Journey to the Quarry

Meanwhile, Liu Xuan was making his way back while mulling things over.

He had already considered this problem before: with no active skills and no damage from basic attacks, how was he supposed to steal kills from other people?

To steal a kill meant the monster’s aggro was already on someone else. If the monster didn’t attack him, then his entire set of passive abilities was useless.

Just like what had happened earlier, Liu Xuan had been unable to pull the aggro away from Wang Fangcai. He could only lure over new monsters and use them to blow up the others.

He had seen Wang Fangcai’s expression at the time. It had changed like someone riding a roller coaster—excited one moment, despairing the next.

But it wasn’t as if Liu Xuan had any other options.

Liu Xuan shook his head as he recalled the line on his class panel:

“This unit is one of the experimental units created to explore the path of human advancement. Its strength is not guaranteed.”

Experimental...

Strength not guaranteed...

As things stood, his class was indeed powerful, but that power had come at the cost of sacrificing quite a few things.

Basic attacks dealing no damage could be rather awkward at times.

As expected, the designers really had thought of everything. They had balanced him down to the last detail.

He wondered whether he might draw some passive skill in the future that could make up for this flaw.

Liu Xuan soon made his way back to the beginner village. He had originally intended to check whether Bell, the NPC he had encountered earlier, was still around, but after searching the village from end to end, he couldn’t find him anywhere.

Could that guy have died on the way?

Could it really have been an escort quest, meaning Liu Xuan had been required to forcefully protect him all the way back?

But the quest was already gone. Regretting it now wouldn’t change anything, so Liu Xuan could only put the matter aside for the time being.

He went to the potion merchant and restocked on potions.

Although he now had a large amount of health and recovered quickly, the effects of the various small potions had become negligible.

Still, he felt uneasy whenever he had no potions in his bag.

After buying what he needed, Liu Xuan headed straight for the northeastern part of the village.

Along the way, he saw that the two people he had rescued earlier were exposing the three fleeing archers in the world channel.

The three archers had never expected the pair to survive. Now they had become public enemies, and no one was willing to team up with them.

......

The quarry lay beneath a stretch of hills northeast of the village, with a vast grassland between it and the settlement.

A deserted road led there as well. According to the village chief, not only had monsters occupied the quarry, but the road was also filled with troublesome creatures.

Liu Xuan set off along the road. At first, the grassland near the village was still home to monsters like the Hopping Rabbits. But after roughly ten minutes, an eye-catching sign suddenly appeared beside the road.

“Caution! Dangerous monsters ahead!”

In truth, there was no need for the sign. The scene ahead was impossible to miss. The grassland was riddled with burrow holes as thick as a person’s waist, as if something had drilled through the earth.

Under some of the patches of grass, something seemed to be writhing.

Liu Xuan passed the sign and had only taken a few steps when he felt a distinct tremor beneath his feet.

Immediately afterward, several writhing trails came winding toward him from underground.

The first to arrive burst through the soil. It was a massive worm, with more than three meters of its body exposed aboveground.

Its entire body was covered in a black shell dotted with grayish-green spots, and its shape resembled that of an enormous centipede.

Its segmented shell gleamed with an oily sheen under the sunlight, while dozens of legs writhed constantly. Just looking at it made Liu Xuan’s scalp tingle.

[Gigantic Venomous Insect]

Level: 7

Attack: 55

Health: 700

Armor: 10

Skill: [Poisonous Bite] Bites the target, dealing one basic attack’s worth of damage and inflicting [Poison].

Poison: Every 3 seconds, deals physical damage equal to 5% of the target’s maximum health. Lasts 12 seconds.

These venomous insects were also level 7 monsters, but their attack and health were slightly lower than those of the Porcupine Men.

Their skill, however, was far more obnoxious. With the venomous insect’s 700 health, getting bitten once meant taking a basic attack plus poison damage—a total of 195 points of damage.

Liu Xuan had no idea whether priests at this stage possessed skills such as Dispel. If they didn’t, these monsters would be extremely difficult for other players to fight.

The only consolation was that [Poison] dealt physical damage and could therefore be reduced by armor.

After burrowing out of the ground, the [Gigantic Venomous Insect] opened its mouth and bit down on Liu Xuan’s leg, inflicting him with deadly poison.

Several more venomous insects emerged one after another and sank their teeth into him as well.

Unfortunately for them, Liu Xuan now wielded two weapons, bringing his armor all the way up to 60 points.

Each bite only dealt the minimum forced damage of 1 point, while every tick of the poison damage afterward dealt just 1 point as well.

The venomous insects, on the other hand, couldn’t withstand Liu Xuan’s poison at all.

“Defeated [Gigantic Venomous Insect]. Gained 6 experience.”

“Defeated a [Poisoned] monster. Base health +1.”

“Defeated [Gigantic Venomous Insect]. Gained 6 experience.”

“Defeated a [Poisoned] monster. Base health +1.”

.....

Each venomous insect dropped a few copper coins, along with two materials: [Insect Carapace] and [Poison Sac].

[Insect Carapace] was probably used to craft equipment. As for [Poison Sac], he still had no idea.

Maybe it was used to make potions.

Liu Xuan guessed that the reason another batch of level 7 monsters had been placed here was because the Logging Camp had already become a dungeon.

Not everyone would go dungeon crawling, so the game had also left level 7 monsters in the wilderness for players to farm.

If that was the case, then the monsters in the quarry might be lower-level than he had imagined.

As Liu Xuan continued deeper into the grassland, he gradually figured out the habits of the [Gigantic Venomous Insects].

Ordinary monsters generally had an aggro range. They would attack only after you entered that range.

Outside it, you could jump around as much as you wanted. As long as you didn’t attack them, they would act as if you didn’t exist.

The [Gigantic Venomous Insects], however, were different. They detected prey through vibrations in the ground.

If the vibration you caused was strong enough, insects from farther away would notice it as well.

Liu Xuan had attracted four or five insects at once because he had been sprinting along the road and making far too much noise.

Most monsters became much easier to deal with once you figured out their patterns.

For example, with these insects, he could deliberately create vibrations of an appropriate intensity and lure over one at a time to kill.

But for Liu Xuan, the number of insects made no difference.

Once he started running at full speed, the insects couldn’t even touch the hem of his clothes.

All they could do was trail behind him and eat his dust.

After running like that for a while, Liu Xuan soon saw a stretch of rolling hills extending into the distance.

The road continued all the way to the foot of the hills, ending at a mountain that had been hollowed out halfway.

Large piles of white stone were stacked across the flat ground below the mountain, and seven or eight pitch-black tunnels gaped open nearby.

Liu Xuan was wondering why he hadn’t seen any monsters when, just as he approached the quarry, a notification suddenly appeared before his eyes.

[You have entered the Beginner Village Quarry area. The Battle of the Quarry is about to begin.]

[When the countdown ends, enemies will emerge from the tunnels in successive waves.]

[Each time a wave is eliminated, the next wave will immediately spawn, and the number of enemies will continue to increase.]

[Once you kill more than 500 monsters within one minute, the Boss Battle will be triggered.]

[Completing the Boss Battle counts as capturing the quarry.]

[The countdown begins now: 60, 59, 58......]

So it was a special battle.

But... it was a test of kill speed?

Wasn’t this exactly the kind of thing he excelled at?