The next day I was busy preparing blanks for talismans and amulets. Even though I had the rarest gems with spells, I still had to use the most common blanks for my talismans, which I could only buy from NPCs. Now I could use eight talismans, so there were more options available to me. In addition, I had to adjust my choices according to the pet I had.
The first talisman I created did not deal damage, did not restore health, and did not even affect my enemies in any way. Now I could use six spell crystals in each talisman, so I created a talisman with six functions. The main function was a 'blessing' that lasted for 30 seconds on me and my allies. The effect of this blessing was to remove the state of 'blindness' every second.
Blindness was a special type of curse not related to control. Its power could vary from 1 to 100 percent. At one hundred percent the player didn't become completely blind, but he perceived the world around him as through cloudy dark glasses with a blurring effect on his movements. With such vision it was extremely difficult to navigate in combat. And while I could use psionics myself, my Fox needed honest playful perception.
But the main thing in this talisman was not the removal of blindness, but additional effects, also applied every second. It was the removal of the curses of poisoning, burning, freezing, and bleeding. It was the burning and bleeding that bothered me the most, because they dealt damage as a percentage of your current health. The more health you had, the more effective these states were. They were the reason the Fox took so much damage when confronted by the players who attacked me. Frost didn't deal damage, but it would slow down, but it wasn't a control effect, so players weren't immune to it. Everything is clear with poisoning. Although the strongest poisons could not be 'removed' in one go, the strength of the poison had to decrease noticeably every second.
The last effect of this talisman was a 'buff' that gave the ability to see invisible people for 10 seconds. At the same time, the 'buff' itself was set every second as a result of the 'main' blessing. It made sense, because in the game there were ways not only to become invisible and see invisible, but also ways to turn off other people's 'super vision’. So, there was invisibility, anti-invisibility and anti-anti-invisibility. So, it was against the latter that my approach worked. Even if the invisibility buff was removed from me, in a second it would be on me again.
The second talisman used a hypnotist spell called 'Ghost Escape. With it, I could move 50 meters instantly, and I could move with my pet. But that wasn't the main thing, I left an illusory clone behind me, which participated in the battle for 5 seconds. At the same time, it could even deal damage and heal. However, all of the damage it dealt was illusory. In other words, it was only the appearance of doing damage. Within 30 meters of the clone, opponents 'saw' that their health was decreasing, although in reality they were just fighting 'with emptiness'. This talisman was used instantly with a cooldown of just 5 seconds, so I could constantly exist in two copies if necessary, while giving orders to my clone about what it should do. And for a snack, within 5 seconds I could reuse the talisman to swap places with my clone. In this case, another 5 seconds would be added to the talisman's recharge time.
The third talisman was needed to heal my pet. The buff from it would regenerate 5% of my pet's missing health every second. The druid's abilities weren't enough to heal my pet quickly with normal spells. After all, he had 10,000,000 health points. But with percentage healing, the total regeneration became just unreal. The scolopendra had a natural health regeneration of 2% per second, and in its 'death' state under the buff it was close to 7% per second, which was 700,000 health. Thus, the pet could be wounded, but not easily killed.
The third talisman was needed to heal my pet. The buff from it would regenerate 5% of my pet's missing health every second. The druid's abilities weren't enough to heal my pet quickly with normal spells. After all, he had 10,000,000 health points. But with percentage healing, the total regeneration became just unreal. The scolopendra had a natural health regeneration of 2% per second, and in its 'death' state under the buff it was close to 7% per second, which was 700,000 health. Thus, the pet could be wounded, but not easily killed.
The fourth talisman was also needed for healing, but for me or my allies. It was an enhanced counterpart to the 'Emergency Rescue' spell I had obtained during my quests with Drumg. 'Divine Salvation' would send a 'beam of goodness' at the target, restoring 10,000 health four times per second, and hanging a ten-second magic shield on top, which absorbs 20,000 damage from all sources except poison and bleeding. The shield could 'stack' up to a hundred times. The amount of health recovery was nothing compared to the pet's 700,000 health per second, but 40,000 per second was pretty good for players. And at maximum shield charge it could absorb two million damage.
