Chapter 144 - Hog Pen—High Affinity for Water Elementalism?
Chapter 144: Hog Pen—High Affinity for Water Elementalism?
After Slayer’s Heart’s gang had gone offline, Qin Ruo suddenly recalled that now was actually in the early morning of a Saturday. Presumably, Brother Da and the others would not miss such a good opportunity to stay overnight. So they were most probably still active in the game!
He tried to contact them. Before he could send out his voice message, he received an urgent call from Brother Da asking him to rush to the Goblin Mountains…
Since he did not need to work the next day, plus he had just advanced to Tier 4, he felt there was a need for him to familiarize himself with his newly-acquired Tier 4 Spells in the wild soon. Thus, he did not reject Brother Da’s request.
Who knew that as soon as he reached Bailey Town, he immediately heard a few familiar voices calling out to him.
“Eh?”
Qin Ruo turned back curiously and saw that Xiaoxiao, Gold Digger Babe, and Little Kitten were still stationed beside the warp portal, while Brother Da’s silhouette could not be seen anywhere. Qin Ruo finally understood Brother Da’s real intention in summoning him over so urgently.
“Why were you all still hanging around here?” When he spoke, his vision was actually focused on Xiaoxiao. He remembered Xiaoxiao had told him this before. “Women who stay up overnight are the most foolish because they are destroying their own youth and beauty.” Now, even she was still wide awake, which was quite impressive to Qin Ruo.
Xiaoxiao smiled silently, while the little girl beside her blinked and laughed non-stop. “I don’t need to go to class tomorrow, so my sister gave me permission to play overnight. Ha, you advanced! I knew it, for you, the Tier 4 Advancement Quest must have been a piece of cake!” Gold Digger Babe found out that she could no longer see through Qin Ruo’s actual level—this showed that they were within the same tier and not separated by more than five levels.
She reminded him over the two occurrences where he was thrown down from Frostsnow Island and Snowpeak cliff. With the fear from then still lingering in his mind, he touched his nose subconsciously and nodded. “Yeah, ’twas a piece of cake.”
Gold Digger Babe was just a little girl, so naturally, she did not understand the hidden meaning behind Qin Ruo’s statement. On the contrary, Little Kitten and Xiaoxiao simultaneously gave him a deep, meaningful look. “Tell us more about it. I am going to start the Advancement Quest soon, too.”
“You?”
Only at this moment did Qin Ruo realize that Little Kitten’s sight had been wandering between him and Xiaoxiao. He was unsure whether she had realized the truth from the way he talked. But being a carefree person, he did not worry too much about it. Anyhow, his relationship with Xiaoxiao had reached a very stable state, so he did not feel there was a need to cover up or explain anything.
Little Kitten’s info was clearly reflected in Qin Ruo’s mind: Angel Faction, Level 39 Wind Chaser.
“Mm, different Classes will face different Advancement Quests. I don’t think my quest could serve as a good reference for you. How about this, you could describe the details to me once you enter the trial, then I will provide you with the appropriate advice,” Qin Ruo said.
Little Kitten thought about it and felt what he said was right. She agreed to it with a nod.
“Alright, that’s a deal.”
“Mm, when will you all go offline? If you guys won’t be leaving anytime soon, I will go along with you all and observe your leveling progress. In the meantime, I would also like to familiarize myself with the newly learned Tier 4 spells.”
Qin Ruo’s suggestion was welcomed by the three ladies.
***
Xiaoxiao nodded to the suggestion as well. She had long hoped that Qin Ruo could spend time to accompany her leveling. But since she was well aware that Qin Ruo needed to focus most on “Xin Yu”, she had never made such a demand when they were in the game together. So far, she had only asked for Brother Da’s guidance and wholeheartedly devoted herself to enjoy the charm of the game, as well as the pleasure of leveling up quickly.
Now that Qin Ruo was free, at one hand, she wanted to demonstrate her power to Qin Ruo, while on the other, she also wanted to know more about the “Qin Ruo” within H&G. She wished to understand why the uninhibited and arrogant player she had previously seen in the Goblin Mines contrasted so drastically from the low key and gentle Qin Ruo in the office?
She had never seen such a confident smile from him in the office before. Qin Ruo’s action—especially when he confronted the few Tier 4 with calm and ease, as well as his superb manipulation technique—had mystified Xiaoxiao. She always thought she knew Qin Ruo well, but now, it seemed like he was covered by a hazy veil—an unknown mystery. This intrigued her, and she almost sank deep into it a few times.
Those moments made her recognize why the ice-cold beauty in the office, who appeared to look down on all male subjects, also thought differently of Qin Ruo. She also understood the reason behind the “little devil girl’s” obsessive and subduing admiration toward such a person.
This was exactly the reason why she was still staying awake at four in the morning! She wanted to increase her level as quickly as possible. At least at Tier 3, she would have a more solid reason to stay by Qin Ruo’s side and understand him more…
***
The reason why Little Kitten promised to stay was relatively vague, perhaps even she herself was not really clear about it. She could sense that Qin Ruo was a special person, which possessed certain traits that quietly attracted her. Of course, her sister played a big part in this too. He rejected her after Gold Digger Babe had attempted hard to match them up. Although it would be even more outrageous if he accepted it, she was still curious about the little trick and evasive mindset of Qin Ruo toward her, which she got to know from her sister voice chat. Most women who have great confidence in themselves were usually mindful of such matters.
