Lizzy's opponent was an Elven player with the advanced class, Sword Master, which was the second-tier class of the Warrior-class tree. Lizzy herself was a Demon Dragon and her class was also part of the Warrior-class tree, but it was a hidden class known as the Berserker. It was a relatively well-known hidden class that a few people in the game had already class-changed to but struggled to effectively use without a support player like a priest behind them because when Berserker’s fought, they needed to sustain damage and keep their HP low to have the extra ATK power and SPD boost from their [Frenzy] passive skill.
Also, many of their skills would have increased damage output the lower their HP so it was a very risky class. It was known as the double-edged class that most players stayed away from after details of the class had been released on the game’s forums. Lizzy was unique since she had planned to become a Berserker from the start so she could eventually become a War God which was the final advancement of that class tree.
She didn’t need to worry about having a support player watching her back nor did she need to care about the risk because her Demon Dragon race had a unique racial skill called [Dragon’s Wrath] and [Dragon Scale Shield]. The first racial skill, [Dragon’s Wrath], was pretty much an active [Frenzy] skill that consumed a certain amount of her HP upon activation to increase her ATK and SPD while the [Dragon Scale Shield] complimented that skill by converting the HP she consumed using any of her skills into a shield that protected her and acted as a second HP bar.
Many of the Berserker class’s skills consumed HP upon use so the [Dragon Scale Shield] was really a cheat-like ability for her class. The conversion rate was 90% as Lizzy had focused plenty of her time on raising the rank of her [Dragon Scale Shield]. She was a beta-tester so she already planned out long ahead what she was going to do when she built her character.
With her HP low, her class passive skill’s effects were applied to her while she was protected by a shield that constantly regenerated itself. She could basically lower her HP to 1% and not even worry about dying as her [Frenzy] buff was at its strongest. That was exactly what she did from the start of the battle which greatly puzzled everyone watching. The ranker, whose handle was Soaring, seemed to look down on her as Lizzy continuously used her HP-consuming skills until her health bar only had 1% HP left.
Soaring had already taken note of her class but he hadn’t bothered studying his opponent at all before the match. He thought that by waiting it out and defending against her attacks until she recklessly consumed her HP, he could just dish out a single, powerful attack and simply end her life without putting in too much effort.
He and neither anyone in the audience noticed that Lizzy’s stats were increasing as her HP fell and this was because she was smart enough to hold herself back and not show it. This was a one-time strategy that she prepared for her debut battle in the IGC and it was perfect because her opponent wasn’t anyone weak. It was the 11th rank player on the level leaderboards.
“You put up a good fight, but unfortunately, it ends here,” Soaring said as he started charging up his strongest skill to end the match.
“Hmph, it’s about time I wrap things up as well.”
Lizzy opened the distance and let Soaring finish channeling his skill which puzzled many who were watching.
“Tsk, how foolish.”
After he finished charging his Sword Master skill [Point Break], Soaring immediately charged at Lizzy as he aimed to stab his sword at her chest. [Point Break] was a piercing sword skill that basically teleported the user from one point to another almost instantly.
Lizzy wasn’t afraid, however, as she had been waiting for this. With her HP at 1%, her [Dragon’s Wrath] skill and [Frenzy] passive had buffed her ATK and SPD stat by nearly 300% and although her HP bar was at 1% one shouldn’t forget to calculate her [Dragon Scale Shield] on top of that so instead of 1% she actually had around 80-90% of her HP as Soaring hadn’t tried attacking her while she was stacking up the conversion.
It was a big mistake on Soaring’s part because, with her buffed stats, Lizzy was able to easily keep up with Soaring’s [Point Break] skill and dodged it with a side step. Even if it did hit her, Lizzy’s shield would be able to tank the damage anyway.
“Huh?”
“My turn~”
Lizzy didn’t even use a skill as she swung her greatsword straight at Soaring’s face and blasted him to the other side of the map. Lizzy’s normal attack had instantly depleted all of Soaring’s HP bar and he was kicked out of the game. Just because someone was a ranker didn’t mean that their powers were absolute. Levels didn’t mean everything as a player could be rewarded FSPs through quests and not just through leveling up.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Most of the first world’s main quest line had rewarded Lizzy with a bunch of FSPs and unique equipment so her level couldn’t represent her true strength at all, just like how Maria’s level could never represent her true power. It was a mistake if people depended entirely on levels to judge a player’s power level since many factors could influence that.
“...Hm. I didn’t even need to use my pet. Sorry for taking all of the action, buddy,” Lizzy said as she dismissed her pet before logging out of the game.