The fifth was the spell 'Impenetrable Bushes'. It allowed me to grow a plant of the 'bush' class, but the main feature was that I could grow ten bushes while maintaining control over all of them. Together with this talisman I planned to use the seed of the 'Angry Blackthorn', which spit thorns, hitting targets up to 20 meters away. Ten bushes I could grow in 5 seconds, and all together they did 100,000 damage per second, which was roughly equal to one bite from my scolopendra.
The sixth was the 'Hell's Cunning Mushroom' spell. It was the equivalent of my Rainmushroom, except that it dealt increased damage, plus it poisons my opponent with a very strong poison. The strength of this poison was not only in the damage it inflicted, but also in the fact that it lasted for five minutes, plus because of its effect it constantly decreased not only health, but also energy reserves. As a result, it was very difficult to heal from poisoning with ten mushrooms single-handedly. I could summon a dozen of them at maximum, but they each lived for ten minutes, had an attack radius of 15 meters, and dealt 30,000 damage. In addition, the poison took away 15,000 health and 10 energy every second. And as the 'cherry on the cake', the explosion of the mushroom produced a cloud of poisonous spores that poisoned not only the main target, but also all enemies within a radius of 2 meters.
The seventh spell, 'Toxic Visions,' also poisons enemies, but it is a hypnotist's profession. It had a range of thirty meters, a quarter of a second use time, and a 2.5 second cooldown. When the spell hit the enemy, it created a cloud of poison gas, which not only 'hung' the poison, but also put the enemy in a state of 'confusion' for two seconds, in which he could not control his actions, but only ran back and forth.
Although it was primarily a 'control' spell, its damage was not bad either. It hung a ten-second poison on the target, doubling in strength every second. So if it was a measly 500 damage at first, after ten seconds it would deal a whopping 512,000 damage. And the total damage from the spell exceeded a million health points. There was a little bit of a problem. If I used the spell on the same target again, the damage from the poison would reset, and the poison cycle would start all over again.
The eighth spell also belonged to the sphere of enemy control, and it was very surprising to find it in a druid. The 'Wave of Cold' created a freezing ground line that ran from me to the enemy. Huge ice crystals grew in this area, which would shackle my opponent and hold them in place for at least a second. After one second, the 'stun' was gone, but to break free from the ice, you had to inflict a decent amount of damage on the crystals. However, the ice area itself didn't live long, and completely disappeared after ten seconds. This spell was quite slow, and it was easy to dodge the freezing wave. But when it was used with Toxic Visions, although the stun didn't work because of the temporary invulnerability to control, the ice would still immobilize the victim, allowing me to inflict a fair amount of damage. Well, at least in theory.
Of the amulets, I had three energy regeneration amulets, which regenerated a total of 120 mana per second and didn't require any nearby plants or other things. The other amulets increased my health by 100,000 each. As a result, my max HP reached 400,000. It wasn't much, but at least there was hope that I wouldn't get killed in one hit. Although I wouldn't be able to survive my own Toxic Visions, unless I was able to remove the poisoning.
Once I decided on a set of skills, I went to charge the talismans. The last time I created talismans from rare crystals, I had no idea how rare the conditions for their activation would be. Of the six talismans, only two could be charged in a reasonable amount of time. And for the other four, I could still wait for the right opportunity. Fortunately, I had no such problems now. I could create almost any combination of energies anywhere.
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This time I decided to combine charging my talismans with clearing dungeons and setting records. Although my personal damage could not compare to the damage of an entire raid, I could still try to pass the dungeons designed for a group of five. The coordinates of three nearby dungeons of this type immediately popped into my mind. It was hard to expect a good result with pet damage alone, but I wanted to get a feel for how close I was to the top players of the top guilds.
