Chapter 288: Day 626 (2) – An Exchange Of Pointers, Michael Vs The Envoy, Fight!

The Envoy’s eyes narrowed slightly at the letter. It was clearly a provocation by the Astrologer. But we needed to present strength to buy time. Rolling over would just have us rolled over. He carefully folded the letter back up and tucked it away in his robe. I noted he wasn’t wearing a pack.

“Junior, let us talk. Pointers we shall exchange here. To first wound or blow.” I immediately kicked off the ground backwards before he was done speaking. Even with his weird way of speaking, I wasn’t about to stay at close range against someone with a higher Body stat. After all my practice sessions with Naran, that would mean death. The Envoy leapt forward.

I couldn’t kill him. That would only invite the Divine Empress to come in person to find out what happened. I couldn’t show weakness. Again, I had the same problem here, since if I was weak, it would invite the Divine Empress to act. And I didn’t want to expose too many of my skills, since that would leave me at a disadvantage in the future.

Or perhaps I should just kill this man. I couldn’t afford half measures. If he died, then would we just have to run sooner rather than later, and I would just claim he was weak to the Divine Empress if she cornered me. Perhaps it might convince her to torture me only a little. No more time for contemplation, it was time to fight!

“Acid Shot.” I was going to end this fight right away. No hesitation!

“Sheer Barrier.” The Envoy gestured with his right hand and my Acid Shot split apart. I was already following up with my second hand.

“Acid Shot.” I used my skill again to attack him.

“Sheer Barrier.” The Envoy countered my skill with one of his own and was closing in.

“Air Burst.” I created distance between us. “Acid Shot. Acid Shot.” I really missed being able to use the skill without speaking or a hand sign.

“Death Beam.” Motes of black light began to gather around his hands as the Envoy reversed directions to avoid my attacks.

“Aqua Sphere!” My skill formed a moment before he unleashed his attack. My Aqua Sphere bent heavily, but it held he tracked me even as I moved with my defense skill up. I let it drop once his attack ended. Three shuriken were rapidly flying at me. I kicked off the ground in the opposite direction and they missed.

The shurikens then exploded. Shrapnel, flew at me. “Acid Shot. Air Burst.” I flowed from one hand sign to the next. The shrapnel bounced off me, but didn’t leave a scratch except on my armor.

“Sheer Barrier.” The Envoy came at me relentlessly. If I hadn’t upgraded my Body stat to 700, I would be dead for sure at the moment.

“Acid Shot. Acid Shot. Air Burst.” I used my skills to keep my distance and pressure him. I was not about to enter melee range against someone with a higher Body stat.

“Sheer Barrier. Sheer Barrier.” The Envoy kept rushing at me, not using another beam attack. He then stopped moving. I came to a stop a good distance away from him.

“An impasse has come. We shall speak again sometime. Champion Michael.” He gave me a slight nod which I returned, figuring it meant the end of our exchange of pointers.

“Envoy of her Divine Majesty,” I politely replied. He looked at me for a couple more seconds, before turning away and leaving to the South around this place. I let out a sigh. I quickly left as well to the East.

That had been way too close. I may have won if we had kept fighting from my large Spirit stat, but he was not lacking in any area. His movements had been perfectly timed as far as I could tell. He had clearly mastered the art of kicking off the ground.

I had used all three of my skills and he had used three skills. Death Beam, Sheer Barrier, and that attack that exploded the shurikens. Most likely an imbue skill with a silent upgrade, or he had used the skill out of my hearing. My senses had been focused on him, so he wouldn’t have been easily able to get away with using a skill without saying its name.

He probably had another skill or two in reserve. I knew the Divine Empress had to have her capital at least level 4, but I had no idea if it was level 5. Another thing I should have pestered the Astrologer about. I had been caught up with meta-points and hadn’t been taking the threat seriously enough.

This Envoy could match me. If the picture the Astrologer had painted was anywhere near accurate, the Divine Empress would accept no challengers to her rule. That meant that she had to be able to crush that man, which meant she could crush me. It also meant her top tier combatants were at my level.

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That was not good. At least I had held my own, but I hadn’t been winning either. I had to go all out just to survive. I also didn’t know what this Envoy had picked up about me, like the information I had gathered on him. He knew all three of my skills.

