MMORPG: The Elementalist

After his one attack, Qin Ruo beheld the field of fallen Thunderbirds, and finally felt able to relax a little.

After two days and nights of fervent experimentation down in the Underworld, he was satisfied with the results of his training: his custom-made Tier 5 attack spell, the Fatal Frost Crystals.

Much like his Tier 4 Frostburst Blade, it was an evolution of Xiaoxiao’s original creation: the Compressed Frost Bullet.

However, compared to the unstable, barely contained power of those other two spells, with the addition of the Shift technique, the Fatal Frost Crystals demonstrated the ultimate manifestation of the Chilling effect. Even the inherently random thermal forces were harnessed and given direction, overcoming the flaws of the previous versions to produce a perfect, complete, and fully developed spell.

At the pinnacle of Mastery, it had a Magical Attack rating of 75—five points higher than the most damaging single-attack spell available at Tier 5!

Not only did it no longer radiate a Chilling effect along its flight path, but its hexagonal shape and streamlined form meant a tremendous increase in projectile speed, which in turn made it nearly impossible to dodge!

Meanwhile, the ‘Silken Snow’ that it produced could suddenly unleash all the elemental cold that had been concentrated into a Fatal Frost Crystal, in an instantaneous explosion of paralyzing devastation.

It had an effect radius of ten meters, and a Chill effect lasting up to five seconds, which could cause a 95% Slowdown for five seconds.

One could say that Qin Ruo’s painstaking work to develop the Fatal Frost Crystals had resulted in the penultimate Tier 5 attack spell. In fact, in some aspects it far exceeded the standard for Tier 5 magic, and was tantamount to a Hidden Skill.

It was with this newly created spell, alongside Poochie’s ‘Shadow Howl’, that Qin Ruo had been able to bring down the first wave of Thunderbirds with a single stroke!

In fact, he hadn’t even given them the chance to attack at all, before utterly eliminating them.

Qin Ruo felt that with these Fatal Frost Crystals as a hidden ace up his sleeve, he could hope to go toe-to-toe against the likes of Savior and Sinistress, even though he so far hadn’t been able to create a Tier 5 area-effect spell with disabling effects on the scale of a ‘Black Hole’, nor possessed a Hidden Skill as fearsome as ‘Light: Devour’.

***

In spite of all these considerations, Qin Ruo hadn’t paused for a single moment. After his Tier 5 area-attack spell had knocked the whole lot of Thunderbirds out of the sky, he followed that up with a cascade of Frostbursts, so that the dozen or so Thunderbirds still hanging on to life were brought to the very edge of death.

‘Cheep, cheep!’

A golden glimmer darted from one Thunderbird to the next, dealing the finishing blow to any one that still stirred.

After that first success, everything else that followed was relatively simple.

Qin Ruo paused regularly to marshal himself, renewing his Darkfrost Shield and allowing all his skills to cooldown, and then repeating the exact same process to cross the next hill, weathering the simultaneous threats of both lightning and Thunderbirds!

(Translator’s Note: Anyone remember Chapter 591, when he suggested that not even the low-lands would be safe from lightning? Forget that.)

Of course, everyone makes mistakes, sooner or later.

During one of these crossings, Qin Ruo allowed two Thunderbirds to survive.

The official game website had announced that Thunderbirds did not exceed Level 60, so Qin Ruo didn’t hold much anxiety about dealing with a couple of them, especially with Poochie by his side. If they dared to close with him, he and Poochie should be able to casually polish off one apiece.

As for their Magical Attack capabilities… well, even the magic of Tier 6 monsters were a laugh to him.

It was that overweening self-confidence that resulted in him stumbling on his way through this field of death.

Each Thunderbird fired a bolt of lightning, and the stormclouds above seemed to react in sympathy, so that an additional column of lightning crashed down from above, following each Thunderbird’s spell to their target: Qin Ruo and his Frost Barrier.

His Darkfrost Shield shattered apart! His Frost Barrier quaked violently!

“Damn!” His palms suddenly sweaty, Qin Ruo hurriedly yanked out a Magic Scroll and froze both Thunderbirds into oblivion. After the situation had calmed down, his Frost Barrier was still wobbling on the edge of collapse, nearly two thousand HP gone, and his whole body was drenched in a cold sweat.

Qin Ruo paid a lot more attention after that, until he finally received the System Notification that he’d passed the trial, and would be allowed to advance!

***

“Isn’t High Wisdom supposed to handle everything, so that no one can mess with the game? How come there are company people interfering with the Grand Tournament?” Qin Ruo sipped the tea that Xiaoxiao had brewed for him as he smiled wryly at the computer before him.

Not two hours after he and several other players had passed the first stage, a recording of their gameplay had been uploaded to the homepage of the game’s official website—three categories of videos in total.

There were unremarkable Tier 4 players who made it through adaptability and sheer grit. There were Tier 5 players who struggled through impossible odds, some falling halfway through.

The trials faced by Tier 4 and Tier 5 players were not the same, but in every case, each player was forced to demonstrate the full extent of their current abilities! There were no easy victories.

But by far the most dynamic and eye-catching playbacks were found in the third batch of videos available on the homepage, which included Qin Ruo’s own run.

