Published at 25th of March 2019 10:44 pm

Chapter 795: Harcus the Old Gambler

There were tons of NPCs that had quests for players to accept. Sadly, most of them were scraps. They were either lame quests that involved killing monsters, running errands, completing a series of item hunting, all the while rewards were next to worthless. None of them were even remotely related to that of the Land Lease. Most of all, due to the fact that there were literally tons of quest available, no one would have any clue to which one would actually lead to the quests that gives the Land Lease.

After spending some time searching about, the little girl finally called out to Zhang Yang with some good news. "Noobie tank! You better thank me later. I think I’ve found a good quest!" said Wei Yan Er as she posted the quest description on the party channel.

[Hunting the Silvery Scale Eel King] (Difficulty Level: A)

Description: The old gambler has placed a bet with you to hunt the Silvery Scale Eel King. If you have the guts, go to the Waving Sand Island in the west of the Death Mist Sea.

Progress: Head of the Silvery Scale Eel King 0/1

Reward: Harcus’s Golden Tooth

Zhang Yang cringed a little when he saw the quest reward. No wonder he was called the old gambler. He would even put out his own golden tooth as a stake for the bet. It's not like he could use the tooth for anything besides selling it!

However, an A-level difficulty quest was the eye catcher. Perhaps, the boss that they were asked to slay was at least a Holy tier boss.

Since the quest was not sharable, and the reward was extremely useless to them, everyone else had gone straight to the boss location instead of finding the NPC. Once they left the valley, everyone summoned out their battle mounts and followed Zhang Yang towards the Death Mist Sea.

The place they were heading to, was towards the Northern region of the canyon, behind the huge mountain where the land and the sea meets. Although the entire sea was huge, they had no need to spread out deep to search for the boss. Dark, shadowy mist crawls all around the surface of the water. The creepiness of the sea was the source of its name. Without further delay, Zhang Yang and the party arrived at their destination and found the beach. Zhang Yang informed everyone that the boss will most likely be under the waters. Hence, they would have to enter the waters to search. Sadly, only Han Ying Xue and Zhang Yang had underwater mounts. The search for the boss was tasked to them.

Han Ying Xue, famed for only two things, her magnificent badahonkadongs and her broken sense of directions. The poor woman would get lost even when on land. Give her a three-dimensional space to travel and she would be lost faster than Zhang Yang killing a normal tier monster. However, as broken as her direction may seem, she was the embodiment of Luck itself. While she was finding her way back to land, she had incidentally stumbled upon a small crack amongst the coral reef and found the Silvery Scale Eel King, sleeping soundly in the dark crack.

While no one was around, Zhang Yang gave Han Ying Xue a deep kiss underwater and rose to the shore to get everyone ready for the boss fight. Some of the members wondered why the two of them had taken so long so resurface but dropped the topic immediately. They took a [Underwater Breathing Potion] and started to swim downward towards the location of the boss.

[Silvery Scale Eel King] (Holy, Beast)

Level: 220

HP: 2,200,000,000

Defense: 21,710

Melee Attack: 186,631 - 246,631

Skills:

[Electric Shock]: Sends out electric current throughout its body and deals 200,000 Natural damage to all targets within 40 meters.

[Iron Fangs]: Bites down a target and deal 100% Melee Physical attack.

Note: A dominant beast in the ocean. No other underwater being could even get close to it, fearing that they would be fried.

"Pfft. Nothing but an easy Holy tier boss. Let’s go, ladies and gentleman!"

Even though not everyone could mount on their battle mount in the waters, the boss was just a Holy tier boss with over 2 billion HP. It’s a target that the party found easy to defeat, especially since it has no special skills or effects going on around. Hence, in less than 20 minutes, the boss was decapitated. The remains of its mangled body floated upwards to the surface.

Everyone received over 200 million HP each. Although the numbers alone were huge, it was only able to make a tiny blip in their experience bar. Ever since they had reached Level 200, the experience points required to gain another Level had increased exponentially.