She walked out of the booth after having changed her clothes as she waved at the audience who cheered for her as she gave them quite the show. Some of the subsequent matches that pitted guild leaders and rankers against each other played out almost the same as Lizzy’s battle. Even though the guild leaders weren’t on the leaderboards, no one should ever underestimate their power as they weren’t always grinding for level but doing quests and other things instead.
Many of the top 50 rankers had been knocked out in their matches against the guild leaders. The top 10 rankers might have ‘lucked out’ since none of them had been matched with a guild leader. It was especially scary when the guild leaders of the Angel race and Devil race stepped onto the field as they easily destroyed their opponents without even breaking a sweat.
Most, if not all, of the guild leaders and rankers, had chosen to participate in the PvP matches. A few prelim qualifiers had tried but all of them failed as there were no black horses this time. None of the hidden rankers participated in the PvP as most of them stayed away from it since it highlighted the winner’s skill and power level. The prelim qualified hidden rankers had chosen to participate in other events that didn’t put them too much in the spotlight like the team events. These rankers were hidden for a reason and although they had come to participate in the IGC, it was mostly for the rewards and not the prestige.
The medals won in the tournament could be used inside of the game to exchange for rewards such as rare equipment, materials, pets, skills, and the like. It was hard to resist the temptation of these rare rewards. Even the people invited to attend the side events like Maria would be rewarded for their participation. The players had the option to choose between receiving an in-game reward or a real-life one. Maria was obviously going to choose the former when she received her reward.
The tournament continued and by the end of the day, the PvP matches still hadn’t finished. Everyone expected this because there were so many participants in the event. All of the people who bought tickets for the event were satisfied with the IGC’s first day as every battle was full of colorful action and many hair-raising moments that pulled the people in the audience, those tuning in from their homes, and inside of the game onto the edge of their seats as they watched.
Nothing of particular importance happened inside of the game as all player-related conflicts were put on hold as Universal Games upheld their promise to the player community to put a ban on PvP in the game during the IGC period. However, despite the conflicts being put on hold, this didn’t mean that any of the main quest progressions were stopped. The vice guild masters of every prominent guild were leading their players to try and finish Gaia’s main storyline quest.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, A timer had been put on the opening of the Void Sea until after the IGC since the place had an accelerated time-space and was currently under maintenance to prevent occurrences such as Maria’s case from happening again. There was going to be a set time limit for people entering there that used a VR Headgear while that limit would be extended for those that used the VR Gaming Capsule.
It was a little biased but they needed to prevent people from overtaxing their brains or else there would be repercussions. Maria had settled her case silently after receiving a little compensation though her father wanted to make a big deal out of it.
Everyone’s current focus right now was on the IGC instead of what was happening inside of the game so with the first day finally over, the players and the people watching, looked forward to what was going to happen on the second day.
Maria returned to the hotel along with her friends and they celebrated Lizzy’s victory. She had fought twice today and both times, she completely overwhelmed her opponents with her skills and wit. Lizzy still needed to win two more battles to make it to the semi-finals and everyone was very optimistic about her chances since she hadn’t revealed all of her strengths in the two battles she had won.
“Today was awesome!” Lizzy exclaimed as everyone in their group celebrated together over dinner at the hotel.
“Congratulations, unlike someone else, you actually have a chance to make it to the semi and even the finals!” Maria said as she looked over teasingly at her older brother, Gerald.
Gerald shrugged at her and replied, “Although I struggled to win my second match, I still won in the end. Don’t count me out so quickly!”
Maria’s brother was participating in the PvP matches as well alongside a few of his other friends that qualified for the tournament’s main event through the prelims. He wasn’t invited so he had to go through the prelims himself and was one of the very, very few players that weren’t invited to have won both of their matches today.
Unlike Lizzy, however, Gerald struggled. He wasn’t part of the forerunner guilds so he didn’t have Lizzy’s advantages and he also didn’t have a hidden race or class. He overcame his disadvantages with pure skill though he did have to struggle to achieve those 2 wins. Maria poked fun at him only because she was jealous. She wanted to be one of the IGC’s participants but unfortunately, she hadn’t been able to make the cut to participate in the qualifiers.
Gerald knew this so he fired back, “I know you’re just jealous of your older brother qualifying for the tournament.”
“Hmph!”
“Why are you even jealous anyway? You’re also part of it...I guess?”
“But it’s not the same! I want to fight too!”
“You’ll get your chance on the 3rd day, right?”
“Yeah...but I still gotta wait another day.”
“It’s better than nothing. Some of us here are complete spectators!”
“Ugh...I’m bored from just watching. I can’t even log into the game and even if I could, there’s not much to do since everyone’s focused on the IGC anyway…”
Mikael was sitting next to Maria and he patted her head and said, “Be patient. You’ll get your chance..”
“...Thanks.”