Chapter 23: Killing Elite Monsters
He didn't speak but he chatted a bit with them before he left. I didn't need to ask him about his plan as I already figured everything out.
He would go to retrieve these equipment that we had stacked before and sell them. He was right about selling them now as the mainstream players level is around level 3.
They needed level 5 and lower equipment badly. If we didn't get rid of these pieces of equipment now they would depreciate and we would lose a lot of our money. I looked at the others and said in a non-questionable tone:
"From now on you will follow my lead and do as I say. If I told you to move forward you go forward at once. If I told you to retreat you would go back immediately. Do you understand?"
"Yes Agatha."
"Good. Then follow me, we have a long list of monsters to kill."
It wasn't my first time to lead soldiers to battle. The only difference was they weren't soldiers but players. I led them while they spoke with each other while I kept my vigilance.
It wasn't easy for me to trust any stranger. We reached the place of the second monster which was like a leopard. I used my observation skill at once and shared that monster info to the rest of the team:
"Hapord Elite monster: Elite monster level 5. Common class monster. HP: 15181518"
"Wow, it has a lot of HP."
I looked at them and then said loudly:
"The monsters of this grade are all pieces of cake to me. For the next few monsters I will deal with the monsters myself.
My output is enough to deplete their HP in a few seconds."
"Then what will we do?"
I looked at that wizard named heda and said:
"You will try to use your skills in a different rhythm.
Take this as a chance to hone your own skills and get familiar with each other's skills and develop a team tactic between each other. Your responsibility is only this."
"But what formation are we going to use? The most basic formation is for a tank like me to be in the front lines."
"Don't get my words wrong Grendy, but the tank is the one with the highest defense and can sustain the longest in front of monster attacks.
You can play well but compared to me you are still a newbie. Your main goal now is to develop a tacit understanding between yourselves and leave the rest to me."
They looked strangely at each other but I didn't care. As their leader I need to make up for their deficiencies.
Shin was trying to help me based on his previous theory. I couldn't argue with that. But I used to lead Elite war teams back in my kingdom. I wouldn't accept just anybody here.
"I will start now, get ready in formation.
Penta aux skill
Strength aux skill.
Tempest of lightning skill.
Triple thrush skill
Stab
Stab
Stab
Stab"
A sudden burst of long rows of damage appeared over the head of the monster. In less than three seconds it was dead.
I looked back at them and saw their shock apparent on their faces and complained:
"You didn't move a finger and the monster was dead."
Goda took the responsibility again to defend his teammates saying:
"Your skills are too fast, too lethal. We couldn't even raise a finger."
I knew he was right, but in wars the strongest team wasn't always the winning team. The fastest team always won. This was a crucial element of war.
Like surprise, the speed of your attack is very important. This speed didn't come easily. They needed a lot of training and a lot of pressure.
I had this experience in training a very fast attack team. I didn't believe in defense at all. Attack was the best defense. Even this defender I would turn him into a lethal weapon.
"That is not an excuse. If you die, you will lose a level. You will soon know that raising a level takes a lot of effort and time.
You lose one level means our team gets weaker. It's not your own matter to choose something that will affect us all. You need to be part of my team.
I will always deal with monsters in this rapid way. Try to keep up."
I didn't look at them again. I went forward to collect the drops.
Like the previous monster, it gave us three pieces of equipment and 100 copper coins. I observed these pieces of equipment. Again my luck was bad.
There was a helmet for the swordsman class that went to that mini leader Goda. The second equipment went to Heda as it was copper grade staff with some decent stat.
Any stat at this stage of the game is a decent stat. The last piece of equipment went to Snad the archer. It was a bow with a decent stat too.
The money I kept and then I used the collecting skills on this monster. It gave me three bones, one tooth and one stack of hair.
Their info was exact to the previous monster materials. While the body of this monster vanished I thought of Shin words.
He wasn't lying about his advice to me and I trust him. If so, I needed to pay more attention to these materials. I remembered my mining and gathering skills.
The place we are now was full of trees. I couldn't find any ore or herbs. I looked at the three happy players and felt satisfied.
Any team strength is based mainly on their teamwork. Teamwork is based mainly on understanding each other. To understand each other we need first to develop trust in the team.
The morale of the team was one of the difficult factors to achieve, and one of the important factors to develop trust. Who would trust a losing team?
"Let's go. Try to keep up. You are still at level three. You need around 60k XP. That would take a long time to do. Try to keep up with my attack speed."
They just looked at each other in silence. I was used to this attitude especially for rookies. I didn't add any other word and then I moved to the next monster location.
We kept this routine and gradually I decreased the rate of my skills. But I always finish the monsters in ten seconds. In the beginning I waited for my Tempest skill to CD.
I achieved that by going for far monsters. But with time, the team developed some way of shaping their attack pattern.
I didn't know if there was something like this at this game, but if it's not there I will name it: AP. I missed that irritating cool swordsman.
He sometimes would add some good comments about things I didn't know before. Six hours had passed without knowing and we managed to kill over 20 Elite monsters.
Most of them were killed in the last two hours. I began to know what Shin was referring to before, as I felt some ease with these players adding some damage to this monster.
I was lucky that I could kill it within 10 seconds. If not, I would be fighting with my strongest skills in CD for minutes. These 20 monsters gave me over 450 XP.
It was like a drop in the ocean for me and them. If we were killing normal monsters we would have gained much more XP.
But I got so much material and was lucky to get myself two decent pieces of equipment. I didn't know why, but the drop rate of my class was extremely low.
"Montar armor: copper grade armor. Spearman class only. Strength +5, Defense +10."
"Lenteme arm guard: copper grade arm guard. Spearman class only. Strength+10, defense+10"
So my stat grew by 15 points in Strength and 20 points in Defense. That meant I gained nearly 100% attack effect from just these two pieces.
What if I changed my spear and was equipped with more items? I felt excited by that idea.
"Where are you now?"