"Based on what you had just said you to me, this guy called Luo who claims to be head over heels over the bitchy Snow is in truth only trying to get hold of her share of the company?"
"That’s why I said it’s disgusting! The lowest! Scum!" Wei Yan Er cringed as she described Luo Yang Ming. "He would hump my cousin-sister’s leg just to get some money from the company’s trash can! I mean, look at the guy! Pretending to be a successful man, putting up airs as if he was Bill Gates or the other apple guy! Disgusting prick!"
"Alright, alright, I’m going to stop you there now. Show’s over, I’ll get going now!" said Zhang Yang as he stopped the bear.
"Ah! Wait up! We just accepted a quest yesterday! We need to go to some ghostly place to kill a boss! I need you to come with us!" screamed the little girl.
"What ghostly place?"
"10,000 Phantoms! How bout it? Scary, isn’t it?" said Wei Yan Er as she tried to mimic a ghost with her face.
Zhang Yang smiled with delight. "So, you guys know where these 10,000 Phantoms are?"
"Dummy! You’re really as dumb as you look! If we had known where it was, we would be clearing the quest by now!" said Han Ying Xue, pretending to have remained unaffected by the recollection of her sad story.
Zhang Yang knew something that Han Ying Xue did not. 10,000 Phantoms was a good place indeed! That rather scary name aside, the place hosted a boss that drops priceless items called [Fate Crystals]!
[Fate Crystals], or Attribute Crystal as players commonly called them, will permanently increase a player’s certain attribute! [Fate Crystals] came in three tiers, Gold, Silver, and Copper. [Gold Fate Crystals] will increase a certain attribute by 10 points, Silver by 7 points, and Copper, at the very least, 5 points.
The spawning point of 10,000 Phantoms was not fixed. It was something like a mobile dungeon that will only spawns in maps above Level 50. Once all the bosses inside are killed, 10,000 Phantoms will disappear and will respawn again after 10 days.
Since [Fate Crystals] were such special items, high leveled players will flock to the 10,00 Phantoms once it spawns. There was no limit to how many times you may clear the dungeon, or how many crystals you were allowed to use on your character!
Back then, in his previous life, Zhang Yang had only been in the map once! All he managed was to spectate a horde of powerful players clearing all 7 floors in no time! He got nothing from it!
"Okay! Let’s go, let’s go!" Zhang Yang was excited.
Han Ying Xue and Wei Yan Er exchanged a look and asked, "So, what treasure will appear in 10,000 Phantoms?"
"Why’d you ask?"
"Tch!" Han Ying Xue clicked her tongue. "Take a good look in the mirror, you sly monkey! You have excitement written all over your face!"
Zhang Yang laughed as he answered them. "Alright, the bosses of 10,000 Phantoms will have a chance of dropping [Fate Crystals], you can use those crystals to increase a certain attribute, permanently!"
"WoWoWoWoWo~! I want that! In that case, I’ll take Strength and Dexterity, cousin sister will take the Intelligence and Spirit, all the Vitality will go to the noob tank!" Wei Yan Er bounced on her feet and shrugged as she expressed a "be grateful you begger" kind of smug look.
"Listen here, you little girl. I’ll need Strength crystals as well, you hear?"
"Nope! No deal!" Wei Yan Er shook her head so hard that you could practically play drums with it, if you attached two drum sticks to her forehead.
"Oh well…in that case, let’s hope that all the [Fate Crystals] drops are all Vitality types, yeah?"
All three of them rode on their mounts and got out of Forest of Tanilla, passing through the Frozen Sky Wastelands and into the Necrotic Wastelands. After a small walking distance, they arrived at a small valley of mountains. From afar, they could already see how creepy the place was. Dark, damp air surrounded the valley and occasionally, the sound of crows could be heard as their wings fluttered by rapidly.
"Hmm…According to the quest description, it should be around this valley!" said Han Ying Xue as she sat on her Direwolf, circling around aimlessly.
