Chapter 194 - The Lost Cave Survival Mode

Rambunctious Buttlover's Talkative skill was definitely one that lived up to the legends of the almighty Bard class.

Bards were known for being amazing storytellers, yet what was often left out was their equally infamous skill of being able to spew the most nonsense in the world, an endless drivel that could make anyone jump off a cliff just to make it stop.

The Kobolds of the Lost Cave got to understand this truth the hard way. They screamed and clutched their ears in pain, crying out in their guttural language for it to stop.

Of course, this was only referring to the weaker Private Rank Kobolds. The Specialist Rank ones were able to fight while taking damage from the skill, while the Sergeant Rank Kobolds were able to resist its effects to an extent.

However, Rambunctious wasn't just a bard… he was a Battle Bard! As such, while he uttered his debilitating gibberish, he displayed a striking swordsmanship cutting down many enemies with his great skill.

His presence was a bane to all foes, as he acted like a damage dealer and a crowd controller. As soon as the Talkative skill elapsed, he began to sing without the use of his instruments, his voice echoing around the area.

This was an Uncommon Rank Bard skill, Lyrical Words. It had a much stronger effect than the Common Lyrical Might, but was much weaker the Rare Lyrical Lines.

｢Umbra Local Party Announcement

Player Rambunctious Buttlover has boosted the party's morale through song! The enemy is cowed by his verbal verbosity!

All players:

Attack +20%

Defense +30%

Speed +10%

All enemies:

Attack -20%

Defense -30%

Speed -10%｣

With this buff, everyone became stronger than they already were. Rambunctious faced off against many monsters and bosses over the rounds, displaying his prowess and versatility.

Draco and Eva didn't know what class Sanji played in the other timeline, so they just left him to play as he liked. This wait and see approach unfortunately resulted in the common class of a Lancer.

Given the massive popularity of Boundless both Sanji and Akainu must have played the game at some point, yet just like in the real world, the Sanguigno Brothers had been too lowkey.

They might have become famous in some local areas, but at least on a global scale, they had done nothing to register under Draco's or Eva's radar.

Then again, Draco was so busy trying to destroy Eva that it was very likely that he missed out on a lot of other useful information.

But honestly, who would expect to be sent back into reincarnation upon death? Who could ever prepare for such a thing, hoarding all kinds of information in advance for their reincarnation?

Overall. Sanji could be described as an average player. He was more of an indoor hacker who was good with tech, not really someone suited for battle. His spearmanship was honestly clumsy and very rough, nevertheless, Draco had appointed him a core member of Umbra.

He had access to the Training Hall in their Rank 7 Guild Hall which could turn any weak coward into an unparalleled swordsman with enough time and effort. Sanji was still under development, but he would get there eventually.

Akainu was in a similar situation. His stat point allocation had also resulted in a common class, in his case, it was the Berserker. However, he didn't have the skill that Boyd did, since Akainu was more adept with guns and modern weaponry than hand-to-hand combat.

Even the Five Generals had to go through a learning curve, where both Draco and Riveting Night trained them, bringing them to their current level of power. Akainu was mostly torn between handling his duties as the manager of Draco's group out of the game and his progression in the game.

As such, he had little time to dedicate to training like the Five Generals or the other core members and his skills suffered for it.

His attacks were inaccurate to a large degree, and if it wasn't for his great equipment, as well as Warm Spring's healing, he might have been cut to death many times by now. Both Akainu and Sanji were furthermore protected by the undead warriors of Dreary Traveler, who recognized their flaws.

Silent Walker was an interesting character who had hardly revealed himself ever since he had entered Umbra, but now one could get a clear look at him.

Despite being of the Noctmancer class, which was a hidden class that allowed one to use darkness magic, he didn't wear mage robes.

No, Silent Walker was similar to Gentle Flower and Joker in the aspect that he didn't like the aesthetics of the medieval attire the system wanted him to wear to match his class.

