The Entrapping Instance

Translated by XephiZ

Edited by SnowPeaches

"Share the quest? Let me try," Little Warrior was startled. She had completed a lot of quests alone. She never tried sharing a quest with someone else.

Chen Mo invited Little Warrior to his party. Little Warrior opened the quest's interface and discovered the option to share the quest.

System Notification: Will you accept the quest "Impossible Quest (Assist)" from Little Warrior?

Accept.

System Notification: You have accepted the quest "Impossible Quest (Assist)"!

Quest: Impossible Quest (Assist)

Quest Difficulty: Rank S

Description: Help Little Warrior to pass the Trial of Innate Talents at the Hell difficulty. The quest will automatically disappear when Little Warrior leaves the party.

Reward: Unknown

Holy crap! An S-rank assist-type quest!

Chen Mo took a deep breath.

In Genesis, there were two kinds of quests where Players could share with their party members so they could complete them together. The first kind was the Collaborative Quests that party members could work on together, while the other kind was like the Assist Quest that Chen Mo had just received.

For Collaborative Quests, as long as the Players met the requirements of the quest, everyone would receive the same reward. It did not matter who completed it.

As for Assist Quests, they would only be completed if the person sharing the quest had completed their quest. On top of it, the rewards for the assisting Players were usually not as impressive as the rewards given to the person that was sharing the quest.

After hanging around the forum for three days, Chen Mo rarely saw any Assist Quests. The Assist Quests he had seen so far had low difficulties. Most of them were C-rank quests that did not give any reward. There were only a few B-rank quests, and not a single A-rank quest, let alone the S-rank quest.

Even though the rewards for the assisting Players were not as handsome as the rewards for the person that initiated the quest, Chen Mo did not really mind at all. He had gotten an S-rank quest just by stumbling into Little Warrior. Even if the rewards were less handsome, he believed the rewards of an S-rank quest would be somewhat impressive still!

"Brother, your equipment isn't great either. Should we ask other people to join our party?" Little Warrior inspected Chen Mo's equipment. She had a feeling that Chen Mo's equipment was nowhere enough to pass the Trial of Innate Talents on the Hell difficulty. She had already attempted the Hell difficulty more than ten times.

"Don't worry, I haven't put on my actual equipment yet. You'll see how good they are later!"

Most people in the room were experienced Players. Even if he hid the glow of his equipment, they could still tell how unusual his equipment was. Therefore, Chen Mo had changed into a set of blue and green equipment instead.

"Really?" Little Warrior's eyes glittered.

"Of course," Chen Mo nodded. He did not talk any further.

His equipment could be considered the strongest set of equipment in Rookies Village. He also had a Boss-level lackey too. If he still failed to pass the Trial of Innate Talents on the Hell difficulty, it was unlikely that anyone else could pass it.

"Oh, that's great," Little Warrior was overjoyed. It seemed like she believed in Chen Mo's words.

Chen Mo could not help but worry if the little girl was going to be kidnapped by some strange men if she was to go out alone.

There were sixty-one people in the room. Chen Mo and Little Warrior sat in a corner. One of them was not wearing any equipment, while the other was only wearing average equipment compared to the others in the room. Since Chen Mo was a stranger to most of the Players in the room, no one bothered to invite Chen Mo to their parties.

"Finally, we now have sixty-four Players!"

After slightly more than an hour, three other Players gradually showed up in the room, summing up to a total of sixty-four Players.

"The Hell-difficulty Trial of Innate Talents is about to start. Fellow adventures, please form parties of at least two members in the next five minutes. You won't be able to change parties after the trial begins!"

A deep voice echoed in the room.

"At least two members in a party!"

"It's most likely a competitive instance!"

The Players in the room immediately concluded.

The system was asking the Players to form parties, but everyone in the room had already done so before the voice appeared. They all waited patiently for the trial to start.

