Chương 137: False King

After nearly ten hours of running the same dungeon, Meno finally watched the XP bar cross the line. His viewer count had spent most of that time moving in the opposite direction. The stream had started high enough that repeating the Forbidden Gaol barely mattered at first, but the longer Meno kept farming, the more people accepted that he intended to run the exact same solved route until the number changed. By the end, only around 3. 1 million remained. Only.

Vivi would absolutely consider that proof she had been right. Meno probably should have talked more between runs, explained optimizations, argued with chat, or done anything besides quietly lock into the route and play. The problem was that he had actually wanted to play, and once he entered that state, talking every thirty seconds felt like deliberately interrupting himself. That was a pretty major flaw for a streamer. Yesterday had shown one possible solution.

Aurelia hijacking the stream had been unbearable for Meno and apparently amazing for everyone watching. Maybe he genuinely needed someone whose entire job was to commentate whenever he went into full farming mode, a professional caster who could talk over the boring stretches while Meno ignored everyone. It also sounded like the kind of idea that could go catastrophically wrong, so Meno was not ready to pull that trigger yet.

The final Prisoner purification completed, the familiar white-gold light swept through the room, and the level notification appeared. [Level 70] please leave the dungeon now LEVEL 70 PUMP finally omg was starting to feel like the prisoner dude open class open class open class WE ARE FREE"Totally worth it for that extra useless Masterwork I drop." Throughout the entire session, Meno had received exactly one additional item.

Solar was clearly terrified of flooding Veyrath with high-rarity equipment, because more than ten hours of solo clears had produced a single Masterwork I piece from the Confessor's loot pool. [Masterwork I | Pale Confessor's Slippers] Type: Cloth Boots Durability: Augmented Defense: Low Cloth Bonus: +10% Crowd Control Recovery Speed +30% Damage Over Time +30% Self-Healing +10% Debuff Duration +10% Movement Ability Cooldown Recovery Speed Honeygrave would want this for sure.

Damage Over Time, Self-Healing, Debuff Duration, and faster movement-skill recovery all fit Rot Savant, making it decent but not spectacular. More importantly, Meno was standing on the final boss platform at Level 70, which meant it was finally time to see whether False Hero progression was another part of Solar's punishment or an actual class system.

"Time to see if False Hero class progression is a scam or not." The next window appeared almost immediately. [Level 70 — Class Augmentation] False Hero Titan has reached Level 70. Choose one active or passive ability to augment. Three augmentation options will be generated for the selected ability.

[Engulf] [False Blink] [Pyronucleosis] [Jet Lag] [Reactor Titan] [Desync Titan] [Sticky Titan] AUGMENT FALSE BLINK DESYNC MORE JUMP POWER PLEASE ENGULF ENGULF ENGULF REACTOR IS THE WHOLE CLASS MAKE JET LAG DO DAMAGE BUFF STICKY SO HE CAN NEVER GET OFF FALSE BLINK 0. 2 INVULN WOULD BE DISGUSTING DO NOT LET CHAT PICK"Okay, so I think this is standard." Meno looked through the list.

"All sixty-plus evolved classes have seven skills, actives and passives combined, plus the core class effect like my Unstable or old Chain. We're augmenting one every 10 levels." That made Naraltan's Essence modification system look even more suspicious in hindsight. Maybe both systems were supposed to coexist later, or maybe unlocking direct class modification before Level 100 had broken progression so badly that Solar had been forced to seal Naraltan entirely. Either way, the choice did not take long.

It was either Reactor or Engulf, and Reactor was already absurdly strong while the entire class ultimately existed to enable Engulf." Engulf it is." Chat immediately tried to stop him. FALSE BLINK YOU COWARD desync has infinite content value 0. 2 SECONDS WOULD BE BROKEN BUFF THE JUMP ENGULF IS ALREADY GOOD reeeeeeeeeactor"Going with False Blink or Desync makes no sense. Desync is already too strong. I don't need more juice in it." Meno selected Engulf without confirming yet.

"Best-case on False Blink is probably increasing the invulnerability window from 0. 1 to 0. 2 seconds. That would be strong, but not worth giving up the augmentation." False Hero needed a way to maintain damage without constantly cycling out of its own core ability.

