Chapter 770: The Spectre Cavern
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
"Who goes there? How dare you trespass into the territory of the great Z'alok Clan!" Upon seeing Zhang Yang trespassing into their territory, Tartarsia let out a deafening roar. Then, he conveniently picked up a long and thick quarterstaff and swung it straight towards Zhang Yang with a full swing!
The body mass of the orc was so sturdy and strong! Every step he took struck the ground so hard that the buildings in the surroundings were trembling. There were also cracks appearing all over the crystal salt surface. The cracks were spreading out like a spider web.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
A savage battle had just begun! The boss was unbelievably strong and intimidating. The boss whirled his weapon across a massive range. There was no telling what sort of material was used to make the quarterstaff. It was as tough as a Holy Tier Scythe. Sparks flew out of the weapon repeatedly while the boss was swinging it around like nobody’s business.
"Die! All of you! Just die!" The boss was getting more ferocious than ever. Every single hit he did was critical. The entire building was trembling so violently to the point that the ground was cracking like nobody’s business. Those ‘spider webs’ were covering the entire ground and expanding up to the wall, and then to the ceiling of the building! Holy moly!
"You pitiful weak humans! Your strength will never match the mighty orcs!" Tartarsia let out a rumbling roar and swing another hit towards Zhang Yang! Bam! The hit landed solidly on the surface of Zhang Yang’s shield. It was a full-blown hit. The impact was so powerful that the ground beneath Zhang Yang’s feet crumbled! Well, the entire floor was about to collapsed down to the floor below!
Zhang Yang was the first to fall to the floor below. However, the boss was not able to avoid himself from sharing the same fate. The entire floor of that level was so badly damaged that countless cracks and holes were all across the floor. If you look down, you could even see everything on the level below them with perfect clarity! With Zhang Yang falling down to the floor beneath him, the entire floor collapsed as well! However, that was not the end, the collapse of the upper floor had caused a chain reaction to the entire building. The entire building began to collapse! The salt dusts were flying all over the place! The entire scene was spectacular!
Crash! Crash!
Zhang Yang and the boss crawled out of the salty rubbles almost at the same time. Felice and the Phoenix pet followed closely right after that. Now that the entire building had collapsed, the surroundings had become an outdoor environment. Zhang Yang could now mount himself onto his Phoenix pet! Mounting onto his pet mount, Zhang Yang’s Maximum HP had been insanely boosted up!
However, that was not important. Meanwhile, Zhang Yang did not have to be occupied with giving commands to the Phoenix pet so that the gigantic blazing bird would not go right into the traps. He would only need to focus on himself now. Meanwhile, Felice had a super intelligent AI controlling her actions. Her reactions were basically much faster than Zhang Yang’s. There was no need to worry about her at all.
"Stinky orc! Just wash your neck nicely, and wait for me to chop it off!" Zhang Yang laughed out loud.
Tartarsia was glaring at Zhang Yang like a raging idiot. Well, they had launched wars on the human castles to claim their castles to themselves because they were lacking water sources. So, he was infuriated the moment he heard that human telling him to wash his neck! That would be a waste that he would not accept!
Even the human who had water sources were not daring enough to waste water like that. It would be a blissful moment if they could have one bottle of pure water. So, what kind of nonsense was washing one’s body with precious water? That would be foolish!
"Speaking to a fool like you could really bring my intelligence down to a filthy level!" The boss humph in disdain repeatedly. "Just die already!"
What the hell?! Did the NPC just look down upon Zhang Yang?!
Zhang Yang had no idea whether to laugh or to cry at the same time. However, he was not there to show off to the boss. Whirling his scythe around, Zhang Yang repeatedly sliced at the boss, reducing his HP bar. Furthermore, the Phoenix pet was not staying idle either. It was also dealing a terrifying amount of damage to the boss.
90%... 80%... 70%...
After all, the boss was still a Holy Tier boss. Even though Zhang Yang was relying on his defensive methods and Felice’s healing capability to stay undefeated in the battle, he still took approximately 40 minutes to bring the HP bar of the boss down to 20% left! It was ‘Killing Cleave’ stage now!
Unfortunately, Holy Tier bosses had become second-grade bosses since the appearance of the Ascended Tier bosses. Tartarsia did not only lose his HP Recovery Skill but had also lost the Berserk Effect. Other than crapping more frequently, his pattern of attacks and Skills did not become more frequent. His death was imminent!
