Chapter 12

One of the Polluters was taken down.

With that, the pressure on Wang Meng's team lessened significantly.

The beautiful mage holding the staff, her eyes filled with excitement, exclaimed, "Someone's helping us! Could it be the player from the leaderboard, 'Shadow'?"

At this point, it was hard to tell if she was still beautiful, as her face and body were covered in sludge, and her health was critically low. However, her figure remained captivating, catching a few extra glances.

Her long legs moved nimbly as she dodged, making her appear lively and agile.

"Hang in there," Wang Meng said, his face serious.

His cooldowns refreshed, and he activated a skill—*Holy Barrier*!

A golden light enveloped his burly form, granting him three seconds of invulnerability, allowing him to hold off the Charger for a little longer.

This gave the rest of the team room to maneuver.

With one Polluter down, the long-range threat had diminished significantly.

About thirty seconds later, Qin Feng reappeared behind another Polluter.

Without warning, he struck again!

Another instant kill.

"No evolution point this time…"

"Greedy Hand!"

"Oh, a skill book dropped?"

Qin Feng quickly picked up the skill book dropped by the Polluter.

He checked his inventory:

——

[Poison Dart (Normal): Assassin skill. Throw a poisonous dart with a range of 12 meters. On hit, deals 40 damage and inflicts the 'Poisoned' status. Cooldown: 5 seconds. Requires Level 2.]

[Poisoned: Deals 30% of attack damage per second, lasts 5 seconds, no weak point multiplier, cannot stack.]

——

Finally, an attack skill! And a mid-range, damage-over-time skill at that.

Even for an average player, learning such a skill early on would significantly boost their leveling speed.

However…

The chances of normal monsters dropping skill books were quite low.

Out of all the regular monsters Qin Feng had killed, this was only the second time he had seen a skill book drop.

The first was from the initial Crawler, which dropped the mage spell *Ice Spike*.

This time, it was thanks to Greedy Hand that the *Poison Dart* skill book dropped.

"Bosses still have a higher drop rate for skills and equipment…"

"But for regular players, without solid gear or skills, they don't stand a chance against even the weakest Bronze-tier boss."

Qin Feng mused.

He didn't hesitate—he still had 3 evolution points, and he immediately evolved *Poison Dart* twice!

——

[Poison Dart (Normal → Bronze → Silver): Assassin skill. Throw a poisonous dart with a range of 12 → 13 → 14 meters. On hit, deals 40 → 80 → 120 damage and inflicts the 'Poisoned' status. Cooldown: 5 seconds. Requires Level 2.]

[Poisoned: Deals 30% → 40% → 50% attack damage per second, lasts 5 seconds, no weak point multiplier, cannot stack.]

——

After two evolutions, the total damage of the skill more than doubled!

Qin Feng acted swiftly, learning and evolving the skill in one fluid motion.

Just as the last Polluter turned to face him, preparing to hurl a blob of sludge, Qin Feng struck first.

With a quick flick of his wrist, a Poison Dart flew toward the Polluter.

It struck its head with deadly precision!

For most beginner players, such accuracy would be nearly impossible.

But after nine years of experience in the Forsaken Game from his previous life, Qin Feng's proficiency with ranged attacks was ingrained in him...

With a casual toss, his Poison Dart hit the Polluter's weak point perfectly.

-237 (Weak Point Hit)!

The damage number wasn't particularly high, as there was no stealth attack, no backstab, and the enemy had already detected Qin Feng, preventing his Shadow class passive from doubling the damage.

However, Qin Feng disappeared into the shadows again right after his attack!

Meanwhile, the Polluter turned green after being hit by the Poison Dart, and damage numbers started popping up.

-158!

-158!

Two ticks of poison damage later, the Polluter finally fell.

"The poison damage is quite high."

"And when I attack and go invisible, the damage-over-time benefits from my class passive, doubling the damage!"

Qin Feng, being highly attuned to damage calculations, quickly noticed this detail.

The third passive of the Shadow class doubled damage when the user wasn't within the enemy's line of sight.

Since he was invisible, he wasn't considered in sight, meaning the poison damage was also doubled!

Unfortunately, the last Polluter didn't drop anything.

Only the final Bronze-tier boss, the Charger, remained—this was the real prize!

At this point, Wang Meng was drenched in sweat. "I can't hold on much longer," he muttered.

The middle-aged female priest in the team kept casting healing spells on him, but their effects were limited.

Wang Meng's health bar continued to steadily drop.

It was clear that despite their team reaching level 2, they hadn't acquired any useful gear or skill books, forcing them to fight in a basic and inefficient manner.

Just then…

A figure suddenly appeared behind the Charger boss.

Timing his attack perfectly with the moment the Charger lunged at Wang Meng, Qin Feng launched a Poison Dart directly at the boss's head!

The dart struck with pinpoint accuracy.

-845 (Weak Point Hit)!

The attack fully capitalized on stealth, backstab, and weak point multipliers.

A devastating hit!

Wang Meng and his team, who had been on edge, were left wide-eyed in shock as they watched the boss's health bar plummet by nearly half in an instant.

"Holy crap!"

Wang Meng couldn't help but curse.

Their entire team had been chipping away at the Charger for ages, only managing to reduce its health by less than 10%.

Yet this mysterious figure had knocked off half the boss's health with a single move?

And that wasn't even the scariest part.

Next came the poison damage...

-324!

-324!

-324!

-324!

With the Charger's body turning green from the poison, four poison ticks hit consecutively, and before it could even attempt to fight back, it collapsed in front of Wang Meng!

Of course, Wang Meng and his team couldn't see other players' damage numbers.

They could only watch as the boss's health bar dropped rapidly with each tick, causing their own hearts to race in sync!

Right before their eyes, the Bronze-tier boss that had nearly wiped their team was killed by poison!

"What the hell… is that damage even human?"

"Wait, is this guy really a player who started the game at the same time as us?"

"You guys are missing the point. The real shocker is that he hit the boss's head with a dart while it was moving so erratically!"

"Exactly, we struggled to hit it with any of our ranged attacks, but he just casually nailed a weak point..."

Wang Meng's entire team was left speechless.

They stared at the pile of loot the boss had dropped, but it was clear they didn't have permission to pick it up.

In the Forsaken Game, loot rights were given to the player or team who dealt the most damage.

Since Qin Feng had dealt 90% of the damage to the Charger, he rightfully owned all the loot!