15: Establishing Authority

Tristan wasn't surprised by Drake's request.

He knew this person very well.

In reality, Drake was the heir of a multinational conglomerate, a top-tier rich second generation, and had set his sights on creating the number one guild in ExoGenesis, putting in tremendous effort.

Before Tristan's rebirth, Iron Fist Alliance, although not the number one guild, had ranked among the top.

Now, after Tristan's first kill of a BOSS and several rare items dropping, there was no doubt Drake was interested.

But despite his interest, Drake was a man of integrity. He never resorted to underhanded tactics.

Tristan clearly remembered that after ExoGenesis began its integration with Terra, causing a massive upheaval in the real world, Drake contributed both financially and personally.

Though he might have had the intention of winning people over, his actions were a far cry from those who did nothing.

If there were items Tristan didn't need, selling them to Drake seemed like a good choice.

With this in mind, Tristan replied, "No problem."

Upon receiving Blackshade's response, Drake let out a sigh of relief and typed in the party chat, "Blackshade agreed."

Several of his teammates were greatly encouraged.

The Giant Wild Rabbit was a Black Iron Grade BOSS, so the gear it dropped would at least be Black Iron Grade, with relatively low level requirements. In the newbie village, that was considered top-tier equipment.

If their team could get one or two pieces, their strength would increase dramatically.

The team's assassin commented, "I've been watching, Blackshade's talent must be for ranged combat, yet he chose the assassin class, which is unconventional."

Drake replied, "This kind of unconventional combination works unexpectedly well. If Blackshade had chosen archer, even with a hidden class, he wouldn't have been able to secure the BOSS's loot rights."

The archer agreed, "Exactly. If Blackshade were an archer, he'd have been surrounded by players by now. High output or not, he wouldn't have been able to get close to the BOSS."

Holy Fire Priest Sophie added, "After this BOSS fight, even if other guilds have issues with Blackshade, they'll have to think twice. Can they stop a long-range strike from over fifty meters?"

The team looked at each other.

They had been questioning Blackshade's choice, but now it seemed they were in the first layer, while Blackshade was at least on the fifth.

An assassin who could perform ranged attacks—too absurd.

The key thing was that Blackshade's ranged damage was explosively high. Who could withstand that?

All the guild leaders in the area came to the same conclusion. They no longer had any second thoughts about acquiring Blackshade's unneeded gear and were willing to pay a premium for it.

At that moment, some players noticed the light orbs surrounding the BOSS were gradually disappearing.

That meant Blackshade was still there.

A determined player yelled, "Quick! Use AoE skills to cover the area!"

"Blackshade's agility must only be in the thirties. If we spam enough skills, we can definitely flush him out."

"Even if we don't get all the loot, if we get a piece or two, we'll make a fortune."

In an instant, several skills landed, and some players swung their weapons wildly at thin air.

Stealth only made someone invisible, not untouchable.

Had this been before Tristan leveled up, he might not have been able to dodge all those attacks.

Even though his awareness was sharp, his stats had been limiting.

But now—

With 74 agility, Tristan had already moved fifteen meters away the instant he picked up the loot.

By the time the players started attacking, he was already 40 to 50 meters away.

"Looks like I've been too easy-going."

Tristan thought to himself.

With a quick flick of his wrist, he threw a Shadow Dagger and instantly killed the player who had been shouting earlier.

Thud.

The suddenly slain player dropped to the ground, shocking those around him.

"It's Blackshade! He made a move!"

"He was just picking up loot, how did he get so far away so quickly?"

"Who said Blackshade's agility is only in the thirties? I've calculated, with that speed, it's impossible without at least fifty points of agility."

"It must be the First Kill BOSS reward attribute points. I miscalculated."

"The guy who just got killed is from Shadow Legion. Looks like DarkSaber isn't giving up, trying to take on Blackshade directly."

"He's not afraid of being targeted!"

The discussions around Tristan didn't faze him. DarkSaber had made himself an easy target.

Within seconds, DarkSaber's own demise followed.

As the last of the players tried to understand the situation, Tristan stealthily finished off more of Shadow Legion's members, clearly establishing his dominance.

He was a man of his word.

The remaining players, seeing the situation unfold, began to lose hope.

Now that Tristan had control, there was no point in sticking around.

Tristan took the opportunity to check the loot.

The first item he was interested in was the skill book.

[Tear (Black Iron Grade): Passive skill. Deals additional damage and tears wounds, dealing (Attack * 20% + 20) damage per second for 3 seconds. Only available to physical classes.]

Since the Giant Wild Rabbit was a Black Iron Grade BOSS, all its drops were at least this grade.

This saved Tristan some evolution points and was a nice bonus.

For physical classes, Tear was considered an essential skill. It triggered whenever damage was dealt, and in combat, it was continuous, greatly increasing sustained damage.

The only downside was that the effect couldn't stack. Even if you attacked ten times a second, there would still only be one stack of Tear damage.

But that wasn't a big deal.

What Tristan really cared about was whether Tear would benefit from his Sniper talent!

"With my current attack, combined with Tear's fixed damage, that's about 24 points per second. Over 3 seconds, that's 72 points."

"If it gets the Sniper boost, at fifty meters, with a five-times increase, that would be 360 points!"

Even though Tristan could deal nearly 1,000 damage with a single Shadow Dagger, 300 to 400 points of damage was still not insignificant.

Of course, this was assuming Tear could benefit from the Sniper talent.

Tristan was eager to confirm his guess, but there were still a few more items to check, so he wasn't in a rush.

After sorting through the equipment, he'd check again.

In his mind, however, Tristan was already quite sure that Tear would benefit from Sniper's bonus.