ATPnovel Chapter 23, "Tales of the Sea"
Chapter 23, "Tales of the Sea"
"Huff~ Huff~"
Listening to the whistling wind, Miao Meng silently added goggles, ear protection helmets, and other equipment to his subsequent preparations.
After creating a new magical artifact, he would test it in a dungeon. After all, even if the artifact exploded in a dungeon, it wouldn't actually kill him.
"The Mars skateboard is still a bit slow, but its flight height is quite surprising. I thought there would be a height restriction on the island, since it already has a width restriction."
After testing it again, Miao Meng used the bat-shaped skateboard on his feet to fall from a thousand meters in the air back to an altitude of more than 100 meters.
Mars Skateboard: A flying magic device with a load capacity of 300kg and a cruising speed of 150km/h. It continuously consumes 1 point of psionic energy per second during flight.
It can be powered by pre-loaded Belka ammunition, with a magazine capacity of 120 rounds and ammunition overload capability, allowing it to reach twice the cruising speed in a short time by doubling its power supply.
This thing is a huge oil consumer, but Miao Meng, relying on his familiarity with Belka's magic array, successfully combined it with other things.
The high psionic energy required for those two minutes of combat time is only twenty-four minutes, less than half an hour, compared to the ship girl's ability to fully recover every minute.
After reaching level 2, Miao Meng's main body has a maximum of seven points, while her ship girl form has a maximum of five points. Although both increase by two points, the actual gap between the two has narrowed.
Because the ship girl form possesses weak infinite energy, a description that Miao Meng hadn't paid much attention to in the past, its actual effect in use was so terrifying, something he never expected.
If it weren't for the fact that the Magic Cannon user has a specialization in the use of the staff, allowing them to shoot farther and deal more damage, Miao Meng would now really be used to switching directly into a ship girl during battle and starting a barrage of attacks.
Although 5 points of psionic energy can't support many spells, the effect of regenerating to full every minute is still too strong. When you have enough energy to support a minute of output in the future, it will be equivalent to infinite firepower.
However, it seems that the only way to increase the limit of psionic points, besides leveling up, is through the feedback from digesting curses.
"Whoosh~ Boom!"
Looking down at Storm Island so close at hand, Miao Meng did not continue to descend. Instead, he chose to begin a barrage of attacks, once again challenging his familiar old friend, the Storm Wizard.
From the moment I entered the instance until I flew here, the entire process took only one minute, and I still have enough ammo left to last another minute.
"More than enough, full power!"
As Miao Meng's gaze shifted, the fire-type magic cannons, which had not yet been unleashed on Yan Jing, suddenly exploded in unison, and red crystals covered the entire island.
The island where the Storm Wizard resides is not large, in fact, it is quite small. For the Storm Wizard, who is skilled at manipulating celestial phenomena, the ocean is also part of his power.
If the island were too large, it would affect his control over the sea and storms. That's why he carefully chose this place, which looks like an island but is actually a coral reef that rises above the sea.
If it were an ordinary rocky island that emerged from the seabed, it wouldn't have much of a problem even if bombarded by artillery; it would just have to have a layer of the ground chipped away.
However, coral reefs are essentially just a pile of coral polyps' remains. They may look like stone, but they are actually hollow inside. With the slightest strong tremor, the whole thing will collapse.
Therefore, when faced with the powerful magic cannon that was even stronger than artillery, Storm Island only lasted for a little over 10 seconds before disappearing completely from the sea.
On the contrary, the Storm Wizard managed to hold out for another twenty seconds or so thanks to his control over the seawater. However, he was ultimately just a wizard, not a fishman, and could not stay underwater for long.
Miao Meng killed the Martian skateboard after it underwent an extreme test of its resistance to strong winds and lightning by using the storm wizard's control of gales and lightning.
[Ding! Congratulations on successfully breaking through three lines of defense. Dungeon exploration progress is 97%. Total completion time is 4 minutes. Overall rating is excellent.]
The bounty hunters at sea have arrived. Your current points are 300, which will be automatically cleared upon exiting the instance. Please handle this promptly.
"I've explored all the routes in this instance and only managed to get the exploration progress to 97%. I have no idea where the last 3% will end up."
As expected, if you only fight bosses to skip levels, each boss only gives you 100 points. You really can't have your cake and eat it too.
Miao Meng looked at the familiar dungeon settlement interface but didn't pay much attention to it. It had been more than a month, and he saw it every day. He knew what it said even with his eyes closed.
Aside from the exploration progress increasing each time, the completion time getting shorter and the rating getting higher, the only thing that fluctuates is the score.
"We can't rely on just one instance. It seems we need to develop some new instances. We've already exchanged almost all the regular magic resources. If we want to do something better, the effort and reward won't be proportional."
Miao Meng's fingers traced over the various oddities on the shelf. While some of these items were useful, most were just flashy and gimmicky.
Apart from a resurrection coin worth 2000 points, he had already redeemed all the other items that were truly useful to him, leaving only some useless ones.
Cheese, which can enhance the healing effect, has no cost, but it takes a very long time to take effect, and the amount of health restored is even less than that of the "Breathing Healing" skill.
Alternatively, it could be a dagger that enhances melee damage, causing tearing and bleeding effects when attacking. However, Miao Meng primarily uses ranged attacks and rarely engages in melee combat.
As for exchanging these items and selling them through the online marketplace, Miao Meng was somewhat reluctant. They were indeed very valuable, but he was also afraid that he might encounter them in battle.
Putting aside everything else, the Dot components alone—reducing physical defense, causing poison stacking, forcibly slowing down, and even stunning—each of them has a significant enhancement effect on professionals.
For some professions, just one core artifact is enough to change their ecological niche and leap from the bottom to the top.
Walking back and forth on the bounty ship, Miao Meng finally focused his attention on the note. With the help of the Martian skateboard, it seemed that he could indeed defeat the captain.
Even if you increase the spell range of a level 15 Fear Lord to 1000, it's only halfway to its target. It has a huge advantage in terms of height and range.
In this way, my survivability won't be a problem. The only challenge is my damage output. Whether my current staffs and cannonballs can penetrate the opponent's defenses and keep up with their movement speed is still unknown.
"Should we take a gamble? After all, we haven't encountered a dungeon where you can actually die yet, but in real life, it seems like we're constantly facing life-threatening situations."
After hesitating over the sea chart for several minutes, Miao Meng finally bought it for 100 points, and used the remaining points to exchange for magic materials as usual.
[Ding! You have obtained a clue about Captain Bartholomew. The Crew's Revenge has entered its third phase.]
"The Crew's Revenge": Now, only one step remains before we can take revenge on the captain who betrayed us: find him and kill him!
During this phase, you can gain abilities targeting the captain through curse effects, at the cost of the curse increasing by one level for each additional hostile ability.
Quest Penalty: Undead Curse (0.1%).
The crew memories currently experienced (35/66) will suppress a portion of the curse's progress with each dream experienced. Once all of them have been experienced, the curse process will be impossible to stop through ordinary means.
"So, you either stack up all the targeted abilities at once and max out the curses, or you don't use any at all to avoid becoming undead, right?"
Looking at the white hairs appearing in his full head of black hair, Miao Meng gained a deeper understanding of the curse. Undead transformation is gradual, rather than a one-time transformation after accumulating enough progress.