The Black Dragon and the Mystical Unicorn were both Level 150 Field Bosses and also the strongest among monsters of their own level tier. While killing them would be hard, it would still be easier then actually trying to fight Calina.
What got Zhang Yang mad was the Book of the Damned!
Book of the Damned was the spectre race’s totem, hidden well within the Evil Spirit Tower that resided in the sacred land of the spectres. Not only was it heavily guarded by a strong defense force, in the tower also sat the strongest among the 7 Witch Kings in the spectre realm ‘Witch King of the Undead’, a God Class Boss above Level 200, Madevitch. To acquire the Book of the Damned under his nose…
Still, he would consider all these to be fine. All he had to do was to acquire the Book of the Damned, and not defeat Madevitch, Witch King of the Undead.
Now though, as there was absolutely no way for him to proceed with this quest, he could only set it aside for now.
Zhang Yang first accepted the quest ‘Traces of the Gnomes’, the pre-requisite quest to enter the Bangar Crypt dungeon. The quest was simple, to eliminate 20 gnomes. After completing the mission, he met up with Sorr the Army Captain. This middle-aged man was shocked and could not believe that there had been gnomes around the White Jade Castle!
This NPC then gave out a subsequent quest, ‘Find Their Lair’. Zhang Yang followed the quest instructions and arrived at the entrance of the Bangar Crypt dungeon. Upon completion and submission of the quest, he then received Sorr’s final quest called ‘The Raid’ and obtained the permission to enter Bangar Crypt dungeon.
[The Raid] (Difficulty Level: A)
Quest Description: You have found the lair of the gnomes. Find their leader, Dadaerda. Initiate the raid and slay these horrid creatures!
Progress: Kill Dadaerda 0/1
This quest did not set any required specific difficulty level to kill Dadaerda, so even if the boss was killed in Hardcore Mode, the end reward of the quest would have been the same as those in Normal Mode.
Zhang Yang returned to the dungeon entrance once again and saw a 9-man party waiting outside the dungeon. As they saw Zhang Yang walk towards them with a shield on his back, one of the players had immediately private messaged him, “Bangar Crypt Normal Mode! We have a main tank! We’re in need of another off-tank, would you join us?”
Only Guardians and Defenders could wield a shield in the game, so the player could easily identify Zhang Yang’s class even with his profile hidden.
Difficult Mode and Hardcore Mode could only be attempted once a day but Normal Mode did not have any limit to its entry. Zhang Yang had to keep his dungeon entry until Fatty Han came online to go with him, so he could only do Normal Mode with this party now. He thought about it and replied, “Invite me!”
“Ding! Player Floral Shorts invites you to join his party. Will you accept his invitation?”
“Accept!” Zhang Yang tapped ‘Confirm’.
“Ding! You have joined the party. Party leader: Floral Shorts. Distribution mode: Roll the Dice.”
Distribution mode referred to the distribution method when items of white grade and above dropped. Roll the Dice mode was the most common party choice where the item would automatically go to the player who had rolled the highest number.
Besides Roll the Dice, there were also Leader’s Distribution (party leader would decide who would receive the loot) and Individual Loot (finders, keepers).
Zhang Yang noticed that of the 9 players, Floral Shorts and 3 others belonged to the guild Pride, while another 2 were in different guilds themselves while the remaining three were guild-less like Zhang Yang.
“F*ck, this off-tank has only 350 HP. He is useless! Floral, kick him out!” A Spellcaster by the name of Prideful Precepts scorned when he saw Zhang Yang’s HP value.
“Ding! You have been expelled from the party!” Zhang Yang received a notification as soon as he was expelled.
Zhang Yang could not help but become surprised. Members of this Pride Guild were so domineering, expelling someone without a second thought! Rage simmered in him but he shook his head at once. Why be petty and degrade himself to the same level as those imbecile players?
Just as he was about to leave, Zhang Yang’s sight was glued to a player who had not hid his name, “Hundred Shots, Male Dwarf, Beast Hunter, Level 10”.
It was him!
Zhang Yang vividly remembered that this Beast Hunter had been an impressive character in his previous life, and was ranked first in the top 10 Beast Hunter list! Just by looking at his skills, he may not be the best. However, his luck was extremely good that he had managed to get a Baby Red Dragon as his pet!
Dragons, as one of the most powerful monsters in ‘God’s Miracle’, even if it was downgraded to a player’s pet and lost its devastating killing skill, was still remarkably strong! With the help of his pet dragon, Hundred Shots had managed to squeeze into the top ten ranking and eventually took the first spot. Players dubbed him as ‘The Dragon Hunter’, and even players who had gotten phoenixes as pets were considered inferior to him!
As for how Hundred Shots got his hands on the pet dragon, he had always been secretive about it and had never revealed anything. Thereafter, Beast Hunters had kept attempting to figure out the method to obtain such a pet but had never managed to even come up with a clue. The Dragon Hunter, it had always been just him!
Yet now, this future hotshot was still a long way from his fame. By his side stood a pet pig that kept wiggling its butt. His current expression was without the confident flair after he had gotten famous, looking just like any other common player.
Never had Zhang Yang thought that he would meet this future hotshot on the second day of his game. He was stirred. If he could get Hundred Shots to join him, he would be taking a large step forward towards his dream of conquering the S-Class League.
