Chapter 677: Mar Gaia Forest
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
If they really had that kind of capability on them, why don’t they just take out Zhang Yang or Sun Xin Yu, or any other core players of Lone Desert Smoke from the Individual Ranking Competition list then? They could just prove by doing so, right? However, even though they were afraid to lose, they were actually making themselves loud and clear as they were recruiting. The little brat was infuriated immediately upon hearing it.
The little brat had always been clear about her preferences. She would never let a thorn stay in her eye. So, she decided to stir up some trouble.
"Humph! Humph! Let me go and tell them what a high Tier player is!" Wei Yan Er leaped down to the side of the arena and challenged the Berserker from Eternal Flame.
"I’ll go too!" Sun Xin Yu said coldly. Then, she vanished into thin air. She went into her Stealth Mode immediately.
Zhang Yang frowned intensely when he saw Sun Xin Yu going straight into her Stealth Mode. There was no point for her to go into Stealth Mode in the middle of a main city, because PvP was not allowed in the first place! It seemed that she did it out of her professional habit.
"I’ll go as well!" Han Ying Xue also went into the arena without as hesitation.
The three ladies selected an Examiner and signed themselves up. After a brief moment, six players entered the arena. Upon the end of the 5-minute preparation time, the battle had finally begun!
Wei Yan Er clashed into her opponent with her {Charge} while Sun Xin Yu activated her {Shadow Step} and slid herself over to the rear of her opponent. The two ladies were beginning to attack their opponents as aggressively as they could.
The battles ended much faster than anyone had anticipated. Well, first of all, Sun Xin Yu and Wei Yan Er had powerful equipment. Furthermore, their Skills were much more powerful than the Examiners. They only took approximately 10 seconds to defeat their opponents. Their opponents were kneeling on the ground begging for mercy not because they were scared or useless, it was because of the arena’s design! Whoever loses would kneel and beg for mercy, automatically.
Han Ying Xue did not drag the battle too long as well. With her {Putrefying Poison} and her {Punishment Ray}, her high Spell-damage and her additional Damage would tear through the thickest defenses. She took out her opponent like he was nothing!
Eternal Flame, 3 battles, 3 losses.
Some bystanders who could not stand the arrogant tone from the few ‘Examiners’ immediately opened their mouths and ridiculed them. Didn’t they say that they wanted professional high Tier players? Now they’ve got it! So why are they performing worse than a rookie? Was that the best they could do? If they’re just so noobish, why don’t they just bang their heads into the wall and die?
Those arrogant Examiners were not willing to give in just yet. They challenged Sun Xin Yu and the other two ladies to another round of battles. The three ladies were not going to back down on them of course, so they accepted their challenges one after another. They basically tortured them round after round! With everything that was happening around, the remaining ‘Examiners’ had to step in to uphold their dignity for their guild. So they also went up to challenge Sun Xin Yu and the other two ladies in an attempt to save their guild’s good name. By the end of it, they were all beaten up so badly that their mother could not recognize them anymore!
The most infuriating part of the incident was that the three ladies rejected their invitation to become one of their guild members!
What the f*ck! If you’re not going to join, why would you challenge the Examiners in the first place? Well, they were not aware of the ladies’ real intention at first.
At first, they were trying to take advantage of the momentum they gained by getting the ‘First Clear’ of the dungeon to recruit new members into their ranks. However, they went too far and got their faces kicked in instead. Therefore, the Eternal Flame was too embarrassed to carry on with their recruitment at the arena of the main city. They only decided on whether a player was worthy to join them or not by looking at their rankings on the Individual Ranking Competition Leaderboard.
Just like an old saying, generous rewards rouses one to heroism! Even though the Eternal Flame tripped themselves over Sun Xin Yu and the other 2 ladies and fell over while they were on the peak of their momentum, they were still known to be a new rising star in the China Region. Furthermore, they had a wealthy foundation to support them with endless gold and money. Hence, they were able to expand their power and influence wide over a brief period of time. In just a short while, they had become a newly emerging force in China Region. A strong one too, at that!
Zhang Yang and his gang went on to clear the 6 new dungeons once. Their equipment were not at the standard of Ethereal Tier just yet. They still managed to replace some of their older equipment on with some new Mythical Tier equipment they got from clearing the Hardcore Mode of the dungeons.
