NOVEL NEXT Chapter 48 : Epic Item
LadyFlame knew Nash best among the crew.
She also knew that he was strong and understood the level of his strength, but then she did not believe he was this strong.
A clearer look at him and she realised why it looked like he was beyond what she remembered in terms of strength,
This realisation came from noticing the frost dagger.
She watched as flame pumpkins burst into pixels after Nash killed them one after the other.
The two healers gasped as they watched, firsthand, what Nash was capable of, almost as if their breathing ceased afterwards.
LadyFlame looked at them and scoffed, proud that they have been captivated despite trash talking a while ago.
"What are you surprised about?" she asked. "We did tell you after all."
Gurama turned to the female player, saying nothing as he shifted his attention to the assassin and how he moved.
'It's not just his strength,' Gurama thought, analysing the situation he was witnessing. 'It's that weapon in his hand.'
Gurama was able to guess that the Frost Dagger was partly the reason Nash could deal such a level of damage in one or two attacks but that was not all.
Because he did not know anything about Null's existence, his calculation felt like it was missing an important piece and yet Gurama couldn't fill it up with anything.
Nash's attack alone, with the frost dagger, dealt more than 50 points of damage. When combined with Null, who practically doubled it for him, the numbers were unfathomable for a level 4 player.
"How are you doing this?!" Gurama daringly asked, unable to hold it in again.
He really wanted to know and calculating it on his own was starting to give him a headache.
"It's a rare-ranked blade," Nash answered him to clear the air, not wanting to give out any information beyond that.
Unfortunately, Gurama could already guess that it was either a rare-ranked item or an epic one.
"Tch!" the healer gritted his teeth.
Nash cut through all the flame pumpkins like a sharp knife through onions as he dealt with them quickly and approached the rock giant, who was the final boss of the [Fiery Marsh] dungeon.
Nash estimated that the improved stats of the final boss would be nerve-wracking, putting it somewhere between 500 and 1000 just to be safe.
"Five to ten successive strikes," he muttered to himself, "that's what should be able to do it or a bit more."
Nash decided to go full power and work with combining his skills in different ways.
If he was able to get the combinations, he could consistently attack with a power above 100 for a time.
Only then could he successfully deal with the final boss.
[Dash] + [Stun Strike]
Nash vanished in a second, his frost dagger cutting clean through the leg of the rock giant as he followed with a similar attack on the second leg.
His tactic was simple — disable the monster and leave it crippled.
Nash had fought this creature before and knew that allowing it to use its legs was like playing games with death.
He wanted to shoot off every possibility of that shockwave jump happening.
Attack power : 198!
(Base + Stun Strike + Frost dagger attack boost = 28 + 42 + 29 = 99)
(Nash's stats are doubled because of Null = 99 x 2 = 198 attack power!)
Agility : 108!
(Base + Dash = 18 + 36 = 54)
(Doubled because of Null's help = 54 x 2 = 108!)
Nash's stats were clearly unfathomable to anyone who did not understand his character.
The dungeon boss fell to its knees and Nash quickly seized the opportunity to continue to attack, even using [Thrust] to boost his base attack power by another 50%, taking it to over 200!
With the flurry of successive attacks, the boss' HP quickly dropped down to zero.
Gurama and the rest, even though they had witnessed Nash fight, were astonished.
"Damn! Assassins are indeed awesome."
"Maybe I should have gone for assassin class instead of a mage."
"I don't think it's about the class, man," another added to the conversation. "At this point, I think it's about the person in question."
"Do you think you'd be as good as him?"
Seeing Nash's skill, someone developed the thought of starting all over again but as assassins.
However, it was not necessary about the class one chose as they were other assassin class players like Nash but he stood out.
Apex Online was set up in a way where every class is balanced and as long as one dedicated their time and was willing to spend some money, they could all be as good.
******
Nash wanted to farm the dungeon a little longer now that he knew that he could do it. After all, he wanted to level up to 5 and what better way to do it.
Besides that, Nash also knew that Fiery Marsh at this difficulty had a chance of granting an epic rank item when it was cleared and that was another thing he was gunning for.
Nash did not know what type of item he would get or if he would even get it but there was no harm in trying to do so.
Nash took the team in once again, leaving the new healers confused as to why they were going in again, which was explained to them by the other fire mages.
Nash needed Gurama and his counterpart to replenish his HP quickly if it ever got low and despite being as strong as he was right now, he didn't want to take the risk of entering Fiery Marsh without one.
Nash took them through a loop of dungeon clearing as they continued on and on until it was night, yet Nash did not want to stop unless he saw what item it was.
After a couple of tries, common items dropped left and right but only one epic item finally appeared just like he thought.
Seeing the item, Nash was not pleased because reading through its description, it was not a weapon meant for him.
It was a longsword, one with a fire attribute.
…
[Fire Sword]
Rank : Epic
Level : 4
Perks : +44 Attack, +9 Strength, Fire attribute
[Note : requires the special "Magic Swordsman" class to use]