Chapter 463 - Starting Over
TL: LifeisaJourney
Once again Liu Gan opened up his dimensional storage space to check on his new PDA. Specifically, he wanted to check on the whereabouts of the King Crocodile. The King Crocodile was still quite far away, it hadn't moved since it had returned to sleep.
It seemed the King Crocodile was a nocturnal creature, active during the night, and asleep by day. This gave time for Liu Gan to think of ways to kill it. The first step was to plan escape routes.
Scaling the cliff was hard work, and they all had to rest after reaching the top. Liu Gan confirmed their next destination as the forest outside the King Crocodile's territory. Then he would start planning for the next step in his elaborate plan.
According to the group's collective brainstorming, Liu Gan pulled out his special nanite rope from the dimensional storage space. He wrapped it around a tree trunk eight meters above the ground. Even if the King Crocodile was chasing after him, he could grab the rope with ease and jump off. If the King Crocodile got entangled, it would even be better.
After hustling and bustling, Liu Gan glanced in the direction of the creature. Prior to receiving the new PDA, Liu Gan would feel nervous since potential enemies could be lurking at every corner. With the minimap, he could accurately pinpoint the dangers before they struck. There would no longer be any worries about any unwelcome encounters.
After trudging through mud and dirt, Liu Gan was covered in filth. He wiped the stink off his body as he checked the PDA once again. No one knew when the King Crocodile would wake up from its slumber. Constantly checking the PDA was a precautionary measure, just in case it did wake up. It was a formidable foe, they couldn't lower their guards.
From the earlier fight, Liu Gan could summarize the King Crocodile's two main types of attack. Once was the claw swipe, the other was the roar. The roar was a type of mental attack, it was the roar that had kept him from moving.
Since it was a mental attack, it was highly effective against players. The moment they were caught in the attack, they were doomed. It wasn't as useful against Liu Gan, once he figured out how to counter the attack. Happily, the King Crocodile couldn't use the suppression roar in succession. The ability had a cooldown time and whenever it was used, Liu Gan would use his ability to counter it.
The King Crocodile's claw swipe was the worrisome issue. There was a chance that Liu Gan wouldn't be able dodge all the attacks. Every attack would take off a fourth of his Mist Armor's durability. Those penetrating attacks were overwhelming. However, Liu Gan's Enhanced Crescent Blade couldn't penetrate through the Black Fog shield. It was a one-sided battle from beginning to end.
Without a doubt, the overflowing Black Fog shield was an improved version of his Mist Armor. All of his attacks were rendered useless against this shield, it was like all the attacks were displaced. The shield was equivalent to Yin He's Spatial Armor. Liu Gan speculated that unless the Black Fog shield was destroyed, he had no chance of harming its flesh.
This was an especially worrisome situation. Needless to say, Liu Gan's shield was far weaker than the King Crocodile's shield. Liu Gan didn't have any long-distance attacks, he relied purely on close-quarters combat. No matter what happened, he would lose first in a battle of attrition.
Liu Gan had to leave the King Crocodile's territory quietly and quickly. After he spent a whole day regenerating his Mist Armor, the King Crocodile would also fully regenerate its shield. Everything was relative to level, so the King Crocodile's recovery speed would be faster than Liu Gan's. It took everything Liu Gan had to cast his Enhanced Crescent Blade, but it didn't even put a dent in the King Crocodile. Now that the Croc's shield had regenerated, he would have to start over from beginning.
All the effort he had invested seemed pointless, there was no viable method of defeating the creature.
From an outsider's perspective of the dire situation, it was very likely this mission was possible only for level 15 and above players. Liu Gan accepted this mission a tad too early. When Zhao Nan Shan and Qiu Zi Tao took on this mission and encountered the same situation, they chose to give up.
The other people's suggestions were right. Fighting head-on against the King Crocodile was not feasible, they would have to rely on using their wits.
The shop was so well hidden that it took them quite a while to find it, so it would be pointless to set up any additional tricks. One major hint was that it took four separate quests to unlock this final mission. There must be a clue or method during this whole process that they had overlooked. Otherwise… they would have to resort to the most foolish method, such as the players saving up for the tokens by playing by the rules. They might have to save up for several hundreds or thousands of years; they might even take ten thousand years since it depended on uncertain factors like Crocodiles' spawn rate. Then, if the players were still alive, they would be able to exchange their tokens for the most expensive product, the battleship. They could maneuver the battleship, wherever and however they liked. Every weapon aboard the battleship, like a laser cannon, antimatter cannon, or gravity gun, would be available to the owner. The King Crocodile would be at the mercy of the battleship's bombardment!
Liu Gan didn't believe that he would survive the millenium, nor did he have the patience to save every token earned. This stupid method was something he definitely wouldn't consider. If he had to put some thought into it, then it would be a short term method for earning the most tokens.
Unfortunately, Liu Gan had to walk close to the King Crocodile to exit the territory. As he drew close to the creature, the King Crocodile unexpectedly woke up. It stood up slowly, but Liu Gan moved just as slow to avoid unnecessary attention. Liu Gan grabbed a handful of mud and smeared it on his body and face, just to throw off his scent. There was less than a hundred meters between him and the King Crocodile. It haven't noticed him yet, but it walked around its sleeping spot in a circle while sniffing deeply.
Liu Gan didn't dare to charge forward. Instead, he chose to observe. Like a monkey, he climbed to the crown of a tree to scope out his enemy. For now, he needed to go into surveillance mode to see if he can find any weakness.
The King Crocodile was shrouded with the Black Fog shield from head to tail, even its mouth and anal orifice were covered. As a whole, the shield enveloped every inch of skin. There were no visible weaknesses at all. What a pain...
As Liu Gan was watching gloomily, the King Crocodile started to feed. It lowered its head and started chewing on a luscious shrub.
This creature is a herbivore? Liu Gan was shocked by what he was seeing. So what if it was a plant eater? What could he do with this new knowledge?
In actuality, the King Crocodile wasn't really trying to eat the plant, it was tearing away at the shrub. Then, in the motion of lifting up its head, it looked in the direction he was hiding.