“Herss! Buy me just 15 seconds!”
Unng-!
Piolan started to cast the most advanced Ice magic she knew, the Frozen Hell.
Some blue ice energy started to be absorbed into her staff.
Herss stood in front of her to stop the Giant of Forlan, the boss monster of the dungeon, from
attacking her.
Kwang!
With a large sound, the Giant’s club smashed in Herss’ shield.
Even though he had guarded well, Herss was pushed back by a meter.
The giant was so powerful!
Herss checked his Health and his face slightly darkened.
“Uh… that could be a little too much.” Herss clenched his teeth.
One more attack would consume his Health.
Piolan shouted urgently, “Just 7 more seconds! I think I can kill it with this attack!”
Herss thought about it, ‘If I dodge its attack, Piolan’s magic would be canceled, then we won’t clear
this dungeon.’
The time limit was the problem.
Normally, it would be right to step back. However, as they had less than a minute left, if they missed
this chance, they would fail to clear the dungeon anyway.
‘Let’s hold. I will just get a 24-hour break if I die.’
That moment, the giant’s club flew toward Herss again.
The attack made a frightening sound!
Herss calmly checked its course and raised his shield.
Users who didn’t know much about Kailan often said that the Knight class didn’t require good control,
but that wasn’t true.
To minimize damage by calculating the angle of the attack and its power required extremely detailed
control.
The amount of damage greatly depended on the controlling ability.
So, Herss was concentrating harder than ever.
Kwang-!
Herss was pushed back again with a larger sound.
Then, his face brightened.
‘I’m still alive!’
He had only 1500 Health left, but it didn’t matter now.
Herss rolled on the ground to get away from the giant’s attack range and looked at Piolan.
As he had expected, a huge vortex of ice energy was coming out of Piolan’s staff.
She had finished casting the magic while Herss blocked the giant.
Then, her magic shot forward.
Kwakwakwang-!
“Okay!”
The light of ice energy hit the giant’s body.
The giant flinched while Piolan repeatedly fired low-class attacks that had a shorter casting time.
Pung-!
Piolan used everything she had while holding her breath.
She had used up all her Magic Power.
If the attack killed the giant, they will finally clear the dungeon.
Their eager wish was granted.
The Giant of Forlan started to slowly collapse.
They had exhausted all its Health.
Kukukukung-
The entire dungeon shook as the huge monster fell.
In front of it, Herss and Piolan were breathing heavily.
“Hu! we finally did it, Piolan.”
“Yes. How much time did we have left?”
“I don’t know. The result message will let us know.”
They soon saw the message that announced they had cleared the dungeon.
Ding-
[Tomb of Forlan’s Hero]
Time Limit – 00:50:00
Clear Time – 00:49:43
Clear Level – D
Gained EP – 3356000
Gained Gold – 35250 Gold
Obtained Item – Piece of Forlan Hero’s Armor *2
Cold sweat ran down Herss’ back as he checked the message, “Wow… we did it with only 20
seconds left.”
Piolan smiled and pointed out his error, “17 seconds exactly.”
Herss grinned, “Ka! We still did quite well. We cleared it at the fifth try.”
“Yes. There are some parties outside that have failed even ten times.”
Piolan resumed reading the message again. Then, she was slightly surprised.
“Oh! It gave us bigger EP than I expected!”
Herss was also checking the EP and he was just as surprised at the big EP.
“Yeah. I was thinking about that as well. 3,000,000 EP in 50 minutes… that almost gives as much EP
as hunting.”
Piolan nodded “Yes. Considering that our clear level is the lowest… if we get used to it and clear it
with higher clear level, it can even be more profitable than hunting.”
“Plus, if we gather the pieces and make a set item, we will get a decent item of at least Hero rank…”
However, the problem was that the clear probability wasn’t 100%.
Killing monsters in the time-attack dungeons gave nothing. No EP and no item.
That meant failing to clear it would be wasting 50 minutes for nothing.
Failing to clear it even once would greatly drop the efficiency.
“Piolan, we should clear it perfectly first before bringing the other guild members here.”
“I think so as well. If we get used to this dungeon first and go in each with different partners, they
would be able to clear it more easily.”
They agreed on that and hurried to leave the dungeon.
As they had just cleared the dungeon, they could enter it again after 10 minutes.
They needed to finish preparing.
“Hu…”
A few short sighs came out of Ian’s mouth.
