big Sister."
Eva smiled and led them towards the best target for them to start with, a Rank 2 Specialist Aqua Bear. Even though a monster like this would be more intelligent, it only had physical abilities, which would make the battle more controllable.
Eva had no delusions of grandeur. If she had a Divine Class like Draco, forget being with the three beauties, she alone could solo this zone. Divine Classes were broken like that.
However, she currently had a Rare class, the Shadow Assassin. Her total stats were just barely above the starting stats for just one category in a Divine Class.
Hikari was totally defensive and support based. In fact, it was her presence that largely gave Eva the guts to risk such a fight.
Roma was a ranged damage-dealer and crowd-control, as well as a summoner type. As long as there was enough time and Worldly Energy, the sky was her limit.
Zaine was a ranged damage dealer as well, despite her delusions of grandeur. Her damage output was not high due to her relative level, but her versatility and speed as a ranged fighter were the best.
And there was Eva herself, who was a ranged and melee fighter simultaneously. Of course, with her gear, she would be handling melee fights. She would be tanking in general and dealing damage on the side.
Eva understood that Hikari was supposed to be the tank. Don't joke, White Dragons were the hardest Draconic species to kill in the universe. If Hikari took her true form, she could tank an army.
But neither Draco nor Eva were comfortable with letting Hikari take on that task when they themselves were skillful enough to do so. As such, she was turned into a ranged support and healer, which was best.
With her battle plans drawn out, Eva and co encroached upon the Aqua Bear's territory. The beast was currently gnawing on some bones of what looked like a large fish.
｢Name: Aqua Bear – Specialist Rank monster
Level: 76
HP: 800,000/800,000｣
When it saw them, its eyes lit up and it threw away its toy. Fresh meat right from the factory! How could the Aqua Bear begrudge these women if they wanted to badly to fill up his stomach?
Without any prelude, Eva used Short Blink to appear behind the Aqua Bear. Next, she chained it with Shadow Tendrils.
｢Shadow Tendrils – Active skill
Effect: Summon shadow tendrils to bind, pierce, or harass an enemy target. Tendrils last as long as you have Mana to burn and consume 10 mana per second.
Cooldown: 7 minutes｣
While bound, the Aqua Bear roared and began to resist. Eva felt her mana bottoming out rapidly. Spells like this would last as long as you had mana, and the stronger the resistance of your enemy, the more mana they drained per second.
Eva first struck with the Chrono Blade at a strong point, activating the Light Cleanse passive skill which reduced overall defense by 30%. She needed this to negate the 30% defense boost the Aqua Bear received from Rank Suppression.
After all, it was a melee monster that had poor speed, but incredible physical defense and offense. If the Rank suppression was to be added, then she would have a hard time taking it down.
Eva then added her Void Blade to the mix, striking at the Aqua Bear's tendons which were a weakpoint. This induced a natural critical hit thanks to the Shadow Kill passive skill.
Since she wanted to end this battle as best as she could, she also utilized her Light Energy from her bloodline. It drained a small amount of BP to coat her sword in razor sharp Light Energy thanks to her training.
Normally this would only add on a small amount of damage, but this time it was quite a bit thanks to the boost of 500% from Lightfire and 300% from the Eye of Heaven.
-15,000!
What, expecting a higher amount? Heh heh, clearly overestimating the power of a Rank 1 player and underestimating the Rank gap.
Eva had a normal class with her highest stat only being Dexterity which had 89 points. This made her speed godly, but she only had 12 points in Strength, so how could her melee damage be much?
Not only that, but there was also level suppression which cut down her already struggling stats by 25% due to the level gap.
Then, there was the 30% damage reduction from a Rank 1 foe to a Rank 2 one, meaning that after her base damage and the 500%+ 300% was added on, that final number was cut down by 30%.
Luckily, she had negated the 30% defense increase with her Light Cleanse passive skill, or this damage would have been reduced by another 30%.
Then there was the biggest culprit, which was the Aqua Bear's own natural defense. All of this blended together to make Eva's well-timed and beautiful strike look like a fart.
Hehe, when watching Draco slaughter waves of Rank 2 monsters like they were weeds, Rank 2 monsters seemed kinda weak didn't they? What was the big fuss about them if Draco killed them like dogs?
The answer had been proven here. Without the Light Energy from her bloodline that was boosted by 800% thanks to the two items, Eva might not even have dealt 1,500 damage after all calculations.
Alone, it was clearly impossible for Eva to kill such a monster. Even with her great skill, she could only ensure her life as she escaped, but killing the Rank 2 monster was impossible.
But was Eva alone?
