Legends Rise - Chapter 10 True Swordmage

Celeste was very unhappy. Despite being warned that the ramen he was going to have was truly one of the spiciest, he had still ventured off to give it a try. However, he found that he could not even finish the noodles and toppings. Sure enough, he had failed the food challenge, and before he could go and buy a proper meal, he received a text from his superiors that asked him to prepare a report of the day’s tryouts sooner than the usual time.

Because of this, he had to rush back to his booth in the convention center with only a rice ball and some crackers. This had left bad taste in his mouth, as he was forced to watch a day of exceedingly poor tryouts followed by ramen that was too extreme for him; and he wasn’t even allowed to buy a consolation meal before he was rushed back to deal with more tryouts.

However, upon returning back to the tryouts area, a large crowd could be seen cheering and roaring at the main stage area. The main stage area was normally used to highlight new applicants that were performing well. As soon as an applicant displayed promise, their previous performance would be replayed on the stage. The analysts and recruiters that were featured there would give their impression of how strong the player is, and whether or not they’ll have a chance with the organization they had applied for. Unfortunately, it would be Celeste’s turn on that stage tomorrow.

The crowd roared again!

“I can’t believe he’s still going!”

“How much time has it been?”

“He’s been at it for over an hour!? How could that be possible!”

“Is he actually just a pro player in disguise? Looking at the mage setup, it seems like something the god tier player Resonance would do!”

“No way! Resonance would never try a character setup this stupid!”

“How can you call The Dawn’s character set up stupid?! He cleared the entire first stage by killing the Pro AI in only 3 minutes!”

“Yeah! He even won the second stage’s 1 on 2 match in the 5 minutes that he was required to just survive!”

“Look, he’s already broken the record of 20 minutes in the third stage by a whole 45 minutes!”

‘…’

Celeste made his way towards the crowd. He pulled on a youngster’s sleeve which caused the youngster to turn around.

“Excuse me, but who did you say broke those records?”

—

Li Ming was currently very bored. Although he was having fun at first, he couldn’t help bu be bored at this moment.

In the first stage, he was surprised by the enemies strength! The enemy seemed to resemble Mato, but without her intellect and cunningness. Because of this, Li Ming was able to take advantage of the AI’s openings and mercilessly cut it down.

‘Whoever designed this AI must really underestimate Mato’ he had thought while loading into the next stage.

In the second stage, he was up against 2 players. This time, he was being charged at by two players who looked like the Tokyo Bullet’s captain, Kou, as well as the Berlin Crane’s Ace player, Kartoffel. At first, Li Ming chose to flee from this situation, as he thought that he couldn’t win. But after watching the AI for a while, Li Ming noticed the two AI, although strong individually, weren’t actually cooperating with each other the way a regular squad would.

He decided to take advantage of this. Thankfully, the second stage took place on a map of a cityscape. He had ran into a shopping center in the heart of the city in an attempt to outrun the two pursuers, but they had split up as soon as he had entered the building.

Kartoffel, who was known for being a very graceful player, normally chose to avoid direct confrontation, as they were viewed as a messy battle with little strategy. Berlin Crane’s motto was “Victory through graceful strategy”. Therefore, his AI chose to fly above the shopping center to launch a large scale spell to level the entire structure.

However, the Tokyo Bullet’s playstyle was vastly different. Their strategy revolved around the Run-and-gun method of gameplay, where you would just clash head on and overwhelm their enemies with brute strength. They would chase you down without letting you catch your breath. His AI decided to chase Li Ming directly into the shopping center.

Li Ming took advantage of the splitting up. He activated his trinket for Grass Roots Trap, and placed the trap in the center of the shopping center, right under a heavy crystal chandelier. As Kou closed in on him, Li Ming suddenly turned, and launched an attack with his spear! The stab was parried by Kou’s dual swords, but Li Ming immediately activated 2 of his trinkets for the “Wind Arrow Volley” and suppressed Kou’s movement with that.

