190 Mermaid Rider

'After going through so much trouble to traverse a Level 90 map to do this quest, this is all I get?'

The message on the quest pane had finished being displayed. It attested clearly that if you were to get killed by Fernando the Siren you would fail the quest.

'For a B-class quest, aren't these rewards too little?

'It's not just too little, it isn't even comparable to a D-class quest!'

Li Yi asked, "No more rewards?"

The Mermaid Princess closed her eyes, occasionally humming along to the sound of Sif's music as if she was oblivious to Li Yi's current frustration.

"Dismiss!"

Li Yi waved his hand and dismissed the Mermaid Princess.

'I let you listen to your music every day, and this is how you treat me? Alright, if you don't want to play nice with me, then let's do it your way!'

Li Yi glared furiously at Sif, "Continue playing, without my orders, don't you dare stop!"

…

He had finally gotten an orange-colored mount, not only could he not ride her, but he was also being toyed with by her. This had completely blown past Li Yi's patience threshold.

The Mermaid Princess' Affinity was below -100,000 points, her attitude was Extremely Disgusted. Even if he allowed her to listen to music daily the Affinity increase was excessively slow. After such a long time, the total increase in Affinity was not even at 3,000 points yet.

At this rate, how much longer did he need to wait before he could ride her?

Li Yi opened the minimap and with a gesture, he teleported outside the Shattered Frost City. Once he found a shallow pond, he summoned the Mermaid Princess.

Without saying a word, he forcefully rode her. The Mermaid Princess violently struggled and tossed him a few meters away.

The water was extremely shallow. When the Mermaid Princess entered the water, it did not even reach her waist.

Li Yi stood up once more, attempting to forcefully ride her again.

[System Notification: Mermaid Princess' Affinity towards you decreased by 1000 points…]

[System Notification: Mermaid Princess' Affinity towards you decreased by 1000 points…]

This Affinity stat takes so long to raise, but it falls extremely fast. Decreasing 1000 points every pop, the Affinity dropped by over 200,000 points in a blink of an eye.

Li Yi did not care about it one bit, forcing himself onto her everytime he got back up, giving off an aura as if saying that he would not rest till he successfully rode her.

When the Affinity was extremely low, the owner might no longer be able to summon out the mount, but if the mount was already summoned out, the mount would not be able to dismiss themselves unless the owner gave the order or if they were attacked by an external party, only then could they possibly self-dismiss.

The Affinity continued to drop, and Li Yi also continued to try, not giving up till he could finally ride her. The Mermaid Princess could not attack him anyway, she could only struggle and throw him off, so all he had to do was walk back up to her.

"You are the most shameless human I've ever seen!" The Mermaid Princess bitterly pointed at Li Yi.

Li Yi did not say a word as he ran back up to ride her. He was too lazy to even care about her drivel.

"I have one thing to ask of you, will you help me?" The Mermaid Princess finally took a step back.

Li Yi stopped in his steps, did he initiate another hidden quest?

"Speak!" Li Yi said in a neutral tone.

"Head towards the Mermaid Race and retrieve a chain of pearls for me from the stomach of the Ten Thousand Year Crystal Conch."

Ding!

[Do you accept the "Beauty-loving Mermaid Princess" quest?]

[Quest Description: Head towards the Mermaid Race territory and retrieve a chain of pearls from the stomach of the Ten Thousand Year Crystal Conch for the Mermaid Princess.]

[Quest Difficulty: C-class.]

[Quest Completion Reward: Affinity increase by 50000 points, Reputational Value with the Mermaid Race increase by 2000 points, 500000 EXP.]

'A C-class difficulty with decent rewards, this quest was quite tempting.'

"Decline!"

If Li Yi had received this quest before he had reached this point, he would have done it without any hesitation if it was an A-class, let alone a C-class. It was 50,000 points of Affinity, it would have decreased half of his deficit, could he afford not to do it?

However, after losing his temper, he no longer wanted to do it. The reason was simple, after his forceful riding session just now, it had made the Mermaid Princess' Affinity towards him fall by more than 60,000 points, even if he completed the quest, he would still be 10,000 points down, he could not even break-even.

Swiftly rejecting the Mermaid Princess' quest, Li Yi continued his attempts.

"Guild Master, we just looted three pieces of purple equipment. One of them is part of the Tier 1 Archer Equipment set you're using right now, the exact one you lacked, do you want it?"

Just as Li Yi continued to torment the Mermaid, Pretty Good Mood sent him a message.

"You guys auction for it, my highest bid is 1,000,000."

"Alright."

A brief moment later, Pretty Good Mood sent another message, "Guild Master, you got it for 100,000. Once the brothers heard that you wanted it, no one wanted to bid anymore. Originally it only took 10,000, but I was afraid they would lose too much, so I raised the bid to 100,000 for you."

"100,000? That won't do, I'll pay 1,000,000, split it up with the brothers as a bonus."

"Awesome! I'm at the Shattered Frost City right now. Do you want to come pick up the equipment or do you want me to send it over?"

"Just leave it there for now, I don't have the time today."

While talking to Pretty Good Mood, Li Yi resumed his attempts to ride the Mermaid Princess.

He was truly in rage, he completely disregarded how much the Mermaid Princess' Affinity would drop. He steeled his resolve, he would not rest until he had managed to ride her.

The Mermaid Princess' Affinity dropped to an absurd number. In the end, when the Affinity had reached around -200,000 points, it came to a sudden halt, no longer dropping anymore.

At -200,000 Affinity, "Extremely Disgusted" had turned into "Eternal Sworn Enemies".

At this point, no matter how much Li Yi abused her, the Mermaid Princess' Affinity did not budge, it was at the limit.

From dusk till dawn, from dawn till dusk, the process repeated. Li Yi did not do anything else other than stalling it out with the Mermaid Princess outside the Shattered Frost City.

