Chapter 5
Victory and Defeat in Royal Road
According to what he learned, members who wished to take part in the boss raid party had to meet up in front of the dungeon on the morning of the first of every month, (within Royal Road.)
Ryuu and about twenty others had gathered at the entrance to the kobold cave. Most seemed to be swordsmen, but there were a few mages and priests as well.
A swordsmen in very fancy outfit spoke to the whole group, "Listen up. My name is Willow. I'm level 68, my leadership stat is 55, and my charisma stat is 35. For those of you who don't know, that means people in a party I'm the leader of will receive bonuses to their Will, and are less likely to fail in skill and spell activation."
Ryuu learned from an acquaintance that sometimes skills of a low proficiency failed to activate, something that would leave you stunned for a moment. It had never happened to him with Ki Strike, but he'd seen it happen to others.
The swordsman continued, "If anyone here has a higher leadership or charisma stat speak up now."
No one did.
"Very well. I will be the leader of the raid party for the boss. Experience in a party is only shared if the players are within 30 levels, so anyone level 37 or below, will not join. This is my third time leading a raid for this boss, and It will be my last. All those who wish to join my raid party, step forth."
Everyone did, even Ryuu after a moment. Willow went to each person and asked them for their class and level before asking if they wanted to join the raid party.
When he came up to Ryuu, he said, "Monk huh. What's your level and unarmed combat proficiency?"
"Level 44, and beginner level 9." Ryuu had been mistaken for a monk constantly since he wore a gi and had no weapon. He did not complain though, no one wants a class-less, weapon-less, fist fighter. If someone did ask for his class, he would tell the truth. Lying pollutes ki, though he doubted Royal Road had such a feature, he would not go against the way of the martial artist.
Willow seemed impressed by the proficiency level, Ryuu didn't know how his stacked up to other classes, but willow knew that it usually doesn't reach intermediate until after one reaches level 100. Willow's own sword mastery was only at beginner level 8, which meant Ryuu had punch more than Willow had slashed.
Willow said, "Alright, you wanna join my party?"
You have been invited to join Willow's raid party.
Accept?YesNo
"Sure."
You have joined Willow's raid party.
Willow said, "Alright, I'm putting you in charge of the right general. Two swordsman, a mage, and a priest will be under you."
After forming the party and assigning groups, he addressed everyone. "Now I know a lot of you have fought many kobolds in this cave already, but this battle will be different. The kobold king makes all kobolds around it stronger, the kobold general makes all kobolds around it stronger, and gentlemen, these effects stack. The king will be strengthened by the two generals, the generals will be strengthened by the king and their opposite number, and every single kobold in there will be strengthened by all three of them. Do not underestimate them, and those of you assigned to kill the generals, do it as quickly as you can."
Willow lead the group into the dungeon. Ryuu and the group he was assigned followed behind Willow's group.
The boss's cavern had high ceilings and was large enough to fit a dojo. On a large stone chair was a muscular kobold at least 3 meters tall with a red name above it, Gy? Ma?. Around him were two generals, half a dozen shamans, and about thirty regulars.
Willow shouted, "Attack!"
Ryuu ran to the general on the right. It had a large bronze greataxe just like the other one. It was however, at least twice as fast. Doubling in speed though was not something only the monster could do, Ryuu was even faster. He dodged the axe swing and disarmed the general. The skill, Disarm, had a higher success rate the greater the difference in strength.
The mage who went to the general's side started casting. One of the swordsmen went to the mages side to protect him, while the other stayed at the priest's side. These were likely the roles Willow assigned them in the party. The whole of the party did their roles and it seemed to be going well.
"You idiots!"
The other groups were not as disciplined. Ryuu had no idea how it started, but he bet some group assigned to attack the mobs went for the king instead. This likely started a cascade effect, which caused others to abandon their roles to fight the king. No one was attacking the other general and the groups assigned to hold off the shamans were having a free for all with the kobold king. Willow was yelling at them to fight their assigned targets, but they didn't care., it seemed his stats weren't high enough for it to matter.
In a raid party, half of the experience for all kills are distributed equally, while the other half goes solely to the person who made the kill.
Conscripts were dying one after another from the king's blows so the outcome was obvious. Ryuu decided to change things up a bit. He distracted the general long enough for the mage to cast Ice Shard, causing a meter long shard of ice to shoot at the general's side. It shattered on impact causing a lot of damage and changing the color of the skin to light blue, a sign the general's movements had been slowed by the cold ice.