Also, Aqua Sphere had come in clutch. I had been worried there for a second, but I was glad I had already gotten several upgrades for the skill. His beam skill probably had the trajectory upgrade with the way it tracked me.

My heart was slowly calming down from how it had been racing during the fight. I took a moment to stop and look around. I didn’t see the Envoy, but that didn’t mean much. He had found me out here in the middle of the wilderness. The fact he had looped around the giant hole in the landscape to catch me on the East side was concerning.

We were being probed. I set off at a slower pace while keeping a look out. The Divine Empress was using a minion to probe out the Astrologer’s weaknesses and his territory. I should have realized that the Almighty System acting would have sent up an alert to her diviners. And wasn’t that incredibly annoying. Sensing energy at range.

At least we had a counter, but it would take time to implement and the days until a confrontation took place were quickly decreasing. The one thing this Envoy of the Divine Empress had made crystal clear to me, was that she would be able to crush me easily. I was about evenly matched with him, since we ended in a stalemate. He could escape me, but I could outlast him.

The Divine Empress would just crush me, like a bug beneath her boot. Why did the Astrologer have to be right? It pained me that I was no longer the strongest. That old fear that I had long thought gone had come back from its grave and sunk its claws into my heart once more. I did not have the power to defend my own life or destiny.

I needed even more power now than ever before. The Envoy had lit a fire under my rear. Screw the meta-points, I needed stats. A lot of stats. Also, skill upgrades. I needed to be optimizing for a PvP fight not grinding. Regeneration would be taking a permanent back seat.

Making my way East, I returned to the pit dungeon I had seen before. I ducked inside and watched my surroundings. I hadn’t been followed and after ten minutes I proceeded into the dungeon. There were worms and Acid Shot easily killed them and I cleared out the dungeon. After the super worm of the Ritualist, none of these were a challenge with my upgraded skill and tremendous energy reserve.

The two skills were Summon: Summoner Worm and Poison Beam. I ignored both of them. I needed to pick an upgrade for Acid Shot, either power, speed, or cohesion. If I was going to focus on grinding, then power would be the correct choice.

But since I needed to reorient my fighting style towards other people, I needed either speed or cohesion. I would be going with silent and gestureless, for my fifth and tenth upgrade. While each Acid Shot would eventually cost 80 energy per use, I needed every edge I could get to fight other people and to stack my advantages. I also had a lot of Spirit stat.

I chose speed as the next upgrade. I needed every ounce of it I could get to counter high Body stat builds. I would overwhelm my targets with a deluge of my skill. “Acid Shot.” It moved through the air more quickly. A minor boost, but a welcome one.

It would increase my effective range that I could hit a melee fighter at by just a little bit. The fight I just had I estimated I could get off 0.8 uses of my skill in the effective range of the Envoy. That meant, he could close the distance and touch me without me being able to get in an Acid Shot with his speed and counter skill. That was why I needed to use Air Burst.

This upgrade increased that number to 0.85. The increased speed, meant I had just a little bit more breathing room going forward. If that number crossed one, then I would have the absolute advantage in a fight. Anything below one, meant that a melee fighter could seize victory by finding the right timing to get in close to me.

This was the number that mattered. How many attacks I could get off that would hit a person, before they could grab me with their defenses. A shield and movement skills on their end would change this calculation. Also, their willingness to tank damage. The higher the number the more damage I could stack up before they closed the distance.

In my last fight I should have prepped an Air Burst after using it. Then tried to lure the Envoy in close to get him with an attack. Stupid, I had been stupid. I hadn’t had a serious fight against a person since I had gotten Acid Shot. It had made so many fights trivially easy.

The Ritualist didn’t count, since he used proxies and then transformed into a super monster. I hadn’t fought against other skill users. I needed to rethink my tempo. I was too caught up in a passive grinding mindset of exchanging attacks while keeping a distance. To grasp victory, I needed to work on how I used my skills and their timing just like I had worked on my movement. There was skill to using skills.

I left the dungeon and there was no one. “You can come out now. Trying to hide on me, really?” I said and chose to stare to the West. I waited there for five minutes, but no one showed up. Either they had nerves of steel, or there was no one there.

I set off for Purgatory. While I kept an eye out for anyone, I was mentally focused on how I needed to adjust the tempo of my fighting style and how to eek out every possible I could for when round two occurred.

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