vncnus Page 40
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"Uh, is there anything else?"
After selecting a spell, the loot interface flashed and reappeared, this time showing four magical items. After selecting a +3 Rending Claw, the loot interface jumped back to the feats section.
A bad feeling quietly rose in Casalos's heart: He was given three enhancements at the start, so the difficulty of the upgraded Dragon Vault dungeon must be very high.
With a heart full of trepidation, Casalos chose to master the innate weapon feat and attach it to his breath weapon. He gritted his teeth and squeezed into the dungeon door, where a dizzying transition effect enveloped him.
"See you later." The NPC's voice reached Casalos's ears, and it finally began to doubt its identity: This guy is probably not an NPC... What about that so-called story quest?
Time didn't allow it to think long; the transition ended in an instant, and Casalos felt the pull of gravity as yellow sand rushed towards it. Adjusting its posture, its limbs slightly bent as if landing after a jump, it stood steadily in a sun-baked desert.
"Huh, where are the boundaries of the room? It looks different from the astral landscape outside. It should be able to fly?"
The sky was perfectly clear, and Casalos had a wide field of vision, yet it couldn't see the boundaries of each room that had been defined in previous training dungeons. Rustling sounds came from all directions, and ripples spread across the sand, enveloping it.
Unidentified monsters lurk in the sand, and the ripples are the traces of their movements.
Casalos put aside his chaotic thoughts and was about to cast buffs like Overpower the Enemy in preparation for battle when he was suddenly taken aback—the magic network in the scene was gone!
It makes casting spells extremely difficult for level 1 mages. Fortunately, spellcasting abilities are not affected.
Abandoning the obscure mage spells and casting a subsonic shield on himself, Casalos attempted to take off, immediately feeling the sudden decrease in gravity and the increased air resistance. Compared to the astral landscape outside the dungeon entrance, the rate of gravity decay was much slower, and while the air resistance was significantly greater than in Faerûn, it wasn't completely unacceptable. In other words, the dungeon's restrictions on aerodynamic flight weren't as severe as previously thought; given his stamina, he could still fly to some extent.
Perhaps because Casalos took off, the monsters hiding under the sand lost their target, since all of them...
Chapter 104
The movement ceased, the ripples of the desert abruptly stopped.
Casalos snarled its iron beak and swooped down toward the nearest ripple that had stopped. Just before it touched the ground, it pulled itself up, its hind claws, adorned with tearing claws, snapping into the sand and pulling out the monster hiding beneath.
"What is this stuff?"
The creature, pulled from the sand, was encased in a thick chitinous carapace and looked very "sci-fi," resembling some kind of grasshopper. Eight spiky limbs twitched, and its head, topped with a pair of guillotines that seemed to be slicing and biting at Casalos's claws that were holding it, clattered together. Beneath the two slightly open carapaces on its abdomen, two thin membranes vibrated, emitting infrasonic hisses that were inaudible to humans.
The next moment, the entire desert seemed to roar, the stopped sand flow burst open, and the buzzing sound of the vibrating membranes was like the beating of drums.
17. Insect Swarm
The insect monsters hiding in the sand took flight, blotting out the sky and covering the earth.
"Damn it!" Casalos cursed under his breath, snapping the insect he was holding and slamming it to the ground like a heavy weight.
When facing swarms of flying units, air combat is no longer its advantage. Regardless of how the opponent flies, it will face attacks from all directions when flying in the air, but when it lands on the ground, it only needs to defend the upper hemisphere. This is a simple geometric principle, even if insects can burrow into the sand - the loose nature of sand determines that insects can only move in the shallow layer.
A single bug isn't very strong; Casalos estimated that if he threw it into Faerûn, it would only be at half the challenge level. But there were just too many of them, so many that Casalos was getting nervous.
The sky, which had just been clear, was now completely dark. The scorching sun that was baking the desert was blocked by the swarm of insects. The sound of the insects flapping their wings seemed to shake the desert. Apart from that buzzing sound, Casaloz could not hear any other sound.