At the general's next punch, Ryuu caught it and threw the arm over his shoulder, and the general along with it.
The free for all between the conscripts, the other general, the king, the shamans, and the other thirty kobolds was interrupted when the kobold general fell into the middle of it. Ryuu ran with all his might at the wall next to him, going up ten steps before pushing off and using the height to deliver a ki powered dive bomb axe kick to the fallen general's head.
You have leveled up!
With a loud crunch, the general's helmet, and the head it contained disappeared from this world. Ryuu, whose actions silenced the whole battle, became the center of attention. Ryuu gave the conscripts the look he gives to undisciplined students who think they know better than their masters.
"I'll take care of the other general, Willow and his group will take the attention of the king. You will kill all the shamans and regulars, and only when you have finished, will you assist Willow in taking the king. Understood?"
The men nodded quickly. A smirk appeared on Willow's face.
The kobolds who were still in shock from the display recovered and tried to attack Ryuu, but they were mobbed by the dozen or so remaining raid party members.
Leadership rises by 1 (+1 LEA)
Having his orders obeyed increased his stat to give orders it seemed. Willow and his group kept the king busy, which left the remaining general to Ryuu. It sneered at him and his declaration. The red name, Oolong, shined above its head.
Oolong took the spiked wooden bludgeon from his side and swung it at Ryuu. He jumped to avoid the blow, but the small kobold next to hit was sent to the wall like a home run ball. Ryuu ran to its open side but the general jumped back. The club had a longer range than Ryuu's punches, so by keeping distance it could attack without worry.
A long shard of ice struck the general's arm. Ryuu's assigned team was still with him. One of the swordsman struck the kobold's back, and ducked the blow from its spinning club attack. Ryuu figured that for whatever reason, Willow put the competent ones In the same group.
One of the shaman spells struck one of the group fighting the kobold king, killing the fighter. Using the opening, the massive brute plowed through straight to Ryuu. It seemed it was pissed, and wanted to help the general double team him. This wouldn't have been a problem, but Ryuu was too close to his group's mage. If he moved too far, their attention would surely turn to the mage.
The mage understood the situation too late, he started running towards the swordsmen for protection, but the bosses moved too fast, Ryuu had to take their attention or he would die.
Ryuu jumped to the king's gut and used it as a springboard to send a ki powered flying knee to the general's gut. He figured he would stun the king long enough to avoid the slash of the king's machete, but that was too naive. Rather than take a long time to slash, the king sent a strong punch with the other arm that slammed Ryuu to the far wall.
You have been dealt 1310 damage.You have received 602 damage from impact.New Stat: Perseverance
His body ached in a dozen places but he was still alive. Ryuu saw as he got up that his swordsmen had double stabbed the general using the opening Ryuu's attack gave them, killing it. Ryuu got back up and sprinted to the king.
The kobold king had either the option of fighting the large group of Willow's fighters or fighting the lone Ryuu. It charged forward to attack.
Ryuu twisted his body to punch, but as he got within range, he slid on the ground between the king's feet just as it slashed. Ryuu used a spinning elbow to strike the creature's spine, causing it to falter. By then the others had caught up to it and the king was swarmed by a dozen players.
Ryuu's priest cast healing hand on him twice, and went back to healing those who were struck by the king. Ryuu himself threw himself into the battle with the remaining shamans and regulars, killing the last just as the king himself fell.
Willow came up to Ryuu and said, "Catch," before throwing a ring to him. "You're lucky it was hectic here. That was dropped by the first general you killed, if anyone else here noticed and picked it up, you never would've known."
"Thanks, but I enjoyed the fight so it didn't matter." Ryuu put the ring in his inventory and left the cave. After a quick stop back to the city to sell the loot he had accumulated, he would go to Kabbot Cave.
Ryuu examined the ring on the way to the city. From his inventory screen was shown the item's information.
Ring of the General.
Durability 35/35
Defense 2
A ring once worn by a kobold general.
Additional Unknown.
Unknown meant it had effects that must be made visible. Wearing it would give the effect, but without knowing what it is, that could be dangerous. On the thought of unknown effect, Ryuu remembered the stat he had gained when he was slammed against the wall and said, "Show stat Perseverance."
Perseverance
The ability to withstand hardships. Decreases the amount of physical damage taken.
You may distribute points to this stat, but it will increase automatically when strong blows are taken and survived.
