MMO: Pierce Heaven Til’ It Breaks

‘Could a mount give me a quest as well?’

Li Yi looked at virtual quest pane before him and quickly accepted the quest.

“Ding!”

The Mermaid Princess sighed and began to tell Li Yi about her tragic experiences.

The mermaids were close neighbors of the Sea God’s Palace, but they did not come from the same race. The leader of the Sea God’s Palace was a Naga.

The Nagas looked like mermaids. They were also humanoid from the waist up and had a fishtail instead of legs. The only difference was that the Nagas were covered in thick scales, had horns on their heads, and high-level Nagas even grew four arms. They were completely different from the beautiful mermaids.

The relationship between Nagas and mermaids was like between different races within humanity. They may not be the same race, but they came from the same roots. That was also why the two races had a very close relationship and often had interracial marriages in order to further decrease the distance between them.

The Naga prince of the Sea God’s Palace, Fernando the Siren had always coveted the Mermaid Princess Freya’s beauty. He proposed to her several times until the mermaids finally decided to marry Freya off to Fernando the Siren.

Freya was not fond of the ugly Naga prince in the slightest, so she used the mermaids’ divine weapon to transform herself into a little goldfish and transported herself to the Water World to hide. That was also why she appeared in the Water World.

Of course, Fernando the Siren soon tracked the Mermaid Princess down. Using the divine weapon of the Nagas, he cursed the Mermaid Princess, causing her to temporarily lose her independent thoughts.

There were two ways to undo the curse. One was for Fernando to find the transformed princess and kiss her. That way, the Mermaid Princess would fall utterly in love with him and never leave him for the rest of their lives.

The second method, however, had nothing to do with Fernando. This was because all curse spells had a unique characteristic, in that they had to be undone eventually, without exception.

The second way to undo the curse: No matter who it was, as long as someone captured Freya, the curse would disappear on its own.

Li Yi had been extremely lucky to fish Freya up and remove the Siren’s curse from her.

The effect of the curse meant that Freya would never be able to leave Li Yi from now on. Her hatred for Li Yi went even deeper than her hatred for Fernando the Siren, who had cursed her in the first place.

“I want you to head to the Sea God’s Palace, and kill that Siren, Fernando!” Freya gave him the quest furiously.

[Quest title: Kill Fernando the Siren. Quest difficulty: A. Quest Completion Reward: (Unknown).]

There were no other explanations or time limits. This was the quest offered by the Mermaid Princess.

‘How the f*ck do I do this!’

The Sea God’s Palace was a Level 90 dungeon. Forget Fernando the Siren, a boss-level monster, even a random prawn soldier would be too much for Li Yi to handle.

Even the Ultimate Move, Camouflage did not work, as this Ultimate Move had a weakness as well. If the target’s level was more than 20 levels above Li Yi’s, Camouflage’s rate of failure would increase.

“What’s the matter? Is it very difficult for you to kill Fernando the Siren? Or are you saying that with your current power, you can’t even go to the Sea God’s Palace?” Freya looked at Li Yi in contempt.

Li Yi was exasperated. He was being sh*t-talked by his own mount.

Li Yi said honestly, “I can go to the Sea God’s Palace, no problem, but I can’t kill Fernando the Siren for now.”

“Hahahaha…” Freya covered her mouth and laughed elegantly, so full of bullsh*t that Li Yi nearly lost it and slapped her in the face.

He had to resist it. The voice of the Mermaid Princess Freya was just like that of the superstar Xu Man. If he was not mistaken, her voicebank probably came from Xu Man.

‘If you dare sh*t-talk me again, I’ll give you the Princess Sif treatment!’

Li Yi decided inwardly.

“I have a plan that can weaken Fernando the Siren, do you wanna hear it?”

“Speak!”

The Mermaid Princess waved her finger and a small blue potion bottle appeared in her hand. She gave it to Li Yi. “This is a Weakening Elixir from the mermaid clan. If the siren gets a whiff of it, its powers will decrease.”

“Ding!”

The quest description for Kill Fernando the Siren changed. Instead of having no time limit, he now had to complete it within 10 days, and the difficulty dropped to B as well.

“There’s only one bottle of this mermaid elixir, so remember, don’t disappoint me.”

Li Yi held the elixir, his heart pounding.

The quest he had just accepted had not been introduced anywhere in the past life for no reason other than the fact that nobody else had ever captured the Mermaid Princess before. There was not even one word about this on the official site.

What would the reward be for a quest given by an orange-colored Legendary-level mount? Purple equipment? A divine weapon?

Although he did not know what the reward would be, Li Yi was extremely certain about one thing, and that was the Mermaid Princess’ Affinity for him would increase dramatically if he could complete this quest.

Even if there were no other rewards, this quest was practically mandatory just so he could increase his Affinity!

His time was limited, so Li Yi used the Castellan’s Teleport skill to go to the Auction House as soon as he accepted the quest. If he wanted to go to the Sea God’s Palace, he naturally needed to do some preparation beforehand.

He bought a bunch of Engineering materials and blueprints. Whether they were useful or not, he learned them all. He also bought some arrow-crafting materials, just in case.

Speaking of arrow-crafting materials, Li Yi had a huge issue with that. He could clearly remember that in the past life, not many players wanted to be Archers. The class was so unpopular that it was only slightly better than Curse Priests. The more unpopular the class, the cheaper its equipment and skill tomes, and vice versa. In this lifetime, however, the situation had been flipped on its head. There were many Archers from the very beginning, and rather than decreasing, their numbers seemed to be constantly on the rise. Although there were far fewer Archers than there were players in the mainstream classes like Warrior, Thief, and Wizard, there were still many more Archers than there were Summoners or Vagabonds.

