Chapter 730: Skeletal Smith
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
One week later, Cheng Xue Yao returned to Zhou Su City. However, after delivering the documents to Zhang Yang, she disappeared immediately without giving Zhang Yang a chance to redeem himself. Zhang Yang only managed to catch a glimpse of her back as she left the building in a hurry. If there was something he could do, he would. But then again, he had already obtained the major piece that he required to complete his next task.
After that, he only passed the documents to Sun Xin Yu and let her work her magic on it.
Liu family had established themselves for a long time had amassed more than hundreds of millions of fortune. They had connected themselves to the network of officials in Jing State. It would not be easy to topple over the Liu family, especially since their fate was connected to the Jing State. It was not just the economy, but the magistrate itself, since corrupted politicians like Luo Xi Yuan will be brought down to their knees.
Hence, even with Sun Xin Yu’s background, there was no way that such a feat could be completed within a few days. It would, in fact, required tremendous planning and execution which would consume more than two to three months! At most, the entire Liu family would be gone from the map in half a year’s time. That, and a proper aftermath clean up. Sun Xin Yu had to be prepared for the worse or Jing State will plummet into a massive state of chaos.
Anything related to politics was not Zhang Yang’s forte. Hence, he had Sun Xin Yu handle the mess and waited patiently.
When he was thinking about Liu Wei, naturally, the subject of Lin Yu came up as well. Zhang Yang foresaw that right then, she had probably just entered the game. Should he pursue the girl that he loved in his past life? He had two women that he truly loved dearly then. Again, there was a conflict stirring up in his mind. In the end, Zhang Yang had steeled his decision not to interfere with her life. Since Lin Yu would not remember anything, he best leave her alone. Forget the past and forge a new future. Perhaps…it would be for the best for the two of them.
It was already the middle of November when Endless Starlight, the last member in the party reached Level 160. Zhang Yang gave everyone a good day off to prep themselves for the Spectre Invasion quest.
It has been three months since Zhang Yang had reached Level 160, and the system had launched the Spectre Invasion event. It was rather slow then, and Zhang Yang wanted to speed things up a notch. Similar to the case of Liu family. He kept on asking Sun Xin Yu about the progress of it and she would only reply with one same answer. "Patience."
Though it was rather annoying, Zhang Yang had no reason to doubt Sun Xin Yu. Zhang Yang had been waiting for years to burn Liu Wei down to ash, might as well add a few days to that timer.
The party then followed Zhang Yang across the Isaac Mountains and came across Ryu Ayer Castle. The true location was located towards the North West of the map. After several hours of flying in the sky, they had finally arrived at the Refinery. As mentioned by Gulaj, there were too many Spectres of all shapes and sizes coming in and out of the mine. There was a huge refinery station close to the mine with several hot machines working restlessly.
The mission was easy and straightforward. Zhang Yang would only need to plant the [Goblin’s High Explosive Bomb – 3rd Gen. Prototype] and bomb the entire place down to smithereens. The problem was, after circling around the entire refinery, there was no indication as to where he should place it.
"Looks like the quest would not allow us to slack. I’m guessing that we should clear all the Spectres to proceed with the quest!"
Everyone descended down to the ground and split apart. Everyone moved individually and killed their way slowly. No sooner after the weak ones were defeated, a large skeletal monster, wielding a large hammer rushed towards the party.
[Skeletal Smith] (Elite, Spectre)
Level: 170
HP: 5,100,000
Defense: 7,000
Melee Attack: 40,774 – 60,774
Skills:
[Heat on Heat]: Deals 100% melee physical attack on a target. Inflicts [Heat on Heat] debuff dealing additional 100% attack on the next attack. Lasts for 10 seconds. Can be stacked.
Note: A master of the art of Smithing before they passed on and revived as a Spectre.
Zhang Yang stopped his tracks immediately when he noticed the monster’s skill. As such, Endless Starlight was the first person to charge into the fight and became the punching bag for the Smithers. The poor idiot was being led to slaughter by Zhang Yang and he had not even realized it. He smiled proudly and said, "Boss, are you sick today? How am I able to tank all the monsters?
‘-23,739!’
‘-69,533!’
‘-103,343!’
‘-152,909!’
"WHAT!!!"
There were four monsters attacking Endless Starlight at the same time. The first attack was normal, but the three other attacks were so strong that Endless Starlight was greatly startled by it.
Tanking just one monster would not be hard. It would be long before the tank would not be able to handle the stacked damage amplification. However, having four attacking at the same time would be suicidal. That was merely the first trigger of {Heat on Heat}, if the second trigger comes in, the damage will start with 200,000 as the lowest!
Not even Zhang Yang could handle such intense barrage, so how could Endless Starlight?
As such, Endless Starlight had lost 30% of his HP and finally figured out why would Zhang Yang had allowed him to take the first hit!
Zhang Yang laughed and said, "Hold up! I having a stomach ache! Hold on first without me!"
