Chapter 641: Gagaro’s Mist

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The Japanese and Koreans were not thinking straight when they declared a Nation War. In the end, they had it coming. Instead of toppling another kingdom, they had their own kingdom toppled first. Worst yet, not only have they failed to kill the Steward, their entire fleet of players were completely wiped out as well. Everything that happened was witnessed by the entire world.

Though China may have won both Defensive and Offensive wars, the sudden attack of Japan and Korea was a good wake up call for all the players. To prevent future attacks, they would have to increase their alertness in every Territory. Truth be told, China was lucky. However, they might not be this lucky in the next attack.

After the war ended and everyone had a good night sleep, guilds from all over China proactively donated materials to Lone Desert Smoke to rebuild Morning Town. Zhang Yang gladly accepted the materials because he knew that the players were genuinely helpful in order to protect their own Territory. Although the war was over, the enemy could still strike at any moment. Zhang Yang immediately restored Morning Town to the best that he could at that moment.

At the same time, Lone Desert Smoke had initiated a patrol programme. The patrol squads would consist of several players from different guilds from all over China. The squads were extremely large and were split into several teams, set to be stationed all over Tibanya Wasteland’s main pathway. It was possible to miss out several scouts high in the sky but at the very least, the patrol team could easily detect a large army of players coming towards their direction. Morning Town could prepare their defenses before any army arrives.

Once the defenses around Morning Town was fortified, the Teleportation Point was now the main defense point. If the Teleportation Point is destroyed, all [Teleportation Scrolls] bound to the place would be ineffective. Players looking to travel to Morning Town would be greatly hindered. In the recent war, the enemy had destroyed the Teleportation Point, causing many players who were still training in the Chaos Realm to be unable to return to Morning Town. Their travel time would be lengthened greatly as they would have to travel back to the major city and use the long pathway in the Ten Barren Sea from Morning Town.

After the world’s first Nation War, China players discovered many problems and loopholes that could be exploited by the enemy. Hence, each region had taken advantage of this knowledge and learned from their neighbor in order to strengthen their own regions.

…

Zhang Yang went back to town and Identified the newly acquired shield.

[Dragon Scale Refine Iron Shield] (Ethereal, Shield)

Defense: +7560

Vitality: +10372

Equip: Increases maximum HP by 20,740!

Equip: Absorbs 2,748 damage on attack.

Equip: With every successful {Block}, deals Holy damage to the target equivalent to 100% of the user’s Defense value.

Level Requirement: 140

Special: Level Requirement reduced by 20 Levels.

Note: A mighty shield that was made with the Black Dragon’s Scale. Its integrity is nothing like you have ever seen! The most sought-after Shield for Guardian and Defender!

After Identifying the shield, the shield stats had increased to the point where Zhang Yang was sure that it was among the top five shields in the game at the time. With the shield identified and equipped, Zhang Yang stats rose to 448,140HP with the Vitality Aura boost, 8,520 Defense, and 7,338 damage absorption. Any physical attack would have to be at least 20,000 to breach his Defenses. Magic attacks would have to be at least 17,000 to cause him damage! A true "Turtle" shell indeed! However, his sheer attack power should disqualify him from the turtle qualification, since his basic attack had reached as high as 56,268 – 61,504!

Absolute defense or absolute offence are powerful traits. If either one of those traits exist in a player, he or she might be a little problem for the enemy. There will always be methods to countering those players. However, Zhang Yang was different. He had the best of both worlds! How could someone craft up a strategy to defeat him! Unless it was an unfair fight where he would have to face thousand of players at the same time…

Zhang Yang continued his best to be the best. There was no reason for him to stop his progress! Even though he was the best in terms of level, Equipment, Skills, and other aspects of the game, other players would surpass him if he were to slack.

It was a game after all. Losers have only one choice; to surpass the strong. The strong would have to constantly be on the edge, fearing that the weak would eventually surpass them at any moment.

A short period of time after the first Nation War, the developers had launched a patch to introduce a new map. The name of the map was called Gagaro’s Mist. On the map, monsters will provide 50% additional experience points. Boss monsters were spawning like mushrooms after a rain shower on the map. However, as a preemptive warning, developers had already warned players that the monsters in the map will be aggressive. Even the normal tier monsters will be difficult to kill. Hence, players with lower tier equipment were advised to not try the map.

The important catch of the new map was that its location was kept hidden. The directional map can be found by killing Level 120 monsters or higher to obtain pieces of the map. Assemble enough pieces to form a complete map to lead the player to the new map.

Naturally, when the news was released, players were all hyped up to the search of the map. 50% experience points boost? That alone was enough to reduce 10 days of leveling duration to only 6 days! There were even high-level bosses!

