FB: Chapter 77 – Saint Gamabuturon, Round 3, Fight!

I had 20 minutes left with both legendary poisons. I was rampaging through the enemy fortress. Vomitatis. I unleashed a barrage of poison on a group of Dark Summoners rushing out of one of the doorways with their goblin minions.

All of them screamed as they were poisoned, many of them tripping over the sticky nature of the poison, leading to more of their comrades being poisoned. I was running skill shards with Epic Gestureless Casting, Silent Casting, Invisibility, and Sample Poison instead of Reduce Weight.

As much as I wanted to use the unique blade Slice. I still needed to be able to equip the title that would reduce weight first and enough levels to reach level 120 where I would unlock the last two slots for my skill shards. That would get me up to 90% weight reduction or close enough.

I would lose out on my poison critical percentage but being able to fight in melee and getting the skill Slice as a long-range attack was too useful to pass up. It was a headache having three builds at once, but it would make me unstoppable. The super critical damage that the mega sword Slice would unleash would be absolutely brutal combined with my titles. Dealing over 630% physical damage per attack would be completely broken combined with my Luck.

The last thing I really needed to complete my build would be a set of armor. With all the weight reduction skill shards equipped, I would be able to pick the best type of armor, regardless of weight and still be able to move easily depending on how the joints fit together. I would want something unique, if possible, but that type of equipment was incredibly rare and hard to get.

If I wanted any chance of successfully getting a higher Champion title, then I needed to gear up. It was kind of funny, that I needed the title to unlock another title slot, so I could keep winning in the arena, especially against other Champions.

I would have to practice a lot with Slice once I get it, to make sure I could land critical attacks and block properly. Normally that meant going for the head or neck. But with a mega sword like that, I just needed to hit the target to super critical them in most cases.

Well, that was for later, time to focus on killing off all these dark humans and monsters. Vomitatis. I really preferred using the skill without having to puke through my mouth. No matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise, the taste was horrific. Another group of enemies died horribly in this mountain fortress. I considered that I could have used Poison Aura instead of Vomitatis with the legendary poisons, but there would be no chunks and the damage was much less with no smell or visceral impact. It was important to get practice with my main combat style and I had already gotten used to the skill. My combat skills were only okay, not amazing. Using other skills wouldn’t help. I let out a sigh as I rushed forward, the taste of shit lingering in my mouth.

Only a couple last chambers to clear and then it would be time to head out. I popped some consumables and opened up another door. I barely dodged to the side as a massive mega sword went flying where I had just been standing. I only managed to avoid it, since I was ready for a surprise attack. It slammed into the wall behind me, sinking into the stone.

“Foxy Blight, you have something of mine,” Dark Saint Gamabuturon said while reaching out into the air and pulling another mega sword free from his inventory. That was the annoying thing about NPCs, they got the same advantages that players had. Like coming back from the dead and an inventory.

“You mean your dignity? I can’t return something you never had to begin with,” I taunted. The Dark Saint gave me a death glare. He was far less threatening without his original weapon.

“DIE!” he screamed and threw the mega blade. I dove to the side and transitioned into a hand spring. The blade went slamming through the doorway into the wall, next to the first blade he had thrown.

Vomitatis. I aimed upwards and turned my head to cover the doorway and the two blades that had been thrown. Gamabuturon didn’t exit the room until I was done puking. I noted he was wearing special boots and gloves as he returned the two mega blades to his inventory while I ran away popping some consumables.

I turned a corner and waited. I heard Gamabuturon chasing after me. Vomitatis. I waited until I saw him turning the corner before I used the attack. He placed a mega sword between us, slamming the blade into the floor and dodged backwards.

That was the other really annoying thing about NPCs. They would learn from the first fight if you beat them. Calling Exponential adaptable also included the NPCs and not just off-screen decisions. I rushed forward as Gamabuturon pulled more equipment from his inventory. I unleashed upon him once again and he used a Null Barrier and Force Shield consumables, blocking my attack.

I was out of position as he pulled out and threw another mega blade in one fluid motion, sending the blade spinning down the hallway around the blade he had slammed into the floor. I had a Force Barrier ready to go, and the blade slammed into the consumable shield, shattering it. Thankfully it reduced the momentum of the thrown mega blade enough for me to step aside as it went clattering to the ground where I had just been standing.

I raced forward while taking out some more consumables. I needed to poison Gamabuturon if this fight was going to continue. I unleashed upon him once more. He already had deployed some more consumables to block the projectile vomit attack while pulling out another mega blade from his inventory. I didn’t like this back and forth exchange, since he wasn’t poisoned yet. The moment he threw away his temporary weapon again I used Blink.

