"Ahahaha, a bunch of lousy players challenging the Demonic Blaze Overlord Lagrios—so daring. They are courting death!" Xiao Yu laughed out loud as he waved his Demonic Blaze Hammer around. Fireballs the size of a train's engine were formed, and they blasted towards the adventurers.
"Dodge them! Get into position!"
"Oh no, we are going to die! Ah!"
Shrieks of horror were heard everywhere. However, these adventurers were surprisingly determined—although they had undergone terrible losses, they persevered in the dungeon.
Still, it was just a matter of time before they would lose.
Xiao Yu gazed down at the group of adventurers and thought smugly, "As a Level 60 Demonic Blaze Overlord, and a Three Skeleton Level Boss, I have sent 1,000—if not, at least 800—or more adventurers to their deaths. How laughable of this group of adventurers, who haven't even gathered full Fire Resistance sets and can't bear to use their Fire Resistance potions or Magic Scrolls when necessary, to come and challenge me! They are ridiculous! They should be glad I haven't exerted my full prowess. See, after half an hour or battling with me, only about one-third of my 8,000,000 HP was cleared by them!"
"However, you guys are actually not that bad—with such lousy skills, I can't believe you actually made it to my Phase 2. Well, I shall send you off to your deserving deaths," mused Xiao Yu silently.
And this was how things should go. After all, considering how his Phase 1 form could kill ten or more members of the group already, this group really had no chance against his Phase 2 form.
With this, Xiao Yu decided to go all out on this group of adventurers.
Demonic Blaze Overlord Lagrios said, "Idiotic humans, tremble before my primordial warth!"
Reciting his chuunibyou lines, Xiao Yu released his Phase 2's skill.
"Flamestrike!" Flames centred out from where Xiao Yu stood, flowing out in a circular motion. Each wave of flames would take away several players' lives, and after three rounds, the whole adventurer team was wiped clean.
A contented smile was seen on Xiao Yu's face as he looked at the equipment, potions, and items that spawned.
"Well, it seems like this time around, I have gained quite a bit. Although I doubt there will be any high-class equipment amidst them, I guess I can still make a few tens of thousands of bucks if I sell off this stash. Just look at the sheer amount of items spawned…"
Musing to himself, Xiao Yu ordered the system to pick up everything for him. After a flash of white light, all of it was stored in Xiao Yu's system warehouse. He gave a nod of satisfaction when he saw how full it looked.
A message suddenly appeared in his chatroom.
Ancient Black Dragon Mephisto: "Hey, Blaze Demon, how are things going at your end? Were you beaten?"
"Oh, it's that old pal," Xiao Yu thought to himself. Both this Ancient Black Dragon Mephisto and him were Three Skeleton Level Bosses, and they had divided the Blaze Canyon between the two of them. Xiao Yu had created the Flaming Temple dungeon at the west side of the Blaze Canyon, while the Ancient Black Dragon Mephisto had created the Black Dragon Abyss dungeon at the east side. When both of them had nothing to do, they would chat with each other and discuss their experiences of killing adventurers.
Demonic Blaze Overlord Lagrios: "It's not that easy to beat me, bro. I killed all the adventurers who came, haha! I gained quite a bit from them. How's your side?"
Ancient Black Dragon Mephisto: "Oh, I am long done on my side. That group of players was really lousy, their whole team couldn't even get past my Dragonites and Warlocks team, and all of them were killed there. It's a pity that they did not spawn valuable equipment. I just pray I can get at least two or three thousand bucks from selling those spawned items."
Demonic Blaze Overlord Lagrios: "Be content with that. Just think: if you earn two to three thousand dollars per day, you'll accumulate tens of thousands of bucks in a month. Alright, it's getting late now, I need to go off for my lunch, bye."
Ancient Black Dragon Mephisto: "Okay, see you next time. I have ordered food, it will get delivered soon."
Demonic Blaze Overlord Lagrios: "Cool, see you around."