"I want something that makes it easier to sustain Engulf. Less resetting, more actual damage uptime." Meno confirmed the selection. [Option 1: False Furnace] While Engulfed and below 20% Maximum HP, gain 5% Maximum HP as Absorption per second, up to 100% Maximum HP. Absorption generated by False Furnace does not prevent or reduce HP lost from Engulf. Absorption generated by False Furnace fades over time while out of combat. Meno read it once and immediately disliked it.

"This seems trash. Below 20% means I get basically one tick before I have to turn Engulf off or I die. It's an emergency shield so some stray hit doesn't finish me at the end." He moved to the next option. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it [Option 2: Flashover] While Engulfed and below 50% Maximum HP, the interval required to trigger Engulf contact damage is reduced from 1 second to 0. 8 seconds. Continuous-contact requirements are unchanged.

Meno's opinion improved immediately.

"More damage. Love it." Reducing the interval from 1 second to 0. 8 meant five contact ticks in the time four normally happened once he entered the lower half of his health bar.

"That's 25% more damage below half HP, and it scales multiplicatively with Reactor because the multiplier is already baked into each contact tick. Also makes the dangerous part of the burn smoother." He was already leaning toward Option 2 before opening the third.

"Third option probably won't be any better." [Option 3: Wildfire] While Engulfed, whenever you deal Engulf contact damage to a target, all other hostile targets within short range of that target take 100% of that contact damage. Meno thought about the soldier packs.

"Short-range AOE extension. Really strong, but unnecessary. The stomach-plant-and-stick-to-the-pack setup already works fine, and I'm not worried about trash mobs. For difficult content, I care about one boss." Option 2 looked obvious.

"More damage always best." Chat suddenly changed topics. RING CHECK THE RING PBG THE VITALITY RING OPTION ONE PLUS RING YOU FORGOT YOUR OWN LOOT RIIIIING MASTERWORK III RING IDIOT Meno frowned at the spam until the mistake finally landed, then slapped a hand against his forehead.

"Oh." He had completely forgotten. Meno opened his inventory and found the drop from the previous session. [Masterwork III | Drowned Pilgrim's Vitality] Type: Ring While in combat and below 20% Maximum HP, regenerate 10% Maximum HP per second.

"Good catch." The interaction changed Option 1 completely.

"Yeah, so if this ring locks me to whatever HP value I hit first below 20%, or close enough, then False Furnace starts generating Absorption while the ring offsets Engulf." The exact tick timing still needed testing. Engulf removed 10% Maximum HP per second, while the ring regenerated the same amount only after Meno dropped below 20%. Depending on ordering, it might stabilize him around 10%, 19%, or bounce between values. Either way, False Furnace did not need to block Engulf's health loss.

The ring handled the health, and the augmentation handled everything else trying to kill him.

"If it works like that, I can basically stay in Engulf forever as long as incoming damage doesn't beat the Absorption generation. The ring only works in combat, though." Chat immediately flipped sides. OPTION ONE IS BROKEN INFINITE ENGULF BUILD saved by chat lmao false furnace + vitality GG DO IT DO IT DO IT too damage brained he is going 2"Might be bait, though." Meno still liked Option 2, because raw damage had always been easier to trust than defense.

"If I do the pre- Reactor stacking setup, I don't need to stay attached that long anyway. Option 2 just makes the burst stronger. Ring plus Option 1 might lock me into the wrong playstyle." Absorption was not invulnerability, and Meno had already seen enough weird boss mechanics to know feeling immortal was often the fastest route to being deleted.

"You guys also have to consider there are abilities that pierce Absorption. I could sit at 10% HP thinking my shield has me covered, then some boss ignores it and I get one-shot." Meno looked between the two options again. Normally, he would take damage and solve survival through better play. The annoying part was that Flashover was not really a flat 25% damage increase over the whole burn.

It only activated below 50% HP, meaning the actual average gain across a normal Engulf cycle was closer to half of that unless he deliberately stayed low. False Furnace could potentially change the whole class instead of merely increasing a number.

