Kiting

Damn, a skill this badass actually dropped from... from that thing. Not exactly a glorious origin... If someone really turned it into a god-tier skill someday, how would they introduce it to other people?

Ye Fengxing was fighting monsters when a system announcement suddenly popped up, its floating yellow letters dazzling his eyes.

System announcement: Congratulations to player "Heavenfall" for being the first to complete the Undead Warrior class trial. Rewards: 3 free attribute points, 1 skill point, and 3,000 reputation with the local main city.

"Not bad. That was fast." Ye Fengxing smiled and picked up the pace.

When judging how badass a character was, its owner's skill certainly played a major role, but the character itself mattered a great deal too. Ye Fengxing knew that whenever a player accomplished a glorious achievement like "first to do such-and-such," the system would reward them, usually with attribute points, skill points, and the like-things nobody else would get. Even the second player to finish would get nothing.

That showed just how important glorious achievements were. For example, a character who reached level 60 without allocating any points would have 300 points in each of the five basic attributes, plus 300 free attribute points. But completing a glorious achievement permanently added extra attribute points. Even if both players were level 60, one would simply be stronger than the other!

Skill points were even more precious. Players received two skill points per level, so a level 60 player would have only 120 at most. There were never enough to go around!

There were two ways to raise a skill's level: first, spend skill points; second, grind its proficiency yourself.

Skill proficiency was a real pain in the ass. At low skill levels, it was manageable, but at higher levels, leveling up required an enormous number of uses. Plenty of skills had no cooldown, which made things easier, but certain skills with long cooldowns... those made you want to run off crying.

Leveling skills with skill points was so much easier. One click and you were done. Grinding proficiency could practically kill you!

Who wouldn't want extra attribute points and skill points? But the system's answer was clear: "Want them? Then do something nobody else can!"

Looks like I'd better step it up too! Ye Fengxing thought.

Just then, he suddenly noticed two particularly large level 15 Mutated Dung Beetles spawn ahead of him, except their names had changed to "Scarab Guard (Vanguard)."

NPCs in Chronicles of the Sky were divided into ranks: grunt, vanguard, elite, commander, and boss.

Grunts were ordinary monsters that players of the same level could bully at will.

Vanguard monsters were considerably stronger and took much more effort to defeat. They also had a special characteristic: they never appeared without reason. Whenever they appeared, it usually meant higher-ranking monsters would spawn as well.

They weren't called vanguards for nothing-without a leader, whose vanguard would they be? Who would they be charging into battle for?

This looks promising! Ye Fengxing thought as he stared at the two enormous dung beetles.

Scarabs... aren't those just dung beetles? These things sure have a lot of names. Dung beetles, tumblebugs, manure beetles, scarabs... all names for the same thing.

Bang! A white magic orb exploded squarely against one Scarab Guard's head. The huge beetle charged toward him with reddened eyes, while the other Scarab Guard remained completely indifferent, despite standing right beside its companion...

A single level 15 vanguard was no match for Ye Fengxing, of course. Under the mighty power of Mighty Throw, the poor Scarab Guard was immobilized one moment and blinded the next. It never managed to touch its enemy, even before breathing its last.

Ye Fengxing repeated the process, turning the other Scarab Guard into experience as well.

Just as he had expected, the moment those two vanguards died, dozens of monsters spawned around him, all level 15 Scarab Guards. Two were especially large! Looking closely, he discovered they were a pair of minor leaders... "Scarab Guard Captain (Elite)."

The first two vanguards had merely been scouts. This was the main force.

Damn it, the system is ruthless! He had barely killed two vanguards before dozens more popped up around him, with two elites mixed in! And that formation... they had surrounded him on every side. Without the protection of Eshavante's name, he would probably already be lying dead on the spot.

There was nothing else to say. He would kill them one by one. Who could blame him when Boss Eshavante's protection was so effective? Naturally, this situation delighted him rather than angering him. Vanguard and elite monsters gave plenty of experience and could drop good loot. He wished even more would spawn; fighting them one at a time was no problem at all.

Soon, Scarab Guard corpses littered the ground. The two elite guard captains were clearly more aggressive, but they merely crawled restlessly around Ye Fengxing, not daring to launch an attack.

After finishing off the dozens of vanguards, Ye Fengxing checked his experience bar. It was already at 78%. He seemed close to leveling up.

How was he supposed to kill these two elites...? That gave him a bit of a headache. Elite monsters had strong resistance to negative status effects. The same crowd-control skill-an eight-second slow, for instance-would last eight seconds on an ordinary monster, but might last only four on an elite.