Zhang Yang observed the area and spotted something that looked like an cave entrance to a tomb. "There!"
Even though he had only managed to enter 10,000 Phantoms once, the image of the creepy and eerie entrance was clearly etched into his brain. All three of them kept their mounts and headed into the entrance.
Do not be fooled by this narrow entry, the inside was like heaven and earth! The place was in the belly of the mountain, as wide as a football field, perhaps even wider! Along the insides of the mountain wall was a tunnel as wide as 20 meters. The tunnels formed a long spiral-like route, going down and deeper into the earth. Fire torches hung on the side of the tunnel wall, illuminating the otherwise dark, hollow pathway. From where they stood, they peeked down the center of the mountain. It looked like a giant monster with its maw wide open!
The spiral pathway had at least seven spins, with each complete circle being as long as 5,000 meters. The slope of the pathway was rather steep, like the mountain side itself. Judging by the looks alone, it would seem that it went down as deep as several hundred meters.
"Noob tank! I want a {Beast Taming} Indistinct skill book as well!" Wei Yan Er puffed her cheeks and asked Zhang Yang. She was amazed at how Zhang Yang’s [Gold-Eared Bear King] was able to walk beside him, while her own mount was confined within her inventory since she could not summon it inside an indoor environment.
Zhang Yang snickered. "Trust me. You’re better off starting as a new Hunter than hunt for the skill book."
"Argh…if I had known earlier, I would have just cut off your head myself and claim the price, at least I’d have something to go for me!" Wei Yan Er vented her frustration.
"Eh? Why aren’t there any monsters around?" said Han Ying Xue warily. The path ahead of them was completely shrouded in darkness, devoid of movement and sound. Visibility was decent, they could see a few hundred meters ahead of them. The only problem was, there was not even a single monster around!
Zhang Yang twitched an eye brow and frowned worriedly. "I think someone else might be here!"
"Let’s hurry then!" Wei Yan Er kicked off and dashed forward without waiting for the rest. Zhang Yang and Han Ying Xue nodded and started to sprint as quicckly as they could.
Luckily, just 200 meters ahead, they already spotted a group of 20+ players fighting a bunch of monsters. The group of players consisted of five different guild, all forming 5-men parties.
Though they were separated by several meters front and back, the gap was not that obvious.
"So, players first? Or monsters?" Wei Yan Er switched to the party channel and asked.
Zhang Yang thought for a while and replied. "We’ll leave them be. If they were to try anything funny, we’ll let them see how funny they look when we kick their asses!"
As the saying goes, an eye for an eye. Zhang Yang hated being bullied. That was why he understood how it felt like and would not attack unprovoked.
Han Ying Xue and Wei Yan Er nodded and followed Zhang Yang.
The monsters around here were all elite tiers. For a normal player, these monsters would be as tough as mini-bosses. That was why, even though those other players had a tank and a healer in their parties that appeared to have swapped parties between guilds. No party consisted of 5 players from the same guild. It was minimum requirement, a perfect dungeon raiding party group would require one tank, one healer, and three attackers.
However, all five parties members equipment were not on par, most of them were wearing armor that gave out a green colored hue, while only a few of them had a silverish hue on them. By the looks of it, their progress was slow since they would need around 40 seconds to kill one monster.
[Rotten Skelatal Walker] (Elite, Spectre)
Level: 54
HP: 108,000
Defense: 300
Zhang Yang took out his golden battle axe and smirked. "Let’s kill them all, AoE style!"
"Ok!" Han Ying Xue and Wei Yan Er nodded. With their powerful equipment, they could easily kite monsters that were non-spellcaster type, even if they were elite tier. They might only struggle against open world type elites, but even that wouldn’t be much trouble if they worked together.
"Stay close!" Zhang Yang rushed to the front and got ahead of all the five parties. He charged ahead into a bunch of monsters. Han Ying Xue and Wei Yan Er followed closely behind him, along with the bear. Since the bear did not attack, all aggro was on Zhang Yang alone.