It didn't have time to take any more defensive measures. It could only stand firmly on the desert with its four limbs, transfer the tearing claws to its wing paws, fold up its wing membranes and fully extend its wing arms to prepare to slash, take a deep breath to prepare to exhale, and sway its tail from side to side.
The dark swarm of insects crashed down like a mountain wheel, while flames mixed with electric sparks surged up and collided with them.
The dragonfire ignited the swarm's fragile membranes, burned through their exoskeletons, and surged into their bodies.
Then, blazing flames erupted, some blasting the entire insect to smithereens, while others exploded into secondary flames that spread to swarms further away.
A spot of light appeared on the black canopy formed by the insects, and the swarm's charge slowed down.
The amount of silver coins rapidly increased, while the number of gold coins also increased by a few tenths of a coin. Clusters of seven-colored light fell and surged into Casalos's body. It felt its body, both the flesh and blood half and the elemental power half, growing and developing at an unprecedented rate.
If this continues, it won't be long before it can be upgraded by one HD level.
However, this was just wishful thinking; the dragon's breath only temporarily hindered the swarm. In areas not covered by the dragon's breath, the swarm had already rushed into the infrasonic shield's defensive range, either raising their two spear-like segments at the front or opening their mandibles to tear at the force field shield.
Each attack would trigger a powerful shockwave that would propel outwards, shattering the internal organs of any insects that approached Casalos within a ten-meter radius, causing them to fall to the ground and struggle.
But the swarms of insects are endless.
Wave after wave of insects surged in, tearing apart and devouring the piled-up corpses in an instant.
Casalos retracted its 1/2 challenge level rating. Compared to the physical strength and defense attributes it had just tested, the monster insects' attack power was terrifyingly high. A force field shield, equivalent to a fifth-circle spell, couldn't even withstand the duration of one of its dragon breaths before being completely torn apart by the swarm of insects that had squeezed into it.
It had to stop its dragon breath, flap its wings, and whip its tail to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the swarm of insects.
Each wide-range slash from the wing arm, followed by a sweeping attack from the tail, can smash dozens of insects, turning them into gold and silver coins and nutrients for the insects' growth.
A bite attack that can only target one enemy is almost useless in such a fight. It's better to combine it with the instant-cast spit feat to clear a large area of enemies when the opportunity arises. The forelimbs should act as fulcrums to support the body's balance and stability when unleashing full power, so that the wing slash can cover as wide an area as possible.
A few insects managed to break through the slashing and sweeping attacks of the wings and climb onto Casalos's body, tearing at its scales. Amidst the flying sparks, shallow pits began to appear on its smooth scales, which were engraved with strange symbols.
If this continues, it won't be long before the insects break through its scales and cause substantial damage.
Fortunately, the strong acid immunity it gained from the Carved Skin Dragon prevented the acid sprayed from the insect's mouth from corroding its scales; otherwise, it would have lasted even shorter.
Waiting for his breath weapon to recharge its dragon magic, Casalos unleashed a powerful, instantaneous breath, clearing a gap of several dozen meters. He rolled in, shaking off the insects, and re-encased himself in a subsonic shield. The swarm of insects then surrounded him again, and the endless slaughter never ceased.
Round after round, the stacking effect of the Blazing Flame increased at a visible rate, but it was meaningless to the endless swarm of insects—regardless of whether there was Blazing Flame or not, the monster insects would die upon contact with the dragon's breath. Only the splitting secondary Blazing Flame could increase the damage range slightly, but the number and range of secondary Blazing Flame could not increase with the stacking.
Casalos's stamina was quickly depleted by more than half, and its dragon magic gradually waned with each round of breath attacks and infrasonic shield spells cast on cooldown. Just when it thought its trial was about to end due to the bad luck of triggering the flying insects by flying rashly, it used a wing slash to turn half a circle and push aside the pile of insect corpses, revealing a treasure chest shimmering with golden light.
