Chapter 227: Leaf of Eternity
I walked up to pick up my spoils of war, my mood instantly refreshed!
I kicked aside the Gargoyle King’s thigh and found a few items and a large amount of stones beneath. There were about 7 or 8 Phantasmal Magic Stones in there and I took them all. I could still sell these for several hundred gold. If the funds in the workshop were all squandered by the girls, this gold could let us eat boxed meals for a week.
I secretly admired myself for my farsightedness. I took a look at the equipment the boss had dropped, each item disappointing me more than the last.
Glimmering Gloves: Level 75 metal armor, Silver-grade, Defense 97, Attack +1%
Ephemeral Cloak: Level 75 metal armor, Dark Steel–grade, Defense 65. Increases melee evasion rate by 0.5%
Morning Daymist War Boots: Level 75 metal armor, Steel-grade, Defense 50. Increases movement speed by 0.2%
……
Damn, this Gargoyle King was something alright. The equipment it dropped were all mediocre items only seen at stalls with goods laid out on the floor. In fact, they were almost even worse than those. The first floor’s Golden-armored Devil Beetle dropped better stuff than this.
Just as I was feeling gloom, I suddenly saw a glint coming from somewhere on the ground. A careful look later, I saw it was a dark gold sheen of an item! Right under the boss’s dead body too!
My elation skyrocketed as I kicked with all my strength. The boss’s body rolled into the distance and I saw that exact blood-red spear the boss had been using but on the ground. The edges of its head was adorned with metal hooks, so its Attack would surely be out of the ordinary!
I picked up the spear and its stats jumped in my face. It gave me a nice surprise—
Bloodbreak Spear (Dark Gold–grade)
Attack: 175~280
Strength: +45
Stamina: +37
Passive: Increases the user’s Attack by 4%
Passive: 10% chance to deal an additional attack
Level Requirement: 75
……
It was actually a Dark Gold–grade weapon. Though it was a tad worse than He Yi’s Abyssal Sword, it was still considerably great in its own right. 280 max Attack with two bonus stats and even a 10% chance dealing an additional attack. This was practically another 10% Attack increase passive.
I took the Bloodbreak Spear and tossed it in my bag. Mn, I’m not going to sell a good weapon like this for the time being. I’d just be looking for trouble if Dominating Knight God or Inconstant were to buy it. It’s better if I throw it at Gui Guzi when I get back to the city. That kid had amazing survivability but his attack power was a little lacking. As a leader, I couldn’t be biased or I’d garner contempt.
With the second floor done, onward to the third!
I fearlessly set forth, going up the stairs. A gust of cold wind drifted over and the view of the third floor greeted me. It was actually a springlike scenery. Grass and green vines grew all over the place, the entire area was a cheerful field of green...
Rustle...
At my side, little skeleton Xinran stepped on the grass, eyes brimming with vigilance as it looked around. It coldly looked at me while holding its spear, then looked at the surroundings again.
As I slowly walked forward, I was secretly surprised. Were there no monsters here? That’s good then, it meant that I could go directly to the fourth floor and kill the final boss there, finish the quest and finally eat dinner.
Just when I was feeling happy at my schedule moving up, a withered vine half the size of a person suddenly moved. A pair of eyes appeared on the wood between the vines, shocking me. Tsk tsk, that was actually a fucking monster!
Treant. That was the legendary treant. It waved its short twiggy arms and gave a low bellow. It glared at me and began running at me!
I drew my sword. Just a trash mob, why should I be scared of it?!
Charge!
Whoosh!
I arrived before the dried vine and slashed out, instantly deleting around 25% of its HP. That was some sharpness. It was also at this time that I saw the monster’s name—Withered Vine Guardian, Level 80 elite monster. Passable Attack and Defense, but its HP was relatively high. It would be a waste of effort to kill them. Of course, that only applied to ordinary players. The Purgatory Sword in my hand was a 3-star Outstanding weapon. Though the Withered Vine Guardian’s HP and Defense were stronger than usual, it wouldn’t impact me too much.
Pa!
The Withered Vine Guardian’s short arms struck my shoulder for 175 damage. I couldn’t help but laugh at this. What is this? Its damage is so weak, is it insulting me?
I randomly swung my sword and soon the Withered Vine Guardian was dead.
Pop!
Something seemed to have dropped. I checked and saw that it was a Big Magic Stone. Forget it.
My fingers spread open, I did my usual dead body search—Death Plunder!
Swhoosh!
Unlike the venom on the first floor or the ragged cloth from the second floor, it was a rather useful thing—
Ding~!
System Notice: Congratulations, you have obtained “Leaf of Eternity” x5!
……
Five leaves appeared in my hand. Tsk tsk, tree leaves? Actually, they weren’t tree leaves but very high rank herbs, Rank 8!
Leaf of Eternity was the material needed to make the indispensable Rank 8 Health Potion. It seems I can gather a lot of them here, huh? Good, I’ll make these a contribution to Lin Yixin!
I looked at the third floor’s monsters. There were so many Withered Vine Guardians. They had weak Attack that could barely break through my Defense. Killing this kind of monster should be relatively easy. This was my chance to kill groups of monsters!