"WAAAA! Boss! Don’t do this to me! I’ll die!" cried Endless Starlight as he activated {Sacred Protection} to gain 10 seconds of invulnerability and dispel the debuffs on him. It was an act of desperation, since he would not know when the monster would use the skill again!
"Little Yang! How could be so cruel to little Starlight? Not even an animal would be that evil! Nishishishi," said Fatty Han.
It was merely a joke. Zhang Yang would never allow anyone in his party to die without reason. He then jumped to the front and attacked one of the monsters with {God of War Devastation} to draw the attention of one monster, and used {Provoke} to pull one more. He had removed two threats on Endless Starlight and eased his load.
Fight just one Smither would not be a problem since the skill cooldown and effects were the same. It would be impossible to stack the effect up. On the other hand, when two or more Smithers are there, it would be dangerous, since one of them would use the skill before or after the other. 10 seconds later, all four Smithers raised their hammer and struck Zhang Yang and Endless Starlight with {Heat on Heat}. Even if the effect was 0.1 second from expiring, a new skill landing on it will ultimately stack the effect, refreshing the debuff back to 10 seconds.
Initially, Zhang Yang was not sure of the specifics of the skill. However, when two of the monster struck Zhang Yang, he had taken one hit after the other and received a total damage of over 60,000.
After another 10 seconds, when the monsters were about to strike Zhang Yang again, he threw out {Thunder Strike} first and delayed their movement speed and the timing of the skill strike. Although it was merely a split second, it was good enough to remove the debuff on him. When the new {Heat on Heat} landed on Zhang Yang, he had merely taken 200% damage, instead.
Endless Starlight did not have any active slow skill. However, roughly a month ago, he had managed to obtain the skillbook {Superior Devotion} which added a 50% movement speed debuff on top of the DoT aura effect. His skill was strengthened, allowing him to slow down enemies just by being close to them.
Now that both tanks had managed to solve the problem with {Heat on Heat} the Skeletal Smithers were nothing but monsters with HP to hack away. 5 million HP? It’s nothing but soft tofu waiting to be crushed by Zhang Yang’s party.
As they got accustomed to the skills, they started increasing the pace. From 4 monsters at a time, they were able to increase the numbers to 6. It was made possible due to the powerful DPS of the party. Even though they could not kite any more than 6, the progress was still faster than normal. Still, after one whole night, the party had only managed to clear less than 30% of the entire refinery. Everyone else logged out when dawn arrived. One hour after breakfast, they continued on with their progress.
Zhang Yang the other hand, was busy with his daily routine. He left the party to Endless Starlight and logged out to have his exercise and work at Silky Soft Holdings. Although he would be missing out on a lot of experience, it was a number which he did not mind losing. He was far higher than anyone of them. By the time he logged back into the game, everyone else had already pushed a good distance from where he had stopped.
Eventually, Zhang Yang’s party had taken two real-time days to finish clearing the entire refinery. The party would have never done something that like that, however, after they had listened to Zhang Yang’s advice about the importance of Military Points, they had caved in and proceed to wipe the map of all Spectres. All their actions were for the later glory. The more Military Points they collect, the easier it would be to defeat Angus later on.
The best of all, was the fact that Angus would drop Celestial tier equipment!
With the Celestial tier equipment hanging out there like a piece of carrot for a donkey, the party had gain the inspiration and vigor to complete the quest. It was merely a grinding session that was extreme boring. That was all!
Alas, after fighting for long, the party had reached the center of the refinery. It was an empty tiled place with at least 40 meters of clean tiles laid out. As the party was killing their way on, they felt a tremendous shaking wave. A large skeletal monster came crawling out of the land. With a long blade resting on its back, the green-emerald flame flickered in its eye sockets as it stared at the party.
The massive skeletal monster was seven meters tall. It had the appearance of a human skeleton, yet it possessed a long bone tail! It seemed like the tail had grown with the man! On the other hand, there was another odd feature about the monster. It had a unicorn-like horn that was growing out of its forehead, glowing with a faint abyssal like darkness.
[Longador - The Dragon Race] (Holy, Spectre)
Level: 180
HP: 1,800,000,000
Defense: 18,470
Melee Attack: 139,398 – 213,398
Skills:
[Tail Whip]: Strikes all targets within 40 meters. Deals 100% melee physical attack. Deals double damage to targets which are moving. Casting: 0.5 seconds.
[Death Blade]: Deals 150% melee physical attack to a target. Deals double damage to targets that are moving. Casting: 0.5 seconds.
[Sloth Aura]: Sends out a disturbing aura to 40 meters around the caster. Attaches a bomb to any targets every 2 seconds that will explode in 2 seconds, dealing 200,000 Fire damage to all targets within 10 meters. The bomb will diffuse immediately if the target moves constantly for 1 second.
Note: The Dragon race was a myth. No one in history had ever laid eye upon a real humanoid Dragon race and lived to tell the tale. The problem was that no one in history had ever claimed to impregnate a female dragon. Similarly, no female human has ever claimed to be impregnated by a male dragon.