Instead of appearing behind him, which I knew he was expecting, I appeared in front of him where he had just thrown a mega sword. He was already spinning and pulling a fifth mega sword out of his inventory when I appeared in front of him. He was completely out of position and moving the wrong way. I saw a moment of shock and frustration on his face before I puked directly on it.

Gamabuturon kept his momentum and spun around in the hallway, clearly hoping to get me on the return pass while spinning. I dropped down and tackled his legs as the mega sword swung over my head. While he was around level 230, most NPC humans had the same level of strength unless you had strength boosting skill shards. Strength boosting skill shards were different from weight reduction skill shards but less effective, since they also gave the benefit of strength and not just weight reduction.

It was to keep the game balanced by QAI and manage material toughness. Otherwise, high level individuals would just tear through low level construction like it was tissue paper with their strength. There were also problems with skills as well and how they interacted if stuff like strength and speed were related to a person’s level. Instead, there was the absolute level advantage, which gave a percentage boost to attack and defense against other combatants, but not terrain.

Gamabuturon used weight reduction skill shards to wield the mega swords, not strength boosting skill shards. Strength boosting skill shards had a smaller percentage increase and were meant for hand-to-hand fighters. To wield a mega sword like it was a toothpick, weight reduction was necessary. I noted the dagger on his hip as his main weapon, which was why he could get away with throwing swords. While NPCs might have access to all the stuff players did, they were also limited as well with the same number of skill shard slots and limitations on those skill shards. This allowed me to make guesses about his skill shard choices.

Monsters with their unique body shapes were treated differently, but in general they followed the same guidelines QAI had set up for NPCs in Exponential. This meant that I knew that Gamabuturon wouldn’t be able to resist a leg tackle. As I grabbed onto his ankles and slammed my shoulder into his calf, he went tilting backwards. The mega-sword he was swinging around caused him to be further off balance.

Since he was spinning around, he had brought his feet closer together, which made this kind of tackle possible. Otherwise, such a high-level NPC would never reveal such a critical weakness. He went tumbling to the ground, while I quickly scrambled back up to my feet. I then puked all over him once more. I also pulled out a flash bang grenade and tossed it on top of him while I ran away.

“AHHHH! Curse you Foxy Blight!” Someone was clearly unhappy. The sticky nature of Vomitatis would make it hard for him to get off the floor. I waited a distance away, while he struggled to get back to his feet. I would occasionally puke all over him again and toss the occasional flash bang in his direction to disorient him. I was taking no chances against such high level NPC.

If I was in the same position as the Dark Saint Gamabuturon, I would also be enraged. He was being cheesed to death and the NPCs had enough computational power from QAI to understand this and express dissatisfaction with what was happening.

“I will eat your soul! I will peel you like a grape! AHHHHH!” He kept cursing me and roaring in rage. I just had more combat experience than him. That tackle was something that I had seen in the past in an arena match. It took commitment and timing, but if you managed to get an enemy on the ground then it was a disaster for them. That was why spinning around with a large weapon was a stupid idea. This wasn’t choreographed fighting like a movie, with all those fancy moves. QAI clearly passed on some bad fighting data to some of the NPCs. Bad data in, bad data out.

The Dark Saint finally died again with one last roar of rage. I was only sticking around, since I wanted to see if he dropped anything good like last time. With my Luck stat as high as it was, there was a good chance he would drop something. Going over to his corpse I found a skill shard, Berserk. It was a passive skill shard that would increase Vitality and Constitution in relation to the rank of the skill shard by a large percentage while reducing Wisdom and Intelligence by the same factor.

The problem with something like this was that it would make a person incredibly vulnerable to magic damage while boosting their physical damage and physical resistance. If anything, the Dark Saint should be using a skill shard with the opposite effect to face me. But he was a melee fighter based on his character. I pocketed the skill shard, since I planned to sell it.

It was a Rare skill shard, since I couldn’t think of any monsters that dropped Berserk off the top of my head. It just didn’t work with my build. Luck was my main stat and that wasn’t going to change. Messing with my other stats would leave far too vulnerable. The other stats were low, but they weren’t disastrously low, since I got one in each stat per level. If I started messing around and reducing certain stats by too much, I risked dying to a critical or super critical attack even with my Luck.

While I tried to avoid most attacks and was quite good at this, there were area of effect attacks that would still hit. That was why I needed to be careful.

I left the cleared out fortress having managed to earn 8,522 war merits. That was good enough to help manage things for the next 100 real world days, buying me some breathing room in terms of the mobilization.