At this time, Roma raised her hands as her eyes glowed green and her hair mimicked Medusa in becoming like a weave of snakes. With a short chant and a wave of energy, hands burst through the earth.
The Witch Slaves had arrived and entered the battlefield the moment they were spawned. As they rushed to assist Eva by sharing aggro, Roma also used Necrotic Hands to bind the Aqua Bear.
She chained this with Evil Curse, which gave the Rank 2 monster a <Confused> status for 1 minute. After using her quick cast skills, she began to chant, preparing a more powerful spell.
Zaine was not idle. Her eyes flashed as she used her Illusion passive skill to try and pull the Aqua Bear into a false mirage. The Rank 2 monster slowed down its struggle and went slack for a few seconds in bewilderment.
At the same time, Zaine threw out many knives towards the monster which she then controlled with her mind to form a macro-blade that ripped at its skin brutally.
Hikari cast White Light Blessing on the Witch Slaves and Eva as well, doubling their damage and defense. She would have to do it quickly over the span of a minute or more as she buffed each person individually.
It couldn't be helped, she didn't have the power to do so before. Now however, she was buffing them in batches of 10 per second, which was a great achievement.
It was clear that the three beauties were performing so much better than before, and it had nothing to do with their increased levels alone. The main reason was that before setting out, Eva had already re-allocated their stats.
This had a great effect on Roma and Hikari, and almost none on Zaine since her stats had been controlled by Eva from the beginning. Zaine's increased skill was due to her increased level.
Now, their stat sheets read like this;
｢Name: Roma - Rank 1 Mystic Servant
Level: 36
Exp: 84%
NPC Str: 10
NPC Dex: 10
NPC End: 10
NPC Int: 150
NPC Spr: 50
NPC Cha: 10
NPC Lck: 10
Active Skills: Necrotic Hands, Evil Curse, Life Steal, Divination, Dark Resurrection.
Passive Skills: Charm, Insight, Foresight, Flexibility, Illusion.｣
｢Name: Hikari - Rank 1 Dragonling
Level: 46
Exp: 31%
NPC Str: 100
NPC Dex: 100
NPC End: 100
NPC Int: 100
NPC Spr: 330
NPC Cha: 100
NPC Lck: 100
Active Skills: White Light Healing, White Barrier, White Light Blessing.
Passive Skills: Aether Production, Dragobond.｣
｢Name: Zaine - Rank 1 Royal Devil
Level: 20
Exp: 60%
NPC Str: 10
NPC Dex: 10
NPC End: 10
NPC Int: 100
NPC Spr: 10
NPC Cha: 15
NPC Lck: 10
Active Skills: Mind Blast, Charm, Energy Drain, Rapid Blink, Omega Blast.
Passive Skills: Seduction, Telekinesis, Psychometry, Telesthesia, Illusion.｣
Eva had completely fixed their messed up allocation. The few points Roma had in areas like Strength, Dexterity, and Endurance were removed and funneled into Intelligence.
This brought it from 100 - where it was pre-re-allocation - to 150. The rest was put into Spirit, bringing it from 35 to 50. Roma relied directly on Worldly Energy like Hikari, so Spirit was important to her as well.
Hikari had points in Intelligence although her skill's effectiveness did not rely on it in any way. She also - bafflingly - had points in Charisma which Eva then shoved into Spirit.
In fact, EVERYTHING was shoved into Spirit, sending the stat to an abhorrent amount. It had now surpassed the atmospheric limit and was soaring higher.
In terms of stats, Hikari would be the most perfect White Dragon in existence at her level. Even her mother might have had extremely piss poor stat allocation since it was totally random for NPCs.
Zaine didn't have any free stats, so Eva just placed her outstanding 15 points into Intelligence and Charisma, bringing Intelligence to 100 and Charisma to 15 from 90 and 10 respectively.
Of course, the unallocated 15 points for Hikari and Roma had also been allocated, leading to the current scenario.
Unfortunately, stat re-allocation did not allow one to pull on a stat category until I dropped below the base amount. So for Zaine and Roma, no stat could go below 10 and for Hikari, no stat could go below 100.
Just imagine if Hikari could drain her other fields and infuse it into Spirit… forget an Area Zone, Hikari might be able to pull Worldly Energy from across a Continent Zone!
In fact, she might even be able to manually convert other energies into what she needed for her spells, also being able to convert Aetheric Energy or Divine Energy down.
When these women added their own bits to the battle, it quickly became a one-sided oppression. Even with the huge level and Rank suppression it pushed onto the three of them, it could do little to stifle how broken they were as combatants.
The Aqua Bear suddenly realized that it was behind the times. An old fart like it was clearly unused to the new era were women were no longer damsels in distress, but overpowered monsters that drank blood for a living.