As expected, Holy tier bosses were nothing more than fillers in the Level 180 - Level 210 maps. The items they dropped would either be common or at most, rare. Equipment from the boss drops would not have the "perfect" stats nor Level Requirement reduction Special. Even in the Level 210 - Level 240 maps, the result would be the same. Hence, no one paid much attention to the equipment after Wei Yan Er had looted them all.

"WOAH! Have a look at this! This equipment has a 30 Level reduction!" cried Wei Yan Er.

"Huh?" Everyone, including Zhang Yang, stopped.

[Silvery Scale Cape] (Holy, Cape)

Vitality: +5134

Strength: +1235

Dexterity: +535

{Level 7 Socket}

Equip: Increases maximum HP by 10,260.

Equip: Absorbs 1,051 damage on attack.

Use: Increases 20,000 Defense for 10 seconds. Cooldown: 30 minutes.

Level Requirement: 220

Special: Level Requirement reduced by 30 Levels.

Even though the cape was not strong, its strength was more plainly towards defensive stance. The best was as said by Wei Yan Er, it did have the 30 Levels reduction special.

"Could the system be displaying the wrong number?"

"Is it bugged?"

"Wouldn’t be as simple as a bug."

"Perhaps the developers forgot to delete the last line of coding. That happens when you’re lazy in retyping the codes. Eventually, you’ll resort to just CTRL C and CTRL V every line. Trust me. I know this."

Zhang Yang was not paying attention to the party members squabbling. He was busy thinking, why would a cape dropped by a Holy tier boss have such an effect embedded in it. Only the final boss of the map would have such an effect. The Eel King was so easy to be defeated that it could not be the map’s strongest boss. It would not make sense even if the entire party had achieved the strength of that level.

"My guess is the escalation of Level. After Level 200, the experience points needed to gain a level will be harder than ever. Hence, as a compensation to the fresh blood, the developers had decided to drop items with such an effect. Think about it. Level 220 would take us a whole year of grinding!" said Zhang Yang. That would be the most logical answer if the system was behaving as it should.

Then again, it was still a good treat for all players. The item was considered to be in the trash tier. After the given special effect, the item would be treated like a common item instead of trash. If the cape had stats that leaned either to full attack or full defense, it would be treated differently despite its tier. All in all, it was better to loot one item instead of going home empty-handed. After all, Holy tier bosses spawned like Truffles.

Since the cape had defensive stats and a little Dexterity, the cape was then "thrown" to Zhang Yang. It was all good for him since it was almost time for him to discard the older Ethereal tier cape that he had. Sadly, the Ethereal tier cape was extremely strong. It had stats that suited both attacking and defending. Hence, after changing into the new cape, Zhang Yang had gained a boost in HP and damage absorption but lost a little attacking power.

Even though the boss had dropped a surprising equipment, the quantity was just too sparse. There was only one Holy tier equipment and two Ethereal tier equipment, both with the same 30 Level reduction special effect. When you receive a 100 dollar bill, you would not want to care about the next 5 dollar prize. The Ethereal tier equipment were also "thrown" to Zhang Yang for him to sell in the Little Merchandize Shop.

Zhang Yang took the head of the Eel King and told everyone to go back to the canyon to complete the quest. Unlike the others, Zhang Yang an interest in the quest and had decided to find the NPC to submit the quest.

"Oh my lord! What is that!?" cried the greenish little goblin after Zhang Yang had tossed the severed head of the Eel King to his feet. "You actually killed the Silvery Scale Eel King?! Unbelievable!"

[Harcus, the Old Gambler] (Normal, Humanoid)

Level: 230

HP: 302,670

Note: Once a wealthy goblin during his prime. After getting addicted to the world of gambling, the sharp-minded goblin had misplaced his wisdom in the underground world and lost all his fortune. Luckily, he had a means of income by collecting rental from a property in the Holy City of Anthylor.

Hah! Zhang Yang smirked. The old goblin had a property and it was in the Holy City itself! There was a chance that a Land Lease is in his possession!

"Old Gambler. Gotta to pay up!" said Wei Yan Er happily.

Being an old goblin, Harcus had all the bad traits of a typical goblin. However, the goblin placed his pride as a gambler and had punched his face hard in order to break the golden tooth from his gums. Winching in pain and regret, the old goblin wiped the bloody tooth and gave to Wei Yan Er.