The first dungeon was the most ordinary dungeon, designed for ordinary tenth level players who had just arrived on the mainland. It was inhabited by some mutants who had settled in a mined out mine. Next to the entrance to the mine was an NPC who issued a task to clean it up.
After breaking into the mine, Just a Foxy Somebody rushed forward at all the speed he could, straight for the final boss. He attacked the 'main mutant' within a minute, and then all the dungeon dwellers rushed into the room to join him. The Skolopendra attacked nonstop, while I threw my mushrooms around. The boss was dead in only fifteen seconds, but the remaining mutants I had to destroy for another couple of minutes. They couldn't do anything to my pet, but there were really a lot of them, whereas I didn't have a single area-impacting spell.
In the end, my dungeon completion time was ten seconds worse than the current record. It looks like I gained time from my movement speed, but I lost it by not being able to do enough damage. However, I wasn't particularly upset by this setback. I left the dungeon and went to a place where an anomaly was already forming, where I could charge a spell to grow bushes.
After two hours I had charged all my talismans and amulets and was ready to... I was ready to go on with the rest of my outfit selection. This time it was about my clothes and weapons. Even though I couldn't count on wearing heavy or even medium armor, I could still wear the best 'rags' that were supposed to improve my survivability or even damage somehow.
Regarding the golden spear, although it now boasted damage in the neighborhood of 20,000 per strike, it was too little at the current level. Plus, while I was sitting on the back of a giant scorpopendra, it was very difficult to reach my opponent with a short spear. After soul-feeding, the scorpopendra had doubled in size, and its neck was now two meters high. And the distance from me to the tips of the mandibles was more than three meters, so I could not reach the opponents that the Fox was biting. Consequently, the ideal solution for me now was to use some kind of weapon like a mage's staff.
Luckily, I had enough rare resources in my backpack that I could use them to create high-level equipment. It wasn't crafting in the way RPGs usually imagined it. Crafting was done by special NPCs, but they needed rare resources, valuable resources, and money to work. While I had no issues with the first two, I had an unexpected problem with money.
A week ago, I spent all my savings to buy Chaos Shards, and now suddenly I was bankrupt. But I knew a great way to earn a quick money. No, it wasn't selling valuable resources that I didn't need at the moment. It was an honest and brazen robbery. I intended to go out on the warpath and punish all those who dared to cross my path. In other words, I was going to start exterminating defenseless nubs who were already struggling to survive. What could I do? Life, that's how it is.
I didn't think much, but started by 'cleaning up' the area in front of the entrance to one of the dungeons. The players, of course, immediately started a riot in the chat room, but... no one was willing to punish me. Hmm, strange... Maybe I wasn't convincing enough. I turned around and went to another dungeon, where I repeated the procedure. From the players fell a mere penny, but as they say 'ten old ladies is a ruble'.
After clearing out the players' typical 'hangout' areas, I began to hunt them in locations where they themselves hunted monsters. Gradually, I shifted to more and more 'advanced' areas, where the players of the large guilds farmed. Finally, my criminal activities were met with a response. I mean, against me crawled as much as a dozen level 11 players. Considering the fact that I had recently taken down fifty players of the same level by myself without any normal spells, this group was able to hold me back for no more than five seconds.
Gradually the players in the surrounding world ran out, but then I stumbled upon a resurrection point, after which the wailing and moaning in the chat room reached a new level of intensity. I simply killed players over and over again, 'stripping' them down to their underpants. Ten minutes later, a full raid of 25 people showed up in front of me, with five level 12 players and the rest of them boasting 11. They managed to lower my pet's health level a bit so far. But that was the end of the attackers' success, and they too found themselves in a cycle of births and deaths.
This time I hit someone 'important,' because another ten minutes later I was attacked by at least three hundred level 11 and 10 players. It was fun already, but... the whole crowd didn't even make me break a sweat. None of them could deal more than 500,000 physical damage per hit, and the other types of damage all together were balanced by the Fox's health regeneration at 80% life level. In other words, I was getting somewhere around 300,000 damage per second. But this feast of life didn't last long, because pretty quickly all three hundred of those players joined the others who were already 'hanging out' at the revival point, waiting for my pet to devour them once again.
