Chapter Ninety-Four: Fighting Through the Ranks, Part One

Although he had never learned archery combat techniques, Chu Cheng had already mastered bow weapons. Added to that, the Precise Heart-Piercer came with innate accuracy and a trajectory correction of plus one, so his hit rate was extremely high.

On top of that, he also had the extra one hundred points of true damage from Spatial Mark, as well as his talent for reflection.

In a sniper duel, he stood motionless and traded shots head-on, while his opponent danced through tactical footwork, occasionally unleashing a dazzling archery technique. In the end, Chu Cheng’s health stayed rock steady, while the other side was shot into chaos, forced to dodge in a panic.

As before, there was no accident. In less than two minutes, he personally put the opponent down.

“Next is the fifth opponent. I wonder what kind he’ll be.”

Though the difficulty was not high, Chu Cheng did not feel bored; on the contrary, he was rather looking forward to it.

Because the opponents matched inside the college entrance exam instance space were all of different types: the first was a strength type, the second a tank class, the third an agility assassin type, and the fourth a ranged archer.

The ten opponents together covered nearly every category, enough to fully test a contestant’s strengths and weaknesses.

A minute later, the sixth opponent appeared before Chu Cheng: a human mage in a robe, staff in hand.

The moment he appeared, he immediately cast a series of buffs and mage armor on himself. Then he planted the staff in the ground and began chanting.

Chu Cheng grew alert. Without hesitation, he activated Haste and, after a brief charge, turned into a streak of lightning that shot into the sky and smashed down toward the mage.

The mage reacted extremely quickly, aborting his chant at once. He raised his right hand; four magic rings gleamed there, and one of them lit up. With a ripple of light, he vanished, blinking fifty meters away in an instant. Turning around, he pointed his staff.

The Thunderbolt Smash that landed where Chu Cheng had been struck the empty ground. He felt something acting upon his body, only for it to vanish in the same instant.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw translucent text slide past.

The elite mage cast the spell Human Immobilization on you. Fortitude save in progress.

Fortitude save passed. You are immune to Human Immobilization.

In the swift state, his speed was astonishingly fast; one stride covered seven or eight meters as he rushed forward.

The elite mage stretched out a hand again. Another magic ring lit up, and a long magical rope formed above Chu Cheng’s head, dropping onto him and writhing like a snake as it tried to bind him.

But Chu Cheng’s strength was too great. While running, he simply broke the magical rope apart.

With two spells failing in succession, the elite mage looked a little surprised, but did not panic. Calmly planting his staff on the ground, he activated one of the three gemstones at the staff’s tip. Instantly, a ring of biting cold erupted outward, freezing Chu Cheng just as he rushed in.

The elite mage cast the spell Frost Nova on you. Fortitude save in progress.

Fortitude save failed. You have been frozen.

The mage’s face lit up in delight. He immediately took out a scroll and activated it. A mass of flame appeared and expanded rapidly.

At the same time, he extended his left hand. One by one, the four magic rings lit up, and Fireball, Missile Storm, Ice Spear, and Lightning Bolt almost simultaneously took shape and blasted toward Chu Cheng.

The elite mage cast the spell Frost Nova on you. Fortitude save in progress.

Fortitude save passed. You are immune to the freezing effect.

Bladestorm!

-214
-186
-225
-0
-0
-0

Frozen for only one second before passing the Fortitude save, Chu Cheng decisively activated Bladestorm. With his talent reducing damage by 100, Bladestorm reducing it by 30 percent, and another 33 percent magic resistance, the total damage reduction reached 63 percent.

What should have been a burst of more than two thousand damage was greatly reduced, leaving only a little over six hundred.

Bladestorm shredded the frost on the ground and swept rapidly toward the elite mage, soon dragging him into its vortex. In an instant, a flurry of huge damage numbers erupted.

The mage armor had already been badly weakened by the dozen-plus missiles reflected earlier. Under the next Bladestorm’s 550 damage per second, it shattered rapidly.

The elite mage reacted very quickly; magic items on his body activated, immediately granting him a layer of arcane shield.

By then, Bladestorm had just ended. The instant the blades vanished, Chu Cheng stomped down. The stomp skill attached to his assault boots detonated, dealing physical damage equal to five times his strength to ground targets within a three-meter radius, slowing them by 30 percent for three seconds.

The 865 damage sent the arcane shield twisting violently. Chu Cheng raised both swords, light flashing along their edges, and at that instant a frenzy of eight consecutive strikes exploded forth.

-213, skill at 70 percent base damage.
-30, frost damage from Icebound.
-100, true damage from the Spatial Mark.

That was only one hit. By the time Frenzied Eight Strikes had delivered half its sequence, the arcane shield had already shattered. The remaining three blows landed squarely and blasted the elite mage down to a sliver of health.

Without the slightest hesitation, Chu Cheng followed with a powerful finishing strike, and the burst of over a thousand damage split the elite mage clean in two.

Phew.

Mages really were troublesome. Unlike the earlier melee classes, which he could crush easily without even using combat techniques, dealing with this elite mage had required him to expend most of his skills before securing the kill.

Still, troublesome was all it was. It was not a threat.

The pillar of light descended, and all his skills were reset.

A minute later, the seventh opponent appeared: a level twenty feral ape, maxed in physique, strength, and speed, but without any skills.

This opponent had no tactics to speak of. It was pure charge, pure frontal violence.

The eighth opponent was a level twenty elite fire elemental from the Fire Elemental Domain.

Its attacks carried fire damage, close combat meant enduring continuous burning damage, and it also knew many fire-elemental spells. It was extremely troublesome.

But to Chu Cheng, it was no different from the feral ape before it: crush it head-on.

The ninth opponent was a level twenty elite necromancer, accompanied by more than a hundred undead around level ten summoned by the necromancer.

This stage tested group combat ability. Either decapitate the necromancer, or force your way through and kill all the undead head-on; both were viable.

For ordinary classes, facing so many summons alone would be extremely difficult. Even a tank class would be unable to withstand such a siege.

But for Chu Cheng, this was the easiest of all the opponents in the first stage.

In less than a minute, the necromancer and all of the more than a hundred summoned undead were dead.

A minute later, the pillar of light vanished, and the tenth opponent slowly appeared.

"Hm?"

When Chu Cheng saw the tenth opponent’s appearance, he gave a small start.

"No way. They really made it this tricky?"

Mind flayer, elite: abyssal mind flayer, level twenty, fifteen hundred health.

The moment this thing appeared, it floated up and pointed a hand.

"Psychic Burst!"

Chu Cheng’s head jerked back as though struck by a hammer. A -200 damage number floated up over him, and for an instant his mind went blank.

When he recovered, a negative status effect, Psychic Whip, was already hanging on him. Even after his talent absorbed one hundred points, it could still deal around twenty psychic damage per second.

Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at the translucent panel by his vision. Every second, information about an Will save would slide past, but regrettably his Will was too low to fully resist it.

Chu Cheng swiftly took out the Precise Heart-Piercer and loosed an arrow at the floating mind flayer. The mind flayer waved a hand lightly, and the arrow veered aside, flying past it by a hair.

"What the hell?"

He checked the panel at the edge of his vision. It showed that the arrow’s angle had been twisted by psychic guidance.