He followed up by using “Shunpo” to move behind the AI, and promptly activated his primary ability “Ghost Strike”. This created 2 phantom spears that stabbed straight into the AI with his regular spear. This strike alone forced Kou’s AI to be knocked back into the “Grass Roots Trap” that he had laid out earlier. Also, because the 2 phantom spears was considered a unique attack, his Ultimate Passive “On the Hunt” activated, which granted him stealth.

The AI would be rooted in the trap for another 15 seconds, until an ally freed him, or until he took damage again. At this moment, the AI had only 2% health remaining, and he was in a weakened state where he could not move.

Li Ming used this stealth ability to hop onto the rooftop and waited for Kartoffel’s signature ability that he used to level buildings in regular competitive matches. The spell was “Grand Skyfall”, which generated a myriad of large swords, spears, and arrows to fall onto a designated area. As this was an ultimate ability, it had a 10 second cast time. It had taken Li Ming 5 seconds to fight with Kou’s AI in addition to the 2 seconds that the chase had lasted for after the two AIs had separated.

This meant that he had around 3 more seconds until the spell was casted.

As soon as he saw the first spear start to fall, Li Ming immediately used his trinket to shoot his “Firelance” at the binding that held the crystal chandelier up. Normally, a trinket’s “Firelance” would not be strong enough to destroy the binding, but because his last ability that he had activated was a physical attack, his “High Tempo” passive had buffed this spell to do a bonus amount of damage. This damage was more than enough to disintegrate the chandelier’s support, dropping the entire crystal mass onto Kou’s AI.

After seeing that his ability drop the chandelier, Li Ming immediately jumped at the flying AI that was targeting him after he had left “On the Hunt”‘s stealth by using a trinket. Seeing Li Ming close in on him, the AI immediately targeted him with a myriad of “Lightning Spears”. Although this technique was quite easy to dodge, one who wasn’t a mage wouldn’t be able to have much aerial movement.

The “Lightning Spears” came towards Li Ming, threatening to pierce right through him.

2 seconds to collision…

1 second to collision…

Half a second to collision…

Whoosh~!

Li Ming activated “Shunpo” again to dodge behind Kartoffel’s AI! He had just gotten the kill by dropping the chandelier on Kou’s AI, which had reset the cooldown timer on “Shunpo”, which had allowed him to dodge the “Lighting Spears”!

With the AI momentarily confused my his disappearance, Li Ming plunged his spear into the AI’s neck. This was a critical hit zone, where when hit, it would deal double damage to a player. Normally, warriors and guardians would wear armor that protected this spot, but because Kartoffel was an offensive mage, his AI had no such luxuries. Because his last instance of dealing damage was through spell damage on the crystal chandelier, this stab’s damage was also further increased!

Kartoffel’s AI was instantly slaughtered, as his ultimate ability “Grand Skyfall” left a debuff on the user that made him take double damage before the debuff wore off. With the damage of a buffed spear stab to a critical hit zone which doubled the damage being further doubled by this debuff, the AI never stood a chance.

After defeating the two AI, Li Ming was brought to the next stage. Looking at the timer to see how long he took, he felt his pride sting, as he knew he could have beaten the two far faster had he not spent 4 minutes running away. But at the same time, he was once again disappointed with the calibration of the two AI. Had they cooperted to hunt him down, Li Ming would have been forced to run away as fast as possible.

‘If only whoever calibrated these had a brain…’ Li Ming shook his head with disappointment. Had the programmers behind these AI heard Li Ming’s thoughts, they would have surely coughed up blood!

—

“…And now he’s in the third stage, which he’s been in for over an hour!”

Celeste stood there in shock. Had he judged the kid too quickly? Or rather, was his game knowledge truly as perfect as he thought it was? Watching the replays being broken down on the large screen, he could see Li Ming flawlessly execute combos and clear the stages with ease.

‘Is this… a true Swordmage?’