A pained shriek reverberated through the surroundings as an azure inferno manifested in the center of the Boss Room.
Ginormous roots pinned the Tainted Dryad to the ground, blocking her paths of escape as the inferno swallowed her.
Bottles filled with viscous liquid flung through the air in beautiful arcs and shattered upon crashing into the Tainted Dryad. The viscous liquid spread all over her body, only to fuel the azure flames.
The Tainted Dryad grew weaker by the second, yet more vials were hurled at her with great strength. Every vial turned out to worsen the Tainted Dryad’s condition. Her movements grew sluggish, she lost control of the energy within her, and it was only a matter of minutes before he body burned to conder.
The Boss Monster’s miserable cries had been imprinted into the minds of the onlookers. Only Zayn stared calmly at the inferno that died down with the loss of fuel. There was nothing to keep the inferno alive anymore as the ginormous roots burned alongside the Tainted Dryad.
Tainted Dryad(Boss Monster) has been slain.
55 Soul Essences, 18 Common Cards, 12 Uncommon Cards, 16 Rare Card Shards, and 1 Ranked Armaments have been distributed according to combat contribution
“That was…” Natalia was about to say something but she shut her mouth. It wasn’t the first time that they had seen the Tainted Dryad die like this, however, it felt oddly real this time around.
‘Forgotten Lands is just a game. The Tainted Dryad will return and everything will be just like before.’ Natalia reminded herself, ‘Am I getting old? There is no need to show sympathy to a mass of data and pixels. This is just a game.’
Despite telling herself that nothing was real, Forgotten Lands was a game that felt as real as reality. Everyone complimented the game designers and developers for creating such a realistic game. Of course, there had been some complaints as well. Various people complained about animal cruelty for killing realistic monsters to level up and acquire both Soul Essences and Cards. Natalia could understand them, to a certain degree, since Forgotten Lands was just too realistic.
But Forgotten Lands was just a game. The monsters they’d slain would respawn again.
“How much money did you throw at the Boss??” David asked in shock, “I know that you’ve been throwing your money away as if it grows under your bed, but it hurts looking at this. You wasted 30,000 Credits, maybe even more than that, didn’t you?!”
Zayn shrugged, not telling David that the actual cost had been much higher, and smiled as countless notifications popped up in front of him and the others.
The Tower of Nature has been conquered. Congratulations!
Your achievement has been recorded in the Ancient Records.
You held the highest contribution in the Dungeon raid!
+25 Soul Essences, +7 Common Cards, +4 Uncommon Cards +8 Rare Card Shards
[3hours 39minutes 57 seconds – #1]
First Time Conquest(Nightmare Difficulty)! +15 Soul Essences.
Congratulations! Your team is the forerunner in the Tower of Nature(Nightmare Difficulty)
+5 Rare Card Shards, +1 Epic Card Shard
Titel acquired [Tower of Nature – Nightmare]
- Your team’s drop rate increases for any Tower of Nature dungeon raid. as long as your team remains #1 for the Tower of Nature(Nightmare Difficulty) speedrun.
Each message was a blessing to the eyes, but Zayn’s lips curled into a vibrant smile as he reached the last message.
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Titles [Tower of Nature – Normal], [Tower of Nature - Hard], and [Tower of Nature – Nightmare] have been detected.
An extraordinary method to obliterate the corruptive forces of the Tainted Dryad has been recorded.
Requirements to advance to the Hidden Stage have been met. Do you wish to face the Tower of Nature’s Hidden Boss?
“The last message is we—...” Before Melanie could finish saying anything, Zayn interrupted her, “We want to proceed to the Hidden Stage!”
“Oi! We’re still tired from speeding through the dungeon!” Melanie complained, but Zayn merely smiled. He retrieved a few potions and threw them toward his teammates.
“Drink them and rest up a little. This might get a little bit uncomfortable,” He said, his eyes darting to the center of the Boss Room. Something changed. The cobbled floor broke open, revealing a tree that grew out of the ground rapidly. The tree trunk expanded, dozens of branches jut from the trunk, and verdant leaves blossomed.
The cold and gloomy atmosphere in the Boss Room changed instantaneously. The place that had once been void of life was now overflowing with it.
However, Zayn’s attention was on the bright particles that congregated in front of the still-growing tree. The particles gathered and formed a mass of swirling energy that swiftly transformed into a portal.
But the portal didn’t lead them to the entrance of the Tower of Nature. It was a portal that led them to the next stage. The Hidden Stage.
“So…that’s what you were waiting for?” David asked as the first one to regain his senses. He didn’t expect a tree to sprout in front of them, let alone that a tree could grow that quickly. Zayn’s Rapid Plant Growth was already powerful, but the tree’s growth was on another level.
“Maybe,” Zayn responded casually.
Everyone was already somewhat accustomed to Zayn’s foresight and plans, but his knowledge of the Hidden Stage and the requirements to face the Tower of Nature’s Hidden Boss was…creepy. It was nice, of course, but it was also a little bit creepy.
“You guys don’t mind if I record this, right?”
Zayn’s question pulled everyone out of their train of thought. Everyone knew that Zayn had been making videos about Forgotten Lands, Special Guides, and a lot more. He had been recording some of their speedruns and fights to create a collection on his channel.
David and the others had been told to watch his stuff as well. They received access to his playlists free of charge and were told to study them thoroughly. At first, they didn’t want to watch his videos and read his guides, thinking that Zayn could teach them personally, but they quickly understood that intently watching and reading some stuff might be better than asking Zayn countless questions only to understand half, at the end of the day.
“Your videos are the reason we’re still the top rankers for the Normal and Hard Difficulty speedruns. I don’t see why you shouldn’t be allowed to record the Hidden Stage of the Tower of Nature,” Melanie commented and the others agreed quickly as well.
Zayn just nodded, tapping the ring on his index finger lightly. It hadn’t been long since he procured the ring, but it was a special item – A Spatial Ring.
Spatial Rings were unique Ranked Accessories that allowed the User to access a small interdimensional pocket space to store inanimate items. It was a rare find due to the high difficulty of manufacturing them. Zayn didn’t expect that someone in the Beginner Villages would be able to procure one. Fortunately, someone did. The Player decided to auction the Spatial Ring in the Forsaken Auctionhouse, resulting in a heated fight between the interested parties.
Zayn managed to buy the Spatial Ring, but it cost him 1,000,000 Credits, which was incredibly expensive given that the Spatial Ring had a rather small pocket space. It was only 50 cubic meters in size.
It was a good thing that Zayn’s videos, manuals, and dungeon dives had earned him a great fortune these days, otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to purchase the Spatial Ring, let alone any of the dozens of things he had purchased to deal with the Hidden Boss.
He understood that they weren’t strong enough to deal with the Hidden Boss using ordinary means. He didn’t know much about the Hidden Boss, either. The information about the Hidden Boss had been restricted by the company who’d claimed the Tower of Nature at a later time. All Zayn had known was that the company had to hire some professionals to help them break the speedrun records of the Normal, Hard, and Nightmare difficulty due to ‘some’ reason.
Zayn didn’t know everything, but he was aware of some requirements to advance to the Hidden Stages of certain dungeons. Possessing three titles related to the Tower of Nature might seem like a lot, but the rewards from the Hidden Stage were on another level.
That was also how he ended up spending quite a lot to preparing everything necessary to deal with the Hidden Boss.
Everyone would probably consider him crazy if they knew that he’d spend 500,000 Credits to prepare for the battle against the Hidden Boss, but that was fine.
It didn’t matter how much money he had to spend as long as he could attain his goals.
Only his goals mattered.
Everything else was less important.