So it reduced the damage the body took and the stat increased when the body was damaged. If Ryuu had known such a stat existed, he would not have spent so much time dodging every attack.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Ryuu sold the bronze swords and daggers he had stored up to a vendor and left the city. Kabbot cave had Vexing Pixies he needed to slay, and after fighting the general and king, he was sure the level 80 pixies would pose no threat.
At the entrance to Kabbot cave, as was normal for most dungeons it seemed, was a group of people forming parties.
One of the rangers saw him and said, "Hey, wanna join our party?"
Ryuu walked up to him and said, "No thanks, I'm here on a slayer quest and want to complete it on my own."
The ranger nodded and said, "Yeah, plenty of quests to kill hobgoblins out there."
"Hobgoblins? No, I'm here to kill Vexing Pixies."
"Pixies? There are no Pixies in Kabbot Cave."
One of the others, a female mage said, "Actually Luke, I saw one a few weeks ago. It giggled at me and ran off. Pixies are a low chance encounter mob. Like maybe two or three fly around the whole dungeon."
The ranger lifted his eyebrow and turned back to Ryuu. "What's the rank of this slayer quest?"
"D"
"D?! Have you ever taken a D rank quest before?"
"No," Ryuu answered, "I've taken a few F rank though."
The ranger shook his head. "A D rank quest is between 10 and 100 times harder than an F rank quest. Good luck man, you're gonna need it."
Ryuu entered the dungeon, another cave like maze, though the tunnels of this one were larger to accommodate larger mobs. He encountered a group of three hobgoblins. Humanoid armor wearing monsters with large mouths and green skin. Each had a spear, so Ryuu got up close and pummeled their pointed noses in. Hobgoblins it seemed were about level 60, the same level as a the kobold king. But obviously as they were jot boss class monsters or named mobs, they were much weaker.
After half a day of fighting hobgoblins, Ryuu saw a small flying thing at the end of a hall. He ran to follow it. The pixie flew a little slower than Ryuu ran, eventually he caught up with and tried to punch it. The pixie was only a little larger than Ryuu's fist and dodged easily. It suddenly turned around and started glowing. Ryuu tried attacking a few more times but the floating mob moved like a fly. Eventually the pixie's glow changed from white to purple and it shouted in a high pitched voice at Ryuu. A purple light covered him, and it made his skin feel tight.
You have been slowed
Movement speed reduced by 50%
After that the pixie did something Ryuu didn't expect, it screamed its little lungs out.
Less than ten seconds later, the pixie was still hovering in front of Ryuu who was trying to catch it with slowed movement, and from both ends of the tunnels came groups of hobgoblins.
The pixie giggled as the groups approached and started stabbing Ryuu with their spears. Ryuu had a lot of life but attacks from level 60 monsters within a dungeon against his armor-less body still caused his health to reach zero in only a few seconds.
You have died.
Your skill proficiencies have dropped, and you level has decreased by one. The most recently increased stat shall be reduced by five.
Your account has been locked for twentyfour hours.
Richard Smith got up from his capsule. It was a little after three in the afternoon. He thought he had trained up enough to complete the monk quest, but it seemed the guild master was more mischievous than that. Pixies that used hindering magic and called for reinforcements were not something a classless person could deal with. Especially considering how hard they were to find and hit without a weapon.
Smith thought about all the different ways to do it and wondered what monk classes matched up to what ways to complete the quest.
In a room in the far end of the temple of the mind and body was a computer lab with twelve computers for the students to use. As long as they didn't abuse the privilege it was never a problem. The students who lived on site could use them to stay in touch with friends and family from across the world.
Richard logged onto a computer and went to the Temple's internet site. Smith had one of his computer savvy students take segments of video from his capsule's recording of his game experience and post the video onto the temple's site. Right now he had two videos, his test of the beginner training hall and his fight in the kobold occupied fort. Now he was using his capsule's wireless interface to examine and cut out his battle with the kobold king and general. He set the video in a file that his student could access, edit, and put on the site. The videos that were already on the site had a few views, but those were mostly from people from his own temple.
Richard's plan when he started playing Royal Road was to make videos of himself fighting using Xiao Xiang kung fu and use that to make his school more renown. However people didn't look for videos of martial arts on specific websites, and videos of Royal Road were watched on web pages for videos of Royal Road. The only real way he could use his videos to spread the name of his temple was to either pay other sites to advertise his site or get his videos on a popular Royal Road video site. The most popular of which was the Hall of Fame, where the most famous players posted their videos. There was no information on the process the Hall of Fame used to select players to submit videos, but Smith figured one just had to become famous. That was his goal for now.
