Ning looked at the damage and then at his HP. It was a decent chunk of health that he had just lost, but not enough to make him worry.
He would have to worry if all the 5 seeds that the monster shot out had hit him. It was good that he dodged it in time.
Ning ran back and stabbed the monster with the spear again, dealing a critical strike, which dealt 62 damage at once.
Then, Ning used the Wind Arrows once again and beat the Vileshroom.
[Congratulations, You have killed a Vileshroom]
[You have gained 58 Exp]
[You have received Mushroom x 2]
[You have received Mushroom spores x 40]
"40?" Ning was a little surprised, so he quickly opened up his storage and brought out the spores, only to find that they were incredibly tiny and not even a small pile of it.
"58 Exp… that means I will have to kill 20 of these to level up, huh? Given how fast you can do that, I should be able to finish it quickly," Ning thought.
He left the place and went on to search for more of the Vileshrooms. As he searched, he started thinking about something.
In the 15 or so seconds it took him to completely kill the enemy, he had likely hit the monster about 12 different times. And in those times, he had only hit a critical strike only 1 time, even though the chance was clearly 20% of the time.
'Goddammit! My bad luck," Ning thought. He opened his stats to check and realized that he had recovered nearly half of his used-up mana thanks to his high INT stat and the additional 0.5 Mana regeneration perk of the amulet he wore.
Ning found another Vileshroom not long after and began fighting it. He had realized that it was unnecessary to pull out any cards and simply fighting normally was enough.
Within 20 seconds, with speed difference and Wind Arrows, Ning could easily kill the Vileshroom.
Ning got a few more of the mushroom loot, nothing that seemed exciting.
However, when he found the third monster, he remembered that he was there to try out his skills. Going to a fight without knowing what all of your skills could do was a bad idea.
Besides, he could simply use a card, not for its effect, but for the crit chance, it gave him.
If not that, he could at least sacrifice the card to get a random buff from the system, hopefully.
"Draw!" he said and a card appeared in front of him in white light.
[Double Damage: Your next damage instance will be dealt once more.]
"That's…" Ning sighed. He was spending 200 mana to just get another hit in. Just as he thought that Ning realized something.
"Next damage instance?" he quickly swapped his Spear for the Trashy Wand and waited 5 seconds for the equipping to happen.
"Activate," he said and the card was used. Then, he used Fireball.
[You have dealt 83 Damage]
[Double Damage has dealt 83 Damage]
'Nice,' Ning thought and instantly switched back with the spear. He needed to wait 5 seconds for the spear to be usable, so in the meantime, he used the skill on his amulet.
"Wind Arrow!" he shouted and 3 wind arrows flew out from around him, and attacked the Vileshroom.
Ning ran back the moment it hit and waited for his spear to be usable. Once it was, he fought back.
With over 300 damage dealt already, the remaining 200 HP took no time to deplete and the monster was dead.
"Phew!" Ning thought. He was 18% of the way through gaining experience, so he needed to fight some more and gain some levels.
He continued killing monsters and using the few cards that he drew until he drew one that he didn't feel like using.
[Swift Shift: Turns all of your STR into AGI for the next 100 seconds.]
"The hell? How am I supposed to fight without STR?" Ning thought. "I'm not using this. Sacrifice."
[You have sacrificed Swift Shift]
[You have gained a random debuff]
[Your defense is lowered by half]
"Shit!" Ning thought. "Whatever, I'll be fine. It's not like I was taking any damage."
Ning started attacking the monster. He started the fight with Wind Arrows and jumped at the Vileshroom to attack it before the arrows even landed.
He struck the monster multiple times, slowly whittling its HP down. Then, he saw the monster try and use its bullet seed again.
Taking damage this time around was bad, so Ning dodged it like he always had, but for some reason, he suddenly felt things strike his back, and his body went numb.
A notification popped up in front of him that told him what had happened.
[You have taken 5 x 36 Damage]
"What the hell?" Ning thought. How did he take 180 damage all of a sudden? He had clearly dodged the attack.
He quickly got up and pushed himself away from the Vileshroom that was coming to attack, and was hit from behind again.
After taking 46 damage, Ning quickly turned around to see that another Vileshroom had been behind him, making no noise whatsoever.
He swung his spear, cutting the shroom with its tip, and instantly used Wind Arrows. Two of the arrows hit the near-dead Vileshroom and the last one hit the new Vileshroom.
"Two at once huh? Sure," Ning thought and got back to fighting. He dashed at the one with less HP and stabbed it through the chest area.
Then he pulled back and hit the one with more HP.
Ning weaved through the two Vileshroom, hitting them one after another while maintaining his distance just far enough, that he wasn't hit.
He finished killing the first Vileshroom after 2 more hits and started focusing on the second one.
Ning had to dodge its Seed Bullets one more time before delivering a final blow with Wind Arrows.
Once both the beasts were dead, he fell to the ground, tired and exhausted.