‘Don’t tell me it’s because of me?’

Li Yi mulled it over and over. This reason was his best guess.

And in truth, he was exactly right…

In this life, Li Yi’s showy performances in the dungeons meant that many people who decided to start playing King of Pantheon favored the Archer class significantly. For a moment there, it became a popular trend…

There were no classes that were absolutely good, nor were there classes that were absolutely bad. The only difference was some players knew how to play the game, and others did not.

The Archer class had been unpopular because it had a steep learning curve. Without a lock-on skill, it was a problem for people with subpar vision to even hit a target. It was still bearable against a dummy boss, but against a boss that moved around constantly, their DPS would end up being pathetically low.

He remembered how there was a BAMF in the Archer class in his past life. This Archer missed nine shots out of ten, and yet he was reluctant to switch classes. In his fury, he used money to reset his Skill Points, giving up completely on ranged shooting and becoming a specialized Pet Archer instead, using melee attacks. He made headlines for quite some time, but since he still could not manage a high DPS, people started to lose interest in him after a while.

King of Pantheon operated for eight years, and yet, other than the Archer who subdued the Divine Bird Phoenix, there were fewer than ten truly powerful Archers.

The more unpopular the class, the fewer the players who were willing to do research into it. On the other hand, if a class was popular, there would be all sorts of strategies and damage-dealing tips. The ones who benefited the most from this would be the players who started later, and right now, the Archer class was proving this point.

“If You’re a Man, Shoot with Me!”

“It Doesn’t Matter if You Can’t Shoot Straight, Shooting Path Archer Lil Crooked Here to Help You! 100% Accuracy Rate Guaranteed, The Path to Becoming a True Archer”

“Can’t Shoot Straight with Your Eyes Open? No Matter, Gay God Summer Leaf’ll Teach You Blindfire”

“My Opinion on Archer Accuracy, Regarding Accuracy of Moving while Shooting, Jumpshot Edition”

“Re: My Opinion on Archer Accuracy, Regarding Accuracy of Moving while Shooting, Jumpshot Edition. This Author is Full of BS! I Wanna Ask, Have You Really Played as an Archer Before? Have You Seen Archer God Dark Wing’s Battle Vids? Have You Actually Researched This?”

Previously, most of the articles were about Wizard strategies. Now, however, essays with strategies for Archers had climbed to first place, beating out the strategies for the number one class in the game, the Wizard.

There was no helping it, there was too much controversy in the Archer class. If someone had a dissenting opinion, there would be voices for and against, and the argument would rage on without end.

Li Yi bought his arrow-crafting materials for ten times the price they used to be in his past life, feeling disgruntled. Still, it was inevitable. Who asked him to start this shooting trend?

After getting all his preparations done, Li Yi rode his Crimson Tiger King and went on his way. The road to the Sea God’s Palace was long, and there were no flying mounts available yet, so he had used a land mount instead. It would take him at least 3 days to arrive.

The Sea God’s Palace was in the deep-sea region at the border between the Eastern and Southern Continents. Departing from the Eastern Continent, he would pass by many monster-farming areas. It was not particularly dangerous in the beginning, but he had to be careful once he entered the Level 50 maps and beyond.

Li Yi went past the Wild Beast Plain and found that it had been completely overrun by players. Countless players who wished to ride the Crimson Tiger King stood guard here day and night, but the ones who could truly have their wish fulfilled were few and far between.

As of right now, Li Yi had yet to hear of anyone successfully riding a second Crimson Tiger King, and that included the one he had auctioned off last time. It had vanished into thin air after it was bought, and no one had been seen riding it ever since.

Li Yi zoomed past them on his Crimson Tiger King, filling the players who were stationed there with jealousy and envy.

“Showy b*stard. One of these days, I’ll ride it too,” thought many players to themselves angrily as they watched Li Yi’s back pass by.

Li Yi was Level 47 and a half, so he could go through the maps with Level 50 or 60 monsters without a problem. Using Pseudocide and Camouflage, he went through all of them without a single scratch. When he was about to enter the Level 70 maps, however, he found the going rather tough.

Swarms upon swarms of Giant Ants even larger than camels with mandibles of steel were moving quickly up and down the plains. There were several tens of thousands of them.

This was the Level 70 map, the Giant Ant Plain.

Li Yi took off all of his equipment and wore only the undroppable Ring of Windstorms before summoning the Violent Bear King.

Other than forcing his way through, there was no other way about it!

He activated Wind Shield’s Protection and Violent Bear’s Protection at the same time. After dismissing the Violent Bear King, he summoned the Mutated Small Wild Boar. Li Yi strode forward, rushing into the fray. The special skill on his equipment that increased SPD was ineffective when riding a mount, or else Li Yi would not have to go through all that trouble either.

There was just too large a difference between their levels. The monsters’ detection range increased as well, so Li Yi was already discovered when he was 30 meters away from the ant swarm. Camouflage and Pseudocide were both rendered ineffective, so he began to take large strides, going around the ant swarm.

They were Level 70 monsters, so even if they were not elites, their destructive power was still exceedingly terrifying. When Li Yi had run more than 100 meters, the ant swarm surrounded him. In this most dangerous moment, the Mutated Small Wild Boar used Solid Ice, pulling the ant swarm’s aggro away.

Li Yi made full use of that time to rapidly dash forward. He finally managed to escape from the ant swarm’s line of vision before the Mutated Small Wild Boar’s ultimate suicidal Taunt ended.

“Camouflage!”

He successfully broke away from battle!