And as if by some miracle… over the course of this half hour, under the chaotic assault of twelve Frenzied Fierce Oxen, he’d been completely unharmed from start to finish, never once touched by any one of them. And the further it went, the more easily Ye Tianxie handled them — because when these Frenzied Fierce Oxen launched their Savage Charges, they charged in a perfectly straight line and wouldn’t turn to follow a moving target at all. This was one of the important reasons Ye Tianxie could hold out unharmed for so long.
The first Frenzied Fierce Ox fell, and the pressure on Ye Tianxie eased just a touch. A flicker of delighted amusement flashed across his face, and then, in his swift movements, he found another chance to strike, his right hand carving out a supremely domineering blow in the direction his body swayed…
Time slipped by bit by bit, and this prolonged tangle between one Level 10 player and twelve Level 10 three-star BOSSes — take any dozen-second clip of it at random, and it would be enough to leave everyone dumbstruck. The “Undefeated Evil Emperor” legend sprang not from his powerful gear and attributes, but from footwork so divine, like a god descended to the mortal world, that could safely take a commanding general’s head from within an army of millions. In gaming worlds past, so long as Tian Moxie appeared in high profile, then no matter how vast the spectacle, it would become a magnificent performance with him as the sole lead.
A flash of black light, and the second Frenzied Fierce Ox fell… A dozen-odd seconds later, another Frenzied Fierce Ox toppled beneath the Hour of Eternal Fate.
Under the oxen’s dense assault, each chance he got to strike was extremely precious, and so he couldn’t lock onto a single target for concentrated attack to pick them off one by one; he could only, when an opening appeared, attack the nearest one or the nearest cluster. As a result, each ox took varying degrees of injury, and after the third Savage Fierce Ox fell, more than half of the remaining nine had their HP driven below a third.
Thud — another charging Frenzied Fierce Ox toppled over. Its fall made Ye Tianxie’s movements stall slightly, and he was nearly struck by three oxen’s horns at once — because he hadn’t struck at that one at all; this Savage Fierce Ox’s death was, of all things, because it had… died of a kidney-stone flare-up!
A gleaming gold coin burst from the ox’s body — and more dazzling than that speck of gold light was a dim silver glow.
A Silver-grade item!
Ye Tianxie’s mind stirred. After several consecutive turns he lured the remaining oxen together, then broke away at top speed, rushed to that ox’s corpse, snatched up the silver-gleaming piece of gear, and put it into his backpack.
He knew perfectly well what a single Silver item meant to the World of Fate right now. It had been nearly ten days since the World of Fate began, and across the whole world there were fewer than ten Silver items in all. Perhaps after some more time, once the average player level far exceeded 10, it would be worthless trash no one wanted — but at this stage, its preciousness was beyond measure. Ye Tianxie even worried it might vanish after going too long unclaimed, and snatched it up without a moment’s delay.
But he had no time at all right now to check this Silver item’s attributes; he swiftly turned to face the Frenzied Fierce Oxen bearing down on him.
Three minutes later, the fifth fell…
Another minute later, the sixth and seventh fell at the same time…
A few minutes after that, the eighth fell. And the remaining four each had only a pitiful sliver of health left.
Their health bars above their heads almost completely empty, these remaining, plainly witless oxen still launched their Savage Charges with undiminished momentum. At a glance, the once-orderly grassland was long since a shambles, marks of trampling and charging everywhere.
Compared with the earlier chaos of twelve charging at once, these last four Savage Fierce Oxen — any one of which could easily crush an ordinary player to death — were now utterly beneath notice in Ye Tianxie’s eyes. He eyed their remaining health, charged straight at their charge, and swung out an utterly effortless blow…
-152, -155, -155, -150.
Four damage numbers drew up four feeble ox-bellows. The last four Savage Fierce Oxen were buried beneath the Hour of Eternal Fate at the same time, their corpses scattering a ground full of silver coins, bringing this performance of Ye Tianxie’s to a close.
The surroundings finally went quiet; apart from him, not a single living creature was left standing here. Ye Tianxie let out a slight breath and picked up the spoils on the ground one by one. Three-star elite monsters naturally had a higher drop rate than two-star elites. Ye Tianxie discarded all the plain-stat gear from his nearly-full backpack and put in the two Bronze pieces and two Steel pieces the Frenzied Fierce Oxen had dropped. Then he cast “Gathering” one after another, harvesting twelve pairs of identically-shaped ox horns from the oxen’s corpses.
Fierce Ox Horn — The twin horns of a Savage Fierce Ox, possessing excellent toughness; a fine forging material.
As he finished gathering from the last ox’s corpse, a faint yellow glow he’d overlooked earlier flashed at the edge of his vision. Ye Tianxie reached out and pushed aside the ox’s body, and made out the source of that faint yellow glow… it was, of all things, a bronze-colored earring!
Ye Tianxie felt a wave of inner good fortune and picked up this earring, plain beyond compare in appearance. Accessory-type equipment this hard to come by was a rare treasure priced without sellers to be found, even a plain-stat earring carrying but a single attribute.
Resistance Earring — Bronze-grade. Equip Requirement: Level 10. An earring possessing the power of magic resistance; when worn, all-attribute magic resistance +3%.
Resisting an added 3% all-attribute magic resistance meant a 3% immunity to damage from any magic. Ye Tianxie gave an inward word of praise and put the earring on his left ear. Earrings in the World of Fate fell into two broad types — single earrings and paired earrings; paired earrings could only be worn as one set, while single earrings could be worn two at a time. The Resistance Earring was a simple single earring. With it on, all seven of Ye Tianxie’s magic resistances rose to 3%.
Opening his backpack, he took the Silver piece the oxen had dropped into his hand and looked over its attributes:
Fierce Ox Vambrace — Silver-grade. Use Requirement: Level 10 melee-type class, Strength attribute greater than 40. A vambrace made from the hide of a Frenzied Fierce Ox. Attributes: Unidentified, cannot be used.
Silver-grade and higher equipment could only be used after being identified. In the novice village, the chief was the sole appraiser. Putting the Fierce Ox Vambrace back into his backpack, Ye Tianxie could only raise his brows helplessly. His level was enough and his Strength attribute was enough, but with no class at all, he simply couldn’t equip it. For now, all he could do was pass the trial as quickly as possible and head to a city to obtain a proper class…
But deep down, he’d always faintly felt that the reason he couldn’t obtain a novice class seemed to be anything but simple.
(End of Chapter 41)