Now This Was Mob Farming

To be safe, he put his remaining 10 attribute points into bone root, bringing his physical defense to 256 and his spell defense to 226.

With everything ready, Wu Shaozhen approached again. Just before he entered attack range, he crushed the scroll. His defenses instantly doubled, bringing his physical defense to 512 and his spell defense to 452, while reducing nearby targets' physical damage by 50%. Then he activated Extreme Speed and charged toward the bandits.

The bandits soon spotted the intruder. Arrows flew toward Wu Shaozhen, but every hit produced a -1 damage number, failing to penetrate his defenses. Before he could celebrate, a string of fireballs came flying at him.

-124

-124

"Fuck! I forgot to factor in the bonus damage from skills!"

Wu Shaozhen was horrified. Mages had no basic attacks, so the Fireball they cast every three seconds effectively served as their basic attack. But Fireball dealt 120% spell damage. A single volley instantly stripped away over a thousand of his health.

There was no turning back now. Wu Shaozhen could only grit his teeth and press on. He hurriedly drank a Large Red Potion, which restored 100 health per second for 10 seconds. It was the best sustained healing potion he had on him. The Main City actually sold better potions, but he had forgotten to buy them—or rather, he had been too confident in himself to bother.

After drinking the potion, Wu Shaozhen took out an [Instant Recovery Potion] and reluctantly gulped it down, restoring his health to full before continuing his charge. Fortunately, the mages' Fireball had a three-second cooldown. If they could attack as fast as the archers, he would have been done for.

As the bandit warriors and bandit shieldguards charged toward him, Wu Shaozhen pushed his speed to the limit, weaving past one melee bandit after another and heading straight for the archers and mages. The melee bandits' attacks also dealt only the mandatory 1 damage to him, barely scratching him. The bandit warriors' skills could normally penetrate his defenses, but with the Petrified Skin scroll reducing physical damage by 50%, even those failed to get through.

Still, he had underestimated the threat of a well-rounded lineup. Halfway through his charge, a shieldguard caught him with a shield bash, stunning him for two seconds.

"What the fuck! That's disgusting!" Just then, the mages unleashed their second volley of skills. This time, it was not Fireball, but Freezing Spell.

"They have two skills? Fuck!" Seeing the Freezing Spells about to hit him, Wu Shaozhen had no choice but to activate Void. Good as the skill was, its cooldown lasted a full five minutes. He rarely dared to use it, saving it to keep himself alive.

After activating Void, his body instantly entered an intangible state, clearing the stun. The incoming Freezing Spells missed him as well.

Still in his Void state, Wu Shaozhen broke out of the encirclement and charged toward the mages.

The mages were actually smart enough to retreat, but with Wu Shaozhen's movement speed exceeding three hundred, escape was out of the question.

Wu Shaozhen rushed up and started laying into the mages. At close range, their room to maneuver was severely limited, making it difficult to lock onto him as he darted around. That gave him plenty of breathing room. He applied two stacks of poison to each mage before moving on. Their health had to be lower than the archers', so two stacks were enough.

Soon, all 10 mages were poisoned. During that time, Wu Shaozhen had actually taken damage from only three fireballs and one Freezing Spell. Although the Freezing Spell reduced movement speed by 30%, it did not affect him too badly with his movement speed of over three hundred.

Once he had poisoned them all, Wu Shaozhen immediately ran out. He would deal with the archers after these mages died. Otherwise, he could not withstand the mages' damage, not even with Instant Recovery Potions. Each potion restored only 1,000 health and had a 10-second cooldown. They simply could not keep up.

After enduring another volley of fireballs, Wu Shaozhen finally escaped the mages' attack range and took off like a shot.

"Whew, that was close. Fuck, I burned a scroll and an Instant Recovery Potion just to kill normal mobs. What a waste!" Wu Shaozhen grumbled.

