Defying Natural Order With DeoxyriboNucleic Acid

Now that I am reasonably prepared, I can focus on the fight.

Technically, I would have had an advantage if I could fight at range, but realistically, as much of an all-rounder as I am, this is probably one angle I can't take.

So instead, I'll focus on ambushing my opponent.

I don't know whether my opponent's Shield Bash can allow him to get to the center faster than normal, but I should be able to arrive there first.

I use Palm Push on the ground at an angle, and use the adverse reaction to throw myself forward.

At level 10, Palm Push allows me to use as much as 176% of my strength. It is very good for CC, but I feel like lately I've been using it more on unmovable targets to push myself than to push any opponent.

╔═════════════════════════════════╗

║ Palm Push

╟━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╢

║ to 176% of your strength

║━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╢

║ Evolutions

║ None

╟━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╢

║ Cost: 3 skill points

║ Active

╚═════════════════════════════════╝

I correct my position, and a few seconds later, I land my feet on the ground and slide a few meters.

The maps of the PvP Arena are shared with the duel maps, and the current map is the first one I ever was in. It's the forest.

It has quite a lot of average-sized trees, which I can hide behind. My ambush is most likely to succeed in this environment, as my opponent does not have any specialized stats or skills, like Perception.

The fact that I keep observing everything and I don't meet the requirements to unlock this stat is pretty annoying to me though. I should look into how to get it, even if I have to pay for that information.

As soon as my opponent gets close enough, I'll use Master of Attention to keep them from noticing me.

╔═════════════════════════════════╗

║ Master of Attention

╟━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╢

║ Bring to attention or dissimulate

║ an element from several targets'

║━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╢

║ Evolutions

║ Internal Peace

╟━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╢

║ Cost: 10

║ Delay: 0.7s

║ Active

╚═════════════════════════════════╝

Of course, beyond the delay, there seems to be some kind of condition that breaks that state.

╔═════════════════════════════════╗

║ Attention Grabbing

╟━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╢

║ Shifts the focus of your

║ target's perception towards you

║━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╢

║ Evolutions

║ Master of Attention

╟━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╢

║ Delay: 0s

║ Active

╚═════════════════════════════════╝

But for dissimulating, I have several theories, some more likely than others. There is no explicit duration, which leads me to believe it is indeed variable, so my main theory right now is the opponent's knowledge. Them noticing something is hidden from their perception might be the trigger to breaking the skill. Another possibility could be that it needs the target to shift their focus to their perception. Both are pretty much hand in hand, so it's a bit hard to figure it out by testing when you need knowledge to focus, and having knowledge of your situation unconsciously has you focus.

Anyway, it's good to spend time thinking about random things while waiting for your opponent, but it does not mean I should let my thoughts go too astray, or I'm going to fail to react to my opponent's arrival.

Speaking of said arrival, it's been way too long, it seems like my opponent did not go straight right away.

He has a straightforward status, but I guess he's not naive.

Which way should I search?

Staying in the center of the map is the worst situation, as I can basically get ambushed from any side.

If I retreat, I expose myself to potential attacks from both sides, and the only difference with my original situation would be I would be safe from the back.

If I go forward, I technically expose my back or an ambush at his spawn, as well as from the sides. But it's actually the best situation.

Assuming my opponent does not know where I am, he has few chances of turning around and attacking from by back or the sides, and I can be ready for a potential ambush at his spawn. So long as I avoid close proximity with my opponent himself, I should be able to deal with an ambush.

This deduction, of course, while here broken down, was actually a single thought.

When you are used to playing a game that requires decisions of this type, you just make these decisions way faster.

There are even times when adapting your strategy and tactics does not even require thinking, because your brain is so used to going through these processes that it becomes an unconscious machine, one that can give your the results without spending any time on giving it the parameters.

Anyway, now that it's decided, I take the simple route of continuing forward.

As expected, I do get ambushed as soon as I enter the clearing of his spawn. What was unexpected though, is the way in which he does.

I am suddenly unable to move. The fact that I know perfectly why is a bit frustrating, because it is something I knew, yet still didn't take into account.

I feel stupid.

