Chapter 172: Practice and Collaborate
"Master Waller has only one skill which is <Shadow Slash>. He will use it once every 30 seconds towards the player who holds the highest aggro and the target next to that player. It can cause 12,000 of physical damage in total. It cannot be dodged or evaded, so Endless Starlight and I must stand next to Master Waller to deal the damage! It means that six of you will need to complete the task of blocking the lights. Then Endless Starlight and I will responsible for dealing the damage from Master Waller!"
"Before starting this, six of you choose your positions and stand behind it. When the battle starts, you guys move forward and block the lights. Ranged attackers can attack the boss from their positions but for melee attackers like Frost Night and little brat; you guys need to move along the pathway where the lights are being emitted towards the boss! You guys must also keep your distance from me, if any of you stands any nearer to me compared to Endless Starlight, you guys will probably need to take the damage of <Shadow Slash> that was meant for Endless Starlight! 6,000 of physical damage would absolutely kill you guys."
Zhang Yang had to explain everything in detail as a lot of teams were actually forced to surrender to this boss in his previous life as they failed to pull of such a perfectly coordinated strategy!
"It might just a ray of light, but you guys must not crouch beneath those rays of light as that also can also be considered as blocking the lights! So, when the lights stop emitting, those who are blocking the lights, must step backwards immediately and move around the outer circle to the new position!"
Zhang Yang spoke until his mouth was feeling dry and he asked, "Do you guys understand now?"
"It's easy enough right, do not pass through the light and move around the outer layer to look for new positions!" Wei Yan Er clapped her hands and said.
"That's right, this is what I meant just now!" Zhang Yang nodded and continued, "But, this has to be done by six persons not one person. After the lights re-connect, you guys have only 2 seconds to look for the new position and reach it!"
"There's no point in explaining any further, it is better that we try to fight him once. Let's start the battle first!" Zhang Yang pulled out his Lover's Sword, "Everyone, get into position! Choose a pole and step backwards. Master Waller is a yellow named monster and he will not attack us automatically! Starlight, we will approach Master Waller together. Remember, do not stand on any pathway of the light emissions. We must always remain in the same position from the beginning of the battle!"
"Roger that!" Endless Starlight exaggeratedly made a military salute.
Eight of them went into the positions respectively. Han Ying Xue and the rest chose each corner of hexagram magic circle, while Zhang Yang and Endless Starlight stood next to Master Waller. Zhang Yang and Endless Starlight also paid attention to avoid the direction where the lights were emitted from.
"Ready, we are going to start!" Zhang Yang said, "I will count to three, and those who are blocking the light will need to step forward together! Pay attention, Master Waller will start attacking if any of the are lights being blocked! So, you guys must step forward consistently and in tandem!"
"One!"
"Two!"
"Three!"
Han Ying Xue and the five of them stepped forward at the same time and each of them blocked a ray of light respectively.
"Hummm, who is blocking me from absorbing the strength?" Master Waller abruptly opened his eyes and a pair of yellow-green eyes glowing supernaturally were exposed, "Wretches, I will kill all of you who are disrupting the sacred ceremony!"
He raised his huge and rough wolf paws and struck Zhang Yang's chest.
'<Block>!'
Zhang Yang raised his shield and successfully blocked Master Waller's attack.
'-1,680!'
Master Waller continue attacked Zhang Yang with his other wolf paw.
Master Waller was similar to Thief monsters using two one-handed weapons. He attacked with both of his hands, thus, the frequency or rate of attack was extremely high. However, a single attack was not particularly damaging and basically, it was just about 2,500 points of basic damage. Master Waller swung his wolf paws once every 2.5 seconds, leading to 8 attacks within 10 seconds; and two of the attacks could be blocked. The remaining DPS would be 1,000 and because of this, Han Ying Xue could heal them easily.
"I will kill all of you, you despicable vermin!" Master Waller suddenly lifted up both of his wolf paws, a dazzling light surged out!
"Ding! Master Waller has used <Shadow Slash>!"
'-4,480!'
'-4,760!'
Damage texts appeared across both Zhang Yang and Endless Starlight's head.
Luckily, Zhang Yang had 7,760 HP currently, excluding the 1,682 points of HP that he lost from Master Waller's previous attacks, after receiving damage from <Shadow Slash>, he retained about 1,500 HP. After <Regeneration> was initiated once, Zhang Yang still could take another direct hit from Master Waller!
Han Ying Xue hurriedly cast a <Holy Shield> on Zhang Yang and then used <Regeneration> on Endless Starlight to let him heal slowly because Master Waller would use <Shadow Slash> again after 30 seconds, so two ticks of <Regeneration> could actually recover Endless Starlight's HP to full. Thus, Han Ying Xue put in all her effort to heal Zhang Yang as much as possible.
The combat had already carried on 20 seconds and the lights emitted from hexagram magic circle were disconnected!
Han Ying Xue, Hundred Shots, Fatty Han and Daffodil Daydream simply stepped a step backwards and continue attacking and healing. Sun Xin Yu and Wei Yan Er needed to run backwards a few steps before they could reach the outer circle of hexagram magic circle.
2 Seconds later, the six rays of different colours of light emitted at the same time but the positions were totally different with previous emission. So, the six of them immediately started running for their new positions!
"Ah, Fatty, out of my way!"
"Cousin, you're running to the wrong direction!"
"Daffodil Daydream, let me go first!"
"..."