Therefore, he had paid a somewhat reasonable price to have the visual aspect of his attire modified.

He was clad in a tight-fitting black suit, with a black shirt underneath. His tie was also pitch black, and his suede shoes matched the color of his attire, giving him a certain aesthetic.

Silent Walker was a tall and nicely proportioned man who was really handsome. After all, he was one of the world's biggest celebrities emerging after World War 3, a top artist and an actor who had won many awards.

His extremely light tan, coupled with his piercing blue eyes and slicked, wavy hair gave him the air of a successful young man who would put the world beneath his feet.

(Author's Note: Like this i.imgur.com/rjVuHXd.jpg)

He walked through the battlefield casually, with one hand in his trouser pocket and the other gesturing to cast his various spells and attacks. A Noctmancer needed no staff, but rather used rings.

He currently had an Epic one equipped which he had gained from the 6th floor of the Rank 7 Shop, and his power was unbelievable. The Noctmancer had the best mixture of offensive damage and crowd control amongst all magic classes.

His shadow magic could pierce, bind, and destabilize his foes. The Shadow Bind and Shadow Tendrils active skill Riveting Night had were also available to him as a Noctmancer, only that his ability to use them was greater and cost fewer resources.

After all Shadow Assassins were a class that dealt in both assassination and shadow magic, while Silent Walker's class focused on darkness magic, and by extension, shadow magic.

Most of the monsters around him would be tightly restricted by the abundant shadows in this underground cave, then they would be turned into swiss cheese by an endless amount of shadow spikes.

The Shadow Manipulation skill was a Rare-tier passive, allowing him to manipulate darkness as long as he had the mental stamina and the availability of shadows. If he wanted to use it without the presence of shadows, he would need to use an active skill.

As such, he was no different from the incarnation of a death god, especially with his handsomeness and attire. It looked as if Lucifer had come out to pay the world a visit, only to play around.

Silent Walker was very strange to the other members of Umbra. He hardly spoke, but he always had a light smile on his face, as if he took nothing in the world seriously.

It was a cross between a friendly smile and a mocking one, which was a bizarre mix. It would have been ok to see him like that occasionally, but his face seemed perpetually locked into that smile.

Loving Aunt was an interesting fighter as a Poisonmancer. For a while now, the men of Umbra had been locked into heated arguments, both sides almost at loggerheads.

The question was, between Sublime Notion and Loving Aunt, who had the bigger chest? Sublime Notion had previously been the undefeated champion. Rina, Hikari, Zaine, Roma… none of them could come close to Sublime.

However, Loving Aunt was either slightly below Sublime or slightly ahead. Without getting a feel for it, no one could tell.

However, none of the males of Umbra dared to play around. After all, from their limited interaction with her, they understood that Loving Aunt was a troublemaker on the same level as Sublime. She relished in playing with others like they were toys, and many had already fallen for her schemes.

They also heard a rumor that she was the direct Aunt of Draco, and that rumor seemed true since she and Draco looked about 20% alike. They both had the same - formerly for Draco - dark hair and bright green eyes.

The shape of her face was just like Draco's and her voice, as well as her aura, were also similar. However, many refused to believe this as Loving Aunt looked too young to be Draco's aunt.

One should know that after molting, Loving Aunt had gone from an old woman to a young beauty in her early twenties. She might not belong to the Dark Angel inheritance, but she was still quite hot as a descendant of Lucifer.

However, her power was ultimately what made many give up. Despite being one of the newest core members, she was the second strongest amongst them, even stronger than half of the Five Generals.

The Poisonmancer class was a hidden class focused on stackable D-O-Ts and inflicting many types of debuffs. Their first few attacks were weak as hell and didn't do crap, but as it built up, it became horrifying.

The damage over time would stack and stack, overlapping each other to deal unmitigated damage. A <Poisoned> status was annoying but not very bad since it usually dealt 10-50 damage per second over a minute.

