Chapter 80 – Hard Mode
"Hmmm… this is unexpected." Liam smiled, his lips curling upwards.
"Why are you happy, bro?" Shin Soo looked at the debuffs and wanted to cry. Not only did the final boss of the dungeon have more health but also their debuffs were worse.
This was completely different from what everybody had mentioned in the forums.
"Pay attention. Stop thinking about other things." Liam raised his hand almost at the same time as the wraith moved its arms.
While a big fireball materialized in front of him, black wisps of energy leaked from the wraith and spread all over the lake and the neighboring ground.
The next second the ground started to quake and sputter as if something was trying to break through to the surface.
Crack. Crack. Crack. Bony hands started sticking out of the ground. Dozens of skeletons arose from within and started running towards the group of five.
[Lava Rain] Liam immediately activated his aoe skill.
"Form a circle and attack whatever is closest to the circle. Don't worry about the ones in the back." Everyone nodded and quickly adjusted their formation.
With their backs to the lake, they sort of stood in a semi-circle with the healer and the other mage in the center.
The tank, the thief, and Liam stood on the outside and bombarded their attacks on the incoming skeletons, clearing the army of undead one after the other.
"Bro only a few of the villagers buried around the lake were supposed to resurrect! Why is our run extra difficult?"
Shin Soo asked Liam for the nth time and just as he muttered those words out loud, he realized the answer to that question finally.
Their run was extra difficult! What did that mean?
They were running it on a different difficulty level compared to the rest of the players!
While others were yet to unlock any hidden bosses or the various modes for the dungeons in the 'Evolution online' game, they had undoubtedly stumbled into one.
Or at least that's what the tank thought.
Liam, on the other hand, was completely aware of what he was doing right from the beginning.
Every dungeon except for the beginner's dungeon had varying difficulty levels, but one cannot simply select a difficulty.
It is automatically determined by the skill level of the players training in the dungeon.
In fact, this was only the second stage. If they had cleared it even faster, then the difficulty level would have risen some more.
Everything in the game was basically designed to train human beings to unlock their hidden potential and prepare them for the life that laid ahead.
The group continued with the painful clearing of the resurrected villagers one after the other as they dashed towards them endlessly.
These provided experience points as well, so they were essentially farming for experience points right now.
This was both a test and a reward for the dungeon. It was difficult but if somehow one managed to clear it, they would get a lot of experience points.
After breaking apart a few of the undead, Liam took a second to cast his basic necromancy spell [Awaken].
Immediately the broken bones that had fallen down at their feet combined together and started to once again become undead warriors.
5 skeletons appeared next to Liam and started fighting against the incoming horde of undead. They did not last long but they took down 3 to 5 enemies along with them.
And it was also easier for Liam to cast fireballs and focus on the mana regulation when he was not paying attention to the close combat part.
As they were in the middle of a chaotic situation, the tank and the thief standing beside him and fighting did not notice this but the healer and the mage noticed.
Chung Hee, who had not opened his mouth so far had a frown on his face as he asked Liam. "Liam, are you really a mage? How are you able to control the undead?"
His words startled everyone as they all stared at Liam with a look of bafflement on their faces. Sword, magic spells, pets, and now undead…?!
Liam, however, simply smiled. "This is also a mage skill. There is nothing special about it." He didn't explain anything further and continued culling down the undead herd.
Chung Hee was unwilling to accept this answer and looked like he wanted to ask something, but Shin Soo interrupted him. "We can talk about these things later. Let's first clear the dungeon."
The mage nodded and continued throwing spells at the undead. He just couldn't understand how the other person with the same occupation as him was doing so much better than him.
It was one thing if it was just a matter of a few tens of damage plus or minus, but to have hundreds of differences in their damage output was simply shameful.
Not to mention the wide variety of spells the other party possessed. He couldn't help but feel very envious. Chung Hee sighed.
However, he didn't have a lot of time to feel down and depressed. The horde of undead was unrelenting so everyone had to give their best in order to not be completely overrun.
At the same time, experience points were also showering endlessly.
After a while, the wraith shouted loudly, once again muttering something in an archaic language and a red aura appeared on the undead villagers who were still standing.
These undead suddenly became much stronger and tougher and it was becoming more difficult to deal with them.
"They give more exp too!" Liam chuckled, reminding everyone about the bright silver line.
This continued on for a few more minutes when finally none of the undead villagers were remaining. Only a pile of broken bones and dust was heaped around the group.
RAAAAA! RAAAAA!
The boss started loudly shouting as if it was enraged to see all of its summons being slaughtered.
"Is that going to summon more undeads?" Shin Soo wiped the sweat off his forehead and nervously muttered.
Chapter 81 – Again!
"No." Liam shook his head. "Watch its health. It lost a lot of its health while summoning these dead villagers. We should start targeting the boss now."
As he finished explaining, he started bombarding the boss with more attacks, and everyone else quickly joined in as well.
Fighting this boss was initially supposed to be extremely complicated as it swarmed the players with undead mobs while also attacking simultaneously.