Elite monsters hit hard and had high attack, high defense, and plenty of health. Worse still, they moved much faster than ordinary monsters! If you couldn't beat an ordinary monster, you could run, but against an elite...

For Ye Fengxing at the moment, the biggest problem was actually the level gap. They were a full eight levels apart! That level suppression was brutal, making it difficult to penetrate their defense. If each hit dealt only a few points of damage, how long would the fight take? Besides, he had invested so little in agility that he had no real confidence he could perfectly dodge every attack from an elite.

Ye Fengxing started the fight without hesitation! This guy... he was great in every other respect, but far too confident about everything he did-that was the unanimous assessment of many of his friends.

A damage number of "-12" appeared above the Scarab Guard Captain's head. Without a moment's hesitation, the huge creature turned and barreled toward him with Charge!

Charge: Advance at full speed! Rapidly close in on a distant enemy target and inflict stagger.

Charge was a very common skill. Monsters had it, and so did players of more than one class. Each class's version had somewhat different effects, along with powerful advanced skills-for example, a warrior's Charge Stomp and a knight's Savage Charge. Their effects differed greatly, as did their cooldowns, so the skill was difficult to describe in general terms.

A level 17 elite monster's Charge was clearly no easy thing to deal with. Given a level 9 player's agility, dodging it was almost impossible. Once the charge began, it was guaranteed to hit!

Still, there were exceptions to everything, and he often managed to be that "exception"... Many skills had telltale signs before activation, and Charge was no different: a faint white vapor would rise from the user's body. Ye Fengxing had played warriors for years and knew Charge inside out. The instant white vapor rose from the huge beetle, he reacted, instinctively dropping to the ground and rolling...

Many online gaming enthusiasts liked to call this technique "prediction"... Strictly speaking, though, it wasn't prediction at all. The opponent had already used the skill, after all. Whether you could dodge it had little to do with experience or awareness. Only lightning-fast reactions and execution really counted.

A fierce gust swept past. That was close, Ye Fengxing thought. Even with his reaction speed, he had only just managed to evade the huge beetle's Charge. Anyone else would definitely have been hit!

Still on the ground, Ye Fengxing kicked the Scarab Guard Captain before getting up, striking its leg squarely! Then he sprang to his feet and swept another kick into a different leg, knocking the elite monster off balance.

"Damn you, you're hard!" Fighting back the searing pain in his legs, he broke into a sprint.

Damn it, this is where mages fall short. They lacked constitution and strength, so when fighting targets with high values in both, they could only use spells to keep their distance and bombard them. Once an opponent got close, things turned ugly... That was when crowd-control skills really mattered. Without them, you could only wait to die.

Ye Fengxing was now exactly that kind of unfortunate soul. He had exquisite technique, but insufficient attributes were insufficient attributes. He had intended to slow his opponent by attacking its legs, only to end up with his own legs hurting like hell. A few more kicks and he might be the one suffering from "slow" or "immobilize" instead...

Brute force won't work! Having figured out the situation, he immediately sprinted off in one direction.

Naturally, the Scarab Guard Captain wasn't about to give up. Though he had landed two hard kicks on its legs, it was an elite monster with strong resistance to negative status effects! The slow lasted only three seconds before disappearing. The huge beetle stretched out its long, hairy legs with renewed vigor and scuttled rapidly after him.

How could Ye Fengxing let it advance at full speed? A stone flew along a tricky trajectory and struck the Scarab Guard Captain's leg, then bounced back and forth several times. In short, the effect was to "strike multiple legs of the target simultaneously," triggering one of Mighty Throw's hidden effects: immobilization.

Because immobilization and slow lasted so briefly, this didn't hinder the huge elite beetle very much... Still, Mighty Throw's cooldown was just as short. At least it could delay the creature's pursuit a little.

Although the Scarab Guard Captain's base speed far exceeded that of players at the same level, a peculiar phenomenon occurred as it pursued a level 9 player: no matter what it did, it couldn't catch him.

Thin white vapor rose from the huge beetle again. Having experienced it once already, Ye Fengxing found dodging much easier this time. The poor level 17 elite was actually being "kited" by a little level 9 mage...

Kiting: generally, this involved moving faster than an enemy, either by increasing your own speed or slowing the enemy, then using ranged or magical attacks to gradually wear down its health. Kiting was typically used against enemies with relatively high defense and attack, but poor ability to counter crowd control and low movement speed. Victory came through attrition.