A moment of noise and the scene was total chaos.
Two seconds passed.
Six rays of light emitted to Master Waller!
"Ding! Master Waller has restored his strength!"
'-19,682!'
'-20,914!'
Master Waller only used his paws and sent Zhang Yang and Endless Starlight directly back to the graveyard! Then, he started to cast a spell which only took 2 seconds to complete.
'-50,000!'
'-50,000!'
'-50,000!'
...
Humongous damage texts appeared across everyone's heads, as Han Ying Xue and the rest were also sent to graveyard after Zhang Yang and Endless Starlight.
Complete annihilation!
"Cousin, you are so stupid! Pervert fatty, you are also dumb! Hundred Shots is even dumber! Sister Daffodil, sigh!" Wei Yan Er was in a foul mod, she shrugged and said, "Except for sister Sun and I, the rest of the four people were so stupid!"
"Little brat!" Han Ying Xue glared at Wei Yan Er, her temper at boiling point!
"It's the truth, you guys are really stupid!" Wei Yan Er continued despising them.
Zhang Yang smiled and said, "No hurries, an initial period of running in is required for a perfect collaboration, it will slowly establish our unspoken form of teamwork!"
All of them ran back, entered dungeon, resurrected, recovered their conditions and entered Master Waller's room once again.
10-man dungeons renewed once every two days, so the monsters and the other four bosses in the dungeon would re-spawn tomorrow night at 12.00 AM.
Eight of them returned to their positions and initiated the battle.
20 Seconds later, Master Waller showed his divine strength once again and the team annihilated instantly.
They ran back, resurrected and started the battle again.
20 seconds later, they were annihilated the third time.
After the team had been annihilated three times continuously, the team morale reduced dramatically.
After another resurrection, Zhang Yang smiled and said, "What's wrong, you guys giving up so easily after three defeats?"
All of them remained silent.
"Okay, don't initiate the battle first and just train on our position switching at the outer circle! The colours of the lights will still change every 20 seconds, the six of you, get into position first and remember the colours of the lights you guys block at the first round. You guys will need to look for the new position when the colours of the light change after 20 seconds, and when we manage this 20 times consecutively, then only will we initiate the battle! Otherwise, we simply don't want to give away repair fees!"
In fact, Zhang Yang was already prepared for this, but everyone was so enthusiastic at the beginning, so he dared not ruin the team's morale. But now with everyone mellowed down, all of them understood why he made them practice.
Zhang Yang thought carefully, if they could learn well the position switching within three days, it would be considered pretty fast! As other team did not know Master Waller's skills, they might need about two to three days to discover a strategy to fight against Master Waller. Additionally, they needed to train for position switching. Therefore, they actually needed at least ten days or up to half a month to defeat the final boss!
They had killing the previous four bosses smoothly and they had also killed the Yellow-Gold boss in Centaur Palace, and thus, their confidence levels were way up high, and they thought they could defeat Master Waller without a hitch as well. But now, as they face a setback, they would be sober enough to obediently train in their position switching.
One hour, two hours and three hours!
Han Ying Xue and the rest slowly familiarized themselves with position switching, they were able to successfully switch the positions continuously for seven to eight times without mistakes. But this was still not enough to defeat the boss. According to team's dealing damage capability and position switching every 20 seconds, they needed at least 400 seconds to defeat Master Waller. This meant that they must successfully do position switching for 20 times continuously without mistakes!
It reached 12.00 AM midnight, and Zhang Yang stopped them from training and said, "Alright, everyone has put in a lot of effort, but there's no point cramming for it! We'll stop here for today, everyone should log out from the game and go to rest. We shall continue tomorrow night!"
"But, I'm so excited. I don't wanna sleep yet!" Wei Yan Er still very energetic.
Zhang Yang smiled and said: "Little brat, you still want to play truant? If you can't wake up tomorrow morning, are you going to apply for leave again? Besides, Hundred Shots and Starlight have work tomorrow, right?"
"Yes!" The two of them nodded their heads.
"Ah! So frustrating!" Wei Yan Er yawned, "Cousin, let's go to bed! Wrinkles appear easily if we sleep late, that'll be horrible!"
All of them tore [Teleportation Scroll]. Suddenly, they were surrounded by white lights and returned to White Jade Castle.
Fatty Han anxiously said, "Little Yang, I'm going to log out as well! I have to hurry up and post the screenshots of all the bosses that we defeated on the forum to show them our capabilities and see what they'll have to say this time!"
Zhang Yang first went to the Little Merchandize Shop and stored all the equipment in his inventory to warehouse. Then, he made a few stacks of [Beginner Power Potion] and stored them all in warehouse as well. He finally summoned his war horse and rode it, heading towards the Item Identifier to identify the [Steel Helmet] he was wearing.
After paying 40 gold coins, a ray of silver light flashed and [Steel Helmet] revealed its real attributes.
[Steel Helmet] (Gray-Silver, Heavy Armor)
Defense: +20
Vitality: +96
Strength: +48
Dexterity: +16
<Level 1 Socket>
<Level 1 Socket>
Level Requirement: 40
Damn it, 40 gold coins for two Sockets! Besides, adding Gemstones also needed more money, this developer was really good at ripping players off!
Zhang Yang went to Gem Shop once again and bought two [Level 1 Vitality Gemstones] to insert them in his helmet. Under the boost of his Vitality Aura, Zhang Yang's HP reached 7,960.