VRMMO: Passing of the Sword

Blue Maple used Hidden Attack to get close to the treant before he hacked at it again. He wasn’t in a hurry to use his other skills, as he wanted to see what the treant’s normal attacks were like.

A normal damage value was shown. Blue Maple didn’t boost his sword with Heavenly Fire, and he didn’t trigger Fire Explosion, so the damage value wasn’t very high.

-436!

The treant’s retaliation quickly arrived. It wasn’t surprised by Blue Maple’s sudden Hidden Attack at all. It seemed like a creature with low intelligence who only knew how to continue hitting.

The treant’s basic attack was to whip Blue Maple with its vine. Blue Maple didn’t dodge, and used his sword to parry this basic attack.

This treant only had 4000+ hit points, and Blue Maple could annihilate it in the blink of an eye with Skills if he wanted to. That was the reason why Blue Maple wasn’t hasty at all, and could take it slow. He would just kill it in a second and escape if something he didn’t foresee happened.

However, Blue Maple had to admit that visibility in the forest was very low early in the morning. Mist permeated the bushes and trees, and the forest, which already lacked light, appeared a lot drearier and darker.

I wonder if there are other treants hidden around me. I should be careful. Blue Maple didn’t lose his cool as he continued thinking during the fight.

Indeed, Treants didn’t look much different from normal trees, except a treant’s overall appearance was a little stranger. Treants also had noses, eyes, and whatnot, but they weren’t much different from normal trees otherwise. Players wouldn’t know what they were called and what their other attributes were before discovering them.

Blue Maple parried the treant’s basic attack with his sword, and he hit back with a basic attack of his own. Blue Maple kicked the treant away after that, charging up his Sweeping Sword Slash.

The treant had no Skills left. Blue Maple had already tested its basic attack, and it didn’t seem very fast. Blue Maple could tell that he could easily evade a treant’s basic attacks, so he decided to use a charged Skill with high damage.

Blue Maple’s movement speed would decrease by about twenty percent as he was charging up the Sweeping Sword Slash, so he wouldn’t use it too often.

Blue Maple easily evaded the treant’s whips as he was charging up, and he unleashed his fully-charged Sweeping Sword Slash on the treant’s bark-skin afterward.

-645, -443, -312, -148!

That was good damage. Blue Maple took a third of the treant’s hit points in an instant, and he swiftly followed up with another basic attack. However, he still didn’t use Cold Light Slash, Instant Chain Strike, or other such Skills to deal more damage. He didn’t bring that many mana potions and whatnot after all, and he would do well to conserve his mana. He was playing around anyway, and he didn’t have to rush for time to level up.

“Eh?” He suddenly discovered something very interesting, which was that treants had formidable hit point regeneration. Blue Maple noticed that this treant was regenerating 20 HP per second, the regeneration rate that typical Bosses had during battle. Blue Maple had no doubt that a Treant King could regenerate 100 HP per second.

Ah, no wonder. This is an S-rank quest after all, so how can the monsters be so weak? The Boss’ regeneration must be really annoying when I have to fight it. Blue Maple was the only one who would consider treants weak. Treants’ Skills had long ranges, and they also possessed control-type skills. Even though it had a lower defense compared to Jiangshi, that was it. Jiangshi were considered high-defense monsters, while Treants had higher hit point totals. It was a difficult monster to deal with.

However, even though monsters like that were difficult to deal with, it also had a fatal weakness: fire! It was also weak against Archers shooting from afar. Treants had relatively slower movement speeds after all, which was the reason they had such long range attacks.

Let me try burning it. Blue Maple felt interested again. He couldn’t tell much with the blade formed from Heavenly Fire, but everything was different once he started burning the treant with Heavenly Fire,

Blue Maple blasted out Heavenly Fire, which immediately burned over the treant’s body. He wasn’t afraid that Heavenly Fire’s characteristics would lead to him burning down the entire forest, because he could directly absorb all the flames around him.

