Volume 5: Protracted War Chapter 69: Underground Maze City
The powerful holy beast Wind Spirit was finally killed. When it lost its floating power and had to land on the ground, I, who had not participated in the battle, was waiting for such an opportunity. The Horror Hundred Knights used "Flash Combo" to quickly launch an organized group charge, and cooperated with Red Star's three "Life-Calling Spears" to deal it a heavy blow. Although many Horror Giant Bear Knights fell on the way of the charge, the tornado of the Wind Spirit was no longer as glorious as it was at the beginning, and it was difficult to provide effective protection. In addition, its own weak defense ability made it increasingly powerless. After enduring more than an hour of crazy attacks, even I joined the battle after the Horror Knights were completely wiped out. I died several times with Tao Tao and Red Star. Nearly a thousand players repeatedly charged and killed, and the huge spirit of the Wind Spirit could no longer withstand the continuous damage. It changed rapidly between blue and white light, and finally turned into white light and dissipated.
We finally completed the additional task of challenging the holy beast before the deadline. What we care most about is what kind of items will be dropped. The sphere with blue light should be the magic crystal core of the wind holy beast. In addition, there are two pieces of equipment, an armor and a pair of gloves. The brilliance they emit is not the colorful divine light we expected, but only the three primary colors of red, yellow and blue. They should all be holy equipment. As expected, we are not so lucky and have no chance to get the artifact. However, the quality of the holy artifact obtained by killing the holy beast in the Central Continent must not be too bad, and it is estimated that we will not lose too much money. Because time is not particularly urgent, according to the rules of the Tongxin League, Yue Linglong, the core member who is closest to the dropped items, is responsible for picking up the spoils, and then quickly withdrawing from the Central Continent, finally successfully ending this "group exploration mission".
The armor is called "Silver Armor", a top-level holy weapon, suitable for knights, warriors and swordsmen. It is light in weight and does not have much effect on agility after wearing it. It can also consume less physical strength than other armors. Although the physical defense ability is not too strong, and is even slightly inferior to the top-level "Fine Steel Armor", it has the additional attribute of "reducing magic attack damage by 75%, and absorbing 5% of the magic attack damage and converting it into its own mental power". For melee professions that are more afraid of magic attacks, it can be considered quite practical.
The gloves are the "Holy Spirit Gloves", also a holy weapon that can increase attack speed by 50% and increase additional attack damage by 10%. Although the additional attribute effects are not very outstanding, they have extremely rare all-professional attributes, that is to say, they can be equipped by players of any combat profession.
"Silver Armor" is naturally without doubt. No matter from personal ability or contribution to Tongxin League, Afeng is the most suitable candidate. However, the distribution of "Holy Spirit Gloves" is slightly twisted and full of drama. It should have belonged to me. It is also very necessary for me to increase the attack speed by 50%. Unfortunately, my left hand has been occupied by the artifact "Touch of Death". It is impossible to split the "Holy Spirit Gloves" and wear only one. I have no choice but to give up. Then the most suitable candidates should be Xue Wuxia and Yun Wuying. However, both of them gave up the right to use the "Holy Spirit Gloves" and proposed to allocate it to Afeng for use. The reason is that it is in an extraordinary period. In order to compete with other powerful mercenary groups, Tongxin League should temporarily abandon the "egalitarianism" approach to the distribution of spoils formulated in the early stage of development, avoid division and weakness, concentrate on excellent equipment, and try to "build" one or two top masters to support the scene and share the pressure I bear. According to personal ability, Afeng is naturally the most suitable candidate. After discussion and voting by the core members, everyone agreed to Xue Wuxia's proposal. The two holy artifacts "Silver Armor" and "Holy Spirit Gloves" obtained from killing the Holy Spirit of Wind were all given to Afeng for use. He became the biggest beneficiary. With these two holy artifacts, he should have the strength to become one of the top masters in "The World".
