Kael kept running in circles for one reason: to force the enemy Rogues to stay in stealth.
SkyAviator and the other three mages remained at the intersection, casting Firewall around themselves to keep the Rogues at bay. Firewall was a high-mana spell that lasted a full two minutes. Their current mana pools could support about seven or eight casts total. Keeping a single perimeter up every two minutes was fine, but blanketing the area was out of the question.
Rogues were fast enough to dash through a single Firewall in a second or two. The mages kept their nerves taut, not daring to relax.
Thanks to Kael's tireless running, the ten-minute mark finally arrived.
By pure chance, one of the Rogues bumped face-to-face with Kael.
"What the hell? I'm visible!" The Rogue panicked and tried to vanish again, only to find the skill greyed out. "Shit, my stealth is broken!"
After running for ten minutes, Kael had zero patience left. He raised his bow and dropped the player with a single arrow.
The other four Rogues were clearly just as confused about their forced visibility, but Kael's arrows didn't give them time to ask questions. He picked them off one by one.
The ten-minute game of hide-and-seek ended in less than sixty seconds.
Despite the win, Kael was annoyed. He was tempted to waste a point on some anti-stealth dust, but he held back.
The third match went smoothly. The enemy ran a standard Warrior, Mage, and Cleric composition with zero Rogues. Kael vented his frustration by one-shotting them all. Three flawless 5v5 victories netted him 15 points.
The final run was the 20v20 bracket, which awarded 15 points to the winner. This time, Kael didn't queue with randoms. Fifteen points per person was too much to hand out to strangers. He opened a message to Lila:
"You free? Put together a twenty-man group for [Fair Play] 20v20."
Lila replied quickly. "I'm in a [Fair Play] 5v5 right now. It might take a while."
A standard 5v5 match usually took ten to twenty minutes to finish. Kael didn't want to wait.
"Just grab some people from the guild."
"Got it."
When the members of Crimson Bloom heard Kael was running a 20v20, the guild chat exploded. Everyone wanted in. One twenty-player raid was already queued for the Arena, but the moment they saw Kael looking for a group, they canceled their queue, kicked a random member, and dragged Kael in.
Scanning the roster, Kael didn't recognize most of the names, having only interacted with Starbloom and Argent. Hazel wasn't with them. Her build didn't have an edge in the [Fair Play] mode, so she had taken Rena, Lunara, and a few others to farm points in the [Ruthless] bracket.
The girls instantly swarmed Kael. Even within Crimson Bloom, most members had never actually played with the server's busiest man. They weren't going to let this rare opportunity slip by, chattering excitedly around him.
Once they entered the battlefield, the team spawned on a grassy plain. The terrain was wide open with zero cover—perfect for a massive brawl.
To show how seriously she was taking this match, Starbloom immediately summoned her [Mecha-Hakkar], a skill with a brutal ten-hour cooldown. She climbed into the cockpit. The massive, gleaming mech instantly drew the awe of her guildmates.
As it turned out, Kael didn't need to do a thing. The entire match was just Starbloom chasing down the twenty enemy players and pummeling them into the dirt.
Since everyone was stripped to base stats, nobody could survive the [Mecha-Hakkar]'s ten-to-twenty-thousand magic damage output. With [Rocket Barrage] on a 20-second cooldown and [Flamethrower] on a 30-second cooldown, she roasted the enemy team alive. Whenever someone tried to run, she activated [Mech Flight] and bombarded them from the sky.
Kael only had to pick off a few stragglers before the match was over.
System: You have won the [Fair Play] 20v20 match. Rewarded: 15 points.
System: You have completed all [Fair Play] matches for today. Please return tomorrow.
A perfect fifty points from the [Fair Play] bracket, secured.
Kael pulled up the [Fair Play] leaderboards. He held the number one spot across the board: overall, 1v1, 5v5, and 20v20. He specifically checked Orion's 1v1 record: nineteen wins and one loss. He pitied the guy for about a second.
Next, Kael opened the point exchange shop, navigating to the equipment tab—specifically the level 40 Ascendant gear section.
Archers had three PvP armor sets. (PvP gear featured specific skill effects that only worked against other players, not monsters.) The sets focused on magic damage, critical strike, or survival.
Kael clicked on the survival set and selected the boots.
[Windwalker Boots (Ascendant, PvP)]
[Level: 40]
[Constitution: +500]
[Dexterity: +500]
[Movement Speed: +15]
[Wind Barrier: Evade all physical attacks and increase movement speed by 50% for 10 seconds. Cooldown: 2 minutes (PvP Skill).]
This piece of gear was essentially a lifeline. In [Fair Play] mode, he didn't have his Warp Emblem, Soul Cloak, or the jump from the Toad set. Since he hadn't learned any innate defensive skills, an ambush in extreme situations could still take him out.
With the Windwalker Boots, he gained a pseudo-immunity to physical damage for ten seconds and the speed to escape. In [Fair Play], while he could out-gear opponents using his points, the stat gap wouldn't be as massive as it was in the open world. As everyone slowly bought better gear with their points, the innate stat advantage from his titles would shrink. Overall, picking up a piece or two of survival gear was a necessary precaution.
After that, he transitioned to the [Ruthless] bracket.
In this mode, he was entirely in his element. He was in and out of matches in less than ten seconds. Sure, some Rogues tried to stall with stealth, but Kael simply blind-fired arrows everywhere. The resulting [Explosive Blast] procs blew the hidden assassins to pieces.
In the 20v20 match, they ran into a team from the SkyVault guild. SkyVault knew better and surrendered immediately.
It took thirty minutes to sweep every match, netting him another perfect 50 points.
Kael spent this batch of points on a bow.
[Naga Recurve Bow (Ascendant, PvP)]
[Level: 40]
[Physical Attack: +5000]
[Dexterity: +500]
[Intelligence: +500]
[Tidal Wave: Every 3rd attack triggers a tidal wave, dealing magic damage within a 5-yard radius of the target (PvP).]
Without Galeharrow and his Primal Core Arrow, Kael lacked AoE damage. He could only rely on this bow to bridge the gap. Triggering an area attack every third shot was a far cry from his Primal Core Arrow's Flame Form, but it was acceptable.
Ending the day with two pieces of Level 40 Ascendant gear was an excellent haul. Meanwhile, the rest of the player base was still agonizing over whether to spend their points on Level 20 common and uncommon transition gear.