Taming Master

Na Ji-Chan—who was left alone in the monitoring room—was staring at the screen while sweating profusely.

‘No way, did he notice it already?’

Na Ji-chan who noticed Ian’s cautiousness was creeped out.

In a glance, it was like a party play where the members were helping the party, but Na Ji-chan felt something was off.

“Even if it is Ian, this is…!”

The AI skills of Kailan were beyond imagination.

The play style and the pattern of the users were gathered and were being incorporated into their AI. This was the reason why no one could notice if it was actually the user who was using the character or the user’s AI.

One could notice the difference if they look hard enough. However, the current situation that Ian and his party was in was too messy.

So, even if it was Ian, there was no way one could find out about Hoonie in such a messy situation.

“That’s so crazy.”

Without even realizing it, Na Ji-chan spoke out his thoughts.

He was having goosebumps.

Ian’s game sense was scary.

There was no way for such a thing to happen since the quest wasn’t shared with Ian.

However, it was amazing that he still managed to notice it.

Na Ji-chan pulled out his tablet. He opened a proposal and began to turn the pages.

“This is just a maybe but I might have to use plan B…”

Looking at the screen once again, Na Ji-chan was now fully convinced that Ian knew about it.

Now was the time to carry out the plan that was already set up.

He hurriedly moved out of the monitoring room.

He needed to move to the planning room right away.

“I feel so sorry for you Hoonie… for what had happened, I’ll make sure to get you a present.”

Na Ji-chan quickly paced towards the planning room.

He was smiling as he approached his destination.

He was filled with joy since Ian would be surpassing his expectations once again.

* * *

Almost all skills in Kailan have non-targeting methods.

The non-targeting method was where users could attack their enemies just by facing them rather than selecting them individually.

Then what if there were allied users within the caster’s range?

Although there were areas such as the PK zones, friendly forces within the caster’s range wouldn’t take any damage in Non-PK zones.

In other words, it was easy to say that ‘mistake by killing a team member’ was impossible.

Assuming users use this method on a large scale war, all the users of the same camp were considered as allies, so they wouldn’t damage each other even if they were all using the non-targeting method.

So what needed to be done to perform a ‘team kill’?

Simple! One just had to switch to PVP mode right away.

When PVP mode was activated, one could attack any user regardless of their affiliation with each other.

However, activating PVP mode wouldn’t result in any system messages or major changes.

Users could only see a small red skull blinking next to a user’s name floating on their heads.

Ian continued fighting, but he made sure to not take his eyes off of Hoonie.

If a red skull started to flash next to Hoonie’s name, then that moment would be the death of him.

On the other hand, the battle was turning more and more intense.

“Yu Shin! You don’t have that much shield left! Move back a little!”

“It’s alright, I still have room to take some risks!”

Kwang- Kwakwang-!

Their current location had a complicated structure overall.

There were three corridors at the end of the underground dungeon. Hoonie, Ian and Yu Shin decided to split up, each going into different corridors.

Remir stayed at the back to support the three of them and see the passages the same time.

Remir’s main weapon—the wide-area magic—couldn’t be used in such a situation.

Remir asked Ian as she was feeling frustrated,

“Ian-ah, wouldn’t it be better to just fall back and fight in the open?”

Ian shook his head and responded to her,

“No, there are too many enemies.”

It was as if Ian was implying that…

‘If you plan on moving back to a wide map, then I won’t be able to keep an eye on Hoonie.’

Ian kept those thoughts to himself and looked at Hoonie and Ly with keen eyes.

He had to be careful since nothing was obvious yet.

Remir was a little upset, but she put that aside and decided to concentrate on supporting him.

Suddenly…

A huge black magic spell came from the front.

‘La Poradium!’

Kuoong-!

The thick steel bars in the dungeon’s underground cells began to vibrate.

Purple sparks began to form at the bottom of the ground.

Ian’s eyes went big.

‘What? Summoning Magic…?! A technique that I haven’t seen a lot before..!’

Although Ian’s a summoner, he had always been disappointed with how other users use their skills.

No matter how good a users’ control was, they wouldn’t be able to defeat anyone in PVP unless they know their opponent’s skill pool.

Also, users’ in the same party wouldn’t be able to properly use their skills against a boss monster if they don’t know each other’s skills.

However, now that Kells was trying to use a skill that Ian wasn’t well aware of.

Ian started to get confused a bit.

‘Eu…! Should I wait a little longer?’

A cloud of white smoke started to rise from the magic circle and began to spread.

Though it was a dark attribute skill for sure, they still didn’t know what it could do.

