Chapter 145: Continuous Grinding
The next morning, Zhang Yang did his daily training and had his breakfast soon after. He visited the official site to read updates and news and the forums.
In the dungeon fight topic discussion, many guilds had posted their own battle results there to promote themselves and attract the attention of players and possible future alliances. Popularity is the main factor that would directly impact the revenue of a sponsored guild!
So far, everyone had started raiding the level 40 dungeon, Shadowmoon Castle: Castle Interior. Most of the post here in this discussion forum were about the bosses in the Castle Interior. About 5 days back, there were guilds that had started to gather level 40 players to raid the Hard mode of the Castle Interior dungeon to gather information and experience to facilitate the Hardcore mode.
So far, majority of the guilds around had already defeated the first 2 bosses of the Hardcore mode, and in the progress of defeating the third boss. Furthermore, the guild that have the first kill of the two bosses of the dungeon was Crimson Rage.
It looked like after Crimson Rage had successfully defeated Chalvos the Mountain Giant, their ability and strength had rose to a higher level. It enabled them to forcefully stand on top of other guild in the entire China server.
There was another discussion in the forum that had reports on each super guild's progress in the game. The report was rather in-depth; there was news on which guild has the last boss's first kill, news about which guild had the potential to claim the dungeon First Clear! The post was rather long and detailed; it contained a long discussion and explanation and summarized a prediction.
A player named "Martian Homeland" had predicted that the guild that will obtain the Castle Interior dungeon First Clear Achievement was Radiance. His reasons explained that the guild master, Sword of Light was the main tank of the guild, and had strong skills and capabilities. A strong tank is the main factor to win the 5-man dungeon.
The next in line was Crimson Rage. This all-female guild has performed extraordinary in the first two bosses of the dungeon. They had the leading advantage and could raid the dungeon successfully if they could maintain their performance.
Next in line was The Glory, Yellow Flame, Sky High and so on. Lone Desert Smoke had only appeared after the 10th position.
According to Martian Homeland, he had high hopes for Lone Desert Smoke and had them placed at the third place. However, he explained that the recent quiet behavior of Lone Desert Smoke depicts that they had no intention to fight for the latest dungeon's First Clear Achievement! That was the reason why he had place Lone Desert Smoke down the ranking list. It even went even lower when Lone Desert Smoke did not perform any other significant actions!
His discussion had led to many players to take part in his discussion. There were many players who agreed to his explanation, and some others who presented a counter argument. In the argument, those players brought up the Marzerway's Lair. Initially, many other guilds were leading in advance and even managed to fight all the way into the last boss. Lone Desert Smoke were a little slower than the rest of the guild. However, when they started the dungeon, they had successfully conquered the entire dungeon in a day!
The argument example that the opposition side had triggered another argument from the government side, saying that Marzerway's Lair was a special case. The 5th stage of the final boss could only be beaten with the help of the [Beginner Anti-Shadow Potion]. Without it, no one could survive the stage. Lone Desert Smoke party had defeated the boss with the help of the potion instead of their own strength!
Lone Desert Smoke supporters started to counter back with their arguments. To begin with, did the Hardcore mode require any special item to successfully raid it? It is would, almost every guild that had reported their progress would had reported about it! There was no new battle information about the dungeon for a few days now!
Both sides continued with their heated arguments. Neither of them showed any signs of backing down from their stance. The post got larger and had already exceeded 4,000 comments and posts!
Zhang Yang smiled a little. He checked the time and logged into the game at 9am sharp. Once he was in the game, he saw Fatty Han and Endless Starlight was at a corner talking about something. A fat guy and a skinny dude was an odd combination but both of their faces showed the same pervert grin. Looks like both of them were getting along just fine. Zhang Yang thought that they might work together perfectly when they start leading the secondary party.
Zhang Yang walked close and could hear a glimpse of their conversation.
"...and that is why a rotten carrot and a pregnant woman is the same of a kind. Both of them were the result of delayed pull outs!"
That was what Zhang Yang had heard, coming out from Endless Starlight mouth.
Fatty Han was stunned was clearly impressed. "Deep! That's deep bro!" He exclaimed, impressed.
"I know right!? Oh by the way, what were we talking about before we stray off topic?"
"...Good morning guys!"
"Erhm...Oh! Morning!" Both of them grinned sheepishly.
"...I'm not going to ask what you were talking about."
After a while, Hundred Shots logged into the game. All four of the dudes gathered together at a corner of the field. After a night, all monsters that were killed yesterday had respawned, filling back the empty space around and causing the field to be as crowded as ever. If they were to walk a few steps forward, they would ultimately cause an uproar.
The girls were a little late. Zhang Yang had already asked them to gather here at 9am sharp. The earliest one to logged in was Daffodil Daydream at 9.09am. Sun Xin Yu was the second, at 9.11 am. Han Ying Xue and Wei Yan Er logged in together at 9.15am.
Zhang Yang could not help but asked the ladies, "What happened? Didn't I say 9am? What took you so long?"
Han Ying Xue rolled her eyes at Zhang Yang. "I need time for make-up. Duh!"
Zhang Yang was stunned, infuriated at her reply. "You are playing 'God's Miracle'. A VRMMOPRG! Why would you need to have make-up for?! What are you expecting? An audience watching you wearing the gaming helmet, lying on the bed doing nothing?!"
