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Merciless Map
“Share my quest? I’ll try.” Itsy Bitsy Fighter blanked out for a bit. She had buried herself in quests and completed a ton but she had never shared a quest before.
Chen Mo invited Itsy Bitsy Fighter to his party and she opened up her quest interface to find that there really was an option to share her quest.
System prompt: You have accepted the quest “Impossible (helper)”!
Quest: Impossible (helper)
Quest difficulty: S rank
Quest details: Help party member ‘Itsy Bitsy Fighter’ pass Hell Level of the Trial of Natural Skill alive. The quest will disappear when ‘Itsy Bitsy Fighter’ leaves the party.
Quest reward: Unknown
Holy shit! An S rank assistance quest!
Chen Mo sucked in a breath.
The quests that could be shared with party mates and completed were of two types. One was exactly the same as the original and the other was rendering assistance, which was what Chen Mo had got.
According to the requirements of shared quests, everyone received the same reward as long as the quest was completed and it did not matter who completed it.
Assistance quests, on the other hand, required the assistant to complete the task for the party member to complete the quest. The assistant’s reward would also be of much lower value than the party member’s reward.
Chen Mo rarely saw assistance quests on the forums. The ones he saw were of low difficulty. C rank quests did not give many rewards and B were few and far between. There were no A rank quests at all and S was completely unheard of.
Chen Mo did not mind that his reward would not be as fantastic as Itsy Bitsy Fighter’s. Meeting her here and being able to do an S rank quest was good too. Besides, the reward for an S rank quest would be none too shabby either!
“Big brother, your equipment isn’t that good either. Should we get another party member?” Itsy Bitsy Fighter scanned Chen Mo’s equipment and felt that his equipment was not up to the task – she was a veteran of over ten Hell Trials after all.
“Nah! I haven’t equipped my good stuff yet. You’ll see my greatness later!”
The room was full of pros so they could tell he had excellent equipment even if he tried to hide the glow of his equipment. Chen Mo had equipped an ordinary set of Blue and Green.
“Really?” Itsy Bitsy Fighter’s eyes shone.
“Of course.” Chen Mo nodded and did not elaborate.
His equipment set could be said to be the best ever assembled in the beginner villages and he had a BOSS as his minion too. If he didn’t pass the Hell Trial in record time then he’ll be damned if anyone else could.
“Yay~ goodie!” Itsy Bitsy Fighter bounced with joy. It seemed she totally believed Chen Mo.
Seeing her reaction, Chen Mo started to develop a deep worry for this girl. She’s going to get abducted by some suspicious uncles if she went out on the streets!
Sixty-one people had gathered in the snow-white room. Chen Mo and Itsy Bitsy Fighter sat in a corner, one totally without equipment and one with equipment that was not bad, but average in this group. Nobody could tell what the pair were thinking so none came to invite Chen Mo to a party.
“Sixty-four people! Finally!”
Over an hour passed and three more people had arrived, meeting the quota of 64.
“Hell Level of the Trial of Natural Skill has been unlocked. Adventurers, please form parties of at least two people in five minutes. These parties cannot be changed once the trial begins!”
A serious voice rang throughout the room.
“Parties of two or more!”
“It must be a competitive map!”
The pros were certain.
The trial called for parties to be made in five minutes but the people in the room had already formed their own parties before the voice spoke. Every group in the room was just waiting quietly to enter the quest map.
“Time’s up! From the 64 participating, 15 parties have been formed. You will now enter the map “Forest Hunter” of Hell Level of the Trial of Natural Skill. You shall be safe for three minutes after entering the map to familiarize yourselves with the rules and requirements for passing the level!”
The voice spoke again and everyone was enveloped in a white light before disappearing from the snow-white room.
Their surroundings changed. Chen Mo and Itsy Bitsy Fighter appeared in a quiet, grey forest. The ground was littered with twigs and withered leaves.
System prompt: Hell Level of the Trial of Natural Skill has begun. You shall now challenge the map – “Forest Hunter”!
Map: Forest Hunter
Rules:
1) Players can attack each other in the map.
2) There is a total of 300 forest crystals in the map and Elite monsters have a 100% chance of dropping 1 forest crystal.
3) Forest crystals cannot be traded. 100% chance of dropping after death. When a player dies, a party mate can use 10 forest crystals to revive the dead party member.
4) Forest crystals can be exchanged with a special NPC for limited tools to be used in the map.
Requirements for passing:
1) Kill the map defender.
– Condition for the defender to appear: 10 or less players left alive in the map, or use 100 forest crystals to summon the map defender.
2) Player to have at least 10 forest crystals after the death of the map defender.
“Hell Level indeed! These rules and requirements for passing are brutal!”
Chen Mo quickly read the rules and knew it would be no small feat to pass the trial.
There weren’t that many rules and the competitive map was not very different from the usual ones but with the added passing requirements, he was able to figure out many things!
The passing requirement was to kill the map defender but to make the defender appear, they would have to kill each other off till 10 remained or use 100 forest crystals.
There was no doubt that the map defender of a Hell Trial was strong so it would be good if they had as many people to do battle with as possible.
Ideally, he would have a party of 20 kill the other 44 players, then gather all 300 forest crystals and give each party member 10. The remaining 100 forest crystals would be used to summon the map defender, and all 20 pass when the defender dies.
But Chen Mo knew if he really tried that, the party of 20 would perish.
The Hell Trial would not set unnecessary rules so that meant the NPC mentioned in rule four must have some tool that should be used in the battle with the map defender, and it would be impossible to kill the defender without this tool!
It was still unknown how many crystals were needed to exchange for a tool but it wouldn’t be a small number for sure.
Seems like reducing the player numbers and getting tools are the goals in this trial.
However, this Hell Trial was definitely not that simple. Chen Mo was sure that it was more beneficial to get more tools. Even if someone successfully kept a 10-plus party together, he would be faced with the need to cut his party down to 10, or use 100 crystals. Keeping his 10-plus party meant having less tools to go around when killing the map defender.
It was a tough choice; less people or more tools. You could be faced with a situation where you have enough tools but not enough damage and fail in the end.
“Find the NPC and take a look at the tool attributes before we decide what to do next.”
Most of the players in the map were pros – other than Chen Mo, Lil’ Building of Storms and his ilk had also come to see the same problem.
The choice, though, would be easily made once they see the tool attributes.
But Chen Mo had thought of a deeper problem. Players had no idea what the map defender’s attributes were before exchanging crystals for tools. What if there were different tools available for exchange? Which tool would be the best one?
Chen Mo felt a chill. If that really was the case, this trial is horrendously merciless!
Thanks
And what if there is a limit on monsters/crystals in this map ?
Thank you for translating!
“C rank quests did not give many rewards and B were few are far between” -> few and far