Time flew by quickly, and soon five days were gone.
Only 24 hours were left until the first clear of the dungeon was announced in Lin Jie’s previous life. Lin Jie’s preparation job was finally complete, and all the members of Savage Blade wore flashy Blasphemer Sets. When standing side by side, they looked like magnificent, gold-lit saints. Owning the sets also allowed them to counter Venom Lei Zhika’s attacks most effectively.
And Kid had finally gotten used to his role as a raid commander. The First Savage Blade team wasn’t as friendly as Lin Jie’s team. All of them were quick-tempered mercenaries who would curse and scold whenever Kid made any mistakes. Initially, Kid would cry when he was being scolded, but when he realized that tears were of no use, he vowed to show them his worth and eventually shut them up with his abilities.
After about a month or more time, most of the better-known guilds had made to at least 50% progress of the dungeon. There were heated discussions about which team or guild could get the first clear of the dungeon, and all sorts of gambling parties were set up, allowing players to place bets on their favorite teams.
—Announcement (Call out by player An Xiaoran): My dear friends, ‘Xiaoran Gambling House’, which was verified by the game’s official website, welcomes all to place their bets! The banker will strictly not allow any conman into our gambling parties, and we reject all forms of advertisements. Those who bet on Savage Blade, the betting ratio is one to two; for the Three Alliances, the betting ratio is one to five; for Kingdom of Glory, the betting ratio is one to ten; and for the Steel Allies, the betting ratio is one to ten too. There are many guilds up for betting, and the betting ratios may even reach one to hundreds or more. Everyone is free to choose who they want to place their bets on. This is a rare chance, do come and try out your luck!
“Xiaoran pretty girl, do you mind if I place a bet on each of the teams? I suppose you won’t lose any money then? I like to take care of pretty girls like you.”
“Hehe, you can place whatever amount of bets you want. Our operations are transparent for all to see, so don’t worry!”
“Great! I will go on then!”
An Xiaoran was indeed a person with great perseverance. After his failed venture into the gaming news industry, he decided to open a gambling house instead. In fact, he even managed to get official verification, and hence made a lot of money at once.
Even Savage Blade, which had won the greatest support among the players, was placed at the betting ratio of one to two. This was definitely a business which could earn loads. However, Lin Jie knew An Xiaoran’s character—this guy would never lose any money in whatever business he started. He definitely had some tricks up his sleeves if he dared to put such an offer in the market.
The official opening of the gambling house hyped up the discussion for the dungeon’s first clear! Today was the day where all teams would throw in their most valued potions, equipment, skills, and they and got ready for their last fight of the dungeon’s first clear.
However, the attitudes of Heaven Plume, Dumb Fox, and Ghost Eyes were rather ambiguous on this matter. Just one day before, Heaven Plume had sent Lin Jie 200 Dispel Scrolls, 300 Advanced Magic Potions, and several loose parts of the gold Blasphemer Sets. Their intentions of trying to cozy up to Brotherhood was obvious, and they also spelled out what they wanted in exchange: should Savage Blade obtain the first clear of the dungeon, Lin Jie would put their names after the team members’ names.
Lin Jie agreed to this with good grace.
If things worked out well, both parties would benefit; but if things turned sour, both would suffer. In any case, the relationships between guilds were always swinging between the scale of friendly and animosity. As long as there were common benefits to be gained, any hard feelings between them could be forgotten.
Lin Jie took out all his prized possessions from his inventory, such as the Perfect Natural Potions, Essence Oil, Mithril Membrane, and large numbers of Dispel Scrolls. The main reason why the big guilds always obtained first clear of dungeons was that they had strong financial backing. As such, it would be extremely rare if ordinary workshops or teams made up by solo players could obtain first clear of dungeons.
Even Lin Jie, who had the advantage of being a reborn person, wouldn’t feel confident tackling a Main Plot dungeon with stray teams.
Superior-grade magic potions would cost 500 gold coins per bottle, needless to say, the Dispel Scrolls, gold equipment and large amounts of replenishment items needed. Taking down a dungeon was very expensive, and without a strong backing, no one would dare to take up this challenge casually.
However, as the saying went, ‘Chances always go with challenges’. Should one be successful in taking down a dungeon, they could reap huge rewards. Other than the high drop-rate of monsters in the dungeon, there were still plentiful rewards given out for obtaining first clear of dungeons, including Stat points, equipment, and sometimes even Skill Points! The teams which obtained first clear of dungeons would become renowned in the game, and subsequently, become hot topics of discussion. They might even get recorded into The New Age’s history!
