Second World Online

The vibration from the arrow that had shattered the rock across the river still traveled up into the palm of my hand. I stared at the Titan’s Ironbark Longbow in my grip with mixed feelings of admiration and dread. This was no longer merely a hunting tool; this was a kinetic mass-destruction weapon.

"If a normal shot alone can produce destructive power like this, what happens if it is combined with my full combo?" I muttered softly, a thin smile full of anticipation decorating my avatar’s lips.

I sheathed the giant bow onto my back. Its size, which exceeded my body height, made my appearance look a little disproportionate. The upper tip of the bow towered past my head, while the lower tip nearly touched my calf. To other players, my appearance might look ridiculous, like a small child carrying a clothesline pole. But for me, the heavy weight of this Ironbark provided an irreplaceable sense of security.

I returned to the "Waterwheel" shop, locked the back door tightly, and made sure the remaining mud bomb display was neatly arranged along with several bottles of antidote. The shop was starting to look like a real business place, even though its main function remained my hideout.

My remaining playtime today was still about one hour before Doctor Karin’s medical system warning would sound. It would be too wasteful if this precious time was only spent sitting idle inside the shop, staring at floating virtual dust. I needed a real testing target. Not just slow swamp monsters with mud armor, but something that could truly test the maximum penetration power of the Titan.

After closing my shop by activating the standard security system from the building interface, I immediately walked toward the Waypoint Crystal in the center of Silvergrass Village and teleported back to StoneBrook City.

Upon arriving at the always-busy city square, I racked my brain. The Titan’s Ironbark Longbow was indeed a god-tier weapon for long range, yet its attack speed penalty reduced by 30% was a fatal gap if a monster or player managed to get close. If any enemy succeeded in penetrating within five meters, I would die ridiculously before I could even draw the bowstring. I needed a backup weapon for close-range combat, a light yet deadly dagger.

My thoughts immediately turned to Kitsuna, a friend I had met some time ago in the game and had once traded materials with. She was a fairly high-level Rogue who ran a small shop in a corner of the trading district.

I hurried along the cobblestone streets toward the coordinates of her shop. Kitsuna was sitting behind her counter, arranging several potion bottles and armor pieces when I arrived.

"Hey, Syl! Rare for you to drop by," Kitsuna greeted with a wide smile, the fox ears on her head twitching softly. Her eyes then widened when she saw the giant pole protruding from behind my shoulder. "Holy dragons, what is that thing on your back? A portable ballista?"

I chuckled softly. "Just a small project. Listen, Kit, I need your help. Do you have a dagger that suits me? Something light, but with decent attack power."

Kitsuna rubbed her chin, opened her shop inventory panel, and projected it in front of me. There were more than a dozen daggers of various shapes and sizes. "Here’s the problem, Syl. Most of the daggers in my shop require high AGI and STR stats for their damage scaling. From what you’ve told me before, your stats are fully focused on INT and DEX, right?"

"Correct," I answered with a sigh. "Finding a close-range weapon for a Glass Cannon like me is indeed troublesome."

"In my stock there isn’t anything that truly fits you without sacrificing the weapon’s potential," Kitsuna said honestly. She then snapped her fingers, remembering something. "Ah! But I have a recommendation. Do you know Vivi? She’s a Guild mate of mine, a Blacksmith who’s pretty crazy about experimenting. Her shop is near the forging district. I’ll send you the map coordinates. Just say you’re a friend of mine."

"Thank you, Kit. You’re saving me," I replied while accepting the map-sharing notification from the system.

Without wasting time, I immediately followed the bright point on my small map, walking through alleys that grew increasingly filled with heat and the clanging of steel hammers. StoneBrook’s Forging District was always filled with smoke from giant furnaces.

It did not take long for me to arrive in front of a half-open red-brick workshop. Its nameboard was made from a dented steel shield with the words: "Vivi’s Hot Furnace".

When I stepped inside, a wave of hot air immediately hit my face. In the middle of the room, facing a glowing red anvil, stood the shop owner.

I blinked several times, trying to process what I was seeing.

The shop owner had chosen the Dwarf race. Her height was probably no more than one meter thirty centimeters. She wore an oversized thick leather apron, heat-resistant gloves, and protective goggles resting on her forehead. Her face was round, her blonde hair was tied in a messy ponytail, and her build... was extremely small and cute, in stark contrast to the giant hammer she was swinging.

"Is this a legal loli?" I said inwardly, trying hard to hold back the laughter that nearly exploded at the proportions of her character. Many players deliberately chose extreme races or body customizations in Second World Online, but seeing a tiny girl swinging a steel hammer weighing dozens of kilograms was truly an absurd sight.

Hearing my footsteps, she stopped swinging her hammer and turned around. Her face was smeared with charcoal stains, yet her eyes sparkled with intelligence.

"Welcome to the Hot Furnace! Need plate armor or a dragon-splitting greatsword?" she greeted in a high-pitched voice full of spirit.

