Reign of the Hunters

Chapter 62 A Confusing Difficulty

“Heal.” Little Dan ordered without any hesitation.

Ye Ci retreated without any hesitation either. Her movements were rapid as she retreated to a spot which was 15 yards away from the last player with lightning speed.

As a party leader, one must be observant and alert. Ye Ci’s movements were naturally detected by Little Dan. While he ordered them to cast a healing spell, he asked Ye Ci, “Gongzi You, why are you retreating? I haven’t given you any orders to retreat…”

Before he could even finished his sentence, members of the party let out blood-curdling screams. They were all frozen after the Cleric cast the healing spell.

Ye Ci had retreated far enough and was out of the battle. She sat down pleasantly. There was a slight mocking tone in her cheerful voice. “There ought to be someone to stay here and help you all pick up your equipment.”

Little Dan was filled with gloom because the party was going to be annihilated again, and also because Ye Ci was acting as if this was none of her business. “Let’s hurry back into the dungeon again,” he said angrily and didn’t say anything else after that.

Ye Ci was blinded by the white glow from the death of other players in no time. She squinted her eyes as the corner of her mouth lifted cooly into a faint smile. “This is really quite a splendid scenery.”

By the time the party had once again returned to the dungeon, the equipment they had dropped were all neatly arranged on the floor. Ye Ci was still sitting at the same spot, as if she had never budged.

No one spoke. People who had dropped their equipment picked them up from beside Ye Ci before quietly sitting down to recover their HP.

To be annihilated two times in a row was quite a blow to their confidence. Even Peacock Blue, who had always been arrogant, was silent right now and seemed to be in low-spirits.

There was an old saying in dungeons: You must be alive to be useful.

No matter what class you were, if you wanted to have a high DP, or to tank against monsters, or even have the highest heal value, you must be able to satisfy the first rule, which was also the only bottom line – to survive. One could only be able to display their greatest strength when they were alive. If they were a dead body, even the most awesome player would only be a good-for-nothing who free loaded on experience points and equipment.

Although the Steel-Blooded Battle Spear was a new guild, they have managed to clear quite a few dungeons. The reason was naturally understood by everyone who was a member.

So right now, no one dared to blame Ye Ci about anything. She had only done the most accurate choice under the worst situation.

Little Dan didn’t say anything either. He just sat at one corner, silently staring at the ruins that weren’t really special ahead of them while he reflected on the problems and the lessons they had gained through these two annihilations. After awhile, he turned his head to look at Evil Winds, “Evil, did you discover anything just now?”

“I only sensed a great danger ahead of us. There should be an Elite Monster there. But I canno detect it.”

“Have you tried using Detection?”

“Not yet.”

Little Dan nodded and then ordered another Elf Rogue from the party to follow the route that Evil Winds had taken just now towards the area ahead of them to cast Detection. After just a short while, he heard the rogue scream as he got frozen once again.

Little Dan wasn’t panicked. He just remained stoic as he quietly ordered another healer to heal him and then quietly observed Ye Ci. When he discovered Ye Ci standing up immediately to retreat a distance after he ordered for a heal, he pretended to retreat by accident too and retreated to almost the same distance as Ye Ci.

He then turned to the front again. As soon as the cleric started to chant the healing spell, the ice that had enveloped the rogue quickly travelled towards that cleric and instantly froze her. Not only that, the other few players who were within 15 yards radius from the cleric got frozen again too.

So this was how it was.

Little Dan had finally figured out the pattern and the things that would trigger the ice to freeze the players as well as its freezing radius. He threw Ye Ci another glance again. Although he was still pissed over the incident when Ye Ci was made the Battle Commander, he couldn’t deny the fact that this Huntress’s observation skills were extremely formidable when it came to PVE.

After greeting a few people who had been resurrected, Little Dan seized the opportunity to talk while everyone was still recovering. “After thinking through about it just now, there must be some sort of mechanism in the area ahead and this mechanism is very concealed. If we step on it by accident, we will be frozen.” He stopped here and lifted his head to look at the previous spot where the rogue got frozen then confirmed again. “Players within a radius of 20 yards from the first person who got frozen will also be frozen. We will basically die once we get frozen.”

He paused for a moment and looked at everyone. He discovered that they were all attentively listening to his analysis so he subconsciously casted a glance at Ye Ci again. But instead, he saw that she was just polishing the bow in her hands with her head lowered and he couldn’t see the expression on her face. He let out a sigh again but didn’t say anything.

“Those who are frozen shouldn’t be healed. Otherwise the person who is healing them and those who are within a 15 yards radius from that healer will also be frozen.” Little Dan’s eyebrows were knitted together again as he explained. “Not only healing, anyone who attacks with magic spells will also be frozen.” He continued uncertainly.

