Just as the Nymph King was about to fling the Redwood Tree at Shadow Sadwind and the others, Nie Fan had suddenly dived behind the beast.
It did not notice him at all, allowing Nie Fan to cast as many spells as he wanted.
His forward drive had reached an astonishing speed with his acceleration. The muscles in his body quivered in a harmonic rhythm before he burst out in full power while borrowing the momentum from his landing, Smiting down upon the Nymph King’s back.
With a loud bang, Nie Fan felt every strength from his body unleashed from his right paw.
It was the best single casting Nie Fan had ever managed: his strength was driven to the peak, a wondrous feeling that left his entire body shuddering. He now knew how he should cast that spell, and repeating that from now on would be definitely right.
The Nymph King’s entire body quivered once under the heavy blow, with a damage sign numbering over two hundred appearing over its head.
Still, uncertain if he had reached 100% skill completion rate, he quickly checked the system notification on his skill bar.
[System: 81% skill completion rate, 110% damage caused, 2.3 seconds Dizzy, 2 Chain points.]
Nie Fan frowned at the notification.
Just 81%? Could there be some other key to the skill that he didn’t grasp? It seems that Smite was not as simple as he thought it would be—that said, to deal 110% damage at only 81%, there’s no telling what effect there would be at 100% completion rate.
That was when he received another system notification.
[Your Smite skill has reached 81% completion rate. You have earned the title of Skilled Fighter.]
[Skilled Fighter: all melee skills level +1, +10% additional physical damage.]
Nie Fan was shocked by the notification. He didn’t expect that he could get a title at 81% completion rate, and the title certainly had fine buffs which adds a lot to his attack.
He checked the condition for the title, and found that it was ‘Increase completion rate of one melee skill to above 80%’.
There should be some players who must have obtained the Skilled Fighter title, with Dancing Phoenix being one. Still, they would also be the minority as it takes not only diligence but also sufficient talent for close-ranged combat to obtain that title.
After Skilled Fighter, gaining the next title which was called Specialist Fighter requires the skill completion rate of three melee skills to reach above 90%, whereas as the next level was Master Fighter which requires skill completion rate of five melee skills to reach 100%.
It was already very difficult to develop his Smite Skill, making it a serious challenge to reach 90% in skill completion rate for three melee skills. Master Fighter was therefore really a little too far, and Nie Fan would also have to get five melee skills that requires completion rate too.
***
Soon, before the Nymph King could react to the Smite, Nie Fan had raised his paws again for a fearsome flurry of strikes, with damage signs popping up one after another over the Nymph King’s head.
The beast roared from the agony on its back, turning with the intent on slamming a palm on Nie Fan and kill him.
Jumping away with Vertical Leap, Nie Fan continued his attack, gradually accumulating Rage.
A full bar of Rage was 200 points, and players gain an average of 5 Rage per second in each battle.
Shadow Sadwind had also resumed his barrages of attack spells when he saw that the Nie Fan had caught the Nymph King’s focus. He certainly was an outlier—no other player would have been able to get the Boss to become so focused on themselves.
Meanwhile, Wastrel’s confidence suffered a severe blow. The carnage from Nie Fan’s Bloodthirsty Vine, Black Oil, and Mini Fireball combo didn’t count because those were ranged skills, but the melee combat ability that he was showing now did not pale in comparison to his… in fact, it was much stronger than his own melee ability. Moreover, he would never dare to fight the Nymph King so closely as he would be destroyed in seconds, and he was therefore utterly won over.
Indeed, if they had been reliant on those high-damage skills before, what they were relying on now was genuine technique. All Wastrel himself could do was Charge at the Nymph King, attack it several times while its attention was focused on Nie Fan. If he did was even a step too slow, he would be in trouble.
As time passed, the Nymph King’s HP was finally emptied. With a terrible howl, its body shattered into pieces littering the ground.
Everyone finally breathed a sigh of relief after watching the beast collapse.
Success! Though the battle had been difficult in every way possible.
There were items scattered beneath the remains of the Nymph King’s body: three equipment, three batches of potions, one scroll, two Skill Tomes and two gem shards.
“Mega Drops from the Nymph King!” Nie Fan exclaimed excitedly—there was a certain chance for all monsters above Elite for a Mega Drop, which showers rewards several times beyond normal item drops.
Nie Fan’s exclamation left the entire party beside themselves with excitement too, because the Mega Drop meant that everyone would get more than a fair share.
As he picked up the items, Nie Fan would list the items in the party’s chat.
“I’ll take the Feral Lycanthropy Skill Tome, and Suyue will have the Sorrow Skill Tome.”
“I’ll just have those Warrior Greaves. You don’t have to save me a cut for the other items either—I’m uncomfortable taking it when I didn’t contribute much.” Wastrel said after glancing through the list of items.
“Don’t say that. Everybody here worked together and did our best, and we would never have killed the Nymph King if anyone was missing.” Nie Fan replied. After all, Wastrel did contribute a lot during the start of the fight.
“Well, I’ll have the Mage Robes and nothing else.” Shadow Sadwind added beside them. “There’s a total of three equipment, with both Wastrel and I claiming one each. Taking one more would be ungracious.”
“Yeah. We’ll skip the other items, but just remember to call me and Sadwind when you guys find another similar dungeon.” Wastrel grinned.
He then checked the time needed to clear the Heartlands of the Wood Nymphs’ Forest —thirteen minutes and thirty-five seconds.
Overall, their campaign had taken less than an hour even after the time spent journeying was added. To clear a rare dungeon like this one while gaining two items along with some other miscellaneous things, it was only extremely worthwhile.
“Definitely. It’s been a pleasure working together today.” Nie Fan had been intending to keep to their original agreement, but decided to drop it after Shadow Sadwind and Wastrel’s insistently declined. Xue Yu hence took the remaining equipment which was for Holy Knights, and glanced away to find that all three batches of potions were all Blazing Potions, with sixteen bottles tied to each batch.
The two gem shards were for Strength and Spirit attributes respectively, although Nie Fan could not make heads or tails of the scroll embraided with golden threads. There was some weird text over it too—could it perhaps be a quest item? Still, Nie Fan could not find anything hinting to a quest after looking through it.
Well, it could wait. He would investigate what it actually is when he had the time.
Nonetheless, all those random items were worth some money when added together, with each of them at least making one or two thousand bronze coins when sold. However, Nie Fan would have to remember Shadow Sadwind and Wastrel’s grace for forfeiting their claim.
He could not help being excited too, because he had finally got the Skill Tome for Feral Lycanthropy! It was the most important skill for Druids next to Ursamorph, and finally getting it was a load on his mind eased.
What’s more, what he got was a strengthened version of Feral Lycanthropy!