Their first attempt had failed, but Wandering did not lose heart.
Clearing Dungeons was always like this – they had to keep trying again and again even if that meant dying again and again. Only then, would they have a chance at success.
“We’ll go double tank this time. Lu Li, what do you think?”
Before Wandering joined the group, he had always listened to Azure Sea Breeze talk about Lu Li being such a strong Instance Dungeon leader. However, Lu Li had just been playing dumb this whole time. He hasn’t suggested a single idea on how to clear this dungeon.
“Seems like a good idea. Let’s give it try,” Lu Li nodded and complimented Wandering’s idea.
It was a good idea, but what about the result?
Not long after they started again, Wandering realized his mistake.
Azure Sea Breeze could resist some damage, but that didn’t mean that he could keep tanking it. As an Aggressive Knight who had placed most of his points into Constitution and Strength, his Defence was simply too low.
“Some of you ranged players should go in and tank some damage,” Wandering said helplessly. He could only try to share some of the damage around.
The Chain Lightning immediately jumped from his body onto someone else, significantly reducing the burden that was on him. With someone helping Azure Sea Breeze, they would at least be able to tank the Boss’ damage.
However, a new issue quickly arose.
At first, it was just the melee profession who were tanking damage, while the ranged professions were dealing damage to the Boss. This system produced enough DPS to remain hopeful about defeating the Boss. But now that the ranged professions were also tanking the damage, their DPS had drastically reduced.
With everyone tanking the Boss’ damage, who was left to actually hit the Boss?
The time it would take to defeat the Boss had now been stretched out to an impossible length.
“I’m out of MP. Sister Memories, quickly come and help me with your stick,” Hachi Chan cried out as she hastily ran to Sakura Memories for help.
The stick that she was talking about was actually the Shaman’s Mana Fortune Totem, which regenerated the MP of players standing around it.
“I’m also gonna run out of MP soon. Let’s all regenerate for a bit.”
March Rain had been tasked with healing everyone, including the two tanks. As such, her mana consumption was even higher than Hachi Chan’s.
“The Boss is only at half HP,” Sesame Rice Ball said, which was what everyone was concerned with.
With both healers taking turns to regenerate their MP naturally and with potions, they would be able to fight for an indefinite amount of time.
However, there was so much pressure to heal that they wouldn’t be able maintain this pace for long.
The healers would run out of MP and then, the party would be destroyed.
Their second defeat was rapidly approaching. This time, Lu Li was quite unlucky, as he died before he could even use Gale Steps.
“Lu Li do you have any ideas?” Azure Sea Breeze pulled on his sleeve and refused to let go. “If you do, speak up. Otherwise, we won’t be able to get the first clear on this Boss, and the good stuff will be taken by the other guilds.”
“Yeah, if anyone has any ideas, feel free to speak up.” Wandering eagerly looked at Lu Li as he said this.
Only now did Lu Li realize that he had been taking it a little too far.
He was trying to help his party get better, but it was one thing to practice and another thing to refuse to use his rebirth knowledge. He was essentially shooting himself in the foot.
He sorted his thoughts before saying, “I don’t actually have a method in mind, but perhaps we could change the way we are thinking about it.”
“Like?”
“You see, there’s a pond over there, which can conduct electricity. If Breezy stands in the water and pulls the monster…”
“You can do that?”
Wandering’s eyes were filled with doubt.
This was far too simple of a solution to defeat such a difficult Boss. Players that defeated this Boss with their blood, sweat and tears would likely kill the game designers if they found out about this.
“I don’t know either. I just think it’s strange that this place has a pond,” Lu Li responded.
“There’s a platform there. If we stand on it, the Boss will be unable to hit us.” Wandering didn’t believe Lu Li. He couldn’t accept that after all his effort, it was going to be that easy. There was simply no way.
“This Boss has clearly been attacking from a range.” No one believed that truth that Lu Li was telling, so he could only urge them, “We don’t have anything to lose. We won’t know for sure until we try, right?”
“I agree. Lu Li sounds much more reasonable than the other guy.” Azure Sea Breeze was the first to support him.
Because of their closeness, Azure Sea Breeze was always complaining about Wandering’s unreasonable leadership. This was actually Lu Li’s fault – if it wasn’t for the fact that he used his rebirth knowledge to lead, Wandering’s conventional leading methods wouldn’t have faced such criticism.
Seeing that everyone else didn’t have an opinion, Wandering nodded and said, “Alright then. Breezy, go and test the depth of the water.”
The pond wasn’t very deep – when Azure Sea Breeze stood in it, the water level only reached his knees.
“You didn’t even check if there were any monsters in there; you just walked right in. Your IQ isn’t very high is it?” Wandering couldn’t help but say.
“You told me to do it.” Azure Sea Breeze sounded like he had been wronged. “I told you to find out how deep it was, not go into it,” Wandering said as he smiled.
“Alright, stop bickering. Save it for when you guys get back. Go and pull the monster. Let’s finish this Boss quickly and try the other three after this. We can still finish this Instance Dungeon today,” Lu Li commanded as he clapped his hands.
“We aren’t even family,” Azure Sea Breeze argued.
Wandering smacked him across the back of his head and spat, “Pull the monster already. Use your bow, you idiot.”
Azure Sea Breeze fiercely shot an arrow at Skum’s butt. This enraged Skum, who then roared before turning around. It thumped its foot on the ground and charged at Azure Sea Breeze.
To start off with, it only used regular attacks.
At this point, it made no difference for Azure Sea Breeze if he was standing on the ground or in the water. He could still tank the Boss.
When Skum finally started casting Chain Lightning, everyone held their breath. All eighteen eyeballs stared in anticipation as to what would happen next.
Only Lu Li, who had experienced rebirth, was sure. No one else knew what would happen but him.
While using the water to absorb some of the lightning damage seemed silly, even sillier strategies for defeating Bosses would appear in the future.
For example, there was a Boss that would go berserk when it saw a female player. The solution to this was simple – bring a male-only party.
There was also another Boss that was really afraid of poisonous snakes. If you caught a baby poisonous snake and put it in front of the Boss, it would immediately lose 30% of its attack, which made the Instance Dungeon significantly easier.
Under the fixed gazes of everyone, the lightning finally hit Azure Sea Breeze’s body. This initial contact dealt 200 damage, but that was it.
The lightning’s second jump went into the water and didn’t cause any more damage to Azure Sea Breeze.
“Haha, it really does work. I only took 200 damage,” Azure Sea Breeze laughed.
It was so easy. Such a small adjustment had reduced the damage taken from 700-800 to 200. Even if the damage taken was additive, the situation still wouldn’t be as desperate as it was before.
Now, they had six players dealing damage, which caused Skum’s HP to rapidly fall. After a mere 15 minutes, its 80,000 HP had been reduced to a few points.
As such, if you thought about it, this actually wasn’t that difficult of a Boss.
Otherwise, the other guild’s parties would have been stuck here forever.
The First Clear of this Boss was finally taken by Lu Li and his party. The equipment dropped by it was much better than the previous two Bosses.