Well, even though the War Canyon would only provide 15% additional Experience Points to the players from the one Region that won Number One back in the war, but the map would require over 2,000,000,000 Level 120 players from across 3 main Regions! After all, Level 120 players were the majority of the population in the entire server. So how could this little War Canyon fit so many people in then?
Just like what Fatty Han would say, this is what they say about having a female’s three holes occupied from the top to bottom! It would be almost impossible to even move!
Grinding levels in that map would mean more Player VS Player battles for everyone from different Regions. Well, players from different Regions would forever stay as foes. They would try to kill each other, the moment they see each other out there. There was a saying, hit him until he does not know what got him! In a nutshell, the War Canyon would be packed with players from all different Regions, and everyone would be out for blood, killing each other from time to time. In a harsh environment like that, grinding levels in the War Canyon would not be a wise move, after all.
"Everything would have been perfect if, only the players from the Region that got Number One can come in here to grind our levels!" Han Ying Xue and the others were ‘hurt,’ seeing that they could not take advantage of the additional 15% Experience Points that the system provided in the War Canyon.
Zhang Yang laughed it off and said, "Even if only China Region players are allowed to enter this map, there would still be over 60,000,000 or 70,000,000 players. There would be more players than the monsters as well. Things would not become much easier, though. Now that we have foreign players invading our space, there are no battles among our own people. If there aren’t any foreign enemies, I believe conflicts would still arise among the guilds in China Region."
Everyone gave some thoughts on what Zhang Yang said. Then they nodded to agree. Well, if they ever encounter The Myth or The Dominators, they would charge at them and start a battle with them without a second thought.
The War Canyon was currently full of people. There were too many people squeezing into the Level 120-150 map. The good spots for grinding levels had been occupied by others. Hence, Zhang Yang assembled his party of 10 and headed straight to a new map --- Mar Gaia Forest.
The Mar Gaia Forest was a Level 150 - 180 Map. A new boss with a next-level Tier would emerge, a Holy Tier!
Because the monsters would have a minimum Level of Level 159, many Level 120 players would not be able to come to this map. Meanwhile, Zhang Yang and his party had surpassed Level 140 at the moment. Unless they would be so unlucky to encounter a monster that is beyond Level 170, they should not have to face the annoying Level Gap Suppression function of the game. They should be able to kill most monsters on the map.
The place was sparsely populated with players. Compared to the previous maps, a player would have met another player upon walking a hundred meters. While Zhang Yang and his party were entering the map, it was like they were entering a primitive forest that no one had set foot on before.
Avoiding the crowd of troublesome players was one thing. Another more important reason why Zhang Yang picked this map was because, there was a new Territory in this map!
The time required to travel from Morning Town to a Level 120 - 150 map would still be reasonable. However, it would be too far for any players to travel from Morning Town all the way to a Level 150 - 180 map. There must be a new checkpoint for players to actually teleport themselves to the map! More importantly, this kind of Territory is most unlike the Territory Gateway where each Region could claim one for themselves. There was only a total of 4 of these Territories!
That being said, 4 Regions would not have access to the checkpoints. They would need to travel all the way across half the earth from their Territorial Gateways to the maps of Level 150 - 180. That would definitely cost them a lot of time that could otherwise be spent grinding their levels. In Zhang Yang’s previous life, the owners of these 4 new Territories were constantly changing. Well, all Regions needed the Territories for their own convenience. Therefore, they would have to launch a war over to snatch the Territory for their own benefits, from time to time.
Meanwhile, the Souron’s Castle in the Mar Gaia Forest was actually the Territory that was taken over by the China Region in Zhang Yang’s previous life. Although the Territory was snatched and taken over by other Regions before, the Territory was under the control of the China Region, most of the time. Therefore, Zhang Yang brought his party over to the place without realizing it was his subconscious calling out to them. Well, he felt a deep connection with the place, after all.
This time, the circumstances were not like how it was when the Chaos Realm was first unlocked. During that period of time, only Zhang Yang alone could enter the new maps. He could just conquer as many Territories as he wanted to! Well, Zhang Yang was not the only clever man on earth. Many players had expected the possibility of new Territories spawning across the maps of Level 150 -180. They could also form a link between the new Territories with their Territory Gateways. Some players might already be on their way to the other new Territories at that instant!
