MMORPG: The Elementalist

It was quite peculiar indeed—Qin Ruo could only hear Yaegar’s voice, yet the old Alchemist was nowhere to be seen.

After hearing the news Yaegar brought him, Qin Ruo started to scan his surrounding areas with extra vigilance, trying to find that monster that Yaegar had warned him of.

“Save it. You can’t see it yet.”

Yaegar’s voice rang in Qin Ruo’s ears again.

“Edgar said the Divine Specter is now hidden amongst the Undead Horde ahead. Unless your eyes can see through ten thousands of specters, there’s no point in finding it now. The more important thing now is to figure out how to retreat from this mess.”

Qin Ruo pondered with a frown after hearing this. This time, he felt Yaegar’s words weren’t a bluff. The situation was indeed dire!

Although he had anticipated a difficult Boss battle after commencing the Project Pioneer, Qin Ruo didn’t think he would face a Divine Specter this early.

Even Edgar and Yaegar, the Demigod Champions, were hiding from it for forty years. This Divine Specter was surely much stronger than the likes of a Lich.

Nonetheless, running away wasn’t an option for him…

Taking in a deep breath, Qin Ruo scanned at the defense lines around Camp Edgar with his eyes. Over thirty thousand Fallen Angels were clashing fiercely with the Undead. They were all doing their best to hold the line. So, how could he leave them?

After taking hours to get here, there was no way anyone would listen to a command to retreat. At least, Qin Ruo himself wouldn’t heed to this command.

Thus, Qin Ruo turned and spoke to an empty space in reply to Yaegar, “Since the Divine Specter’s here, we’ll give them a good fight. It’s also a good experience for us to take on the fabled Divine Tier Boss. Besides…”

Pausing momentarily, Qin Ruo looked at the Undead horde that was attacking from all sides. After being surrounded by this many specters, there was no way they could flee.

This was the Underworld…

The Return Scrolls were all unusable. The huge Warp Portal behind them could only allow players to teleport in, not out of the area. Other than that, the Warp Portals that were connected to the Mythical Continent had all been destroyed by him earlier too.

The only way out was to ask the Summoners to send everyone away…

However, every single Summoner from the Fallen Angels League was gathered here. Heck, not just the Fallen Angels League, all Four Leagues’ Summoners were all here.

Every means of escape was all unavailable for them. They all had had no other options besides fighting the Undead Horde with everything they had got.

Besides, there was no way the Divine Boss was unbeatable. Every Boss, no matter how strong, had a weakness. The Divine Boss surely had some weaknesses too…

As long as they weren’t overly strong to the point they couldn’t take on them, Qin Ruo believed he could find a way to overcome this. There were over ten thousands of elite players at Camp Edgar at the moment—some of them were Veteran Champions themselves. There were also over thousands of Radiant Priests and Priestesses on their side.

If fighting fair and square didn’t work, they could still use some sly underhanded tactics. There was no way they couldn’t beat the Divine Boss!

***

“Looks like you’ve decided to stay.”

Yaegar, with a grim voice, continued, “Since you’ve made up your mind, I wish you best of luck. Again, don’t forget this—all three of us will only leave when the Warp Portal is destroyed.”

Right after he finished his words, Qin Ruo asked, “Could you at least tell me exactly where the Divine Specter is? The direction and coordinates?”

“You want to face it head on yourself?” Yaegar responded with a smug voice—warriors from the Mythical Continent were so full of themselves these days. They had no idea just how huge the gap in strength they had. They had no idea just what this “Divine Tier” meant!

“I’ve not decided yet. However, if you could tell me his location it’d be much easier for us to hold our ground when it comes. It’d help decrease the casualties too.”

“…”

After a long silence, Yaegar finally responded, “Our leader says ‘it’ is now just straight ahead of you, 300 meters away from the defense line…”

“…”

Frowning, Qin Ruo looked at Camp Edgar, which was hundreds of meters behind him and then at the hundreds of meters ahead from the defense line. His jaw almost fell to the ground.

That far?!

“Just how did you find the Divine Specter?”

Qin Ruo couldn’t help but express the question that was puzzling him…

The distance between the Divine Specter and Camp Edgar was at least 500 meters apart.

In normal circumstances, a Bowmaster could indeed easily locate a target that was 500 meters away. Yet, right now, there were over thousands and thousands of human players and specters in this distance!

Even if Edgar had x-ray vision, how did he locate that one sole target—the Divine Specter amongst the crowd? And more importantly, Edgar hadn’t even left his camp at all!

“How? With his eyes, of course…”

Yaegar didn’t leave immediately after replying. Knowing that Qin Ruo didn’t understand what he meant, Yaegar continued explaining, “Don’t fret. He used his Mind’s Eye, not the pair of mundane eyes on his face.”

