CHAPTER 4: IRON GEMINI
CHAPTER 4: IRON GEMINI
Two days later...
We had continued the expedition until just before the eighth floor boss. I’d heard that Maeda, Yano, and the rest of the class were on the ninth. Just a little bit more and we’d be caught up, so we decided to challenge the eighth floor boss immediately.
We found the route to the ninth floor, along with the boss guarding it, but there was one problem.
“Oh, this floor has two bosses.”
“Well, that’s new.”
The crown-marked floor boss was actually a duo of monsters, dubbed Iron Gemini. They sat protecting the magic circle that would activate the path to the next floor. They were both level 18 giant golems that seemed to be metallic. As for us, we were level 17.
“If it were only one, I could take it down with the usual Dead End routine. Darn shame.”
That was how we’d dealt with all of the previous floors. My one-shot wonder symbologist loadout was devilishly strong against single enemies, but for everyday grinding, I usually needed to party up.
Once I’ve burned my once-a-battle art, and with it my Dead End combo, it’s over; I’m left with my questionable-at-best support magic. In the worst of situations, I’m the worst. In the best of situations, I’m the best. Whether I make the most of things or throw in the towel is up to me, so it’s all in good fun. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
“You should be able to one-shot one of them with Dead End, right?”
“If I couldn’t, I’d be at a dead end myself.”
“Then that takes care of one of them. As for the other... I could solo him for five minutes until your—no, wait, you can only use it once per battle.”
“Pretty much. I can support from the back, but it’s up to you from there.”
“Looks like it. But hey, how about we give it a try? If it doesn’t work out, we’ll try thinking of something else!”
We dismounted from the dragon. It chirped once, as if thanking us for our patronage, before turning to head back to the city. If you get off of it just once, then that’s it, huh? I wish I had my own personal dragon.
“O-Okay... All set! I’m good to go when you are!”
Akira had changed out of her school uniform and into her sword dancer gear. She had bought this costume on the seventh floor, but of course a lot of it was skin-colored, so she was still plenty embarrassed.
“Good to see that you’re still basically naked. Thank you, man in the sky.”
“Don’t act like you’re thanking God! Don’t look at me, either! Eyes on the enemy!”
“Fine, fine. You stay at a distance and focus fire on one of them. There are two, sure, but I’ll kill the full-health one. Then I’ll move to support you.”
“Got it.”
We approached the floor bosses, but only close enough that Skyfall’s waves would reach them. This happened to be just outside of their detection range, meaning we could get the first strike.
“Here goes!”
“Do it!”
At my nod, Akira unsheathed Skyfall and pointed it toward the sky. “Let’s goooo!”
Shockwaves emitted from the tip of her sword as it struck the earth. It only worked at full health, just like the boss from the airship event. The shockwaves quickly traveled through the ground, approaching one of the Iron Gemini. Once the boss took damage, the twins both aggroed and charged toward us. Akira continued firing off shockwaves until they got too close to safely use it, at which point one twin had already lost around a quarter of its health. The effect was incredibly convenient—I guess that’s what goes into such a rare item.
When the bosses were close enough, they simultaneously punched at Akira with their iron fists. She skillfully parried both attacks, but she was damaged by their guardbreak. She would have been steamrolled at that rate, but it was my turn to step in next.
“It’s all you, Ren!”
“Leave it to me! Tremble, monsters, at my impeccable batting prowess!” I turned my staff toward the full-HP boss and began to cast Enfeebling Circle at my feet.
“Wow! I approve of the smack talk!”
My magic circle extended all the way to Akira. As per usual, I emptied my MP bar. And we’re ready to rock!
“Ultimate ability, Dead End!”
Slaaaaaaaash!
The usual demonic flash, followed by the boss’s HP bar falling... but not all the way.
“Huh? It’s still alive?!”
At that point, my HP was at 1, and I was unarmed, to boot. This is really bad!
The metal golem, heavily damaged by the might of my ultimate, stumbled backwards. Maybe I should take a swig of an HP potion? But potions have a long wind-up time, so it’s tricky to use them when my HP is dangerously low and I have aggro. There was a high possibility I’d get hit before I finished drinking, leading to me eating dirt.
There’s a talent called Medicinology that reduces the wind-up time, but of course, I don’t have that one. There are also Prayer potions that I could use when the enemy is stunned for an ample duration of time... but that would rely on luck.
Akira should be keeping an eye on my HP. For now, I can leave it to her and run away in order to buy some time...
But just as I was pondering my next move, my HP was suddenly restored.
“Hang in there, Ren!”
Akira had activated her Healing Dance, a sword dancer skill with an AP cost of 30. As the name implies, it heals. By the way, while the dance is active, the player avatar does little twirls. It was pretty darn cute. Well done, Akira! She really did react fast! The moment I was hurting for health, she was already working on helping me out.
After she finished healing me, Akira wasted no time in dashing for the twin at low health. The boss had finally recovered from its stun and began to move toward me. I leapt away from him, but his approach speed was much faster than my jumps.
Motions for evasion and other such actions are closer to your actual input. But in terms of actually attacking the enemy, the game’s semi-automatic motion system corrects your movement so that you’re always facing the enemy. Some attacks have wind-up animations or leave the enemy vulnerable, so these can be dodged. But there are also attacks that follow the target, so even if you see them coming and try to dodge, they’ll usually hit you anyway.
On the flipside, those attacks have less guardbreak power, so you’re better off guarding in that situation.
In short, there are attacks that you can dodge, while the others you can only guard. I figured it would be difficult to evade his short-range punches while he pursued me.
Ren receives 20 damage (guarded) from Iron Gemini’s attack!
I continued to guard, taking his second attack. Eventually, my HP dipped into the single digits... but then, Akira activated her art. It was just as I had planned in my head.
“Hawk Strike!”
This art began with a powerful leap, ending with a direct downward stab into the enemy’s head. It was a direct hit, shaving off the rest of the low-HP boss’s life. She followed-up perfectly.
“Whew, good stuff! Thank you!”
“No problem!” Akira grinned broadly before focusing on the other boss.
Naturally, Akira was highly skilled at MMOs, but she also had a powerful boon in the Breath of Ares talent. Thanks to that talent, she started the battle at a full 300 AP. This allowed her to both heal me and clean up the boss from the outset. To top it all off, she had the incredible Skyfall weapon at her disposal.
