Chapter 457: How to Train your Phoenix 3
Tring-!
[You have entered the dungeon ‘Elrika Castle Underground’.]
[Found the dungeon for the first time.]
[For 24 hours, all the experience gained in the dungeon will be doubled.]
[For 24 hours, the chance to acquire items from the dungeon boss will be increased by 100%.]
[When a designated enemy is killed, you gain an additional 1,000 percent experience. (Designated Enemy: Guard, Captain, Dark Psychic, Puppet Remus)]
The place where he pa.s.sed through the barrier was a dark underground made by the royals.
After looking at the ‘first discovery’ messages that popped up in front of his eyes, Ian felt satisfied.
He was satisfied with the doubling experience that was applied with the first discovery, and he really liked the first-time content that appeared there.
‘I have never seen a bonus like this… do these designated enemy mean the monsters that are a.s.sociated with the quest?’
Basically, 1,000 percent additional experience along with the double experience meant 20 times the normal one.
If he killed just one guard, it meant he would be rewarded with the experience that would be gained for killing 20.
Of course, the crazy bonus experience has been set, but the guards and the number of guards wouldn’t be easy to kill.
‘I can go up to level 400 if I clear this dungeon.’
Since he had to gather so much experience from level 399 to 400, he had decided to leave the other rankers.
Once he reached level 400, he had to be on the move again.
The experience bonus was like a gift from heaven.
‘Kay then, it looks like there aren’t any monsters in the area…’
As the quest were quests, Ian carefully moved around and always looked forward.
Remus who was following him closely decided to speak in a very low voice,
“Of the two doors that are there at the end of the pa.s.sage, open the left door.”
“Okay.”
“It was supposed to be empty when I was the king, but be careful of what might happen.”
At the warning from Remus, Ian nodded and muttered to himself,
“It is surely infested with monsters. If not, this wouldn’t be called a dungeon, right?”
When they arrived in front of the door, Ian ordered Lugarix before opening it.
“Lugarix, Dark Illusion.”
“Okay, Ian.”
It wouldn’t be much of a hurdle if there was a normal monster inside the door, but they would have to be ready if there was a guard inside.
In quests of this kind, a moment of carelessness with the guards was enough to lead the quest to failure.
Woong-!
Dark energy emanated from the hands of Lugarix and gradually began to wrap around the party members.
After a while, all the party member’s body turned into a dark silhouette like a shadow.
[The Dragon of Darkness, Lugarix has triggered Dark Illusion.]
[All the party members within 5 yards of Lugarix will be invisible.]
[Unless there is a Warlock above level 500, one won’t be able to penetrate the Dark Illusion.]
Dark Illusion was a black magic that could sometimes be used strategically on the battlefield.
If one had the confidence that the other side didn’t have a higher leveled Warlock as an opponent, then there was no magic that could go through the spell.
Of course, in the case of a siege where the detection towers are present, it was a useless spell to use.
‘Nice, should we move slowly now?’
Ian carefully approached the iron gate and opened it.
Creak-!
The iron gate moved slowly and made awkward sounds of creaking.
Kaka, who was seated on the shoulder of Ian, moved first because she wanted to scout.
She shared her view with Ian.
‘Surely, the guards are there.’
There were three guards in Kaka’s view.
But they weren’t guarding anything.
Presumably, they seemed to be sneaking out of work so they could rest.
Swrrrk-!
Ian moved inside completely hidden by the Dark Illusion and looked at the pa.s.sage structure.
‘I hope we can easily avoid them and sneak into the other pa.s.sage.’
The levels of the three guards were 440.
It wasn’t a situation where they had to be concerned with their opponent’s level, but it wasn’t an unreasonable situation.
If the guard screamed or even one of the guys left their position, they would fail the quest.
Suddenly, Ian’s dungeon experience bonus came through his mind and made him smile.
‘If I think about it, it was only natural that we wouldn’t be given crazy bonus experience points for nothing.’
The allure of the ma.s.sive bonus experience called ’20 times’.
That was a trap made by the planners to make it more difficult for the users.
Right now, Ian was using the Dark Illusion, so he could just easily pa.s.s by.
‘But, I can’t just let this pa.s.s by.’
Ian ordered his familiars and h.e.l.liem who were approaching the gate.
Fl.u.s.tered with what he saw, Remus pulled on the hem of Ian’s dress with an urgent confused look.
“…!”
Knowing that the guards would react to any sound, he couldn’t even open his mouth; but his expression itself was enough for anyone to know what he was trying to say.
In fact, from the position of one doing the quest, for the subject of the quest Remus, it was natural to not understand the intention of Ian.
Ian smiled a little and turned his sight away from the remorseful eyes of Remus.
‘Well, it doesn’t have to be only a successful quest.’
Subsequent to the orders that Ian put down, a Summoner skill began to get activated.
It began with the magic of El.
“Silence!”
As the name itself said, it was a sub-tier light attribute secondary magic that ‘silenced’ the enemy.
If it was a normal situation, the silence magic could be considered as a useless skill.
For guards wielding the sword, there was no penalty that would be faced for going into a ‘silenced’ state.