With the current HP of players, this was only 20-25% of their max health, which could be countered by antidote potions or health potions. However, what about over 10 <Poisoned> statuses that were stacked, acting jointly and separately?

Not to mention that other debuffs like <Confused>, <Slowed> and <Insane> were common among the various side effects of the magic Poisonmancers used.

In such a state, how could one fight back? As such, this class had poor utility in the initial stage of the fight but from the mid-stage going, one would become their plaything.

One had to rush in and kill the Poisonmancer before they could get their spells out, and it would be a certain victory. Fail to do so, and it would be a certain defeat.

There was no in-between.

Against the Kobolds, a Poisonmancer in a group was their bane. Despite their partial-reptilian biology, the poison that Loving Aunt dispatched was inorganic, so they had very little resistance.

What was even worse was that she was using her bloodline, though the members of Umbra thought that it was a part of the Poisonmancer class.

Loving Aunt effortlessly used the Basic Manifestation technique to summon her Serpentine Familiar, which was the Blue Snake. It was ten times larger than in the real world and was much stronger than could be rationalized.

Just like Local Lord's golems or Draco's Black Dragon, Loving Aunt's summon was given stats by the system, which were weaker than counterparts at its level, however, it was still stronger than anything a Rank 1 monster could bring forth.

Loving Aunt's serpent familiar wasn't some basic snake. Not even a Lucifer Lineage descendant with 1% bloodline purity would have a serpentine familiar that was average.

Loving Aunt's blue snake was the embryonic form of the Leviathan, a Blue Underwater Adder. As such, it had a strong affinity with the water element, which it used and abused freely.

Over the rounds, she tore through the monsters. She didn't even have to use the Advanced Manifestation technique at all, simply using the Basic one here and there to cause havoc.

The Fire and Ice twins lived up to their name, as both Jada and Jade worked in perfect synchronization to take down their enemies. Jada handled the offense, as her fire magic was fired with almost no interval.

Unlike Rina, who had a few flashy spells that dealt heavy damage, Jada relied on a multitude of basic spells and her auto-attack. She was like a relentless flamethrower that never ran out of fuel.

However, the cute red-head was the embodiment of a glass cannon, who would die within a few hits. As such, her twin sister effortlessly defended them both with her ice magic. She had learned only defensive and crowd-controlling ice magic for exactly this purpose.

They had a perfect chemistry that did not require words. Jada and Jade's timing was as if they were mentally connected and could read the mind of the other.

Jade's ice magic would form walls, or would creep from the ground and trap the lower body of attacking enemies in ice. She was able to disrupt enemies that tried to attack them, as well as provide support to Jade.

Their tag-team meant that they were the fourth best fighters of the battle, after Kiran who was second and Loving Aunt who was third.

In first place was Slim Fatty, who was like the reincarnation of Jeanne D'Arc. Her short auburn hair and her piercing brown eyes flashed as she weaved through the battlefield like a graceful swan.

In terms of movement, Slim Fatty was only surpassed by Riveting Night. After being personally trained by Riveting Night, her skills had grown to the point where she was the strongest fighter of Umbra under the Five Generals.

Her class was the Sword Saintess class, which Draco and Riveting Night speculated to be either Rare or Semi-Epic. One should know, their own Avenger and Shadow Assassin classes were classified as Rare at best.

(Author's Note: hold your questions on the class system, we'll go into depth on it when it is time for Draco to hit Rank 2. How Hidden classes are acquired, how classes can be evolved, what exactly the combat ranks mean and how classes affect combat outside of skills.)

She had very few skills because acquiring skills for her class was even harder than the Avenger or Shadow Assassin class, so she had only two since the game started.

They were two passive skills. The first passive skill was called Saintess' Mastery, which increased her speed, damage, and defense by 30%, which made it even better than Cloud Feet and Revenger put together.

