20. Duel

"Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion." — Jack Welch

Stepping outside the slaughterhouse, two people look at each other with calm expressions, one side supremely confident in their ability and the other willing to give it a try in an attempt to make some more money. 

After agreeing to the duel, the game began a three-second countdown visible in the space between them. As the timer hit zero, Claire instantly cast one of her new spells, Elemental Assault. She was releasing something that looked like an overcharged basic attack. A ball of magical energy shot out, hitting Paul and doing 10% of his HP while simultaneously freezing and burning different parts of his body, doing a noticeable amount of DoT damage.

Seeing his charge at her, unworried about the incoming damage, she quickly cast her new ultimate ability, Suppression Seal, which caused the entire area to be covered in a pale blue light, constantly slowing his movements and applying a crippling effect to him, meaning he was unable to use and movement abilities, such as dashes or jumps.

Being slowed by 40%, Paul immediately used his cleanse ability, Purifier's Embrace, to cleanse the burn, freeze, and slow before continuing his full tilt charge. 

By the time he got into melee range, Paul was under 40% HP but seemed completely unconcerned; on the other hand, Claire used Lightning Cowl and another one of her new abilities, Aetherveil Aegis, which conjured a temporary to block incoming attacks for defense before casting another Elemental Assault.

Finally getting into range, Paul pulled back both of his weapons and winded up for a heavy attack; with a formidable defense, Claire simply stood there and took it, extremely surprised to realize that his heavy attack had interrupted her casting process, not only stopping the spell from casting but also putting her off-balance.

 Without hesitation, Paul used his ultimate, Stellar Collapse; almost blinded by the light, Claire suddenly felt very warm as her Aetherveiw Aegis broke, and her HP began to drop rapidly as her opponent began weaving Arcane Reaver without stop, plundering her HP until before she could even think of a way out.

Only 3 seconds after the first damage to her, Claire's HP bottomed out, and the duel ended.

In Harbinger's Call, duels end when someone has one single HP point, not truly killing people as to keep with the term "friendly" the game used when requesting a duel. 

Somewhat stunned, Claire looked at Paul incredulously.

"That was very close."

She said this after seeing that Paul only had 20% of his health left.

She was inwardly annoyed to no end; her shield was her newest ability, and she didn't know that you could still be interrupted when channeling an ability with it up. 

Looking at her expression, Paul laughed lightly.

"If you want we can double or nothing."

Seeing the smile on his face, Claire suddenly felt like she was about to get played.

"You are a templar, right? So you could have healed that damage just as I dealt it until you ran out of mana, couldn't you?"

He smiled when she saw through his somewhat sarcastic plan to get more money out of her.

"Yes, when the fight ended, I still had 70% of my mana, which could heal me from 1 HP to full health twice if I focused only on healing." 

Hearing this, Claire was furious.

"How can Templar be so strong? You killed me almost instantly through a defensive buff and a shield, but you can also heal your HP twice over."

Seeing her reaction, Paul smirked to himself.

'Why do you think I picked this class? There is a reason Arcane Reaver and its evolutions are known as some of the most ridiculous abilities in the game, even after multiple nerfs, let alone the base game version while weaving with duel wield.'

"Also, when did you basic attack me so many times with your sword, I didn't even see it."

"That's because I was activating my abilities at the tail end of my basic attacks, canceling the animation and, in a way, double-hitting you."

Hearing him Claire suddenly had a feeling that she had picked a terrible class.

Seeing her sudden sadness made it difficult to guess what she was thinking.

"Don't worry, sorceress is also strong in PvP; it just needs to get higher to show its might."

Claire turned back towards the slaughterhouse, feeling like he was just trying to be nice to him.

"Let's get to making money then."

Walking inside, Paul stood on one side and pointed towards the opposite side.

"This is where the cows will continuously respawn, so you kill that side, and I'll kill this side. It is good that there are 2 of us now because since we are at a party together, even though I haven't done any damage to the ones you kill, I will get a chance also to get a drop and vice versa."

"Was that calculated into the 10,000 hides we were getting in a day of farming, or will that make it more?"

"Well, I made 9,500 yesterday, so 10,000 was a ballpark; realistically, it should be a decent amount more, but traveling back and forth from the city will cut those gains quite a bit. So, in the end, our take home will not be more than 11-12 thousand each. We can refine what we get and sell it to NPCs to get enough thalor to buy the basic horse mount, which should save us quite a bit of time and earn us a lot more money." 

"How much thalor does leather sell to NPCs for?"

"I looked and a stack of 50 leather seels for 50 thalor to NPCs."

"No way, right? Isn't that a massive scam, then?"

Hearing her anger about the NPCs lowballing, Paul smiled meaningfully.

"Anyways, to get 10,000 thalor for a horse each is a little over two days of farming, but it will be very much worth it. I should have mentioned it earlier because it is somewhat complex. Still, when refining any crafting material, you have a small chance to extract upgrade materials for that type of equipment. We can get materials to make uncommon armor rare, epic, and legendary if lucky."

Hearing him, Claire was shocked.

"Doesn't that mean it is very easy to get legendary equipment as long as you farm materials long enough or just pay to win?"

"No, when gear drops, the quality matters very much; an epic sword made legendary will be significantly stronger than an uncommon sword made legendary. The power between a native legendary and a native epic made into a legendary is not comparable."

"That's good; I was worried this game would have terrible gear balance if it were easy to get such good gear."

"Yes, and that only means the demand for those materials will be unimaginable. That is where the potential profit truly is; one legendary upgrade material would be worth more than an entire day of the money we would make from leather.

Hearing the prospect of great wealth, Claire's breathing became tense.

"What do you think the drop chances are for those?"

Looking at the excited girl, Paul laughed.

"Hahaha, most likely absolutely terrible; fortunately, if you look at the tailor skill line, you can see there are passives to increase the chances of extracting upgrade materials, the same as any other profession in the game."

Having expected that kind of answer, Claire and Paul started farming, where she quickly learned that Searing Expanse made killing her side incredibly easy.