In the beginning, the magic of silence was a skill that was used as a counter to the wizards to stop their casting.
But in their current situation of needing to kill the guards without even letting the rats know, they had to place the silence on the combat dealers.
[Familiar ‘Elcarix’ has cast the Silence spell.]
[The ‘Guard’ has taken light damage.]
[The ‘Guard’ is ‘Silenced’.]
At the same time, the ‘Soul Curse’ skill, one of the strongest debuff skill of a Warlock was activated.
[The Dragon of Darkness, Lugarix has cast the Soul Curse.]
[The magic resistance of ‘Guards’ has been reduced by 85%.]
[The physical resistance of ‘Guards’ has been reduced by 55%.]
[The dark resistance of ‘Guards’ has been reduced by 90%.]
The two buff spells played simultaneously.
The guards sitting on the floor jumped out of their spots with a confused look.
But at the time, the Chain Darkpulse—a unique ability of h.e.l.liem—hit them.
Swooah-!
The sound scattered in the air.
And as always, a huge dark sword with dark energy fell on to the Guards.
Bang- Bang- Bang-!
A lightning strike hit the Guards three times at regular intervals.
h.e.l.liem’s Dark Vision got triggered in conjunction with Darkpulse. the Guards quickly got wiped out.
“…!”
The one who suffered the least damage tried to escape, but it wasn’t the nature of Ian to leave that alone.
Swoosh-!
Ian suddenly went to the back of him and wielded his Judgement of Spirit King and cut it off.
Thud-!
With smoke, the Guard collapsed on the floor.
Tring-!
[You have successfully defeated the ‘Guards’ of Elrika!]
[You have earned an additional 1000% XP, as you have killed the designated enemy.]
[Obtained experience points of 78,752,500.]
Ian had earned around 80 million experience points.
With the incredible amount of experience that he got from taking down the Guards, Ian’s smile went up to his ears.
* * *
The underground of the Elrika, was a much more complex structure than a.s.sumed to be.
The road that was made for evacuation purposes would have been tough to walk to without the guidance from Remus.
Ian realized what the structure was symbolizing.
‘This looks like an underground with the option of a bunker.’
Although he was just going around, Ian was actually the King of a nation.
Because of that, he knew most of the content that was related to the expansion of a strong nation.
‘I put it on hold because it cost a lot… I’ll have to budget the taxes next month.’
Though a general castle, the Elrika’s protagonist made Ian introspect about his nation and castle.
The underground bunker was a great defensive facility that could have a huge impact when the outer area was invaded.
A defensive structure that allowed the attack against an enemy from the bas.e.m.e.nt and to pa.s.s easily in terms of crisis.
If Ian hadn’t progressed the quest which began from the Underground prison, the Lotus army would have had to penetrate the Elrika’s defense outside.
No matter how powerful the forces of Lotus were, if there was no information about Elrika’s defense it would turn quite damaging for the Lotus.
While pa.s.sing through the bas.e.m.e.nt of the castle, Ian gained some harvest and began to concentrate on the quest’s progress once again.
Most of the monsters that appeared underground was as fragile as a level 300 Undead, but the Guards that appeared here and there made the situation tricky.
Especially in the case of the ‘Chief Guard’ whose level was over 450; they struggled to kill him.
The Chief’s combat abilities were close to that of a tanker and a knight; he was harder to kill compared to normal Guards.
They put debuffs on him and tried to kill him as quickly as possible, but it took them three times more effort to kill him.
In addition, the Guard Chief was usually guarded by normal Guards, and that made it more difficult to kill him.
Kw.a.n.g-!
Ian, who put his spear in the back of the Chief mumbled to himself.
“I hope this troublesome guy doesn’t come out again.”
Even though it was difficult to deal with the Chief, the experience he gave was only half as much as a normal Guard gave.
For Ian, it was natural to want to avoid him.
But apart from that, the quest was going smoothly.
‘Well, I’m getting used to it, so I think it will get faster.’
It was a little short of what they were expecting, but he was getting quite a bit of experience.
Although the monsters that were coming were only half the number of what appeared in a normal dungeon, the experience was huge.
They have now been in the underground for an hour now.
A huge s.p.a.ce opened up in front of Ian’s party who was following Remus.
There was a staircase which seemed to lead to the King.
Ian asked Remus,
“Can we go up?”
After a thought, Remus nodded his head.
“Yes, you can climb the stairs to the top floor. From here onwards, it can be said that the inside will be full-on-vigor.”
“Yeah well.”
Ian responded and began to take big strides.
But then Remus shook his head and stopped him.
“Wait!”
“Huh? What is it?”
“If you go up, then you’ll be a hedgehog.”
Ian frowned and asked again,
“Are there traps installed?”
Remus nodded.
“Yes. There is a system in the staircase.”
Remus extended his finger to the direction of the iron gate that was opposite the staircase.
“There is a management office inside that door that can stop the traps.”
“Huh? Then I have to go inside?”
Ian turned to the iron gate and looked at it.
At that moment, a new system message emerged in front of him.
[Strong dark energy can be felt.]