"Kitsuna recommended me here," I said, getting straight to the point and placing a hand on my hip. "I need a dagger. But not an ordinary dagger. I want a custom-ordered weapon with main stats focused on DEX and INT."

Vivi narrowed her eyes, wiping her charcoal-stained chin with the back of her dirty hand. She walked around me, evaluating my avatar from top to bottom, then stopped right behind my back, staring in awe at the Titan’s Ironbark Longbow.

"Wow. This bow... a masterpiece. Pure crafting without system template assistance, right? The grain is locked perfectly," Vivi muttered, her blacksmith instinct immediately recognizing quality goods. She returned in front of me and nodded. "A craftsman who recognizes another craftsman. Alright, I can make the dagger you asked for. Using astral silver ore for INT conductivity and a light wooden handle for DEX. But, Miss Elf, the physics laws of this game still apply."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"A knife is still a knife," Vivi explained while crossing her tiny arms in front of her chest. "No matter how strong the magic element you channel through INT, you still need physical strength to pierce the enemy’s skin before the magic enters. I can adjust the scaling, but this weapon will still have a basic STR requirement. Not high, maybe around 15 or 16 STR points. Can you meet it?"

I smiled faintly. Thanks to my sacrifice of removing the wooden earrings and buying the Ogre’s Bone Earring this afternoon, my STR now sat at 17.5.

"I can meet it. No problem," I answered firmly. "How much does it cost?"

Vivi tapped a small hammer against her anvil, calculating for a moment. "Astral silver materials are currently rising in demand. The special forging process for hybrid (DEX/INT) weapons also consumes the durability of my equipment. Five Gold Coins. That’s the friend-of-Kitsuna price."

Five gold coins for a mid-tier backup weapon was indeed rather expensive, but thanks to the exclusive bomb sales earlier, money was not an issue.

"Okay, I agree. Five gold," I said while sending the transaction request from the system. My gold coins changed hands, and Vivi’s smile bloomed wide until it showed her rows of teeth.

"Wait a moment!"

Vivi immediately ran toward her storage chest, took out metal bars that glowed silvery-blue, and put them straight into the furnace. In less than ten minutes, assisted by her high-level production skills and her giant hammer striking the metal with deadly rhythm, a beautiful dagger was created.

Vivi handed the dagger to me. Its length was about thirty centimeters. The blade was made of gleaming silver with wind runes carved in the middle, while the handle was wrapped in black leather that was extremely comfortable to grip.

[Spellweaver’s Dirk – Rarity: Rare]

A special dagger designed for those who combine magic and agility.

Base Damage: 45 Physical Damage / 30 Magic Damage.

Special Effect: Every physical attack has a 15% chance to trigger a small wind slash (Gale Slash) that deals additional Magic Damage based on 50% of the user’s total INT.

Requirements: Dexterity 25, Intelligence 20, Strength 15.

Crafted by: Vivi.

"Perfect," I whispered while sheathing the dagger on my right thigh, right above my leather boot. Its weight was almost unnoticeable, yet its sharpness felt extremely threatening. "Thank you, Vivi. You’re truly talented."

"Of course! Drop by again if you need metal steel casings for those homemade bombs of yours!" the Dwarf loli called out while waving her hand.

I left the forging workshop feeling extremely satisfied. My armament was now complete. My remaining playtime was about forty minutes. I immediately directed my steps toward the western gate of StoneBrook City.

My destination was the Western Zone of Area 2: Rocky Canyon.

Unlike the green grasslands or the foul-smelling swamp, Rocky Canyon was the definition of a barren and cruel environment. After walking for fifteen minutes across the zone border, the scenery changed drastically. Towering red limestone cliffs dozens of meters high flanked a narrow dusty footpath. Hot wind blew strongly, carrying sand that reduced visibility.

The enemies in this zone were famous for one thing: absurd physical defense. Almost all monsters here were made of stone, earth crust, or had shell armor as thick as steel. Ordinary Assassin or Archer players strongly avoided this place because their attacks would only produce metallic clanging sounds without dealing meaningful damage.

However, that was precisely why I had come here.

I walked along the canyon, my eyes scanning through the flying reddish dust. After five minutes of patrolling, I found my prey.

In the middle of a slightly widened canyon gap, a giant monster was grazing on mineral rocks. Its form resembled a tortoise, yet its size was as large as a van, and its shell was purely made of solid, wavy granite stone layers.

I activated the Identify skill.

[Granite Back Tortoise – Level 24]

HP: 4500/4500

Defense: Extremely High (Physical Resistance 70%)

Description: An endemic monster of Rocky Canyon. Extremely slow, yet almost impossible to kill with ordinary physical weapons due to the thickness of its granite shell. Highly aggressive if its territory is disturbed.

This Granite Tortoise was a nightmare for physical fighters. Its physical resistance reaching 70% meant that if a sword dealt 100 damage, this monster would only receive 30 damage. For a Glass Cannon like me, this was the strongest testing dummy I could find.

