Chapter 359: Accidentally Bumping into a Heavenly Household! |
"Naturally."
Xavier nodded: "Forging this quasi-legendary equipment, I too must be extremely cautious. I need to study and think it over carefully. It will probably take a few days. You can rest first, or go explore the dungeon, but be careful about safety... With your ability, there shouldn't be any danger within the first 20 floors."
"Alright."
Lin Mo nodded. For a grandmaster blacksmith, forging epic-level equipment is a breeze, but quasi-legendary equipment almost touches the upper limit of their abilities.
So it's perfectly normal that Xavier needs to prepare properly.
Originally, the plan was to wait for them to come up with a proposal here first, then head into the dungeon with the purpose of gathering materials. But since they still need to wait a few days, they might as well go into the dungeon for a simple adventure first, to get used to the environment and the local adventuring rhythm.
After all, the number of times they'll be entering the dungeon in the future probably won't be few.
After Xavier gave some simple reminders about precautions regarding the dungeon, he hurriedly took the materials and plunged headfirst into the forging room to study.
After Lin Mo and the others left the forging shop, they headed straight for the Adventurers' Association.
Lin Mo came to the mission board. The Nasadok Dungeon truly lived up to its reputation as an adventurer's holy land. Even though the missions were already divided into areas by level, the number of missions for each specific level, especially for relatively high-level missions like B-rank and A-rank, was still incredibly abundant, enough to dazzle the eyes.
According to the information, the level of magical creatures in the Nasadok Dungeon roughly corresponds to the floor number.
That is to say, on the first floor of the dungeon, most are magical creatures with a threat level of 1. The second floor mostly has threat level 2 magical creatures.
And so on. The magical creatures on the 10th floor are basically level 10, and the 20th floor has level 20 creatures.
The deepest floor currently explored is the 47th. The number of magical creatures there is already very few, but each one is level 47!
And level 41 and above steps into the legendary tier!
Magical creatures of this level possess extremely strong power. Furthermore, magical creatures that have reached the legendary tier are generally quite well-rounded.
Aside from their main attributes, their other attributes also won't be too low, which is quite different from powerful human experts.
The higher the level, the more difficult it is for human experts to contend with magical creatures, especially at the legendary tier. Even wearing a full set of good equipment can hardly bridge the gap.
Unless it's a full set of top-tier legendary divine equipment...
Moreover, magical creatures that have reached the legendary tier are also likely to possess specific "mechanisms."
For example, dragons possess extremely high physical and magical resistance.
Especially their resistance to their corresponding element is often absurdly high.
Like Lin Mo, who inherited the Ice Dragon King bloodline, his ice attribute resistance directly reached 99%!
This means using ice attribute attacks against him is almost completely ineffective.
Even if hit by an ice element spell from an epic-level expert, with only 1% of its power taking effect, it would be very difficult to pose any threat to him.
Once encountering a magical creature whose mechanism counters oneself, for a human legendary expert, it would mean having no means to fight back.
So one can imagine how high the difficulty of conquering floors above 41 is. No wonder this dungeon has existed for so many years and progress is still stuck at the 47th floor...
And even this is thanks to the achievements of predecessors.
The highest record currently held by any living expert only reaches the 45th floor.
Getting back on topic, since this is just a trial adventure, Lin Mo doesn't plan to go too far in one go. Instead, he will choose a relatively safe area to first adapt to this dungeon.
Xavier's suggestion of below the 20th floor earlier does have some merit.
For Ellie and the others, around the 20th floor or slightly higher, like 21 or 22, is indeed the most suitable place for training.
But for Lin Mo, it's better to go a few floors higher. Above the 25th floor would be more suitable.
After all, his current actual combat power is already not far from the heroic realm!
Considering that the relationship between floor number and magical creature level isn't absolute, and occasionally magical creatures exceeding the floor's level appear, Lin Mo ultimately limited the range to floors 21-27.
This way, it would have meaning for adventure and training, they wouldn't encounter enemies they couldn't handle, and they could also get decent rewards.
Lin Mo still doesn't know how much money forging this quasi-legendary glove will require, but even excluding the most precious main material, it will likely still need a huge sum.
Most of the savings on hand were already spent in the last shopping spree. They need to earn more, just in case.
"Lin Mo, Lin Mo, how about this mission?"