"Damn, so there are loot drops!" it cursed a second time, then realized: So after all that upgrading, it turned into survivor mode? But what kind of lunatic would hide loot drops among piles of corpses?
The moment its body touched the treasure chest, the loot interface opened in its mind. There weren't many good options, with only the Powerful Charge feat being barely usable, giving it the possibility of moving a little further during the swarm attack.
Moving, using its body to push aside the mountain of corpses, and finding the hidden spoils among them, is its hope for persevering.
Having found the right approach, Casalos quickly acquired two pieces of equipment, a spell-like ability, three additional feats, and a Rogue Combat class rank, and then reached his first HD growth.
With its dragon magic energy depleted, spell-like abilities were temporarily useless; the two pieces of equipment, one offensive and one defensive, slightly reduced its stamina consumption and scale wear, while the phased growth brought by its class level and HD restored some of its stamina and dragon magic, making its condition no longer so precarious.
Casalos launched two more charges, clearing away large swathes of corpses, but found no new loot. Casalos then stopped rummaging through the mountain of corpses he had created—there were bound to be some loot left behind in the pile of bodies, but as long as he remained inside, any new loot would simply be buried under the corpses of the swarm and become difficult to find.
While you've recovered a little, brave the swarm of insects and leave the mountain of corpses. Then, move and fight at the same time, making sure the corpses don't pile up, so you can find the loot you drop in time.
Perhaps this is the right way to promote the new model.
18. The real world?
Casalos killed mechanically and numbly. It didn't know how many insects it had killed or how far it had gone. Only the amount of gold coins it had reached in the four figures allowed it to roughly estimate its achievements.
Chapter 105
But it doesn't have the extra energy to do that, even though it's just an elementary school math problem.
The flying insects in the sky are no longer the same as they were at first. They have put on different kinds of shells, some are thicker, some are lighter, and some are more "beautiful", with colorful structural colors that flash like warning lights in the dark swarm of insects.
The insects' attack methods are no longer limited to close-range stabbing or mandible biting. They spray venom, launch chitinous spikes covered with enamel, release some kind of force field projectile spell, and even rush over from the sky with all sorts of weird things that burst out of large pools of venom. There is no end in sight.
A wave of weakness washed over Casalos's consciousness from the muscles of his chest, back, and thighs. His dragon magic, so dormant that it couldn't even respond to casting low-level spells, caused his basal vessels to groan under the strain, dragging down his body and making him even weaker.
Casalos knew that his ordeal was nearing its end.
Its breath is now so weak that it cannot ignite the insect's most vulnerable wing membrane; a single weak swipe of its wings cannot even kill an insect; and its tail sweep only has the power to disrupt the insect's flight path.
The only reason it has survived until now is its ridiculously high innate defense, advanced damage reduction ability, immunity to multiple attribute energies, and the blazing flames that are layered together to resemble a divine destructive attack.
However, the protection granted to it by the advanced level of the Carved Skin Dragon has now reached its limit.
Its scales were all broken, its skin was torn, and its flesh was flying around under the attack of the insects. Dragon blood and the dormant dragon magic within it soaked into the sand, and its consciousness was slowly drifting away from it.
It hasn't even seen the face of the first boss yet!
As it turns out, mobile warfare was the right approach, at least for the time being.
After getting moving again, Casalos's killing efficiency dropped considerably, but the pressure he felt decreased a lot. The loot drop rate of the insect monsters was not low, but the treasure chests representing the loot would only appear after the corpses landed for a while. This caused the loot that dropped at the beginning to be buried by the piled-up corpses, which made it have such a difficult start.
Unfortunately, it discovered this a bit too late, missing the initial growth phase and thus consuming too much stamina and dragon magic. The growth it received in subsequent mobile battles allowed it to rapidly improve in all aspects, but it couldn't recover from its depletion.
The battle before the Dragon Vault upgrade is essentially a continuous war of attrition, but each time a room is cleared, Casalos gains a period of rest and recuperation. The Vault even allows it to linger in the room and wait until it naturally recovers to its full strength.
