MMORPG: The Elementalist

Frostsnow Island was silver and neat as the snow gleamed white, making the entire place look heavenly and sacred. Looking closer, the sapphire lake in the middle of the island looked more like a sacred ground—a pure blue color that added some vigor to that white world, giving it a finish that was too beautiful to be appreciated.

However, the only thing missing was that there wasn’t even a single cruise or a yacht to pick and drop people in such a beautiful place. What a shame!

Drifting deeper into his daydream, Qin Ruo, who had entered his Aquamorph, started moving across the water. He had fused into the sea and had obtained quite a boost in his movement speed. It did not take long before he arrived at the island.

However, good things never last long…

Thud!

He bumped his head.

‘Ouch! That hurts!’

Qin Ruo felt as if he had just run into a very thick and cold wall. He covered his head with his hands feebly as he stood back up. He just noticed, at that moment, that he was only less than fifty meters away from the shore of Frostsnow Island. He did not expect that the area by the shore and before the shore to be frozen by the cold air released by Frostsnow Island. Because of that, the shore was extended over ten meters wider into the sea. Qin Ruo had run into a thick layer of ice.

Qin Ruo spat and cursed quietly to himself for being unfortunate.

After climbing onto the layer of ice, water droplets were immediately dispelled. Qin Ruo sensed that the island was providing him with some advantages. The Water Element here was the same as the Water Element at the shallow area. Now, he was deeply convinced that whatever Slayer’s Heart told him was true—the system would never give one a quest that was impossible to complete… It was true. To be able to battle in this sort of environment, Qin Ruo was convinced that he could definitely maximize the potential of his strength.

Qin Ruo quickly recollected himself as he entered his Elemental Perception: Water, the moment he was able to. He quickly extended his mental strength and started radiating his focus over a few hundred meters out, keeping an eye on every single particle of snow in the snowy land.

After confirming that there were no threats nearby, Qin Ruo started to make some calculations. The number of monsters within a dungeon was fixed. He also had a lot of time tonight. As long as he could carefully plan his steps and reduce the number of monsters, he would not have any problem in annihilating all the monsters on the island. As for the Boss…

As long as the Boss was not insanely powerful, Qin Ruo believed that he definitely have enough time and ability to handle the Boss.

After making his decision, Qin Ruo deactivated his Aquamorph and sat on a layer of ice. He then started meditating—the area of the island was not small. If he really wanted to push forward slowly, he must not simply use the MP Potions in his backpack. So whenever there was no danger, he would enter Meditation to recover his MP.

A minute later, Qin Ruo cautiously activated his Aquamorph again. Then, he walked into Frostsnow Island as he once again activated his Water Elemental state and Elemental Perception: Water.

The moment he officially set foot on Frostsnow Island, the system notification that came very late echoed.

Tier 4 Advancement Quest has been activated.

Frostsnow Island Advancement Quest… Slay Level 39 Snow Wolf—0/50.

Slay Level 40 Yeti—0/30.

Slay Level 41 Ice Python—0/15.

Slay Level 45 Snow Giant—0/2.

Acquire a piece of Deepblue Frostsoul from Tier 4 Elite Miniboss—Wintry Vajra.

The notification of the quests rang one by one. Qin Ruo was initially stunned and shocked, and then he felt hopeless.

That was insane!

Not the system though. Qin Ruo was about to go insane himself as he thought he heard some unreal voices. Qin Ruo suffered several nervous breakdowns as he had never actually heard of a Tier 4 Advancement Quest with so many tasks. He had also never heard that the difficulty of a Tier 4 Advancement Quest would be so high!

Was the game trying to kill someone for real?

Having to kill fifty Tier 3 Snow Wolves at their top level was still acceptable. He had also hunted those monsters before back at the Snow Domain. Although it was a little difficult for an Aquamancer to handle that, the monsters were still Tier 3 after all. Players would not get the short end of the stick. But the quests were getting more and more frustrating—thirty Tier 4 Yetis? What sort of joke was that? The arm strength of those creatures was high! They could launch a snowball with a diameter of one-meter with a single arm! Having to kill fifteen Ice Pythons was even scarier. Their movement speed was insanely fast. In the Snow Domain, a Tier 4 player would find it difficult to even fight one of them. As for the Tier 4 Snow Giant with intermediate strength…

Although it was still considerably fine to take on two of them, the Snow Giant was able to defend against the Water Elemental Magic. Qin Ruo smiled bitterly as the beautiful world of silvery snow turned into a land of hell. Other than the Snow Wolves, none of the other monsters were easy to handle!

