Next day;
After Alex logged into the game, he started his mission to hunt for the bloodline crystal.
Alex took only one hour to complete the first floor of the ice cave dungeon on the same level gorillas were easy prey for Alex to hunt.
Clearing the first floor, Alex entered the second floor, which was filled with higher-level ice gorillas.
The dungeon's second floor was more oversized than the first floor, filled with common silverback gorillas and elite ice silverback.
'Elite ice gorillas are way stronger than their standard version; it will be hard for me to fight more than one at a time.'
'I can start hunting common gorillas and use them to level up and then slaughter the remaining elites gorillas; with this strategy, I can get the red crystal without wasting time.'
Red crystals are essential to solving the puzzle of opening the hidden boss room.
A player needs three red crystals to open the hidden boss room, but the trick is you can't get three on the second floor in one dungeon run. Using the three different dungeon-run red crystals on the altar on the boss floor will do nothing, so the player presumes that the altar is only for show.
The player that solves the puzzle finds that if you kill all the gorillas on the second floor and then go back to the first floor and wait one hour. gorillas on the second floor will respawn; you can kill them again and get one more red crystal.
After repeating the process and acquiring three red crystals player need to kill the boss and then place the three red crystal on the altar.
After these steps, the player can enter the hidden boss room and get the real reward this dungeon can offer.
Alex started searching for gorillas to hunt. After some time, he found an Elite gorilla standing 8ft tall, with dense muscle creating a mountain-like body covered with thick white fur.
Elite gorillas have ice covering their back that looks like spikes and hands covered in ice like they are gauntlets.
{Silverback gorilla}[ELITE]
{level: 18}
{HP: 3200}
{SKILL}: [iron body]-Increased defense by 50% for the duration of 1 minute
This time Alex didn't sneak attack the gorilla, but to test his strength and do some warm-up, he planned to attack the gorilla head-on.
Gorilla sees a puny creature coming at him, gets angry, and beats his chest like a drum announcing his presence, charging straight at Alex on all four tree trunks-like legs.
Alex took out his sword and took his relaxed stand when the hulking gorilla's body approached; swinging his fist at him, Alex bent his knee, going into a squatting position while leaning forward a little, avoiding the attack.
Alex passed through the gorilla's legs attacking the back of the gorilla's knee and cutting it deep, blood flowing from the beast's wound.
Gorilla, feeling pain from its leg, swings its arm backward with full strength aiming to send the attacker flying.
Alex was already predicting the move; he stepped back a little to avoid it and swung his sword full force using (SLASH), cutting diagonally from the gorilla's shoulder to the waist.
The gorilla was bleeding from his chest like a fountain; after feeling danger to his life. Gorilla immediately activated his Skill (Iron body), which resulted in tensing all the muscles in its body and stopping his bleeding.
"It's only going to increase the suffering time before you die," Alex said
It took four more minutes before the elite gorilla fell, its body filled with sword marks.
After taking care of his first prey, Alex started cleaning the whole floor of ice gorillas, and it took six hours before he completely wiped all the gorillas and acquired the first red crystal.
Alex left the second floor, went back to the first floor, and waited one hour before the gorilla respawned; after that, he hunted them again, this time only taking four hours to wipe the floor entirely and acquire the second red crystal.
Alex did the same thing a third time, acquiring the last red crystal.
After acquiring everything he needed, Alex went to the boss's floor to kill him and face the hidden boss.
Alex went to the third floor. The whole floor had only the same area as the first floor, and one creature was waiting in the middle of the floor.
The gorilla general looked nothing like the common or elite gorilla; it stood 10ft tall, its whole body covered in ice armor. The Gorilla general looked less like a gorilla and more like a battle-ready tank while holding a giant axe.
"This fight will get me to level 20, and then I can go for the hidden boss," Alex thought.