Akira continued to attack, casting Healing Dance on herself along the way to keep her HP topped off. With her HP maxed, each shockwave emitted by Skyfall effectively doubled her attack power. It was somewhat of a burden to heal herself every time she got hit, but she was also getting hit less and less often since she’d gotten used to the enemy’s attack animations. She’d guard the short-range punches, but the two-fisted hammer slam was slow and telegraphed, so she dodged it.
She couldn’t possibly fail at this point. I should know, having played so many games with her in the past. She wasn’t just a lover of sightseeing—she also lived for intense action. That’s just how my bestie was. She was there when you needed her.
I monitored the situation between casting circles. The AP she used for HP maintenance and the AP she gained from attacking were starting to reach equilibrium. In fact, she actually seemed to be gaining AP! At this rate, she ought to be able to burn him down. Normally, floor bosses would take six to ten people to beat. And she was about to do it all alone! Impressive.
The boss’s HP fell to 50%... 40%... 30%! Could she do it?! But at this point, the boss prepared for an attack that we hadn’t seen yet. It appeared in my log as such:
Iron Gemini prepares to unleash Blaster Knuckle!
That must have been the boss’s art. He began to toss out a powerful punch, but then... his fist detached! Not only that, but it changed directions to follow Akira, like a guided missile!
“Whoa! Aaaah!”
Caught by surprise, she took the full brunt of the attack. And it did a ton of damage! A whole 70% of her health bar had disappeared.
“Akira!”
“I’m still going, don’t worry! I just gotta heal—”
With 140 AP remaining, she attempted to start her Healing Dance animation—but she couldn’t.
“Uh, what the heck?! I can’t move!” Akira’s movement halted midway.
When I looked at her status icon, I realized she was paralyzed. As it turned out, that was a secondary effect of the boss’s art. Paralysis has a chance of completely stopping any of the afflicted target’s actions.
“Akira! You’re paralyzed!”
“Paralyzed? Fine, I’ll just try again!”
This time, it worked—she was healed. That was all well and good, but when a player’s dance is canceled mid-cast by paralysis, she’ll still lose AP. That meant her AP balance was worse-off, which in turn meant she might not be able to top off her HP.
The boss continued its attacks. Akira tried to fight back as best she could, but her attacks and dances were gradually thwarted by paralysis. She was dealing damage much slower than before. Eventually, she didn’t even have enough AP to dance.
Akira fell to 30% HP again, with only 20 AP to spare. She’d go down at this rate. I immediately opened my item window and started to craft a particular item. The ingredients: oak staff and bronze sword. The result: a Canesword.
Normally, a player can’t start their craft animation in the middle of combat, but thanks to the talent Efficiency I was able to skip the animation altogether, going straight to the result and bypassing the restriction.
I started and finished crafting immediately. Then, I equipped my Canesword and dashed over to the Iron Gemini. Twisting off the cap of my Canesword, I activated Quickdraw!
Thanks to my single-digit HP, my art dealt massive damage. With a flash of my blade, I reduced the boss’s remaining health to zero. He began to stagger heavily before shattering to pieces and disappearing.
“Woohoo! We really did it!”
“Whaaa?! Hey now, wait a sec!” Akira seemed unsatisfied, despite our victory.
“Hmm?”
“You can only activate hidden weapon arts once per battle, right? Why’d you get to do it again after your first Dead End?!”
“Ahh, a fine question, my pupil! It has to do with how the game’s internal systems handle the ‘once per battle’ condition.”
I loved to investigate how game mechanics worked and then take full advantage of each little quirk. Since she asked, I was glad to give an explanation!
“Oh, you can skip all the boring math stuff. You always get stuck on it for so long. I’ll take the condensed version, good sir!”
“Tch. Well, that’s good enough. So, let’s say I have hidden weapon A and hidden weapon B.”
“Right.”
“So, I’ve used the art with hidden weapon A. At this point, we can assume—but only assume—that the ‘already used’ flag has been raised for both hidden weapons, A and B.”
“Go on.”
“But what if I obtained a new weapon, hidden weapon C, in the middle of the battle? From what I can tell, that flag hasn’t been raised for the new weapon. Therefore, I can use it again.” Essentially, the “arts unusable“ flag is set on a per-item basis.
“Wait... so you obtained a weapon C, then? I thought you couldn’t craft mid-battle.”
“With the Efficiency talent equipped, I can bypass that restriction.”
“Whaaaat?! Seriously?! So it is useful, then! It lets you slip right through the ‘arts unusable’ flag!”
“Yes, that’s right. Canesword has the OEX designation, so I can only make a new one if I break it with Final Strike. So of course, the first thing to do is to break it. It’s pretty much throwing money away.”
The weapon is broken with every ultimate, so it takes a lot of materials to make, therefore people call it throwing money away. To keep up with this playstyle, one has to stock up on hidden weapon ingredients. But I’ve got plenty of funds to keep me going, since I stockpiled for the entire first month I played. Fundraising will probably be a major hurdle down the road, though.
“Wowwww, I can’t even tell if that sounds more like a bug or a feature! Good work figuring it out, though.”
“I’ve had plenty of time for experimentation.” I happened to notice it while I was trying out a bunch of combos with my good buddies, the island bunnies. As it turns out, play is a driver of innovation.
“How many island bunnies have been sacrificed for the sake of progress?”
“Heheh... If this weren’t a video game, I probably would’ve driven them to extinction. But either way, I believe in going above and beyond.”
“So as long as your skills are off cooldown, you can use your ultimate again?”
“Yep. I also could’ve done it if I used my Remedy of Murgleis, but I cheaped out and just used Quickdraw instead.”
Akira lit up and raised her hand in response. “I get it! That’s why you wanted me to be a sword dancer! You wanted me to learn Sword Samba!”
Akira was referring to a level 22 sword dancer skill. It had the same effect as Remedy of Murgleis, taking all of the target’s skills off cooldown. This effect costed 200 AP.
“Yep! Now you get me.”
The once-a-battle limitation of hidden weapon arts can be subverted by breaking and recrafting the weapon. As long as my cooldowns can be cut short, I can use my entire ultimate twice in the same battle. And for that purpose, sword dancer has a skill that ends all cooldowns in an instant. With the ability to use my ultimate twice, I could effectively double my burst damage. When I figured out that sword dancer was so synergistic with this strategy, I couldn’t let that opportunity slip by.