But now, because of the strategy and positioning they used, this became overly simplified and all they had to do was grind down the remaining health.
When the big 5 million health bar was reduced to the last hundreds, the wraith general started casting something once again but Liam interrupted it by throwing a fireball right at its mouth.
Spells could also be interrupted like this? Everyone was dumbfounded. This… This brought a new meaning to the words 'eat my attack'.
The wraith was completely enraged and it screamed making everyone including Liam shudder as its shrill voice assaulted their eardrums.
As a last ditch attempt, it hurriedly muttered something in archaic language and a red glow started appearing on Liam's body.
Since he was dealing the maximum damage, the last attack of the boss was to possess him.
Everyone noticed this and started panicking. They were so close to finishing this damned dungeon and that they had insanely worked hard for, how could this happen now!
"Minah!!!" Shin Soo shouted and the healer started casting a variety of spells to recover him or cleanse him, but the red glow continued to darken.
"Bro, try running around or jumping?" Kim Hyun randomly suggested.
However, Liam was still standing. This time they wanted him to be as calm as always but he had a slight frown on his face and was gritting his teeth.
This made everyone even more uneasy.
Shin Soo could tell that the situation was not looking good. "Just start attacking the boss with everything you have! It doesn't have much health left! Move! Move! Move!" He shouted urgently.
Everyone started pummeling the boss and it was easier because the wraith had its attention on Liam. Their attacks were heavily debuffed but it was enough to bring down the last parts of the boss.
And before long…
[Ding. Congratulations. You have successfully defeated the Demonic Wraith General]
[Ding. 10000 Experience points have been rewarded]
[Ding. You are the first to clear 'Moon Lake' dungeon on hard difficulty. Your grand achievement will be etched in history]
Shin Soo, Minah, Kim Hyun and Chung Hee were utterly stunned. Though they doubted that the difficulty was weird for some reason, they never dared to imagine something like this!
Their no-name team had actually obtained a first clear!
They had all gone up by a whole level and the boss had dropped several glittering things on the lake shores! This was absolutely ridiculous
They had known all along that Liam was a bit skilled, but this… was completely above and beyond.
Even Chung Hee who was feeling jealous earlier, now only had a look of reverence on his face. In fact, everyone looked at each other with similar expressions on their faces.
This golden thigh! They absolutely had to cling to it! NO MATTER WHAT!
And just when they thought that the surprises were over… another notification chimed in…
[DING. World Announcement: Congratulations to the 'Just Chilling' party for the first clear of the 'Moon Lake' dungeon on hard difficulty. Party Members: Shin Soo, Kim Hyun, Kang Minah, Chung Hee, Chang Liam]
"FUCCCCKKKK!" Shin Soo dropped his shield on the ground. They got a world announcement!!! No one could believe what they were seeing!
Everyone cheered and celebrated as now their names would forever be on the walls of fame.
And while they were celebrating, the person actually responsible for it had a frown on his face. Liam shook his head helplessly.
He had wanted the wraith's [Possess skill] to last for just a bit longer as he was trying out something, but these guys were too eager and ended up killing it!
"Alright. It doesn't matter I guess. I should be able to get it the next time." He clicked his tongue and paid attention to the fox that was jumping up and down.
This time both the bird and the fox had leveled up. It had indeed been a good decision to grind in this dungeon! Now just a few more rounds!
As all the members of the team turned to look at Liam with big adoring eyes, he also had a smile when he looked back at them.
"Bro we…"
"Shall we start another run?" Liam chuckled. He had spoken exactly what was on everyone's mind. Shaking their heads vigorously, all of them quickly agreed and Liam was pleasantly surprised.
He shrugged and started walking back to the portal when Shin Soo remembered the other important thing and quickly stopped him.
"Bro… The drops!"
"Oh. I forgot! You guys go ahead and see what we got." Liam stopped and turned around.
"Ummm…" Shin Soo became nervous as he felt the spotlight on him. What if he picked up the loot and everything was worthless? "Ah.. Minah… you are the luckiest among us, so you pick it up…"
Fuck? Since when? The healer wanted to curse loudly, but since Liam was watching she squeezed out a smile and stepped forward to do the deed.
Otherwise, if they continued arguing back and forth, she was worried that Liam might desert them for bickering and pick another group to run with. After all, they were just playing together randomly.
"2 Gold." The girl picked up the coins first and announced it as she did. Everyone gulped and waited for the next one, only to hear the girl shriek.
"AAAAAHHH!"
"Oh my god! Three rings! Two uncommon and one rare!"
"Ahhhh! There is a skill book too!"
"What are the stats? Quick! Quick!" Hyun gasped, but Minah shook her head, quickly walking over to Liam. She handed everything over to him without any hesitation.
"Bro. This is all yours." She muttered with a shy smile.
Chapter 82 – Unassigned Stat Points
Liam chuckled and did not say anything to the girl. He calmly took the two rings and studied their attributes.
