The Mad Rat’s Lab

“And this makes two of them,” I say.

I stand up from where I was capturing the Geodis. Of course, I could have left it to Cyam, but it’s dangerous because of the magma.

Now that I think about it… what if Cyam goes and captures a random critter that’s swimming in the magma sea? Well… I’ll solve it when the need arises.

Also, there’s the passive healing from the Good Followers too, it’ll mitigate the damage Cyam takes if he decides to do something crazy.

I shrug my shoulders and look around. In the distance, I can see another one of these fire-earth totems.

The first time it took me by surprise and I couldn’t hold it in, causing the death of one of my followers. The second time was close, but I recovered fast enough to prevent a disaster. Now that it’s the third time I see them, I don’t burst out laughing anymore.

“Well, the saving grace is that I’m in the correct place to accomplish my objective…” I mutter.

The not-so-great part? The totems are decently strong and hard to deal with because they properly use their innate skills and the terrain.

I wonder… If the magma area has fire and earth elementals, as I expected, what elementals will be in the snow area? Water and wind, maybe?

I wonder if they move like a totem too.

Of course, it would make more sense if it had ice elementals, but for some reason, players always prefer to use the four classic elements: fire, earth, wind, and water.

If I’m not wrong, those four are also the elements unlocked from the start. Players from the Primordial faction need to unlock the rest of the elements over time… ice, lightning, light, dark, and some more I can’t remember.

This comes from one of Ricard’s ‘knowledge drilling’ sessions, so I might have or might not have properly paid attention to his explanation.

I warned you, so I won’t take responsibility for any misinformation.

“Let’s move to the next one, shall we?” I ask to… well, to nobody. It isn’t like the support mobs are going to answer me. “As before, focus on the Pyris first, and don’t use poison attacks on the Geodis.” I order the Good Followers.

It isn’t as if they can understand complex commands, but simple ones like ‘attack X first’ and ‘don’t use Y skill’ work perfectly. Well, not perfectly, but most of the time they do work.

As you might expect, the last thing I want is for the Geodis to die while I try to capture it.

Because, you know, the poison damage – or any damage over time skill, in fact – and my stun that leaves them at 1 HP aren’t very compatible when I try to capture them.

On the other side, it’s perfect when I want to kill the enemies: the poison kills them as soon as the stun takes place. It’s the perfect combination of skills to maximize the amount of damage I deal with the Chain Lightning while killing the enemies instead of leaving them alive.

An aura skill? You’re right, it could help with the killing. But it would be awful when trying to capture any unit. Aura skills can’t be deactivated, after all.

“Cold Blast!”

This time, instead of falling to the ground, laughing, I make a preemptive strike with the only single-target spell I have. I’m going to save as much MP as possible, I don’t want to run out of fuel any time soon.

Sure, I have the Mana Core that regenerates my MP at a very fast speed, but it does so by spending EP. It takes a lot longer to reach zero than MP would, but it’s the same problem.

The Pyris responds by launching a Fireball at me. The spell explodes in a burst of fire, and everyone, except Cyam, who I have waiting some distance away, takes fire damage.

“That hurts!” I shout. It doesn’t, but I can shout anyway, can’t I? “But you can’t win in a spellcasting contest against me! Eat this! Cold Blast! Cold Blast! Cold Blast! Fufufu! Hahaha!”

Like a machine, I cast one spell after the other. With every hit, a chunk of the Pyris’ HP bar vanishes.

Cold Blast is one of the most basic spells, with the lowest damage possible, so it shouldn’t deal so much damage…

But I’m overpowered!

“Hahaha! See this? This is the effect of the Champion’s buff plus a 40% damage increase!”

The immobilization effect takes place after so many hits, and the Pyris can’t do anything else until it dies.

“How pathetic, it could only cast one spell before dying… Fufufu! Hahaha!”

I laugh like a maniac as the Geodis falls into the magma.

But the totem was close to the shore when the Pyris died, so it soon gets out of it, magma falling from its stone body. The Geodis glares at me at the same time it starts running in my direction.

Oooh, I got its aggro with my spell burst.