The flames crackled as they burned heartily...

Seems like the treant is burning fine, but the treant’s mouth looks like it’s just decoration. Blue Maple watched casually from one side as his Heavenly Fire continued eating away at the treant’s body. The treant’s trunk twisted and contorted painfully, but the mouth that it had evolved couldn’t make any sounds.

Ding! Game Announcement: Your Heavenly Fire deals heavy damage to plant-type monsters. Flames of Heaven’s burning effect will deal very severe damage.

Ding! Game Announcement: Flames of Heaven will burn on the treant for twenty seconds, and every second will deal between 900 to 1000 damage points.

Ding! Game Announcement: Flames of Heaven will kill your target very quickly, and the remaining fire can be absorbed back into your body.

“I thought I would have to use as much fire as I did with the Jiangshi King. Heavenly Fire is very versatile after all,” Blue Maple muttered to himself in satisfaction.

I’ve still consumed 1%. I can’t keep burning it for fun. Blue Maple still expressed some regret about that fact. He needed roughly two hours to finish regenerating his Heavenly Fire’s total volume if he depleted it, which meant he would need approximately one minute for every 1%. He could easily burn Treants to a crisp if he burned them with Heavenly Fire, but he would rather hack and slash at treants rather than kill one after every minute.

Therefore, nobody was omnipotent, even with powerful skills, items, and a formidable Class. Furthermore, this was just Heavenly Fire’s special effectiveness against Treants. Heavenly Fire would only burn continuously for one third of this duration against normal monsters, and would deal one third of the damage. Even though Heavenly Fire would still be able to take a huge chunk of a monster’s hit points, Blue Maple didn’t like to use Heavenly Fire so liberally.

Blue Maple was lazy, but he wouldn’t be excessively lazy. Heavenly Fire could still be kept to teleport himself away to some place further away, and he couldn’t even use Spatial Fiery Chop without sufficient Heavenly Fire, not to mention teleporting himself away.

Blue Maple glanced at the burnt treant’s corpse. There was a single item dropped next to it: a pair of leggings.

===

[Treant Leggings] (Rank 45 Silver Set) (Heavy Armor)

Defense: 189-257

Strength: +20

Endurance: +21

Toughness: +24

Hit Points: +150

Set bonus: Every additional item from the set increases HP regeneration by 5 HP per second, and regeneration is increased by 300% when not in battle. A complete set increases basic HP regeneration by 200%.

===

It’s a set, and the set looks pretty good. Blue Maple could only describe it as such. He was a rookie in the game, and he didn’t know this set’s value at all. This was one of the best sets for Warriors to fight monsters with.

There were seven items in this set,which meant 35 HP regeneration per second in battle. Typical Warriors’ basic HP regeneration was around 4 HP or 5 HP per second, and only basic regeneration was amplified by 200%, not entirely increased to 200%, which meant they would have a total of 50 HP regeneration per second.

This set would probably give about 1500 points in Defense when completed. However, Blue Maple would probably have more than 2500 points in Attack when he was at Level 45… He probably wouldn’t shed a single drop of blood if he fought monsters like this treant.

This set’s final boost to a player’s hit point total meant a Warrior should have more than 3000 HP when wearing this set. No, players would be at Level 45 then, and they should have at least 4000 HP! Players like Blue Maple who had extraordinary Attack stats could dominate everything in their path.

Unfortunately, this set was Heavy Armor, which meant it was equipment for Warriors. Otherwise, Blue Maple would actually consider putting this on. However, Blue Maple didn’t need much for Defense, because very few of his enemies could actually hit him… he didn’t think he’d had much of a problem switching sets…

Blue Maple’s Defense was not even at five hundred points, which was just extremely low…

However, typical Warriors probably only had around five hundred points in Defense right now. Blue Maple’s Defense was that high because he was wearing a Rank 33 set, and his level was relatively higher.

