MMORPG: The Elementalist

Poochie’s fight had nearly gotten out of control. With little to no idea about its abilities, Qin Ruo did not dare to let Poochie get into any more fights. After he had gotten rid of all four Goblin Warriors himself, he brought up the Pet Interface to have a look through Poochie’s attributes.

Level 0 Pets were extremely fragile, and if the worst happened, it would cost a load to bring it back again. Moreover, with Qin Ruo currently unable to return to town to resurrect Poochie even if he needed to, he couldn’t allow the scamp to mess around like that anymore!

The Pet Interface appeared before Qin Ruo, with a panel displaying Poochie’s attributes, and another one with its skills.

Level 0 Shadowfox: Poochie

Physical Attack 30-35, Growth Rate 5; (with each level-up, along with other ability improvements, the Pet also increases Attack and Resistances directly)

Physical Resistance 20-20, Growth Rate 4;

Magical Attack (N/A);

Magical Resistance 10-10, Growth Rate 2;

HP: 500/500; Growth Rate 100;

MP: 45/50; Growth Rate 5;

XP to next level: 0/100;

***

Now that he knew Poochie’s basic attributes and growth rates, Qin Ruo quietly did some calculations for a moment. By Level 40, Poochie’s basic attacks could go up to 230—comparable to a Titanwraith Berserker with a full set of high-level equipment! Its Physical Resistance was also startlingly high…

It really was a true Shadowfox!

However, Poochie’s weakness was clear to see: with no magical attacks or any other form of ranged attack, its abilities were entirely focused around Agility and Strength—a pure close-combat attacker.

Furthermore, compared to the attributes you would expect from a Boss, the Shadowfox had below-average Magical Resistance. This suggested that magical attacks would be the greatest fear of a Shadowfox, which made it kind of funny to think about the time when Ron and his mistress had used Warrior techniques to attack a Shadowfox. If they had sent Elementalists instead, they might have succeeded in bringing it down themselves, and Qin Ruo couldn’t have snatched up such a wonderful prize.

Overall, Qin Ruo was pleased with its attributes. Poochie’s speed and close-combat capability would work well with his own long-ranged fighting style—a complementary pairing!

The only thing he could not quite figure out was why the Shadowfox only had 500 HP, and not much growth potential either—by Level 40 it would only have 4,500 or so, nothing like you would see on a standard Boss!

That time, the Shadowfox had withstood the Ron Couple’s attacks for quite some time, and then it had spent half the day healing itself back up—it must have had over forty thousand HP…

‘Do Boss-level Pets have reduced HP? Maybe it’s like this for all Pets?’

Although this was really something for Qin Ruo to wonder about, he forced himself to move on, now turning his attention to Poochie’s skills panel, which contained only two skills:

Shadow Dash (Innate Talent): Move as fast as lightning. 50% improved chance to dodge incoming attacks, duration 10 seconds, costs 1 MP; no cooldown time.

Shadow Strike (Innate Talent): Can only be performed while Shadow Dash is active. 50% chance to Stun target, costs 1 MP.

***

Qin Ruo dismissed the Pet Interface, feeling that he had a much better understanding of the Shadowfox and its abilities now.

This had been enough to allay his concerns about Poochie: despite it still being only Level 0, it had remarkable instincts for combat, and understood how to use its two innate talents. What’s more, with no less HP than a Goblin Warrior, it could easily beat one to death in single combat without any help from him.

When another Goblin Warrior spawned once more, Qin Ruo gave a mental command, and Poochie shot out once more, a bolt of brown shadow!

Qin Ruo sat back and watched as the Goblin Warrior’s attacks whiffed uselessly against Poochie’s Shadow Dash ability. He was having fun—this was way better than normal skills training.

When the first one was about halfway done, the second Goblin Warrior appeared to crash the party again.

This time, Poochie was not caught by surprise. Whether it had learned its own lesson, or perhaps the shock from Qin Ruo’s forceful display was still fresh in its memory, when the second Goblin Warrior popped out, the little thing sprang back and retreated several meters, then as the Warrior chased after it, it dove back in after the first Goblin Warrior, still Stunned.

The second Goblin Warrior, poor thing, had to chase after the much-faster Shadowfox, running back and forth all over the place, but never getting within reach to attack Poochie.

And then the third Goblin Warrior spawned in!

This was a lot for Poochie to handle, and it stumbled a little, not only unable to continue attacking the first Goblin Warrior (which had already lost almost all of its HP), it also allowed the third Goblin Warrior to land a hit.