In comparison, Gold Digger Babe’s intention was deemed much “purer”.
Firstly, she would, of course, like to create a chance for her sister and Qin Ruo to hang out together. Secondly, she was really curious how strong Qin Ruo had become after taking another step up into the rank of Tier 4. She wondered what kind of monster Qin Ruo had turned into now?!
***
With each of the girls having their own different desire, they trailed behind Qin Ruo and reached a grassland sparse with players at the east side of Bailey Town.
Hog Pen!
This was the name given by the players to this land. The name itself was self-explanatory and could help people to easily understand what kind of monster race were roaming around here!
The hogs here were not the domestic type, though, as they belonged to a branch of monsters. They could spit fire, emit electricity, and inherited the behavior of a wild boar, in which they would hit and bite people. Different attribute type of the Monster Boar could be differentiated by their color.
Among them, the lowest Tier was the melee type Level 18 “Black Wild Boar”. Its was an Earth type, and its only attack was biting and charging at people. Its greatest weapon was its long sharp tusks.
This was the leveling point specifically picked by Qin Ruo for the Level 16 “Xiaoxiao”. Similarly, he could also experiment on these wild hogs to get used to the situation of using multiple types of Tier 4 spells.
Qin Ruo stopped and conveyed this idea to Xiaoxiao before asking, “Is it okay?”
“… Let’s try” Xiaoxiao was a little nervous. It was hard to blame her. All this while, she had been facing the lowest tier weaklings in the Goblin Mines, which was the Tier 1 Level 14 small-sized Goblin. The Black Wild Boar here was enhanced by a total of 4 levels, plus it also looked terrifying! However, she decided not to let Qin Ruo look down on her just because of this. She was well equipped with good quality Tier 1 Equipment, which was said to be superior even when going against a Level 20 monster.
Xiaoxiao calmed down and quickly reviewed the strategy she used to defeat the Goblins. She picked several suitable attacking magic based on the previous experience…
She stepped into a Black Wild Boar’s attacking range, shut her eyes, and began to condense magic!
“Don’t close your eyes. Look straight into your enemy’s.”
Qin Ruo advised her from the side. He knew that rookies who graduated from the Aquamancer Guild would usually follow their mentor’s teaching, which was to condense magic with closed eyes. This would slightly increase the affinity of the Element, thus meet the purpose of speeding up magic condensation! But this technique was pretty useless during an actual fight, because you are still required to lock on target after open up your eyes to launch the attack. Hence, this method did not actually increase the condensation speed significantly.
However, what Xiaoxiao had condensed with her eyes closed was a transparent Water ribbon…
‘Not any Tier 1 attacking magic… but Water Elementalism?’
Qin Ruo’s eyes shone brightly. He decided to stop talking and let Xiaoxiao exert herself freely. He wanted to know how deep Xiaoxiao’s understanding went in regards to her Class as an Aquamancer in just a day. Also, how much more had she comprehended about Water Elementalism?
He then overlapped Xiaoxiao’s image to that of a Water Fairy. As soon as the word “condense” came out from her mouth, the water ribbon rapidly took form into an Aquarampart the size of a giant shield. Despite the speed and the summoned Element volume were both incomparable to that of Qin Ruo, the familiarity of the techniques used by Xiaoxiao still surprised Qin Ruo a little.
He titled his head to look at the little devil girl and asked through voice message, “Did you teach her that?”
Gold Digger Babe threw him a weird look after receiving the message.
“You’re not the one who told her? I thought you were the one who taught her this technique.”
‘Eh?’
Qin Ruo’s mind went blank for half a second. He wished to say that such MP wasting trick was certainly a copycat of his style. But since nobody has ever mentioned it to Xiaoxiao, did she manage to learn it all by herself? How did she manage to acquire such savviness just a few hours after she obtained the Aquamancer qualification?
At this moment, Xiaoxiao, who was controlling the self-made dwarfed Aquarampart, placed it horizontally in front of her while she extracted another string of Water and walked into the Black Wild Boar field of vision.
“Frost Arrow!”
The Frost Arrow was focused fired rapidly as the Black Wild Boar turned around and dashed toward Xiaoxiao!
Xiaoxiao was somehow terrified since this was the first time she confronted such a fierce monster. When she saw the Black Wild Boar was approaching fast, the pre-prepared second string of Water movement appeared to be sluggish. Luckily, she still managed to cast it toward the closing Black Wild Boar in the final minute.
“Freeze!”
The Black Wild Boar was then wrapped up in a clump of ice.
Such demonstration by Xiaoxiao further astonished Qin Ruo.
‘This too… it really feels… oddly familiar!’
If none of these were replicated from him, it only meant that Xiaoxiao was simply an Aquamancer with great flair! This thought had obviously altered Qin Ruo’s way of looking toward Xiaoxiao from now on.