Chapter 443: Dimensional Key
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Once the system made the announcement, Zhang Yang’s character glowed brightly and gained 3 Levels instantly, pushing him up to Level 97!
Zhang Yang was suddenly assaulted with deep fear. If he had been a little more diligent, he would have gained more levels before the Sacred Glory event had started. If so, he would have shot up to Level 100! That was good, in a sense, but what would happen to the "Dimensional Key" quest? Would it not be available to him, forever?!
Zhang Yang place the SP on {Shield Wall}, making it Level 9, with only 3 minutes of cooldown time!
At first, Zhang Yang was never interested in the title "Warrior of the Sacred Glory", but when he found out its hidden features, he equipped the title without hesitation. The title effect was: 10% increase attack when attacking Spectre and Demons. It was a great boost to him, since most of the enemies in the game were Spectres!
Zhang Yang opened his inventory to consolidate all his items. From the chest, he had obtained 78 pieces of [Level 4 Gemstones]! Sadly, he had only managed to procure 8 pieces of [Level 5 Gemstone]. It did not matter, since they were extremely valuable! The main factor that made the item priceless, was the fact that they cannot be bought with gold coins! In the future, it would be a huge advantage for Zhang Yang. Whenever he farms equipment with Level 4 Sockets or Level 5 Sockets, he would not need to buy Level 3 Gemstone to compensate for it!
Within a brief moment, Zhang Yang was teleported out of the Sacred Glory Realm, and back to White Jade Castle. Once he arrived, his messenger rang on and on, like there was an emergency call from the hospital. He received many calls of congratulations from all his friends and guild mates. Han Ying Xue and Wei Yan Er had even asked for Zhang Yang to treat them to a big fancy dinner, which Zhang Yang had no excuse to reject.
Even though he had agreed for the big dinner plan, Han Ying Xue and the other ladies in the house got lazy. In the end, their big dinner was only a fancy takeout meal.
After playing for so long and remain indoors, Zhang Yang realized that it was mid summer. Even though the air conditioning in the house was turned on, all four ladies in the house wore their summer dresses indoors! Nothing but the most simplest, thinnest fabric plastered against their skin! Their slender bodies were totally exposed. All thanks to the so-called "summer dresses". Sun Xin Yu was the special case. When Zhang Yang saw her right after he had logged out of the game, she had just come back from the gym down stairs. At first, she wore sports bra and spats, which was quite revealing, yet normal. But when she was done bathing, she wore a mini Tee! Nothing more! There was not even a bra beneath that thin cloth! Her forbidden peaks were clearly shown to the world, which would entice any normal man!
Zhang Yang nearly spat out his drink when he saw Sun Xin Yu coming out of her room after changing. Ever since she had confessed her feelings to Zhang Yang, the woman had gotten bold. She had been lackadaisical about Zhang Yang and treated him less like a stranger. Was that a good thing? Zhang Yang could not answer his own question…Perhaps, did she not mind about Zhang Yang being able to take a peek under the hood?
Zhang Yang turned back and saw that Han Ying Xue had noticed his response to Sun Xin Yu. She merely scoffed and took out a fat banana out of the fruit basket. After peeling the skin ever so seductively, the women sucked on the banana slowly, from the tip, all the way down to the shaft. Instead of biting down the banana, she merely pulled it out and slobbered over it while winking at Zhang Yang. Unlike Sun Xin Yu’s unintentional show, Zhang Yang was immune or rather, annoyed at how Han Ying Xue was constantly teasing him! Still, her actions were greatly seductive. Wouldn’t hurt just to look at, would it?
There was a fiery sensation going on down south…
Now that Han Ying Xue knew that she had managed to get his attention, she bared her teeth and bit the banana forcefully. The glare in her eyes spelled doom to a certain part of Zhang Yang…
He could not help but feel extremely scared for some reason. What a complicated person…What does she want? For real!?
Anyhow, the food arrived and everyone dined in. On the dinner table however, there was a cold war going on between the bombalicious babe Han Ying Xue and the stone-cold Sun Xin Yu. If Zhang Yang were to wear a heat reader, he could practically see sparks zapping across the two women. Those tow were at each other’s throats, spiritually. It was so intense, that the air-head Wei Yan Er was able to detect the hostility between those two. While chewing down the lobster meat in her mouth, the little brat stared at Sun Xin Yu, and Han Ying Xue, her eyes going back and forth. Her gaze then turned to Zhang Yang and she snickered. Zhang Yang had no idea what is going on in her tiny little mind, but he knew that it would not be good. Daffodil Daydream on the other hand, played an award-winning role of being invisible to the crowd.