{ICE Gorilla General}[Rare Elite]
{level: 20}
{HP: 7800}
{SKILL} [iron body]: Increase defense by 50% for the duration of 2 minute
[Axe Smash]: Smash its axe with a 30% increased strength
[Berserk]: In the berserk state, all stats increased by 40%, and defense decreased by 40% for 2 minutes (Side effect: target will go weakened for the next 10 minutes)
It took Alex thirty minutes to kill the boss with no major injuries, and after killing it, Alex took some rest to get in the best mental health before he fought the hidden boss.
After recovering his state of mind, Alex searched the altar and found it easily. The altar looks like a big stone wall with three holes in it. It looks quite distinctive in one of the corners of the third floor.
Alex placed the red crystals on the altar, and for some time, nothing happened, but suddenly the red stone started shining, and then all their color faded, and the once vibrant red crystal crumbled into dust.
After the energy of the crystals gets absorbed into the wall, it starts shaking, the land in front of the altar crumbles, and the floor is replaced by stairs that lead underground.
Alex opened his stat window to use the stats points he got after he leveled up to 20, after using them and feeling confident about his chances to take on solo a hidden boss.
Player Name: Hidden One
Class: Swordsman
Title: {Monkey Killer}
Legacy: None
LVL: 20
Rank: Mortal Warrior
STATS
AGI: 80. VIT: 62.
INT: 26. STA: 68.
STR: 132
HP: 620/620
Unassigned stat points : 0
Hidden stats
Luck: ???
Charm: ???
Reputation: ???
condition: Healthy
Equipment : [frost glove](Silver) ; [frost boots(bronze)]
[Frost chest plate](Silver) ; [Frost Pants](bronze)
Weapons: [hardened steel sword](Silver)
Skills : (LVL 2 Slash) ATK 160% ; (LVL 2 Dash) AGI 180%
'The improvements that I made are pretty good with these stats. I can take care of the hidden boos, 'Alex thought.
"Now, let's get it over with."
Alex walked through the stairs toward the unknown; after walking for some distance, Alex emerged in a jungle with towering trees covered in snow, walking through them toward the middle.
Trees became fewer and fewer as he walked more toward the center, and after Alex reached the center, there was a giant monster sitting there with eyes closed and releasing tremendous pressure.
Alex seeing the giant monster, became horrified because something like this is not supposed to be in a low-level dungeon.
......................
{Frost Gigantopithecus} [Mutated Variant]
{Level: 20}
{HP: 35000}
{Skills}:
[Steel body]: Increase defense by 100% for 3 minutes
[Barbaric Sword dance]: when in use, strength and speed increase by 25% in exchange for 25% health
[frost tide]: Freeze the 10 meters area in a circle
[Frost crash]: After use, the user will jump 15 meters in height and crash to the ground while covered in ice, doing ice and stun dame.
[Berserk]: increase strength by 100% for 1 minute and lose 50% defense. (Side effect user will lose sanity in berserk mode and, after use, will be in a weakened state for 1 hour)
.....................
'WHAT THE FUCK'
'Why doesn't the game just tell me not killable.'
This monstrosity was equal in strength to a level 35 ascended first-ranked monster above that. This FU*KER has all these broken Skills.
Why was Alex so pissed? for that, one needs to know how the monster power system work.
The monster were all categorized into different Ranks.
1:Common
2:Elite
3:Rare Elite
4:Epic
5:legendary
6:Mythical creature
....
And then there are anomalies among the monster, those that are stronger than their base version
1:Variants
2:Pure blood
3:Named monster
4:Mutated
An ordinary monster having one such trait will make them tremendously stronger than its counterpart. But they are within their species' boundaries.
The monster with two such traits surpassed its bloodline limits and evolved and became a truly unique species.
These monsters have the greatest potential; they can evolve and become stronger than any variant beast. To develop, all they need is continued hunting, and eventually, they will reach the apex.
Now Alex needs to choose whether he can fight the beast and see if he can kill the beast at his current level, or he can leave right now and return to kill the beast when he is at a significant level.