A boss was extremely difficult to hunt in the explored maps. Even then, guild’s would be occupying their spawn points. Those that are un-occupied will be dead after 5 minutes of spawning. For example, the stone golem boss that Zhang Yang had made use off in the past in Morning Town was now "food" for random players. Since the spawn point was so close to Morning Town, players could easily find themselves a party and defeat it in just 2 to 3 minutes.

Besides the bosses found in dungeons, open-world bosses will be extremely tough to find. The main draws of an open-world boss were the luxurious drops! Hardcore Mode dungeon bosses would never drop an equipment imbued with the Level reduction special effect! A Level 90 player may only raid a Level 90 dungeon at best, but wearing Level 110 equipment acquired from an open-world boss would make a whole difference.

Normal players were not the only ones that were agitated by the map release, Fatty Han, Wei Yan Er, and many others were rushing Zhang Yang to start searching for the map!

"Little Yang! I’m only wearing two pieces of Ethereal tier equipment. It’s so annoying to not have a set! I don’t even have the nerve to set foot outside the city! Do me a favor and search for the Gagalo’s Mist map thingy! I want to get more Ethereal tier equips!" cried Fatty Han as he wiped his snort off Zhang Yang’s shirt.

Zhang Yang winced and slapped Fatty Han in his face. "F*ck off! Could you at least wipe your goo off with your own shirt! As for your Ethereal equipment. I’ll give you one hour. Stand by the door and snap a picture of anyone else wearing an Ethereal equipment. If you can find one player in Ethereal equipment, I’ll hunt a full set of Hunter’s Ethereal equipment in three days!" Zhang Yang gave his rump a good kick.

"Hehehehe." Fatty Han rolled off and Wei Yan Er replaced his spot. At first, Zhang Yang was about to continue crafting potions when Wei Yan Er stood in front of him with a smile on her face. "You know, somehow, you look exceptionally handsome today!"

"Huh? What are you talking about? I’m exceptionally handsome any day!" Zhang Yang rapped her skull. "Go and do some work if you’re that free! Those who don’t work, don’t eat!"

"Nyehehehe. Work? Look at my equipment! I’ve been wearing this for years now! It’s time to replace them, yes? Let’s hunt for the map pieces!" said Wei Yan Er as she hugged Zhang Yang’s arm, trying to play it cute.

Zhang Yang stopped in his tracks and smiled at the little girl. "If your armor is old, 99% of the world would have gladly accepted your equipment! Why don’t you trade your old ones out?"

Wei Yan Er let go of his arms and sulked. Before she could pretend to do anything else, Zhang Yang closed his potion making U.I and said, "Fine. Stop sulking about. Sigh…when will you learn to be independent? Let’s go!"

The map pieces were not that simple to hunt. Although Tibanya Wasteland was huge, the number of monsters spawning was not enough to handle that many players who shared the same goal. Once a monster appears in the field, countless of attacks would land on it instantly. Zhang Yang felt a little nostalgic. The scene of which monsters would be instantly killed was exactly like the scene in the beginner’s village.

Zhang Yang brought his regular team to the Land of the Flaming Rocks. It was a level 120+ map where the lowest leveled monsters were Level 120. In fact, most of the monsters here were mostly Level 130 and above. Hence, due to numerous threats around, no players under Level 120 would choose to grind there.

The difference between a Level 100 and Level 120 map were the monsters. Even though they shared the same levels, their attacks were different. In Level 100 maps, the highest-level boss would be a Mythical tier, so, the normal monsters attack would be around a Gray-Silver tier. In Level 120 maps, the highest boss tier would be an Ethereal tier, so, the normal monsters around would have attacks that are equivalent to Yellow-Gold tier.

That was one of the general knowledge among players around. That was why normal players would not want to risk their lives venturing into a Level 120+ map.

Zhang Yang spread the team out far and wide and killed as many monsters as they could. However, after a long day of killing, the party had only managed to find 2 pieces of the map. The system had demanded for a total of 10 map pieces to form a complete map. If that was not enough to piss off players, the map pieces had numberings on them! They had to collect the first piece to the 10th piece! In three days, Zhang Yang and his merry little band had collected 17 map pieces but many of them were repetitive. They were only lacking the second piece and the 7th piece to complete the map.

Zhang Yang then contacted Snow Seeker to trade off several map pieces. In the end, Zhang Yang managed to obtain the second piece from her and the 7th piece from Sky Shaman.

[Navigation Map: Gagaro's Mist] (Usable)

Use: Opens a dimensional portal and transports you and your fellow teammates to Gagaro’s Mist. The portal can only open for 5 minutes and transports a total of 10 players.