Blue Maple’s items and equipment required too many Levels, which was quite annoying for him. He couldn’t use any of them…

This quest of Exterminating Treants required Blue Maple to destroy the Treant King after killing five hundred treants. Any quest above Rank S in difficulty had a Boss to slay. Blue Maple wasn’t hasty at all, because he was here to mess around anyway.

Blue Maple proceeded to fight treants by themselves, or he charged into a bunch to massacre them as he dealt with another one hundred treants. Blue Maple managed to pick up eight more items from the same set, but he didn’t make a full set because there were repeats.

However, Blue Maple was quite daring, charging into a group of treants. There were at least ten in a single group, and he charged in to burn them all to a crisp. He wasn’t afraid of a group of treants blasting him to death, and he would be in trouble if one of them immobilized him. However, he leveraged his formidable reflexes and his agile skills and legendary techniques to dodge everything.

Ahem! Blue Maple was actually holding a drink with one hand and hacking at treants with his other hand. Blue Maple was slightly careless when he was casually evading attacks and a treant whipped his drink out of his hands.

Afterwards… there was nothing afterwards…

An outraged Blue Maple charged into a group of treants and scorched them all with Heavenly Fire. The ocean of blue Heavenly Fire was incredibly bright, and the scene was just so tragic and chaotic. The entire group of treants twisted and contorted in agony amid the raging flames, and there was nothing they could do…

Blue Maple almost incinerated the entire forest. Fortunately, he was quick to withdraw his Heavenly Fire.

The other treants would probably have whipped the treant that had whipped Blue Maple’s drink from his hands to its death if they had any intelligence. The treants definitely didn’t enjoy being burned, not one bit.

“Eh?” Blue Maple dealt with another treant when he realized that this treant dropped part of a set that hadn’t been seen before. This was probably a new item, and he could complete the entire set.

Blue Maple couldn’t wear them, but he could still piece them together to have a look.

Seven pieces of Silver equipment that faintly radiated green light appeared before Blue Maple, but they were all displayed using projected floating panels. All the pieces in the set had green wood patterns over their surfaces, while a single leaf covered each boot, and there was also one on the helmet.

The helmet appeared a little too green. Blue Maple didn’t care about all these details because he couldn’t wear them anyway…

I should consider selling it. I think there are auctions to do that, and I think I can make some money. I wonder if I’ll have enough to buy a house…? Blue Maple had finally started to care about his money, because money was important for his accommodations in the future.

Anything that didn’t concern him didn’t bother him at all, but Blue Maple would start taking things seriously if they concerned him.

Yes. Seems like I have quite some equipment and items that I haven’t used, so I should sell them all at the auction. But I think those items’ ranks are a little too high. I wonder if I can still sell them. Blue Maple did have several Gold items, and he also had multiple decent Silver items.

Backpacks that shops sold only had fifty slots, while Blue Maple’s backpack had one hundred slots because Heavenly Fire’s spatial capability had enhanced it. He had quite a few items stored, and he hadn’t sorted them yet; he would probably earn a lot of money if he could sell everything. That was why he thought about buying a house.

Blue Maple could buy a house in the town that he was in. Furthermore, those houses weren’t expensive, and he could get one with around two hundred coins. However, those houses weren’t great, and appeared a little simple and dilapidated, and he wouldn’t have his peace and quiet.

Normal NPCs in the game typically earned several coins over an entire year, so not being able to buy a house with two hundred coins could be a little outrageous. However, better houses in a Rank 3 City with more peace and quieter environments required five thousand coins…

That was why Blue Maple didn’t even think about getting a house, but he seemed to have some hope now. The reason why Blue Maple didn’t consider waiting to reach a Rank 2 City or a Rank 1 Main City was because everyone would probably think the same way, and there had to be many more people in those areas. Blue Maple felt that he could just stay in a Rank 3 City and not squeeze in with the crowd.

A Rank 3 City’s conditions are already quite decent, so I don’t have to work too hard for all that. Blue Maple was still so lazy, and earning money was tiring...