Chapter 66: Scorching Land (3)
TL: Haku
Editor: Hungry Panda
‘You just need to make that tail go into combat-disabled state first.’
By attacking the tail, which was the source of where the scorpion’s deadly poison was shot out from, and dealing a fixed amount of damage, the deadly poison could no longer be shot out.
Therefore, the scorpion could rather be an easier monster to face if you knew how to face them.
Ian let out a command to Ly.
“Ly, since it would be a failure if you go in first and get hit by the poison, just be on standby for now.”
Grr-
“And once the slowing effect is activated and Ddukdae’s skill goes through, then attack the tail first. Understood?”
Because of Ly’s superior Agility, he wouldn’t allow most of the deadly poison attacks to hit him, but as it would be a failure if he even allowed one hit, Ian decided to play safe and commanded accordingly.
Grr- Grr-
Ly nodded his head, and Ian pulled his bowstring.
It was a situation where the scorpions had already reached within Ddukdae’s proximity.
Ian let out a command to Ddukdae.
“Ddukdae, Abyss Hole!”
And an oscillating wave began to flow out from both of Ddukdae’s arms.
Thud- Thu-Thu-Thud-!
Screech-!
As soon as the scorpions began to be sucked into the Abyss Hole, Ian, who invoked Current Proliferation, let go of his bowstring.
Ping-!
Za-Za-Zap-! Za-Zap!
Ian hit four out of the five scorpions with one shot of Current Proliferation, and two of the four immediately went into paralyzed state.
This was possible because the scorpions were gathered together through Abyss Hole.
The ‘Scorpion’ has gone into ‘Paralyzed’ state. The ‘Scorpion’s movements will be slowed by 30%, and will receive an additional 50% damage towards ‘electricity’-type attacks. The cooldown time for ‘Current Proliferation’ has reset.
Ian continued to shoot his arrows.
And as Weak Point Capturing was invoked, Ly quickly threw his body.
“Ly, the farthest one on the left first!”
Ly cleverly moved according to Ian’s command, because of the slowing effect and the gravitational pull of Abyss Hole, the scorpion, whose movements were restricted, wasn’t able to avoid Ly’s sharp teeth.
Familiar ‘Ly’ attacked the scorpion’s tail and has dealt critical damage. 3007 damage has been dealt to the scorpion. The ‘Scorpion’s Tail’ has lost the ability to fight.
Ian wore a satisfied expression at Ly’s Offensive Power, which had made the scorpion’s tail go into combat-disabled state in one hit.
‘When I fought as an Archer before resetting, I really struggled to hit that tail.’
Ian thought that one of the advantages of Summoners was that he could combine the Summoner and the Familiars’ skills to suit his taste to make a high synergy effect.
And he felt this advantage could offset all the other many disadvantages.
“Current Proliferation!”
The arrow that left Ian’s bowstring skillfully drilled in between the scorpions and exploded on the body of the scorpion that was in the middle.
The bundles of proliferated currents that naturally spread out hit all of the surrounding scorpions, and after bouncing around multiple times and dealing damage, they disappeared.
Luck also followed him, but it was also Ian’s Current Proliferation control, that had truly reached the stage of a master.
And while Ian continued to shoot arrows, he let out detailed instructions to Ddukdae and Ly.
“Ddukdae, fall back a little, so you don’t get hit by the poison needles, and Ly, that scorpion at the very front isn’t in paralysis state, so attack it first!”
Ian’s multi-tasking skill was at a surprising level.
The difficult control was one of the disadvantages of Summoners that many users picked out.
Compared to the other normal classes, where the user character just needed to be well-controlled, there were a lot of things that needed to be considered when playing as a Summoner, and while doing so, there were many times when they weren’t able to pay attention to their own character and blatantly died.
However, this hard level of difficulty for the control aspect was something that Ian instead enjoyed, so it ended up not being a disadvantage.
Ian quickly suppressed the five scorpions.
“Since I’ve summoned Ddukdae as well, I should plan to catch all the monsters I see while moving.”
After roughly reorganizing, he began to move again.
And after about three hours, Ian was able to reach the basement dungeon of Scorching Land.
‘Ugh, it’s even hotter inside here. It’s probably because of those Lava Spawns, right?’
Ian came to the basement dungeon to catch Lava Witches, but the monster that inhabited most of the area of the basement dungeon was a monster called Lava Spawns.
Ian, who arrived at the basement dungeon, checked the level of the Lava Spawns first of all.
‘Their levels are 71, 73… It shouldn’t be too difficult facing them.’
The spawns were around their early lv 70s, just as he remembered.
‘Still, I can’t be careless. If I make a mistake and lure over ten of them, they’re capable of being fully dangerous.’
The Lava Spawns were actually easier to get rid of compared to the Forcal Bandits when facing one by one.
This was because, compared to the strength of their basic attack, which was a fire attack that shot out lava, their Vitality was basically paper-thin, and if they were attacked without given time to proliferate, they would die without being able to properly resist.
However, the story was different if their numbers increased.
If one of them began to proliferate while one or two other ones died, there was no way of knowing how many they would multiply to.
For Ian, who currently had no strong AoE magic, he needed to avoid a situation like that at all costs.
If the dozens of Lava Spawns shot out flames, even Ddukdae wouldn’t be able to withstand their strong power.
‘Firstly, they’re in a situation where they go around in groups of about two to three.’
After Ian checked every inch of the entrance with careful movements, he made a plan.
‘First, I’ll go to the lowest floor of the dungeon. Since the number of rare monsters will increase the lower the floor I go down to.’
The floor, where Ian currently was, was the highest floor and not one Lava Witch could be seen.
There was a chance that he could meet them if he went down to the lower levels.