However, there is also some bad news. Not long after we got the holy weapon, the system also issued an announcement that the player Fearless Warrior got the fifth artifact in "Tianxia", "Thor's Hammer". It seems that the holy beast killed by the Fearless Mercenary Group was extremely lucky to drop an artifact. The Supreme Honor and Long Xing Tianxia have added a super master who can rival them. However, it is said that the Fearless Mercenary Group also paid a considerable price. They had to deal with the holy beast of the thunder system, the Peacock King. For this, they consumed 108 magic crystal cores of level 7, level 8 and even level 9 earth beasts, plus a magic crystal core of the earth beast Behemoth as the core of the formation, and laid out the "Turning the World Upside Down" formation. The fierce bombardment of "Meteorite Falling from the Sky" that lasted for half an hour was the key to their ability to quickly kill the holy beast Behemoth and obtain the artifact. Apart from other things, the 108 magic crystal cores needed to set up this "Turning the World Upside Down" formation are worth no less than 200,000 gold coins. The Fearless Warriors really have the courage to invest the money and are not afraid of losing everything. Of course, the Fearless Mercenaries have mastered the "Turning the World Upside Down" formation and are indeed qualified to fight desperately. The "Heavenly Thunder Formation" owned by our Tongxin League is just a small formation with limited lethality. Even if we want to fight hard, it may not have a very obvious effect on the Holy Spirit of Wind.
At the same time, we also obtained the necessary item "Ten Thousand People Order" for upgrading to a large mercenary group. So in order not to fall behind the other nine mercenary groups, after half a month of hard fighting, we did not have time to rest for a few days and immediately mobilized to complete the promotion task of the mercenary group. However, I still had to be absent because the "personal exploration task" of the "Top Ten Masters in the World" had already started immediately after the "group exploration task" was completed.
The destination of our top ten masters is also the Central Continent. The teleportation array leading to the Central Continent has been closed, and a small teleportation gate that only allows the top ten masters to enter the Central Continent alone has been reopened. They can enter and exit through the teleportation arrays of the four main cities of "Tianxia", namely Beijing City in the Eastern Continent, Holy City in the Western Continent, Oasis City in the Southern Continent, and Peace City in the Northern Continent. Of course, according to the different professions of our top ten masters, the "exploration missions" assigned to them are naturally different, and the other end of the teleportation gate also leads to different locations.
The area I need to explore is a place called "Underground City" in the Central Continent. As the name suggests, it is a huge underground maze like a city. It is vast and home to countless dark beasts and undead creatures. It is full of traps and ambushes, which can be said to be extremely dangerous. Of course, there are also many hidden benefits. Twelve dark professional props and equipment are kept in twelve secret places. Although there is no clear level, it is estimated that they should not be inferior to holy artifacts, and it is not impossible to be artifacts. The location of the secret place is constantly changing. What is found each time is different, and it is impossible to accurately locate it. Moreover, the twelve pieces of equipment are unique, first come first served, and one less piece will be taken away by a player, and it will not be refreshed again. This is actually a public task called "Twelve Secret Palaces in Underground City". Now it is equivalent to being completed by me in advance, taking a lead, and no other players participate in the competition.
The stipulated mission completion time is five days. During this period, if you die in the "underground maze city", you do not have to accept the six-hour penalty. This is just an additional reward opportunity provided by the system. It does not guarantee that you will gain anything from this expedition mission. You may return with a full load, or you may return with nothing. Everything depends on the luck and strength of the explorer.
We went directly to the entrance of the "Underground City" through the portal. It seemed to be in a dark cave. There were three identical entrances in front of us. Behind us was a staircase several hundred meters long. There was a little light at the end. It should be the ground full of high-level monsters. We were all specially warned not to leave the designated exploration area without permission, otherwise we would not be protected by the rules of exemption from death penalty. Naturally, we did not dare to take the opportunity to observe the location of the "Underground City" to prepare for completing this task in the future. We could only choose to go deep into the "Underground City" to complete the task.
In order to facilitate our completion of this expedition and to reflect the meaning of reward, the system has lowered the level of monsters in the inspection area, and controlled it to a level where, according to the current average strength of our top ten masters, there is a one-third chance of gaining something. Otherwise, if a large number of level 7, 8, or 9 monsters emerge from time to time, and finally the holy beasts or even the divine beasts guard the gate, we are all alone and have no ability to resist.
