Chapter 8: An Assassin's Path

Chapter 8: An Assassin's Path

As he walked towards the Storage facility, to place his recent loot for safekeeping, Crucis found that one of the guards he killed had dropped an item named [Light Novel #5]. By selecting it, Crucis was presented with a passage of text:

A couple of the students beside him had been demotivated, after their class was lectured by several teachers about how bad their study skill is because of their low level of cultivation.

However, Chu An's ears perked up and she replied, 'That is an ambitious but wise idea. Through punctual attendance, silence when the teacher is speaking, respect for elders, and dedicated hours of study, we may refine our inner energy until we reach the Rank A of cultivation. Then our study powers shall be even with that of the gods!"

On hearing the silent Chu An so enthusiastic, some of the others around were also enthused. However, a classmate named Yang was sceptical, asking, "We are condemned to our fate, for our inner energy is of a poor quality. The effort required to overcome this innate deficiency is immense, and perhaps impossible. For most of us, it would be better to focus on other walks of life or train in professions."

"The highest classes are already reaching Rank C. We are all at Rank F. Each of you should contribute so that we become the paragon of this school and master cultivators!" pleaded Chu An.

At this honest request, even Yang was hesitant. However, he quietly walked away. How were they to master cultivation and become a class of godlike swots if they could not get their class to participate?>

Crucis groaned in disgust, and discarded the light novel. The text after that excerpt had been garbled due to the bug, and he reflected that this might be for the best.

He had killed four guards out of the required five so far, after finding a weak level 3 guard on his way here. However, the fight with two guards earlier was slightly tense, and that made him cautious. He decided that it might be useful to find ways of attacking the guards more safely, as the Hashin had done when they hid before launching their unexpected assault.

He approached the Storage building, but glimpsed a pond behind it in a secluded, dark-green area. Walking up to the pond, Crucis was pushed back automatically. He recognised the feeling, as it resembled the mechanics that the game used to propel the Agile Step skill. While this skill begun as a simple step forwards drawing on Agility, once he had increased the skill to level 3 his step had seemed to warp forwards automatically and instantaneously. Seeing a [Wild Duck] in the pond, a creature that could usually be fought but was now often inaccessible due to the water deflecting players, Crucis attempted to use a [Slash] with [Agile Step].

The [Agile Step] was triggered, but as his step landed he found that he was still at approximately the same position as before, as if his step had warped into the same place he started. He hadn't noticed the water's deflection, meaning that the game had seemingly conflated the deflection with the warp from Agile Step and treated them as one instantaneous movement. This didn't happen to take him anywhere, but he still found it amusing that he could step forwards yet go nowhere. He waited a short while so that he could test what would happen if he stepped towards the water at an angle.

However, as he waited, he heard a footstep and turned around. It was a level 5 [Novice Guard], who was patrolling the area around the Storage building. This was a good opportunity to kill a guard without running into any friends of the player he had just killed, since going back to the Weaponry Store alleys could be risky for now. He knew that he would have to be cautious when attacking this guard, as guards in this area tended to be stronger than the ones elsewhere, and since there were plenty of guards here he could easily get mobbed if noticed. Regardless, he quickly drew out his dagger, and approached the guard. The guard was heavily armoured, so Crucis decided that an ordinary melee fight would be out of the question. However, he knew that the guards, like most land creatures, were programmed not to enter the water unless they were forced into it. He hence thought that he might be able to force the guard towards the edge of the pond. Since the guard would not enter the pond, the guard would instead be sandwiched between Crucis on one side and the pond on the other, with slippery ground meaning that the guard would become an off-balance, static target.

When Crucis reached the second floor, he saw the courtier slip into a narrow corridor near the stairway. Crucis knew that he would be instantly attacked by arrows if he tried to enter the corridor. The boss seemed to try and lure the player into narrow corridors to make them easier targets and nullify the effects of Stealth. This could also make the encounter more difficult for teams of players. Crucis decided that he should try and find another way to reach the courtier, and thought back to the bug which Byron had showed him. He expected the courtier to be waiting in the corridor for him, based on what he had seen of the boss's behaviour so far, and so he waited by the stairway and quickly navigated to open his Character page. There, he saw that he had gained an extra two points to develop basic skills, after he completed the Novice Guard quest. He used both of these points to level up his [Agile Step] skill, unlocking the ability to use [Agile Step] even without an attack following it.

Having done this, he sidestepped briefly next to the walls of the corridor, until he saw a part of them bug out slightly and appear in two different places at once. Using [Agile Step], he moved to enter the extra wall that he had just seen, and found himself inside the wall after the step. He saw the courtier lying in wait on the far left of the corridor. Shuffling carefully along the thick, cold wall, making sure to avoid emerging into the corridor and being shot, he approached the courtier. When he reached, he used [Stealth] and entered the corridor, behind the courtier, then used [Stunning Dagger] to pierce a wound between the courtier's right shoulder and neck. Seeing the courtier temporarily paralysed, Crucis slashed hard at the courtier's exposed neck with [Ripper], tearing a bleeding gash through it. Using his right arm for a [Chokehold], Crucis applied further pressure to the courtier's wounded neck. The courtier was at 15% HP now, and it was reducing as he was bleeding and choking.

The courtier drew out a throwing knife from the side of his green coat, and tried haphazardly thrusting it at Cael. While Cael tried to avoid it, the courtier took advantage of the distraction by using his elbow to shove Cael harshly to the left. Colliding with the left wall of the corridor, Cael almost lost his grip, but managed to keep a hold of the courtier and drag him to the left. He tried to keep a hold on the struggling courtier, but soon felt the courtier's writhing and shoving end as the damage from bleeding erased his last point of HP. Cael knew that this fight would have been much more difficult if he had entered the corridor normally, becoming a target for the courtier's ranged attacks. Since he had attacked from an unexpected angle while the courtier was preparing to fire across the corridor, it was easy to aim for the courtier's exposed neck and lock them down. Without that, the courtier's use of the terrain made this fight quite difficult, for a level 10 boss.

Checking on his rewards, he found that killing the courtier had given him a large amount of EXP, enough to reach level 14. Further, the courtier had dropped some good Dexterity-boosting gear. He decided to wear the following:

[Fencer's Boots | Increase Dexterity by 80, and Agility by 40.]

[Trap Talisman | When you pin the enemy to the wall or terrain, your Dexterity is doubled.]

[Hunter's gloves | Dexterity increases by 100 during fights.]

The [Trap Talisman] sounded powerful if used in appropriate situations, like the walled hallways that he was in. Further, he considered that if he was using the bug he might be attacking enemies near walls anyway, and hence the ability to attack unexpectedly and gain additional speed would make him even more effective. Since 10% of the Dexterity stat was converted into Agility, this could become powerful if he had high Dexterity and Agility, which he would need to survive in the wild for now.

On reaching the Assassin trainer NPC to turn in the quest, he received enough extra EXP to reach level 15. As he recalled, the EXP dropped from these missions was very high. Due to the level gain and increased experience with the dagger, he had gained several points to unlock new skills. Checking his Character screen, he saw that his three dagger skill points were enough to unlock an additional ability, named [Black Spot]. At its base level, it would allow him to slit the opponent's throat and cause bleeding, with more precision than slashing with the [Ripper] move. He acquired this skill, and then scanned the area around the town for anything to test it on. Instead, he saw a party with several powerful players, returning to Kruxol from the West.

"To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back."

(The Batman Who Laughs.)