Genius Chapter 53: The Real Dark Horse

Chapter 53: The Real Dark Horse

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Karai

The hunting leaderboard of Valor Peak underwent another refresh, with ReturnToSimplicity’s first position being replaced by another player, causing a stir among ordinary players who followed the rankings.

[I just checked the details of the first-ranked player. Battlefield time: 56 minutes, 20 kills?]

[Wow, isn’t this completing the 20-kill achievement and ending the hunting ground early?]

[The first place is now Momo??? I remember he was into PvE, how did he suddenly become the first in the hunting ground?]

[Are there any players from the same match? I’m so curious, what’s going on???]

The confusion over the leaderboard change quickly turned into questioning the legitimacy of the ranking results, sparking another wave of discussions on forums. Especially notable was a summoner player who was relatively unknown in PvP, with gear considered only average and two levels lower. Even though the level suppression conditions in the hunting ground were removed, the player’s output conditions somehow enabled them to achieve the 20-kill achievement before other top players.

Soon, a player from the same match spoke up, accompanied by the posting of the kill announcement from the arena. This unfortunate player was named Congratulations, who had obtained the protective amulet early in the battle and had been hiding in the shadows all along. Even when hearing the sounds of fierce battles nearby, he remained still in the bushes.

Who would have thought that just as the end approached and his legs felt numb, hearing no activity outside, he stood up to stretch, only to be targeted by a summoner who appeared from nowhere, claiming the final kill.

Having his level deducted after the end of the hunting ground, he regretted it bitterly.

[After the battle, I checked the leaderboard of the killed players, and none of them were in the top two hundred. There really weren’t any top players in our match. The only group seemed to be players from [Temple of the Gods], but they were taken out by the summoner at the end, losing four heads. It’s frustrating! If it weren’t for [Temple of the Gods] feeding those four heads, would the summoner have been so well-fed?]

[Are acquaintances feeding kills to boost stats?]

[I don’t think so… I remember from last time, it seemed like Momo had a grudge against the gods, maybe enemies meet and their eyes turn red?]

[Wow, so he really climbed to the top spot? What a dark horse!!]

[I remember now, this is the one that helped Fruit command last time! Oh right, it was the devil mentioned in the Assassin section, coming to the battlefield again?]

[The last one to be this famous was BrokenOracle, and before that, it was ReturnToSimplicity.]

[Terrifying, another archdemon dominating the battlefield.]

[???]

At that moment, more and more people began to inquire about Momo. Some searched for keywords related to him on forums and found out that he was originally a quest-oriented PvE player, and even a conqueror of the Misty Sea Realm. Despite being relatively unknown on the overall rankings, there were numerous posts about him, with various peculiar keywords such as “LuckyScarletFruit Store,” “Fruit Gang’s Devil Coach,” “Full Mage Lineup,” “Nightmare of Wilderness Assassins,” “Desert Inn First Clear Commander,” and “First Clear by Four People”…

With each search, some players’ memories were jogged. They went from having a good impression of this player’s PvE skills to realizing he was a merchant selling items, and then discovering he was also a coach in command… Players were speechless.

So, my friend, not only are you a businessman and a commander, but also a rising star in PvP?

Mostly PvP-oriented assassin players exclaimed, “What rising star? He’s a devil!!”

Momo rose to fame by topping the hunting leaderboard. 

The hunting leaderboard, as the overall evaluation of the hunting ground, ranked the best performances of various professions, such as effective assistance for healing professions, the highest damage absorption for warrior professions, and the kill rate and output damage per second for DPS professions. Therefore, on the first day of the hunting ground, with no one having more than three matches on average, suddenly, a dark horse emerged with a single-match 20-kill streak, instantly drawing the attention of other players on the leaderboard.

In the headquarters of [Zenith Expanse] guild, a man dressed in black robes stood while conversing with a man in white behind him.

“LethalSlash said that at the time, he led a team consisting of a magical swordsman, a Daoist priest, a warrior, a healer, and a mage. The mage and the healer were considered hunters, while the others were prey,” relayed the white-clad man, a manager of [Zenith Expanse]. “They were positioned on the northwest slope of Valor Peak, where there were many trees and rocks, making the terrain complex. Upon seeing summoner Momo, LethalSlash immediately went up to control the situation, intending to detain him for output.”

As a team leader, LethalSlash encountered fellow guild members randomly upon entering the hunting ground, with only two out of the five being familiar faces. Communication could only be done through meeting in person.

Guild members gathered, distinguishing professions and strengths. Although their impromptu team couldn’t compare to elite squads, good coordination in this solo hunting ground could still give them an edge.

Therefore, LethalSlash accepted the lineup of his teammates and made allocations accordingly. Their team had more ranged magic users than front-line tanks. During assaults, the healer and mage, who took on the hunter role, would temporarily act as tanks, rushing to the front lines. Upon discovering prey, they would immediately control and detain them, initiating a control loop before proceeding with output to avoid accidentally harming melee teammates with their skills.

