Chapter 104 - 101 : A New Discovery

*Clang*

*Clang*

The sound of metals clashing, continuously reverberated in the cave.

[[ Rock Golem (Common)

Level : 6

HP :  300

Physical Attack Power : 51 + 10 (Elemental + weight effect)

Magical Attack Power : 15 + 10 (Elemental effect)

Physical Defence : 20 + 15 (Elemental effect)

Magical Defence : 10 + 10 (Elemental effect)

Movement Speed : 8

Attack Speed : 12

Attributes

Strength : 17

Endurance : 20

Vitality : 30

Agility : 4

Dexterity : 4

Intelligence : 5

Willpower : 10

Skills :

Elemental effect : Passive skill : High affinity with Earth element and increases defensive and attacking abilities.

Boulder punch : Passive skill : Weight of all physical attacks is multiplied by  1.6.

System description : More weight = more damage

Earth Spike : Active skill : Create an earthen spike and throw at target. Attack contains  150% of Physical attack power plus 70% of Magical Attack Power.  Cool-down : 3 seconds.

Rock Stamp : Active skill : Stamp heavily to release multiple earth spikes.  140% of Magical Attack Power as damage. Cool-down : 10 seconds.

________________________________

Rock Golem (Elite)

Level : 6

HP :  350

Physical Attack Power : 60 + 15 (Elemental + weight effect)

Magical Attack Power : 21 + 13 (Elemental effect)

Physical Defence : 20 + 15 (Elemental effect)

Magical Defence : 10 + 13 (Elemental effect)

Movement Speed : 8

Attack Speed : 12

Attributes

Strength : 20

Endurance : 20

Vitality : 35

Agility : 4

Dexterity : 4

Intelligence : 7

Willpower : 10

Skills :

Elemental effect : Passive skill : High affinity with Earth element and increases defensive and attacking abilities.

Boulder punch : Passive skill : Weight of all physical attacks is multiplied by  1.6.

System description : More weight = more damage

Earth Spike : Active skill : Create an earthen spike and throw at target. Attack contains  155% of Physical attack power plus 80% of Magical Attack Power.  Cool-down : 3 seconds.

Rock Stamp : Active skill : Stamp heavily to release multiple earth spikes. 145% of Magical Attack Power as damage. Cool-down : 10 seconds.

]]

A group of level 6 Rock Golems were attacking a small party of players. The Rock Golem force was a mixture of level 6 Commons and level 6 Elites. The three players; a fire elementalist, a swordsman and an assassin, were holding up quite well against the Rock Golems even though they were outnumbered.

The swordsman played the role of an MT, holding back 4 Rock Golems. Despite being outnumbered  1-6, he still held on. This wasn't just because his level was above that of the Rock Golems but also because he received timely assistance from his comrades.

The fire elementalist attacked from the back-line, aiding the swordsman and relieving the stress on him. As a fire elementalist, his attacks were highly explosive and dealt large amounts of damage to the Rock Golems. With a perfect mixture of well timed single target and AOE(Area Of Effect) skills, he was able to support the swordsman greatly and aid him in holding back the Rock Golems.

The last player, an assassin, made astute attacks that lessened the burden on the swordsman. He also dealt extremely high burst damage to the Rock Golems even though these creatures were really resistant to physical attacks. Like a fish in clear water, with a blade in hand, he danced through the Rock Golems brandishing his dagger on their Hardy rocky surface while dealing substantial damage to the monsters.

The party of three had good synergy and coordination in their attacks as if they were a team that had been battling alongside each other for years. This team was that of Sato, Fudo and Lu Zhen.

As a team made up of passable experts, it wasn't so bad for them to have good coordination after battling alongside each other for awhile. Before this, they had fought a couple other level 5 and level 6 Rock Golems in order to get used to one other. The result of this "training" was Lu Zhen being able to synchronize with the duo.

There were four level 6 common rank Rock Golems and two level 6 Elites. The trio were already higher levelled than the Golems. Adding in their impressive coordination, the Rock Golems couldn't stand a chance against them but they were still able to harm them.

Sato, who played the role of an MT, might be 2 levels ahead of them but his defense wasn't up to par to a true level 8 Guardian or Paladin, or even a level 6 one either. Even though Fudo and Lu Zhen tried to interrupt some of the attacks of the Rock Golems, some still managed to approach Sato. To those ones, he still blocked them but due to the substantial difference in [Strength], some of the force of the attack was transmitted to his body. Sato couldn't do much about this and so steadily lost his HP. Some of the Rock Golems' attacks landed on him but thanks to the Dawn Steel Armour he wore, the damage wasn't that much.

