What a tragedy! It was supposed to be a celebration!
The overly large smile on her face was quickly replaced with a depressing pout. She widened her eyes, and puff her cheeks, looking at Zhang Yang with her best imitation of a puppy’s eyes.
"Don’t. Just don’t. You know I’m not going to give it to you." Zhang Yang instantly rejected her before she could speak. He knew that this little girl wanted him to give up his turn for her.
"UWAAA…" Wei Yan Er ran away to a corner and sobbed. Perhaps she had really learned her lesson. Perhaps her curse was so powerful that it rebounded back on her?
Zhang Yang walked up to the little bear and threw his leash towards it.
"Yee…" the little bear squeaked, sticking out its pink little tongue. Its cute little round eyes were hypnotizing! Now that’s what actual puppy eyes look like!
1%..3%...5%...
"Fail! I curse you to fail! Wee wang wang wee wang wang! Fail!" It seems that the little girl had not truly learned her lesson. With everything she got, she concentrated hard and drew some shapes in the air, probably meant to curse him.
60%...70%...80%!
Wei Yan Er grew scared and quickly jumped to her cousin sister. "Sis! Quickly, work together with me! Join forces with me to cast the Ultimate Destruction Godly Curse of the Nine Suns and Moons!"
Zhang Yang twitched his eye brows and frowned. "What sort of movie is she watching now?"
During a Sealing process, a character is not allowed to perform any action. Chatting is allowed though.
Han Ying Xue crossed her arms and looked away. "Curse of the White Pearl!"
90%, 95%, 99%!
"Fail! ABCDE, Failure shall befall upon thee! Come on! Fail already!" screamed the little girl as the progress bar was close to completion.
100%!
‘Ding! You have successfully sealed the Bear King’s Cub, turning it into your Battle Mount!’
‘Ding! This is your first time obtaining a Battle mount. The tutorial will now commence. The Battle Mount cannot be mounted before reaching Level 30. You can only summon the Battle Mount as a pet. It will follow the master in battle and gain Experience Points to level up! When the Battle Mount reaches Level 30, it can no longer be used as a pet, but as a mount! The mount can be used in battle and gain more Experience Points through a shared system! You can revisit this tutorial through the Control Menu at anytime.’
‘Ding! You have obtained an achievement: Battle Companion!’
A new leash appeared in Zhang Yang inventory. It shared an almost similar look as the [Leash of the Skeletal War Horse].
[Leash of the Gold-Eared Bear King] (Yellow-Gold Battle Mount)
Use: Summons or unleashes a mountable and battle-ready Gold-Eared Bear King. If your mount falls in battle, it can only be re-summoned after 10 minutes. You can only summon one Battle Mount at a time.
Casting Duration: Two seconds.
Level Requirement: 30
Bounded.
Zhang Yang immediately summoned the little critter and two seconds later, the mini-sized white bear appeared beside Zhang Yang. It brushed its body against Zhang Yang feet and when Zhang Yang ignored it, the little bear stood up on its rear legs to bite Zhang Yang’s pants with its undeveloped teeth. It was just drop-dead cute.
"Aww…So cute!" Pretty much all the female players in the team were crowded around the little white bear, petting its head.
The Level 0 bear rolled over, exposing its bare belly, allowing the girls to rub its belly to their content. It waved its paws, as if it was inviting the girls to rub it.
Wei Yan Er shed crocodile tears. "Wuuu…Noob tank! You better reimburse me with one bear as well! Wuuu, bear bear! Wuuu!"
"Fine…fine…just keep quiet. I’ll find another bear whenever I’m free!"
The party went on forward, killing so many elite monsters that they had lost count of them. The party spent another 30 minutes and had finally arrived at the deepest part of the cave! The little bear had absorbed half of Zhang Yang Experience Points, which was directly deducted from Zhang Yang’s own intake of experience points. However, because of that, the little bear had been able to level up as a fast pace. By then, the little bear had reached Level 27 and had grown so large that it was already the size of a young calf. Both of its HP and attack power had increased exponentially. However, it still had no skills of its own to use. It was a little disappointing due to the Yellow-Gold title that it had. Perhaps it will gain a skill or two when it reaches higher levels.
[Gold-Eared Bear King] (Yellow-Gold Battle Mount)
Level: 27
HP: 5,880
Attack Power: 808 – 1,008 (Attack Interval: Three Seconds, DPS: 303)
OP!
As expected from a Yellow-Gold pet mount. It had almost 6,000 HP at only Level 27! It was a pity that the little bear could not be summoned as a pet after Level 30; It would not be able to contribute to the party’s DPS after that.
‘Little Whitey! I’m sorry, you’re no longer cute when you’re that big! I’m not going to pet you anymore!" Wei Yan Er was saying such things to make herself feel better, however, she was not being truthful at all. In fact, she was still a little jealous of Zhang Yang.
Everyone laughed.
The deepest part of the cave was a large cavern. The ceiling of the cavern was at least a hundred meters high, perhaps even higher! There were many ice spikes of many shapes and sizes forming on top of the ceiling. Some were long and thin, while others were sharp and rather thick!
Beautiful, yet extremely dangerous at the same time! Nature was truly the best architect there is! In the deepest part of the cavern was a sleeping giant white-fur bear. It was probably several meters long. If the bear stood up on its rear legs, it would definitely be as tall as a house!
*Snore* Snore*
The bear was obviously sleeping soundly, snoring so loud that it echoed through the hollow cave like thunder!
[Winter’s Wind Bear King] (Yellow-Gold, Beast)
Level: 60
HP: 5,000,000
Defense: 1,200
"I have completely no idea what skills this boss has. Anyhow, let’s just give it a shot!" said Zhang Yang. He unsummoned the little bear since the Battle Mount would not be able to provide any DPS in this battle. In fact, it would only be a hindrance, requiring Han Ying Xue to heal it.
