Chapter 228: Lord of Flames Arcel
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
"Charge!"
Zhang Yang let Endless Starlight go ahead, allowing him to acquire the initial aggro of all monsters, giving him the opportunity to kite the elites away.
"Blasphemer, die!" The 10 Flame Acolytes stood up one after another, pointing their magic staff straight at Endless Starlight and began the chanting of their Fire Ball spells. Meanwhile, the boss swung his gigantic hammer at Endless Starlight.
{Sacred Protection}!
Endless Starlight quickly activated his ‘Invincible’ skill and rushed straight at the monsters, activating his {Devotion}. He began swinging his Battle Hammer around to begin kiting the monsters.
Zhang Yang went straight up with a {Wild Charge} to engage with the boss. By activating his {Blood Rage}, he instantly gained 30 points of rage points. With one normal slash, followed by a {Cripple Defense} and a {Horizontal Sweep}, he swiftly built up the aggro value.
Boom!
A stream of fire wave spewed out from the body of the Lord of Flames Arcel. It spread outwards in all directions, and everyone was hit with a damage of ‘-1000’, the radius of the effective range was at least 40 meters!
‘Ding! Lord of Flames Arcel has unleashed {Flame Gush}! ’
Zhang Yang quickly reacted and kited the boss to one side of the area, distancing themselves away from the gang.
Boom!
Another stream of fire wave gushed out from the body of the Lord of Flames Arcel. Because Zhang Yang had already moved a certain distance away from the gang, this time around, only Fatty Han, Daffodil Daydream and Perfumed Water were inflicted by the damage effect.
"Perfumed Water, come heal me, Witchy Snow, go heal Starlight!" Zhang Yang commanded. The focus fire of Fire Balls from 10 elite Flame Acolytes was really terrifying. Only a super healer like Han Ying Xue would be able to prevent the tank from turning into a crisp!
Sun Xin Yu and the others immediately activated their AOE attacks, trying their best to clear out all the Acolytes in the shortest possible period of time, with the intention to let Han Ying Xue get back to Zhang Yang as soon as possible.
Other than Snow Seeker and Perfumed Water, others had already completed their respective level 50 profession quests with perfect scores, they were all equipped with Yellow-Gold weapons, while the tanks had been rewarded with Yellow-Gold shields. Therefore, the whole party dealt a ridiculous amount of damage, and within a minute, they had managed to take out all 10 elite Acolytes without a hitch!
The boss was slowly met with an increasing number of attackers as the party switched their sights on him.
"Damnit, the fire resistance of this boss is really high!" Daffodil Daydream attacked with {Explosive Flame} , a powerful attack that should be dealing 6000 damage, but on this target, that value had been halved, almost making her weep.
"You’ve had your fun with that gigantic tree in the afternoon, be thankful that you’re not strengthening this firey creature, feeding it with more fire!"
However, in place of Daffodil Daydream’s penalized attacks, Snow Seeker was dealing double her usual damage! Being an ice type caster, she was a hazard to beings of fire. Her damage already overtook Zhang Yang’s damage, even while being supplemented by his Battle Mount!
"#!#￥—*!" as the Lord of Flames Arcel spoke in a language that the human tongue could never replicate. Time and again, his gigantic hammer slammed down on Zhang Yang. The melee damage of the boss was not particularly high, only in the 7000 range. However, his attacks were accompanied by licks of flames, every attack taking away a total of 8000+ from Zhang Yang’s health points.
{Flame Gush} was being unleashed every single second, burning everyone up considerably. Other than Zhang Yang, every other player was constantly being struck with 1000 damage every second. Even though Han Ying Xue and Perfumed Water were super healers, they had their limits.
"Starlight, Daffodil! Remove yourselves from the AoE area of the boss, let’s make it easier for our healers!" Zhang Yang improvised.
Although Endless Starlight and Daffodil Daydream were not willing to do so, they understood their shortcomings. A tank would be unable to dish out much damage anyway, while a Pyromancer wasn’t much use against a Fire element boss.
With two players leaving the battle, the situation was momentarily stabilized as the healing efforts of the two ladies evened out with the damage.
After Zhang Yang had ‘combined’ with his mount, his health bar had gone straight up to 30,000. As a result, every attack of the boss only would slice away a quarter of his total health points! The more hitpoints a tank possessed, the larger the margin for error was for the healers!
Compared to the Demonic Treant King, the Lord of Flames Arcel was obviously much more easier to handle. All that they needed was a tank who can perpetually survive his onslaught, with enough healing.
80%, 60%, 40%... The health points of the boss slowly went down.
Fatty Han was so thankful for the simplicity of the battle, so he spoke up, "Finally, a boss that’s not batshit insane!" He could still remember clearly how the Demonic Treant King had flattened his prostate figure back then in the lake!
"Yeah!" Likewise, as they were reminded about the Treant boss, everyone nodded to express their agreement.
Actually this boss was a pushover only due to the fact that these players had top-of-the-range equipment! If the tank was to wear slightly inferior equipment, the boss could have inflicted over 14,000 damage a hit, killing a player instantly!
30%, 20%, 10%!
It purely depended on the equipment when engaging this a boss that relied on sheer damage values such as Lord of Flames Arcel. As long as the equipment reaches the standard requirement, it would be easy battling this boss. On the contrary, the party will be annihilated repetitively if their equipment did not meet the standard requirement. There were no additional tactics required for this battle.
In less than 6 minutes, the large body mass of the boss crumbled to the ground, its flames extinguished. All that remained of it was a single, crimson sphere the size of a human head, which continued to burn weakly.
Zhang Yang swiftly jumped down from his mount to pick up that object. The moment he touched it, he was inflicted with 1000 damage consecutively.