“Neat! I finally get it! You really weren’t trying to ogle me!”
“See, I told you that wasn’t the point.”
“But you’re always staring at me when I wear these costumes.” She looked at me reproachfully.
“Honestly, I just picked it for the synergy. But if I get to enjoy such a beautiful sight as a bonus, can you really blame me?”
“Ugh. If this were any other online game, I wouldn’t care if you messed with the camera angles and looked up this character’s skirt or something.”
“Hah! I remember when we did that.” Everyone in EF would do that to a popular NPC, Magical Girl Melolin. “Thinking back on it, I gotta apologize. I thought for sure you were a guy.”
“I thought it was pretty dumb, but maybe it was valuable experience; it taught me the truth about boys. But in this game, it just makes me feel like I’m being ogled at! It’s so humiliating!”
“Don’t worry so much. It looks good on you, and it’s cute. What’s the issue?”
“Jeez... At least we’re friends, so I don’t mind if you look at me.”
“But hey, great job in that boss fight. Nobody else could have done that much damage solo! You got used to evading his hits in no time too. I see you’re showing off your twitch action skills.”
“Aww, I don’t wanna hear that from you.” She forced a smile and I cocked my head in response. “If I’m so good at twitch action, who was it, exactly, that chunked the boss for nearly 80%?”
“Oh, forget about that part! You looked flawless to me.”
“C’mon. If you were the sword dancer, you’d have been able to do it all yourself.”
“Me, a sword dancer? In that getup? Nah, even I have standards.”
“Rude! So you’re just gonna make me do it?!” She got in a bit of a huff.
“I don’t think anyone deserves the mental image of me wearing that. Anyway, let’s look through our loot.”
“Oh, yeah! What’d we get?”
“Ooh, we got six whole Iron Ingots!”
“Just materials? Lame. I wanted gear.” Akira may have been disappointed, but I was intensely excited.
“No, this could be really big. Do you think they drop this every time?”
“Who knows?”
“All right. Let’s wait for them to respawn so we can farm more.”
“What?! Why not just go to the next floor?”
“If we can get six of these every time, we’ll hit the jackpot. My Canesword has a lame bronze sword inside, but I’m thinking I want to upgrade it to an iron sword. That’s gonna require a lot of Iron Ingots. Besides, we’ll get fixed EXP between us, so this is good for level grinding too. Let’s keep this up until we hit level 22!”
I was hoping to find a good place to grind levels until she got Sword Samba at level 22. Once we reached that point, Akira and I would unlock our full potential as a duo. Collecting ingots for the iron sword upgrade would kill two birds with one stone.
“If the boss’s respawn time is long, or if we don’t get as many ingots as I expected, then I’ll reconsider. But we should at least give it a shot. My gamer spirit demands that I test everything I can!”
“Oh, there it is. Your silly obsession with testing everything.”
“C’mon. Let’s just wait for them to respawn, and we’ll kill them one more time. Cool?”
“Suuuure, that’s fine. Let’s take a breather while we wait for it then.”
Akira sat lightly atop a fallen rock nearby. I used my foot to draw a memo at the base of the rock in order to mark the current time. This would let me count the time until the bosses respawned.
“Hey, Akira. Do you mind if I grab these ingots?”
“Nah. Go for it.”
“Thanks!”
I opened the system menu and unequipped Efficiency. From there, I opened the crafting menu and began to craft an iron sword with four iron ingots. With Efficiency equipped, I wouldn’t gain crafting skill from this. It’s a little annoying to remove it every time, but that’s just part of the process, I guess.
I activated the Simple Forge toolset. I began the process by melting the ingots and re-molding them. My hammer struck the metal over and over until it assumed the shape of a sword.
These manual controls make the smithing experience all the more realistic. In fact, if you mess up too much, you fail the crafting attempt and lose your ingredients. But if you do well, you can actually make flawless items.
Tink, tink, tink. Tink, tink, tink. The sound repeated over and over...
Abruptly, Akira’s face appeared right in front of mine, interrupting my work. She was making one heck of a strange face.
“Buh?! H-H-Hey, watch it! ... Gah, I missed!” The metal rang sharply as my ingot was crushed to bits. Crafting failed...
“Uh, Akira?”
“Ahahaha! Sorry, I was bored.” I can’t really get mad at her; I’ve always known she was a bit of a mischief maker. “Mmm, they still haven’t respawned.”
“It’s only been a minute.”
“Ooh! This is a prime opportunity.”
I opened my own status window. I then clicked the LUB—Level-Up Bonus—button to look at my distribution.
With each level-up, your LUB increases, allowing you to freely increase any of your stats. They’re meant to be distributed, but I hadn’t spent any of mine yet. I was currently sitting at 64 LUB. My current stats:
STR 30
VIT 33
DEX 35
AGI 41
INT 72
MND 60
CHR 49
Typical of a back-line class, my stats leaned toward INT and MND. Meanwhile, my physical stats were very, very lacking.
“You gonna boost your stats? I haven’t spent any of mine, either.”
“Yeah, I couldn’t finish him in one shot so I’m thinking about it. Maybe this will make all the difference. By the way, Akira, how are your stats looking?”
“Oh, me? Take a look.”
This time, I focused on Akira’s status window.
STR 52
VIT 44
DEX 61
AGI 63
INT 37
MND 42
CHR 74
Her DEX, AGI, and CHR were the highest. DEX is an essential stat for front-line melee fighters. AGI, meanwhile, affects movement speed and evasiveness, so it’s very useful to have. As for CHR, the amount of healing from her dances is based on that stat. The devs must be implying that cuteness is justice.
On the other hand, her STR was mediocre, since her class wasn’t that STR-focused. Her VIT was on the low side for a front-line class, meaning she’d take a lot of guardbreak damage if she got hit. Really, apart from her CHR being a bit higher than usual, she fell into the light infantry stereotype.
Now, as for where should I put my LUB... there was really only one choice. I went ahead and moved the slider to put all 64 points in VIT.
“Wha?! Wait! Wait, wait, seriously? Are you sure?!” Akira, flabbergasted, moved to stop me.
“Hmm? What’s wrong with VIT?”
