Chapter 20 First Blood on Icy Cave Hard Difficulty!
The group entered the dungeon with high morale after renouncing their fear of death.
There was an internet saying. “One did not need to be afraid of godlike opponents, but one should always beware of piglike teammates.”
This was the first time they worked together as a team, and Ye Ci did not expect much teamwork from them. However, Ye Ci was on the verge of collapsing after an encounter with two monsters.
Of her four teammates, only Little Grouper Fish had some gaming basics. He was merely throwing fireballs while standing still, however, without much consideration to his positioning.
Just A Blade played like a tank, facing off against monsters head, and while Icy Cold Little Hands did not heal as a Cleric, she was busy throwing lightning balls alongside Little Grouper Fish instead. Little Icy Cold Hands was doing bad as well. He could not build up an aggro of the monsters they encounter and protect his team mates properly.
If it was not for Ye Ci who took out the two monsters single-handedly, the entire party would be annihilated.
“We can’t make it, our equipments are inferior. If we carry on, we’ll really die.” sighed Little Icy Cold Hands, almost giving up.
“It’s just two monsters. Can you not be such a defeatist?” Icy Cold Little Hands glared at him, lowering his head as he continued to munch on his biscuit.
Little Grouper Fish looked at the rest of them and spoke slowly, “Who will be in command?”
Just A Blade immediately shook his head. “I’ll just follow any orders to the letter.”
Little Icy Cold Hands wanted to raise his hand and volunteered, but decided against it in the end.
“If you trust me, how bout letting me have a try?” said Ye Ci.
Ye Ci’s damage output was clearly listed out. Although it was merely two monsters at the entrance, she was the only one in the party who seemed not to have made any mistakes. The others looked amongst themselves before nodded in agreement.
“I’ve been in this dungeon in Normal difficulty quite some times, and I’ve explored the Hard difficulty of the dungeon before. There shouldn’t be a problem as long as you guys listen to me.” said Ye Ci after noticing distrustful expressions from the others.
They did not object.
Ye Ci began stating out the mistakes her teammates had made after having observed them earlier on. “LIttle Icy Cold Hands, you’re a warrior, the MT (main tank, the most essential character in a dungeon), you must defend against the mob. Use Taunt to draw their attention. Don’t hesitate to use down whenever the CD (cooldown timer) is up. You must remember this. Don’t let Just A Blade take all the damage, he’s a melee damage dealer. He’s the 2T (a substitute for the MT in case the MT died).”
“Ok, I understand.” Little Icy Cold Hands replied with confidence.
“Just A Blade, simply time your attacks with Little Icy Cold Hands and be careful not to OT (have a damage output higher than the tank, causing aggro to switch).”
Just A Blade nodded with a serious expression.
“Icy Cold Little Hands, you’re a healer, not a DP (damage dealer). Your main job is to heal the tank while paying attention to the health of Just A Blade and the others.”
Icy Cold Little Hands creased her eyebrows, appearing to be worried. “But I can deal more damage…”
“We don’t need that much damage in this dungeon. What we need is a healer.” Ye Ci guided Icy Cold Little Hands patiently.
Icy Cold Little Hands was about to voice out her objection again, but she nodded instead after noticing the attention from the rest of the party, “Ok, I’ll heal.”
Ye Ci shifted her sight towards Little Grouper Fish, “Little Grouper, Have you learned Mobile Casting?” asked Ye Ci.
“No, I don’t have enough money.” The question seemed to have hit a spot as he trembled slightly.
Ye Ci kept quite. She understood the pain. Mages could learn a passive ability called Mobile Casting at lv8, It was the only passive ability made available to learn from instructors.
Despite that, almost 80% of the mages would never learn this ability at lv8. There was only one reason: It was too darn expensive!
Ye Ci could clearly remember that day when she tried to learn Mobile Casting in her past life. She almost had a seizure after learning of the price.
20 gold coins!!!
It was an impossible amount of wealth to be accumulated by a newbie!
After assigning roles to her party members, the group continued with their journey in the dungeon.
Despite being on Hard difficulty, Icy Cave was still a tiny prep-dungeon. It was not that hard. Although three of them were newbies, they followed Ye Ci’s words to the letter and performed their assigned tasks well.
With someone tanking the mob, Ye Ci could not be bothered with moving all around the place and stood beside Little Grouper Fish at the rear of the team.
Ol’ Three was perhaps the most relaxed in the entire party. The only thing it did was to wag its tail behind Ye Ci while acting cute and wandering away once in awhile. It even asked Ye Ci for meat from time to time.