The Pet was only Level 0—it had enthusiasm to spare, but was clearly still lacking in experience. Qin Ruo had a laugh, and then began to direct the action from the sidelines. Sending silent thoughts through the link between them, he guided Poochie in leading the first three Goblin Warriors aside, but the real target was the fourth one, which had just appeared.

The fourth Goblin Warrior was successfully Stunned, while the other three were still scrambling around. Poochie made a quick feint to the side, and then dashed in for yet another attack… none of the three Goblin Warriors could keep up with the speed of the Shadowfox, or match Qin Ruo’s tactics, and there was nothing they could do besides rush up and down repeatedly, to no avail.

After a few rounds of this, Qin Ruo relaxed his control, allowing Poochie to take over and show how much it had learned from him.

There was only the slightest pause, and then Poochie really managed to pull it off. Sometimes the Goblin Warriors might move a little differently, but the little thing was able to keep up with these changes, and adapt the positioning and timing all by itself.

Half a minute later, Poochie had completed its debut performance, successfully managing to kill off one of the Goblin Warriors. A column of blinding bright light fell over it, and it leveled up straight-away!

Poochie received 278 Experience Points.

Poochie has leveled up!

The sound of these system notifications was music to his ears, and Qin Ruo was also pleased to discover that the dozen-or-so MP Poochie had expended was instantly replenished to full, for a new total of 55/55. Poochie was enjoying other improvements elsewhere, as well.

Full of excitement, Qin Ruo instructed Poochie to finish off the first Goblin Warrior, which had earlier been reduced to near-death.

With Physical Attack increased by 5 points, its base damage had now risen to 24!

The damage from the first round of attacks leaped over twenty points, in addition to applying the Stunned condition. Although Poochie did get smacked aside by one of the Goblin Warriors, it wasn’t a problem—it took less than seventy damage from that hit, which it regained immediately under Qin Ruo’s Aquahealing.

Bounding back onto its feet as though nothing had happened, it shook off the other two Goblin Warriors, intent on getting its second kill of the day.

Poochie: Target Hit: Goblin Warrior takes 38 damage.

Poochie: Target Hit: Goblin Warrior takes 41 damage.

Back and forth it struck, rapidly dealing ever more damage to the Goblin Warrior. Its HP, which had already been knocked below 150, was soon chipped away to nothing.

Another beam of light, another level-up.

Another melodious round of System Notifications!

Qin Ruo himself found it a little hard to believe, so he called up the Pet Interface for a look. It turned out that going up to Level 2 only required 200 XP, so with what it’d gained from slaying the first Goblin Warrior, it had only needed another 22 XP to level-up. No wonder!

What was really exciting was that Level 3 was not too far off now, either: Currently, the XP total read 248/400. One more kill, and it could level-up again!

Goodness! Now he understood how Xiaoxiao had gained levels so quickly.

With a full set of good equipment, taking on Tier-1 monsters, a player could probably also level-up with every couple of kills. This explained why, right after the Pet System had been unveiled, Scarlet Bauhinia had brought his Evil Frost Tiger to the Killer Bee Valley, using Tier-3 Killer Bees as fodder for training up his Pet.

Ah, if only I’d been that good at the game, at the time. Qin Ruo sighed in lamentation, and simply ordered Poochie to keep going, same as before.

Poochie, who was Level 2 by now, faced its adversaries with much greater confidence than before. Its basic attacks were now dealing over 30, almost 40 damage to the Goblin Warriors. When they were Stunned, the damage was closer to 60. It didn’t take three Shadow Strikes to bring down a third Goblin Warrior.

Level-up!

Poochie seemed to understand that the columns of light meant it was getting stronger, and it squeaked in excitement. With the flair of a show-off, it balled itself up and slammed into the last Goblin Warrior.

After dealing it a Shadow Strike, Poochie no longer had anything left to worry about, and went all-out so it could chain the attacks together faster. It was entirely a one-sided slaughter.

Seeing this, Qin Ruo rubbed his nose, thinking, ‘This little fellow is totally insane.’

At the rate they were going, it might very well overtake Xiaoxiao on the way to Tier 3, or even Tier 4… after all, as far as he knew, Pets didn’t have to undertake any Advancement Quests.

Still thinking this through, he felt a weight upon his shoulder—Poochie had returned, after a successful sortie.

The little thing had the most adorable way of cocking its head to one side, its big bushy tail swishing this way and that, watching him intently with big, bright eyes, as if to say, ‘Still think a Shadowfox can’t fight?’

Seeing this arrogant, self-assured display, Qin Ruo admonished it laughingly. Little scamp!