LethalSlash was a physical swordsman, accompanied by a warrior. The rest were all ranged magic users, with a focus on AoE attacks.

Their opponent, the summoner, was also a ranged profession, with long reach and numerous control skills. Moreover, they could control their summoned creatures to move around freely. If left unattended, the summoner’s skills could annoy them to death.

In such an environment, to avoid harming melee teammates with ranged magic attacks, the only way was to initiate control first and follow up with subsequent single-target output. This was the safest and most effective method of attack without endangering teammates.

The manager continued, “But their control chain wasn’t executed properly, there were gaps in control, and they made positional mistakes.”

Beside the Zenith Expanse manager, the man in front was scrolling through the hunting leaderboard, where the hot topic was the dark horse, Momo.

The man in the black robe was none other than the guild master of [Zenith Expanse] and the current top-ranked array master in the Celestial Horizon’s overall evaluation, known as Midnight Bell.

Midnight Bell looked at the simple numerical data points listed on the hunting leaderboard and asked, “So, what happened? Why were they wiped out by summoner 1v6?”

“Momo is very familiar with the terrain of Valor Peak, and he’s an uncommonly fast summoner,” explained the Zenith Expanse manager. “At the time, they were located in the highlands of the mountain forest, with the terrain providing cover. The mage and healer had limited hard control abilities, and LethalSlash failed to seize control first and was instead controlled. Furthermore, the obstructive terrain caused ranged magic users’ spellcasting to fail.”

“They failed to seize control, and the control chain of the magic users didn’t catch up, resulting in a passive state in the first phase,” he added.

Summoners have limited skills for breaking control. As long as three control skills hit, they can completely gain control of the summoner. However, the key issue lies in the natural terrain. The various trees and rocks in Valor Peak naturally create obstacles. Unlike summoners who multitask by controlling summoned creatures for multiple attacks, natural obstacles pose a fatal point for some hard control skills that require facing the target.

The group led by LethalSlash was originally maintaining formation as they advanced. When LethalSlash announced the attack on Momo, the team quickly distanced themselves. However, when they attempted to detain Momo, LethalSlash failed to seize control first, and others’ attempts were interrupted by obstacles, leading to a failure in spellcasting. They found themselves in a position where Momo was in multiple blind spots, forcing them to reposition. As they attempted a second attack, they fell into the summoner’s control range again. LunarFeline’s mass confusion skill completely disrupted their deployment and arrangement.

“Confusion?” Midnight Bell was somewhat surprised upon hearing this. “No wonder.”

Confusion is a soft control skill. Among all Celestial Horizon professions, only summoners, clerics, and assassins have access to the confusion status. Among them, assassins can only inflict single-target confusion, while the Spirit Sanctuary, to which clerics and summoners belong, is the sect with the fewest players in Celestial Horizon. Group confusion exclusive to the sect is even rarer. Moreover, as this skill is a soft control, it is often used by other players to slow down the opponent’s actions in the wilderness and on the battlefield. Therefore, many players tend to confuse or overlook the fact that confusion and slow are actually two different statuses.

Confusion causes players to run around and use skills randomly in their vicinity. In 80% of cases, they will randomly use basic attacks, and in 20% of cases, they will randomly use active skills. In the forested terrain of Valor Peak, with limited mobility on the ground, confusion targeting just one or two people can pose a threat to the safety of surrounding teammates.

The natural complexity of the environment in Valor Peak, including forests and storms, adds additional factors confusing players. Moreover, this is a personal PvP battlefield where all players, even if they have identity cards, are fighting alone. In an environment where everyone is marked as hostile, obstacles obstruct movement, storms affect visibility, healing is ineffective, and there is no in-team voice communication, combat tactics rely solely on shouting. To cooperate in dealing with enemies without harming teammates, the optimal approach is to take turns controlling for output.

“Even in an impromptu team, they shouldn’t have been disrupted by mass confusion,” Midnight Bell remarked.

“LethalSlash immediately instructed teammates to use healing potions and split up to pursue Momo upon discovering the problem,” the manager explained. “Their main casualties came from the debuff of the venomous Snake. In the end, they neglected to address the stacked layers of snake venom and died from the explosion.”

In the holographic game, target locking requires line of sight to initiate a brief lock-on. Once the player loses sight of the target within their field of view, the lock-on disappears. With natural terrain cover, they couldn’t locate the Snake’s position and couldn’t lock onto it to clear it. Additionally, other summoner summons were causing disruption nearby.

“This summoner’s mental strength is not inferior to FireworksAndLanterns. According to LethalSlash’s recollection, there were seven types of summons present during the 1v6 confrontation. This is the highest summon record of FireworksAndLanterns. Momo has never summoned so many summons simultaneously in other confrontations with [Temple of the Gods]. LethalSlash made a judgment error,” explained the Zenith Expanse manager.

