Invitation

After half an hour, Zhang Yang received his [Iron Plate] stacks and stored it in his inventory after paying Mining Specialist. Just as he was about to craft a [Beginner Whetstone] at the Blacksmith…

‘Beep!’

He received a private message. “Brother Zhan Yu, we’re in the middle of a boss battle. Could you lend us a hand? It’s a Level 25 Gray-Silver boss and we can’t take him down no matter how many times we try!”

It was a message from Defiant Monk. Ever since their First Clear Hardcore Dungeon achievement, they have not traveled together. However, they have kept in touch with each other by sending greetings whenever someone logged in or off on a daily basis, thus maintaining a close relationship. Even though Zhang Yang wanted to recruit Hundred Shots as soon as he could, he feared that doing so would affect his future in becoming a Dragon Hunter. If he really did miss out on the Red Baby Dragon, it would be a total disaster!

Zhang Yang questioned back, “That Level 25 Gray-Silver boss… what’s his name?”

“Martyr Unduin!”

“Crap!” Zhang Yang blurted out. This boss is on a whole new level! Martyr Unduin is the World Boss at around Level 30, and if you wanted to try and fight him, you would better bring a whole lot of Level 20 players with you!

“How many players do you have there now?”

“We’ve got more than 30 players here!” Defiant Monk replied with pride.

Letting loose a sigh, Zhang Yang said, “Here’s my advice: Give it up and go home.”

But Defiant Monk was relentless, and continued trying to persuade Zhang Yang. “Zhan Yu! This is a Level 25 Gray-Silver boss! If we take him down, we’ll definitely have an achievement to it with a server announcement!”

It’s an attractive reward, alright. But you would still need to have the capability to challenge him! As he was about to decline the offer, he remembered something from the past. In his previous life, there was a player that posted in a forum claiming to have defeated Martyr Unduin alone. As soon as he published it, other players just mocked him for it as he was only Level 28. They just kept mocking him until he posted a video of him single-handedly killing the boss and the forum could only accept and quieten down.

Martyr Undiun was a Spellcaster class monster, and his only skill was the <Fireball>! As soon as the battle began, he would begin to cast it, and being a World Boss, his <Fireball> was not only a single one but ten separate balls! Each ball dealt at least 1,000 damage and can be casted every 3 seconds. Truly, he was a monster capable of wiping out entire parties. However, he needed to channel <Fireball> every time before using it, and the Hunter made good use of the topographic layout of the area to his advantage. As soon as Unduin began channelling, the Hunter hid behind a huge rock out of the boss’ line of sight. In ‘God’s Miracle’, if a target left the line of sight, any attack would have been rendered ineffective, causing the boss to cancel the spell channelling.

When that happened, the Hunter would reemerge and resume attacking. With him in sight, the boss would once again begin to channel his spell but before he could complete the three-second cast time, the Hunter would slide behind the rock once more. This strategy was truly straightforward and the execution was fairly simple; the only difficult part was that the boss’ HP was ridiculously high. Since attacking continuously was impossible, the Hunter spent an entire day just to slay the boss!

Once his strategy got out to public, people started to realize that it was not so difficult to fight this boss. The developers reacted quickly to this by removing that huge rock. When Zhang Yang entered the game, that rock was already gone. He only stumbled on this tactic while leisurely browsing through the forums. If that rock was what he imagined, then even a melee character could properly utilize the advantage!

After thoroughly thinking through, Zhang Yang replied to Defiant Monk, “Ok then, send me the location. I’m heading over now!”

“87145, 24103. We’ll be waiting for you! Someone else will add you into the party! Don’t reject it!” And as soon as he said that, a party invitation came through.

‘Ding! Player Drizzler has sent you a party invitation. Will you accept it?’

Zhang Yang selected ‘Accept’ and was added in.

‘Ding! You have joined the party. Party Leader: Drizzler. Item Distribution: Party Leader Distribution’

With him in the party, there were a total of 34 players. The game only allowed a maximum of 50 in one party. Zhang Yang scanned through the player names and recognized one player; Little Snow.

“Scrawny rascal!” Little Snow sent what looked like a tooth bearing and paws clawingemoticon, which was one of the available ones in-game. Zhang Yang merely ignored her and continued on. Defiant Monk began introducing Zhang Yang to the team with words of praise. “Guys, this is Zhan Yu; the Guardian that gave us that clear in the Hardcore Mode run. He’s super pro!” Zhang Yang initially planned on laying low but with an introduction like that, he could only respond, “Hi, everyone!”

“Nice to meet you, Zhan Yu!”

“Whoa, Level 18! That’s awesome!”

“Why isn’t his name in the Level Ranking Board?”

“Must be a bug in the system!”

Everyone began chatting, and the channel got rowdy.

Zhang Yang opened the map to track the location given by Defiant Monk and according to it, he would be heading into the deep parts of the Plains Cloud Mountain! If memory served him well, all the monsters in that area were above Level 20!

Puzzled, he asked Defiant Monk, “How did you even find this boss in such a desolated area?”

To which, he hastily replied, “We’ve an idiot here who has a terrible sense of direction. She got lost and wandered into the Plains Cloud Mountain and found him!” It had to be Little Snow! Zhang Yang clearly recalled that woman’s sense of direction almost immediately.

