Three insiders

No class could learn a skill like Mighty Throw from its own trainer. Warriors, Assassins, and the like might learn similar skills-Weapon Throw, for instance-but their effects would probably differ slightly.

Ironhead was also surprised to see his old buddy pull out that move. He turned to give Ye Fengxing a resentful look and sighed. "That's obviously a Warrior skill..."

Ye Fengxing completely ignored him. Ironhead was always like this. Whenever he saw another class with an awesome skill, he would curse Blue Star up and down and complain that Warriors weren't strong enough. In his mind, Warriors ought to be capable of absolutely everything. Only then would he be satisfied.

The effect of Knee Rupture was pretty damn impressive. It rooted someone for five seconds, forcing them to kneel there and take a beating. That part was nothing special; plenty of skills would surely be able to do the same later on. But! The effect that actually made someone kneel was just... too domineering!

In PvP, skills like that were often excellent for humiliating opponents, striking at their morale as well as their bodies and dealing a brutal psychological blow to their confidence and patience! Their anger would often throw them off balance and make them act irrationally, naturally giving your side a much better chance of winning.

Explosive Impact, Shield Bash, Mighty Throw-three crowd-control skills in succession! The poor Ghostly Sentinel had already been held in place for twelve seconds. It struggled a few crawling steps forward before the three vigorous men beat it into the ground and finished it off.

"Monk, how many seconds left on Shield Bash's cooldown?" Ye Fengxing looted the corpse and turned to ask.

"Twenty-something. Want to wait a bit? This bastard had so much health. We really couldn't have killed it just now without using all our skills."

"Definitely. Those two Ghostly Cavalry Commanders won't be easy to handle. Let's avoid fighting them if we can. Give me a shout when your cooldown's up."

"Sure." Ironhead simply sat down and grinned. "This dungeon doesn't look that hard. Get another two people next time, and we can see if we can clear Hell Mode."

"We're already on Hell Mode." Ye Fengxing said it casually, his tone utterly unconcerned.

"What?!" Ironhead hurriedly brought up the dungeon information, took one look, and immediately burst into curses. "Fuck you! When did you change it?"

"It's been like that since we entered. Don't blame me because you didn't check."

"You bastard..." Ironhead was utterly speechless. Taking on Hell Mode with three people was just... They had always known this guy had guts, but they had never imagined he could be this reckless.

"No wonder... I was just thinking, it's only a lousy level-15 dungeon, so why is even the trash mob guarding the entrance so hard to kill? Turns out you were screwing us over behind our backs!"

Kawaii was startled too. He hadn't noticed the dungeon mode either. After all, there were only three of them. Who would be crazy enough to pick Hell Mode for no reason? Unfortunately, someone in their party had a fondness for exactly that sort of madness. Anyone running dungeons with him was truly out of luck.

Dungeons had five modes: easy mode, normal mode, hard mode, madness mode, and hell mode.

The difficulty of the five modes was self-explanatory. The equipment they dropped often shared the same names but had different stats. Naturally, harder modes dropped better loot, and occasionally they even dropped exceptional items that had absolutely no chance of appearing in lower difficulties.

Generally speaking, players tackling dungeons at their own level could usually manage only normal mode. Clearing hard mode required an elite team with exceptional coordination. Madness mode, meanwhile, demanded extremely powerful equipment. As for hell mode... that was purely for the lunatics.

Clearing hell mode usually required professional-level skill and awareness. The trouble was, there weren't many people in the professional scene to begin with, and not every insider was like Ye Fengxing, who took pleasure in challenges and considered getting brutalized perfectly natural.

Even professional-level experts had to die a few times in a hell-mode dungeon before they could learn the bosses' skills and clear it. But... dying wasn't free. Death penalties were doubled in hell mode!

Professional-level experts usually had much better equipment than ordinary players, as well as higher levels. If an entire team of experts wiped several times, the losses... would leave the leader of any major guild aching enough to wish he were dead!

Apart from hell mode, the other four modes all had reduced death penalties. After all, dungeon difficulty was vastly different from fighting monsters in the wild. Dying in a dungeon was an everyday occurrence. If the penalty were too severe, who would bother running them?

Even the very best teams usually stuck to madness mode. They almost always waited until they had leveled up before returning for hell mode. As for taking on hell mode while underleveled, only lunatics like Ye Fengxing or Lan Xi would do something like that.

"What are you afraid of?" One particular lunatic spoke up again. "Like you said, it's just a lousy level-15 dungeon. There's no harm in trying. We're only level 12, so dying won't cost us much experience. As the saying goes, nothing ventured, nothing gained. It's just a game. If we die, we die. Is it really worth making such a fuss?"

"You're the boss! You're my own dear big brother!" Running into Ye Fengxing was simply Ironhead's bad luck. When it came to arguing "reason," he could count everyone he knew and still not find anyone who could spout more bullshit than this guy.

"Kawaii, I'm sorry. If you don't want to continue, you can leave. If you're still willing to give it a try, I'll cover your losses if you die. What do you think?" Ye Fengxing turned to look at Kawaii.

"It's fine. Like you said, we're just playing. If we die, we die." Kawaii smiled, looking completely unconcerned.

Ye Fengxing nodded and called Ironhead over. Together, they took down the second Ghostly Sentinel. Farther along, the trash mobs generally gathered in groups of two or three. With the trio's level of skill, handling them was naturally effortless.