Her second passive skill was of the Rare-tier, which was the Saintess' Skill. It allowed her to equip any sword without facing penalties to stamina or speed, and she could even seize the swords of others forcefully.

With these two skills, she tore through the Kobolds like they were paper. If she had possessed the Saintess' Mastery skill during the battle with the Metal Dragon and the First Guild War, she would have definitely been one of the survivors.

She only acquired it recently from the Rank 7 Shop, using her UPs to purchase it from one of the vendors on the 5th floor at a great discount due to her position in Umbra.

Fitter Cleric supported Slim Fatty, and the duo had developed a strange chemistry over the rounds. Slim Fatty noticed that Fitter Cleric gave her strange and furtive looks, making her heart thump and her imagination run wild.

One should know, she wasn't ugly at all. In fact, one could say he was quite pretty, or more accurately had the outline of someone pretty. She was simply so skinny to the point where one couldn't muster any s.e.x.u.a.l interest in her.

Yet Fitter Cleric, the arguably third richest player in the world after Draco and Riveting Night, seemed interested in her. She wasn't interested in his money, so much as in him who seemed to be interested in her as a person and not her outer appearance, yet his status was unique in all of Umbra.

For someone like him to fancy her was a great shock. Still, Slim Fatty was disciplined, and reined in her one flaw tightly before focusing on the battle.

As for Fitter Cleric himself, he used the only attack available to Luckmancers, which was called Lucky Shot. It was an auto-attack skill that dealt damage proportionate to one's luck.

However, it was overpowered in the sense that a high luck stat allowed one to easily crit. Not only that, but his high luck also made it hard to hit him, as unavoidable attacks on him found some miraculous way to miss.

Who said luck wasn't a superpower? It was arguably the most overpowered superpower there was!

The 12 core members tore through many rounds, eventually surpassing Draco by reaching Round 45. At this point, the Kobolds were all Sergeants at the minimum, with many Captain Ranks among their number.

They were extremely stressed out by this intense battle, and Dreary Traveler's Skeleton Knights had been reduced to 20. Kiran had to use his Attack Rush skill to fend off a Captain Rank monster.

While he threw out an endless amount of punches, the fellow found himself shouting out a powerful cry.

"Sha Sha Sha Sha Sha Sha Sha Sha Sha Sha!!"

Warm Spring was taxed by having to heal multiple people at once as their health fell. She was lucky they were all relatively high-quality players, so most of her focus lay on helping Akainu and Sanji, who allowed many hits on their person.

Jada and Jade were locked in their own world as Jada culled the numbers while Jade arduously defended. They had no attention to spare for the others.

Slim Fatty and Fitter were suppressed, and had no time to figure out what was going on between them. They put in their all into supporting each other.

Loving Aunt was solemn as she created a field of poison around her and even burned bloodline energy by using the Advanced Manifestation technique to summon her Blue Underwater Adder in full.

Rambunctious was currently sweating and cursing while fighting. His words directly dealt damage to the monsters, making them also enraged as a result.

No, it wasn't a skill, his insults were so poisonous that it caused actual damage to the monsters…

Could this also be considered a technique…?

Silent Walker grimaced for the first time as his suit began to take damage. He was a very meticulous fellow, and he did not like his style being infringed upon.

However, this was not a situation where he could make a difference.

By the 50th Round, the party of 12 were cleared out, and they were sent to the entrance of the Lost Cave, where some other players were gathering members to run the normal mode.

｢Congratulations on completing: Lost Cave survival mode

Time elapsed: 8:23:45

Enemies killed: 45,876

Bosses killed: 203

Rounds completed: 50

Team Deaths: 0

Team Members: 12

Assessment: A

Reward:

600% EXP

20 gold｣

The reward wasn't bad if it was per person, but this was split between all 12 members, so it wasn't that great, especially considering the time spent and the number of enemies killed.

But that was only if one used the scope of rewards Draco had received, which would be an unfair comparison.