Chapter 27. Elemental Card (2)
Chapter 27. Elemental Card (2)
Wyvern’s Nest had the highest difficulty as a hunting field in the Land of Dusk, but it was yet undiscovered by other users. Normally, users would have to do prerequisite quests in order to access this place.
To be exact, they had to find out about this place through the prerequisite quest. However, that prerequisite quest was the last quest of an incredibly complex chain quest, so there weren’t any users that even received that quest yet.
Naturally, Sanghyuk also didn’t have that quest. No, he didn’t have any quest that was remotely related to that quest. It was meaningless to him anyway.
Sanghyuk had already experienced that quest in his previous life, so he knew how to get to Wyvern’s nest without the quest.
There was the advantage that the navigation system could be used to guide the user to the hunting field if the user had the quest, but it was not so difficult for Sanghyuk, a veteran EL user, to find his way through the world of EL.
‘I think it was somewhere around here…….’
Having arrived at the Eastern Cliffs at the eastern end of the Land of Dusk, he used his unique mountaineering techniques to start looking for the path that leading to Wyvern’s Nest.
If he had the prerequisite quest, then he would have skipped over this process and go directly to Wyvern’s Nest, but it was perhaps too greedy for him to not suffer this much when he used his cheat known as reverse time travel.
Sanghyuk could find the path that leading to Wyvern’s Nest after a few hours of searching. A vine that looked like it was from the story, Jack and the Beanstalk, which was cleverly hidden behind some of the cliffs, leading to Wyvern’s Nest.
Wyvern’s Nest could be considered a public dungeon. The main means of travel was through the vines that connected between the cliffs, and caution was necessary in order to not fall off to death.
Sanghyuk grabbed onto a vine and climbed up. When he climbed up for about 15 minutes, Wyvern’s Nest, also known as the sky dungeon, appeared before his eyes.
“It’s been a while.”
Once, Sanghyuk had camped out in this place for whole four months. At that time, other users of the ‘workshop’ came and supplied the necessary items while they took away the loot, so he wasn’t even allowed to climb down.
In those four months, Sanghyuk hunted countless wyverns. Wyverns were high-level monsters that required three users at around level 43~45 to work in a party to beat.
And not just any party, but a well-balanced one with a tanker, damage dealer, and a healer were a must. They were just that tough to beat.
However, there was also a positive side, and it was that the wyverns were very independent. They made nests on each of the peaks of the cliffs that were connected by vines, and the distance between each of those peaks was quite wide, so it was possible to hunt one at a time.
Sanghyuk first took out his Marking Book and marked this place. Once he entered Wyvern’s Nest, the Marking Book won’t work, so he had to do it here.
‘Wyvern’s Nest is actually rather complex, so most first-time users lost their ways. I also remember saying how shitty this dungeon was.’
While marking, Sanghyuk reminisced about his old memories. Actually, his past was too sad to be ‘reminisced’, but there were some things that he still missed.
‘Wow, I thought I completely forgot, but I think I can remember the paths…… looks like I did camp out here for a long time.’
At first, he was worried that he wouldn’t be able to remember his way around anymore, but when he actually came, he was surprised to find out that he was worried for nothing.
‘Well, then. Let’s start hunting.’
Since he not only remembered the paths but the walkthrough as well, he had no need to wait for anything.
‘First up is a buff!’
Sanghyuk first took out a Fusion Card before the fight. The name of this Fusion Card that he had made by combining a few craft item cards and elemental cards…… was ‘The Blessing of Wind and Fire’.
The effect of this card, made by combining the lowest-rank fire elemental card, lowest-rank wind elemental card and three other cheap materials, was the increase of basic attack power and speed.
It was one of the few buff-type Fusion Card that could be made from lowest-rank elementals, so he had made one hundred of them.
*Tssssss.*
The Fusion Card seeped into his body and the buff was activated. The number ‘30’ could be seen at the top right corner of his vision, and this was the duration of the buff.
30 meant 30 minutes.
‘Did I take about five minutes per wyvern with three people when we were completely proficient? Hmm, looks like I’ll have to set my first aim as ten minutes.’
Wyverns were monsters with great karma drop and item loot in compensation for the long time to hunt. Especially right now when he had no competition, he could move around various nests and hunt wyverns endlessly and profit immensely.
*Chrrrrrrrrr, clack!*
Sanghyuk took out his Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip and looked ahead of him. He could see a green wyvern in front of him…… actually, green wyverns the weakest of wyverns, but they were still the strongest in the Land of Dusk.
“Let’s go!”
Having finished preparing, Sanghyuk started running on the vines that stretched out in front of him.
***
The most important thing when hunting a wyvern was to not let it take flight at all. And to do that, the eggs in the wyvern’s nest, which there was always at least one of per nest, had to be hit during the fight.
In Sanghyuk’s previous life, it was called the ‘egg agro’, and only by hitting the eggs users could prevent wyverns from using their wyvern breaths.
There was an interesting setting here, and it was that there was only one male in this wide dungeon. The rest were all females.
Normally, the damage dealer would take care of the egg agro instead of the tanker in a three-man party. Since the tanker had to take care of the wyvern’s agro, it was hard for the tanker to take care of the egg agro at the same time.
So, the damage dealer would hit the egg once in awhile to prevent wyverns from taking flight.
If the wyverns could be tied down, then the rest was just the same as fighting other monsters, looking for patterns and counteracting against it.
