062 Trial By Fire

A short but awkward silence followed the brother-sister pair's arrival as both sides were sizing the other up.

James cleared his throat and then started the meeting, "Welcome, since the two of you want to join our group I will need to establish a few rules and conditions."

The pair in front of James and Mercury sat up straight and waited to hear what James had to say.

"First and foremost, my group had a vote to see if you two should be allowed to join us. It was not unanimous; in the end an agreement was struck between our members." James looked at Mercury and gave her a 'follow along' look. Even though the group voted in favor of them joining he wanted to make sure they would be a good fit.

A smile blossomed on Holly's face. Seeing it James continued, "It won't be simple. Before you can hear our terms of joining the team you two have two challenges to complete. Consider it a trial run."

Creed frowned, he was an expert, why should he have to pass some tests. Most individuals would be greeting him with open arms. He had to swallow his displeased remarks for now. "What are the challenges?"

"Well.. The first will be a boss raid, Reaper and I will find a boss and you two will engage it in battle. After we see your coordination we will jump in and see how you adapt to our presence. The second will be a player vs player battle, a 2v2 fight between the two of you and the two of us." James already knew the outcome of the tests but still wanted to see the process.

Hearing that his sister would need to fight Creed was sour. He looked at his sister in worry. She noticed his look, "No need to worry, I am sure they will be fair in both tests."

"She is right, I won't make things too difficult. The boss fight is to gauge your ability to protect your sister and to test your adaptability to various situations. Both Reaper and myself will join when we feel satisfied. As for the PvP fight, it is a test solely focused on testing your sister's ability to handle stressful situations. We find that we are often in situations where we are required to fight against other players. Thus, we can't have an unreliable healer in our backrow. We can mostly protect her but she still has to be able to keep her composure."

Mercury thought it was an interesting set of tests. She wondered how she should pick on Holly, she had an evil grin at the time.

Creed wanted to say he was against the idea of the PvP test but after thinking about it he agreed. It was true, conflict with other players was unavoidable. He was still really worried, he looked towards Mercury.

"No need to fret, Reaper will be facing you directly. Only I will target Holly. That being said, if both you and Holly cannot maintain a good formation I can keep that promise as Holly might be caught in the crossfire or aftermath." James said with a cheeky grin.

"Sounds good to me. When are we starting?" asked Creed.

"Now, let's head to the field." James started heading to the Waystone.

Before teleporting James sent an invite to everyone and had the party teleport to his desired location.

With their vision coming everyone noticed that they arrived back at the Temple's Waystone.

"You don't plan on running the dungeon to find a boss are you?" Mercury was worried.

"Nope, we have some revenge to get. Don't we?" James said in a playful tone.

It dawned on her. The Centurion Hunter from last time. Wouldn't that be harder than running the dungeon? She asked herself. Looking towards James she could only call him the devil in her head.

James directed the group down the path towards the exit. Before leaving he planted another [Ivy Seed] and continued out of the hidden cave.

He poked his head out of the water and looked around. Sure enough, the Centurion was still there and looking angry as ever.

"You're joking, right?" Creed saw where James was looking. His sister and himself barely snuck by the creature after looking at its information.

"Nope, that is our target. It turned mad after we killed the Devil's Ivy so we have to put it down." said James.

Creed stared blankly at James. For real? He is nuts!

"Well, get started. Like I said, once we see your capabilities both Mercury and myself will join in. Her and I leveled quite a bit since the last time we were here. Not only that but we have your sister, as long as she manages her mana and heals this fight shouldn't be too bad."

Seeing that there was no way out Creed gritted his teeth and jumped out of the water. "God Damn it!"

Seeing her brother jump into the fight Holly made her way to shore and prepared herself to heal her brother.

** Chat Group: Blaise - Mercury **

[- Mercury: You've evil. -]

[- Blaise: What? Two birds with one stone. Also it is a win-win. Regardless if we can actually beat the boss they will enter the group and if we do win we get our revenge. -]

[- Mercury: … You have the evil grin showing again. -]

'Evil grin? Why does everyone think it is evil…' James could only hopelessly wonder.

The duo turned back to look at the fight in front of them.

After seeing the spectacle in front Mercury had some doubt, "He is having a hard time."

"Naturally. He is facing a level 40 boss on his own. Just wait til we join the battle, I am sure it will enrage again and jump up to level 85 again." James retorted.

Mercury gave out a small laugh, "I can't wait to see the look on their faces when that happens."

Creed appeared to be a Monk class. He was wearing a pair of cestus, a glove styled melee weapon. While being slower than the boss Creed was holding his own fairly well, especially with the help of his sister's healing.

"She is handling it pretty well." Mercury praised.

James agreed. Holly was doing her best while healing her brother. Not only was she performing larger heals when Creed took damage but she was also keeping up HoT (healing over time) spells active. Doing so eased the stress on herself. When her brother was able to dodge the healing would continue so she was able to conserve mana.

The only problem for Creed and Holy was that the boss was doing more damage then she could handle. It didn't show at first but the longer the fight went on the more obvious it became.

Seeing that they were at the breaking point James joined the fight, Mercury followed behind.

Creed was beyond worried, he was able to tell where the battle was going. He only prayed that James and Mercury would join the battle as soon as possible. He looked at the boss to look at its stats.