It wasn't just Lin Mo; Ellie and the others were also helping pick missions.
However...
Lin Mo looked at the mission she picked, the corner of his mouth twitching. He could only reply with high emotional intelligence: "Let's keep looking..."
"Oh."
Ellie wasn't discouraged either. She put it down and went to pick a new mission.
"Mr. Lin Mo, how about this one?"
"Hmm... a bit too conservative, but it can be considered."
The missions Finnie chose were all relatively conservative and simple, but correspondingly, the rewards were also relatively low.
In comparison, the suggestions from the experienced old adventurer Flora were more reasonable.
In the end, after quite a bit of effort, Lin Mo selected a total of 5 missions.
All 5 were A-rank missions.
For the current Silver Radiance Team, B-rank missions were already very easy, with little challenge.
Those A-rank missions with lower or mid-to-low difficulty were more suitable for them.
These 5 missions corresponded to relatively concentrated floor numbers. The first 3 were on the 22nd floor, and the last two on the 26th floor. This could save time. For this adventure, Lin Mo didn't plan for it to last very long.
"Blood Tiger Team, recruiting elite-level professionals level 11 and above, need mage or ranger..."
"Silver Fox Team currently lacks a transcendent-level knight, interested parties can contact me personally..."
On the east side of the association hall, many teams were recruiting. Many adventurers gathered there. Some were newcomers who had just arrived, some had left their original teams for various reasons, and others had teammates who died, their teams disbanded, so they needed to join new teams.
In Nasadok Town, there are tens of thousands of adventurer teams. Disregarding the bottom-tier teams that make up the majority, there are also twenty to thirty thousand elite teams with elite-level professionals as their mainstay!
Even gold-level adventurer teams with transcendent-level experts as their mainstay number in the hundreds!
Busybodies specially rank these teams, creating several lists.
The [Gold List], [Silver List], and [Newcomer List].
Among them, the [Newcomer List] refers to adventurer teams below silver-level, listing the top one thousand among them.
The [Silver List] and [Gold List] each list the top two hundred.
The Silver Fox Team recruiting earlier is a team listed on the [Gold List], and its ranking isn't low either—it's 57th!
The team has 3 members with transcendent-level strength, all gold-level adventurers. The remaining members' levels are also not low; the weakest is level 19!
Lin Mo's Silver Radiance Team should currently be a silver-level adventurer team.
Once Lin Mo is universally promoted to a gold-level adventurer, they can be considered a gold-level team.
This isn't far off. Lin Mo's record only lacks one A-rank mission, and then his strength needs to reach the transcendent level. Both are things that can be accomplished in the near future.
Lin Mo only watched the commotion for a little while before leaving, planning to set off on the adventure.
However, just as he was leading everyone and preparing to leave the guild, a very conspicuous figure suddenly caught his eye in his peripheral vision.
A dazzling suit of golden armor encased the entire person tightly. That suit of armor looked extraordinary at a glance. Curious, Lin Mo appraised it, and then he was completely stunned.
[Glittering Gold Holy Light Armor]
Equipment Type: Armor
Level: Quasi-Legendary
...
Holy crap, a quasi-legendary armor!
Taking another look at the sword in his hand, as expected, still quasi-legendary.
Boots, helmet, cloak...
Lin Mo appraised them one by one. Without exception, they were all quasi-legendary!
A familiar melody seemed to play in his mind.
"Accidentally bumping into a heavenly household..."
It was just too exaggerated.
Even Nuolun, as the heir of a royal duke family in the Violet Empire, only wore epic-level equipment. Just whose young master is this, to be so outrageously extravagant?!
Perhaps because he was too shocked, Lin Mo stared for quite a while, which directly drew the other party's attention.
Lin Mo's eyes met the gaze hidden beneath the helmet. The other party just kept staring at him, but Lin Mo quickly averted his gaze.
No matter who the other party is, Lin Mo has no interest in proactively contacting someone of such incredibly noble status.
Because casually approaching such people often means trouble coming one after another...
He just wants to develop steadily and quietly.
Waving his hand as a greeting, Lin Mo then led the girls and left the association.
The golden-armored adventurer stared at his back for a long time, only withdrawing his gaze after his figure completely disappeared.
Leaving the association, they walked straight ahead. Not far away was the entrance to the Nasadok Dungeon.
