"Having said that, let's take a look at when he used Vital Strike," Ye Xiu said, then navigated through the video again.
"Using Vital Strike or any life-exchanging skills comes with a huge risk, so everything must be calculated accordingly," he started, then paused the video when Tang Rou used a heat-seeking missile.
"As you see, after taking damage from a heat-seeking missile, he loses a chunk of HP. Compared to Tang Rou with full HP, there's a chance that his remaining life wouldn't be enough to instantly kill Chasing Haze after using Vital Strike, based on my calculation. There should be about 3% health remaining for Chasing Haze and 0.03% for No Name."
"So you are saying that little tang could've defeated him? Then how come it didn't go through your calculations?" Chen Guo asked.
Regardless of his HP, even if it's higher than chasing Haze, taking damage from launcher skills, which have the highest DPS, would take a ton. So she found it odd that the math doesn't align well. Was it a bug? She had no idea.
Ye Xiu only offered a polite smile. "The answer to that lies in here." He zooms into the weapon again.
Seeing the silver weapon, Chen Guo's eyes filled with envy. But that's only a fleeting feeling. "So what's in there?" she asked.
"It's the effect of the weapon. He likely had a passive, like when using a double stab there would be an additional stab or damage increase, probably critical, and his stab would trigger a bleed after executing the first stab in a double stab instead of in succession," Ye Xiu said.
"So you were saying that it becomes double bleed and triple stab? Normally, bleed will come after successfully executing double stab, but if his weapon could trigger bleed after a single stab during the execution of double stab, then when he continues to stab, performing an additional two, the bleed effect would stack two times. Could you even stack bleed, and is there a critical strike after?" Chen Guo asked, dumfounded, pinching her chin.
"Quite closed but no..." Ye Xiu said, "it's only used as an analogy, truth be told. It seems like he uses a double stab that produces bleed and critical."
"Really!?" Chen Guo's eyes widened in horror. "But how is that possible? Could his APM reach that level of speed?" Double Stab should leave some traces, but in here he only used single stab.
Ye Xiu simply shook his head. "No, it's related to his weapon. There's probably some kind of skill on it, where when he uses Vital Strike and stabs someone, it comes with a hidden effect similar to Double Stab, causing additional effects like bleed and critical."
His analysis was correct; Ron's weapon was named the Wasp Injector knife. It comes with a hidden effect link to a skill; after performing a Vital Strike, it would trigger an explosion that will burst inside the body—to be specific, it's a CO₂ canister. It produces a burst of damage and effect; it's a combination of double stab, bleed, and crit. Taking a chunk of HP without a risk.
If he figured this out, Ye Xiu would be terrified in his shoes.
Not understanding the contents of their conversation deeply, Tang Rou only glanced at Ron's weapon and muttered to herself. "So it's like that?" It seems her opponent was also toying with her.
They discuss things a little until it's time for Tang Rou's shift. She heads into the server and keeps on thinking about her previous encounter. To be honest, she considered Glory easy; that's why she didn't play no matter how many times Chen Guo asked her, but after encountering two experts, she's contemplating.
On the other hand, Ron was playing on Heavenly Domain, the most dangerous place in Glory. The exp and item drops in here were high, and people here would kill for the sake of fun. Basically a warzone; if you wanted to kill, just kill—no one would complain. This was a place where the strong dominate.
Ron was using the same account but with standard equipment and not a single silver in sight; showing them off would just be asking for a death sentence. He just put them in his storage once he was done sorting his items. Then, he logs out and pulls a different account card; this time it's from the tenth server, a new server, and the same server where Lord Grim resides.
Normally, players like him wouldn't bother starting up since Heavenly Domain was the real destination. However, this time he received an email from a client; it's a job. The task assigned was to eliminate a certain player; seeing the name of his target, Ron accepted the job.
He's been doing it for a long time now, being a mercenary or player for hire. He would accomplish many things, like killing a certain guild leader, stealing bosses, finding items, and many more.
Today is just a normal day for him; killing someone from the tenth server is no problem. He received the half payment and will receive the other half when he is successful at the job. He just needed proof to claim it.
Growls.
Hearing his stomach growl, Ron decided to take a break. "I haven't eaten lunch yet; perhaps I should look for what they have outside the Internet cafe," he said and logged out again.
Ron descends downstairs to the reception; he plans to pay the bill and head back later. Seeing a familiar person looking in a daze, he made a few rhythmic taps to get her attention.
"Are you okay?"
She was momentarily in shock but hurriedly calmed down quickly.
"Oh, yes? It's you. I'm sorry; I was thinking of something else. Do you need something?" Tang Rou asked, giving a polite smile.
"Is it about your loss and Glory?" he asked flatly.
"Yeah," Tang Rou just nodded.
"I see." Ron didn't pry any deeper and chose to divert the topic. "By the way, I'm planning on signing off and paying my bills. Also, I left my ID earlier."
"I see... Let me check it for you," Tang Rou said. She wasn't surprised by this; the majority of customers left their ID. It's a common behavior; Tang Rou searches for the box where they stored I.D. and asked. "By the way, what's your name?"
"It's Tang Ron," Ron said.
Hearing the familiar name, Tang Rou was startled, and her beautiful hand shivered.
*Was it a coincidence?* she thought. Still, just to make sure, she asked again, "Did you say your name is Tang Ron?"
"Yes, I am Tang Ron," Ron said.
"I see..." Tang Rou calmed herself down. If this person was her younger brother. Then she had so many questions. Why did he suddenly disappear? And why didn't he bother checking her for once? Although she was a minute older, for some reason she felt like the younger sibling following after his shadow. She lived in order to be great like him, so when he disappeared, Tang Rou felt like she lost her purpose.
So what happened? Why did he suddenly show up now? Why did they meet just now? What has he been doing all this time? Their mother always said he visited occasionally but refused to take a photo and didn't even meet her. Tang Rou felt she was abandoned and being hated by her own brother. She doesn't know whether it's true or not; it's almost a decade since they last saw each other. Over time her feelings faded, she thought, but now they resurface.
Now that he was standing in front of her, she had mixed feelings and was a little bit lost.
Searching around, she found his I.D. Tang Ron. It definitely looks like her brother; in fact, they had the same feature, almost identical. Without a doubt, he is truly her brother!
Having mixed feelings, Tang Rou doesn't know if she will be seeing him again, but she feels like it's too soon to sort things between them. She has a lot of questions and doesn't know where to start asking. Tang Rou needed time, but for now she can only ask, "Are you going to come back?"
"Well, yes... I'm just going to eat lunch," Ron said.
"I see... By the way, my name (nickname) is Xiao (little) Tang; nice to meet you, Tang Ron," Tang Rou said, offering a handshake.
Ron smiles in return, accepting her hand. "My name is Tang Ron; I prefer being called Ron. It's nice to meet you too, Little Tang."
Being called Little Tang by her younger brother, Tang Rou felt a mixture of joy and shame. Still, she didn't show it and just smiled. "See you later then, Ron."
"Okay, see you later," Tang Ron said, receiving his I.D. and wave goodbye.
Tang Rou watches her younger sibling walk away. She has so many questions, but there's no need to rush. Little Tang memorized his address to secretly investigate his living conditions. She also wanted to know why he suddenly disappeared back then. But she was in no rush; after all, he is within her bounds and wouldn't be able to escape.
"I'm glad. I work in this cafe," Tang Rou said, letting out a few giggles, which turned out to be out of her character. Meanwhile, completely oblivious to hidden danger, Tang Ron was enjoying the food at the restaurant.