There was nothing special to the wyvern’s patterns. As long as users were careful of the melee attacks ‘bite’ and ‘tail-strike’, there was nothing difficult.
At first, Sanghyuk was also nervous because it had been a long time, but when it came to an actual battle, he easily adapted to the wyvern’s patterns. The endless repetition of hunting these things in his previous life was etched into his memory, and they took effect.
Also, Sanghyuk’s weapon, the Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip, was very suitable to maintain egg agro. The nests of wyverns were mostly a circular space of 10m in diameter, so he could always hit the egg if he was near the center.
*Chrrrr, clang!*
Sanghyuk once again swung his Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip to hit the egg. The core of the egg agro was to not break the egg.
Once the egg was broken by mistake, the wyvern would go berserk. Even Sanghyuk wouldn’t be able to endure against a berserk wyvern.
*Kraaaaawr!*
The female wyvern became fiercer the more Sanghyuk hit the egg. It was fighting to protect the egg even after its body was tattered.
‘Tch, even monsters in games are like this…….’
Sanghyuk was almost triggered after remembering the environment in his previous life. However, that didn’t get in the way of his actions.
‘Life must be lived alone anyway.’
After returning in time, Sanghyuk always thought that ‘there are no people that aren’t alone.’. That didn’t change right now, so he swung the Ten Millennia Goldbone whip after getting his mind straight.
*Swoosh, crunch!*
He prevented the wyvern from taking flight by egg agro and mysteriously moved his whip continuously to wrap his whip around the wyvern’s neck. Then, he pulled on the Ten Millennia Goldbone whip to get on the wyvern’s back.
The fact that Sanghyuk got on the wyvern’s back meant that it was time to kill the wyvern.
*Kyaoooooooh!*
The wyvern struggled violently in order to take Sanghyuk off its body. However, Sanghyuk balanced himself like a cowboy doing rodeo and tightened the Ten Millennia Goldbone around the neck. Then he pulled on it hard.
*Crrrrrrrrrunch!*
The Ten Millennia Goldbone whip dug deep into the wyvern’s neck. Sanghyuk grabbed the Ten Millennia Goldbone whip with both hands and pulled on it again.
Since Sanghyuk had invested most of his additional stat points gained from leveling into strength and agility, his strength was considerably high.
So, when he decided to tighten the Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip as much as possible, the already near-dead wyvern couldn’t survive.
*Crrrrack, thud.*
In the end, the green wyvern’s neck was bent into an L shape. The neck snapping meant that its HP had reached 0, so the wyvern collapsed onto the nest.
The moment the wyvern fell down, Sanghyuk first had a look at the remaining time on his buff.
’22 minutes…… so I took around 8 minutes? It’s better than I expected.’
Since he saved time from the original 10 minutes he was expecting, this wasn’t a bad result. He had a lot of worries until he fought the wyvern itself, but when he actually fought, his experiences from his previous life helped him out a lot.
‘I might be able to reduce it down to 5 minutes if I minimize some of my actions.’
He felt very good. He started remembering more of the memories of his previous life, including how to hunt wyverns in an easier way and what to look out for.
“Good! I should camp here for a while!”
Like how he sucked out the juice in the Snake Caves for one month, he was planning to suck the juice from here, Wyvern’s Nest, as well.
He made proper adjustments and started hunting wyverns.
In his eyes, all the wyverns looked like loots.
***
“You want me to believe that?”
The man who was listening to Killing Machine’s words, looked at him with an absurd expression.
“I can swear to God that it’s real. How can I possibly lie to you, hyung?”
“Hmm…….”
Killing Machine definitely couldn’t lie to him. These two had met each other while non-stop PK’ing at another game around 5 years ago.
Of course, to the man who had a completely different level of talent than Killing Machine for PK’ing, Killing Machine was just an underling, but they had met up a few times in real life to drink during the past 5 years.
Killing Machine was actually worse in real life than in virtual reality, so he was always scolded by the man when they met up. If Killing Machine actually lied, then he might get beat up in real life.
“So you were actually defeated in 10 seconds flat?”
“Yes. He was really that absurd.”
“So that’s how it is…….”
No matter how weak Killing Machine was, 10 seconds was too overkill. Even the man felt like he had to take 1 minute to subdue Killing Machine.
“I’m trying to search for him in secret, but it’s hard to find his location. Should I call you as soon as I find him?”
What Killing Machine wanted was revenge. The man he had come to…… had the greatest PvP abilities among the people he knew. Not only that, this man madly like to fight against strong people.
His name was Dark Dragon, aka DD. He was reputed to be one of the greatest PvP players in another game before EL.
“Goddammit, I tried to not become a malefactor for a while because I had a lot of things to do…… I’m actually quite close on dark karma right now. I’ll become a malefactor if I kill him, right?”
“Then you can subdue him and not kill him. I’ll do the killing.”
“Hey, do you think that EL’s crime system is so easy? Even if you kill him, my contribution to his death as a subdue is high so it won’t make much difference from me killing him.”
“Hmm…… then how about you lower your dark karma as much as possible while I look for him?”
“So it’s that after all……? Okay, I get it so go look for him. And you idiot, I told you to stay low and hunt since malefactors won’t be able to act for a while. You were put in such a state because you didn’t listen to me and PK’ed as you wished. If you can’t judge for yourself, then at least listen to other people’s words.”
“No, I was just…….”
Killing Machine became infinitely small in front of DD.
Killing Machine became a malefactor on his own precisely because he wanted to stay apart from him, but he could only resort to DD for his revenge.