Wan Er and I laughed, “What pitiful numbers…however, Old K got the higher number, so he wins; this skill book now belongs to Old K…”
“Shua!”
The skill book disappeared into Old K’s palms. With excitement, he looked at the skill, and immediately cried out the skill name. A crimson red wind began to encircle Old K as he raised his battle-axe up, and with a “hua!”, he lashed out. A strong gale blew all around us as the high-speed rotational skill was cast. Even though the skill was still fairly new, it was quite capable of causing a world of pain!
“What a cool skill…” Wan Er commented, her fingers running along her lips; I could feel her jealousy.
I nodded, “That’s right-it spins, just like a little dreidel!”
Wan Er only stared at me with disbelief.
Yuzi Chengshuo chuckled, “That’s enough, don’t get c**ky. Let’s hurry up and get to the second floor; we’ve already spent 4 hours on the first floor alone; who knows how long we’ll take to clear the second floor? Let’s speed up the pace everyone!”
……
I carried my Frost Rain Sword forward while the map already indicated that the entrance to the second floor was behind the throne of Emperor Li Xiong. A series of stone steps led to the lower levels, which would be filled with the deep unknowns.
“Rustle…”
The stone steps were covered with stone fragments and my Frost Rain Sword was the only source of light in the dark stairway. In time, we stepped off of the last step and into another cavern with precious stones embedded into the walls and ceiling once more, casting us in a gem like sparkle.
“Damn, there’s a lot here…”
Wan Er followed me down, though she watched from afar with a wide pair of eyes that held a trace of excitement.
Dong Cheng Yue and Wolf stood stunned on the last step as they gazed upon the countless monsters everywhere. Ancient soldiers dressed in scaled armor had long tangled beards still attached to their rotting faces and their guttural voices was howling and growling as they carried around their corroded spears. They didn’t look so tough but they were definitely stronger than what they looked like-
【Late Qin Spear Soldier】 (Elite Monster)
Level: 58
Attack: 1040 – 1350
Defense: 870
Health: 7200
Skill: 【Heavy Strike】【Ice Lock】【Fierce Ice Blade】
Description: Later Qin Spear Soldiers are soldiers from the late Qin kingdom. These warriors that came from beyond the great wall are extremely deadly and wild to the point that they see killing people as a sport. When Ran Min died in battle, these soldiers became one of the imprisoners of his tomb.
……
“We’re finally fighting the Qiang soldiers” I laughed.
Old K was confused, “Aren’t these the Late Qin spear soldiers? How is the Qiang tribe involved here?”
Turning to explain, I said, “That’s because after the invasion of the Five barbarian Tribes, 16 kingdoms were established. Late Qin was one of the kingdoms and was founded by one of the Qiang tribe leader. That’s why the Late Qin soldiers here are considered a part of the Qiang.
AU: The story isn’t a mocking of either the Qin or the Qiang and I, the author, remain neutral on this stance
TL: Qiang Tribe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qiang_%28historical_people%29
Late Qin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Later_Qin
Wolf asked, “Then how do we kill them?”
Wan Er smiled, “We don’t have to worry about attracting the attention of too many monsters; leave that to Dong Cheng Yue. She’ll attract a crowd towards us and we’ll kill the ones that come. Don’t take a step closer to them or else we’ll attract the attention of too many Lv 58 Elite Monsters. Since this is an SS ranked class, the Elite Monsters here will for sure be unusually strong so we have to systematically wipe them all out one step at a time.”
Yuzi Chengshuo nodded in understanding, “Ah, I get it, Cang Yue will be the core of the team and attract monsters while the rest will kill them. Getting too close will alert the Elite Monsters and that will spell out our doom.”
“I understand as well, let’s begin then!” My Frost Rain Sword was already thirsting for action.
……
Dong Cheng Yue stood on top of the stone steps, her staff raised high in the air and blasted a far away Late Qin Spear Soldier with an [Chilling Wind]!
“Ho ho…”
The Late Qin Spear Soldier came rushing over, groaning out anger and pain. I then immediately stepped into it’s path and executed a [Combo] a good distance away from the other soldiers, “Keng Keng Keng!” The soldiers shrieked miserably as it’s body was hacked away at a rapid speed. Quickly recovering, he swung his spear as frost began to gather at the tip of the spear, he was using the same skill as me – [Fierce Ice Blade]!
795!
Sure enough, the attack was powerful!
My sword slid to knock away the spear and I countered with my own [Fierce Ice Blade]
Wan Er came flying in from above, “Let me help…”
Before she finished, the Late Qin Spear Soldier approached Wan Er and immediately slashed out with his pike. “Pa!” Ice chains came slipping through the ground and twisted itself around Wan Er’s legs for the next 7 seconds. It was [Ice Lock] which was quite a convenient skill and although it didn’t do any damage, it was great for trapping people for a good amount of time.
The beautiful Miss opened her eyes in mild annoyance, “How did this happen? I wasn’t even close enough to aggro it, so why was I targeted?”
Dong Cheng Yue explained, “The skill may be one of those automatically triggered skills and because Xiao Yao was the main attacker, you moving around him too much would mistake you for a secondary attacker and the skill would be activated then.”
“So it’s like that…”
“I’ll attract the second one, third one?”
“Go ahead…”
……
Dong Cheng Lei and Old K each took one and didn’t have much pressure when they had healers behind them. Matcha carried her sword and carefully approached the battling monsters, making them mistake her for a secondary attacker. Doing her best to avoid the [Ice Lock]s aimed at her, I could see her strategy – with the monsters focused on using [Ice Lock]s, Wan Er and Wolf would have more opportunities to strike and she herself wouldn’t be a dead weight.
After half an hour of killing, we finally cleared a small spot to rest. The second floor wasn’t much different from the first floor but the monsters were more densely packed and seemed impossible to to wipe them all out.
……
At about 3 AM, everyone was extremely tired from fighting, to the point where we had to go back to the blacksmith old man to repair our equipment for free and then go down again. We were going to finish this second floor by tonight, before we went offline. Of course, the most excited person was Matcha who got to Lv 42 from the two floors and would probably get to Lv 47 after we finished this quest. For Wolf and others, they would be able to get to Lv 50 at the end of the quest. From this quest, the average level of the Zhan Long players shot up to catch up to the players that had got the first batch of helmets!
“Kacha!”
Chopping off a Late Qin Spear Soldier’s head, I quickly moved forward to find a huge palace floor. At the end was a king with a huge beard. He held a huge crescent moon curved blade while his blood red eyes stared at us, as if challenging us!
……
“Level 58 Purple Tier boss…” Yuzi Chengshuo’s voice wavered: “Looks like we’re only doing Purple Tier bosses today…”