Chapter 22: Origin: Mockery

Consciousness bypassed the golden crystal, followed the guiding pull, and swept every corner of the fifth-layer space within the dim cavern.

Besides the Ice Blade's shell and the black-armored soldiers who died following him, Beneath Di Zhao also discovered a deeply dug tomb in the corner of the main hall, containing a large number of corpses.

【The owners of these corpses should be Ice Blade's clan members; after hiding underground, they eventually remained buried beneath the earth due to a lack of resources such as food.】

"What about the Cave Clan? What is their origin?"

【They should be subterranean life forms controlled by Ice Blade's clan through some means. They can survive by devouring ore, so they do not worry about food shortages. After Ice Blade's clan members died, they still followed the commands implanted in their minds during control, directing the Iron Shell Bugs to excavate spiritual ore underground, throwing it into the smelting furnace to continue charging the golden crystal.】

The guide's analysis seemed very reasonable to Beneath Di Zhao.

Consciousness swept toward the rear of the hall, where a fist-sized pale blue crystal floated, its surface crawling with pitch-black fungal threads, next to a fleshy sphere beating like a heart.

"Is this a Domain Node?"

【Correct, you can understand it as a core puzzle piece of the Monster World; it is precisely these countless core puzzle pieces that constitute the main framework of the Monster World.】

While the guide explained, the analyzed information was fed back into Beneath Di Zhao's mind.

【Domain Node: Dim Cavern】

Territory Type: Resource

Territory Trait: Spiritual Multiplication

Trait Introduction: Continuously imbues spiritual ore-type resources.

Domain Status: Black Tide Energy Corrosion (Not Occupied)

After reading the analysis information, Beneath Di Zhao's gaze turned to the pitch-black fleshy sphere beating beside the crystal.

This was the Corrosion Core.

To seize this Domain Node, one must purify the node crystal and completely remove the corrosive roots.

But achieving this is not easy.

Just now, the guide's analysis examined the black-armored soldiers standing inside and outside the palace, discovering that the remains of these dead warriors had also been corroded by the corruption, turning into evil life forms similar to Cursed Soldiers.

Moreover, the hunting levels of the Cursed Soldiers here generally reached 25+.

Fortunately, Ice Blade's shell was not controlled by the Black Tide corrosion power.

More accurately, Ice Blade's shell had fought until its oil was exhausted and its lamp dry, leaving only an empty shell; the Black Tide corrosion power could not drive the hollow body.

Even if thrown into the altar for refinement, no Shou Shou Jili could be extracted.

If Ice Blade were in full strength, his hunting level might have been above 500, possessing the power to move mountains and overturn seas, making it impossible for players to resist.

After investigating the information of the five underground layers of the Dim Cavern, Beneath Di Zhao's consciousness followed the guide back to Di Zhao Village.

As for the energy crystal left by Ice Blade for the new Beneath Di Zhao, he had no intention of going to retrieve it.

Not that he didn't want to, but he lacked startup capital.

His mode of exiting Di Zhao Village differed from the players'; players enjoyed a free-to-play model plus in-app purchases like Shangcheng, Star Vein, and Body Tempering.

But after he went out, he had to activate the pay-per-card mode.

When the Four Servants injected the remaining Shou Shou Jili into Di Zhao Village back then, the available Shou Shou Jili reached over 80 million, enough to support him in masking his aura and exploring outside as Beneath Di Zhao without fear of being discovered by evil spirits.

It was also then that he took in the Eagle-Headed Demon, the Black-Armored Snake, and the Gargoyle.

But now, the Shou Shou Jili in hand was only five digits; the Shou Shou Jili required to mask the innate aura of Beneath Di Zhao's self was calculated by the second, consuming over 1000 Shou Shou Jili per second, and the inventory could not withstand such consumption.

The task of occupying the Domain Node could only be entrusted to the players.

Although this investigation yielded no substantial gains, Beneath Di Zhao already had expectations.

The energy storage crystal left by Ice Blade could refine at least ten million points of Shou Shou Jili, enough to recruit ten thousand players, which could greatly accelerate early development speed.