“VIT is like, symbologist’s worst dump stat! Why wouldn’t I stop you from wasting all your points on it?!”
“Did you forget that I’m trying to make it a one-shot wonder?”
“Shouldn’t you put it all into STR or DEX, then?”
“Well, STR would increase my physical damage and guardbreak, and DEX would increase my critical and hit rate.”
Regarding guardbreak: the attacker’s weapon’s guardbreak stat is added to their STR, while the defender’s weapon or shield’s poise stat is added to their VIT. Guardbreak happens when the former result is higher than the latter.
Guardbreak and poise are higher for two-handed swords and axes. Of course, shields have the highest poise.
Evasion happens more often when the defender’s AGI is higher than the attacker’s DEX. If you can boost your AGI a lot, it’s possible to evade most attacks that come your way. As a result, players that rely heavily on weapons shouldn’t neglect raising their DEX as well.
Both STR and DEX are essential for the physical attacker. Finding the right balance is an eternal source of frustration for many.
“Exactly! Both are important for attackers.”
“But I won’t be using any normal attacks. I’ll just be using arts and ultimates, and since my arts can’t be evaded, my hit rate doesn’t matter at all. But VIT dictates my max HP! And the higher my max HP, the more damage Quickdraw does at 1 HP.”
“Huh? So you’re never going to use normal attacks?”
“Staves suck for attacking, anyway. There’s no point in wasting points on them.”
“What about using your Canesword’s blade, then?”
“If I use that, I can’t Quickdraw. Can’t reveal my hand to the enemy, after all.” Hidden weapons are all about catching the enemy by surprise, so... you get it by now.
“Really?”
“Besides, unsheathing the blade would leave me worse off. I don’t have any sword arts, and since symbologist has a low affinity for swords, all of my attacks would miss. If I really wanted to, I could equip a Master’s Scroll for one-handed sword and raise my DEX a bit, but... see where this is going?”
“Yeah, I get it. If you were gonna go that far, you might as well just use a normal sword.”
“Yep. And if I tried to use both parts of the Canesword, smacking enemies with the staff and waiting for my chance to use Quickdraw, I’d be doing less damage than I would with a regular sword. It would essentially defeat the purpose of it. And even worse, symbologist’s base stats are way too bad for a front-line class, so I might as well have just picked a different class.”
“Truly, the Canesword is a harsh mistress.”
“Agreed. Honestly, I think a Symbologist with his HP reduced to 1 with Turnover is the only one who can really use it properly... then if that symbologist winds up giving up and uses it in some half-baked way instead, the weapon becomes useless anyway. It’s all about how much you can optimize your use of Quickdraw and Dead End, which can’t even be dodged anyway; you’re guaranteed a hit as long as you make the right motions. Being a half-baked generalist is missing the point; I need to devote myself wholeheartedly to becoming a one-trick specialist!”
As I spoke passionately at length, a grin spread over Akira’s face.
“What’s got you so happy?” I started to get a little nervous from the way she stared at me.
“Ah, it’s just... whenever we played games before, I could never really see the emotions behind the chat window. I never realized you looked like this when you talked about this stuff.”
“Then what do I look like?”
“You look really content! It’s kinda cute.” She poked my cheeks.
“Cut it out! You’re gonna make me blush.”
“Aww, what’s the problem? You’re always doing the same thing to me.”
“Hey now! You’ll ruin my reputation if you tell people that.”
“Heheh. Now, back on topic: would increasing VIT over STR increase your damage more?”
“I don’t expect a major difference in damage, but VIT has more applications for me, especially since it’ll make me better at guarding. Not to mention the HP increase. The worst thing that could happen to me is dying before unleashing my ultimate, so increasing my survivability is the best thing I can do. And it’d be a useful countermeasure if someone tries to take me down before I can fight back. So VIT is a two birds, one stone sort of deal.”
“Oh, yeah! Someone in PvP would try to kill you before your ultimate, wouldn’t they?”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
“I see! But just increasing your attack power seems like overkill, doesn’t it? Like, when you fought that guy from class B, you did way more damage than he had HP.”
“Fair point. But if you’re gonna shoot for a home run that requires 100 meters of distance, you might as well plan to hit for 500 meters, right?”
“I don’t recommend using those baseball analogies on anyone else, by the way. I only understand them because I know you so well.”
Sorry, it’s just a habit. Blame my parents.
“But anyway, that’s what I want. Sending it out of the park is cool and dramatic! If it’s a home run either way, the cooler, more dramatic home run gets people talking and makes a man popular... and that’s exactly what’ll help me shine light on the king of the Bummers. Remember what you said? Drama cannon!”
“You’re always so silly. But when you put it that way, VIT does seem like the optimal solution. Maybe your silliness is what helps you come up with these crazy ideas.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
As I thanked her, I threw all of my LUB into VIT. My VIT rose from 33 to 97. Woo, I was tankier than ever!
“Where are you planning to put your points, Akira?”
“Maybe DEX would be best, since my healing is based on AP. After all, if I can’t hit anyone, I can’t keep up my AP maintenance.” No sooner had she finished speaking than... “Oh, there’s the boss! How long was the respawn time?”
I checked the current time in my system menu. About five minutes had passed.
“Five minutes is pretty fast. This should make for efficient level-grinding too. Now watch this, Akira.”
I equipped Efficiency and crafted another Canesword. Then, I turned toward the newly-spawned Iron Gemini twins.
“Huh? What are you doing?”
“I want to test something. Join the fight when the timing seems right.”
I stepped into their aggro range, causing them both to run toward me. As they punched me, I raised my staff to defend.
Thunk. They didn’t guardbreak at all! All that VIT was already paying off! As long as I didn’t mess up my guards, I could get through this unscathed.
“All right, that does it! Let the battle commence!” I yelled out to Akira, who was standing far away.
After we defeated them a second time, we once again obtained six Iron Ingots. With my increased VIT, along with boosted max HP as a result, my ultimate did more damage. Enough to kill one of the twins with one shot, in fact.
This was quite the discovery for future grinding. There’s no point in just advancing up the floors—high-efficiency grinding spots must be thoroughly utilized. Thus, we aimed for level 22 and the ingots required for the upgraded Canesword, to be made from iron staves and iron swords. Once I used up all of the oak staves and bronze swords in my inventory, I would replace them with the aforementioned.