After finishing the dreaded dinner, Zhang Yang pushed all four ladies back to their rooms and urge them to go online. He still had the Dimensional Key quest to complete, which would lead him to the Imperial Heaven's Empire Royal Palace to search for the Meteor Sword.
Zhang Yang had recruited all four girls into his party. The reason why he did not invite the other core members, was due to the party member limit of the portal entry. He had to pass on Fatty Han and the rest. Naturally, he picked the four of the girls because of their innate talents. That, and it was much better to have an all-girl company for once.
After gathering, Zhang Yang took out the Dimensional Key and focused his thoughts into the key. The red color gem-like object burst out a stream of rainbow light which formed into a light portal. The doorway of the portal was extremely small, which could only fit in one person at a time.
"Enter, now!" Zhang Yang cried. He needed to stay focus on controlling the portal, which required him to be the last person to enter. Han Ying Xue and the rest of the party entered the portal, one by one and when the last person entered, Zhang Yang held the key tightly and entered with his back facing the portal. Once the light engulfed his body, Zhang Yang turned around quickly and forced his way in. There was a light, pushing current that was not too strong. It still required them to lean forward and put a little force in their forward movements.
‘Ding! You have entered the Fallen Land, Imperial Heaven's Empire Royal Palace. Monsters that are killed inside this realm will not respawn!’
The white light faded away, and his vision returned to him. Zhang Yang realized his footing was little more solid than usual, and found out that he was standing right at the entrance of golden castle. There were beautiful decorations to his left and right. Almost everything was made of gold, and had given off some sort of blinding effect.
Zhang Yang’s mini map had a good overall layout of the Imperial Heaven’s Empire Royal Palace. Zhang Yang opened the world map up, and his position was currently at the North West of the entire Royal Palace. The Treasure Cove was located at the South East of the entire Royal Palace. To reach there, they would have to travel diagonally for a long time…
Luckily, this time, the portal had sent the party in as a whole, instead of spawning them at random places.
"Wow…This place is beautiful." Wei Yan Er was stunned by the dazzling beauty of the palace. She started to spin around playfully. "Noobie tank! Let’s just move here! This place is much better than your cooped-up apartment."
Zhang Yang frowned. He was annoyed at her statement. Was not it her fault that his place was cooped-up?
"Activate your auras. We’re going to start raiding the palace now," said Zhang Yang. He did not wait for Wei Yan Er to obey him, and proceeded on further into the palace.
"Hmph. Dummy, how long exact have you spent doing this quest? For as long as it worth, there better be some good rewards waiting for me at the end!" said Han Ying Xue.
"Erhm. You meant, for me. Anyhow. The quest should be lucrative," said Zhang Yang nonchalantly, as he shrugged.
Daffodil Daydream said, "Well, even if the quest itself does not give any good rewards, the Violet-Platinum bosses in here should be good enough for us!"
Zhang Yang laughed. "Well. Don’t be too pessimistic there, Daffy. I did spend a great deal of time in this quest. If the quest was to reward me with just experience points, it better be worth at least half of a level, or I’ll call it a huge waste of my time."
Everyone made jokes and teased each other as they proceeded deeper into the palace. It had been a long time since they had entered the palace, but there were still no buildings, just an extremely large courtyard, filled with trees, chairs, tables, and a place to drink tea! It did not take them long to find the first monster to fight.
[Restless Guard] (Elite, Spectre)
Level: 95
HP: 200,000
Defense: 500
The skeletal soldier was dragging a huge sword over the floor of the palace grounds. The sword looked like a regular sword. However, what made it different from the rest was the fact that sparks were created just by dragging its tip across the ground, even though the ground was tiled with stones. Instead of a metallic, clinging sound, the stone tiles were torn apart!
"This…place…not for…the living…intruders…death…kill..."
With a low, barely audible tone, the skeletal said something that triggered the battle. The skeletal soldier picked up the sword that it was dragging along and slashed at Zhang Yang.