In front of the Epidemic Pond entrance spiral located within the War of Light dungeon-group.
“Omg, what team is this? They are so uniform in their equipment!”
“Those equipment don’t seem to be the sets from the Belief Church? They seem more superior than those sets!”
“Is it the Three Alliances, or the Steel Allies? Surely they can’t just be from a single guild? They look so intimidating!”
Surprise, envy, jealousy… numerous stares beholding all kinds of emotions landed upon the members of Savage Blade.
Silver Shield and The Heavenly Shield wore full sets of blank Blasphemer Sets. There were hideous but peculiar beast heads engraved upon the parts which covered their critical areas, such as shoulder blades, chest, and waist. These were the Blasphemer’s symbols—and they would only appear on the equipment after a full set was gathered.
Meanwhile, Mixed Breathless’ equipment also had some changes. His original equipment was already very powerful—in fact, if he changed to wear the Blasphemer Set, he might become weaker. As such, he used the extra Blasphemer Dark Gold wrist guards and belts which they had gotten over these days to upgrade his own equipment. They now looked as if they were new ones.
As for the three brothers, I’m No. 1, I’m No. 3, and I’m No. 4, they also looked magnificent in their saintly gold sets. In fact, the Blasphemer sets helped to disguise their less than ideal statures perfectly—the three of them folded their arms across their chests suavely and put on high and mighty expressions on their faces. However, whenever any pretty girls walked past them, they would send them friend invites from their Friends Column.
Bu Yi did not equip herself with the Blasphemer Set. She wore a set which was emitting shimmering blue light—all of her equipment had been enchanted now. One could only enchant any of their equipment once, and right now, players could only cast Middle-Grade Enchantments on their equipment. Thus, many people often felt like enchanting their equipment at this stage of the game was just a waste of their equipment. However, seeing the great battle they were about to face, Bu Yi decided to throw in all she had and added the ‘Spirit Power Increase Enchantment’ to all her equipment; hence, giving her equipment the so-called regen-blue mana effects.
In comparison, all the damage output jobs seemed especially low-key. After all, MTs and healing jobs were the main jobs at work during this dungeon. Thus, the design, lighting effects, and lines on their equipment were so much more eye-catching. The sets for the damage output jobs were almost like sh*t in comparison!
Even so, Savage Blade still attracted the attention of the masses! The Blasphemer Sets had helmets which could cover their faces, so the members of Savage Blade did not wear their usual Hermit Helmets. As such, no one recognized which team they were.
At this moment, Lin Jie had finished collecting all his replenishment items, and he was on his way to the dungeon.
Rustle—
The leaves above him were blown off by the wind as if singing an elegy.
One of the leaves turned one round in the air and landed on Lin Jie’s nose bridge. The venation on the leaf withered right before Lin Jie’s eyes as if it was being burnt.
“This is…” Lin Jie tried to catch hold of the leaf, but it dissipated into the air.
‘Such strong Dark vibes!’ The question was, where did it come from? The NPCs in front of the War of Light dungeon-group were all Paladins from the Guild of Light. Should these vibes be from NPCs or due to other in-game events, they definitely would have made some reactions!
This could only mean one thing—these Dark vibes were given off by players.
Lin Jie had an epiphany. He sent the Silver-Feathered Eagle up to the sky and used its Spirit Vision to observe the surroundings. True to his suspicion, there was a mysterious spot being surrounded by thick fog in the northwestern direction of the dungeon-group!
“Silver-Feathered Eagle, check it out!”
Lin Jie ordered the Silver Feathered Eagle to activate its disguise skill. It merged within the white clouds and soared near its target.
The thick fog made it especially hard for people to distinguish anything within it.
Suddenly, a black item shot out with a great shoosh! Fierce blade auras were given off, and it aimed straight at the Silver-Feathered Eagle at high speed! With a single stroke, the Silver-Feathered Eagle was sliced into two halves!
Ding~
—’Your contract pet: Silver Feathered Eagle is dead. You can only summon it after 48 days. It will remain in a weak state for the following seven days after you first summon it.’
The Silver-Feathered Eagle was dead! Yet before its death, Lin Jie had managed to catch a glimpse of a familiar figure—Eighteen Massacres! He was holding his Seven Style Spear in his right hand, while his left hand was in the position of having flung something out. The black object must have been flung out by him.
“It’s such a familiar-looking black object…” murmured Lin Jie under his breath as he thought carefully.
That black object was like… a blade! Correct, part of a sword blade!
“Leader, you’ve come.”
“Jie.”
“Big brother, I admit my mistake now. Can you let me play in the dungeon too?”