It was time to get our grind on! We chose this location as our temporary training ground.
Two days later...
We had continued the expedition until just before the eighth floor boss. I’d heard that Maeda, Yano, and the rest of the class were on the ninth. Just a little bit more and we’d be caught up, so we decided to challenge the eighth floor boss immediately.
We found the route to the ninth floor, along with the boss guarding it, but there was one problem.
“Oh, this floor has two bosses.”
“Well, that’s new.”
The crown-marked floor boss was actually a duo of monsters, dubbed Iron Gemini. They sat protecting the magic circle that would activate the path to the next floor. They were both level 18 giant golems that seemed to be metallic. As for us, we were level 17.
“If it were only one, I could take it down with the usual Dead End routine. Darn shame.”
That was how we’d dealt with all of the previous floors. My one-shot wonder symbologist loadout was devilishly strong against single enemies, but for everyday grinding, I usually needed to party up.
Once I’ve burned my once-a-battle art, and with it my Dead End combo, it’s over; I’m left with my questionable-at-best support magic. In the worst of situations, I’m the worst. In the best of situations, I’m the best. Whether I make the most of things or throw in the towel is up to me, so it’s all in good fun. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
“You should be able to one-shot one of them with Dead End, right?”
“If I couldn’t, I’d be at a dead end myself.”
“Then that takes care of one of them. As for the other... I could solo him for five minutes until your—no, wait, you can only use it once per battle.”
“Pretty much. I can support from the back, but it’s up to you from there.”
“Looks like it. But hey, how about we give it a try? If it doesn’t work out, we’ll try thinking of something else!”
We dismounted from the dragon. It chirped once, as if thanking us for our patronage, before turning to head back to the city. If you get off of it just once, then that’s it, huh? I wish I had my own personal dragon.
“O-Okay... All set! I’m good to go when you are!”
Akira had changed out of her school uniform and into her sword dancer gear. She had bought this costume on the seventh floor, but of course a lot of it was skin-colored, so she was still plenty embarrassed.
“Good to see that you’re still basically naked. Thank you, man in the sky.”
“Don’t act like you’re thanking God! Don’t look at me, either! Eyes on the enemy!”
“Fine, fine. You stay at a distance and focus fire on one of them. There are two, sure, but I’ll kill the full-health one. Then I’ll move to support you.”
“Got it.”
We approached the floor bosses, but only close enough that Skyfall’s waves would reach them. This happened to be just outside of their detection range, meaning we could get the first strike.
“Here goes!”
“Do it!”
At my nod, Akira unsheathed Skyfall and pointed it toward the sky. “Let’s goooo!”
Shockwaves emitted from the tip of her sword as it struck the earth. It only worked at full health, just like the boss from the airship event. The shockwaves quickly traveled through the ground, approaching one of the Iron Gemini. Once the boss took damage, the twins both aggroed and charged toward us. Akira continued firing off shockwaves until they got too close to safely use it, at which point one twin had already lost around a quarter of its health. The effect was incredibly convenient—I guess that’s what goes into such a rare item.
When the bosses were close enough, they simultaneously punched at Akira with their iron fists. She skillfully parried both attacks, but she was damaged by their guardbreak. She would have been steamrolled at that rate, but it was my turn to step in next.
“It’s all you, Ren!”
“Leave it to me! Tremble, monsters, at my impeccable batting prowess!” I turned my staff toward the full-HP boss and began to cast Enfeebling Circle at my feet.
“Wow! I approve of the smack talk!”
My magic circle extended all the way to Akira. As per usual, I emptied my MP bar. And we’re ready to rock!
“Ultimate ability, Dead End!”
Slaaaaaaaash!
The usual demonic flash, followed by the boss’s HP bar falling... but not all the way.
“Huh? It’s still alive?!”
At that point, my HP was at 1, and I was unarmed, to boot. This is really bad!
The metal golem, heavily damaged by the might of my ultimate, stumbled backwards. Maybe I should take a swig of an HP potion? But potions have a long wind-up time, so it’s tricky to use them when my HP is dangerously low and I have aggro. There was a high possibility I’d get hit before I finished drinking, leading to me eating dirt.
There’s a talent called Medicinology that reduces the wind-up time, but of course, I don’t have that one. There are also Prayer potions that I could use when the enemy is stunned for an ample duration of time... but that would rely on luck.
Akira should be keeping an eye on my HP. For now, I can leave it to her and run away in order to buy some time...
But just as I was pondering my next move, my HP was suddenly restored.
“Hang in there, Ren!”
Akira had activated her Healing Dance, a sword dancer skill with an AP cost of 30. As the name implies, it heals. By the way, while the dance is active, the player avatar does little twirls. It was pretty darn cute. Well done, Akira! She really did react fast! The moment I was hurting for health, she was already working on helping me out.
After she finished healing me, Akira wasted no time in dashing for the twin at low health. The boss had finally recovered from its stun and began to move toward me. I leapt away from him, but his approach speed was much faster than my jumps.
Motions for evasion and other such actions are closer to your actual input. But in terms of actually attacking the enemy, the game’s semi-automatic motion system corrects your movement so that you’re always facing the enemy. Some attacks have wind-up animations or leave the enemy vulnerable, so these can be dodged. But there are also attacks that follow the target, so even if you see them coming and try to dodge, they’ll usually hit you anyway.
On the flipside, those attacks have less guardbreak power, so you’re better off guarding in that situation.
In short, there are attacks that you can dodge, while the others you can only guard. I figured it would be difficult to evade his short-range punches while he pursued me.
Ren receives 20 damage (guarded) from Iron Gemini’s attack!
I continued to guard, taking his second attack. Eventually, my HP dipped into the single digits... but then, Akira activated her art. It was just as I had planned in my head.
“Hawk Strike!”
This art began with a powerful leap, ending with a direct downward stab into the enemy’s head. It was a direct hit, shaving off the rest of the low-HP boss’s life. She followed-up perfectly.
“Whew, good stuff! Thank you!”
“No problem!” Akira grinned broadly before focusing on the other boss.
Naturally, Akira was highly skilled at MMOs, but she also had a powerful boon in the Breath of Ares talent. Thanks to that talent, she started the battle at a full 300 AP. This allowed her to both heal me and clean up the boss from the outset. To top it all off, she had the incredible Skyfall weapon at her disposal.