Ye Ci did not forget about Ol’ Three. She was merely trying to raise its Loyalty so that it could be used against the Boss later on.
The experience points rewarded in Hard difficulty was way higher than the normal difficulty. Ol’ Three was already lv5 and they had barely completed less than half of the dungeon. Its loyalty had increased from 12 to 23.
The party soon reached the Boss Shator in no time.
The entire dungeon was no different from the Normal difficulty, aside from the Boss’s joint movement and an additional Elite spider.
This dungeon was a trial to the players’ damage output capabilities. A slight screwup could easy annihilate the entire party.
Ol’ Three died the last time exactly because the spider spewed venom nonstop.
“Let me make some arrangements before we go in. Little Icy Cold Hands, you must distract the Rat man and the Spider away from our DP and make sure that Boss have their backs towards our DP. Icy Cold Little Hands, your job is to heal Little Icy Cold Hands. Don’t let him die. Blade, you attack the rat man from the back. Don’t stand anywhere near Little Icy Cold Hands. That’ll relieve some pressure from the healer. You guys need to concentrate your attacks on the spider and take it out first.”
The four nodded and asked almost in unison, “How about you?”
Ye Ci smiled and pointed at the Kobold and Shator, “I’ll keep them occupied. Take out the Kobold once you’re done here, and then the Boss. Is my explanation clear?”
They silently grumbled despite understanding Ye Ci’s words. For a Huntress to go up against two Bosses, it was insane!
Attack.
As per their previous arrangement, Little Icy Cold Hands and Ye Ci rushed at the 3 Bosses at the same time. Little Icy Cold Hands casted Taunt at the Ratman and its spider, securing their aggro on himself. Then, he shifted his position so that the Bosses had their backs to Little Grouper Fish, Just A Blade and Icy Cold Little Hands.
Ye Ci released Ol’ Three which pounced on the Kobold. Ol’ Three casted Taunt on the Kobold, placing the Kobold’s aggro on itself. Ye Ci casted a Hunter’s Mark on Shator and fired a “Snake Venom Needle” at it.
A critical hit! -210!
With her first arrow being a critical hit, Shator’s aggro on Ye Ci was instantly raised to 200%. It charged at Ye Ci and breathed at her.
It was one of Shator’s skills in the Hard difficulty, “Frosty Mist”. Players hit by the skill would be affected by a “Frozen” debuff (negative status), slowing down their movement speed by 50% for 10 seconds.
Being frozen was like a death sentence to an average player. Once they were frozen, it usually meant that the party would be annihilated.
Frosty Mist had a channeling time of 1.5 seconds. The moment Shator began the channeling, Ye Ci leapt onto the air with the nearby cave wall as her springing board. She narrowly dodged the Frosty Mist. Ye Ci spun around in midair, firing another Snake Venom Needle at Shator.
It’s another critical hit! -221!
Her movements were smooth and clean.
Icy Cold Little Hands and Little Grouper Fish happened to be facing Ye Ci at that time. They were stunned by Ye Ci’s ferocity as she kited the helpless Shator, so much so that they had even forgot to do their own task.
Ye Ci observed the rest of the party while she was kiting Shator. She realized that Icy Cold Little Hands and Little Grouper Fish were dumbfoundedly staring at her. After noticing that Little Icy Cold Hand’s health was dropping rapidly, Ye Ci shouted, “Icy Cold Little Hands! The MT’s health!! Little Grouper Fish, don’t stop attacking!”
The two snapped out of their trance and the former resume healing and the latter began his attack.
Little Icy Cold Hands was horrified as his hit points which had nearly hit the rock bottom. Because of her mistake, Icy Cold Little Hands could never raise his hit points beyond 40% no matter how hard she tried.
With the situation once again stable, Ye Ci continued kiting Shator while healing Ol’ Three once in awhile.
The Ratman and its Elite spider finally fell after a short while.
The four immediately collapse upon the Kobold and made short work of it.
They then converged on Shator. By that time, it had only 30% of its hit points left. Shator was dead within 10 minutes.
The system notification chimed in the moment Shator’s corpse hit the ground: Your party was the first to complete Icy Cave Hard difficulty. Do you want the name of the party members to be shown?
The first! The first to clear the dungeon!
Little Icy Cold Hands rubbed his hands excitedly. He looked at Ye Ci, seeking her advice. The battle earlier on had upgraded her status from a “good” Huntress to a real “pro” in Little Icy Cold Hands’ heart!