The Good Followers engage in combat and try to prevent the elemental from coming near me.

It doesn’t work. I mean, how can you expect to stop something as big as that?

My minions are tall and muscular because they’re an orc and dwarf hybrid… but they can’t compete with something like an earth elemental.

I take a step backward but my foot touches the magma. I’m faster, so I could run away, but not if there’s nowhere to run away.

“Ugh… I guess I have no choice…”

I’ll have to take the beating… It’s better to take the beating than take the magma damage… and the beating too.

You know, it’s less damage overall.

The elemental’s giant fist falls on me. Shit, it’s almost as big as I am… I instinctively raise my arms to protect my head from the impact.

I know, I know… It makes no sense because this is a game and the damage will be the same regardless of where the attack hits.

It’s a good thing the game works with stats and not on physics. I don’t think I would survive a hit from that giant stone arm otherwise.

“Agh!” I grunt as I feel the hit.

I quickly take a look at my status screen. Hmm… is it about 50 damage? Not bad, but not enough to put me in danger.

Oh, shit! I’m stunned!?

So the Geodis used a skill… the problem is which one.

And also, I hope it doesn’t stun me again! The Good Followers are attacking the elemental as it continues to strike me. It would be bad if it died before I could order them to stop and cast Chain Lightning to capture it.

The beating continues and I get stunned once again.

Oh, come on! I can’t do anything or say anything while stunned!

I anxiously look at the earth elemental’s HP bar as it keeps decreasing. I get stunned again. Oh, come on! A stunlock!?

But luckily, the Geodis’ passive skill activates once again and the damage it takes gets halved.

Oh, yes. I remember Ricard told me something about it… what was it? Something about the game developers giving the passive some time to activate so players couldn’t make a step and stop, step and stop. Keeping the 50% resistance to all damage activated when receiving an attack, and immediately moving afterward…

It was a tactic used by the top rankers at the beginning.

As expected, the DMA staff fixed it immediately, but not before about 90% of the top rankings were filled with players from the Primordials faction. After the fix, most of them quickly fell off the ranks, but it’s still ridiculous.

I snap out of my thoughts right as the last stun wears off.

“Finally!” I shout. “And just on time! Stop attacking!” I order my support mobs as I cast Chain Lightning.

I was hoping for Cyam’s petrification to activate and help me with the capture, but it didn’t. Well, the chance is very low since it depends on the status difference.

I start the capturing process as I order Cyam to come back.

The Good Followers took very little damage from this fight. In fact, only the first fireball dealt damage to them.

“You’re supposed to protect me! Why am I the one who took the beating instead of you?” I complain.

Maybe, and only maybe, next time I should wait for the tanks to take the aggro before I go crazy with the spells.

…Nah, who am I kidding? I’m incapable of doing that.

I finish the capture process and stand up once again.

“This makes three. Let’s see how many more I can capture… I’m curious. Will there be a boss in this dungeon? And if so… will it also be a totem?”

Thinking about random stuff, I resume the dungeon exploration.

 

 

“Puhahaha! No, not again!” I burst out laughing at the monster in front of me. “Dungeon owner, why are you doing this to me!? I’ll sue you for permanent brain damage!”

After finishing the magma sea area, I reached a room with three doors. The first one was the one I came from.

I took a peek at the second one, and it connected to the frozen area. There was a giant, half-frozen lake, some islands, and a colossal waterfall… but I didn’t see any monster. I think I was right, the area must be filled with water and wind elementals.

As you already know, the water elementals are invisible inside water.

And the wind elementals can fly, are hard to see – they’re almost transparent – and have a high chance to evade attacks thanks to their innate skill. Well, I say evade, but it’s more like not taking damage.

Wind Elemental (Innate passive skill) When you would take damage, there’s a 10% chance you take no damage instead.

If you ask me, from the four classic elements, the wind and water elementals are the trickier ones, but the strongest in a straight fight are the fire and earth elementals.

Which… makes sense, if you think about it.

And finally, the third door. What can I say? The third door was closed.

But when I reached the center of the room, the two doors closed and something fell in front of me.