Akira continued to attack, casting Healing Dance on herself along the way to keep her HP topped off. With her HP maxed, each shockwave emitted by Skyfall effectively doubled her attack power. It was somewhat of a burden to heal herself every time she got hit, but she was also getting hit less and less often since she’d gotten used to the enemy’s attack animations. She’d guard the short-range punches, but the two-fisted hammer slam was slow and telegraphed, so she dodged it.
She couldn’t possibly fail at this point. I should know, having played so many games with her in the past. She wasn’t just a lover of sightseeing—she also lived for intense action. That’s just how my bestie was. She was there when you needed her.
I monitored the situation between casting circles. The AP she used for HP maintenance and the AP she gained from attacking were starting to reach equilibrium. In fact, she actually seemed to be gaining AP! At this rate, she ought to be able to burn him down. Normally, floor bosses would take six to ten people to beat. And she was about to do it all alone! Impressive.
The boss’s HP fell to 50%... 40%... 30%! Could she do it?! But at this point, the boss prepared for an attack that we hadn’t seen yet. It appeared in my log as such:
Iron Gemini prepares to unleash Blaster Knuckle!
That must have been the boss’s art. He began to toss out a powerful punch, but then... his fist detached! Not only that, but it changed directions to follow Akira, like a guided missile!
“Whoa! Aaaah!”
Caught by surprise, she took the full brunt of the attack. And it did a ton of damage! A whole 70% of her health bar had disappeared.
“Akira!”
“I’m still going, don’t worry! I just gotta heal—”
With 140 AP remaining, she attempted to start her Healing Dance animation—but she couldn’t.
“Uh, what the heck?! I can’t move!” Akira’s movement halted midway.
When I looked at her status icon, I realized she was paralyzed. As it turned out, that was a secondary effect of the boss’s art. Paralysis has a chance of completely stopping any of the afflicted target’s actions.
“Akira! You’re paralyzed!”
“Paralyzed? Fine, I’ll just try again!”
This time, it worked—she was healed. That was all well and good, but when a player’s dance is canceled mid-cast by paralysis, she’ll still lose AP. That meant her AP balance was worse-off, which in turn meant she might not be able to top off her HP.
The boss continued its attacks. Akira tried to fight back as best she could, but her attacks and dances were gradually thwarted by paralysis. She was dealing damage much slower than before. Eventually, she didn’t even have enough AP to dance.
Akira fell to 30% HP again, with only 20 AP to spare. She’d go down at this rate. I immediately opened my item window and started to craft a particular item. The ingredients: oak staff and bronze sword. The result: a Canesword.
Normally, a player can’t start their craft animation in the middle of combat, but thanks to the talent Efficiency I was able to skip the animation altogether, going straight to the result and bypassing the restriction.
I started and finished crafting immediately. Then, I equipped my Canesword and dashed over to the Iron Gemini. Twisting off the cap of my Canesword, I activated Quickdraw!
Thanks to my single-digit HP, my art dealt massive damage. With a flash of my blade, I reduced the boss’s remaining health to zero. He began to stagger heavily before shattering to pieces and disappearing.
“Woohoo! We really did it!”
“Whaaa?! Hey now, wait a sec!” Akira seemed unsatisfied, despite our victory.
“Hmm?”
“You can only activate hidden weapon arts once per battle, right? Why’d you get to do it again after your first Dead End?!”
“Ahh, a fine question, my pupil! It has to do with how the game’s internal systems handle the ‘once per battle’ condition.”
I loved to investigate how game mechanics worked and then take full advantage of each little quirk. Since she asked, I was glad to give an explanation!
“Oh, you can skip all the boring math stuff. You always get stuck on it for so long. I’ll take the condensed version, good sir!”
“Tch. Well, that’s good enough. So, let’s say I have hidden weapon A and hidden weapon B.”
“Right.”
“So, I’ve used the art with hidden weapon A. At this point, we can assume—but only assume—that the ‘already used’ flag has been raised for both hidden weapons, A and B.”
“Go on.”
“But what if I obtained a new weapon, hidden weapon C, in the middle of the battle? From what I can tell, that flag hasn’t been raised for the new weapon. Therefore, I can use it again.” Essentially, the “arts unusable“ flag is set on a per-item basis.
“Wait... so you obtained a weapon C, then? I thought you couldn’t craft mid-battle.”
“With the Efficiency talent equipped, I can bypass that restriction.”
“Whaaaat?! Seriously?! So it is useful, then! It lets you slip right through the ‘arts unusable’ flag!”
“Yes, that’s right. Canesword has the OEX designation, so I can only make a new one if I break it with Final Strike. So of course, the first thing to do is to break it. It’s pretty much throwing money away.”
The weapon is broken with every ultimate, so it takes a lot of materials to make, therefore people call it throwing money away. To keep up with this playstyle, one has to stock up on hidden weapon ingredients. But I’ve got plenty of funds to keep me going, since I stockpiled for the entire first month I played. Fundraising will probably be a major hurdle down the road, though.
“Wowwww, I can’t even tell if that sounds more like a bug or a feature! Good work figuring it out, though.”
“I’ve had plenty of time for experimentation.” I happened to notice it while I was trying out a bunch of combos with my good buddies, the island bunnies. As it turns out, play is a driver of innovation.
“How many island bunnies have been sacrificed for the sake of progress?”
“Heheh... If this weren’t a video game, I probably would’ve driven them to extinction. But either way, I believe in going above and beyond.”
“So as long as your skills are off cooldown, you can use your ultimate again?”
“Yep. I also could’ve done it if I used my Remedy of Murgleis, but I cheaped out and just used Quickdraw instead.”
Akira lit up and raised her hand in response. “I get it! That’s why you wanted me to be a sword dancer! You wanted me to learn Sword Samba!”
Akira was referring to a level 22 sword dancer skill. It had the same effect as Remedy of Murgleis, taking all of the target’s skills off cooldown. This effect costed 200 AP.
“Yep! Now you get me.”
The once-a-battle limitation of hidden weapon arts can be subverted by breaking and recrafting the weapon. As long as my cooldowns can be cut short, I can use my entire ultimate twice in the same battle. And for that purpose, sword dancer has a skill that ends all cooldowns in an instant. With the ability to use my ultimate twice, I could effectively double my burst damage. When I figured out that sword dancer was so synergistic with this strategy, I couldn’t let that opportunity slip by.