Level: 100

"Tch! What a cheapo crap! We farmed this thingy for 3 days and but it can only be used once!" said Fatty Han disgruntled.

Zhang Yang thought for a while and said, "Everyone, get your equipment all fixed up before we go. We must not let anything to hinder us from staying any longer!

"Understood."

Everyone went back to town and had their equipment fixed to its full Durability and stocked up on potions. After a few minutes, everyone gathered together. Zhang Yang then used the map and casted a black swirly portal. Their party entered the portal one by one and after all 10 of them pass through it, the portal disperses into countless fragments.

‘Ding! You have entered Gagaro’s Mist! You have 24 hours to stay in this map before you will be teleported out.’

‘Ding! You have received the effect: Clouded Mist! Unable to return Gagaro’s Mist within 30 days.

‘Ding! All monsters besides the boss shall have a 1 hour respawn duration!’

Everyone received the system notification right after they emerged out of the portal.

"What!? Only 24 hours!? This is absurd!" cried Endless Starlight with dismay.

"What the hell!? 30 days once? That’s like 10 days in real life!"

Zhang Yang laughed and said, "Well, nothing to argue there. Let’s not waste any more time and start killing."

"Roger!"

Everyone followed Zhang Yang and ventured through the mysterious place. The entire space they were in was a large internal crater. From where they stood, the only visible object that they could see from afar was a large clock structure. There were long stone pathways on their left and right that all leads directly towards the central clock tower. The little girl went to the edge of the stone pathway and quickly stopped when she saw what was there. The stone pathway that the party was standing on was actually a bridge. There were a total of 12 bridges that led to the center and boiling red hot lava was right underneath them. They were quite well elevated from the lava, however, the party could still feel the intense heat radiating from below. Each bridge was at least 10km long and 20 meters wide. A few meters ahead of the party were all Spectres roaming along. The entire bridge was completely filled with them!

It was not clear where they were at, but the environment was extremely moist and steamy. The steam formed a thick smog that had blocked the sun’s ray from penetrating the smog. The only light source was coming from beneath the bridge, where the glowing red lava flows.

Zhang Yang could summon the Phoenix pet out, but it could not fly. At most, the fiery bird would glide a few meters before descending downward. There was no way for either of them to travel to the other stone bridges.

Based on the direction of the clock tower. The party was in the 8 o’clock direction. The neighboring bridge were at least 5 km apart, hence, it was not reachable.

In the world map U.I, there were four blinking dots at different positions. All of them were at least 10% away from the clock tower and Zhang Yang’s party was at 0%.

"What are---" Han Ying Xue noticed the oddity and immediately realized what they were. "There are three other parties in this place!"

"There’s 12 pathways but only one end…That means--!"

"The treasure lies at the end of the road! And only one party can get it!"

Everyone braced themselves for a tough battle.

The other three parties were located at the 1 o’clock, 5 o’clock, and the 11 o’clock direction. They were extremely far away and could not even be seen with the naked eye. There was no telling who they were!

Zhang Yang nodded and quickly took charge. "Don’t waste any more time!"

They sprinted towards the bridge. Not far from where they appeared stood two extremely big-sized Abomination monsters. Their stomachs were ruptured and putrid-smelling green liquid was oozing out from their torn abdomens.

[Mist Abomination] (Normal, Spectre)

Level: 130

HP: 100,000

Defense: 2,280

Attack: 25,342 – 30,242

Skills:

[Decay Aura]: Deals 30,000 Natural damage to all non-Spectre beings every 3 seconds.

[Dismember]: Slices off a target’s limbs and deals 150% melee physical attack. Target will be disarmed for 5 seconds.

Note: The lowest and weakest monster in Gagaro’s Mist. If you cannot fight them, you best turn back and leave!

Wei Yan Er was a little too hot-headed. When she saw that the monster was only a normal tier monster, she had skimmed over the rest of the monster’s stats and rushed over to attack one of them.

‘-22,334!’

The two of them shared the same aggro radius, hence, when one of them was attacked, the other Abomination turned to the little brat and cleaved her with the butcher knives in its hands, dealing high damage.

"OWWIIEE!" The little brat screamed. "Are these really normal tier monsters?! Cousin sis! Heal me!"

Zhang Yang sighed and felt that the little girl will never learn her lesson…

Zhang Yang rushed ahead and cast {Charge} on one of the monsters. He then added a {Provoke} and landed one normal attack to grab all the aggro of the other.

"Little brat! Can you at least read their properties before charging into battle!?" Zhang Yang knocked her head with the shield.

"Nishishishi!’ The little girl said nothing but grinned with an innocent face.