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Centurion Hunter

Grade: Silver Boss

Level: 40

Hp: 125,245/150,000

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'Damn! Is this all I'm capable of? Holly is almost out of mana.' Creed was internally cursing himself. Some of his thoughts were unforgivable. Things like, is Holly's presence really slowing me down? What level would I be at if I did bring her along with me? He was angry at himself.

** Ding. Centurion Hunter found its mortal enemies, it has entered an enraged mode. **

Creed and Holly looked at the boss's stats. Creed swore endlessly and Holly felt her legs go weak.

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Enraged Centurion Hunter

Grade: Gold Boss

Level: 85

Hp: 425,245/450,000

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Creed was now entirely outspeed and was not able to dodge any attack from the Centurion. He took a punch to the body and flew backwards.

"Brother!" Holly shouted. [Priestess Prayer]! She used the Priestess's basic ultimate healing spell.

Just when Creed thought he would hit a wall or fall into the water he abruptly stopped moving. He turned around to find a small hand resting on his back.

"You want to pick yourself up and put yourself together?" said Mercury.

Creed was also enraged, he looked at James. "You knew this would happen! You wanted to use my sister and myself as pawns!"

James shook his head. "Not the case, the test was to see how you two faired against a boss. I also said that Reaper and I would join in. I never said that there wouldn't be any curveballs."

James walked forward with Mercury. Just as he passed Creed he placed his hand on Creed's shoulder, "Take a minute to catch your breath then join us." James also looked at Holly and threw her a small bag. "Take these and recover your mana. We'll need your help."

Both Holly and Creed looked at each other and then at the backs of James and Mercury. They felt inferior… How are they so calm?

* Whoosh *

A field of small flames instantly bloomed. James's [Aura of Pure Fire] was in full effect.

Creed and Holly looked around, the entire cannon was filled with small little dancing flames. Holly thought it was a beautiful sight.

* Ding, you have been buffed. Gained XXX speed, XXX defense, XXX attack points.

* Ding, you have been buffed. Gained XXX speed, XXX defense

Both Creed and Holly received almost identical notifications. They were shocked. 'Such huge numbers!' They both thought.

Creed looked at everyone. The party members had a blue and green aura around them while the Centurion had a red one. 'Is this a skill?' Creed thought to himself.

"It's you! Bastards! Taste my axe!" Roared the Centurion.

Flaming vines grew out of the ground and crawled up the back of the Centurion. They wrapped around the axe and the arms of the beast preventing it from swinging downward.

Seeing that the beast was stuck Mercury sprinted towards it and prepared to attack. She held her axe parallel to the ground and used [Crushing Assault]. She crashed her axe into the back of the Centurion's knees making it kneel on the ground.

A new set of Flaming Vines grew over the withering old ones and then partially retreated into the ground forcing the Centurion's arms to contort backwards. The Centurion was now firmly entrapped. It tried to struggle but was barely able to do so.

* Snap snap snap *

James snapped his fingers three times and three Fireballs formed and floated above his head.

As the three Fireballs accelerated towards the trapped Centurion Mercury ran up the massive body of the beast and jumped high into the air.

Just as the Fireballs were about to strike James breathed out a large funnel of flames. All three of the Fireballs and the stream of fire from his Flamethrower struck the boss at the same time. Three explosions rang out. Due to their target taking damage the Flaming Vines withered away and due to the shock of the explosions the boss fell backwards to the ground.

Dazed and confused, the Centurion opened its eyes. It's vision was very blurry, it saw something approaching from the sky but couldn't tell what it was. Based on its instincts it knew it had to move.

While attempting to roll away the Centurion found that it couldn't move again. It looked to the side and saw that red and burning vines had wrapped around it's arms and legs.

Looking back to the sky, his vision had cleared up, he saw a girl with a giant axe plummeting downward directly above it's chest.

It blinked, heard a thud, and felt a sharp pain. It opened its eyes and looked down at his chest. A girl was standing on the long handle of the large axe that was plunged into its chest.

It bellowed in pain and frustration. It felt that it was no longer confined and went to grab the girl.

A melodic laugh rang out, Mercury backflipped off the Centurion while pulling out her axe. A ripping sound was heard followed by the squirting sound of blood leaving the Centurion's body.

The Centurion sat up and smashed the ground in front of it hoping to hit the pest but missed. It couldn't figure out why it felt so sluggish. Frustration and rage further set in.

Both Holly and Creed were slack jawed after watching the performance. In less than a minute the duo dealt just under 25,000 damage. It took him more than 10 minutes to do that kind of damage.

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Enraged Centurion Hunter

Grade: Gold Boss

Level: 85

Hp: 402,812/450,000

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James called out to the other two members of their party. "So, are you two going to join in soon? I don't think that we will get an opportunity to do that much damage any time soon. The Centurion will be more on guard from now on."

"Don't look too impressed. Based on what we saw earlier your sister has more promise than you do! You fight as if this was an old-styled video game! In this game you need to use your head to think of how to advantages you dimwit!" Mercury threw an insult to rile Creed up.

"Who the fuck thinks to fight like that!" Creed spat out in return to Mercury's insult.

Mercury stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry, "This game is more than just traditional stuns, freezes, and interrupting abilities! Hinder, cripple, manipulate and be merciless to every monster and player who is your enemy."

Creed's face was beet red, both in embarrassment and in frustration with himself. He, like 99.9%, are still in the old ways of playing MMOs.

"She is right, Creed. Someone with your past and having a personal healer should be at the apex of the game…" James sighed. Creed has wasted much of his potential.