I looked around and quickly chose a spot to farm them. It was a narrow space in the corner. Time to start!
I told my pets to stay in place and charged out. Weaving a beautiful S through the monster horde, I attracted the aggro of every Withered Vine Guardian and brought the ocean of mobs back to the little corner.
Pa!
My cape knocked against the wall and by the time I stood in place, the Dark Wasp and the little skeleton had already joined me, taking spots at side and blocking the space. Now I could only be hit by one mob at a time!
The Withered Vine Guardians rushed over. Since the little skeleton and Dark Wasp didn’t have the aggro, the entire mob flooded the surroundings. They all paced back and forth, unable to attack.
Mn, preparations are ready. Time to work!
I used Wild Roar to increase my attack power by 15%. The Purgatory Sword in my hand quivered as I concentrated all my power into it. Thousand Mirage Slash sprang into the air!
Boom!
2549!
2474!
2239!
……
Numerous damage numbers jumped. This honestly wasn’t all. The damage numbers that surfaced were only a part of the overall damage. The moment my skill came down, all the Withered Vine Guardians in the area seemed to have instantly lost half their HP. This was definitely not from losing just 2400 HP. The overall damage had to be around 10000!
As I had expected, the Purgatory Sword’s 20% splash damage effect would cause the monsters around the damaged target to suffer 20% in splash damage. The monsters in Thousand Mirage Slash’s attack range overlapped each other so the overall damage dealt was terrifying!
Tsk tsk. Thousand Mirage Slash plus 20% splash damage had far surpassed Mage’s Arctic Rain or Archer’s Volley. If Floating Ice City’s mages and archers knew that a warrior like me could kill monsters like this, I’m afraid most of them would want to die.
A Rank 7 Thousand Mirage Slash’s cooldown was low, only 15 seconds. The second round’s coming!
Boom!
The monsters fell down together and a dense white stream of experience flew at me.
Swhoosh!
Golden light fell. I hit Level 75! Very good. Just a small fight against a group of mobs and I leveled up.
Again!
Two Thousand Mirage Slashes were enough to kill an entire pack of Withered Vine Guardians. The experience gained was abundant as hell, and it only took 30 seconds to do so. Ever since I started playing Heavenblessed, I’ve never killed monsters so brilliantly before. I was almost certain that no one in the entire China server had such an effective grinding method.
After all, I had the 3-star Outstanding Purgatory Sword and the Outstanding property to match its grandeur. Even 5% splash damage would be enough, but 5% was too lame compared to a whopping 20%.
The 300 or so horde of Withered Vine Guardians quickly met their maker and I used Death Plunder on every corpse. Each Withered Vine Guardian gave 5–8 Leaf of Eternity. A hundred leaves made a stack and I soon had 20 stacks of Leaf of Eternity. Good thing my additional bag was a High-grade Army Pouch that gave me 100 more slots, for a total 120. With such abundant space in my bag I could continue with the grind!
I didn’t bother to rest after killing the horde of Withered Vine Guardians. I ran out again and soon aggroed another huge mob of monsters in this maze-like room. There were at least 500 of them this time. My entire vision was full of monsters, making my blood boil!
I was sucking on a Rank 6 Health Potion already. Good thing I had these bad boys, else I wouldn’t be able to kill monsters this way. Even though their attack power didn’t amount to much, it’d still be pretty scary if they all stacked on me!
Another point worth mentioning was that I wasn’t solely relying on my pots to grind. Tenacity of the Dead helped, and Regeneration of the Undead helped even more. Rank 7 Regeneration of the Undead recovered 0.7% HP every second. I had a total of 4000 HP so that was 28 HP every second. In other words, I’d recover 280 HP in 10 seconds, and 1680 HP in a minute. This was some impressive regeneration that would shame any other class!
The closer we got to the later stages of the game the more apparent my Undead Swordsman’s superiority shone. This was a good omen!
I stood in place, surrounded by a huge number of Withered Vine Guardians, and continued the slaughter.
I was constantly using Thousand Mirage Slash, causing all the nearby Withered Vine Guardians to let out their death throes as their souls dispersed.
I soon annihilated these Withered Vine Guardians and got 40 more stacks of Leaf of Eternity, forcing me to throw away a few Phantasmal Magic Stones. I had no choice. I had to leave space for potions and consumables. I had to use my Magic Consumables since Tenacity of the Dead used up 50% of my MP each use. Since melee classes had low mana points, I could do with low-rank consumables. That didn’t change much though, regardless of rank they took up the same number of slots.
I also brought along some food too or else I’d starve to death in this Devil Sealing Tower.
……
I continued my grind until it was 8 pm. I'd finally cleared the entire third floor by then.
I had 100 full stacks of Leaf of Eternity now. For this one herb, I had practically tossed out everything aside from equipment drops, pots, and high-rank Magic Consumables. Of course, I also left a return scroll behind.
I continued making my way onward and like I had expected, the path to the Devil Sealing Tower’s final floor was blocked.
A gigantic tree vine monster sat at the center of the road. Two pitch-black eyes glared at me and waved its countless arms like the Thousand Hand Guan Yin.
The boss of the Devil Sealing Tower’s third floor had appeared!