Ye Ci was only polishing the Icy Shortbow. She had already embedded a Tetra Plating on it to slightly raise its attack. With that, it had only barely be able to perform on par. If it wasn’t for its additional effect of reducing agility, it was really time for this shortbow to be retired.

Ye Ci didn’t show any emotions in particular towards Little Dan’s speculations. Little Dan was a decent leader. If he couldn’t even make such deductions on this kind of pattern even after dying consecutively for a few times, then he really couldn’t live up to his reputation of being a decent leader. However, just knowing these few things wasn’t enough. He needed to figure out how to solve this.

As for how to solve this… She wasn’t the leader so it was none of her business.

Although Little Dan had figured out the theory, he still had no idea on how to solve it and had led the party to its consecutive annihilation for another few times. However, he had been consciously following Ye Ci’s movements, so his death counts were less than the other players. But this situation wasn’t any better either.

Especially when it came to the special rules of the death penalties in Fate.

After level 10, player would drop by one level regardless of how they died outside of dungeon and zero to two of their equipment would be dropped by random. There wouldn’t be any penalties for dying under 20 times a day within the dungeon, but the equipment’s endurance would be reduced and a few equipments would be dropped by random. These could be fixed by money. However, if the death count went over 20 times in one day within the dungeon, 50% experience points would be deducted.

So normally if a player had died 20 times in a dungeon, they would not continue playing anymore. After all, levelling up after level 10 was a very difficult task. Any slight deduction in experience points would be a heartache to anyone, let alone losing 50% experience points every time.

This area was indeed a difficult one. If one was going to find a solution without any guides, there wouldn’t be any results even after dying 50 times. The party had been stuck here for too long, from 4’o clock in the afternoon until almost midnight, but they were still not making much progress.

The team sat together to discuss among themselves but nothing was really working.

Ye Ci was growing drowsy at one side instead. The characters in game could eat the food in game to allay their hunger

Without eating for so many hours and without any nutrient fluids provided, Ye Ci was about to pass out from her hunger. To make the situation worse, Remote Depths was dropping her a private message of dishes names every hour, which drove her even crazier.

“How many times can everyone still die?” The dungeon’s death count reset every morning at 7 o’clock. Little Dan looked at the time and it was already 1 o’clock in the morning.

“6 times.”

“8 times.”

“7 times.”

“……”

After going around, the lowest count was only 3 times. The most was of course, Ye Ci. She didn’t die even once.

Little Dan frowned as he listened to the death counts. This really didn’t look good.

All of a sudden, Thousand Sunsets spoke up. “Little Dan, why not let Gongzi You lead?”

Little Dan was a bit shocked and immediately turned around to look at him. He then looked at Gongzi You who was leaning against the wall drowsily before shifting his gaze back to Thousand Sunsets again and shook his head. “Thousand Sunsets, you should believe in me,” he insisted.

Thousand Sunsets opened his mouth, as if about to say something again, but Little Dan was still shaking his head insistently. “She’s never been here before, too. You have to believe in me in this kind of situation.”

In the end, his insistence was still compromised by Thousand Sunsets. Thousand Sunsets nodded his head and gave Little Dan a pat on his shoulder. “The person with the highest death count only has three more chances. You better make the most of it. If things still don’t work out, think about it after you go offline. You will still be leading tomorrow. If we still can’t clear this tomorrow, I’ll have to switch the leader.”

Little Dan took a deep breath as he gathered the party once again.

The outcome wasn’t really of any difference. After the whole night’s confusion, they were only certain that there was a powerful elite monster at a place no one could see, and this monster was groaning about being ‘hungry’ in a very soft voice. Other than that, they basically ended up empty-handed.

Ye Ci crawled out of the gaming cabin, about to be starved to death. She dashed into the kitchen. Bai Mo had left some food for here there, but she couldn’t be bothered to heat it up in the microwave and shoved it right into her mouth. Everyone had something they couldn’t tolerate and for Ye Ci, hunger was something she couldn’t tolerate the most. Skipping one meal was her highest limit. If she were to skip two meals… she was pretty sure someone would have to come collect her corpse.

Ye Ci went online early the next day. She had initially planned to buy some stuff off the auction before heading to the dungeon. However she had received a last minute notice that the meeting of the leaders of the first and second squadron would hold a meeting to discuss the strategy of clearing the dungeon, and their operation to start clearing the dungeon was delayed to 6pm on the same day.

But it was only 8 in the morning right now…

If they were going to change the time, they should have informed earlier. At the very least she could have slept in.

While she was fuming, she heard a system notification…