Thud!
I tossed my dice to the floor and after it rolled a few times, it slowly came to a stop. I got a 79!
"Oh, not bad."
I consoled myself, "79 isn"t low. As long as the other nine of you are a little unlucky, this dragon will belong to me!"
He Yi giggled. "I see that you"re dreaming again…"
Just as she said that, Gui Guzi tossed out his dice and it landed on 81. Tears streamed down my face and I could barely stop myself from running over and kicking his dice down to 1.
As dice continued to rattle in the air, everyone"s numbers were appearing on the screen. Li Chengfeng got a 7, Beiming Xue got 24, Chaos Moon only got a dismal 2, Pure Love got 85, but Moon Dew trumped down all with a 91!
After that, Murong Mingyue finally cast her dice. The number made everyone break out into tears.
100!!!
……
"It"s over. I guess that this Ironwing Dragon and I are simply not meant to be…" I said with a grimace.
Gui Guzi grinned. "Sigh, it"s just not meant to be…"
He Yi smiled. "Oh enough, boys. Our Missy Mingyue is a priest and she"s never had a powerful pet to help her out. But now that she has the Ironwing Dragon to help with her damage, she should be in much better shape."
I nodded my head. "Yeah, that"s right. This Ironwing Dragon is a savage melee monster. It suits her very well!"
Murong Mingyue stuck her chest out, causing her chest to jiggle enticingly as she glared at me. "What are you trying to say, huh? Are you saying that your big sister is very violent and savage?"
I shuddered. "No, no, you"re alright…"
The girls in the guild immediately shot me weird looks all at the same time.
Chaos Moon said, "It seems like Lu Chen gets bullied a lot by Mingyue in the workshop…"
Moon Dew replied, "Yeaaah, it really seems like that huh!"
Pure Love winked at me. "Big brother Lu Chen, did Sister Mingyue push you down or not? If she already has… then I"ll help you take revenge!"
Murong Mingyue chuckled. "And how exactly are you going to help him take revenge? By pus.h.i.+ng him down another time?"
Pure Love"s face went bright red as she said, "That also sounds like an acceptable strategy…"
Everyone nearly puked blood at her response. When these girls got their engines going, it wasn"t something that we men could handle.
……
Once we split up the magic stones that the boss dropped, we found two stratagem skill books. One was Encourage VII, which increased Attack by 20%, and the other was Iron Wall VII, which raised Defense by 20%. We gave these books to the high-level tacticians in our guild. There would be a limit to how many Famous Generals there would be in the future, so these tacticians would absolutely be part of our core forces in the future. Besides, all Famous General Skills would have a cap, but there was no such cap on tactician"s stratagem like Encourage yet.
"Alright, let"s go to the third floor of the Nine Lost Dragon Domains! Forward!" He Yi said as she picked up the teleportation scroll.
I nodded my head. Everyone fell back into our previous formation. As more players logged in, we formed yet another thousand-man squad. The other five Famous Generals used our five teleportation scrolls to bring 500 people to the third floor, while the rest stayed behind to hunt the Golden Arrow Tigers and grind more B3 floor teleportation scrolls.
Whoos.h.!.+
After I used a teleportation scroll, a bunch of us appeared on the B3 floor. We were instantly a.s.saulted by a blast of cold air. To our surprise, we had been teleported into a map of ice and billowing snow. We seemed to be in some sort of snowy canyon filled with icicles and rifts in the ground. It looked like a really bleak and frigid place.
"Everyone, be careful. We still don"t know what sort of special characteristics the monsters on this floor have…" I said.
Both Chaos Moon and High Fighting Spirits nodded their heads as they proceeded with caution.
I had previously agreed to meet He Yi, Li Chengfeng, Gui Guzi, Beiming Xue, and their respective squads in the center of the map before we used the teleportation scroll. If we didn"t join up, there was no way we could beat the boss of this floor.
It was at this exact time that the system notice sound suddenly rang in the air.
Ding~!
System Announcement: Player "Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand" has the Golden Dragon Scale and has appeared on the B3 floor of the Nine Lost Dragon Domains!
The system notice rang again in practically the next instant.
Ding~!
System Announcement: Player "Candlelight Shadow" has the Wood Dragon Scale, and has appeared on the B2 floor of the Nine Lost Dragon Domains!