There was one thing that Ian could think of though.

‘I’ll have to hold on to catch Hoonie if he reacts suddenly…!’

In case Hoonie betrayed them, the Dreaming Devil wouldn’t give Hoonie’s Undead the buff.

Doing that would make all of Hoonie’s undead be devoured by the Dreaming Devil once the PVP indicator showed up next to Hoonie’s name.

Suddenly…

“…!”

A red skull appeared next to Hoonie’s name.

‘It has come up!’

This was what Ian had been waiting for.

Ian would get a nasty penalty if he killed Hoonie, but his fame was overflowing so he wasn’t really scared about the consequences.

Ian gave out the orders to his familiars.

“Ly! Kaka!”

“Understood, Master.”

Ly—who only had one thing in mind and that was to follow Ian’s commands—stabbed Hoonie at the back with its claws without hesitation just before Hoonie could trigger an attack spell.

Kwak-!

Hoonie had just allowed himself to get attacked in an unprotected state!

Kaka quickly flew to the sky and closed her eyes while muttering in a low voice.

“Darkness fall upon us.”

[Slave ‘Kaka’ unique ability Dreaming Devil has been activated.]

[During ‘Shadow Control’, all the party members attacks will increase by 5%, and all the dark attribute damage will be decreased by 50%. All enemies within the radius will be visible.]

Hoonie’s AI jumped back.

An AI wouldn’t get surprised even though it experienced an unexpected situation.

Moreover, the skill that Hoonie was trying to cast got invalidated by Ly, and it burst out into nothing.

The damage caused by Ly was fatal.

Ian didn’t plan on missing out on anything.

“Space Distortion!”

Ly was on Hoonie’s—or Hoonie’s AI—back.

Hoonie was completely defenseless when Ian and Ly switched places.

Ian thrust Hoonie with the Judgment of the Spirit King without any hesitation.

Kwanng-!

Ian hit Hoonie’s weak spot with a critical strike.

[The user ‘KanjiHoonie’ has suffered tremendous damage from a critical strike.]

[‘KanjiHoonie’s’ vitality is reduced by 498079.]

Kwakwakwang-!

Two consecutive attacks from Ian made Hoonie’s body unable to move.

[‘KanjiHoonie’s’ vitality reduced by 343888.]

[‘KanjiHoonie’s’ vitality reduced by 560162.]

Hoonie who had taken three hits at his weak point couldn’t stay standing any longer.

Hoonie’s body sank to the ground as he couldn’t take any more damage.

The warlock class—the weakest of all the classes—had no vitality nor the defense to survive damage such as that.

Thud-!

Remir and Yu Shin who wasn’t able to understand what was happening recovered from their surprise and asked,

“Ian-ah, what did you do?”

“Why did you attack Hoonie!”

However, Ian didn’t have the time to explain everything to them.

“I’ll explain later! Let’s go for now!”

Even if he suppressed Hoonie’s rebellion, there was still work that had to be done.

Dark energy began to spread from Ian’s hands.

Woong-!

Ian was planning to use the ‘Soul Recall’ skill.

It was a skill that could be activated within 10 seconds of one’s death.

Hweeing-!

The darkness from Ian’s hand flowed to Hoonie’s fallen body.

Hoonies’ body began to change at that very moment.

[The fusion skill ‘Soul Recall’ is being used on the user ‘KanjiHoonie’.]

[‘KanjiHoonie’s’ soul is being summoned. (The soul that will be summoned have 125% of the target users combat abilities.)]

[KanjiHoonie’s soul is in the state of ‘Bloodlust’. (Movements are increased by 60%)]

[You can control all the skills and unique abilities of the user ‘KanjiHoonie’ moving forward.]

[You will be able to control ‘KanjiHoonie’ and all of his summons moving forward. (You wont be able to control the retainer.)]

The change in the battlefield took place in just an instant.

Although Ian had done all of this in just 10 seconds, his concentration didn’t waver for a second.

He now had control over Hoonie.

There was a lump of huge dark meat in front of his eyes, and he had the perfect plate to put it in.

Hoonie’s soul began to summon the undead.

[The land of darkness is the home for the Undead.]

[The Undead in the shadow of the earth will have their vitality recovered 300% faster.]

[The effect of the ‘Dreaming Devil’ won’t be applied as 5% but as 35% to the Undead]

[All the mana consumption of the Undead is reduced by half.]

Ian looked at Kells.

The time limit for Hoonie’s soul was 5 minutes.

‘I’ll break your neck within that time.’

The flow of the battlefield changed once again.