The upgraded Dragon's Treasury dungeon has now become a survivor mode. The constant spawning of monsters leaves no room for recovery. If growth cannot keep up with consumption, collapse and failure are foreseeable.
Besides, compared to the survivor-type games in my past life, the survivor mode in the Dragon's Vault dungeon is much more hardcore. Casalos has never seen any "weapons" that just randomly wreak havoc after being picked up. Every breath, every swing, every tail sweep... every battle requires it to carry out its duties, and it will personally feel all the damage.
Being overwhelmed by swarms of insects is a terrible feeling.
Before Casalos could do anything after regaining consciousness, he experienced the terrifying ordeal of being devoured and torn apart by thousands of insects once again.
With an iron will, it persevered once again, as if its spirit had undergone a sublimation.
"Wait, this isn't the main hall..."
Silver stars shimmered against the dark sky, flowing silver rivers that wove a net, with islands of giant stars floating in the silver river, drifting towards the endless distance.
"Of course not, this is a rift between planes, a place that exists at all times, which you call the Astral Plane." The NPC who sent Casalos into the instance, whose true face was hidden in the shadow of his hood, now stood in front of Casalos and spoke calmly.
"Uh, so you really aren't an NPC... May I ask which Dragon God you are?"
"I am not the Dragon God, nor am I a dragon. I am just an unknown person, one of the few survivors of a destroyed world—of course, in your world, I might be able to gain some divine power or something." The mysterious man shrouded in the cloak sighed, "But I have no interest in that. My only wish is to save my destroyed world. Even if the world you save contradicts my existence and will no longer be my original world."
"...So, I'll come back here next time, and I'll still have the chance to complete the tasks you gave me?" Casalos's mood became complicated.
The mysterious figure's words revealed a great deal of information. If this being was not an NPC but a real, independent entity, did that mean the upgraded Dragon's Treasury dungeon had become a real world?
It didn't know whether to marvel at the grandeur of the creator of the Dragon Treasury, admire His immense power, or criticize the audacity of this being who entrusted the responsibility of saving a shattered world to a mere young dragon.
"Otherwise what?" the mysterious man, who claimed to possess divine power in the heavens and earth, retorted, then continued to explain, "I don't have the power to save my world, so I can only seek help from someone with great power. However, He was unwilling to forcibly disrupt the laws governing the operation of spacetime and the universe, and only offered me an alternative solution, which I accepted."
What I have to give in return is to wait here at all times for you, my destined one, to descend, to serve as an anchor point for you to reach my world when it is being destroyed, to help you grow stronger through repeated attempts, and to save my world.
You've only just tried, are you already thinking of leaving?
"No, it's just... never mind, if I keep asking you, you'll probably just end up like those dragon gods and not tell me anything. Just tell me concisely what I should do here and what help you can offer me. Stop playing that mystical riddle-solving role-playing game."
"Heh, not bad dragon cub, much more decisive than some of your dragon gods." The mysterious man let out an incomprehensible laugh, finally formally introducing himself to Casalos.
“My name is Artanis…”
"Pfft!" Casaroz spat out a mouthful of saliva that sparked with flames. You Artanis, are you... that Artanis?
19. This is not that.
Both are instances of a "world" being invaded by a "swarm," and although the power used is also called psionic, and their racial appearances are somewhat similar, and even the destroyed world is called Aiur, as the mysterious figure introduces himself, Casalos quickly realizes that this Artanis is not the same Artanis as the other.
It was all just a beautiful coincidence—Artanis's original world didn't have the interstellar civilization where Protoss roamed the cosmos. The psionic energy they used was similar to that in the Kingdom's cosmos, and they did a much better job of resisting the Zerg invasion than that free-given archbishop... Of course, this could also be because the Zerg were much weaker.
Otherwise, considering that even the lowest-level insects can easily tear apart superalloys tens of centimeters thick, Casalos probably wouldn't survive a minute in the dungeon.
