Chapter 216-2: Ecstasy Faction, Welfare Intel (2) |
At the teleportation point, a list of selectable missions surfaced in Yang Xiu’s mind.
[Cavern World: Kill the Wailing Bone Warriors in the Cavern World scene and collect Spirits of Bone (0/300).]
[Cavern World: Complete the trial mission in the Cavern World Arcane Wind scene according to Guide requirements to obtain the trial reward.]
[Rimewinter Snowfield: Enter the Rimewinter Snowfield region to steal the node resource guarded by the Snow Ridge Great Wilderness: Space-Origin Stone (energy intensity calculation: 0/150000).]
[Rimewinter Snowfield: Kill incoming player race warriors (Elite assessment mission. 150 points will be awarded for each player race killed). You may return to the teleportation point to end the mission at any time.]
[Free mode: You may go to the region where the Palace of Ecstasy teleportation point is located for free exploration. After obtaining the required amount of resources, you may turn back and return.]
After becoming an elite player, the mission mode had changed.
He could select tasks from the list to carry out or apply to go to the region of the Palace of Ecstasy node for free exploration.
According to Guide’s explanation, the tasks in the list were resource intel gathered by the Lord of Ecstasy after lying low for many years.
As a result, intel remained intel and had not been converted into resources.
Now these places where resources might exist were released as missions for Ecstasy players to explore.
When it came to timidity, Coward Butterfly ranked first in the eyes of forum players, entering a hibernation-like seclusion at each lunar phase switch and never fighting battles without a chance of victory.
Second was this Lord of Welfare who possessed great strength yet chose to hole up in an independent space.
Perhaps only when he had turtled up to true godhood would the Lord of Welfare step out of the main hall of Ecstasy to bathe in natural sunlight.
Compared to Written Word, the Lord of Welfare was like another extreme.
These two both harbored the ambition to stand at the peak of Monster World.
The Lord of Welfare wanted to advance steadily, knowing Monster World was rife with danger and refusing to take any risks.
In the meantime, he improved his strength through the massive resource profits generated by the ‘Ecstasy Entertainment City’ and invested in the development of a new legion system, thereby gradually climbing to the summit.
Written Word was the exact opposite.
Written Word also believed Monster World was perilous, but that the future time was limited and he had to hurry to become stronger.
High risk meant high reward. Treat strong enemies as whetstones. Each reversal in dire straits was a rebirth through fire. He chose the path of challenging, defeating strong enemies, and then devouring them to grow.
Their only common ground was that both placed great emphasis on developing legion systems.
The Lord of Ecstasy’s legion testing ground in the Rimewinter Snowfield and Written Word’s World of Inspiration were both technical R&D centers for developing and testing new systems.
—
Facing the mission options in the list, Yang Xiu fell into deep thought.
He wanted to minimize encounters with fellow townsmen.
Only after becoming an Ecstasy player did he truly feel how terrifying his fellow townsmen were.
They feared not death, had rule blessings, perfect control of abilities, and infinite fault tolerance. After an encounter, only with crushing superiority on your side was there a chance to fight.
If the gap in strength was not large, it would be a nightmare.
As a former authentic player, he knew very well how those fellows fought.
Even if they could not win, they would drag a few down with them before they died, trading their lives to force an exchange.
The combat style of Ecstasy players prioritized self-preservation. When encountering a fellow townsmen squad of similar strength, it was inevitable that a few teammates would be forced into a trade to the death.
He was truly afraid.
If those beasts wanted a forced exchange, there was no stopping them.
Once Taunt and Bind were activated and his teammates’ movement were forcibly restricted, they would trade a group of lives for a few of yours.
Fellow townsmen did not lose out by dying. Killing one meant a profit. He, on the other hand, could lose so much he would weep.
So he would avoid them whenever possible.
Especially since there was even a mission in the list involving the Emperor’s Mound Mountain Range, which in Yang Xiu’s view was simply a suicide mission.
As a member of the God Temple Guild, he had followed God King to operate in the Emperor’s Mound Mountain Range every day in the past.
Going there to look for the bully of Earthmind felt like going home. He never felt anything amiss.
Now it was different.
From the perspective of an Ecstasy player, it was simply a hell level mission.
That was no place for normal lifeforms to stay.
Earthmind bully, player warbands, Battle Swarm. The three-way melee formed an unsolvable battlefield of death. The starter village environment could be called a lifeform meat grinder.
Once war broke out, lives were extinguished in an instant.
If he dared to lead his squad there, there would likely be no teammate left. It was truly terrifying.
Yet Yang Xiu also discovered some problems in the mission list.
Many resource acquisition tasks were clearly behind the current version.
For example, in the Emperor’s Mound Mountain Range region there was a mission requiring entry into the underground space to obtain the resources left by Iceblade.
The problem was that the underground space node built by the Iceblade people had long since been integrated into Emperor’s Mound Village, so where would those resources be found.
Even Iron Shell Bug silk had become a discontinued resource.
This mission was simply impossible to complete. Even if one could survive the starter village melee, after investigating the situation one would still have to return early with no reward at all.
At this moment Yang Xiu made his choice and touched free exploration mode with his consciousness.
The mission list updated automatically.
There were many places available in free mode, the vast majority in the Pale Continent region, and many of them were areas not yet explored by players.
All of these regions had stable teleportation points for the Palace of Ecstasy, and the surroundings had mostly been reconnoitered by the Lord of Ecstasy.
Before long, their figures were shrouded in black light and teleportation began.
—
After the weightless sensation, the squad with Yang Xiu arrived at a scene north of the Colorful Mist Coast on the Pale Continent: Path of the Dead.
What opened before their eyes was a region shrouded in dense fog, with extremely low visibility nearby.
The damp air was filled with the stench of rot, nauseating to the point of disgust.
Underfoot was soft humus that creaked lightly when stepped on.
All around were towering tombstones covered in dark red vines that pulsed like blood vessels, as if drawing nutrients from the ground.
From the distance came the sound of bones rubbing, sometimes far, sometimes near.
Scene information surfaced in Yang Xiu’s mind.
[Path of the Dead]
Background introduction: This was a battlefield shrouded by the Evil Moon, once one of the local war regions where Monster World’s native races fought against the Black Tide. Buried here were the remains of countless ancient warriors who fought for glory in life and were eroded by dark power after death, becoming Cursed Soldiers. The cemetery was permeated with thick Black Tide aura, which would continuously generate corrosion cores and Evil Entity lifeforms.
Scene situation analysis: Black Tide command-type warriors have not descended.
Lunar phase situation: waning moon.
—
From the introduction, Yang Xiu immediately understood the situation of this scene.
Back then, Monster World’s native races broke out in war against the Black Tide in various regions.
The Bone-Burial battlefield in front of Emperor’s Mound Village was one of them, and the land beneath their feet was also one.
It could be confirmed that the Black Tide commander who once descended here had already died in battle, but no new Evil Spirit warrior had ever replaced it.
The lifeforms active here were mainly corrosion cores derived from the Evil Moon and Cursed Soldiers revived by the Evil Moon after dying in battle.
The situation was similar to their newbie period.
Having understood the environment, Yang Xiu let out a breath.
An Evil Moon domain without Evil Spirit warriors in control was full of brainless derivative Evil Entities, which were not difficult to deal with.
But Yang Xiu did not act rashly.
The squad he led had no Owl-Headed Fiend perception trait for support, so the exploration process had to be doubly cautious.