In response to Kawaii's repeated assurances, Ironhead simply pulled five monsters at once. Ye Fengxing blew one into the air and kited another, while Ironhead tanked three. These were hell-mode monsters, after all. Ironhead could handle one with room to spare, but claiming he could tank three without losing health would have been pure bullshit.

In hell mode, even trash mobs had skills-and the most annoying kind, crowd control. Roots, stuns, slows, fears... As the tank, Ironhead had to endure most of them one after another.

There was no helping it. That was the fate of a meat shield: always standing at the front and taking the enemy's fiercest attacks for his comrades!

Ironhead was only level 12. He hadn't learned any anti-control skills and had no equipment that offered such protection either. All he could do was obediently get stunned and feared, letting the mobs batter him.

The three cleared their way along the winding trail. Powerful as the hell-mode monsters were, they still couldn't stop three professional-level experts.

That was right. Kawaii was an insider too.

Within minutes of Ironhead starting to lose health and Kawaii beginning to heal him, Ye Fengxing recognized what set this Ranger apart. People in the professional scene naturally saw things differently from ordinary players. Besides, Kawaii made no deliberate attempt to conceal his abilities. How could Ye Fengxing fail to recognize the healing prowess of the powerhouse healer before him?

Although Ironhead's health stayed consistently high, Kawaii produced almost no overhealing in the process. Even when Ironhead's health plummeted, he could seize the right opening and force his health back up when it was dangerously low, before the monsters' next attack landed! (Overhealing meant healing too much and wasting the excess. For example, if a target had lost 1,000 health and you healed for 2,000, the extra 1,000 was overhealing. It was generally harmless, but consumed unnecessary mana.)

Playing a healer meant carefully budgeting every point of mana to deliver the most appropriate healing. It also required nerves of steel. When a target's health became critical, you absolutely couldn't panic; you had to keep doing what needed to be done.

Those two fundamentals were the clearest tests of a healer's skill and awareness. After watching Kawaii heal for just a few minutes, Ironhead and Ye Fengxing knew exactly where he stood.

With such a powerful healer around, Ironhead threw caution to the wind and went all out, pulling six or seven damn monsters at a time.

Seeing this, Ye Fengxing's mouth twitched... Once Ironhead got carried away, he lost all restraint. Didn't he stop to think whether pulling that many was useful? They barely had any area-of-effect skills at this stage. Even if you were awesome enough to pull a hundred at once, wouldn't you still have to kill them one by one?

After they finished off that wave of seven monsters, Ye Fengxing stopped Ironhead and asked, "How much money have you got?"

"Fifty-two silver and twelve copper. What for?"

"Hand it over! I'm going back to learn skills. With you pulling mobs like this, not learning an AoE skill would be a huge waste. It'd practically be an insult to your skills."

"Can I keep twelve copper?"

"Two at most. Come on, hand it over!"

"You bastard!" Ironhead cursed indignantly, then reluctantly dug out fifty-two silver and ten copper and handed it to Ye Fengxing.

"Wait here a moment, Kawaii. I'm going to learn a few skills and buy some potions while I'm at it."

"All right." Kawaii took the opportunity to sit down, smiling.

Ye Fengxing hurried out of the dungeon and sprinted straight to Aston. The old Dragonkin looked at him with a smile. "Well? Have you completed the task I gave you?"

"Trainer, I'd like to learn a few more skills." He had no time to waste chatting with the old fellow and got straight down to business.

Sea of Flames: Summons a field of roaring flames, dealing 34-46 fire damage per second to enemies within an eight-meter radius for 10 seconds. Spell range: 30 meters. Instant cast. Mana cost: 92. Cooldown: none.

Frostthorn Growth: Summons a thicket of thorns formed from condensed frost, dealing 11-19 damage to all hostile targets around the caster and rooting them in place for 8 seconds. Attack range: 15 meters. Instant cast. Mana cost: 25. Cooldown: 25 seconds.

Sea of Flames was a decent AoE skill, but Frostthorn Growth's damage was rather lousy... That didn't matter, though. Damage wasn't what made this skill shine in the first place. Its most impressive feature was its crowd control: an instant cast that controlled every hostile target within a fifteen-meter diameter around the caster, with no limit on their number!

He had wanted to learn several more AoE skills, but the moment he saw Frostthorn Growth, he couldn't resist! As a PvP fanatic, how could he possibly pass up such an incredible crowd-control skill?

The answer was that he couldn't! Without hesitation, he spent thirty-one silver and fifteen copper, turning Frostthorn Growth into an icon on his skill bar.

Fifty-two silver had considerable buying power this early in the game. After all, one silver could be exchanged for a hundred copper, and monsters generally didn't drop money. Even when they did, it was only a few copper coins. Quests hardly ever rewarded players with money either; most gave equipment.

Who knew where Ironhead had gotten so much game currency? He actually had fifty-two silver and twelve copper. Ye Fengxing seriously suspected that he had exchanged real money for it.

As the saying went, it was easy to go from frugality to extravagance, but hard to go back. No fortune could withstand a spendthrift's wastefulness. Ye Fengxing showed absolutely no awareness of that. After learning two skills, he had barely a few coins left, yet he still headed straight to the shop and bought several stacks of potions before turning back toward the Ghostly Cave.

Learning those two skills suddenly gave Ye Fengxing some new ideas. Frostthorn Growth had useful applications far beyond the simple description of its effects...