novelraw Chapter 181-2: Special Equipment – Abyss Lantern (2)
Chapter 181-2: Special Equipment – Abyss Lantern (2)
Lin Xun was about to open his inventory to examine his loot.
Suddenly, game text appeared.
[With the death of the Ancient Abyss Demon, Blackthorn Demon, you faintly sensed vibrations beneath your feet.]
[The tremors grew more frequent and stronger in amplitude.]
[Countless fragments of stone fell from the darkness, crashing down to the abyssal floor.]
[Feeling the ground shaking, you looked at the falling debris and understood that a powerful earthquake was occurring deep underground.]
[If you continued to remain here, both you and the Valkyrie would be buried alive.]
[Do you want the Battle Angel – Valkyrie to carry you out of here?]
Lin Xun thought to himself, isn’t that obvious?
He hurriedly pressed ‘Yes.’ He certainly didn’t want to lose two points of soul strength for no reason.[The Battle Angel – Valkyrie wrapped her arms around you from behind and beat her wings to lift you upward.]
[You chanted incantations in quick succession, casting Knowledge Radiance to illuminate the falling boulders.]
[The Valkyrie struggled to dodge the massive stones while bearing your weight. Once she reached about a hundred meters above the abyss floor, she could ascend no farther.]
[You looked up toward the unseen cliff far overhead. The starting point where you had leapt down was still tens of thousands of meters away.]
[You understood that only death could return you to the beginning of the journey.]
[Do you want the Battle Angel – Valkyrie to drop you, letting you fall to your death in the endless darkness?]
“It’s better for one person to die than both.”
Fortunately, Lin Xun had spare shells to sacrifice.
He switched to the Paladin of Discipline shell and pressed ‘Yes.’
—
[An ordinary wandering soul is reborn within the Multivision Association…]
“This boss is disgusting, dying and still forcing me to waste one point of soul strength.”
Lin Xun silently grumbled.
He opened his inventory. It was finally time for the exciting loot review.
First, the Spirit Essence and the Complete Forging Crystal Chunk, used for upgrading legendary equipment, needed no extra commentary.
[Blackthorn Demon’s Spine (Material): A segment of spine lined with black bone spines. The sharp protrusions are top-grade material for forging high-quality weapons. Adding this material during forging will greatly enhance the weapon’s lethality.]
The material dropped by the Blackthorn Demon wasn’t the special type that automatically granted weapon traits.
Still, judging by the description, it was clearly a material of exceptional quality, most likely for crafting melee weapons.
[Blackthorn Demon’s Poison Fang (Item): A poison fang nearly as long as half an arm. The hollow fang is brittle and unsuitable for forging equipment. Its value lies in the black venom still remaining inside.]
[Using this item will temporarily grant your weapons or armor a potent poison attribute. Monsters you attack, or monsters that attack you, will be inflicted with severe poisoning.]
Lin Xun wasn’t particularly interested in coating weapons with poison. Instead, he found the idea of applying it to armor much more intriguing.
“When paired with the tank warrior build, it’s like activating a thorns aura or wearing a damage-reflecting armor.”
Finally, Lin Xun looked at the last special equipment.
[Abyss Lantern (Special Equipment): A lantern composed of flesh that emits a warm glow. Judging by its shape, it appears to be a miniaturized version of the Blackthorn Demon’s bizarre body tissue.]
[Equipping this will greatly increase the probability of attracting enemies. Within the range of its illumination, it can also dispel some stealth effects.]
Lin Xun smiled faintly.
For other players, attracting monsters might be a negative debuff. But for him, he couldn’t wish for more small mobs to come running and deliver free experience.
As long as he didn’t use this equipment against bosses…
Besides, the special effect of revealing stealth alone made this item extremely valuable.
Suddenly, Lin Xun’s eyes lit up.
“No, this equipment isn’t meant for me to use. It’s meant for the Valkyrie!”
When facing mindless monsters like the Veiled Aberration, the Valkyrie could move up to hold aggro while attacking, giving the Mage space to cast spells.
But when facing clever monsters like the Blackthorn Demon, distraction tactics were much harder to pull off.
If he let the Valkyrie equip this item, perhaps it would solve that kind of problem.
He summoned the Valkyrie and tried moving the Abyss Lantern into her equipment slot.
As a result, it displaced the Valkyrie’s Longbow of Windchant and Moonsong.
[The Battle Angel – Valkyrie held a lantern of flesh in her hand, its warm glow especially conspicuous.]
[Even in the full daylight of noon, the light from the lantern remained striking to the eye.]
[The Valkyrie raised the lantern and waved it around in confusion, as if unable to believe the lantern could be used as a weapon.]
“…”
Lin Xun was speechless.
Unlike him, the Valkyrie didn’t have an inventory that allowed instant swapping of weapons and equipment.
And since the longbow was a two-handed weapon, once she equipped the Abyss Lantern, she naturally couldn’t draw her bow anymore.
“If the Valkyrie is nearby, I can still manually switch her equipment. But if we’re in combat, not to mention distance, just the back-and-forth swapping is rather cumbersome.”
“I wonder if followers or watchers have some kind of dedicated backpack for storing items and gear.”
He put the Abyss Lantern away.
It was a pity the Three-Headed Lion couldn’t wear equipment. Otherwise, giving this special item to the Three-Headed Lion would have been perfect…
As for where to explore next, he had two choices.
First, according to the guidance in the Dark Dragon Knight’s Memory, he could go to Hidden Canyon in the Bamogo Mountains to continue the Dragon Knight’s legacy questline.
Second, he could use the teleportation scroll he looted from Grand Scholar Maguire to travel to a place called the Star-Chasing Corridor.
Lin Xun estimated that the difficulty of the Hidden Canyon map was far greater than that of the Star-Chasing Corridor.
Following the principle of tackling easier areas first, the next step should be heading to the Star-Chasing Corridor.
With this thought, he opened his inventory and clicked the item.
[Do you want to use the Teleportation Scroll of the Star-Chasing Corridor to travel to the Star-Chasing Corridor?]
[Your current Knowledge cap is insufficient. You cannot teleport to the destination!]
“…My Knowledge cap is already 5,200, and it’s still not enough?”
The hellish game had silently tripped him up again.
Ever since clearing the monsters on the map, his Knowledge had not significantly increased for a long time.
According to the game’s mechanics, you could gain Knowledge from both Knowledge-Seeking monsters and starborn monsters.
But creatures like Grand Scholars and Presidents, after being encountered once, would not grant Knowledge again on the second encounter.
And reading documents wouldn’t grant additional Knowledge if you had already acquired the same information before.
Just like when he had already learned about the false path to godhood, when he read Maguire’s memo, it didn’t yield any more Knowledge.
He still had some book items in his pack, but they were nowhere near enough to raise the Knowledge cap.
“Looks like I’ll have to go look for the ancient dragon first…”
As the saying goes, good things are worth waiting for.
Lin Xun had hoped to raise his strength to the absolute limit before exploring the Hidden Canyon so he’d be more prepared.