The most depressing part of it was the final quest. The system had shamelessly asked him to acquire Deepblue Frostsoul from the Wintry Vajra… What the f*ck! That was the Mana Core of the Wintry Vajra! One must kill the Miniboss before that item could be dropped… why didn’t the quest just get straight to the point and state that he needed to kill the Miniboss? Was that not beating around the bush? That was just shameless!

After cursing the system again and again, half of Qin Ruo’s confidence had been crushed—all the monsters were Water type. The success rate of casting Frost Damage and Freeze was reduced to the minimum. Their abilities to attack would also be enhanced by the environment. If he only relied on his normal attacks to reduce the HP of the monsters, if he really wanted to kill these bunch of monsters… God knows how long he would need to complete his quests!

Upset and overwhelmed by frustration, he deactivated his Aquamorph. Qin Ruo sat down and sent a voice message to Slayer’s Heart. A party invitation came in response to his attempt to reach Slayer’s Heart.

Confirmed!

“What happened?”

The Slayer’s Heart’s voice echoed from the party channel. Then came the voices of the other ladies as they all nervously asked Qin Ruo, “How is your progress in the quests?”

“I have heard that you have received an extremely difficult one, can you handle it?”

Qin Ruo smiled bitterly and tried to explain his current situation to the others. The party channel instantly went silent. After a brief moment, Violet Orchid opened her mouth and spoke regretfully, “That difficulty… that is too much!”

Qin Ruo had not told them about the Elemental Perception: Water that he created on his own, to all of them. It was true that with the strength of a Tier 3 Aquamancer, those few quests were too difficult for Qin Ruo to complete. Even they were convinced that they would not be able to complete those tasks.

“Hmm…”

“That’s a little too much indeed…”

“Why would the system give Ruo Ruo such a high evaluation? That quest is impossible to complete!” Burning Rose, Little Apple, and iLittle Arrow expressed their anger and resentment for Qin Ruo.

As for Slayer’s Heart, who had been silent all the while, suddenly said, “The adjustment and the deployment of the system will show certain difficulty. But the system will never give you a quest that’s impossible to complete. Little Qin, do you think you can step up to that?”

“Snow Wolves and Yetis are not that big of a problem for me. Other than that, the movement of the Snow Giants is slow. I should be able to slowly kill them. But I’m sure as hell that I can’t handle the Ice Pythons and the Wintry Vajra.” Qin Ruo knew that the movement speed of the pythons was a total nightmare for him. Even if he could use his Twelve Frostrampart Formation, it would still be extremely difficult for him to reduce the movement speed of the Ice Pythons that were under the category of Water Elemental Type. The only thing that was advantageous to Qin Ruo was his Elemental Perception: Water.

As for the Wintry Vajra…

Qin Ruo would not even dare to dream about taking on that Tier 4 Elite Miniboss. That would be far more difficult than killing a single unit of Gorefiend Spider Demon.

“If that’s the case, you will have to work on it on your own, Little Qin.”

“Hmm… This is, after all, an Advancement Quest, we can’t help you at all. If you really can’t complete it… just die and come out. It is actually very easy to get back to Level 39. Then, you can receive the Advancement Quest again. The difficulty will definitely be reduced.”

“Urgh…”

Qin Ruo did not expect that his attempt to seek for “reinforcements” to end up futile. He felt a little depressed.

“Actually, even if I were the one who received this quest, I would definitely be incapable of completing it… It is nothing. Just relax a little. It is not that a big deal to fail once anyway.” Slayer’s Heart attempted to comfort Qin Ruo.”

“If you failed, then let it be. This quest is really too much. Not to mention that your equipment are not really that great in the first place. Just die quickly and come out. Tomorrow is Saturday. Everyone has time. We can take you to grind for an entire day. After that, you will definitely be able to advance into Tier 4. Everyone can go into the secret chamber of the Ruins again on Sunday!”

Burning Rose comforted but that came as a surprise though. She persuaded Qin Ruo to die as soon as he could. That had rendered everyone on the party channel speechless…

Although Qin Ruo was currently in the world of ice and snow, he was sitting down, thanks to her. He then coughed out loud.

After he asked Slayer’s Heart to check if he would be dropping any equipment as he was doing the Advancement Quest, Qin Ruo cast aside all his worries and stood back on his feet, activated his Aquamorph and got himself ready to head into the quest—he had accepted the fact that unless he died in the middle of the quest or completed the quest, it was not possible for him to leave this trial dimension.

***

After casting Aquabarrier, Qin Ruo’s Elemental Perception: Water radiated. He had also officially entered Frostsnow Island. He headed straight towards the small sapphire lake on the flattest terrain of the entire island—right between the small sapphire lake and the snowy mountain, was a small snowy valley. There were also some footprints densely packed together on the ground, the footprints of wolves…

“It seems like I have found a clue for my first task.”