Midnight Bell looked surprised, “Seven types? He calculated?”

“Momo probably placed snake venom centered on the Snake from the trees or other locations. While evading others’ skills, he continuously lured others into the Snake’s attack range. He didn’t achieve instant kills but utilized terrain layout and movement advantages to achieve kills in a short period,” the manager explained. “Snake venom stacks slowly, and the damage from a single layer of the skill is not high. LethalSlash was stacked with multiple layers of snake venom and died from the explosion in a relatively chaotic situation. It can be said that most of them were killed by the summoner’s use of terrain.”

A summoner with average PvP equipment successfully completed a 1v6 by utilizing terrain and skill mechanisms in the hunting ground.

Midnight Bell pondered, “Ask the gods to grant them the Heavenly Eye.”

The manager asked, “Night, are you planning?”

Midnight Bell closed the hunting leaderboard, and his gaze towards others carried some indifference. “Have them try him.”

Online, the news about the hunting leaderboard continued to ferment, but Su Mo played his game as usual without visiting the StarNet forum.

When Su Mo emerged from the hunting ground, ScarletFruit was still immersed in other hunting grounds. Su Mo counted his rewards on the spot, exchanged the accumulated monster points for new PvP equipment, and bought other materials in the life profession work area. He hadn’t yet comprehended the two items he wanted to make last time.

One was for dealing with assassins’ stealth, and the other was for PvE use. The former, like the Dispel Cloak, was a wilderness item. Since the Dispel Cloak had the advantage, the sales of stealth items were estimated to not be very good. Su Mo only made a few for personal use and focused mainly on PvE items. He had already done the formula reasoning and trial and error with about ten astrology charts, but he ran out of materials.

The PvE item was special, and all the required materials were high-level. Among them, the [Stiff Mud] was quite hard to find, as it was an item dropped by wild monsters. Due to its limited use and low demand, there were rarely any people farming it, and the few Stiff Mud available on the trading platform had been bought by Su Mo. Now, with the materials out of stock, it was indeed troublesome.

The PvE item, derived from the summoner’s skill by Su Mo, was a time-limited item with limited functionality. The item was named [1 Minute Puppet], used for trial and error.

During this period, the quest dungeon required testing the skill mechanism before proceeding with the attack. If encountering dungeons like the Qixi Festival event where failure led to expulsion after several attempts, the opportunity for trial and error would diminish. This PvE item was mainly used for trial and error, allowing temporary duplication of a team or player data. Depending on the number of duplicates, it inherited the basic attributes of the copied player and transferred control to the copied player. Players could use this temporary duplicate to raid dungeons or navigate through outdoor quest traps. The puppet possessed attack and movement abilities but disappeared after one minute.

Su Mo left a message for ScarletFruit, asking him to pay more attention to the supply of Stiff Mud. Since there was still some time left, he decided to go out to the wilderness to farm some Stiff Mud himself.

The respawn point of Stiff Mud was in a small area within the Glacial Ravenlands, where a type of zombie monster spawned. These monsters had many negative statuses, high attack, and only dropped Stiff Mud. As Stiff Mud had no clear purpose, there were very few players who came here to kill the zombie monsters.

When Su Mo arrived, there were about a dozen zombie monsters in the small area, and none of them were being attacked. The monsters were level 70, with average health bars. Su Mo habitually asked customer service for some map information and information on the zombie monsters. Then he summoned Solitary Wolf to start attacking the monsters. As expected, halfway through the battle, Solitary Wolf’s movements became restricted, and it quickly sank to the ground.

Su Mo canceled the summoning just before Solitary Wolf died. When he saw that the zombie monsters were standing in a swampy area, he had a feeling that something was wrong. Indeed, there was a mechanism of sinking in the swampy area, making it impossible to fight the zombie monsters inside it. Su Mo understood the mechanism now and planned to lure the monsters out to kill them in batches.

Suddenly, he heard faint wind noises and instinctively checked the mini-map, noticing several strange red dots approaching him. These red dots belonged to players, and they were closing in on him.

With a sound of breaking air, an arrow fiercely grazed Su Mo’s arm and embedded itself into the ground. Su Mo quickly retreated, avoiding the marksman on the high ground, and moved towards his blind spot. He casually threw a Dispel Cloak scroll to his side, revealing two assassins…

The assassins had hidden their IDs, but their guild emblem was still visible. It was a silver sickle chain emblem with blood-colored rust stains.

Su Mo had seen this emblem before; it belonged to the guild that was originally ranked first on the dungeon speedrun leaderboard—the Eclipse faction’s [Zenith Expanse]. He dodged the attacks, his gaze darkening as he scanned the mini-map.

Assassins, marksman, and a few other red dots on the map hadn’t approached yet.

It was obvious; he had been ambushed, and it was an ambush by the All-Seeing Eye faction.