Drizzler, the party leader sent a message in the party channel, “Everyone, recover your HP, we’re fighting him once again!”

“That’s our guild master!” Defiant Monk introduced. Soon, the battle began once more, and Drizzler began giving orders.

“Big Lin, start the fight! Healers, watch yourselves! Attackers, move forward behind me!”

Zhang Yang didn’t have to think any further, as he already predicted the entire party would be wiped out. Half a minute later, all the names on the list aside from Zhang Yang had gone dark, which signified that they had died, and complaints began to fill the chat.

“Master, this monster is too strong! We’re not capable of fighting it!”

“Yeah! With all the <Fireball> flying around, anywhere around us is a kill zone! Even the healers can’t heal us in time!”

“This Level 25 boss is completely out of our league!”

But Drizzler felt discontented, “And should we just give up?”

The others began to realize that they were underpowered. “We have no choice. We need to get above Level 20, find equipment from the next dungeon, and raise our HP to at least 1,500 to even have some hope!”

Defiant Monk had banked his confidence on someone else instead. “Hold on for a little longer! Zhan Yu hasn’t arrived yet, and with him here there should be a way!”

“Tch! The problem isn’t the tanker, it’s the boss’ multi-target skill! We don’t need a tanker against a skill like that!”

“Master, let’s wait for Zhan Yu and try again!”

Zhang Yang’s performance in the Bangar Crypt really made an impression on Defiant Monk to the point where he blindly trusts Zhang Yang to handle any problem in front of him no matter the difficulty. As Drizzler had not decided on anything yet, she went along with Defiant Monk’s suggestion, “Okay then, we’ll wait for him to arrive and then we’ll give it one more try!”

Suddenly, someone in the party exclaimed, “Aw, nuts! My wife is about to have a baby! I’d better send her to the hospital now. Sorry guys, I’ll be leaving!”

And after that, more people voiced out as well.

“Whoops, it’s almost time to go to work. I’d better prepare dinner for my wife first! Bye guys, I’m logging off too. Take it slow!”

“F*ck, my next door neighbours are barking at each other like dogs. I’d better go over there and give them a piece of my mind or they’re not stopping at al!”

“Sorry, I’m going to be busy in a while. Got to give my boy some milk!”

“…”

In only a matter of seconds, more than 10 players gave ridiculous excuses to leave the party and logged off. Out of the 34 players before this, there were only 15 left.

“Well, that’s it then. Dismissed!” Drizzler unwillingly announced to disband the party as many of them gave excuses just to leave. With that, the only ones left in the party were Drizzler, Little Snow and Zhang Yang. Even Defiant Monk left the party and he sent a message to Zhang Yang not long after saying, “Zhan Yu, sorry man! Your entire journey is wasted!”

“Not a problem!” Zhang Yang replied, as he continued on towards the Plains Cloud Mountain. Little Snow saw his name was still in the party list, and inquired, “Eh? Scrawny rascal! Why are you still in the party?”

“I want to give it a shot!”

“A shot at what? Trying to court me?”

“Han Yin Xue! Could you please stop toying with others?!” Drizzler couldn’t ignore any more of Little Snow’s behaviour and interjected with a sense of justice in her.

“Hehe… are you jealous, perhaps? Since you’re still underage, you can’t really be in a relationship.” Feeling enraged from that comment, Drizzler threatened her, “Han Yin Xue! I swear I will go up those stairs and punch you in your boobs! I’m going to bust those humungous bubbles!”

“Haha! Miss Sunny Side Up! You really are jealous of me!” Little Snow could not contain her laughter anymore.

Zhang Yang could only remain silent. These two women are wild!

During the battle of words between the two, Zhang Yang reached the Plains Cloud Mountain and ran straight towards the boss’ location. Being Level 18, he caused the monsters that were Level 20 and above to turn aggressive, so he had to slay his way through.

Drizzler kept on threatening Little Snow while she was still playing around.

“… Han Yin Xue! I’m cutting ties with you! If you ever get lost again, don’t even think about calling to me for help!”

“Let’s see… You’ve been cutting ties with me since you were younger. Hmm… this would be the 1,892nd time you did that. Or was it the 1,893rd?”

After passing through a bush, Zhang Yang reached the location, and he spotted two female characters at a distance. One was just casually looking at her fingernails with her arms stretched out, while the other had both arms on her hips looking quite fierce. That should be Little Snow and Drizzler. As soon as they saw him approaching, they stopped quarrelling and Little Snow asked him, “Are you really sure about trying this out?”

Drizzler was a female Human Warrior, Level 13. From the looks of it, she was about the age of either 17 or 18 years old. Her body was still underdeveloped; she was completely flat-chested and didn’t really have much of a behind as well. However, she did have beautiful complexion and given time, her body would mature into someone truly seductive… if her face changed as well.

“Hmm… I’m sure about giving it a go!” Zhang Yang casually responded while closely observing the huge round object. It was about 5 meters in width and 3 meters in height, and it looked more like a chopped tree trunk.

There is a chance! Zhang Yang could not help but let out an excited smile.