Chapter 141: Prerequisites for Becoming a Master

Why is it that most of the time, even when people have attributes comparable to a boss and possess more skills, the fight remains incredibly difficult? Even a whole group surrounding one cannot seem to bring it down.

The reason is simple.

Their combat techniques are lacking. Unable to parry or dodge the boss's attacks, they resort to playing like it is a mindless game, desperately stacking health, defense, and resistance with top-tier gear, relying purely on stats to tank the damage.

Such "Descenders" are merely ordinary. Regardless of how high their stats are or how good their equipment is, they cannot be called masters.

A true master is someone who, with the same equipment and stats, can easily contend with or even solo a boss of the same level.

There are only two core factors that distinguish a master from an ordinary Descender: mindset and combat technique.

Mindset determines whether you can ever become a master. If your first instinct upon encountering a major boss is to run rather than solve the problem, you will never reach that level.

Combat technique, meanwhile, directly determines the upper limit of your power.

So-called combat technique is, at its core, the mastery of various weapon skills. Weapon skills refer to your proficiency with a specific weapon—it encompasses your understanding of that weapon, the techniques for wielding it, and the ability to leverage your own physical attributes to maximize its lethality.

If your technique is refined, you can easily block or parry an opponent's attacks during combat, while making your own attacks difficult for them to counter.

When your combat technique surpasses that of the boss, even a boss with massive health becomes a living target.

For instance, if Chu Cheng’s combat technique were sufficiently powerful—if his weapon skills were superior to the Plague Knight’s—he could precisely parry the Knight’s attacks without taking any damage.

As long as he could achieve that, no matter how much health the Plague Knight had, it would eventually be whittled away.

Therefore, if you want to solo a boss of your tier, stacking stats and top-tier gear alone is not enough, because you can never match the health pool of a top-tier boss with a template bonus. You must surpass the boss in combat technique.

You don't even need to completely outclass the boss; if you can keep up with their rhythm and the gap isn't too large, a combination of technique and gear stats, supplemented by various potions, is enough to solo a boss.

Chu Cheng’s proficiency with one-handed swords and dual-wielding is already at the expert level, just one step away from being a master. Once he ascends, he will be able to solo most bosses with his master-level weapon skills.

The exceptions are magical bosses, who don't care about your techniques, and massive bosses, whose sheer size provides a strength advantage that is difficult for humans to overcome through stats alone.

To deal with those two types, one must have extremely powerful skills.

As it happens, Chu Cheng possesses such power; the hero skills granted by the Eternal Sovereign are all abilities to manipulate time, overriding everything else in priority.

"Time Lock!"

The power of natural law is overbearing. When triggered, no matter the state of the Plague Knight, it becomes frozen, as if captured in a photograph.

During that one second of Time Lock, not only can Chu Cheng deal massive amounts of damage, but his teammates can also unleash everything they have in a frenzied focus-fire.

Although the Plague Knight’s health is absurdly high, it depletes rapidly under this onslaught.

To be fair, Lei Ming and Zhang Chaosheng are better at tanking major bosses than Chu Cheng. Since he isn't a dedicated tank, he lacks the stability of a true tank when holding a boss.

Considering that he is now teamed up with Fang Xi and the group likely won't have a second tank, he will probably choose a survival or damage-reduction skill as his next hero skill.

Once the team finds their rhythm and ensures that the Plague Knight—whose attributes have been suppressed by 50%—cannot one-shot them, the battle enters a procedural state. Once any boss enters this state, it is only a matter of time before it is defeated.

Finally, two and a half minutes into the siege, as Chu Cheng triggers another Time Lock, his seven-slash burst hits with such intensity that it drives the boss into a near-death state.

As it reaches the brink of death, the plague energy within the Knight erupts, signaling its impending frenzy.

But Chu Cheng doesn't give it a chance. He consumes another 15 points of Chrono-Energy to activate Time Wander, preemptively triggering another Time Lock.

At that moment, everyone is prepared and unleashes their burst damage, forcibly finishing off the Plague Knight before it can enter its frenzy.

As the time distortion fades, the Plague Knight exhausts its final drop of health.

It does not fall to the ground. Instead, green flames ignite across its body, and a phantom slowly rises from within.

Lei Ming immediately rushes forward, pulling out the strange greatsword he used earlier to suppress the Knight, and thrusts it into the green flames. The rising soul of the Plague Knight struggles violently as if in agony.

However, it is utterly powerless to resist and is sucked into the greatsword. One can see the third of the four runes on the blade lighting up.

"Is this unsealing a Legendary-tier item?"

After absorbing the Plague Knight’s soul, Lei Ming wears a satisfied smile. He puts away the greatsword, collects the loot chest, and turns back with a smile, saying, "Thanks, brothers! Come on, let's open the loot."

The group gathers around as Lei Ming sets several chests before them and opens them one by one.

While he is busy, Chu Cheng opens his personal panel and smiles.

First, killing so many bosses, including a Transcendent-tier one, has finally granted him enough experience to reach level 29. He is now just one level away from 30.

Additionally, killing the two level 40+ Terror-template Death Knight leaders yielded 3 attribute points and 3 skill points, and 3 attribute points and 4 skill points, respectively.

Finally, for the Plague Knight, his performance was outstanding. Even though Lei Ming had taken the lion's share by suppressing 50% of the boss's attributes, Chu Cheng still received 5 free attribute points and 5 free skill points.

Including his previous gains, he earned a total of 19 free attribute points and 21 skill points from the Plague Land dungeon.

Just then, Fang Xi’s voice reaches his ears: "I got 2 attribute points and 2 skill points. How many did you get?"

"Not much, just 5 free..."

Chu Cheng turns around and is stunned by the exquisite face so close to his own.

She is almost right in front of him. Her skin is flawless, her features are beautiful and incredibly soft—the kind of beauty that only grows more captivating the longer you look at it.

They are less than three inches apart, and he can feel the warmth of their breath.

Fang Xi’s fair face flushes slightly, but she stays composed. "I’ve accumulated 16 free attribute points and 18 skill points. How do you think I should allocate them?"

Chu Cheng snaps out of it, ponders for a moment, and says, "Save all the skill points and put all the attribute points into Constitution."

"Okay."

Although mages should prioritize Intelligence and Spirit, her current spells are too scattered. With only Fireball and Chain Lightning as offensive spells, the returns on Intelligence are too low.

It is better to increase her Constitution to boost her health first; for an Elite-tier professional, 1 point of Constitution equals 20 health, which is a relatively better return.

Once she has accumulated more free skill points, she can buy a bottle of Styx Water to reset her points, clear out the miscellaneous skills, and build a cohesive set of abilities—either a pure damage-dealing mage build or a pure support build, focusing on buffs and healing spells.