“Neat! I finally get it! You really weren’t trying to ogle me!”
“See, I told you that wasn’t the point.”
“But you’re always staring at me when I wear these costumes.” She looked at me reproachfully.
“Honestly, I just picked it for the synergy. But if I get to enjoy such a beautiful sight as a bonus, can you really blame me?”
“Ugh. If this were any other online game, I wouldn’t care if you messed with the camera angles and looked up this character’s skirt or something.”
“Hah! I remember when we did that.” Everyone in EF would do that to a popular NPC, Magical Girl Melolin. “Thinking back on it, I gotta apologize. I thought for sure you were a guy.”
“I thought it was pretty dumb, but maybe it was valuable experience; it taught me the truth about boys. But in this game, it just makes me feel like I’m being ogled at! It’s so humiliating!”
“Don’t worry so much. It looks good on you, and it’s cute. What’s the issue?”
“Jeez... At least we’re friends, so I don’t mind if you look at me.”
“But hey, great job in that boss fight. Nobody else could have done that much damage solo! You got used to evading his hits in no time too. I see you’re showing off your twitch action skills.”
“Aww, I don’t wanna hear that from you.” She forced a smile and I cocked my head in response. “If I’m so good at twitch action, who was it, exactly, that chunked the boss for nearly 80%?”
“Oh, forget about that part! You looked flawless to me.”
“C’mon. If you were the sword dancer, you’d have been able to do it all yourself.”
“Me, a sword dancer? In that getup? Nah, even I have standards.”
“Rude! So you’re just gonna make me do it?!” She got in a bit of a huff.
“I don’t think anyone deserves the mental image of me wearing that. Anyway, let’s look through our loot.”
“Oh, yeah! What’d we get?”
“Ooh, we got six whole Iron Ingots!”
“Just materials? Lame. I wanted gear.” Akira may have been disappointed, but I was intensely excited.
“No, this could be really big. Do you think they drop this every time?”
“Who knows?”
“All right. Let’s wait for them to respawn so we can farm more.”
“What?! Why not just go to the next floor?”
“If we can get six of these every time, we’ll hit the jackpot. My Canesword has a lame bronze sword inside, but I’m thinking I want to upgrade it to an iron sword. That’s gonna require a lot of Iron Ingots. Besides, we’ll get fixed EXP between us, so this is good for level grinding too. Let’s keep this up until we hit level 22!”
I was hoping to find a good place to grind levels until she got Sword Samba at level 22. Once we reached that point, Akira and I would unlock our full potential as a duo. Collecting ingots for the iron sword upgrade would kill two birds with one stone.
“If the boss’s respawn time is long, or if we don’t get as many ingots as I expected, then I’ll reconsider. But we should at least give it a shot. My gamer spirit demands that I test everything I can!”
“Oh, there it is. Your silly obsession with testing everything.”
“C’mon. Let’s just wait for them to respawn, and we’ll kill them one more time. Cool?”
“Suuuure, that’s fine. Let’s take a breather while we wait for it then.”
Akira sat lightly atop a fallen rock nearby. I used my foot to draw a memo at the base of the rock in order to mark the current time. This would let me count the time until the bosses respawned.
“Hey, Akira. Do you mind if I grab these ingots?”
“Nah. Go for it.”
“Thanks!”
I opened the system menu and unequipped Efficiency. From there, I opened the crafting menu and began to craft an iron sword with four iron ingots. With Efficiency equipped, I wouldn’t gain crafting skill from this. It’s a little annoying to remove it every time, but that’s just part of the process, I guess.
I activated the Simple Forge toolset. I began the process by melting the ingots and re-molding them. My hammer struck the metal over and over until it assumed the shape of a sword.
These manual controls make the smithing experience all the more realistic. In fact, if you mess up too much, you fail the crafting attempt and lose your ingredients. But if you do well, you can actually make flawless items.
Tink, tink, tink. Tink, tink, tink. The sound repeated over and over...
Abruptly, Akira’s face appeared right in front of mine, interrupting my work. She was making one heck of a strange face.
“Buh?! H-H-Hey, watch it! ... Gah, I missed!” The metal rang sharply as my ingot was crushed to bits. Crafting failed...
“Uh, Akira?”
“Ahahaha! Sorry, I was bored.” I can’t really get mad at her; I’ve always known she was a bit of a mischief maker. “Mmm, they still haven’t respawned.”
“It’s only been a minute.”
“Ooh! This is a prime opportunity.”
I opened my own status window. I then clicked the LUB—Level-Up Bonus—button to look at my distribution.
With each level-up, your LUB increases, allowing you to freely increase any of your stats. They’re meant to be distributed, but I hadn’t spent any of mine yet. I was currently sitting at 64 LUB. My current stats:
STR 30
VIT 33
DEX 35
AGI 41
INT 72
MND 60
CHR 49
Typical of a back-line class, my stats leaned toward INT and MND. Meanwhile, my physical stats were very, very lacking.
“You gonna boost your stats? I haven’t spent any of mine, either.”
“Yeah, I couldn’t finish him in one shot so I’m thinking about it. Maybe this will make all the difference. By the way, Akira, how are your stats looking?”
“Oh, me? Take a look.”
This time, I focused on Akira’s status window.
STR 52
VIT 44
DEX 61
AGI 63
INT 37
MND 42
CHR 74
Her DEX, AGI, and CHR were the highest. DEX is an essential stat for front-line melee fighters. AGI, meanwhile, affects movement speed and evasiveness, so it’s very useful to have. As for CHR, the amount of healing from her dances is based on that stat. The devs must be implying that cuteness is justice.
On the other hand, her STR was mediocre, since her class wasn’t that STR-focused. Her VIT was on the low side for a front-line class, meaning she’d take a lot of guardbreak damage if she got hit. Really, apart from her CHR being a bit higher than usual, she fell into the light infantry stereotype.
Now, as for where should I put my LUB... there was really only one choice. I went ahead and moved the slider to put all 64 points in VIT.
“Wha?! Wait! Wait, wait, seriously? Are you sure?!” Akira, flabbergasted, moved to stop me.
“Hmm? What’s wrong with VIT?”
“VIT is like, symbologist’s worst dump stat! Why wouldn’t I stop you from wasting all your points on it?!”
