MMORPG: Rise of the Peerless Pumpkinmancer

"You'll want to keep dodging, but this time we want to sandwich the Boss between us! Keep attacking whenever it's safe to do so. Can you do that?"

"Woo!" (Heroic!)

The Boss teleported in front of them once more. But this time, they split up on opposite sides. As soon as the fox reappeared, its fur began to inflate while seemingly coming alive.

It was as if the fur formed a magical cloak that had a mind of its own! It quickly protected its wearer. That's how Jack's 7-9 damage numbers suddenly turned to something very pitiful:

-1

-1

-1

-1

-1

There was actually a flaw to this seemingly impregnable armor. It only covered 90% of the creature's body! Well, that was a lot considering it automatically adjusted itself as best as it could.

But, that automatic process could be exploited! This was because it kept calculating its movements by refreshing the highest DPS based on the previous seconds, not overall. Jack grinned as he stopped his assault entirely.

This meant that only the courageous wolf was still attacking:

-1

-1

-1

It was really low, but it was enough. The magical cloak repositioned itself to block the wolf's attacks.

-0

-0

-0

Since Jack was on the opposite side, he could now do regular damage for a short duration!

-7

-8

-7

All this time, the Boss itself kept attacking Jack. After all, the wolf's overall damage output was just way too low to retain aggro. At this point, one would have expected the fight to end as a battle of endurance. Nope, it wasn't over!

"Get ready! There will be lots of marks on the floor from now on! It's a similar deal as before. Evade them to avoid dying." Jack shouted.

That's when the Boss began using its Fox Bloom skill. It was pretty straightforward, but it could easily wipe inexperienced parties. Still, this one was 100% a movement/awareness skill check.

Simply put, a shitload of orange marks began appearing at various intervals on the floor. Staying in one dealt lots of damage.

"Woo!" (Panicking)

The little wolf had trouble with this phase. It was part of Infinite and had sharp senses, so dodging the marks itself wasn't that big of a deal. It would hop around, avoiding it all.

No, it had trouble multitasking. This was so damn difficult! How was it supposed to dodge and keep the pincer attack going at the same time?!

"Relax, stay alive. That's all we need. As long as there is life, there is hope." Jack reminded.

He couldn't expect the wolf to perform any better. For that, it would require combat experience. There was no way that a low-level wolf would have any, no matter how pure and great its bloodline!

"Woo!" (Roger!)

That's how the two kept fighting. Jack soon found himself downing potions akin to an alcoholic on a cheat day! This was all that he could do.

Every time he drank one, he almost felt himself tearing up. This was money flying further away from his account! But, it couldn't be helped. After all, this was the perfect training for the wolf!

At this moment, how many players would have been jealous of that pet's treatment? Probably as little as …every single one of them!

It took three potions for Jack to finish the combat. This meant that it had taken him an HP bar of 90 to survive the Boss fight. It didn't sound like much, but it was! After all, an entire party of 5 level 5 players would collectively have 150 HP.

But, one had to factor Jack's shield and skills in it. Just the shield allowed him to take two damage per hit instead of 4. Then, how many hits had he dodged? It would probably take 360 HP for a decently geared and skilled party to accomplish the same.

Well, it was hard to know for sure. Party play allowed to juggle aggro….but also made a wipe easier. If many players took damage from the Fox Bloom at once, the damage could easily ramp up to insane numbers.

Anyway, that's how the Fox Boss finally fell! The duo celebrated as it crashed to the ground, pumping their fist (paw) in the air.

"Woo!" (Happy!)

"Hell yeah, that was amazing!" Jack praised from the bottom of his heart.

"Woo!" (Awkward)

The little wolf scratched its head in embarrassment: it had barely done anything! It remembered vividly its damage dealt versus its master.

"Don't sell yourself short. Your presence multiplied my damage by at least five times. Without you, this would have been one excruciating fight!" Jack explained.

"Woo?!"

"Indeed. Honestly, be confident in yourself. You're already more useful than most braves who roam Infinite, even without a battle form!" Jack told it.

This had been a huge success overall! He quickly approached the enemy's corpse to loot it, a massive grin on his face.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Uncommon Fox Fur Cloak

Rank F

Level 5

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Armor Rating] 1

[Armor Type] Leather

[Durability] Great

[Attribute] +2 INT

[Trait] + Resist

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Right now, intelligence was pretty useless to him. This was because his only combat skill scaled on weapon damage. Well, it would play a vital part in his build…eventually at least!

As for the resist, it was one of those traits that were really hard to quantify. This was because it helped prevent a bit of damage but didn't always activate. It was really only noticeable when stacked and could render a player insanely tanky!

Still, this was one more piece obtained toward reaching a full armor set! Jack couldn't help but feel excited about the prospect of owning one.

That's when he turned toward the little wolf with an incredibly solemn expression:

"Hey, actually, I have an issue."

"Woo?" (Worried)

"Here goes. This one or this one?" Jack equipped his Infinite cloak before switching to the bright orange fox one. "Cosmetic appearance on or off in the village?" He asked.

The wolf began looking intently at it, in deep reflection:

"Woo!" (Uncertain)

"Just be honest!"

Jack kept cycling between both appearances madly. Ensued an intense moment of pondering, only for the wolf to finally wisely suggests:

"Woo!"

"You're right. Why not both!"

They nodded at one another, having spent longer on this BS than pondering stat allocation. #MMO-Fashion! But the two quickly left the dungeon via the big bright orange portal that had conveniently appeared in the distance.

But as soon as Jack went through it, a system announcement shower began!

[Congratulation: First to Clear a Dungeon!]

....