"Time's up! There are sixty-four Players and fifteen teams in total! You are about to enter the Hell-difficulty Trial of Innate Talents "Hunters of the Jungle". You will be invulnerable for three minutes after entering the instance to familiarize yourself with the rules and the conditions to pass the trial!"

The deep voice appeared once again. Following it, everyone in the room was encapsulated by a white glow before they disappeared from the room.

The scenery shifted; Chen Mo and Little Warrior found themselves in a quiet gray forest. The ground was covered with wilted branches and leaves.

System Notification: The Hell-difficulty Trial of Innate Talents has begun. The current instance is "Hunters of the Jungle"!

Instance: Hunters of the Jungle

Rules:

1) Players are allowed to attack one another in the instance.

2) The instance has a total of 300 pieces of Jungle Crystals. Every elite monster has a 100% chance of dropping a piece of Jungle Crystal.

3) The Jungle Crystals are untradeable. Players will drop all their Jungle Crystals upon death. Players could revive their fallen teammates by consuming 10 Jungle Crystals.

4) There are NPCs in the instance whom Players could trade their Jungle Crystals with for certain consumables.

Winning conditions:

1) Kill the Guardian of the instance.

The Guardian of the instance will only appear when there are less than ten Players alive in the instance. Players can also summon the Guardian of the instance by consuming 100 pieces of Jungle Crystals.

2) Player must have at least 10 pieces of Jungle Crystals when the Guardian of the instance dies.

"As expected of the Trial of Innate Talents on the Hell difficulty, these rules and winning conditions are insane!"

Chen Mo immediately realized how difficult the trial was after looking at the information provided.

There were not many rules; the four rules that were given were quite standard for competitive instances, but Chen Mo was able to learn many things from both the rules and the winning conditions!

The primary winning condition was killing the Guardian of the instance, but the Guardian would only show up when they were only ten Players left in the instance or by consuming 100 pieces of Jungle Crystals.

It went without saying that the Guardian of the instance would be extremely tough to fight against since they were challenging the Trial of Innate Talents on the Hell difficulty. Therefore, it was more favorable to have more Players around when fighting the Guardian.

Ideally, twenty Players would form a party and eliminate the rest of forty-four Players in the instance. They would secure all three hundred Jungle Crystals, and each member in the party would have ten pieces. They would then use the remaining a hundred pieces to summon the Guardian of the instance. All twenty Players would pass the trial once they defeated the Guardian.

However, Chen Mo believed the party of twenty would be wiped out in the end still.

Since it was the Hell-difficulty of the Trial of Innate Talents, every rule in the instance would play an important role, which means the NPCs that rule number four mentioned would have certain items that were crucial for defeating the Guardian. Otherwise, they would have no chance of defeating the Guardian!

The Players had no idea how many Jungle Crystals they would need to trade for the items. Either way, it was most likely going to be a significant amount.

Reducing the number of members in a party so they would have enough Jungle Crystals to exchange for the items seemed like the most viable way of passing the trial.

That being said, the Hell-difficulty Trial of Innate Talents was most likely going to be more complicated than that. Chen Mo was confident that it would be better to collect as many items from the NPCs as possible. Therefore, the parties with more than ten Players would have to decide if they were going to reduce the number of members in their parties to save more Jungle Crystals, or they were going to maintain their party size by compromising on the number of items they could obtain from the NPCs.

It was a difficult decision to make; having fewer members in the party meant more items, but if their damage output was not high enough despite having enough items, their efforts would be in vain still.

Having too many members and fewer items would also mean the chance of failing to defeat the Guardian because they did not have enough items.

"It's better to find the NPC and see what the items are first."

Most of the people in the instance were experienced Players. Apart from Chen Mo, Xiaolou Fengyu and the others soon realized the same problem too.

However, it should not be hard to make the decision after seeing what the items were.

That being said, Chen Mo also realized another problem too. Players had no idea what the Guardian of the instance was before exchanging for the items. If there were multiple items that the NPC was offering, which one should they be getting instead?

Chen Mo immediately felt a chill running down his spine. If that was really the case, the instance was seriously a bait!