Now, I’m laughing like a maniac while staring at that ‘something’.

“Ok, ok… I can understand the totem theme and name, but did you have to take it to this extreme!? Hahaha, this is so ridiculous! If it was funny with two of them, now that there are four… Shit! Stop laughing, me!”

The four elementals are standing one on top of the other, like a totem. However, this time they have different shapes and sizes instead of being all humanoid like the fire and earth totems from before.

From bottom to top, there’s an earth elephant, a fire lion, a water… dolphin? That is a dolphin, right? And on top of everything, there is a wind chicken. At least, it looks like a chicken from this distance.

Now that I take a closer look, doesn’t it resemble a weird pyramid instead of a totem?

Well… who cares.

The four-elemental-totem is kindly waiting for me to start combat. Something I really appreciate because I’m incapable of focusing on what’s important right now, similar to what happened the first time in the magma area.

Let’s see… I’m sure what I have in front is a Boss. A type of Boss that’s formed by multiple monsters instead of a single one.

This type of boss is called…

“What was their name…?” I scratch my head in annoyance. “Agh, who cares? It’s a boss type I can’t create yet, so I don’t know what it’s called.”

Let’s call them Amalgam boss for now. I know it’s wrong because Amalgam is the name of one of the Flesh Monstrosities units, but… I don’t have a better name.

So, as I was saying, this Amalgam boss (temporary name) is a special kind of boss that’s formed by multiple monsters instead of a single one. They all receive the boss’ buff that raises all stats by 100%, and the boss isn’t considered defeated until all of them die.

They also receive the extra three skill points, but they share them. This means you have to split the points between all the monsters. This part limits how strong they can be individually.

Between normal and Amalgam (temporary name) bosses, you would expect the latter to be stronger, but it isn’t necessarily so. The accumulation of skills on a single unit, if they’re synergistic, can turn out to be a lot more dangerous than having multiple monsters with the boss’ buff.

How do I know about this kind of boss, you ask? It’s because I’ll unlock this type of boss as the reward on the next level up. Or the one after the next, I’m not sure. I just know I’ll unlock it soon.

Anyway, let’s not waste any more time.

“Chain Lightning!”

As soon as the spell hits the boss – or should I say bosses? –, it roars and the room rumbles. Then, the terrain starts to change.

The ground cracks and lava pours from it. The earth rises at places, turning the previously flat room into a difficult-to-navigate one. Water starts pouring from geysers that blow part of the ground. As soon as the water touches the lava, steam is created, generating a toxic fog. At the same time, thick thunderclouds appear on the ceiling, and a strong wind starts blowing. 

Wow, this looks amazing! Maybe I could take this and use it somewhere in my dungeon too! These changes are amazing, it’s almost like a film.

I eagerly wait for the changes to end and the actual combat to start.

“Yes, come at me with all you got! Fufufu! Hahaha!”

I have no idea how this will turn out, but I don’t care. I came here to capture a few Geodis, and I already did. I won’t lose them even if I die.

So let’s enjoy this battle to the fullest!

The elemental totem roars once again, it splits up, and the four elementals rush in our direction.

“This is a battle against the four elements! A battle against nature!”

 

“...

I’m sure you know the Primordial faction, the one with the elementals, has a lot of variety and elemental types. But did you know they only start with the four classic ones: fire, earth, water, and wind? To use elementals of other types, they first have to unlock them.

All types cost the same to unlock, but there’s a catch. The cost to unlock a new elemental type rises as you unlock more types. And the cost rises exponentially!

This is why it’s easy to find Primordial dungeons with five elemental types in the lower levels, but it’s close to impossible to find one dungeon with all of them until they reach the maximum level.

It’s also the same with the shapes they can give to the elementals. They have to unlock them by spending cp and other resources. Though, in contrast to the elemental types, the shapes do have a fixed price, and it depends on how strong that unit is, like with all other factions. You can’t expect a fire titan to cost the same as a fire lion, don’t you think?

…”

- Some ‘knowledge drilling’ done by Ricard, which Andreu might or might not have listened to.