Absolute Death Game

Li Jian thought about it and decided it was better to clarify things since they were going to run a dungeon, so he began explaining, "Before, since you all were still in the exploration phase without much combat, I didn’t go into much detail. But now, I think I better clear things up. In this game, equipment, dungeons, monsters, and skills are all distinguished by color."

"That is, there are eight different qualities: gray, white, light blue, dark blue, silver, gold, dark gold, and green."

"This applies to dungeons as well as monsters. Gray are minion, henchman-type monsters, white are common monsters, light blue are elite monsters, dark blue are higher-level elites, silver are mini-bosses, and gold are major bosses. Monsters with gold and silver names are already quite formidable, and they usually command a large number of minions in coordinated combat.

We in the White Tiger Group have only fought a silver mini-boss three times and a gold major boss once. The silver mini-boss was manageable, but we lost quite a few people fighting the major boss that one time."

"Monsters with dark gold names are ultimate bosses, often serving as the overall leader of a monster faction, akin to Sauron in ’Lord of the Rings’, the Lich King in ’World of Warcraft’, and Deathwing alike. Up until now, we haven’t faced one, so we don’t know how powerful they are. As for green monsters, they are quite peculiar. These monsters have high growth potential.

They are very weak when they first spawn, but if given the chance to grow, they can quickly become extremely formidable. So if any of you have Taming Skills, pay attention—if you come across a green-named beast that can be tamed, don’t let it go. They are the only ones with a clear growth attribute and are very worth having."

"So, from now on, when you encounter monsters, you can judge their strength just by the color."

After his explanation, they all remembered that the Walking Corpses they faced before indeed had gray names, which were obviously very weak. The name of the Corpse-driving Warlock they encountered just now seemed to be dark blue. It was a good thing they ran away quickly; otherwise, they wouldn’t even know how they died.

A high-level elite could command so many minions; it was hard to imagine how strong the armies of monsters led by the silver, gold, and even dark gold bosses must be.

Li Jian went on to say, "As for dungeons, they’re also classified by color. Gray is the lowest level, like the kind you’ve encountered now, which we usually refer to as cellars, often nothing more than a passageway and a big pit, typically easy for three to five people to handle, and sometimes even soloable.

White dungeons are called underground caves, which require five people working together to clear, usually featuring higher-level elite monsters. Light blue dungeons are called underground mansions, and dark blue dungeons are called underground vaults. The difficulty between the two isn’t significantly different, but there is a substantial difference in size.

Such dungeons usually have several dark blue high-level elites as gatekeeping bosses, and silver mini-bosses as the final boss, which require the main forces of the Green Dragon Group to have a chance of clearing."

"Silver dungeons are named Underground Labyrinth, and gold dungeons are called Underground City. These dungeons contain gold-named major bosses, and planning a meticulous strategy along with a considerable amount of preliminary work is required to even attempt them. Otherwise, it’s basically suicide.

As for dark gold dungeons, they are called Underground Kingdom, because the interior is almost like a small country, with countless bosses within, possibly hundreds, but no one has ever found one, so no one knows exactly what they are like."

Having listened to Li Jian’s introduction, everyone had a basic understanding of the difficulty of the dungeon before them. Li Baocheng, eager to give it a try, asked, "So, shall we go for it?"

"Of course, we should. If we don’t even dare to tackle the lowest-leveled gray dungeon, then how are we supposed to get by later? No matter how careful we are, we can’t expect to never fight monsters," Han Baiqiang was right in his response.

Xiao Buli and Sun Bin also agreed completely. The theory was simple—if they didn’t face lower-difficulty dungeons now, they would probably die miserably later when confronted with unavoidable, more challenging tasks. Instead of avoiding it now and waiting to die later, it was most rational to lower the risk to an acceptable level and enhance their own strength.

Since they had decided, they no longer kept their abilities secret and reported them to each other. Even for the simplest of dungeons, they needed to understand each other to better coordinate and fight.

Han Baiqiang’s combat skills included three. Copper Body Iron Arm LV3 (Passive Skill): Reduces 3 points of impolite damage received, very useful when dealing with groups of low-level monsters.

Earth Cleaving Slash LV2: Delivers a fierce strike with the main hand weapon against an enemy, with a certain chance to cause crushing damage, ignoring the target’s defense to deal maximum damage.

Spinning Strike (requires a hammer-type weapon): A fan-shaped AOE attack that can produce a knockback effect.

Sun Bin’s skills also included three abilities, Basic Spear Skills LV2, similar to Basic Swordsmanship, it’s just that the weapon of choice became the spear.

Wild Dance LV3: A short-range AOE skill, it inflicts average damage, but can be used frequently.

Coordinated Six Strikes LV1: Launch a series of rapid thrusts at a target, resulting in substantial DPS.

Li Baocheng had four combat skills.

In addition to Taming Skills, he also had Basic Archery LV1: Capable of shooting with crossbows, enhancing damage and accuracy with ranged weapons. Since the game doesn’t lock on, accuracy largely depends on the shooter, however, Li Baocheng claimed he was exceptionally skilled at shooting games before, so his accuracy was also quite high.

Backstab LV3: Initiate a close-range attack from behind the target that can cause triple the damage of a regular attack.

Emergency Dodge LV1: Same as Xiao Buli’s Emergency Dodge, it allows for a quick short-distance evasive maneuver.

Having understood each other’s skill types, Xiao Buli pondered for a while. With that in mind, why not let Li Baocheng take charge of pulling the monsters, have Han Baiqiang force the BOSS into a stunned state, then the rest of us focus all out on damage output? The game’s threat mechanics are still unknown, and we lack healing abilities, so we won’t set up a tank and healer.

Instead, everyone will act as DPS. If there are minor monsters, let the two dogs handle them, and let’s try to kill the BOSS in the shortest time possible. What does everyone think?

Xiao Buli’s plan could be said to be the best possible made with the current accessible game information, so nobody had any issues with it.

After eating and drinking for a while, and nearly fully restoring their physical strength and health points, the group entered the dungeon nervously yet excitedly. Inside, they found complete darkness, but Xiao Buli was well-prepared, equipping a torch from his backpack in the off-hand weapon slot.

As the fire lit up, they could see the scene of this mini-dungeon more clearly; it really was just a cellar, with a narrow corridor over a meter wide and roughly seven to eight meters long. In just a few steps, they reached the end of the corridor, where a circular room about ten meters in diameter awaited.

System prompt: You have entered the Forsaken Burrow.

At the end of the Forsaken Burrow, a figure stood alone with their back to the group, barely discernible in the flickering shadows of the torchlight. True to the lowest level dungeon, there were no minor monsters, only the BOSS.

Clicking on the monster’s icon revealed a light blue Elite Monster named ’Remains of Lu Jiang—Reanimated Zombie.’ n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Xiao Buli guessed that the zombie must have been named Lu Jiang in life. Just as this thought crossed his mind, Li Baocheng had already shot an arrow its way.

-2, a bright red number popped up above the zombies head, indicating a mere two health points lost. Roused by the attack, the zombie finally turned around slowly. Unlike the fully rotten walking corpses, this zombie’s skin was a blackish-green color but was preserved extremely well, even allowing one to discern the body shape and facial features from before death.

Upon seeing the zombie’s face, Xiao Buli was taken aback. Then, a chilling sensation that pierced right to his marrow quickly enveloped him, causing his scalp to explode with fear and almost freezing him on the spot—that zombie looked exactly like the elusive man with the hood.