[Molten Core of the Flame King] (Quest item)
Item description: Hot! Hot! Hot!
He quickly shoved the object into his backpack, and with this, the three main quest items were now gathered!
"Noob tank, hurry up, where are my boots!" Wei Yan Er ran up to, egging Zhang Yang to look at the loots.
As Zhang Yang looked through and picked up the loots, picking the Yellow-Gold equipment pieces first, before distributing them out to the others according to their professions.
Unfortunately, the last piece of his set -- [Furious Boots] -- did not appear.
Other than the four equipment set pieces, there were two more non set equipment pieces, a melee-damage output necklace and a tanker’s ring.
Zhang Yang took the [Ring of Raging Blaze]. Unfortunately, he must wait until he was level 60 before he can equip it.
After distributing all items, everyone transported themselves back to White Jade City. As it was already 12 a.m, they should have been sleeping by now!
They did not communicate throughout the night, and the next day in the morning after his training, Zhang Yang logged onto the game, bringing along the [Ring of Raging Blaze] to identify it.
[Ring of Raging Blaze]
Vitality: +50
Strength: +50
Equip: Absorbs 58 damage points when attacked.
Level required: 60
Before even he attempted to leave the shop, Wei Yan Er and Han YingXue had logged into the game as well, holding him down to ask him for another favor in identifying the equipment.
Furthermore, Hundred Shots and Daffodil Daydream had also settled the sponsorship deal with Silky Soft Holdings: Every month, Silky Soft Holdings would provide Lone Desert Smoke with an amount of 1,000,000. Taking down a First Clear title for dungeons would reward each of the party member 100,000 dollars, clearing a Speed Challenge once earns every member of the party 10,000 dollars respectively.
Up to this point, Lone Desert Smoke had began transitioning into a semi-profession guild. Zhang Yang had reorganized the setting of the guild’s membership levels, there are now three main levels in total.
The first level, comprised of the Guildmaster, the vice guildmaster and a few game-masters, they would all be paid with fixed salaries of 20,000.
The second level was made up of the core players of the guild, which were further divided into another five levels of classification, with their respective monthly salary ranging from 1000-10000 according to their level of classification. In addition, for players who had full-time jobs could still earn commissions ranging from 1000-3000 as long as they can complete a number of collection quests every month. The more you work for the guild, the more you earn from it.
The third level was made up of regular members of the guild. The players in this level of classification will not receive any salary or payment.
But as what Zhang Yang mentioned earlier on, as long as any guild members contribute or perform outstandingly in dungeons, they would all have the opportunity to be promoted as one of the core players of the guild! Also, the core players cannot be slacking off. They could be demoted if their performance is ever lacking!
With solid cash rewards to instigate them, the members of the guild will surely be motivated to do their parts for the guild! In other semi-profession guilds, the sponsorship money would be divided among the game-masters, with only a small amount of money left for the lower ranked players. On the other hand, the benefits Zhang Yang provided to the game-masters weren’t that high, most of the sponsorship money was being spent on the core players of the guild.
Such an unconventional system gained the favor of his core members, as they did not feel like they were being used as tools by the game-masters of the guild!
Over the time, the reputation of the Lone Desert Smoke had shot up by a lot. With such generous treatment given to their guild members, it drew quite a number of professional players to ally themselves into the guild! It was just a game anyway, if joining Lone Desert Smoke could earn them a stable salary, why not do it for fun then?
Zhang Yang had his merchandize shop to support him, by dividing the profit earned from selling equipment among party members, each of them earned tens of thousands of dollars on monthly basis. They barely needed to use the sponsorship money for themselves. Furthermore, after securing new territories in future, the teleportation gates under their control would grant them fortune beyond any comprehension!
Having an additional five years of experience into the game, Zhang Yang had a vast headstart ahead of everyone else! By just investing a small part of his fortune, he had the loyalty of the entire guild secured! After capturing a territory, it was imperative for a guild to be of one heart, fueled by its members, united in a common goal. Such unity would lead a guild to greatness!
As the number of level 50 players were getting more and more day by day, the sales for the [Solid Iron Bar] had reached another level. The same could be said for the sales of his [Fire Resistance Potion]s. The revenue of the Little Merchandize Shop had reached a total of 1,700,000 gold pieces by yesterday!
Zhang Yang smiled contentedly as he used the [City Order] to teleport to Tukulo Fortress. He summoned Whitey and headed straight for the Flatlands of the Passing to complete Princess Serena’s quest.
It was really inconvenient, not having a mount that could fly! He had to circle around mountains and hills, look for different routes to cross rivers…. More than two hours later, Zhang Yang had finally arrived at the Twilight Hills.
Two days had passed, all the monsters that were spread out everywhere over the hills and dales had all respawned. As Zhang Yang was in a hurry to turn in the quest, he simply rode through them all without stopping. Whenever the number of the monsters became too much for him to handle, he would activate his {Shadow of the Void} to escape battles.
After sitting down and having some snacks to replenish his health back to full state, Zhang Yang continued to charge forward like an unstoppable train. After waiting for his {Shadow of the Void} to cool down, he charged through and used it again whenever he deemed fit.
Having used up all his evasive skills, and being surrounded by monsters, he could only obediently kill the monsters before him to open up a path forward.
Still, the {Shadow of the Void} had helped Zhang Yang save about an hour and a half. Half an hour later, Zhang Yang arrived at the deepest coffin chamber of the tomb cave.
The miserable necromancer had not respawned yet, and the beautiful sleeping princess was still lying quietly on the platform made of stone, waiting for the Dragon Slayer to come to the rescue.