Zhang Yang was expecting the sword’s attack to be slow and sluggish. However, the skeletal soldier proved itself to be an elite tier monster by swinging the sword at such a fast speed, forcing Zhang Yang to react just as quickly. He swiftly raised his shield to block the strike, but was forcefully sent backward. The sheer power of the strike had made Zhang Yang lose his footing. With quick reflexes, Zhang Yang borrowed the momentum from the backward force and spun around. At the same time, Zhang Yang returned the attack with a counterattack from the side, via a sword slice!
‘-4,387!’
After the sword sliced through the skeleton, its armor was caved in with a deep horizontal hole, breaking the armor down into two pieces. That was just a cosmetic appearance and nothing more. The defense value of the skeletal soldier did not change. However, the armor breaking effect would not have occured if the sword was of White-Wood grade. Only high tiered weapons could create such an effect on lower tier armor.
"Did you guys hear the skeleton talking?" said Wei Yan Er surprised.
"Well. I’m not surprised. This place exists only temporarily. I won’t be surprised, even if the grass could talk! Remember, players can only enter this dungeon three times!" Zhang Yang explained, as he continued to fight the monster.
"Tch… If only we can find, capture, and rear a talking monster!" said Wei Yan Er with her puppy eyes. Zhang Yang shook his head. He had always felt that Wei Yan Er had a whole, other-worldly taste compared to other people.
Sun Xin Yu and everyone else laid down their attack and quickly terminated the monster. The monster had dropped a few coins, a few [Inscribed Cloth], and even silvery, shiny boots!
[Hallowed Greaves] (Gray-Silver, Leather Armor)
Defense: +12
Vitality: +76
Strength: +38
Dexterity: +84
Level Requirement: 90
"Aiya! What a noob equipment!" said Wei Yan Er with disgust. Even though the boots had not yet been Identified, the stats would only increase by 50% after Identification, it was still quite weak, compared to her current equipment.
Zhang Yang laughed. "Come on. What do you expect? It’s just a Gray-Silver equipment for Pete’s sakes! Appreciate for what it is. We could sell the bloody thing for a few hundred gold coins. If the monsters here could drop that many equipment, even if they are all Gray-Silver, it would still be worth quite a fortune!"
When the word "fortune" got out, both Han Ying Xue and Wei Yan Er chuckled. Zhang Yang could swear that those two had money symbols appearing in their eyes!
The party of five proceeded deeper into the palace, and found many similar skeletal soldiers around. Without the need to provoke the monsters, they would automatically target them and launch their attacks. Even though these elite monsters were stronger than the regular elite monsters in the "outside" world, their difficulty was greatly compensated with a vast number of drops. 10 skeletal soldiers had already dropped 4 counts of Gray-Silver equipment!
Everyone was happy. Since this place did not limit the duration you spend in the area, they could easily wipe all the monsters at leisure! Even the monsters that were not in the palace could be farmed for their lucrative drops!
After Fatty Han and the others knew about it, they too wanted to have a part of the haul. Zhang Yang added them into the party and tried to exploit a possible loop hole by using the [Party Summon Order] to "pull" them into the world. However, when Zhang Yang activated the accessory, the system responded. "Failure to summon party members due to Imperial Heaven’s Empire Royal Palace participant limit."
Zhang Yang was not disappointed. Somehow, he knew that the developers would not make a silly mistake like that. Now that Fatty Han and the rest of the core party members were all together, Zhang Yang had not bothered to kick them out.
Fatty Han suddenly let out a loud cry. "F*ck me! I swear that I ain’t gonna touch booze no more!"
Zhang Yang laughed as his sudden sweeping declaration. "Why the sudden accent. It does not suit you. Isn’t booze harder to quit then asking you to have a diet?"
"Grah! It’s not that." Said Fatty Han. "You got it all wrong. It’s…well…Yesterday, when I went over to Xiao Wei’s house to meet her parents. On that day, I can’t remember how much I have drunk. But the next morning, Xiao Wei had glared at me like she could just stab me with her fingers. I asked what’s wrong and she revealed to me what I had done. Last night, when I was at her place, I drank so much that I was heavily intoxicated."
"Huh…that’s normal."
"Wait. I’m not done. Her father asked me this question. "What do you think of my daughter when you first met her?" You know what I said?"
"Oh f*ck."
"Yeah. I said, "Girl’s got buns, hun!" I said that!"
Everyone burst out laughing and even Zhang Yang had to stop, rolling on the floor while clutching his stomach.