Chương 11: Armor-Pierce Arrow

Archers had unique advantages in dungeon runs. Those last two waves took a full twenty minutes to clear. Multiple close calls where someone nearly died. The raid's overall DPS was too low. Double the attack power and this would've been smooth sailing. Xiao Chen was satisfied with his personal performance, though. He hadn't placed last -- two people were below him. At his level, that ranking was genuinely impressive. Nobody could talk smack about it.

Good thing he'd upgraded his gear at the last minute, or he really would've been dead last. The DPS spread was pretty tight across the board. After the minion waves, the raid stopped to rest and recover.

"The hard part of this dungeon is surviving the waves. Once the mobs are dead, the boss is easy." Past the gorge, a staff-wielding Necromancer awaited. Those ten waves of monsters? All summoned by this guy. Looking at his current state, his mana was completely drained. A mage without magic was a dead mage walking. From max range, Xiao Chen started pelting the boss with arrows. The rest of the raid rushed in to close the distance.

"Ding -- You have slain the Necromancer. Guild Contribution Points +8""EXP +4, 000, Silver Coins +40."

"Dropped: Necrotic Staff. You do not have distribution rights."

"Dropped: Undeath Flame. You do not have distribution rights." The drops drew gasps from the entire raid. Not just a weapon, but a special item too.

"Haha, we're rich!"

"The weapon's worth a hundred gold. But that Black Iron Grade Undeath Flame? Auction House has it listed at over two thousand." Common Undeath Flame went for a thousand gold. Black Iron Grade at two thousand was standard.

"Shame I can't afford it." Still, Xiao Chen was more than happy. Today's luck was incredible.

"See? Bringing newbies gives bonus drop rates!" Xiao Chen rolled his eyes. He hadn't placed last, thank you very much. First Tier-4 clear, and he'd already made bank.

"Team Gold Distribution: +203 gold." Not a bad payout at all. Xiao Chen immediately opened the Auction House and bought a Common Class Skill Book. 【Common Class Skill Book: Randomly awakens or upgrades one skill. Ten uses per person. 】"Ding -- Your Multi-Shot +1." That's it?! So... was this a skill upgrade? Xiao Chen was a little disappointed. This wasn't exactly the skill he'd been hoping for. But an extra projectile meant faster clear times when soloing. That had value.

His DPS would jump significantly in the next dungeon.

"It's not bad, but I wanted something that actually uses mana." Some archers who awakened Flame Arrow, Frost Arrow, or similar skills saw massive DPS gains. Tier-4 dungeons paid out well. All those mobs added up to respectable total EXP. Of course, the EXP requirement per level had increased sharply too. Xiao Chen was starting to understand why humanity had taken centuries just to barely reach Level 100. The leveling curve was brutal. With the mob density in Tier-4, it still took twenty runs per level.

One Tier-4 run took at least two hours. Non-stop grinding meant three days per level. A stable raid team was essential. Xiao Chen had finally found one, so he kept running with them. The raid members were fairly dedicated. Five fixed runs per day meant ten hours of dungeon time. After that, Xiao Chen tagged along with other groups for two or three more runs. He wasn't just working hard -- he was grinding himself to the bone. Four days later, Xiao Chen finally hit Level 31.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. Daily Tier-4 grinding continued. The drop luck evened out -- no more special drops. But every clear still netted two or three gold. Tier-4 was tedious, but the income was solid. He'd burned through most basic herbs. Next step: buying basic potions and consumables. To boost his team contribution and earn more EXP, Xiao Chen invested in stat-boosting items.

Small daily improvements, combined with the attribute points from 【One in Ten Thousand】, meant his damage crept up every day. A week later, Xiao Chen ranked third in DPS among the six damage dealers. Run after run, Little Strong's growth was becoming noticeable. Xiao Chen spent a few more gold to buy Little Strong a Level 30 weapon -- a Black Iron Grade longblade. With it, Little Strong finally had some real combat ability. He could barely handle a Level 30 mob on his own. Level 31 to 32 took ten days.

By now, Xiao Chen knew Tier-4 like the back of his hand. His role in the raid kept expanding. During this period, another Planar Announcement dropped -- another Blue Star city had fallen. There was good news too. Tiannan City had produced over a dozen Level 100 powerhouses. The powerhouse Xiao Yan had finally cracked the Planar Leaderboard top ten. Each level up should have meant less EXP per kill, but since the split was contribution-based, Xiao Chen's higher DPS meant his EXP gains barely dropped.

Level 32 to 33 would take about half a month. Xiao Chen was busy every single day. Just like before -- four or five hours of sleep, maximum. He was doing everything he could. He felt like he was optimizing every waking minute. Every day, Xiao Chen still found time to browse the forums -- checking other people's progress, looking up dungeon strategies. He found a post from another Level 32 Archer with A-Rank talent. Attack power: over nine thousand. Three times his own.

Tiannan City had produced some genuine prodigies. Some Awakened a year younger than him had already pushed past Level 50. The Tianxing Guild had its share of talent too, though they couldn't compete with the top-ranked guilds. Occasionally, Xiao Chen checked Tiannan City's news feed.

"Starglow Guild has obtained a Silver-Grade skill book from a Tier-8 dungeon. Can craft Silver-Grade weapons. Materials provided by customer. Crafting fee: 100 gold per piece!"

"Blazing Flame Guild now selling Bronze-Grade spirit wine. Solid stat boosts. Orders welcome."