……
What the h.e.l.l, the system would expose our location the moment we switched floors. Furthermore, Candlelight Shadow had actually managed to get his hands on the Wood Dragon Scale!? What in the world were Lin Yixin and Luo River G.o.d of the Capital doing?
I swiftly opened up my friends list and sent a message to Lin Yixin: "Yiyi, what happened? How did the Wood Dragon Scale get stolen by Candlelight Shadow?"
Lin Yixin laughed softly before she replied: "The situation is still okay. I was the one who killed the boss but Candlelight Shadow managed to rush into formation and take this Wood Dragon Scale. We didn"t manage to stop him from escaping either. However, we did manage to keep all of the equipment and items. There are still eight floors left, so there"s still a lot of time! As long as we kill Candlelight Shadow and take back that Wood Dragon Scale, it"ll be all good!"
"Yeah! Good luck!"
"You too! Work hard!"
……
This compet.i.tion was way too intense. Thank goodness we were wise enough to skip the battle and proceed to the B2 floor. If not, we would have gone against guilds like Candle Dragon, Snowy Cathaya, Purple Lily, and Blazing Hot Lips. Hmph, even if we could have gotten the Wood Dragon Scale, it would have been a pyrrhic victory at best.
The third floor of the Nine Lost Dragon Domains was just as huge as the other floors. All of us merely resembled small boats floating in the ocean that was this map. There were definitely going to be many monsters in this map. At the very least, there"d be enough to kill to our hearts content.
Chaos Moon, High Fighting Spirits, and I took point as we slowly trudged through the snow. Shortly after we pa.s.sed by a few naturally-formed ice barriers, we started to see wolves in the distance. They were covered in bristly fur the color of snow and their limbs seemed to be encased in frost. There was no way that they would be easy to deal with.
"Monsters have appeared. They"re Level 155 shadow-rank monsters, everyone be careful…" Chaos Moon warned the players behind her.
In all honesty, these Level 155 shadow-rank monsters were nothing to me, but they could be deadly to other players. The moment one of our players was surrounded by these monsters, it was more likely than not for them to die.
I stepped forward and swiftly obtained the stats of these wolf-like monsters.
Frost Wolf (Shadow)
Level: 155
Attack: 1880~2150
Defense: 2400
HP: 190000
Skills: Devour, Rend, Explosive Ice Sweep
Introduction: Guardians of the Icy Dragon Domain, these Frost Wolves are natural-born killers. They are extremely powerful and they send shudders down the spines of all their enemies, near and far.
……
Even though they were also Level 155 shadow-rank monsters, their stats were significantly higher than the Wood Porcupines that we encountered on the first floor. The stats of monsters that were the same rank and level could actually differ so much! The devs were obviously cheating!
Swooos.h.!.+
A bunch of Devil Piercing Arrows flew toward the nearest Frost Wolf, immediately attracting its aggro. It charged forward with a howl of anger but High Fighting Spirits raced out to meet it. He whirled Invincible in the air and used Xiezhi Howl!
Boom! Boom!
The Frost Wolf howled and three damage numbers flew up above its head. However, its counterattack was still extremely vicious. A pair of icy claws fiercely slashed against High Fighting Spirits" shoulder as frost trailed behind them. A sharp pain instantly sprang up from his right shoulder, sending him reeling backward as a damage number flew up above his own head.
4094!
I couldn"t help pursing my lips! High Fighting Spirits" Defense was really low!
I stepped forward and swept past him in an arc, the Heaven-stealing Sword swirling with a cone of indigo energy that resembled blazing flames. After that, I fiercely thrust my sword at the wolf"s back. I immediately followed up that attack with a Burning Blade Slash and my string of blows instantly dropped the Frost Wolf"s health to half. This caused the wolf to stop chasing after High Fighting Spirits and spin toward me. It launched itself into the air, its sharp and icy claws scratching against my Crimson Rock Dragon Armor!
Clang!
Sparks flew everywhere as my armor stopped the blow. A damage number flew up above my head—894!