If this was a Level 150-180 map, even if Zhang Yang was battling against a Level 170 Holy Tier boss, he would not have the capability to solo the boss. That was because those bosses would have {Spectre’s Constitution} or {Elemental Constitution} which could recover more HP of the boss than the amount of damage Zhang Yang and Phoenix pet could deal. Even if Felice could heal the both of them up, it would be an endless battle if both sides would not die.
However, now that Zhang Yang was here, the level of the Holy Tier boss would not matter much here. Zhang Yang could still take the boss all by himself. It seemed that the Tier of the boss was the only factor that could define the strength of a boss on this map.
{Charge Up Strike}!
{Killing Cleave}!
‘-1,948,170!’
Because the additional basic attack was much higher, pairing his {Charge Up Strike} with his {Killing Cleave} had allowed him to deal much more damage than he could by pairing up {Charge Up Attack} with his {God of War Devastation}!
The boss was in so much pain that he kept roaring in rage. However, that would not change his doomed fate. Another 7 minutes had passed. The strange-looking orc had finally collapsed onto the ground and stayed dead. The impact of the orc’s fall trembled across the ground and the necklace made of baby skulls shattered into pieces.
As Tartarsia was no longer the top Tier boss on the map, although there was still Holy Tier equipment among the loots he dropped, the additional attributes on the equipment were not as good as those on the equipment that had been dropped by the other Holy Tier bosses from other maps.
[Berserker's Charge Necklace] (Holy, Necklace)
Vitality: +4,201
Strength: +1,030
Agility: + 1,030
Equip: Increases Maximum HP by 8,400 points.
Equip: Increases both Damage and Healing Efficiency by 10%.
Equip: When your attack is being blocked or avoided, your next attack will definitely be a Critical Hit. Upon activating the effect, the effect will not be triggered again until 20 seconds later.
Required Level: 180
This necklace did not have both offense and defense attributes. It was more on offense. Other than that, it also did not have the Special that reduced the Required Level by 20 levels. Well, it can’t be helped though. The value of this necklace would surely be very low. However, the necklace was still not bad, though. Looking at its offensive attribute, the necklace could still provide a decent boost for the user to battle against Tankers. Well, it would be common for one’s attack to be blocked or avoided. So the special attribute of this necklace would allow the user of it to deal critical damage to their targets from time to time!
Unfortunately, the effect would have a 20-second cooldown every time it was triggered. Meanwhile, the fully improved {Block} would only have a 6-second cooldown.
Zhang Yang gave some thoughts about it and believed that his Defence was already high enough as it currently is. So he had no need to wear a full set of defensive type equipment. Furthermore, the necklace did not add any attribute points on the Defence attribute. The only defensive attribute of the necklace was its ability to absorb damage. Well, his {Amoss’s Nose Hoop} only provided him with 485 Damage Absorption. So it would not actually affect him much if he switches this necklace in. The only obvious improvement would be his Attack power.
If he does not find any better necklace than this when he reaches Level 180, then he would just take this necklace and use it.
Zhang Yang put the necklace into his inventory for the moment. As for the other loot that the boss dropped, there was one Holy Tier leather armor. He did not even give it a glance. He just shoved the equipment into his inventory. Well, if the boss was not a top Tier boss, then there would not be any chance to get Skill Point Crystal or Skill Book out of the loots.
Upon riding on Phoenix pet, Zhang Yang went back to the castle to turn the quest in. When the soldiers of the castle hung the head of Tartarsia on the gate of the castle, everyone in the castle was cheering loud with joy. They would not have to worry about any orc problems in the future.
Zhang Yang acquired the second piece of ‘Kingcross’s Sword,’ as expected. Upon getting information about the whereabouts of the third piece of the ‘Kingcross’s Sword’, he continued to move forward.
Although there were a total of 7 pieces ‘Kingcross’s Sword’, every piece of the item would leave a hint and a trace for the players to follow so that they would be able to find the next one. Furthermore, the quests for obtaining each piece were not that difficult to complete. They were just a little troublesome and pointless. They would send players running across the land like idiots.
Upon acquiring the fifth piece of the ‘Kingcross’s Sword’, Zhang Yang was notified that the Lone Desert Smoke had enough Level 170 players in the guild. They could now unlock the new dungeon ‘Spectre’s Cavern’.
The Spectre’s Cavern had a very important value in it.
The value lies not in the ‘First Clear’ of the dungeon, but the equipment that the dungeon would drop for the players. The Tier of the equipment would be allow their wielders to jump ahead of everyone else in the game!