And as he had evolved even Ddukdae to a Unique-rank, he became a little greedier.
‘Could there possibly be a Unique-rank or an even better monster, rather than just a Rare-rank Lava Witch?’
In the New Monster Information bulletin of the community, only the Lava Witch’s information was posted, but despite that, there was no guarantee that a new monster didn’t exist.
Ian began to move his feet full of anticipation.
“Ddukdae, follow behind carefully. If you grab too much attention at the front, all of the Lava Spawns could gather around us.”
Deu-reu-reuk-
With a slight nod, Ddukdae expressed his mind.
And Ian put Ly at the front before slowly moving forward.
Unless over five of them gathered, Ian planned on hunting without Ddukdae and just ambushing them to catch them instantly.
Ian, who arrived within proximity of the Lava Spawns, quietly spoke to Ly.
“Ly, get ready. When I shoot my arrow, you have to kill the one that I hit first.”
Grr- Grr-
After Ian let out his command, he activated his buffs.
And then, he slowly pulled his bowstring.
“Current Proliferation!”
Electricity began to flow in the arrowhead, and Ian’s well-aimed bow left his bowstring and began to fly through the air.
Whoosh-!
Ian’s bow indubitably punctured through the Lava Spawn’s chest.
Keu-aaeek-!
And Ian, who had let go of his bowstring, quickly used his Potential Explosion skill on Ly.
“Potential Explosion!”
And Ly’s stats explosively increased.
‘Potential Explosion’ skill has been used on Familiar ‘Ly’. Familiar ‘Ly’s stats have increased in proportion to ‘Ly’s Potential. ‘Ly’s stats will additionally increase by 98% for 1 minute 40 seconds.
It seemed because he had raised his Training skill to a High-class level, Ly’s Potential was reaching close to 100 before he even knew it.
‘Once Ly’s Potential hits 100, I need to quickly raise Ddukdae’s Potential.’
As Ian had used all of Ddukdae’s Potential while evolving him, there was no point if he used the Potential Explosion skill on Ddukdae.
Because of that, he had continuously used Potential Explosion on Ly despite Ddukdae having much higher stats.
While Ian had such happy thoughts, he charged his Current Proliferation skill again as soon as the cooldown time was over.
Ping- Pi-Ping-.
While Ian’s arrows continuously flew out, Ly, who received an enormous amount of Offensive Power thanks to the Potential amplification, caught tow of the three Lava Spawns in an instant.
And shortly after, the last one turned into a grey light and disappeared after being hit by Ian’s arrow.
As they had eliminated the Lava Spawns with their explosive Offensive Power and gave them no time to proliferate, the Lava Spawns were incredibly lethargic.
And Ian checked the duration of the Potential amplification skill that was activated on Ly.
‘The remaining duration is 58 seconds. I could probably catch another group of Lava Spawns.’
And taking that as a sign, Ly also followed him and charged towards the next group of Lava Spawns.
Grr- Grar-!
This time, rather than focusing on hitting the mark with Current Proliferation, Ian focused more on hitting the Shining Mark.
This was because he needed to quickly reduce the Potential amplification skill to use on Ly as much as he could.
Like that, Ian quickly cleaned up the Lava Spawns while going deeper into the dungeon.
Each floor of the basement floors of the Scorching Land were not very wide, but it continued deeper down.
Starting from around the 3rd basement floor, one or two Lava Witches started to appear, but Ian decided to go even further down to the lower levels.
And just when he was about to reach around the 5th basement floor, Ian suddenly discovered something weird.
‘Huh? Why are those ones’ lava colour different?’
If they weren’t looked at carefully, it was unnoticeable, but the colour of the flames and lava enveloping the Lava Witch and the Lava Spawns were slightly different.
And as he opened their information, there was a (Contaminated) modifier attached to the front of the monsters’ names.
‘What the hell? Contaminated?’
Like a gamer whose dipped into dozens of games in the meantime, Ian’s uncommon instincts were invoked.
‘This, this. It smells like a quest.’
He had smelled the scent of a quest from just one subtle difference.
Ian, who became a little more interested in the dungeon, continued to catch monsters and go down to the lower floors.
‘Was there a total of 10 floors for the Scorching Land’s basement dungeon?’
As he had not gone past the 5th floor even before resetting, his memory was a bit dim, but as he had already discovered the scent of a quest, he decided to go down to the very end.
As he passed the 7th floor, there were quite a lot of Lava Witches, but Ian hunted them without hesitation and continued to move.
He planned on momentarily pushing aside capturing Lava Witches until he checked the lowest floor of the dungeon.
‘The lower the floor I go, the bigger the proportion of contaminated monsters there are.’
His assurance that there was something grew stronger.
As he continued to go down like that, Ian, who eventually reached the 10th floor, was slightly flustered.
‘What the hell? The 10th floor wasn’t the end?’
Ian, who thought the basement 10th floor was the lowest floor, discovered another entrance to go down to another floor while thoroughly looking through the map to try and find the lead related to the quest.
Ian, who went into the entrance that he discovered like that, checked the newly discovered map’s name before his eyes shone.
‘Source of Lava? This is totally my first time hearing a map with this name! Is this a newly developed place that appeared after the large update?’
Even if it was a new map created from the large update, there was a low chance that this was a map first discovered by Ian.
This was because a lot of time had already passed since the update.
‘But, as it’s a name I haven’t seen in the community yet either, it’s not a place that many know about…’
The Source of Lava map was a little wider than the other maps of the upper dungeon floors.
Ian hunted all of the monsters that appeared without missing a single one and slowly moved towards the centre of the map by following a maze-like path.
Had about twenty minutes passed like that?
A tremendous scene spread in front of Ian’s eyes.