The moment he said that, all the girls were angered immediately. Zhang Yang instantly understood that everyone here was doing their make-up.
Sigh...Man and woman's thinking were so different that they might start a war with each other like Alien Vs Predator!
"Argh...Forget about it, let's go clear the monsters, shall we?"
If this place was not for a quest, it was still an excellent place to grind. The experience points here were really abundant! However, to properly utilize this field of experience points, one must have a strong team! You'll need a strong tank to handle the monsters aggro and also a strong healer to support the tank!
After a series of attacks, monsters had dropped uncountable amounts of [Cotton Cloth], useless items, and coins. Naturally, tasked to pick items were Wei Yan Er and Han Ying Xue. Whoever dares to take the job away from them would be public enemy number 1! However, the number of monsters around were overwhelming both their inventories! Items besides equipment could be stacked up to 200 count a stack, however, equipment on one hand took up one slot each.
Unable to continue on, Wei Yan Er and Han Ying Xue had to let someone else to loot the items.
The collected goods were above average. There were many Black-Steel tier equipment but there were also a number of Level 40 Green-Copper! Both Endless Starlight and Daffodil Daydream were players who have never seen such a luxurious loot were drooling endlessly. Zhang Yang had the equipment distributed to them but since neither of them had reached level 40, they had to keep their equipment in their inventory instead.
However, that was only a matter of time. Since the party had killed many monsters and gain a sum of experience points yesterday, even though it was not enough to level up, they were close to it. Daffodil would level up in just another hour while Endless Starlight would take a little longer. Once the party had cleared every monster in this floor, level 40 was just a few steps ahead.
After last night's experience, Endless Starlight and Daffodil Daydream were able to match with the party of Zhang Yang and gang. Another hour passed, and Zhang Yang, Daffodil, Starlight, and Hundred Shots had leveled up.
Zhang Yang invested his SP on <Block> and maximized the skill to level 10. Even though the skill had been nerfed exponentially, it was still a Guardian's bread and butter. It had to be the first skill to maxed before any other skill.
[Player: Zhan Yu] (Guardian)
Level: 40
HP: 6320
Defense: 360
Strength: 285
Melee damage: (729 - 781) x 110%
He had equipped the [Heart of Fallen Warrior]. Even though it did not have any bonus attributes, it possesses a skill that could temporary add 2000 Defense! Any boss below Gray-Silver tier would definitely deal nullified damage!
As the team fought with increasing synchronicity, Zhang Yang started to pulled more and more monsters. He started at 10 a time and rose to 20 and even 30 monsters in one breath!
However, once the monsters started to increase to 20 counts and more, Zhang Yang had to depend on a long cool down skill or an equipment skill to survive. Still, Zhang Yang had more skills hiding under his sleeves. If <Shield Wall> had been used, he could use <Berserker's Heal>. There were still other skills such as the Lover's Sword <Lifesteal>, <Merlina's Shadow>, [Servant]'s <Substitute>, <Heart of Fallen Warrior>, and when everything had been used, <Shield Wall> would have already finished its cool down and its ready to use!
Be it his damage or his skills, Zhang Yang's outstanding performance left Endless Starlight breathless. He truly believed that Zhang Yang alone could have kill every monster here with all his skills. He had never known that a tank's potential could be raise to such a level! Zhang Yang's display of power had left him a burning passion! The little boy was too excited that, he imagine that he could be as strong, and as prominent as Zhang Yang, he could imagine his life being surrounded by beautiful girls slobbering all over him! Endless Starlight was not the only one, even those who were closer to Zhang Yang were left speechless.
"Noob tank! You're just unbelievable!" said Wei Yan Er with a straight face. "Ah! Don't misunderstand, I'm praising you!"
Zhang Yang sighed heavily and said, "In that case, let me return the favor. You are unbelievable! Your entire family is unbelievable!"
Han Ying Xue immediately interjected with both her hands on her waist. "Hey! Stupid Yu! Who's unbelievable now?"
Oh crap! He had forgot that this b*tch was in the same family as Wei Yan Er!
Zhang Yang quickly swung his sword around and cried, "L-Let's go! OOOOO!"
The team had started the floor at 9am and had only managed to clear half of the first floor at 12 noon. Zhang Yang called for the team to log out and take 1 hour off to have their lunch and come back at 1pm sharp.
He quickly added a sentence before they disappeared. "Those of you that need to do your make-up thing. Please come 5 minutes earlier!"
Han Ying Xue snickered. "Dummy. One look and I know that you are completely oblivious to how a woman behave!"
Daffodil added. "Actually, I had started at 8.30am and I could not make it in time!"
Zhang Yang dripped cold sweat.
...
The team gathered back at 1pm sharp. Luckily the girls were punctual this time since neither of them needed to redo their make-up.
With the uncountable number of monsters killed and the luxurious amount of experience points to everyone, those who were already at level 40 had rose by a level while Endless Starlight and Hundred Shot who were the lowest levels among the party members had reached level 40.
The time was already 7pm and the team had only a certain distance to reach the end of the floor. They would probably need to clear a few more monsters to reach the first floor's mini boss.
Zhang Yang thought for a while and said, "Everyone! Let's have a break and eat dinner! Don't come back with an empty stomach! The body is the most important asset! You're not you when you're hungry! Eat a snicker or something! I don't want the team to make a mistake!"
After Zhang Yang had ordered the team to gathered back after one hour, everyone logged out and took a break.