As expected, it is an "underground maze". At the beginning, there are three identical entrances, leaving me no choice but to randomly choose one and carefully break in. I did not choose to summon Taotao or Hongxing. On the one hand, it was mainly for "exploration" rather than fighting. On the other hand, they each had their own tasks - Hongxing had to quickly absorb and transform soul energy to replenish the three bone spears in preparation for the possible "Secret Palace Battle", and Taotao also had to seize the time to enhance his own cultivation to cope with the upcoming volcanic undead soaking "Hell Magma Pool" qualification challenge. Anyway, there is no punishment for death, so I will go out alone to explore the way first.
I wandered around in it for a long time, and my biggest feeling was that this was indeed a huge maze that could definitely make people dizzy. Not long after walking along a passage, there were three forks in front of me. They continued like this, with at least three, and at most seven forks at once. I was almost dizzy. Fortunately, I used the "Blood Bat Transformation" to fly in the form of a bat. I didn't have to be afraid of the traps on the ground. I was more careful and didn't have to touch the cave wall, which reduced some dangers. In addition, I was fast and had a small target, so I didn't attract the attention of those dark monsters or undead creatures. I was less likely to be attacked. In critical moments, I could use the "Blood Mist" or "External Incarnation" to escape from dangerous areas. I rushed a lot of roads without stopping. Every time I exhausted my physical strength or needed to replenish my mental strength, I stopped to rest for a while. As a result, I still didn't find any trace of the secret palace, but repeatedly turned back to the underground cave where the portal existed, which almost made me angry .
After trying for a whole day and completing the full sixteen-hour online time limit, I was still at a loss. Apart from a few limited deaths, most of the time I was constantly shuttling back and forth in the maze passages, which consumed a lot of energy, and finally I was automatically turned back to the cave, which made me extremely depressed . I couldn't find any direction and had no idea where to start.
On the second and third days, I listened to Afeng's advice and took an eight-hour break on the second day before going online. I combined the two days together, leaving a total of 32 hours available. Having learned from the failure of the previous day, I naturally did not dare to rush around like a headless fly. I was ready to take every step carefully, using the spiritual connection with my men to conduct a carpet search of the "underground maze city".
Every time I fly to a safer place, I will change back to my original form, cast "Summon the Dead" to summon two terrifying giant bear knights, place them here as coordinates, and then activate "Touch of Death" to absorb the spiritual power of a terrifying giant bear knight to replenish myself so that I can cast "Summon the Dead" again in the next place. I will use my men to set up a monitoring network in the "underground maze" to be aware of all the places I have passed through to avoid going back.
Of course, this was just a draft plan. The actual implementation was fraught with difficulties. I had to repeatedly summon my subordinates and replenish their spiritual energy, which took a lot of time. The search progress was obviously slowed down. Moreover, the effect of the "Soul Contract" in the human world was not as significant as that of the "Dead Soul Space". It took a lot of effort to sense the positions of my subordinates, which made me complain bitterly. What was even more troublesome was that I unfortunately encountered death. Although I could be resurrected immediately, my previous efforts were in vain. I had already completed the search channel and set up a monitoring network formed by many subordinates, but all of them failed with my accidental death and were once again covered by endless darkness. Everything had to start all over again.
I was upset and angry. I cursed and stomped my fingers to the sky and the ground. After venting my anger, I calmed down, but could only walk into the passage without any hope again. At the same time, I tried my best to summarize and learn from the lessons of the last failure, so as not to repeat the same mistakes. I carefully recalled the types of traps and ambushes I encountered, how to prevent them and effectively deal with them. I should be more careful about those dark monsters or undead creatures that can pose a great threat to me. Most of them are level 7 or above monsters, hiding in the shadows and inconspicuous places. If I am not careful, they will hit me hard, and I won't even have time to use my "external incarnation". These hateful guys will not let go of even a small bat. They are so cruel and bloodthirsty. The chaotic maze and the fierce enemies have made me persist in fighting until now, but I still can't see a glimmer of hope. No wonder they say that with the strength of our top ten masters, there is only a one-third chance of success.