The world of Aiur, where Artanis stands before Casalos, is a prime material plane world encased in crystalline walls, just like the realm of the heavens, rather than a planet in the boundless space.
The world of El is composed of three habitable planets. Psionic portals and magic ships have enabled limited communication between the three planets, allowing their inhabitants to have tangible contact with each other.
Artanis's existence in Aiur is roughly similar to that of Shantia, the Earth Mother of Faerûn, except that he is inherently connected to the world by a psionic network originating from the core of Aiur.
Chapter 106
Every intelligent being within them—the sacred Khara—is connected to them, and not only to the races of Artanis, but also to two other intelligent races—therefore they do not play with faith, nor are they interested in becoming gods.
All intelligent species in the entire world of El are one in spirit.
Artanis, due to his unique existence, naturally became the "Supreme Ruler" of one of the planets, ruling and protecting the world of Aiur together with two other rulers. All living beings developed peacefully and prosperously until the Night Serpent Dendel discovered and invaded Aiur.
The swarm of insects Casalos encountered in the dungeon was merely the vanguard of the invasion of Aiur. They were the minions of an Araven under the command of the Night Serpent Dander. Casalos's ultimate task at this stage is to confront this ancient and immortal being with the help of the Dragon Vault and Artanis.
Before destroying the Night Serpent Dandel, every time it entered the Dragon Vault, it would meet Artanis in this astral scene, and Artanis would then open a portal to a certain place in Aiur to send it into the instance for training.
The external enhancements to Casalos will be carried out by Artanis. By Faerûn's standards, Artanis is at least a top-tier, powerful god-like being, so providing a targeted, permanent boost to the young iron dragon's power is no problem at all. Furthermore, Artanis has spent his entire life working with telepathy, and the interactive interface Casalos created can perfectly interface with him, ensuring his growth won't be negatively affected.
On the contrary, as an elder who has lived for an unknown period of time and possesses immense power, Artanis can offer some very effective advice for Casalos's growth.
As for in-game development, Artanis is limited by the rules and can do nothing about it; at most, he can act as an advisor to help Casalos improve the monster encyclopedia and map information.
In short, regardless of what deal the builders of the Dragon Vault made with Artanis, the Dragon Vault dungeon experience remains essentially the same for Casalos.
Go into the dungeon to farm gold, then spend real money to buy in-game items.
But now that it involves the Dark Serpent Dandel, Casalos has a vague feeling that the Dragon Treasury might not be as simple as just helping true dragons advance.
The Night Serpent Dandel also invaded the realm's heavens, devouring the "sun" created for the realm by the moon god Sunel—a fragment of pure fire originating from a pure fire elemental plane—thus ushering in the Shadow Age of the realm's heavens. As for the final outcome… the people of Faerûn cannot know the truth of those events from that mythological era. The gods, for the sake of their faith, each have their own version of that history, and the myths circulating within different pantheons are filled with various contradictions.
In short, the gods achieved final victory in the war against the Ara Gods, establishing the existing rules of the Faerûn continent—even this final victory is highly questionable. Casalos, with his God-like perspective, knows that the planet Toril-Abel was divided into two worlds of the same entity by the god-god Ao in some strange way, yet they do not interfere with each other. Abel is now ruled by the Ara Gods.
The most powerful of these Ara Gods is Asgras, the Shaper, who is mistaken by all beings for the face of the nine-faced dragon god Aio.
Casalos has no interest in delving into the history of the mythical era for the time being. Compared to those beings, it is too weak now, so it's better to focus on spending money to grow stronger.
Due to the change in mode, Casaloz suffered a major setback in its first trial after the upgrade of the Dragon Vault and could not last long, but the endless killing of monsters still made its actual gains not too bad.
It's been through countless battles and has encountered all sorts of situations. The 1479.43 gold coin reward is much better than drowning in the first room of a dungeon, isn't it?
In the original room-based progression mode, Casalos would need to defeat at least the second boss to earn over a thousand coins. Now, in Survivor mode, it seems like you can accumulate tens of thousands of coins just by grinding through mobs.