Terra Nova Online : Rise Of The Strongest Player - Chapter 114

Chapter 114: Moving Like An Assassin
[ Leo’s POV, The virtual world ]

With his mastery over ‘vanish’ improving, Leo slowly began to move like a proper assassin, as he naturally began to prefer moving in areas where shadows were available to hide.

Whether it was the influence of staying with Ben for too long, or perhaps it was psychological, Leo found himself picking up on some of Ben’s behavior and vocabulary as he started to seem like a mini version of Ben the deeper he progressed into the path of an assassin.

[ System Notification – Congratulations on killing the level 120 mountain lion, you have

+Leveled up!

+Leveled up!

+Leveled up!

+Leveled up! ]

“Level 65? Not too bad!” Leo murmured to himself, as got out of the shadows where he was hiding and picked the dead mountain lion’s corpse over his back, as he was apparently on lunch duty today and Ben wanted to eat lion meat for lunch.

Unlike the first time where he faced significant challenges while taking on an enemy like the mountain lion, once Leo mastered vanishing in darkness and his mastery over the dagger improved, he felt like taking down a level 120 mountain lion was not that much of a big deal as he took them down without much hassle whatsoever.

He had learnt the importance of striking at the right moment, understanding the anatomy of the beast you were hitting and the importance of being patient while taking your first shot.

These were qualities he once lacked as a newbie, but once he understood the importance of getting the first shot right, he never rushed it again.

Another big change that happened to him was the way he dressed and the tools he carried with him.

Initially, he only wore the loose layman clothing or the dead spider assassins robes, however, he did not bother covering his full body from head to toe and never wore a black face mask.

However, once he realized how much easier it was to use ‘Vanish’ when your body naturally camouflaged with darkness, his obsession with black objects became real.

Just like every other assassin inside the assassin alliance, he began dressing from head to toe in black gear, painting his footwear black and tearing his layman clothing into shreds and turning them into black hand cloth that could be used to wrap one’s hands.

He also began wearing a makeshift utility belt that could carry at least 40 daggers, with 4 daggers being stacked against each other in 10 distinct pockets.

Leo realized that the time it took for him to retrieve daggers from the system inventory was much longer compared to just pulling it from his waist and throwing, which was why he preferred keeping them on him physically so that in actual emergencies he could be ready to fight at any time.

He also began carrying smoke bombs in his inventory, which Ben taught him how to manufacture.

While in the open market, such smoke bombs that broke upon impact rather than being set off by a fuse went for as high as 2 golds a piece, Ben taught him how to manufacture it for under 2 silver coins, using the most common ingredients, provided that he already possessed a mold for making the shell.

If he had the mold then filling it with any quality iron scrap was fine, as the idea was to make a thin sheet for the outer layer, almost as thin as paper that could break easily upon hard impact but could still hold the contents reliably.

This particular type of smoke bomb that Ben used, did not require a flame to ignite. Instead, it was designed to activate upon impact, breaking apart on the hard ground and releasing its concealed smoke.

The filling process began with filling the shell with common, salt-like powder extracted from red lily flowers that grew like weeds throughout the empire for combustion, mixed with sugar to ensure the mixture burned slowly and produced plenty of smoke.

Baking powder used in making bread was then added to make the smoke dense and long-lasting, a crucial feature for creating a temporary veil of invisibility, while the gray color of the smoke, essential for blending into the shadows, came from a small addition of dark powder which was basically wood ash mixed with bone ash.

These smoke bombs were the Equalizer for him to hide in open spaces where there was no shadow to hide in, however, to use it efficiently, he needed to learn the trick on how to sense one’s enemy in the dark, which took him about a week to grasp.

The trick to sensing the enemy in the dark was to apply the principles that he already learnt about hiding in the dark but in reverse, as he was supposed to look for clues and objects that reflected light to locate them.

While for normal people who did not understand the concept of darkness and how to hide in it, it was a difficult task, for assassin’s who used darkness as their best ally, it was not much as with a bit of practice Leo was able to learn it adequately.

With his body’s elasticity also improving under Ben’s intense training, he was also learning to perform Ben’s maneuver of dropping a gas bomb and approaching the enemy from the behind as his muscles got used to producing explosive speed that they were not capable of creating before.

Within a month, his mastery over the move reached such a level, that Ben felt satisfied enough to move onto the next phase of teaching his three core moves, the second move : The Kill Strike!

The kill strike was the legendary technique that Ben had learnt from his master and refined personally to the ( Legendary ) grade as it produced 1000% critical damage when used, ignoring all armor effects when mastered to a certain degree.

It was with this move itself that Ben had managed to kill the royal prince who was always protected by several charms and treasures.