Smith went to the dojo to check on the students. The instructors and disciples gave a short bow when he passed, something he still wasn't use to. He saw to it that each student was taught effectively. One of the more unique points of the 'Formless Style' was that students were not taught everything, only what would make them the best they could be. Usually this included forms that made use of one's strengths, forms that covered one's weaknesses, and special forms that combined whatever the student used to make their own style personal. However, more than two thirds of the students at the temple were training to be teachers. Where a student was only made to learn the style that best fit them, a teacher had to know every form and technique, know how to tell which students should learn which forms, and of course learn the best way to teach them all. When the teacher graduated they either stayed on to teach students and continue learning until they could teach others to be teachers, or they went off to start their own Xiao Xiang kung fu dojo.
One of his students that knew he played Royal Road walked up to Smith and said, "Master, you're out early."
Smith smiled and said, "Yes, I died."
"What? Who or what could defeat master?"
"Magic it seems. The game is most interesting."
The next afternoon, Smith logged back into Royal Road.
He found himself back in the city, the last safe point his character visited before dying. He opened up his skill window to see how much damage his death had done to his skill progression
Skill WindowKi Circulation [9] 59%
Move ki throughout the body to increase health.
Health and stamina regeneration increased by 90% during circulation
+5% STR, AGI, and VIT for 20min after performing Ki Circulation.
Requires KiKi Strike [6] 12%
Moves ki to the extremities and bursting it at the moment of impact.
Attacking with Ki increases attack and adds non-physical Damage.
Cost: 15 KiNatural Ki absorption [5] 41%
A skill that takes ki produced by the natural world into the body.
The strength of the ki taken in is determined by Affinity to Nature.
Ki regeneration increased by 50%Unarmed Combat Mastery [9] 82%
Increases attack and attack speed when fighting without weapons.
+90% ATK, +45% ATK SPD When fighting unarmed.Disarm [6] 8%
Removes your opponent's weapon and forces them to fight you bare-handed.
Chance to disarm
(18+ (Your STR -Opponent's STR)/10)%
It was as bad as he thought. His combat mastery that was so close to reaching intermediate dropped by 14%. Ki circulation, also almost intermediate dropped by 13%. Ki strike dropped by 10% and the other two dropped by 7%.
Ryuu decided to avoid the Pixies for now and use the level 60 hobgoblins to increase his level and get his combat mastery and Ki circulation to intermediate. Since he needed to lose either health or stamina to use it, and getting hit Increased his perseverance stat, he could train that skill and stat together.
Back at the Kabbot cave, Ryuu fought for 15 hours and finally received the message he wanted.
Skill level up: Unarmed Combat mastery has reached level 10, and now changes to intermediate level 1.
+50% additional attack bonus when fighting unarmed.
+ 5 All stats.
The skill reaching level 10 increased his attack by 100% on its own. A bonus was added on top of that so the skill now gave a 150% bonus to his attack and 50% to his attack speed. The skill was very overpowered.
The results were clearly evident, hobgoblins took eight or nine clean blows to fell now took five or six, and that was without Ki Strike Ryuu's training pace rose.
The next day while training Ryuu saw a pixie fly by. He turned to retreat but stopped when he heard it giggle. He turned back and saw it glowing with white light again. Ryuu ran and the pixie followed. Eventually Ryuu encountered a group of three hobgoblins. While trying to pass through them, he saw the light of a purple glow that came from behind him.
You have been slowed
Movement speed reduced by 50%
The hobgoblins were unaffected it seemed. The pixie shouted again, alerting all the nearby creatures. The goblin spears were too many and Ryuu slowed could not dodge more than one at a time. His health slowly whittled away with him only killing one hobgoblin before eight more showed up and overwhelmed his defenses.
You have died.
Your skill proficiencies have dropped, and you level has decreased by one. The most recently increased stat shall be reduced by five.
Your account has been locked for twentyfour hours.
Again, he thought, getting out of the capsule. The guild master said to his face this was a quest he was not strong enough to pass, so what he did to pass would determine the kind of monk he should be. Richard Smith thought of a few ways to complete the quest, and wondered which one best fit him.
?Chapter 6 The Class with One Skill
?Chapter 4 Fun with Kobolds
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