As with the other categories, there were ten players being showcased! However, unlike the other categories, all ten of these were renowned ‘Honor & Glory’ players, every one of them a winged Tier 5 champion who was either considered an elite player or thereabouts.

Right from the moment the videos began, it felt completely different from the lower categories.

Most players could easily tell that the challenges these ten faced were on an entirely different level compared to what they themselves had been given: Deadly environments, unceasing onslaughts of lethal attacks, and fatal threats that struck without warning.

Then there was the phenomenal skill that each of the elite players demonstrated in their moments of ultimate peril, which inspired both awe and delight in the hearts of spectators!

However, death only found the first eight players. The final two playbacks were of triumph.

Qin Ruo the ‘Winter Demon’, as well as Savior of the Demon Faction—neither one of them had fallen during the first stage.

Accompanying each video was a description of the Mortality Rate and Difficulty Rating of each player’s trial. The Winter Demon had prevailed against a 97% Mortality Rate and a 99% Difficulty Rating, the second hardest trial so far.

Savior had gotten it worse, having been rated by the System at a 99% Mortality Rate and a 98% Difficulty Rating, in the Undying Lands.

***

Such action on the part of the game developers left Qin Ruo with a slight sensation of annoyance.

Just like that, his Fatal Frost Crystals, which he’d been keeping as a hidden trump card, had now been exposed before billions of players. He’d planned to use that to give the Demon Faction’s elite a nasty surprise.

He hadn’t anticipated such a move by the staff.

Fortunately, the playbacks didn’t display any actual numbers, and the perspective of the recording made it hard to observe the spell’s effects that clearly.

Moreover, this also meant that Savior had been exposed, and it turned out that he was even more powerful than Qin Ruo had estimated.

Without using his ‘Light: Devour’, he’d made it through by relying upon what appeared to be some sort of Mutant Overlord Boss as his Pet, cutting his way past the Spectral Shamans and high-level Vampires that infested the Undying Lands.

This came as a bit of a relief for Qin Ruo.

Just then, there was a whiff of a pleasing fragrance as Xiaoxiao curled up in his arms.

“Look at the bigger picture. This interference during the Grand Tournament is in preparation for the upcoming Tier 6 era, as well as the Currency Exchange System. With players able to create their own cities through the City-Building System, the game developers are finally making an open bid to get more money out of their players.”

That last thing Xiaoxiao said gave Qin Ruo a start. He looked at her, astonished. “Why do you say that?”

“Look at you, all day thinking about nothing but playing games.” Xiaoxiao seemed to be embarking upon a personal peeve now, and her tone became at once amused and exasperated.

“The fact of the matter is that a game like this takes billions upon billions to create, and the cost to maintain it must reach astronomical figures every month. How are they going to make it all back just by selling thousand-dollar hats?”

Xiaoxiao paused for a moment, watching as Qin Ruo’s eyes gradually became alight.

“As for me,” she continued, “I feel like logging back into the game right away, and selling off most of my in-game money—but it’s probably too late for that now. The black market rate for in-game currency used to be very high, but recently the exchange rate has been in free-fall, and only a fool would trade in that currency now.”

Qin Ruo ruminated on the implications of what Xiaoxiao was talking about. With such a large staff, not to mention the upkeep of High Wisdom’s operation, between maintenance and other costs, a player-base in the billions could easily drain any amount of funds to nothing.

At length, Qin Ruo looked back up. “What you’re saying is, now that the Currency Exchange System has gone live, there’ll be bigger changes coming along?” He was starting to understand what Xiaoxiao was getting at.

Making money!

After the first few months of events and promotions, ‘Honor & Glory’, with a market of billions, was getting ready to really reap the profits.

“Right!” Xiaoxiao nodded with absolute conviction. “With the way the game is laid out currently, there are any number of areas where money could be made, at the expense of the players.”

“Whatever, it’s not like we stand to lose anything ourselves,” Qin Ruo laughed dismissively. “Three months ago, I was struggling to make ends meet. Now that Xin Yu has been healed, and I’ve got billions in the bank—”

“Eh?” Xiaoxiao exclaimed, in surprise and delight, “Billions? When did that happen?”

“As the currency exchange rate began to fall, Ace of Spades reminded me that there was no point in hoarding in-game money—it’s not like it’s picking up interest in the bank. So she helped me sell off a bunch of my spare items at the Trading Hall, and then, leaving behind just enough money for the Clan’s expenses, she converted most of my finances into real money.”

Qin Ruo had earned it all through his own hard work, and because there was hot demand for a lot of what he had, he’d made big bucks in game.

“Certainly, she knows more than we do about such matters. However…” Xiaoxiao relaxed for a moment, but then her tone shifted as she suddenly turned to Qin Ruo. “This new situation could mean trouble for us! Ruo, we’ll really have to watch out.”

“What do you mean?”

“Pay-to-win.”

Xiaoxiao opened up a new web-page, and carried on with her explanation:

“There used to be this saying in online games, about using real-world money to buy in-game items. Back then, the currency exchange rate on the black market limited the scale of such occurrences. However, with the advent of the Currency Exchange System, circumstances have changed.”

She fished up a thread in the forums.

“Hmm? As soon as the game developers made that announcement, someone’s already come up with this sort of idea. You say it won’t affect the Fallen Angels in times to come?”

Qin Ruo looked through the wild ravings in the thread, his expression darkening more and more.