If he did not have to constantly end Engulf, then he could spend less time in Pyronucleosis, lose less time to resets, could use False Blink more aggressively without worrying about ruining the next full self-stun, and might finally play False Hero as an active attached DPS class instead of alternating between burst windows and standing there helpless.

"Hard choice." He ran the math in his head.

"If I go Option 1, I have to replace one of my +50% Maximum HP rings. So instead of 4x normal HP, I drop to 3. 5x." That made False Furnace weaker in absolute terms than it would have been with the old setup, but still ridiculous compared with a normal health pool.

"5% of my max HP as Absorption per second, with 3. 5x normal health, means I'm generating a shield worth 17. 5% of a normal player's entire HP pool every second, assuming equal level and the same archetype." Even with False Bling fixing Defense at 0, that was a lot of raw sustain for anything that did not specifically bypass Absorption.

STOP RAMBLING PICK FLASHOVER HE ALWAYS PICKS DAMAGE ANYWAY OPTION TWO AND MOVE ON DAMAGE GOOD THINKING BAD PLEASE CLICK SOMETHING FLASHOVER FLASHOVER FLASHOVER Meno looked at Option 2 one more time. Going from 1 second to 0. 8 with twenty-five Reactor stacks would be disgusting. Then he looked back at the ring.

"The combo is too good not to try. I seriously wonder if the AI put it there specifically to bait me away from getting more damage." That sounded exactly like something Solar would do.

"For sure." Meno selected Option 1 anyway.

"I think in a few hours it's going to regret this." The augmentation locked in. [Option 1: False Furnace] While Engulfed and below 20% Maximum HP, gain 5% Maximum HP as Absorption per second, up to 100% Maximum HP. Absorption generated by False Furnace does not prevent or reduce HP lost from Engulf. Absorption generated by False Furnace fades over time while out of combat.

Meno replaced one of his Legendary III rings with Drowned Pilgrim's Vitality, reducing the HP bonus from his gear but completing the potential sustain setup. He checked the real-world clock and saw it was past 1 AM on Tuesday. Vivi had gone home around five hours ago, which was probably the first good decision she had made all day. Fractera's world-state countdown still had around eleven hours remaining, but Meno had absolutely no desire to sleep.

The last several dungeon clears had been so automatic that he had practically farmed them half-asleep, and now that Level 70 had finally given him something new to think about, he felt awake again.

"Okay, we're done here. Let's see what Kestrel is up to." Meno opened Kestrel's stream in an overlay and, unsurprisingly, found him inside another Pilgrim dungeon. Kestrel bounced through a dark cavern while fighting a ghoul and dodging mushrooms that inflated before exploding into toxic clouds. The prison itself seemed pretty cool, and Meno briefly considered clearing the remaining three once each just to see their mechanics and loot tables. Then he remembered how much gear he already had sitting unused.

Reaching Level 71 through the prisons would take another twenty or thirty hours of solo farming at the current XP rate. Not worth it. On the other hand, everyone above Level 60 being trapped in dungeon rotations created a very interesting opportunity. Meno had wanted to deal with Kestrel ever since the boat incident, but finding the guy was the problem. If he could make something happen somewhere Kestrel cared about, maybe Kestrel would come to him instead. Much easier.

Meno opened the leaderboard again and found Red Bastion everywhere in the faction tags.

"Guys, I think it's time to restore some faction balance." Chat immediately became suspicious.

"Just look at the leaderboard. All Red Bastion, Northspire gold-bounty abusers. Veyrath demands balance." Meno had wanted to try something like this for a while, but now the timing finally worked. Most of the strongest players were busy inside island dungeons, leaving Northspire's high-level population thin. Karma was the only catch. Everyone else was lower level than him now, which meant PvP would become a negative-Karma hell. Crap system. Meno had no intention of telling chat the plan before it happened either.

Millions of viewers were useful for attention and terrible for surprise attacks. He had no clue what would happen if somebody razed Northspire. Maybe the faction bonus would disappear temporarily. If he could cut off Crownfall's easy gold right as Fractera unlocked, Kestrel was going to have a full public meltdown, and Meno wanted front-row seats. It was time to slay a King.