“This is a unique skill that Bowmasters possessed. They could detect their targets based on the strength of the said targets. For example, an ordinary specter only has about 100 points in Elemental Energy. So, they will be displayed in ‘green’—a harmless target. The Liches have 20,000 points of Elemental Energy. So, they are displayed in ‘yellow’ due to the threat they pose. As for the Divine Specter, it has over a million points of Elemental Energy. So, it will be displayed in ‘red’.”

“In Edgar’s Mind Eye’s perception, there’s a huge glowing red dot amongst the yellow and green dots ahead of you. Like a combusting sun burning amongst the trees. It’s quite easy for him to detect it. We’ve relied on Edgar’s Mind Eye for the past forty years to stay alive.”

“…”

Yaegar’s explanation had piqued Qin Ruo’s interest.

“So, this Mind’s Eye can also see through stealth mode and disguises too?”

“Certainly, yes!” Yaegar replied without hesitation.

“The Mind’s Eye is a skill that only a few Bowmasters possess. After reaching a certain level, they can acquire this ultimate skill through training. Out of tens of thousands of Demigod Bowmasters, only two or three of them can master this. No Bandit can escape their eyes… including you, Ring of Honor’s bearer.”

“…”

Yaegar’s reply had indirectly answered Qin Ruo’s little question he had in his mind.

After being locked on by the Bowmaster Dictator during the siege of Sin City, Qin Ruo had always pondered just how he was discovered…

Now, he finally understood—it was via the Mind’s Eye!

However, Qin Ruo quickly gathered his thoughts back to the more pressing matter right now—the approaching Divine Specter.

“Hold on!” Qin Ruo suddenly asked Yaegar, who was standing next to him cloaked in Stealth Mode, “If the Divine Specter has now reached that close, 300 meters away from us, why doesn’t it make any move yet?”

“I haven’t got the faintest idea… but…”

Yaegar continued on with a deduction.

“It’s a Divine Specter. Perhaps like the human champions, it isn’t interested in the lower tiered targets. Especially the Tier 5 warriors like you lot. To them, you’re no different than bugs.”

“…”

Qin Ruo was so pissed after hearing this.

Yaegar continued on, “Still, even though it isn’t interested, this doesn’t mean it won’t attack any of you. It is still a specter after all. There’s no way it would just stand by and allow a human city sit comfortably in the Underworld.”

This was quite true. Allowing the humans to build cities on their soil was like having a fish bone stuck in their throats. The Divine Specter surely wouldn’t allow that to happen.

After picturing this, Qin Ruo, fueled with a little hope, continued asking Yaegar, “So, that means… for the moment, the Divine Specter isn’t going to attack us?”

“Sure. But you know this is temporary.” Yaegar sensed a fling of hope in Qin Ruo’s voice and reminded him, “It will most likely attack on the day when you have almost succeeded. If my deduction is correct, it will wait until the city is nearly done and then claw in with its wrath, ruining all your efforts…”

Yaegar’s voice suddenly turned gloomy as he went on, “That was how it toyed with us and our deceased brethren, when we first encountered it…”

“…”

Qin Ruo too felt the heavy heart that Yaegar had after hearing this. However, he also felt a string of delight.

Thank God the monster would only attack on the final day…

That meant that they still had over five days to live.

“Right.”

This was good news to Qin Ruo. In that five-day period, he could have everyone in the Underworld to level up—they could get level up by a level or two by then.

Besides, they could do a lot in five days.

They could devise a plan to handle this sly lurking Divine Specter.

“Dinosaurcerer.” Qin Ruo quickly summoned Dinosaurcerer who was grinding for Experience Points in the frontlines.

“Haha, ten thousand Experience Points in just three hours! Little Ruo, you should get in line too. I’m telling you, man. You’ll level up in no time.”

It was quite apparent that Dinosaurcerer didn’t know the great risk in participating Project Pioneer. He thought Qin Ruo wanted a chat as he started talking about his expose in level grinding.

However, Qin Ruo’s words crushed his plan to continue on with his plan to grinding all the way up to Level 54.

“Dino, gather some Summoners. I need you to return to Mythical Continent immediately.”

Hearing this, Dinosaurcerer saw the serious look on Qin Ruo’s face.

“What’s the situation?”

After hearing the debrief on Edgar and Yaegar’s warnings from Qin Ruo, Dinosaurcerer’s face turned pale. Regaining his composure from the shock, Dinosaurcerer asked, “What do you need?”

“Assemble a group of Summoners… bring some other men too if you need more help. You’re allowed to handpick anyone from the league. After returning to the Mythical Continent, I’ll need you to seal as many Fire-type monsters as you can! Oh, and I’ll need the Lich Mana Core that you mentioned the last time.”

“Sure!”

Without hesitation, Dinosaurcerer handed over the Mana Core that was half the size of his palm.

“What about you?” Dinosaurcerer asked.

“Yaegar and Edgar know the Divine Specter very well. I’ll go probe them for more information before devising a battle plan… now go.”

Qin Ruo pressed on. “We’re relying on you to defeat the Divine Specter.”

“Roger that!”