[Specter Halo] (Uncommon Rank)
Intellect +3, Agility +3
[Undead Halo] (Uncommon Rank)
Strength +3, Agility +3
[Wraith Halo] (Rare Rank)
Intellect +8, Agility +5
Additional Skill: Mana Regeneration is increased by 2%
"Great! It's not just Uncommon Rank." After reading the items' description, Liam was quite pleased.
Rings were already good drops as there was no limit to how many rings one could wear. Most players roamed around with all their fingers covered by three to four rings each.
On top of that, these stats looked quite good, and especially the Rare Rank ring's attributes were good enough that it could be easily used until one reached Level 50.
The equipments in the 'Evolution Online' game were categorized into several ranks starting from White, Common, Uncommon, Rare, Unique, Epic, and Legendary.
Unique, Epic, and Legendary rank equipments could only be obtained from mobs in high level areas so getting Rare rank equipments was quite good at this stage.
However, Liam did not go back on his words just because of this. He had already told them that the equipment drops and money would be theirs so he looked at the healer and muttered.
"Show me your hand."
Minah nodded and opened her palm, only to see him give all three rings back to her. "You guys should feel free to distribute this among yourselves as you all see fit."
"I will be taking the skill book." It was a skill named [Flame burst] which was basically a stronger version of [Fire Ball] and consumed more mana.
Liam also couldn't help but wonder if this had dropped because he did the major damage and he relied mostly on fire magic.
It was something that was worth testing and another reason for running this dungeon again. "I will give you guys 5 minutes, then we will start another run."
Since the outside of the dungeon was extremely crowded, Liam sat down on the first street ahead of which the dungeon entrance portal was located.
Now when they were ready, they could simply walk out and then walk in. He also used this opportunity to check his current status and attributes.
______________
Name: Liam
Species: Human being
Gender: Male
Level: 17
Exp: 200/18300
Class: N/A
Titles: Rolling in Debt, Perfectionist, Soul Devourer
______________
Health: 7500/7500
Mana: 5000/5000
Stamina: 60
Strength: 60
Defense: 60
Vitality: 60
Agility: 60
Intellect: 60
Unassigned points: 84
Skills: [Throat Punch], [Slash], [Sword Dance], [Demonic Summon], [Awaken], [Stealth], [Pickpocket], [Unlock], [Tame], [Ice Shard], [Lightning Bolt], [Fire Ball], [Lava Rain], [Spirit Slash] (Skill Locked), [Spirit Wrath] (Skill Locked)
Trade Skills: [Alchemy] (Intermediate Level), [Forging] (Master Level)
______________
Liam gazed at the status window with a pensive look on his face. He still had a lot of free unassigned points that he had not bothered to assign to anything just yet.
In the 'Evolution Online' game, all stat points were equally distributed until Level 10, but after that, the player is given the opportunity to choose and distribute the points according to their wish.
Each level upgrade gave 2 stat point boost to each attribute and thus Liam had managed to collect 84 points in total.
"Boosting agility and strength will help my swordplay. Boosting intellect will help my mana control. Hmmm…"
In reality, each and every single attribute can be independently developed and improved by doing specific things.
So no matter what he chose, he could always correct the decision by working on the other attributes. But Liam had no plans of doing this as all of this was temporary.
The strength that he was gaining right now was only so that he could access the higher level areas. It wouldn't translate to the real world.
Only one's soul strength, spirit strength, and what they comprehended in this tutorial could be carried over.
Everything that one gained an understanding of inside the game would remain with them. No one can take that knowledge away.
"Alright. No need to think so much. I will just add some points to all the attributes, giving intellect a bit more."
Liam quickly distributed 13 stat points to all the other attributes and 19 stat points to Intellect.
He decided to do this as he was planning to mainly rely on his mage skills and necromancy skills for the rest of the game to understand them better.
Unless he came across a Sword Heritage, this was his best bet.
There had been a few others who had managed to stumble across these sorts of heritages and wills, which was essentially an explanation of all the concepts.
Since everyone's main goal was to learn to use mana and such intuitively, these sort of heritages and wills were the real treasures as they were shortcuts that gave the players instant spoilers.
But the main problem was that no one revealed anything about these things. There was not one piece of information available about them.
That didn't mean that Liam had completely given up on these. He after all knew all the players who received these heritages and wills thanks to the walls of fame feature of the game.
Some of them even belonged to famous guilds. So he could roughly estimate which region they could have possibly gotten the heritage.
Liam chuckled wryly. If he knew he was going to get a second chance, he would have tried remembering more details.
For now, the only one he had a solid lead on and doubted the most was the necromancy heritage. This had to be inside the Nether realm!
That was the only logical possibility and the player who had received this heritage also got it when the nether realm event started.
So putting two and two together, this was the one he had the highest chance of obtaining, and hence, Liam decided to invest more in the Intellect attribute.
As he was deeply engrossed in his thoughts, the small fox that was jumping around him, trying to jump up and catch the bird, noticed the skill book lying near him.
It got bored of playing with the bird and started playing with the book curiously.
One thing led to another and the next second, a light glow enveloped the fox as it ended up learning the skill book.
Kyuu?