It had been almost a week since he started to hunt in the low land of the Highlands of Arnobil.
Counting the five days he had spent in the high lands, he had been in the field for 12 days now.
The First Finder effect had ended two days ago.
‘I want to leave this place now!’
Ian gritted his teeth as he looked at the growling tiger monster in front of him.
‘I have hunted so many times… please, it has to come out this time!’
Ian had been stuck in the field because of the Hero rank monster Soul of Halican which he was
fighting right now.
‘The seventh piece… please!’
During the last quest, the fourth piece was the problem. Now, the seventh piece was also testing Ian’s
patience.
With anger, Ian fired Lightning Spheres at Halican.
“Lightning Spheres!”
Zip-!
Ian was handling the Halican so easily that he was almost playing with it.
Halican was a powerful monster, however, Ian had fought against it so many times already that he
had memorized all of its attack patterns.
Ian used the monsters nearby to reset the cooldown time and repeatedly fired Lightning Spheres and
Sphere of Magic Power.
The Halican had lost a lot of Health. Its name was blinking fast.
‘Now, I can kill it soon.’
But then, something unexpected happened.
Kwakwakwang-!
With a large sound, the Lightning Ian fired exploded.
Then a strong white light blinded him.
“What?”
Surprised, Ian instinctively jumped back to get away from the Halican, so that he would not get
attacked while he was blinded.
However, the Halican didn’t attack. Instead, he heard system message.
Ian was puzzled.
‘What? It was about to die, but my last attack wasn’t enough to drain all of its Health… and what is
this flash?’
The white light faded, he could finally see again. Some System messages came up.
‘Oh! Chirpy has evolved! Did the explosion happen because of that?’
Ian understood the explosion had been part of Chirpy’s evolution. He nodded.
Chirpy, which was a little sparrow, was now a cool eagle.
However, Ian was more interested in checking the dead body of the Halican than seeing Chirpy’s
information window.
‘Chirpy has evolved… so if I get the seventh piece from it, I can leave this place without regrets…’
Now that the Halican was dead, another would appear at least an hour later.
The probability of a Halican dropping a piece of the Soul Stone was about 30%.
Even if Ian gathered all 10 without getting the same pieces, he would have to kill 30~35 Halicans.
However, Ian wasn’t that lucky. He got so many of the same pieces that he had killed more than 50
Souls of Halican.
That was boring enough, even for Ian who loved keeping himself busy.
Ian closed his eyes tight and put his hand on the dead Halican.
He didn’t forget to say the ‘meaningless’ spell, “Seventh piece!”
System messages then appeared.
Ian checked the messages and couldn’t help but scream.
“Yes! Finally!”
It was the first time he got two pieces from one Halican.
‘If I didn’t get the seventh piece this time, I would have definitely cried.’
Lighthearted, Ian sat down on the ground.
Now that he had gotten what he came for, the energy drained out of his body.
‘Shall I check on Chirpy now?’
Ian called Chirpy. It looked quite cool now.
“Chirpy, come here.”
Chirp-!
However, its sound was still the same which made Ian smile.
‘Why does he still say chirp?’
Then, he opened Chirpy’s information.
[Chirpy(Spirit of Lightning)]
Spirit Power: 0/500
Element: Lightning
Rank: Middle
Lasting Time when Summoned: 525 (Cooldown time: 800 minutes)
Evolves into high rank spirit when Spirit Power reaches Max.
(Certain amount of Spirit Power is given when using Summoning Magic that requires the Lightning
element.)
The higher the Summoner’s Summoning Magic is, the longer the Spirit’s lasting time becomes.
Unique Ability: Charging
‘Oh… it got a Unique Ability! It’s practically Bleeding!’
Chirpy was a spirit. So, it didn’t have Health.
Then, the recovered Health must refer to Ian’s Health.
‘Lightning Sphere isn’t for inflicting big damages, so its Attack Power isn’t that big. That’s not good.’
Nevertheless, Ian thought Charging was still a decent recovering skill.
‘I should go to the Tower of Summoners when I have business to go to Muran and get another
Lightning skill, one with a more powerful Attack Power.’
Ian was excited at seeing Chirpy’s new ability. He got up and called Ly, “Let’s go back!”
Grr-!
Ian dismissed all his pets except for Ly. He then got up on Ly’s back.
He wanted to restore the Halican’s Soul Stone, which he had acquired with so much effort as soon as
possible.