This dungeon was easy as long as players understood the mechanics behind it. As such, there was no need for the team to attempt Heroic mode; they went straight for the Difficult mode.
As for the Nightmare difficulty, the Bloodmage in this mode would be able to cast a fearful spell – Death and Decay. This skill would instantly kill any players, including the main tank.
If the skill was casted on the main tank or healer, the team would wipe. If other people sacrificed themselves, the rest of the team would be able to pass through. This meant that the Nightmare mode relied heavily on luck, but Ruling Sword really needed a First Clear right now to maintain their popularity. There was no need for them to test their luck.
In Dawn, many Instances were either dungeons or chambers. Spider Lair, Death Mines, Howling Caves, Blackfathom were all good examples of this.
However, the graveyard was an exception.
After they entered the dungeon, they found themselves in the chilly night.
The night sky was clear and the stars were incredibly bright, but no one would come here for stargazing, because this was where the dead rested.
Cemeteries stood on both sides of the path, as if they were soldiers waiting to be inspected.
The two young girls, Hachi Chan and Remnant Dream, didn’t express a single bit of fear on their faces.
They had grown up happily and had never experienced a lonely and hopeless night.
One time, Lu Li had been beaten-up by others to the point where he couldn’t stand up. It wasn’t until the later part of midnight when he was finally able to drag himself back home. Ever since then, Lu Xin had been scared of the dark. Until she was ten years old, she needed the company of her brother to have a good night’s sleep.
"This place is strange. If you guys don’t have any objections, I’m going to engage," Azure Sea Breeze said as he raised his shield and took two steps forward.
"Wait," Lu Li stopped him, "Let’s do it another way this time."
Everyone waited when Lu Li spoke; they all had blind faith towards him. As long as Lu Li said something, there would definitely be a reason for it.
"We’ll take all of them down in one wave, which means that you’ll have to drag all of the monsters behind you in one go. Make sure to not miss any of them, not even a single one," Lu Li instructed, as he pointed towards the monsters in the dungeon.
"Why?" Azure Sea Breeze didn’t understand and the others were all confused too.
Why did they have to kill all the monsters in one go? Why not follow the usual procedures?
There were two types of monsters within eyesight - Frenzied Spirits, that looked similar to a white shadow, and a corpse-like zombie.
The entire graveyard was filled with these two types of monsters. There were a few dozen of them in total.
A few dozen elite monsters wasn’t a small number at all, and there were some level thirty elites mixed within as well. Although level 29 and level 30 was only a one level difference, the strength of monsters would greatly improve at every ten-level mark.
"Hmm, according to the books, there’s a Graveyard Keeper in this graveyard. Of course, when all the monsters are asleep at the same time, he’ll come out. Before the Scarlet Monastery was established, this place was actually just a graveyard," Lu Li said.
He chose a reasonable excuse; the descriptions for Scarlet Monastery did mention something similar.
"Hidden? Is it strong?" Wandering, who was the smart one, immediately understood what the Graveyard Keeper was.
"Should be alright. We’ll be able to manage," Lu Li replied vaguely.
The Graveyard Keeper wasn’t hard and it dropped good loot as well. The Ghost Shadow Cloak was known as the best cape for level 30 magic damage classes, but hidden bosses were rare. The Graveyard Keeper had an extremely low chance to appear.
Only Lu Li knew that if you killed all the monsters at the same time, there was a hundred percent chance for the Graveyard Keeper to appear. This was a secret discovered by others in Lu Li’s previous life.
However, it had only been discovered a long time after the game had been out. Most people wouldn’t drag so many monsters in one go anyway, and the average players wouldn’t even have the capability to do so.
At this point, only Lu Li knew about this.
The method was simple – Wandering pulled the left side, while Lu Li pulled the right side. After bringing all the monsters together, Azure Sea Breeze would use his damage reduction skills and taunts.
The task was slightly easier for Lu Li. As soon as the monsters followed him, he ran away. His movement speed was fast, so the monsters were unable to catch up to him. Wandering, on the other hand, was having a bit of trouble dragging the monsters behind him without a healer. Fortunately, Lu Li went over to help him, and both of them managed to pull all the monsters together.
Azure Sea Breeze was already waiting; he activated his damage reduction skills first, then used his group taunt at the entire pack of monsters.
The monsters immediately turned their heads to target the person who had taunted them. As soon as Azure Sea Breeze casted his taunt, the others immediately began to deal damage to the monsters. They had to kill all of the monsters before the main tank used up his damage reduction skills, otherwise, there was the possibility of Azure Sea Breeze dying.
Fortunately, they had two strong magic damage dealers on the team – Lonesome Flower and Sesame Rice Ball. Remnant Dream’s Volley was also quite useful in group fights, and everyone managed to wipe out the entire pack of forty to fifty monsters.
The total time spent on this was less than three minutes.
"I’ve been dreaming for too long."
After a sigh, the Graveyard Keeper slowly crawled out from the center of the Graveyard.
When the Scarlet Crusaders first arrived, they claimed that the Graveyard Keeper had been infected by the natural disaster. They killed him, a man who was only interested in investigating corpses, and buried him in the Graveyard. Little did they know that the Graveyard Keeper had turned into a zombie.
"Go! Priests, make sure to de-buff the plague status in time," Lu Li said briefly as he announced for the fight to begin.
The Graveyard Keeper had three spells.
One of these spells was Throw Poison, which caused players to be infected by the plague. It was mostly thrown onto the main tank, but as long as the Priest removed the effect in time, it wouldn’t be much of a threat.
The second skill was Summon Undead which would spawn a few monsters. However, with a taunt from Wandering and a Blizzard from Lonesome Flower, this skill wasn’t too hard to deal with either.
The third skill was Devour. After casting this, the Graveyard Keeper would sit on the floor and devour the Undead that the players had previously killed. This would heal a certain amount of his health, but the skill only slowed down his death timer. The maximum he could heal from this was about 10-20,000 HP out of a total of 90,000 HP. In the end, he would still be killed by the players.
As a level 30 boss, he gave quite a bit of experience.
Remnant Dream went up to loot the corpse, but she only found one Silver grade equipment.
Everyone was disappointed, apart from Lu Li.
Ghost Shadow Cloak (Silver): Armor 24, Intelligence 20, Mana Regeneration +20%, Mana Cost decreased by 20%, Magic Critical Strike Chance +10%, Level Requirement 30, Durability 42/42.
After Lu Li displayed the attributes of the Cloak, there was no surprise that Lonesome Flower and Sesame Rice Ball’s eyes lit up.
Any equipment that had a 10% bonus attribute for Critical Strike chance would be regarded as classical. This was without even mentioning the mana regeneration and mana cost reduction that allowed the owner of this Cloak to battle on for longer.
This meant that the time spent on eating and recovering would be greatly reduced for the player during their leveling-up process.
"Flower, you take it. His skills cost a little more mana," Lu Li said as he handed the Cloak to Lonesome Flower.
Although Sesame Rice Ball wanted it too, he didn’t ask for it. He knew that as long as he followed Lu Li, Lu Li wouldn’t mistreat him.
They could always get another one – there was a 100% chance of fighting the Graveyard Keeper after all.
It didn’t really matter who received the Cloak.
In this dungeon, there was only one boss in the graveyard, not including the Graveyard Keeper. Since all of the monsters had already been cleared, the team went straight for the territory of Bloodmage Thalnos.