According to the Official’s information, the highest Tier of the equipment dropped from the dungeon would be Holy Tier. Even if the dungeon is a Level 300 dungeon, that would not change as well. The system of the game would never cause the values of the equipment to drop.
The highest Tier for the equipment in the game would be the Celestial Tier. However, it was nearly impossible for everyone to acquire a Celestial Tier equipment. After all, the number of Celestial Tier equipment was already stated clearly to everyone. There were only 9 Demon Lords and 7 Spectre Kings in the game as of now. Because the duration of the bosses spawning was limited, even if someone manages to take the bosses down, the number of the Celestial Tier equipment would be limited to the number of the bosses as well.
Therefore, top Tier players would only aim to obtain Ascended Tier equipment as of now. The best equipment that a high level dungeon could offer was just Holy Tier equipment.
Spectre’s Cavern was the first dungeon in the game to drop Holy Tier equipment!
Well, the Hardcore Mode of the dungeon would drop Holy Tier equipment while the Hard Mode of the dungeon would drop Ethereal Tier equipment. Last but not least, the Normal Mode of the dungeon would only drop Mythical Tier equipment. That would be expected in the dungeons that have yet to be unlocked. Therefore, the Hardcore Mode of the Spectre’s Cavern had some very special value to it. After all, Zhang Yang still had over 6 pieces of Ethereal Tier equipment on him. He would need to upgrade sooner or later.
Well, for a Level 170 player, the player would need to reach at least Level 180 in order to be eligible to equip a Level 200 Ascended Tier equipment. Currently, the best ones would only be able to collect a full set of Holy Tier equipment when they reach beyond Level 170. The temptation was extreme for the player. After all, who would pass on the opportunity to get equipment with the highest Tier at the current stage of the game?
Currently, the Lone Desert Smoke had cleared the Normal and Hard Mode of the dungeons. There was a total of 52 members who had reached Level 170 and beyond. They could now move on to challenging the Hardcore Mode of the dungeon.
However, the bosses in the Hardcore Mode of the dungeon were all Holy Tier bosses. The bosses were basically so powerful that they had absolute advantages over the players. Furthermore, it would not be possible for players to use numbers in order to bring down the bosses in a dungeon. Well, dungeons limited the number of players that could enter at the same time. That had brought the difficulty up to another level!
Ten days had passed, there was no news about anyone clearing the first boss. It seemed that the difficulty of the dungeon was far more difficult than anyone had anticipated.
The first boss of the dungeon had a super high Attack power and the boss had a complex pattern of attacks as well. Meanwhile, most players only had Ethereal Tier equipment on them. It would be extremely difficult for them to even stand their ground against the boss. Well, some of them had attempted to battle the boss with their Transformations. However, the number of players with Class A and Class S Inheritance was extremely limited in the game after all. So, the players were not able to survive the boss’s attack the moment the boss went into Berserk mode.
Well, it would not be easy at all for the players to claim the Holy Tier equipment.
Zhang Yang had not collected all 7 pieces of the fragment at that moment. Before he could do that, he had been ‘summoned’ by the Expedition Force of his guild. Well, they insisted that they wanted to take down the first boss of the Hardcore Mode, no matter what.
Even though Zhang Yang intended to train his guild to be more independent, he knew he had to step in this time around because losing might just reduce their morale. So Zhang Yang had to delay his quest in order to satisfy the desire to win of his guild members. He decided to gather the best there is in his guild and take out the first boss of the dungeon! As for the remaining 8 bosses, he would not be taking part in slaying them. Well, he was not interested in one Skill Point after all.
Another main reason was because the first boss of the Hardcore Mode seemed to have stopped the progress of every other guild in the entire server. Well, truth to be told, Zhang Yang believed that the boss can be taken down with a few methods. He could have just thrown out some [Forbidden Scrolls] or activate his Single-unit Status Restriction Skill on the boss. The boss would be easily taken down by then. After all, this was just the first boss of the dungeon. If the players could not take out the first one, how would they be able to take out the remaining 8 bosses in the dungeon, then?
Would it mean that they would need to burn 8 more [Forbidden Scrolls] in order to do that?
Speaking of which, using 9 [Forbidden Scrolls] to get each of the 50 players with one Skill Point would not sound wise and worth.
Well, everyone’s eyes were fixed on how to get the equipment. They would not care about the ‘First Clear’ of the dungeon for the moment.
That’s right. Everyone’s progress was not swift at all. Many of them were gathering equipment from the Hard Mode of the dungeon to upgrade themselves. After all, they would need to prepare themselves well enough before they could go up against more powerful bosses.