Just as expected, this Crimson Rock Dragon Armor had pushed my Defense to Gui Guzi"s level . In fact, after adding the effects of skills like Ghost Deity Armor and Enhanced Bones, my defensive power was nearly equal to that of Gui Guzi even after he had activated Knight G.o.d. It was too bad that I couldn"t ride a mount. If not, my defenses would become utterly ridiculous under the effects on Knight G.o.d.
When she saw how much damage the Frost Wolf had dealt to me, Chaos Moon couldn"t help but shake her head before saying to High Fighting Spirits, "Did you see that? What a difference! Lu Chen"s Defense is equal to four of you and then some…"
High Fighting Spirit"s grimaced before retorting, "The vice leader is way too powerful. I can"t possibly compare to him. However, I do believe that my Defense is about the same as your own, Miss Chaos Moon…"
Chaos Moon raised a delicate eyebrow. "How can you even compare yourself to a delicate maiden like me?"
She got him good this time around. High Fighting Spirits was so embarra.s.sed that he felt like digging a hole and jumping inside.
……
After we killed a few Frost Wolves, I realized that this wasn"t a very effective way to grind. I turned toward the rest of my party and said, "You guys should keep advancing in formation. The guild leader"s party is just in front of us. These Frost Wolves don"t have any long-range attacks, so they don"t really pose much of a threat to us. I"ll go ahead of us and sweep away all the monsters by myself. High Fighting Spirits, activate Stamp! Once you"ve lowered their Defense, the killing speed of our party will dramatically increase as well!"
High Fighting Spirits nodded his head. "Yeah. Go ahead, Lu Chen. Our vice leader"s level needs to be high. If not, the people from Candle Dragon and Purple Lily will laugh at us."
"Okay!"
Before I let High Fighting Spirits lead the rest of the group forward, I picked out two of the girls from the party first. They were Moon Dew and Chaos Moon. After that, I sent a message to Beiming Xue: "Beiming, come over. I"m gonna form a four-man party to sweep the mobs in this area. If not, we"ll be grinding for the B4 floor teleportation scrolls until the cows come home!"
"Haha, okay!"
Beiming Xue giggled as she left her party and ran toward us.
I stood on the edge of an ice rampart and saw a horde of Frost Wolves bunched up in the middle. If we didn"t attack them, they wouldn"t come and bother us and these natural ice barriers were thin and narrow, so they wouldn"t be of any use as natural choke points. They wouldn"t even be enough to form a protective screen for me as I aggroed all of the mobs.
Moon Dew looked at me and said, "Lu Chen, you called me over for healing right?"
"Exactly! Smart girl!"
Chaos Moon glared at me and exclaimed, "Then what about me?!"
"You"re here to help block the enemies…"
"f.u.c.k! I knew it wasn"t for anything good, but I actually got called over just to hold a spot for you…"
"You"re not willing to? Okay, then off you go…" I said with a broad smile on my face.
"Oh, don"t be like that. I"ve already come all the way out here with you…" Chaos Moon said as she grabbed my arm. "I"m the most experienced at leeching EXP…"
"..."
The four of us walked along the side of the canyon for a long time and we could no longer see the four big parties behind us. It was only then that I finally signaled for us to stop. I stared at the Frost Wolves in the distance and summoned the Sky Obsidian Greedy Wolf. "Chaos Moon, my Sky Obsidian Greedy Wolf, and I can block four spots, so we"ll use this place as a choke point as it fits our requirements. We"ll use my Martial G.o.d skill for this round of farming. Beiming Xue and Moon Dew will stand in the back and I"ll use the Sky Obsidian Greedy Wolf to lure the mobs. No one is to run about w.i.l.l.y-nilly, understand?"
"Yeah, we got it!" All of these girls were quite clever, so I actually didn"t need to say much.
The Sky Obsidian Greedy Wolf finally had its time to s.h.i.+ne again. I took control of my pet, and it flew forward with lightning-quick speed before drawing a brilliant arc around the Frost Wolves in front of it. I immediately turned it around and raced back and at least three hundred Frost Wolves were running behind it. As this horde of wolves raced after my pet, their vigorous momentum caused snow to fly wildly in the air. In fact, it looked like an avalanche would occur at any moment.
Shock immediately filled Moon Dew"s eyes. She probably rarely saw a horde like this when she was grinding. "Wah! There are so many of these Level 155 shadow-rank mobs charging toward us! We"re dead meat…"