Furthermore, Hundred Shots was still a common player now, this would be the best time to get close to him!
“Hey, we’re still lacking one member. Take it as a favor. We’ll bring you in as a good deed!” Floral Shorts suddenly sent him a private message. Along with it, an invitation to join his party.
Zhang Yang’s first reaction was to reject the invitation, but as he saw that Hundred Shots was also in the party, he changed his mind immediately and chose ‘Accept’.
Returning to the party, Zhang Yang took his time and looked through the party’s structure: A Defender (Main Tank), a Sacred Knight (Healer), 2 Hunters (DPS), 2 Thieves (DPS), 2 Mages (DPS), and 1 Priest (Healer).
The main tank Defender’s HP was very high, totaling a whopping 700 HP. However, with 3 gaming years’ worth of eyesight, Zhang Yang could easily tell with a glance that only the shield worn by this Pride guild player, Kindling Chest Hair, was of Black-Steel rarity. The rest of his equipment were only of White-Wood rarity!
Since White-Wood rarity equipment, other than its armor, would not add any Attribute bonus, this Defender’s HP would have had been completely increased by his given AP. This had also meant that the 50 AP gained on his way to Level 10 were all invested in Vitality. In addition to the Attribute increase when he leveled up plus the default 50 HP at Level 1, it would total up to 650 HP.
Lastly, with 5 points of Vitality bonus from the Black-Steel rarity shield, they would all add up to exactly 700 HP maxed.
This kind of Vitality investment was also known as the Bull’s Blood investment. Since the beginner equipment was weak, the AP gained during leveling up would be the main support of increasing a tank’s Attributes. However, starting from Green-Copper rarity and above, the bonus Attribute provided would be enough to match the AP; from Gray-Silver rarity and beyond, the bonus Attributes would exceed the character’s own AP, thus equipment would become more crucial as the game progressed.
Nevertheless, as a tank, one had to be able to defend attacks in addition to withstanding a monster’s aggro. Otherwise, the boss would have wiped out all the other players, so even with such high HP, how would one compare to the boss?
This tank’s weapon was a White grade one-handed hammer bought at Level 10, possibly having 7 – 13 Weapon Attack Range, but since he had added all of his AP with the Bull’s Blood method, his maximum would have only reached 15 Strength and melee damage of around 22 – 28 points.
A regular Level 10 monster would have 10 defense points, while an Elite would have 15, and a Boss would have 20. If he could only inflict 7 – 13 damage on an Elite, it would have meant that he could only ditch out 2 – 8 damage to a Boss. It would be close to impossible to pull any aggro at all!
In comparison, Zhang Yang’s sword alone would have already dealt 16 – 24 damage. Adding 60 points on Strength attribute meant that his melee damage could reach a terrifying 76 – 84 points!
“Hey useless Guardian, just watch and learn later. We’re doing you a favor here. Don’t mess up and cause us all to die!” blabbered Prideful Precepts.
“Pay no heed to them. These guys have a stinky mouth. It’s not worth to pick a fight with them!” Zhang Yang received a private message, looking at the sender: Hundred Shots.
Zhang Yang smiled, he was just thinking of approaching him and quickly sent a reply, “Mm, I’m just going to treat it as them farting!”
“Haha, you’re absolutely right! They’re just a bunch of stinky kiddos!” Hundred Shots instantly replied.
“Alright, now that we’re all gathered, let’s go into the dungeon. Time waits for no man!” Floral Shorts announced in the party channel. “Speed! Haste!”
All 10 players entered the dungeon one by one. A sudden change flashed and they had arrived at a scarcely lit underground cave. Just some distance away stood 6 green and oddly-shaped gnomes. They had no eyes on their face but their ears were exceptionally large.
[Gnome Soldier] (Elite)
Level: 10
HP: 5000
“Hairy, go!” said Floral Shorts in the party channel. “Guardian, be prepared. If someone OTs, be sure to handle it! Priest! Sacred Knight! You two focus on healing the tank!”
OT1 referred to the moment when someone had caused an aggro value that exceeded the monster’s current target, typically the tank, causing the monster to switch its attacking target.
Even though both Guardians and Defenders were considered as tank, these two classes had totally different attacking styles.
Defenders would have more AoE attacking skills, making them suitable for fields where there were many smaller monsters. His spell-immunity skill was better too, giving him an advantage when faced with a magic-type boss. On the other hand, Guardians had a stronger single-target aggro pulling ability, suitable for dealing with single physical-type bosses.
Carrying a shield on his left hand and a war hammer on his right, Kindling Chest Hair walked a few steps forward and furiously threw his shield out.
That was not showing off at all but actually activating the Defender’s skill called
Translator Notes
1 OT stands for off-tank or off-tanking. It is often used interchangeably as a noun or a verb. OT also has multiple meanings depending on the context of the sentence. For instance, as a noun: We need an OT to tank the boss. This sentence means that two tanks are needed, the first being the Main Tank (MT) and the second being the Off-tank or (OT). The other meaning for OT could be used when someone ‘pulls’ the aggro of a monster off the tank. In this case, you could say that the player has ‘OT-ed’ and it could also mean that the situation has turned dire, as DPSers and healers should usually not be receiving any attention from the boss at all in an optimized dungeon run.