“Did you forget that I’m trying to make it a one-shot wonder?”
“Shouldn’t you put it all into STR or DEX, then?”
“Well, STR would increase my physical damage and guardbreak, and DEX would increase my critical and hit rate.”
Regarding guardbreak: the attacker’s weapon’s guardbreak stat is added to their STR, while the defender’s weapon or shield’s poise stat is added to their VIT. Guardbreak happens when the former result is higher than the latter.
Guardbreak and poise are higher for two-handed swords and axes. Of course, shields have the highest poise.
Evasion happens more often when the defender’s AGI is higher than the attacker’s DEX. If you can boost your AGI a lot, it’s possible to evade most attacks that come your way. As a result, players that rely heavily on weapons shouldn’t neglect raising their DEX as well.
Both STR and DEX are essential for the physical attacker. Finding the right balance is an eternal source of frustration for many.
“Exactly! Both are important for attackers.”
“But I won’t be using any normal attacks. I’ll just be using arts and ultimates, and since my arts can’t be evaded, my hit rate doesn’t matter at all. But VIT dictates my max HP! And the higher my max HP, the more damage Quickdraw does at 1 HP.”
“Huh? So you’re never going to use normal attacks?”
“Staves suck for attacking, anyway. There’s no point in wasting points on them.”
“What about using your Canesword’s blade, then?”
“If I use that, I can’t Quickdraw. Can’t reveal my hand to the enemy, after all.” Hidden weapons are all about catching the enemy by surprise, so... you get it by now.
“Really?”
“Besides, unsheathing the blade would leave me worse off. I don’t have any sword arts, and since symbologist has a low affinity for swords, all of my attacks would miss. If I really wanted to, I could equip a Master’s Scroll for one-handed sword and raise my DEX a bit, but... see where this is going?”
“Yeah, I get it. If you were gonna go that far, you might as well just use a normal sword.”
“Yep. And if I tried to use both parts of the Canesword, smacking enemies with the staff and waiting for my chance to use Quickdraw, I’d be doing less damage than I would with a regular sword. It would essentially defeat the purpose of it. And even worse, symbologist’s base stats are way too bad for a front-line class, so I might as well have just picked a different class.”
“Truly, the Canesword is a harsh mistress.”
“Agreed. Honestly, I think a Symbologist with his HP reduced to 1 with Turnover is the only one who can really use it properly... then if that symbologist winds up giving up and uses it in some half-baked way instead, the weapon becomes useless anyway. It’s all about how much you can optimize your use of Quickdraw and Dead End, which can’t even be dodged anyway; you’re guaranteed a hit as long as you make the right motions. Being a half-baked generalist is missing the point; I need to devote myself wholeheartedly to becoming a one-trick specialist!”
As I spoke passionately at length, a grin spread over Akira’s face.
“What’s got you so happy?” I started to get a little nervous from the way she stared at me.
“Ah, it’s just... whenever we played games before, I could never really see the emotions behind the chat window. I never realized you looked like this when you talked about this stuff.”
“Then what do I look like?”
“You look really content! It’s kinda cute.” She poked my cheeks.
“Cut it out! You’re gonna make me blush.”
“Aww, what’s the problem? You’re always doing the same thing to me.”
“Hey now! You’ll ruin my reputation if you tell people that.”
“Heheh. Now, back on topic: would increasing VIT over STR increase your damage more?”
“I don’t expect a major difference in damage, but VIT has more applications for me, especially since it’ll make me better at guarding. Not to mention the HP increase. The worst thing that could happen to me is dying before unleashing my ultimate, so increasing my survivability is the best thing I can do. And it’d be a useful countermeasure if someone tries to take me down before I can fight back. So VIT is a two birds, one stone sort of deal.”
“Oh, yeah! Someone in PvP would try to kill you before your ultimate, wouldn’t they?”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
“I see! But just increasing your attack power seems like overkill, doesn’t it? Like, when you fought that guy from class B, you did way more damage than he had HP.”
“Fair point. But if you’re gonna shoot for a home run that requires 100 meters of distance, you might as well plan to hit for 500 meters, right?”
“I don’t recommend using those baseball analogies on anyone else, by the way. I only understand them because I know you so well.”
Sorry, it’s just a habit. Blame my parents.
“But anyway, that’s what I want. Sending it out of the park is cool and dramatic! If it’s a home run either way, the cooler, more dramatic home run gets people talking and makes a man popular... and that’s exactly what’ll help me shine light on the king of the Bummers. Remember what you said? Drama cannon!”
“You’re always so silly. But when you put it that way, VIT does seem like the optimal solution. Maybe your silliness is what helps you come up with these crazy ideas.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
As I thanked her, I threw all of my LUB into VIT. My VIT rose from 33 to 97. Woo, I was tankier than ever!
“Where are you planning to put your points, Akira?”
“Maybe DEX would be best, since my healing is based on AP. After all, if I can’t hit anyone, I can’t keep up my AP maintenance.” No sooner had she finished speaking than... “Oh, there’s the boss! How long was the respawn time?”
I checked the current time in my system menu. About five minutes had passed.
“Five minutes is pretty fast. This should make for efficient level-grinding too. Now watch this, Akira.”
I equipped Efficiency and crafted another Canesword. Then, I turned toward the newly-spawned Iron Gemini twins.
“Huh? What are you doing?”
“I want to test something. Join the fight when the timing seems right.”
I stepped into their aggro range, causing them both to run toward me. As they punched me, I raised my staff to defend.
Thunk. They didn’t guardbreak at all! All that VIT was already paying off! As long as I didn’t mess up my guards, I could get through this unscathed.
“All right, that does it! Let the battle commence!” I yelled out to Akira, who was standing far away.
After we defeated them a second time, we once again obtained six Iron Ingots. With my increased VIT, along with boosted max HP as a result, my ultimate did more damage. Enough to kill one of the twins with one shot, in fact.
This was quite the discovery for future grinding. There’s no point in just advancing up the floors—high-efficiency grinding spots must be thoroughly utilized. Thus, we aimed for level 22 and the ingots required for the upgraded Canesword, to be made from iron staves and iron swords. Once I used up all of the oak staves and bronze swords in my inventory, I would replace them with the aforementioned.
It was time to get our grind on! We chose this location as our temporary training ground.
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