Each time the total damage had depleted 40% of his HP, Sato would down a HP potion before continuing his attacks. This period was the most peril for the team as Sato would need to retreat awhile to drink the potion and wait for it's effect to begin. Normally, Fudo would be tasked with giving Sato this opportunity and he did so through the aid of AOE attacks like for instance, the skill of his accessory, Igneel's guidance; which despite seeming like a singe target skill had AOE features to it.

The battle went on for at least 5 minutes before the team finally won. The reason for this long delay in time was due to the lack of a real MT, otherwise, they would have succeeded in less than 2 minutes. Still though, for a party of 3 to take on six level 6 monsters alone, it was really impressive.

"Ha! All this stress for such little Exp." Fudo complained. As he was level 8 player, the amount of Exp he would gain from level 6 monsters was very little being almost negligible.

"At least it's better than nothing. Lu Zhen is most likely the one to have benefited the most." Sato sighed. Lu Zhen was still a level 7 player so the amount of Exp he would gain from level 6 monsters was much more than that of Sato and Fudo's.

"Hehe." Lu Zhen awkwardly chuckled. Despite having a shameless behaviour, he didn't argue nor boast about his luck. The reason was simply because he was aware that without Sato and Fudo's help, he wouldn't have profited this much.

"Where next?" Fudo asked after seeing Lu Zhen's awkward reaction. In front of the trio were 3 tunnels that went to three separate areas. The trio had seen so many different tunnels ever since they stepped into Black Grill's Cave. Lu Zhen had lead through the ones he knew of and that was how they ended up here. If they had come by themselves, heavens knew where they would end up in.

"Well..." Lu Zhen looked ahead. "If I remember correctly, the middle one leads to a dead zone or something like that. The left leads deeper underground to a magma channel; I didn't get to fully explore that though. The one by the right is the only passage I've explored but I didn't go in deep. There were too many monsters and a few of them were level 7."

When Lu Zhen had explored the cave, he was still level 5. Usually, it is quite difficult for a player to sneak past a monster one level higher than they are and at the Elite rank. It was already quite impressive that he was able to get past the level 6 Elites with his stealth skill but the same couldn't be said for the level 7 Rock Golems. Because of his low level, he was forced to retreat and abandon the tunnel by the right. This time however, he was level 7 and came with two level 8 players.

"Ok then. Let's go." 

The party then went into the tunnel by the right. They had walked about 30 metres in when Fudo suddenly asked,

"Didn't you say this place was full of monsters, where are they?"

"I don't know..." Lu Zhen was confused. The last time he came here, there were a few level 6 Elites monitoring the pathway. Now however, they hadn't even spotted a level 5 Rock Golem much less a level 6 Elite.

"Let's go in deeper then." Sato frowned a bit. He didn't think that Lu Zhen was wrong since he had been correct throughout most of their journey. He decided to think that maybe Lu Zhen had miscalculated a bit.

One should recall that Black Grill's Cave is really big; bigger than a secondary town. If Sato and Fudo had journeyed here on their own, they would most likely get lost; even with a map, they would be a little bit confused after all, they were going into Black Grill's Cave for the first time and reading tunnel maps isn't so easy. Considering the huge size of Black Grill's Cave, Sato decided to believe that Lu Zhen might have made a slight mistake in his calculation despite them being on the right road. Due to this miscalculation, Lu Zhen might have thought that they would encounter monsters in a 30 metres radius when it might be a little bit more than that.

"As of here on now, I don't know anything about it." Lu Zhen sighed after they had walked a bit deeper. One reason he said so was to not only inform Sato and Fudo before they accuse him of misleading them but also to notify them to raise their guards up.

"Ok." Sato replied as they continued moving forward.

*Clang*

*Clang*

They had gone in a couple of metres deep when they overheard battle sounds. They slowed down their movements and walked slowly to the location of the sound. After a short while, the trio had reached a wide cave, about 2 football field in size[1].

Looking deeper, they saw a party of 3 players having a hard time facing another group of 4 players. The special thing though was that the team of 4 players had the usual player icon above each player's head, shining red.

They were dark players!