Despite her love for shiny golden things, Wei Yan Er chose not to pick the tooth from his old wrinkled hands.

Zhang Yang smiled and said, "Old goblin, would you want to have another bet with me? To get that golden tooth back?"

Harcus twitched a little and Zhang Yang said the word "bet". Almost instantly, he turned to Zhang Yang and cried. "Laddie, you’re 100 years too early to be gambling with me! So, what are we betting about?"

Zhang Yang stumped for a while since he had no idea what to do next. The old goblin rubbed his unkempt beard and said, "I have an idea. If you can get me the Claws of the Hybrid Beast King, I will give you this pair of boots. It’s a masterpiece crafted by the great Dwarven Clobber, Brian Wildhammer!"

‘Ding! Harcus the Old Gambler has a quest for you: Claw of the Hybrid Beast King. Will you accept it?’

Even though Zhang Yang had not completed the quest for the Eel King, he had managed to acquire the quest prompt. A similar event occurred to Wei Yan Er as well. Perhaps, it was one of the ways of unlocking consecutive quests.

The funny thing is, when the old goblin had lost his golden tooth, the next item he could cough out was his worn-out boots.

[Claw of the Hybrid Beast King] (Difficulty Level: A)

Description: The old gambler has wager another bet with you. All you have to do to win the bet is to hunt for it in the Crumbling Rock Canyon.

Progress: Claw of the Hybrid Beast King 0/1

Quest Reward: Old Gambler Harcus’s Old Boots.

After the two took the quest, Zhang Yang summoned everyone and headed towards the Crumbling Rock Canyon. Before the Eel King, none of them would even want to fight a Holy tier boss. However, after the Eel King’s surprise equipment drop, they had tagged along, hoping to score something as valuable.

The Crumbling Rock Canyon was just an extension of the same mountain range that extended from the North East of the Dark Ghastly Canyon. Hence, the party had only taken close to 3 hours to get there. Unlike the dark, shadowy canyon, the Crumbling Rock Canyon was brighter, yet everywhere the light touched seemed to be old and, as the name implied, crumbling. There were rocks that were so brittle that they could be seen crumbling on their own. There were weird man-made pillars all around the canyon that were breaking down. As such, the towering pillars could fall down anytime which would only endanger everyone. Zhang Yang led everyone to land and walked their way towards the depths of the Canyon.

Just as they entered the mysterious place, they heard a loud growl. A large beast came out behind the crumbling rocks. It had a huge head of a monkey, the neck of a swan, the body of a tiger, the tail of a scorpion, and legs that could not be recognized. It was an entire being that was out of this world!

[Ancient Hybrid Beast] (Elite, Beast)

Level: 215

HP: 107,500,000

Defense: 13,190

Melee Attack: 87,665 - 147, 665

Skills:

[Pounce]: Leaps forward and tackles a target. Stuns a target for 3 seconds. Range: 3 - 10 meters.

[Drag]: Target with the highest aggro value cannot leave its attacking range. When the targets leave, the beast will drag the target back to its attacking range using the powers of the Ancient Beings.

[Parasitic Laying]: Injects an egg into the target. 10 seconds later, a Juvenile Ancient Hybrid Beast will spawn out of the target and absorbs 10% of the target’s HP. (Cannot exceed 200,000). Juvenile Ancient Hybrid Beast will assist the Ancient Hybrid Beast in battle.

[Passing On]: Before death, the Ancient Hybrid Beast will transfer all powers that it owns to a nearby Juvenile Ancient Hybrid Beast. Transfer of power will last for 10 seconds and cannot be interrupted. Kill the Ancient Hybrid Beast to stop the transfer of the Juvenile Ancient Hybrid Beast will be grown immediately into a fully grown Ancient Hybrid Beast. Condition: Juvenile Ancient Hybrid Beast must be present around the Ancient Hybrid Beast.

Note: The Ancient Hybrid Beast is a powerful Hybrid created from the ancient times when Gods roamed the earth. It has potent godly powers.

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