Game’s Dogma

Man Hing Yau was well-qualified to take pride in her strength. As the saying went, there were no runner-ups in combat—the one who came first was the only victor. For elementalists, Man Hing Yau indeed was ranked first in terms of players who majored in ice-elemental skills, while the feisty Idyllic Poet was her counterpart in fire-elemental skills.

Man Hing Yau had seen the footage of Idyllic Poet’s battle with Mister Unfettered. The Pyrowitch’s performance was spectacular, but she believed she was in no way inferior. Moreover, she was the first on the level rankings for elementalists, for she had already reached Level 40. In other words, she had learnt every skill the class had to offer.

Frosty Beam was the strongest ice spell elementalists had. It had great range and area-of-effect, high damage, and froze the enemy for five seconds. All ice-elemental skills dealt more damage to the frozen player during the five seconds as well.

The downside to such a skill was naturally its long cast time and cooldown. Still, it could be considered an ultimate skill; you either refrain from using it or go all-out for the kill. 

Man Hing Yau used her ultimate skill when the battle barely began. Her boldness, calmness, and quick wits all contributed to her reputation as the first-ranked ice elementalist. Be in the Arena, the wilderness, or battles, she had never been picked off by hostiles.

The beam of ice blasted forth at the perfect timing; there was no way of evading it. She didn’t get ahead of herself and started casting her next skill as she stood like a graceful plum blossom in the chilly winter. According to her calculations, Frosty Beam alone wasn’t enough to kill that man, but that didn’t matter. It was only just the start of her raging blizzard that spelt freezing doom for its unfortunate prey. She swung her staff forwards, summoning icicles from the ground in a straight path right behind her Frosty Beam.

Level 30 Elementalist skill, Path of Icicles!

Suddenly, Man Hing Yau heard an inconspicuous noise. She rubbed her eyes out of reflex and could seemingly see a figure flashing past her icicles. Alarms blasted away in her head.

It’s not an illusion!

She turned around in a hurry and wielded her staff to conjure an Ice Shield behind herself. Bam! A streak of brown pounded towards her magical shield; a furry palm of a bear had slammed against the shield, sending cracks all over it. 

“How!” Man Hing Yau was stunned. Before she willed it, her body was already moving as layers of ice formed beneath her feet.

The assailant was none other than Yim Ho, who chortled and said, “I won’t fall for the same trick twice!”

His figure was in the air the next moment. Shrouded in a white glow, he grew a pair of ethereal wings on his back while his palms turned into talons.

Crane Morph: Grants temporary flight and increases damage dealt to shields.

Crane Morph was the nemesis of all shield-type skills! Yim Ho swooped down from the sky and swung his talons at the shield of ice, swiftly shattering it. Though anxious, Man Hing Yau still reacted quickly and covered her retreat with a volley of Iceballs. She couldn’t cast them as quickly as Idyllic Poet’s Fireballs nor could her Iceballs deal as much damage, but she made it up with anticipation and precision. Every Iceball was targeted at where Yim Ho would traverse through.

Iceball also had the effect of slowing down the enemy, and it could even freeze enemies at a low chance. Yim Ho dared not to get hit by even a single Iceball, so he switched back to Tiger Morph for its movement speed buff for evasion.

The two were caught in a stalemate of constant chasing.

Man Hing Yau frowned. Albeit looking like a stalemate, she was in fact at a disadvantage. The distance between them was no longer far enough for her to cast most of her skills confidently. Such was the weakness of mages—cast time.

Mages generally had the best damage dealing skills throughout the game. With strengths came weaknesses, and that was cast time. At their current distance, Man Hing Yau could only use Glaciate, Ring of Rebounding Flames, Iceball, and a few more. It was frustrating; whenever she used Glaciate or Ring of Rebounding Flames, Yim Ho always morphed into a crane and flew up to dodge the skills before morphing back to a tiger. She couldn’t even buy a tad bit of time with her available skills.

Mana consumption was the worst of all. She was unsure whether the man needed mana to morph, but her mana regeneration could no longer keep up with her continued usage of skills. She’d be caught the moment she ceased casting skills.

At that moment, she made a decision. She vanished the next moment.

Yim Ho was confused as he thought, What? Was that Flash? Doesn’t that belong to tormentors?

It went all the way back to a mini encounter quest she had cleared before. It wasn’t a complicated one, and the only reward was a rare ring that came with an active skill, Flash. Its cooldown time was five minutes.

This skill alone was one of her trump cards. Seemingly ordinary, but good enough to greatly increase her chances of survival when being hunted down. Flash’s fairly limited range didn’t prevent it from serving its purpose of putting distance between them.

Man Hing Yau immediately cast Ice Shield and started chanting another spell. She had been careless just now; having assumed Yim Ho was struck by Freezing Beam, she let her guard down, but that wasn’t going to happen again.

Every one of her movements was oh so graceful. She never showed any frantic looks even when pursued by Yim Ho as if she was a living art piece. Suddenly, she heard a nearly unnoticeable sound which made her heart skip a beat, though not enough to disrupt her calmness in battle. She discerned the direction of the sound and instantly cast Ice Shield at the incoming sound’s direction.

The next moment, her Ice Shield shattered, and a thin green needle pierced all the way through until it reached her.

Some distance away, Greenstone was being hunted down by the bandit warrior, but he seemed calm as he turned his palms into white jade and engaged it in melee combat. He fought neck-to-neck with the Level 40 epic boss as a herbalist. Even though he took damage from time to time, he could easily heal himself while fighting.

Greenstone’s attention had never left Man Hing Yau since the fight began. Although seemingly engaged in a heated brawl with the bandit warrior, he had been waiting for this opportunity the entire time.

Level 20 Herbalist skill, Breezy Caress.

The gentle-sounding skill, to the contrary, was an unfair ranged attack which was similar to Crane Morph in a sense—its ability to penetrate shields. Back on Mount Soughslit, Chau Yu’s Shield of Light was shattered in one attack by the same skill.

Herbalists had few offensive skills, but every one of them had unique effects. It was an uncrowned king, stripped of its renown despite being on par with the three godly classes; the only reason it wasn’t listed as a godly class was its nature as a support class.

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