I retreated slowly, adjusting the distance until my position was about sixty meters from the monster. A very safe distance, and at the same time a distance that activated the Sniper’s Nest passive from the Titan’s Ironbark Longbow.

I climbed onto a large rock chunk to gain a slightly higher elevation angle. The canyon’s hot wind blew my cloak. I drew the giant bow from my back, planting my feet stably on the stone surface.

This time, I would not hold back. I did not use an ordinary wooden arrow, but a pure Blood Oak Arrow. The extra weight of the Blood Oak would add penetration momentum.

I placed the arrow on the Bog Troll sinew string, nocking it with three fingers. And the process of casting my deadly combo began.

The first three seconds were a physical struggle. I drew the extraordinarily hard bowstring. The Ironbark creaked in protest against the force I applied. My avatar’s arm muscles tensed to their maximum limit. When the string touched my cheek, I held my breath. The Sniper’s Nest passive activated, enlarging my vision until the stone scales on the tortoise’s shell became clearly visible.

Then magic took over.

First skill: [Power Shot]. A neon-blue glow enveloped the arrow, channeling a portion of my stamina to provide additional thrust and pure physical damage.

Second skill: [Vital Shot]. A blackish-red aura covered the blue light, locking onto a structural weak point in the middle of the giant tortoise’s stone shell, a small crack where its granite plates met.

Third skill, my ultimate weapon: [Piercing Gale Arrow]. A large amount of mana points drained from my body. The wind around the canyon was suddenly sucked toward the tip of my arrow, forming a spiral of extremely high-pressure air that spun wildly like an invisible drill.

It took a total of five seconds to stabilize these three deadly energies in one vessel. If the enemy were near me, I would already have died dozens of times. But from a distance of sixty meters, I was the one who decided fate.

I locked my aim precisely on the crack in its shell.

"Shatter," I whispered softly.

My fingers released the sinew string.

BZZZTTT! DHAAAANG!

The sound produced was no longer an ordinary string snap, but a sonic boom that split the air. The Blood Oak arrow shot through the red canyon dust at a speed that could not be followed by the eye. Its flight path left a trail of green and red wind vortices that distorted vision.

The Granite Back Tortoise had just lifted its heavy head, sensing the terrifying mana fluctuation around it. However, it was too late to respond.

CRAAAAASSSSHHHH! BOOOOM!

It was not the sound of flesh being pierced, but the sound of a stone quarry explosion. The arrow wrapped in the drilling wind vortex slammed precisely into the crack of the tortoise’s granite shell.

The passive effect of the Titan’s Ironbark Longbow that ignored 25% Armor instantly negated most of the monster’s hard defense. Power Shot delivered a blunt impact like a giant hammer, while Piercing Gale Arrow drilled inward through the shattered stone layers, carrying with it the deadly critical attack from Vital Shot.

The extra-heavy Blood Oak arrow truly pierced through the half-meter-thick granite shell, tore through the tortoise’s internal organs, and the tip of the arrow came out from the underside of its belly until it embedded in the dusty ground!

[Lethal Hit! Armor Piercing Triggered! Weakness Exploited!]

[-4250 Physical/Wind Damage!]

The Level 24 giant tortoise did not make a sound. Its shell cracked into thousands of stone fragments that flew in all directions. Its body stiffened for a second, before finally shattering into a massive swirl of bluish light pixels that illuminated the dusty canyon gap.

With only a single shot! The tortoise that should have been beaten for hours by a five-member party vanished from existence in a matter of seconds by a solo Archer.

[You have defeated Granite Back Tortoise (Level 24). Gained 3800 EXP.]

I slowly lowered my bow. My hands trembled heavily. Not from fear, but from the vibration of releasing the bowstring earlier that had truly numbed my fingertips for a moment. I stared at the small crater created where the tortoise had stood, where glowing loot items floated gently.

"Crazy..." I muttered in disbelief, laughing softly. "This is truly broken."

The combination of a Glass Cannon class focused on INT and DEX, an Epic-tier weapon that increased range and armor penetration, and a skill arrangement that resonated perfectly, had given birth to an absolute fighting style. As long as I had distance, I was invincible.

I jumped down from my foothold rock and walked closer to the pile of loot. I obtained [Granite Shell Fragment] x3 and a [Heavy Earth Core], an excellent alchemy material for creating defense potions or bombs with the earth element.

Exactly when I put those items into my inventory, my visual interface once again flickered with a thin red glow.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

A large red warning floated in the center of my vision:

[MEDICAL SYSTEM WARNING: PLAY SESSION TIME ALMOST EXPIRED]

[You have 10 Minutes before the system performs an automatic Force Log-Out to maintain the stability of your nerves.]

"Perfect. Today’s feast is enough," I said in satisfaction.

I had no desire to force the physical limits of my real body. I pulled a Return Scroll from my belt and immediately crushed it. Blue teleportation light slowly enveloped my body, carrying me away from the red dust of Rocky Canyon.

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