The association built a huge castle at the dungeon entrance, isolating it from the outside world to prevent accidental entry.
Rather than a castle, it's more like a small city, covering an area of thousands of square kilometers.
This huge castle is also a place for adventurers to rest temporarily and exchange information.
Entering the castle, injured adventurers could be seen everywhere among the crowded crowd.
The Nasadok Dungeon is a relatively stable adventure area, but it's by no means a safe and easy place.
Even disregarding unexpected events exceeding the current floor's level, this dungeon itself is a place with an extremely dense distribution of magical creatures. Teams often encounter attacks from an unexpectedly large number of magical creatures, leading to casualties or even total annihilation.
Many adventurers also conduct simple trades or recruit teammates within the castle.
The structure of this castle is rather special. Although it has multiple levels, they aren't built upwards, but downwards into the ground.
The first floor of the castle is considered the rest area, relatively free.
The underground first floor is the trading area. Many adventurers conduct trades here, and some vendors also come to set up stalls.
The underground second floor is specifically reserved for adventurers to form teams.
Some teams that have suffered casualties but whose mission isn't finished yet will recruit team members here, or temporary partners.
There are also adventurer teams that have taken on particularly difficult missions that a single team can't handle, so they look for other teams to cooperate with here, distributing rewards after the mission is completed.
The underground third floor is the entrance to the Nasadok Dungeon.
Lin Mo didn't need to purchase anything, nor did he plan to team up with anyone, so he went straight to the castle's underground third floor.
Compared to the floors above, this place seemed much more spacious.
After all, most adventurers coming to the underground third floor don't linger; they quickly enter the dungeon. And at this time, it wasn't the time when adventurers were leaving the dungeon either, so very few people were coming out of the entrance.
The entrance to the Nasadok Dungeon looked surprisingly plain—just a very huge door.
This door was truly enormous, large enough to accommodate thousands or even tens of thousands of people entering simultaneously. But other than that, it didn't seem to have any special features.
Lin Mo looked around with interest for a while. Not finding anything special, he didn't linger and walked in together with everyone.
It was still that very familiar feeling of entering a secret realm.
A dizzying, spinning sensation, as if consciousness briefly blurred and paused.
When they opened their eyes again, they had officially entered the dungeon.
Teleportation through the secret realm entrance is random, meaning they could appear anywhere on the first floor of the dungeon.
Lin Mo looked left and right, took out a map, and determined their current location.
Their target was the dungeon's 22nd floor.
To get to the 22nd floor, there were two paths.
The first is to follow the nodes on the map step by step, find the entrance to the next floor, and slowly make their way there.
This would take quite a bit of time. After all, the scale of the Nasadok Dungeon is enormous, especially the earlier floors. Although there isn't just one node leading to the next floor, but many, if luck is bad and the teleportation location is far from a node, just getting to the next floor might take half a day.
To get to the 22nd floor using this primitive method, who knows how long it would take...
Lin Mo obviously didn't have that kind of patience, so he chose to spend money to ride the small teleportation devices set up by the association.
These devices can send you directly to a specified floor. The cost is money.
The deeper the floor you teleport to, the more gold coins it consumes.
However, because they are small teleportation arrays, the consumption is much lower than large or medium ones. Plus, they perform a large number of teleports daily, which to some extent reduces energy loss. Also, the distance is very close, so the price isn't too expensive for adventurers with a bit of strength.
For example, teleporting to the 10th floor costs 50 gold coins one way.
For a team capable of adventuring on the 10th floor, this is a completely acceptable expense.
After all, the materials from a single level 10 magical creature are basically worth around 1000 gold coins.
The price for the 22nd floor Lin Mo wants to go to is much more expensive. A single teleport consumes 300 gold coins. But compared to the time it saves, the price isn't expensive at all.
Another benefit of directly using the association's teleportation array is that because the teleportation array locations are fixed, unlike the dungeon's own random entrances, you can choose which teleportation array setup point on that floor to teleport to.
Finding a nearby teleportation node, Lin Mo directly chose to pay the gold coins—using the savings card he applied for at the association, directly deducting the amount. Lin Mo had deposited a hundred thousand gold coins in it precisely for convenient use in situations like this.
After all, the association can't station personnel to guard the teleportation arrays on every floor, so cash can't be used. Payment can only be made online through the association's magical energy network.