With that comment, Xiao Yu logged out of the game.
Getting out of his gaming cube, Xiao Yu started having his lunch. As he gobbled down his food, he couldn't help but feel that playing this game was the best decision he had ever made.
The game which Xiao Yu was playing was called "Firmament". Unlike the old-fashioned games where players were only allowed to play as adventurers, this game allowed players to take up all kinds of roles. Players could choose to become lowly creatures like Zombies, Skeletons, Wild Dogs, and Goblins; city-dwellers like Civilians, Merchants, Guards, and Soldiers; Overlords of major cities; or Bosses with their own leagues. One could choose to play as any character of their preference.
Saying that, players had to pay different prices for the various characters they chose to play as. However, the difference between the fees charged by this game and other games was this: other games would normally charge players by either the equipment they got, the time they were allowed to play that character, or a combination of both methods. However, this game is charged by the "Mode" that players chose to play in. According to the different Modes, the fees charged would vary accordingly.
Firmament allowed players to start with three different Modes of several characters, hence catering to different groups of players. The most affordable Modes would be the free-of-charge Basic Modes for Wild Beasts, Guards, Civilians, and Living Creatures. Players would not need to pay a single cent to play the characters of these Modes, but they would have a difficult time leveling up.
For example, if one chose the Wild Beast Basic Mode, they would become conventional monsters like Skeletons, Wild Beasts, Goblins, Bandits, or Robbers. Their foundation AP would be very low. Not only would they have to fight with Adventurer players, they would also get into conflicts with players of their kind. One could just imagine the casualty rates of such characters. However, due to the fact that one could play with these characters for free, many people would still choose to play with this Mode.
Other than that, there was also the Civilian Mode. Civilian players did not have any AP at all, but because they were exempted from battle, people who mainly just wanted to tour the game world would gladly choose this Mode.
The second tier of Modes would be the Adventurer Mode, whereby players had to pay a small monthly fee to play in. Like the traditional games, these players would be able to level up by taking up missions and killing monsters. They could also revive themselves whenever they were killed.
The third tier of Modes would be the most expensive VIP Modes. These Modes included the Boss Mode that allowed players to become Bosses that could rule over Wild Beasts in specific territories, the Hero Mode that allowed players to activate the Heroes Missions, and the Overlord Mode that allowed players to rule cities. These Modes were mainly targeted at rich players, and it would cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to play in such Modes.
The Mode which Xiao Yu was playing in now was the Boss Mode. However, he had not obtained this Demonic Blaze Overlord character with money—as a professional player who earned income from playing games, he would think it absurd to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for the Boss Mode.
In fact, he had leveled up to this Blaze Demon bit by bit from the lowest rank of a Fire Spirit in the free Wild Beast Mode, over the span of over three years. Xiao Yu had invested a large amount of effort and money throughout this process (Wild Beast players who died could only revive themselves by buying Scroll Points. The higher the level they were when they died, the more money they would have to spend to revive themselves), but he felt that all his effort was worthwhile.
Now Xiao Yu had finally reached the stage where he could make huge gains. As the main Boss that stood guard over the Blaze Canyon, he would kill off ten or so adventurer teams per month on average. Each team of players would bring in thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, and he had already made quite a fortune over the past three months since becoming the Blaze Demon.
"This game is definitely a money tree, hahahaha! How exhilarating—if I can make nearly $300,000 in three months, imagine what I can earn over the span of three to five years! By that time, I will have made millions of dollars. I can then buy houses, cars, marry rich and pretty girls—I will be at the prime of my life!"
As Xiao Yu immersed himself in these wild fantasies, he felt that the microwave instant lunch he was eating tasted even better than usual
"Di-di-di!"
A siren voice disrupted his dreams. This was a notification from the game—Xiao Yu bet that some adventurer team had come over to challenge him again. He made a lazy stretch as he thought, "Seems like I have to 'work OT' again today."