I saw he had the Aegis shield, and even made sure to check what version it was, and spent precious time telling myself that the Stone Gaze attached skill would be annoying, and yet I still failed to predict it when it comes to the skill itself.

╔════════════════════╗

║ Stone Gaze

║ (Aegis)

╟━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╢

║ The gaze of a Gorgon

║ was said to turn anyone

║ to stone.

║ The eyes of the Gorgon

║ flash, giving the CC

║ effect "blinded" to

║ all enemies looking

║ at it.

║ Any enemy blinded by

║ this light will be

║ turned to stone for

║ the duration of this

║ skill.

╟━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╢

║ Cost: 99% available mana

║ Cooldown: 1 hour

║ Duration: 1 second for

║ every 100 MP spent

╚════════════════════╝

Of course, as soon as I notice, I want to activate Thick Skin, but I am unable to. While at its current level it can reduce CC effects by 100%, the two ways of casting it require me to not be cast in stone.

╔═════════════════════════════════╗

║ Thick Skin (172/1000)

╟━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╢

║ With great powers comes great responsibilities...

║ Reduces all CC effects by 100%

║ Reduces your blush coefficient by 100%

║ Increases your Resistance by 34.4%

╟━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╢

║ Evolutions:

║ Slackface

║ Worst bastard in the world

║ Emotionless Machine

║ ???

╟━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╢

║ Cost: 1 point per activation

║ Duration: 4 Seconds

╚═════════════════════════════════╝

I can't manual cast, as it requires me to make my body shiver for this skill.

I can't say anything, so I can't vocal cast too.

And finally, I can't access the game menu while immobilized, so can't cast too.

Now that I think about it, it's a huge problem for public safety, as an organized group could literally bully someone into being unable to move, and thus leave the game.

And with a skill like Dartagnan's Keep, ȧssuming it keeps being channeled, you'd only need one person to do so. After using a CC that can stop one from moving, using Keep would allow that ailment to never expire. Well, "never" being while Keep lasts, but it could still last for a very long time.

Anyway, let's leave these depressing thoughts behind, and focus on the matter at hand.

I'm panicking too much, so I manually cast Emotionless Machine. This skill affects the mind of the caster, so it only requires thinking to manual cast.

╔═════════════════════════════════╗

║ Emotionless Machine

╟━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╢

║ Reduces the effect of emotions

║ by 30%

║━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╢

║ Evolutions

║ Internal Peace

╟━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╢

║ Cost: 50

║ Passive (toggle)

╚═════════════════════════════════╝

I am happy I still memorized how to manually cast it, though. Like most characters that are power-leveling in this game, mine doesn't have a lot of skills beyond those I need. Had I any more skills, I wouldn't have had the time to remember the manual cast of a skill I got as recently as this one.

Manual casting in this game requires you to know the skills as well as you would need to if you had to cast them back when magic wasn't banned.

Of course, it brought concerns that people might learn to use magics they were compatible with in real life, but these concerns were quickly cleared up through what was probably a lot of money spent lobbying. It was determined that the spell in place that keeps the ban on magic up could deal with a few thousand trying to use magic at the same time.

The lobbying itself, though, was probably to shut the mouth of anyone who could determine that should the millions who play Paradise coordinate to manual cast spells at the same time, there is no doubt the ban on magic would be broken.

Okay, now maybe I am too calm. I stop having stray thoughts and focus on the ongoing game.

With the high cost of Emotionless Machine as well as my opening use of Palm Push, I am down from 251 to 198 skill points. Had I expected I would be met with a troublesome opponent, I probably would have replenished my skill points in an easy dungeon after the earlier training.

But now, I have to do what I do.

Which in this case, is planning what I will do after this is over.

My opponent has 213 MP, the first skill he used was Stone Gaze, which consumes 99% of MPs. It means that he spent roughly 210 MP on this attached skill. I should be stuck for a little over 2 seconds total. It's been close to a second and he's bȧrėly reaching me, so it's unlikely for him to deal enough damages for me to die right now.

Thinking about it, I'm quite lucky he doesn't have some kind of HP sacrificing skill, so he could sacrifice most of his health and just use Revenge. Assuming he sacrificed his HP one by one, with the Amulet of Constitution, he would then close to double his maximum health for 1 minute and be healed back to full health.