As for the experience gained later from killing the boss, Zhang Yang could easily grind some monsters later on.
"Fight!" Zhang Yang took out his axe and rushed towards the snoring Bear King.
The boss was still snoring soundly when Zhang Yang was already close to it.
{Charge}!
Zhang Yang rushed in and landed a good hit on the boss.
Awoken from its sleep, the Bear King growl thunderously. It lifted its massive claw to slash Zhang Yang.
{Block}!
Zhang Yang quickly stacked as much {Cripple Defense} as fast as he could. The boss’ 1,200 Defense value was just too ridiculous for the others to handle. That skill was a top priority to be used for the other attacking team mates to attack to their fullest.
The Bear King stomped the ground hard and released a grayish-silver ray of light from its feet. The light spread out in all directions, as widely as 50 meters!
‘Ding! You have gained the {Frost Bite} Aura. Receiving 200 Frost damage every second!’
"Heh. The boss damaging aura effect is quite weak!" Everyone agreed.
In truth, the aura effect was weak. Compared to a healer, healing 200 HP is nothing.
Zhang Yang frowned. He did not believe that a Yellow-Gold boss would be that weak. There had to be more to this; it was not just a random monster that was just created to die!
After a short period of time into the battle, the Bear King flung itself onto Zhang Yang and bit him. Since {Block} was still on cool down, Zhang Yang could not dodge the attack no matter how athletic he was. The skill seemed to be unavoidable, unlike the normal claw attack which could be easily dodged by moving his body. Unable to dodge the attack, Zhang Yang’s blood splattered on the ice.
‘Ding! You have received the effect {Bleeding}. Receiving 3,000 {Bleeding} damage every three seconds!’
Luckily, even though {Bleeding} damage ignores defense, Zhang Yang had a passive 930 damage absorption skill. After applying the 20% damage reduction passive, and another 930 damage absorption passive, the remaining damage Zhang Yang would sustain was 1,470! That had only added 490 DPS from the boss, which was not that big of a deal.
‘-5,543!’
Still, the boss’ physical attack was strong! With a swing of its gigantic claw, it could easily remove one quarter of Zhang Yang maximum HP! Now that Zhang Yang had Perfume Water in his party, paired with Han Ying Xue, Zhang Yang had two super-supporters healing him together, eliminating the would-be threat. While doing so, the healers would only need to maintain the {Regeneration} effect on the rest of the party members to completely safeguard them from the {Frost Bite} aura. If the battle continued on as such a pace, only time alone would keep the Bear King from falling.
However, when the Bear King was at 90% HP…
"GROWL!" The Winter’s Wind Bear King bellowed a thunderous roar! The roar was so loud that parts of the cavern were crumbling from the sheer power of the sound wave. The others could not help but to cover their ears as the volume was too much for them to handle.
‘Ding! You have received the effect {Deafening Roar} (Stack 1). All attacks received will increase by 1%. All attack and healing will be reduced by 1%. Last for 30 seconds!’
Just after three seconds!
‘Ding! You have received the effect {Deafening Roar} (Stack 2). All attacks received will increase by 2%. All attack and healing will be reduced by 2%. Last for 30 seconds!’
If the boss continued to fight like this, repeating the same skill every three seconds, in just 30 seconds, the boss would easily apply 10 stacks of {Deafening Roar}! The stress level of the healers would be increased! Not only would the party’s DPS decrease and receive even more damage from the boss, the healer’s healing power would also drop by 10%!
Zhang Yang called out. "Perfumed! I need to you slowly back away! Report to me when the skill {Deafening Roar} is out of bounds!"
This time, Perfumed Water knew better than to argue with Zhang Yang. She slowly walked backwards, stopping every three seconds. She continued on until she was around 50 meters away from the boss. She shouted, "Zhan Yu! Here!"
Zhang Yang nodded in acknowledgment. "Stand there, and don’t move! All ranged units, move 30 meters away to your maximum effective range and attack from there! Perfumed Water, you’re to heal all ranged team members! Snow b*tch! Just focus on healing me and the little brat!"
Everyone nodded and followed Zhang Yang’s commands without any objection.
Perfumed Water had taken up to 15 stacks of {Deafening Roar} and had her healing power diminished significantly. She needed to heal five members. Under the effects of the Deafening roar, her healing was not holding up as well as she thought it would be! On the other hand, Han Ying Xue had already been inflicted with 30 stacks of {Deafening Roar}, but was still in control of her actions and rhythm!
90 seconds later, the debuffs on Perfumed Water had expired while the others had already taken up to 30 stacks of the debuff each, having their attack drastically lowered, while receiving an incredible amount of damage.
"Snow b*tch! Switch with Perfumed Water! The rest of you, if you have any debuff clearing skills, use them immediately! If you don’t have any, withdraw by 50 meters! Come back and fight after 30 seconds when the debuffs are cleared out!" cried Zhang Yang in a commanding tone.
Wei Yan Er used {Warrior’s Will} and removed the {Deafening Roar} on her, restoring her to original power!
The other two Spellcasters used {Ice Barrier} on themselves, encasing their characters in a large block of ice to remove their debuffs. On the other hand, Priest and Hunter had learned their anti status affecting skills, however, their own skills were not strong enough to remove the debuff. Hunter Shots could only use {Tumble} to leave the battle and hasten his withdraw. Han Ying Xue and Perfumed Water quickly switched places. The one closer to the boss was tasked to take care of Zhang Yang and Wei Yan Er while the one who outside of the boss’ effective range was set to heal the rest of the ranged characters.