Wu Shaozhen timed his return and arrived in front of the bandit stronghold again in less than a minute. Sure enough, all the mages had fallen. Now he could be bold. The Petrified Skin scroll still had almost four minutes left, and not a single one of these bandits' Physical Attacks could penetrate his defenses. He ran brazenly toward them, heading straight for the archers. Although Extreme Speed was still on cooldown, he had over two hundred movement speed and 54% attack speed even without it, so he could still apply poison very quickly.

It took him over a minute to poison all the archers, mainly because the shieldguards and warriors kept blocking his way. The shieldguards' shield bashes could stun him, which was especially annoying. After poisoning the archers, he poisoned whoever he could reach and activated Extreme Speed whenever it became available.

When the scroll's duration ended, he suddenly realized he had poisoned well over half the bandits, leaving only twenty-odd unpoisoned. More than half of those he had poisoned earlier had already fallen, too. Only fifty-odd bandits were still standing.

"Now this is mob farming," Wu Shaozhen said with feeling.

He led the bandits around in a circle, checking whether the fallen ones had dropped any good equipment. Sure enough, he actually found two pieces of Black Iron equipment among the many pieces of white-grade gear, much to his delight. Judging by the amount of white-grade gear, the bandits' drop rate was clearly much higher than that of other monsters. He even spotted dozens of Silver Coins. Yes, not Copper Coins, but Silver Coins. These bandits actually dropped Silver Coins! Wu Shaozhen immediately felt that everything he had just gone through was worth it.

He quickly picked up the two pieces of Black Iron equipment and the Silver Coins on the ground. He could not even be bothered with the white-grade gear and Copper Coins anymore. I can afford to be picky now.

Looking at the remaining twenty-two bandits, Wu Shaozhen still felt a headache coming on. He could not lure these bandits away separately. Once he entered their aggro range, they would all come at him together. Getting surrounded would be troublesome, especially since the shieldguards' shield bashes could stun him for two seconds. Without the scroll now, a stun could easily get him killed.

He checked his status. He had actually killed 124 bandits in just those five minutes, and his talent had capped out at 420. He was level 14 now, which meant the cap was thirty times his level. Advancing one stage had increased the multiplier by ten, more or less as he had expected.

With his current poison damage, both the warriors and the shieldguards would need only two stacks of poison.

Fuck it, what am I scared of? I wiped out over a hundred of them. Why should I be afraid of these twenty-odd stragglers? Seeing that Extreme Speed and Void were both ready, Wu Shaozhen activated Extreme Speed and ran over.

He now had enough speed to strike first. His movement speed was more than three times theirs, so he was unlikely to get surrounded. His defense was also as high as 256. A warrior's basic attack would take less than two hundred health, while a shieldguard had only 400 attack and could deal just over a hundred and forty damage to him.

Their skills were a little troublesome. A warrior's skill could deal over four hundred damage, but he could still take it. They were all melee fighters, so even if he stood still, at most eight could attack him at once. With a little repositioning, he could reduce that to four. Even four skills would deal only eighteen hundred-odd damage, which was completely manageable. He just had to avoid getting stunned, or he would have no choice but to activate Void.

After charging over, Wu Shaozhen circled slightly so that he faced only four bandits head-on: three warriors and one shieldguard. With Extreme Speed active, he could strike twice per second, applying two stacks of poison to the shieldguard in a single second. The shieldguard actually did not use a skill, though two of the warriors did. Wu Shaozhen tanked both skills and poisoned a warrior next.

A glance at his health showed that he had half left. Wu Shaozhen put a little distance between himself and the bandits, thwarting those behind him who were trying to surround him. Then he applied two stacks of poison to another warrior. Seeing the shieldguard raise his shield to use a skill, Wu Shaozhen immediately ran away, successfully dodging the shield bash.

Once he had pulled away, Wu Shaozhen's eyes lit up. Was I already fast enough to dodge some attacks? The shieldguard's skill had a windup, and so did the warriors' skills, actually. That made things much easier. He just had to watch out and dodge the shieldguards' shield bashes.