And for such a combination, he would just need to have one troublesome skill.

Wait...

I again let my thoughts run wild.

I can't help but notice that I have had trouble keeping my thoughts in line lately, I might need some psychological help.

It could be due to the fact that I literally spend all my time in-game. Maybe I should spend an hour a week outside or something, it could help me stabilize.

Focus!

Focus!

My opponent uses Lightning Aura as soon as I am in range, and uses Shield Bash.

His Lightning Aura is level 8, but he probably got it recently enough that he didn't have time to increase his intelligence stat much. Due to that, he only has 720 of intelligence, leading the 0.8% of his intelligence stat to be as low as 2.88 damages.

It is still a bit annoying, though, as any health reduction essentially means I get closer to my death.

His Shield Bash, though, is way more impressive, as his strength stat allows it, should it land, to deals 476 damages in one fell swoop, essentially killing me for as little as 10 points.

Not that he did, though, as time ran out, and I was able to activate Thick Skin right as he was about to hit me.

Even with the reduction brought by my increased Resistance, he still brought my HP down by 312.2, which drastically reduced my chances of winning the fight, as with the 5.76 damages total dealt by Lightning Aura so far, I am now sitting comfortably under the 100 HP mark, at a measly 94.04 HP.

It clearly isn't an enjoyable situation, and I'm cursing my own lack of foresight right now.

The worst thing to me right now, is that my opponent is still sitting at a comfortable 261 skill points left, as both attacks only cost him a total of 20 skill points.

My opponent will probably cancel his current Shield Bash and use another one, so I need to act as fast as possible. It's also a fact that the measly damages dealt by Lighting Aura seem much more threatening when 50 seconds of exposure would reduce your HP to 0.

I throw a bunch of Sticky Bombs on him, and use Palm Push to push him away.

I couldn't push him as far away as I wish I could, as my opponent instantly used Plant Feet, reducing the CC by 40%, and taking 20% more health with Lightning Aura before I was out of range.

╔═════════════════════════════════╗

║ Plant Feet

╟━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╢

║ Plant your feet into the ground,

║ reducing the effect of all CC effects

║ by 40% and increasing all effects of

║ your motionless skills by 20%

║━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╢

║ Evolutions

║ None

╟━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╢

║ Cost: Free

║ Active

║ Duration: 30 Seconds

╚═════════════════════════════════╝

At least, my considerable Strength stat allowed my Palm Push to still send him on the other side of the clearing.

My health went down by 3.4 more, but I at least avoided any further losses.

I also landed 4 Sticky Bombs.

The reason why I carry such a low-level item is because of my specific build. The damages are relative to Strength, but they are overall pretty weak, even with my strength stat being around 7700. But the Critical bonuses, them, work really well with my Opportunism stat. With my Opportunism being as high as 12 000, I deal great amounts of damages with cheap items like these.

As confirmed by the current explosion.

While the explosion looked a bit weak, it does not pale even compared to PinkyKitty's as far as damages are concerned.

My opponent's health went down by a whole 231 damages.

Of course, the disadvantage of critical damages is that they vary depending on luck, the advantage, though, is that above a certain level, they are almost guaranteed to deal consistent minimum level of damages.

It's been a while since I've had such a close game, so I want to feel the full range of emotions it brings you.

I cancel Emotionless Machine, and feel an intense relief wash over me.

My opponent still has more health than me, but the Sticky Bombs evened out the playing field a bit.

Reminding myself of my plan of action, it seems I failed spectacularly at three of the four steps.

Step 1: I got hit by Shield Hit and close-range AOE

Step 2: I got attacked when I was supposed to be the one attacking

Step 3: He didn't try to use revenge, so I guess I didn't fail at canceling it yet

Step 4: Repeating from step 1 is too risky with my current health

╔════════════════════╗

║ Heaven-Defying Paradise...

║ Name: ImperialShadow

║ Level: 21

║ HP: 90.584/412

║ MP: 423/423

║ Skill points: 198

╚════════════════════╝

╔════════════════════╗

║ Progress

║ Name: WinterLord

║ Level: 18

║ HP: 157/388

║ MP: 2.13/213

║ Skill points: 261

╚════════════════════╝