Chapter 26: Miraculous Technique

By the time Shi Feng returned to the party, the Elite Night Rabbit's HP had dropped to just one-third.

The team's coordination was solid. Ke Le held the front alone while everyone else unleashed their damage. To manage aggro, Hei Zi held back on his burst and instead used Evil Thrash to kite the rabbit, giving Ke Le breathing room. Ke Le was performing well too — holding steady as the main tank with decent aggro control, clearly not on the level of a complete novice. Still, he had a long way to go before he could call himself an expert.

"Don't rely on your shield for every hit," Shi Feng said. "This isn't some ordinary VR game. You have to tank, yes, but you can also dodge to avoid attacks. That eases the pressure on the healer. The rest of you, watch your targeting when you attack — stop flailing blindly. Aim for the Night Rabbit's claws or its weak points. That'll take a lot of pressure off the MT too." Shi Feng didn't step in to help Ke Le directly. Instead, he coached the whole team on how to fight.

If everyone treated Divine Realm like a traditional game, the results would be miserable. Healers could never keep up with the incoming damage. Some teams tried bringing an extra healer, but then their DPS dropped and they still wiped. It had taken months after Divine Realm launched before players gradually adapted to its combat style — nothing like the naïvely straightforward approach they were using now.

Since he intended to train these people and lay the groundwork for his future studio, he needed them to learn Divine Realm's combat methods sooner rather than later.

The others assumed Shi Feng was a rookie too and felt a twinge of resentment. The experts hadn't said anything — what right did this newbie have to boss them around? But what he said made sense, so they consciously followed his instructions.

Ke Le began shifting his fighting style as well. Instead of stubbornly blocking every attack with his shield, he started taking a step back when the rabbit lunged, dodging the blow. He still blocked most of the time, of course, but it cut the healer's workload significantly.

That small change made killing the Night Rabbit much easier.

Even the level-one newcomers were mildly surprised and revised their opinion of Shi Feng a little — he wasn't as hopeless as they'd imagined.

Shi Feng just smiled faintly, not caring either way. He watched Ke Le's performance and thought the big guy was doing a decent job.

In ten years' time, Ke Le would be a first-rate player, but right now he was still far from that. A truly skilled MT wouldn't step back at all — he'd choose to stand his ground and dodge in place, because if the MT moved, the monster would follow, making it a nightmare for ranged DPS and costing a lot of output. But that kind of technique required extensive combat experience and sharp physical reflexes. Ke Le still had plenty of practice ahead of him.

Before long, the Elite Night Rabbit collapsed. It dropped a Berserker Skill Book — Whirlwind Slash — along with 3 copper coins.

Everyone marveled at the Hell Difficulty drop rate. They'd killed a single Elite and already gotten a Skill Book. If they took down a dozen Elites, wouldn't that mean a dozen Skill Books? Skill Books were extremely rare out in the world — even a common one cost at least one silver coin.

Shi Feng understood what they were thinking, but the Hell Difficulty drop rate wasn't actually that high — just three or four times that of Hard Difficulty. He handed Whirlwind Slash to the still-dazed Jimo Ruxue, then gave Ke Le a piece of level-one Bronze defense plate armor that the Dark Night Ranger had dropped. That bumped the party's strength up a notch.

Ke Le couldn't stop grinning when he got the plate armor, thanking Shi Feng profusely. With this Bronze piece, his defense jumped by 14 points and his HP rose to 350.

Everyone except Shi Feng and Hei Zi was visibly envious. Bronze Equipment was proof of expertise — something you couldn't even get if you begged for it out in the world. And this piece had come from Shi Feng alone, yet he'd handed it over to Ke Le without a moment's hesitation. Their opinion of him shifted considerably. This team leader was nothing like the usual type — when a piece of gear dropped, they'd always claim it for themselves, let alone Bronze Equipment. They'd never just hand it to a temporary party member.

After that, the group followed Shi Feng onward through the forest.

The dark, gloomy woods were still creepy, but after the intense fight everyone was less tense than before.

Every so often, one or two patrolling Elite Night Rabbits would pop up, and they handled them quickly. Ke Le tanked one while Shi Feng and Jimo Ruxue charged in to kill the other. Ranged players focused down the Night Rabbit in front of Shi Feng first.

Seven hundred HP — gone in a hail of attacks.

Then they turned to help Ke Le finish off the second rabbit. Before long, both were dead. One of them even dropped a healing Skill Book called Restoration — a two-second cast that restored 37 points of HP once learned by an Oracle. It was far better than Life Prayer, and since it didn't share a cooldown with Life Prayer, using both together could easily absorb an Elite Night Rabbit's damage.

Sloth kept thanking Shi Feng and the rest of the party for letting him learn the Skill Book. This kind of skill was crucial for running dungeons — if sold, it would fetch at least two or three silver coins.

"Don't worry about it. Skill Books are meant to be used," Shi Feng replied with a smile. "Let's move on."

Healing Skill Books were the most valuable and rarest type outside of AoE Skill Books. But the Silent Forest was designed as a dungeon to help players build a foundation in Divine Realm, and on Hell Difficulty, basic healing Skill Books had a high drop rate. In his previous life, a single run of Hell Difficulty Silent Forest had produced four healing Skill Books — not exactly precious.

After another hour or so, Shi Feng's party finally came upon a wide, flat clearing where they saw the first boss.

Wilmy. Leader tier. Level three. 6,000 HP.