Three days had passed in-game, while one whole day had passed in real life. Li Yi did this for three whole days, the Mermaid Princess had also struggled for three whole days. Li Yi was out of strength and the Mermaid Princess was also panting from the fatigue. However, Li Yi was still persevering, he had already decided, if he did not ride her at least once, he would not go offline.

Grit! It was all down to grit!

Li Yi exercised the grit he used when he was solo-grinding the Remnant of the King in his past life. Reminiscing about his past life, every expert came to a unanimous conclusion that the Thief class could never solo the Remnants Instance Dungeon, but in the end, Li Yi slapped these so-called experts back with reality. No one else could do it they said, but he did and became the first and only Thief who managed to solo the Remnants Instance Dungeon in the entire Pantheon game.

'Now that the Affinity can't go any lower, do you think I'm still afraid of you? Do you want to stall? Then, let's see who can out-stall who?'

Characters had a Fatigue gauge, pets and mounts also had it. When the stamina gauge decreases, one's attributes would also decrease. Li Yi's stalling was precisely to weaken the Mermaid Princess!

"Stop wasting your energy, you're also tired, right? Let's stop this here human, you will never conquer yours truly." The Mermaid Princess mercilessly lashed out at Li Yi.

"Don't be so certain!"

Li Yi was chuckling as he suddenly pulled out a bottled elixir from his bag. Chugging it down, the fatigue shown on his face instantly vanished.

[Intermediate-Level Energizing Potion: Reduces one-third of the character's Fatigue.]

'Stall, let's see who out-stalls who!'

Li Yi's energy surged up as he continued to charge forward. The Mermaid Princess was groggy all over, using all her power to struggle, but due to her weakened body, she could not manage to break away from Li Yi. On the other hand, Li Yi was mercilessly pushing her into the water, flipping over and riding on top of her.

Success!

The Mermaid Princess' twisted her body around in agony, but she, who was at extreme-levels of fatigue could no longer stop Li Yi from riding her other than a few weak attempts to throw him off.

The Mermaid Princess' thin waist was constantly bucking, trying to shake off Li Yi. Her strength was still very strong, but Li Yi had latched tightly onto her, not letting go no matter what.

"Ride, I'll ride you till I'm satisfied!"

Li Yi rode on the Mermaid Princess' waist in the same position, staying there for more than half an hour. Finally, a "ding" sound popped up, the system notification tone rang.

[Congratulations, you have successfully tamed the prideful Mermaid Princess, receiving the Unique Title Mermaid Rider. Passive skill activated, your movement speed permanently increased by 10%]

[Do you wish to announce the taming of the Mermaid Princess to the world?]

"No!"

Li Yi sleepily dismissed this system notification.

His mind right now was not thinking of showing off, but rather to test if his credentials as a Mermaid Rider really held true.

The -200,000 Affinity was still there, whether he was able to freely control the Mermaid Princess was still not guaranteed to him.

"Dismiss!"

With a wave of his hand, the Mermaid Princess' body turned into a puff of white smoke and disappeared with a "poof".

Teleporting back to the moat, Li Yi once again summoned the Mermaid Princess. To his relief, he managed to successfully summon her out, not even using up that much mana.

The biggest difference combat mounts and non-combat mounts were that combat mounts could be freely summoned while the player was in combat, whereas non-combat mounts could not. They could only be summoned when the owner was not in combat, once they enter combat, as soon as the owner makes their first strike, the mount would be automatically dismissed.

Li Yi rode onto the Mermaid Princess, ordering her to swim forward.

"Zoom—— Zoom——"

The Mermaid Princess' movement in the water was as fast as lightning. Following Li Yi's orders, she moved forward in a straight line. With a loud bam, the Mermaid Princess slammed head first into the city walls under the moat, knocking Li Yi off of her.

[-1500]

Li Yi was damaged by the impact, losing 1500 HP. Luckily, he dodged death. However, the Mermaid Princess was much worse off, she was knocked out on the spot, leaving a huge bruise on her forehead. If her speed was just a little bit faster, her head would probably be busted wide open.

"Dismiss…"

Although the moat did not look small but taking into account the Mermaid Princess' extreme speed as a mount, it was definitely a bit too small.

After thinking briefly, Li Yi switched locations. He left the Shattered Frost City and hurried to the huge lake near the Wind Capital to do more experimenting.

When he arrived at the huge lake outside of the Wind Capital, he summoned the Mermaid Princess. At that moment, the Mermaid Princess was still in a half knocked out state, there was no way she could enter the water. Li Yi took out a precious Advanced-Level HP Potion and had her finish the entire bottle, allowing her to recover near instantaneously.

After finishing the entire bottle of Advanced-Level HP Potion, the Mermaid Princess was clearly in much higher spirits. What surprised Li Yi, even more, was that the Mermaid Princess' Affinity towards him suddenly had a change. It was originally at a nice round -200,000, but now it increased by 1 point.

'As long as someone treats you well you would remember it huh, you're a good fish after all.'

Li Yi waited for the Mermaid Princess to finish healing before riding on her once more, ordering her to dive to the bottom of the lake.

"Dive into the lake!"

"Zoom——"

The Mermaid Princess did not have even the slightest hesitation. In an instant, they had already reached the bottom of the lake.

"Turn left, turn right, go forward in a straight line!"

The Mermaid Princess was as fast as lightning, zipping around at the bottom of the lake.

"Use your special skill Acceleration!"

The surface of the Mermaid Princess' body was enveloped with a soft blue light, her speed suddenly doubling, zipping through the bottom of the lake.

"Poof!"

"Poof!"

The Mermaid Princess charged straight into the lake bed, sending Li Yi faceplanting into the mud…

...