Well, the early bird catches the worm! Everyone would stand an equal chance of getting a Territory. If the opportunity presents itself, grab it or lose it!
With the guide of a veteran like Zhang Yang, the gang did not get lost in the process of getting to the Territory. They went over the mountains and arrived nearby a small river. However, because there were too many high Tier players in Zhang Yang’s previous life, Zhang Yang would only leave a map after he reaches the level cap of the map. Therefore, this Level 150 -180 map was the last map that Zhang Yang had experienced before he came over to this new life.
That being said, Zhang Yang no longer had any knowledge of the maps beyond this map. Maybe the names of the maps would ring a bell to him in the future, but nothing more. Well, he had never gone beyond the map of Mar Gaia Forest.
So Zhang Yang would no longer have the advantage of knowing ahead over everyone else, soon! However, Zhang Yang had no fear towards the future at all. His strength alone and his guild was already number one in the entire server! So he was confident at accepting any challenges that come at him in the future!
Upon seeing the river right in front of them, Zhang Yang descended from the sky. He split the party into two teams. Then he told one of the teams to follow the current of the river as he leads the other team to go against the current of the river. They went on according to Zhang Yang’s plan in order to know more about the place.
After a brief moment, the team that went against the current of the river reported back to Zhang Yang with some news. They discovered a human on the verge of dying. When Zhang Yang heard the news, he led Sun Xin Yu, Han Ying Xue and the other ladies to meet up with the rest of the party.
When they arrived, all they saw was a middle-aged man lying on his stomach, with blood all over the ground. His face was so pale that he looked like a corpse himself! It was obvious that he had been poisoned.
[Col Garson] (Normal, Humanoid)
Level: 151
HP: 1/97,960
Note: One of the members of the fellowship that opposes Souron. Col Garson is well known at covering his tracks and getting the information he needs.
"Please... you... must get this letter... to... General Turkin Han!" Col Garson handed out a small piece of paper over with his shaky hands before he exhaled his final breath and died.
‘Ding! Col Garson has given you a quest: A Super Urgent Message. Will you accept it?’
Accept.
Upon Zhang Yang nodding at the NPC, everyone received the same quest at the same time.
[A Super Urgent Message] (Difficulty: Rank-C)
Description: You have accepted a request from Col Garson right before he died. You have decided to go to the Hannier Valley and deliver this message which had been stained with blood to the hands of General Turkin Han. You have tracked the direction of where you should head. The Hannier Valley is confirmed to be located at the far Northwest from where you stand right now.
Completion: Hand over the message to General Turkin Han 0/1
This quest was merely the first and simple quest that would trigger a wondrous series of quests. It should be a walk in the park for Zhang Yang and his gang. The quest was ranked as Rank-C, instead of a Rank-D because Zhang Yang and his gang had not reach Level 150 just yet. The monsters ahead of them were a technically overleveled.
"Super urgent... Speaking of which---" Han Ying Xue brought up her quest list and had a look, "Silly Yu, when are we going to complete this ‘A Super Urgent News’ quest of ours then?"
‘A Super Urgent News’ was a quest given to them by the soul of Spider Queen Catarina when they were in their Level 60s. The Spider Queen had urged them to travel over to the Spider Kingdom and report the urgent news to the Spider God. However, because the Spider Kingdom was located in the Chaos Realm, they had not touched the quest ever since. Well, they could not have entered the Chaos Realm when they were still around their Level 60s.
Zhang Yang nodded and said, "The Spider Kingdom is also located on the Level 150 - 180 map. Let’s finish up with the linking quests here and solve that ‘forgotten’ quest! Haha!"
Everyone hopped onto their Flying Mounts and headed towards Northwest. After traveling for over half an hour, they arrived at the Hannier Valley.
The entrance to the valley was well hidden. If it weren’t for the few NPCs who were standing guard at their outpost, Zhang Yang and his gang could have missed the spot. Of course, these NPCs were stationed there on purpose by the developers to make things easier for the players. They did not do it because they thought players were stupid.