"Star Pact releases bounty list. All Awakened are encouraged to report these fugitives and aid in their capture. Star Pact reiterates: with the enemy at our gates, all Awakened must unite. Anyone who attacks their own kind will face the severest punishment from Star Pact." Seeing the bounty list with thousands of names, Xiao Chen didn't really get it. Attacking other Awakened didn't drop equipment or grant EXP. Why would anyone do it? If he were an Assassin, he might actually hunt bounty targets.

Star Pact's rewards were pretty generous. After checking the bounties, another headline caught his eye.

"Artificer Guild combines Blue Star technology with planar forging techniques to develop Magic Grenades. Magic Grenades are now in mass production. Available for purchase through the Auction House."

"The successful development of Magic Grenades will greatly enhance city defenses, and serves as a godsend for non-magic class Awakened." Xiao Chen knew about grenades -- old Blue Star tech from centuries ago, dealing a pathetic three or four damage. Useless junk. Magic Grenades replaced gunpowder with higher-density magical energy? Usable even without magic skills? Wasn't this perfect for him? Xiao Chen opened the Auction House. Over a hundred million Magic Grenades were listed for sale.

"Not expensive. Twenty copper each." Made from common materials. Not exactly cheap either. One silver could buy five hundred. It was a low-risk investment, so Xiao Chen bought ten.

"Infuse magic into the grenade. Each grenade can hold 10, 000 MP." Xiao Chen checked his MP: 21, 635. Meaning he could craft two grenades at once. His MP was useless otherwise, so he dumped it straight into the grenades. Soon, a finished Magic Grenade sat in his hands. Half his MP gone.

"Finished Magic Grenade -- masterpiece of the Artificer Guild. Attack 800. Blast radius: 5 meters." Ten thousand MP for 800 damage? A same-tier Mage spending that much mana would deal dozens of times more damage. The grenades were underwhelming, but not completely useless.

"Considering the price, it's acceptable." MP took an hour to fully regenerate. He had no MP regeneration buffs, so his recovery was much slower than a Mage's.

"Two grenades per hour... could I make money off this?" A finished Magic Grenade sold for one silver on the Auction House. One grenade wasn't much, but what about a few hundred buried in the ground? That damage would be insane, right? Or have a summon charge into a mob pack carrying a bundle of grenades? Decent effect, probably. Either way, Xiao Chen's MP was going to waste.

"First investment: ten silver for five thousand grenades!" The grenade casings were cheap. The value was in the magic infused into them. Normal Awakened wouldn't waste their MP like this. Xiao Chen was different. His MP had no other use.

"When we run dungeons from now on, have the skeleton phantoms throw grenades!" Worst case, he could sell the finished grenades and turn a profit. Even a tiny revenue boost was worth it to him. If they could improve grenade designs, even more powerful versions would follow. Given humanity's current situation, this was genuinely helpful.

"If these grenades were ten times stronger, I could probably solo Tier-4." For now, soloing was still a distant dream. The Magic Grenades were a fun side project. They didn't fundamentally change much for Xiao Chen. He kept grinding dungeons daily, occasionally getting messages from friends.

"High-level mobs are spawning more frequently outside the city. The guild just took down a Level 70 elite."

"Storm Squad members are all hitting Level 32."

"Captain, want to come grind outside the city with us? We're about to level up again." His old teammates were progressing fast too. Xiao Chen's growth was solid as well. Three months of continuous Tier-4 grinding brought him to Level 36. At that level, he was a core contributor to the raid. He wanted to keep going, but the raid had to disband. Xu Qing's group had outleveled Normal difficulty. They needed to push into Tier-4 Heroic.

"I finally climbed to second place on the damage meters and now we're stopping?!" Xiao Chen was frustrated. He definitely couldn't get into a Heroic group at his level. His leveling had slowed down, but his personal growth was still solid. He'd lost count of how many Undead Core Crystals he'd fused into Little Strong. The skeleton now had 3, 600 HP and 80 Defense. Three months of daily kill count stacking, who knew how many 【One in Ten Thousand】 triggers.

During that time, a Bronze-Grade class skill book dropped, and a Herbalist skill book dropped once too. Xiao Chen got a decent cut of the profits. Around the time Xiao Chen turned eighteen, his wallet held 1, 209 gold. Enough for six Common Class Skill Books, or one Common Undeath Flame. One Undeath Flame cost a thousand gold. Xiao Chen agonized over the decision for a while:"I finally scraped together a thousand. Time to make the big play." He bit the bullet and bought a White-grade Undeath Flame.

"Little Strong, this is the most expensive thing I've ever bought. Don't let me down." His hands were actually shaking as he used the flame.

"Ding -- Your Undead Summon has been promoted to Black Iron Grade."

"Undead Skeleton HP +3, 000, Attack +100, Defense +40. Summoned skeleton phantoms now inherit 20% of base stats!" That was a solid upgrade. At least Little Strong was combat-viable now. 【Undead Skeleton, Grade: Black Iron, Level: 36 HP: 6, 600 Attack: 421 Defense: 120 Skill: Summon】 【Xiao Chen, Level: LV36 Total Stats: 3, 001 HP: 8, 100 Defense: 521 Attack: 3, 857 Attack Range: 50 meters Attack Speed: 0. 4】"Still got two hundred gold. Time for a skill book!" Skill awakenings were random.

Whatever you got was whatever you got.

"Ding -- You have awakened Armor-Pierce Arrow!"

"Armor-Pierce Arrow: Every attack applies Armor Shatter. Damage +10%."