All his team members walked up to greet him.
Lin Jie was ecstatic to have suddenly gotten news of a part of the Broken Blade—once he got it, he could remove another seal on Broken Blade! However, seeing now that they were about to attack the dungeon, Lin Jie suppressed his excitement and tried to focus on what he should be doing now. He distributed the Essence Oil, which could increase equipment durability, to the MTs who would depend on their equipment heavily to fend off the monsters, and the Perfect Natural Potions to the healing jobs. As for the Mithril Membrane, he gave it to Zheng Ziliang. After which, Lin Jie announced, “Let’s enter the dungeon now!”
Boom—
The dungeon’s entrance spiral was activated!
‘There’s still 24 hours before the first clear of the dungeon would appear.’ A wave of uneasiness washed over Lin Jie. He felt strange—why would he have this feeling? After all, hadn’t he changed the fates of the Ordinary People team, who had obtained first clear of the dungeon in his previous life?
Could it be that…
Ding~
—’You have entered the Main Plot dungeon Epidemic Pond.’
The Savage Blade team members’ expressions turned solemn as they listened to the familiar system notification.
Lei Zhika came out from the shadows within the dungeon, laughing eerily. The eyeballs on his face popped in and out of his eye sockets and almost fell out onto the ground.
“Forward Charge!”
“Forward Charge!”
The Heavenly Shield charged forward and caught one bottle of potion which Lei Zhika had flung. Giving it a tight squeeze, he crushed the bottle, and it dissipated into powder, fading away. Yet, The Heavenly Shield only suffered 400 damage points—such was the terrifying prowess of the Blasphemer Set!
Lin Jie felt more and more uneasy as time passed. As a reborn person who knew how things would turn out, this was the first time he felt as if he had no control over what would happen. His worries transformed into crazily high damage output as he attacked the Boss.
With melee jobs like Netherblue, Qiu Yuan, Lin Jie, Baili Changcheng countering Lei Zhika’s attacks, their combined damage output reached a shockingly high figure!
“Have a taste of Lei Zhika’s specialty delicacies,” cackled the Boss as he flung out the Death Potions!
Clang—
The bottles broke apart, and grayish-black mist spayed out. However, it did not affect any of the members of the team.
The Blasphemer Sets were immune to the Death Potions!
Lin Jie activated Army Obliteration, and dealt out four consecutive 1,000 plus Damage Dealt, ending the first stage of Lei Zhika with a single skill!
“My servants, come out now…” Lei Zhika entered Invincible mode. Lin Jie took out the Dispel Scrolls, and dispelled its Invincible mode, following which dealing out attacks upon attacks. Lei Zhika jumped into the pond, and after about 15 seconds, a great Son of Darkness crawled out!
Codename Sophie laughed merrily and commented, “Ha, my turn to show off now!”
“Hmph, brothers, let’s not lose out to him! Let’s go! Treatment Flash!” The three Priest brothers shouted, but they made no actions. When Bu Yi threw out a Healing spell, they started moving and linked up a Holy Light behind Bu Yi’s healing spell.
[Treatment Flash]: This is a specialized skill which can only be used by Holy Priests. You can add a jumping effect to your comrade’s healing spell, and heal the next most badly injured targets within an area of 30 meters consecutively. Every time the healing spell jumps once, the amount of healing your spell can cover will be reduced by 30%. The spell can only jump thrice.
The Treatment Flash was a pretty brilliant life-saving skill! For example, if Lin Jie had 1,000 health points, Qiu Yuan had 500 health points, and Netherblue had 200 health points, then each time Bu Yi healed Lin Jie and replenished 500 health points for him, the Treatment Flash would allow the healing spell to jump to the next targets and heal them. In this case, it would mean replenishing 350 health points for Netherblue, followed by 245 health points for Qiu Yuan.
Its powerful part lay in the fact that it would not require more healing powers, but would instead heal the targets in its effective area consecutively when they had very low health points! Against the Son of Darkness, it would mean an explosion of attacks!
Bu Yi’s healing spell could cause 1,100 Damage Dealt to the monster. With the effects of the three Treatment Flash spells, her healing spells’ effects were multiplied by nine times!
The light given off by the Treatment Flash flashed about in the dungeon.
Codename Sophie cried out anxiously, “Oye, it’s best that you guys use the Treatment Flash on my Lay on Hands spell. It can instakill the Boss!”
“Well, are you a girl?”
“Well, are you a girl?”
“Well, are you a girl?”
The three brothers shot out the same comment and watched on happily as Bu Yi’s healing spells’ effects and damage output on the Son of Darkness increased by heaps.
