Chapter 1143: Chapter 465: Curse Status Chapter 1143: Chapter 465: Curse Status “Curses actually come in so many varieties…”

Seeing all sorts of curses, Wang Tao felt bewildered.

He had thought that curses were similar to “Bleeding” that caused continuous HP loss or to “Weakness” that reduced the enemy’s ability in some way.

But after Wang Tao used them, he found that he had thought too simply; the specific effects of curses were not fixed, including everything like “Bleeding” and “Weakness”!

The reason why Wang Tao almost caused a fatality was that he wanted to see if the same person could suffer from different curses, so he tested it on a convict.

Three curses appeared over the convict’s head very quickly.

[Curse: Bleeding]
[Curse: Poisoning]
[Curse: Burning]
All three curses were HP-reducing, and the convict, who already had little health, was nearly zeroed out.

Although the criminal was already sentenced to death and it wouldn’t matter if he died, there was still the base’s rules to consider, and it was better for Wang Tao not to break them if possible.

After releasing the convict who was barely clinging to life, Wang Tao tried on other prisoners. This time he was much more cautious, not focusing on just one victim but instead brought in more convicts for individual tests.

After some time, Wang Tao had a better understanding of curses.

Firstly, it was certain that no more than three curses could exist on a person at the same time. After three curses, continued attacks with dark energy would not produce a fourth curse unless one of the previous three disappeared, in which case subsequent dark attacks would add another curse.

Secondly, the duration of these curses varied and was not consistent, ranging from a few seconds to several minutes, and the duration was independent of strength. Regardless of strength, they lasted the same amount of time.

Next was the power of these curses. The exact strength was hard to measure, but it was linked to how forcefully Wang Tao attacked; the less dark energy he used, the weaker the curse. If he struck with full force, the curse was strong, with no fixed value–maybe there was an upper limit, but clearly, the prisoners couldn’t endure tests of that limit.

Lastly, there were numerous types of curses.

Wang Tao had so far discovered Weakness, Poisoning, Bleeding, Burning, Blindness, Slow, Freeze, Armor Break, Critical Hit… A whole assortment.

Among these curses, some caused direct damage, like Poisoning, Bleeding, Burning, etc.; some reduced the enemy’s attributes, like Weakness, Armor Break, Blindness, etc.; and some applied strange statuses to the enemy, like Critical Hit–where the chance to suffer a critical hit (double damage) when attacked is significantly increased…

Wang Tao felt there were certainly more curses he hadn’t uncovered yet because the stronger the curse, the lower the chance of it occurring. For example, there was a curse called “Slaying,” which seemed powerful but had appeared only once.

The lives of prisoners were still lives; not everyone was sentenced to death, and it wouldn’t be good to accidentally kill someone. He would have to continue experimenting while killing zombies.

And speaking of [Curse: Slaying], Wang Tao thought this might be the most formidable curse he had encountered.

[Curse: Slaying]
[Slaying: Dies when current HP falls below 20% of total HP]
This [Curse: Slaying] lasted for three minutes, and one prisoner, after being cursed, his green health bar’s last 20% turned dark green. If his HP fell into the dark green zone, he would immediately die!

In other words, once an enemy was cursed with Slaying, they were down to 80% of their HP for the next three minutes!

For humans, this curse might be insignificant, but against those high-HP, high-defense zombies and monsters, it was very useful!

For instance, if a Giant Zombie with 400,000 HP were cursed, it would effectively lose 80,000 HP instantly! This undoubtedly reduced the difficulty of killing it significantly.

However, the [Curse: Slaying] lasted only three minutes, so he needed to bring the enemy’s HP down to 80% within that time, or it would be useless.

Of course, this was not an issue for Wang Tao. If he prepared to hunt a particular enemy, he would do so with certainty, never allowing the enemy to survive more than three minutes, usually concluding the fight within one minute. If it took longer than three minutes, it might require wearing the enemy down slowly, and whether or not the curse was in effect was inconsequential…

After roughly understanding the effects of curses, Wang Tao left the prison.

This new Awakening, Heart of Darkness, was stronger than he had anticipated, whether simulating various attacks or curse effects, they were all beyond his expectations, greatly enhancing his combat power.

But this Awakening was not without its downsides, its biggest drawback being that the absorbed Ability for Heart of Darkness was Mastery Fusion, which included all of Wang Tao’s attack type abilities. Meaning, without using dark energy, he would no longer be able to use abilities like Shockwave.

Using dark energy, however, he could simulate similar techniques with even greater power, wider range, and shorter cooldown times, but these would consume Awakening Energy, not Mana!

Wang Tao had 120,000 Mana, but only 3,100 Awakening Energy… This was quite distressing. It was as if his burst potential increased, but his sustainability decreased.

Especially after Wang Tao studied it carefully, he discovered that the remaining three abilities he now possessed were Berserk Enhancement, Fireball, and Blaze.