With a single charge, Zhang Yang had kited seven to eight monsters with him.
{Thunder Strike}!
Zhang Yang stomped the ground and slowed all the monsters without looking back. He continued on further.
"Growl!" The monsters got closer and almost at the range to attack.
{Block}!
A flash of damage text from the {Block} reflected damage popped out. Zhang Yang chained his move with {Horizontal Sweep} to create generate aggro on him.
"Holy crap! Are those three crazy?" Players from behind Zhang Yang’s party saw how he was executing the "suicidal" rush and stared in awe and disbelief. Even if they want to die, they shouldn’t do it like that!
"Weird…Did you notice any Hunters in their party? If I’m not mistaken, that’s a huge bear following them, right?"
"Yeah. The one with the shield must be a Guardian. He has a Rage meter gauge. Same goes the lady with the huge battle axe, she’s a Berserker! The one wearing cloth armor and with a MP gauge must be a priest! I’m certain that there’s aren’t any Hunters in their party! How could a pet exist then?"
Zhang Yang went on charging into monsters for at least 50 to 60 meters ahead. The monsters following behind him already amounted to more than 40. He stopped at a wall of the tunnel and cried, "Little brat! You’re up!"
‘-201!’
‘-223!’
‘-208!’
The monster had caught up to Zhang Yang and thrust their hands out to attack Zhang Yang. None of the damage values went above 200+! It could not be helped, since their basic attack were only around 2,500. They already did the Elite title justice by managing to slightly penetrate Zhang Yang’s super high Defense.
{Horizontal Sweep}, {Thunder Strike}, {Blast Wave}!
{Tornado Cleave}!
Both Zhang Yang and Wei Yan Er started unleashed all their AoE skills and dealt devastating damage to all the monsters around!
They had killed all the surrounding monster in only four to five minutes! Defeated, the monsters dropped all sort of cloth etc items and a few coins on the floor. Smiling and snickering, the two girls started to pick up all the battle loots. They had purposely asked Zhang Yang to set the loot distribution to free-for-all before they had entered the place. First come, first serve basis!
Seeing how Zhang Yang party had mowed down all the elite monsters like dried twigs, the players behind were staring with huge disbelief!
They themselves could only take on one monster with five men! They even had to carefully draw out one monster from the herd, one at a time! If they accidentally pulled two, it would be chaotic! If they accidentally pulled three, it would be a one-way ticket to the graveyard for them.
The problem was that Zhang Yang’s party had only three players! How could they even stand toe to toe with 40 monsters all at once!? Are they even humans to begin with?
"We can’t just let them take the lead! There must be a boss up ahead!" Initially, the players behind wanted to take the chance and run ahead, following the path that Zhang Yang had just cleared. However, Zhang Yang had not kited all the monsters in his way, he had merely ran through, attracting the attention of whatever he could. The monsters further to the side of the tunnel had spread themselves out to fill the gaps. Even though the gap between the monsters were wider now, players would still have to kill them if they want to proceed.
All the players exchange a look and agreed that an "alliance" is the only way to get pass!
After the two girls were done looting all the drops, Zhang Yang started to rush again. In just half an hour, the party had proceeded so far ahead that the five temporarily allied parties were completely shrouded in darkness!
Since the bear did not have any AoE skills, it was rather redundant in this field. Though its DPS was as high as 1,800, it was nothing compared to Zhang Yang and Wei Yan Er’s total damage!
Even with the cumulative pushing power, the area of this mountain belly was just too large. They had only traveled as far as 2,000 meters in three hours! They probably had to double that distance to complete one circle!
"I’m beat! That’s it! I’m done!" said Wei Yan Er as she patted her tummy. "I’m so hungry! I’ll go stupidly crazy if I don’t put some food in my belly!"
"As if you could get any smarter after you eat…" Zhang Yang whispered.
The time was already 12 noon. All three of them agreed to have a quick break and relogged after their lunch.