Beneath Di Zhao, sitting cross-legged on the altar, closed his eyes at this moment, switched to Beneath Di Zhao form, and his vision jumped to the player's perspective.

Dim Cavern.

After another round of fierce battle, the players began to clean the battlefield.

They picked up the loot on the ground, then summoned the Sacrifice Mode in the function menu, throwing all the carapaces into the altar to refine into Shou Shou Jili.

After days of fighting, the players had become familiar with the combat rhythm of the Iron Shell Bugs.

The Iron Shell Bugs' attack methods were divided into two types: spitting silk to entangle the target, then dragging it forward to tear the target apart with scythe-like upper jaws.

The interval between silk-spitting was the best moment to launch an offensive.

With many battles fought, players familiar with the rhythm could already dodge the silk-spitting flexibly.

The only thing that gave players a headache was the narrow terrain inside the cavern; when encountering swarms of Iron Shell Bugs, skill offered limited improvement over combat power, and the only way to win was a fierce charge.

After every battle ended was the players' happiest time of gain.

The physical attribute boost from leveling up, the Shou Shou Jili gains from sacrificing loot, the joy of victory after teamwork... all were part of the happiness.

After cleaning the battlefield, the remaining players continued exploring downward along the cavern tunnels, entering the second-layer underground space.

The second-layer space was relatively spacious, revealing many rock walls that had been mined and hollowed out.

Strangely, the rock walls were covered with a layer of pale green crystal; after focusing their gaze, analysis information appeared:

【Spirit Gathering: Collects heaven and earth energy, continuously nurturing spiritual ore...】

Realizing that the spiritual ore in this cavern was a renewable resource, the players did not show much emotional fluctuation and continued following the team to explore deeper into the cavern.

After killing several more Iron Shell Bugs along the way, they stopped in front of a stone cave that was clearly excavated.

A muffled roar could be clearly heard coming from inside the cave.

Seeing Li Zheng of the Hardcore Emperor Group went ahead first, throwing the torch in his hand into the cave.

After the torch traced an arc in the air and landed inside the cave, it rolled several times, illuminating the interior environment.

At the end of the cave, eight chains were nailed to the rock wall, with a huge monster imprisoned at their ends.

Its form resembled a beetle, its body covered in layers of white scales; the intricate patterns woven together looked at first glance like a ghostly face, a pair of massive claws constantly waving, while the exposed crimson eyes burned like two lanterns in the dim environment.

This monster, imprisoned for how many ages, still lived.

【Taunt (Second Generation Meng Yuan Chu)】

Hunting Rank: 29

Guidance Analysis: A special monster controlling the power of the "Taunt" Meng Yuan Chu, possessing the ability to weave a Mental Illusion, causing targets within its range to fall into a state of extreme madness, uncontrollably launching attacks against the Taunt.

Warning: Struck by the Taunt ability, the target will, based on their own memories, experience a large volume of memory-altered plots in a short time; the caster (Taunt) will become a link within the altered memories, becoming the object of hatred.

……

After reading the monster's analysis information, the most excited among those present were the players who had chosen the Gargoyle.

Marbles: Hahaha, the perfect option for the Gargoyle's second Painful Painful Minghun; Taunt draws aggro then activates the Petrification ability to tank damage, simply more perfect than the Eagle-Head Demon plus Bone Fire build; I can already foresee the Gargoyle's rise.

Is This a Beaver?: The spring for Gargoyle players has arrived so suddenly; Taunt plus Petrification, the version's strongest defensive build is born.

Class Monitor Xiao Ban: Although the Petrification skill can greatly increase damage resistance in a short time, its drawback is also fatal; once activated, movement is impossible. Now with the addition of the Taunt skill, it is simply invincible; if one could add an ability to reflect damage taken, just thinking about this build feels awesome.

Within the regional voice channel, heated discussion erupted regarding the Taunt ability's characteristics.

Whether Eagle-Head Demon or Black-Armored Snake, both already have suitable second Painful Painful Minghun choices at this stage; only the Gargoyle has none.

The Second Generation Meng Yuan Chu monster imprisoned within the cave gave this group of Gargoyle players hope for a rise.

"Kill!"

Someone shouted, and instantly the players swarmed toward the Taunt.

(End of Chapter)