After that defeat, no one dared attack me again. Actually, the revived players tried to fight back, but as they lost one item of equipment after another, they turned into a walking slime that I could destroy with a glance. They couldn't use their amulets without their equipment, and without their amulets, a player only had 100 health points.
Finally, after knocking out a total of about ten gold coins and just a pile of assorted junk, I headed for the capital to sell my loot. Surprisingly, the local merchants immediately bought up every last pair of shabby underpants I owned, giving me 34 more gold coins in return. There we go. Now I need to find a better location where the players are wealthier.
But as soon as I stepped away from the city, I was attacked by a group of a couple dozen players. All of them belonged to the Empire of the Good, which was actually the creation of one of the game's figures. All of these players were level 13, and it quickly became clear that even my pet can' t withstand that crowd for long.
Judging by the looks of it, this raid was assembled specifically against me. There were only four warriors who acted as tanks, preventing the Fox from attacking the other players. The rest of the attackers were mages, assassins, and healers. They kept at a distance, and when I tried to get close to them, they immediately used different ways of movement to retreat. The Scolopendra couldn't reach anyone but the tanks, which had more than half a million health, plus high protection against physical damage. As a result, no matter how hard my pet strained, it couldn't kill tanks. And my personal damage was easily overwhelmed by the healers.
By the time my pet's life was down to two million, I had more or less adapted to the attackers' tactics and began to destroy them one by one. In general, it wasn't a bad attempt, but my opponents didn't take into account my 'addiction' to using poisons. The mushrooms were hanging poison over the entire crowd, so the healers were working overtime trying to heal all my allies. I was 'spamming' Toxic Visions at the same time. At first no one paid any attention to them, but when a half-million-damage deal came at the end of the action, it was impossible to survive.
The first thing I did was catch a couple of priests, and then suddenly it turned out that the whole raid had started to suffer a health loss. When another druid died, it was clear that the death of the whole raid was not too far away. But the moment my triumph was near, I detected with psionics a group of approaching players. There were about a dozen and a half more of them, and I decided that it is time to use the 101st technique of karate: fleeing.
Luckily, the Fox was an extremely fast pet. I used Ghost Escape and ran away as fast as I could. My opponents fought the illusion for five seconds, almost ready to die, when suddenly the illusion broke, and I wasn't there. Those who could, immediately used their riding animals and rushed in pursuit.
At first, I thought of just running away, but then I noticed that there were only a dozen pursuers. Plus, they were pretty far behind in the second part of the raid, and the help wasn't going to catch up with us anytime soon. So I slowed down and let them catch up with me. When the enemies were ready to get me with magic, I used Ghost Escape again, lunging forward and forcing the illusory clone to attack the enemies. This time the illusion was figured out pretty quickly, and after a few seconds the pursuers ran after me again, ignoring the illusion. There was one player, who was riding behind me and was outside the range of the spell, so he could tell the difference between illusion and reality.
I repeated the trick again, and again, and on the fourth time, when everyone was sure they were being attacked by another illusion, and they just ignored its presence, I used the spell a second time and swapped places with the illusion. Within thirty meters of me, the players couldn't tell the difference between illusion and reality, so even though the clone was now far ahead, they thought it was real. I took advantage of the relaxation of my opponents, and started pouring all the damage I could into them.
The pursuers realized something was wrong only three seconds later, when the illusion stopped working. They were horrified to find out that two of them were really dead, and three more would die in the next few seconds. With this turn of events, there was no chance of survival for the pursuers, and I multiplied them to zero pretty quickly. Only one player, following in the rearguard, managed to escape.
I didn't chase him, because the second group of players was already approaching me. Instead, I ran as fast as I could, using Ghost Escape on rollback. The distance between me and my pursuers began to increase, and after ten minutes they lost me completely. Wiping the sweat from my forehead, I decided that robbing caravans was not profitable enough, so I should look for other sources of income.