30: Mine Cave Horror, Level Up Quickly

Under the Flowing Water Aura, Huang Chen and his group ran for less than 5 minutes before a dark mountain cave appeared in their sight.

The cave was about three meters high, and a dilapidated railway track extended from the entrance into the depths, seemingly bottomless.

The group leaned in to look inside. Because a row of Sun Stones were embedded on both sides of the cave walls, the interior was not overly dim.

"Is this the mine cave?" Li Ruo craned her neck to look around. "I don't see any zombies!"

Huang Chen replied, "There are fewer monsters in the mine tunnels. About 200 meters in, there's a large hall, roughly 20x20, where the zombies are as numerous as the crowd counting down during National Day celebrations.

Let's go. Get familiar with the zombies first, so you don't just scream when we reach the hall later."

After speaking, Huang Chen was the first to walk into the cave.

The mine tunnel was winding. After taking two continuous turns, the first zombie appeared before the group.

The zombie was entirely grey-white, with distinct muscle lines, and long, black fingernails on both hands.

Bai Zhaoning forced herself to suppress her fear and threw a Scouting skill.

[Ghoul Lv30 (Gold) Physical Attack]

[Health 25000/25000]

[Attack Power: 600]

[All Resistance: 25]

[Movement Speed: 40 m/s]

[Skill: Pounce, instantly increases Movement Speed by 100%, lasting 3 seconds.]

600 Attack!

Seeing the data Bai Zhaoning shared in the chat box, Li Ruo swallowed. She was only Level 10 with 135 Potential Points.

Her Physique was only 40 points, which meant 800 HP. Even with the Level 2 Lotus Halo, she only had 2400 HP.

The Ghoul only needed to touch her 4 times before she'd be finished.

The Ghoul spotted Huang Chen and the others simultaneously, let out a howl, and lunged directly, reaching an incredible speed.

In an instant, the Ghoul rushed in front of the group and swung its sharp claws directly at Huang Chen, who was in the lead.

Huang Chen slightly sidestepped to dodge. Just as the Ghoul passed him, he slapped his right hand downward, slamming the Ghoul onto the ground.

He then landed several consecutive Poison Sand Palms on the Ghoul's body. The Ghoul's HP bar quickly emptied, and it vanished into a white light, leaving only a few shimmering Silver Coins.

[Killed Ghoul Lv30, Experience +3500]

Following the Ghoul's collapse, a white light immediately burst forth from Li Ruo.

"Wow, this is too awesome! When I was in a team fighting the Black Serpent, I only got two hundred experience after fighting for a long time. One monster here is worth more than ten of those."

"Plus, one monster dropped 3 Silver Coins! If we keep this up, we'll get rich!"

Li Ruo's eyes shone brightly. Only now did she truly believe Chen Yichun's claim of reaching ten levels in a day.

It was truly,

too fierce!

She was originally Level 10 with 8000 experience, only needing 2000 experience to level up. One Ghoul allocated 3500 experience to her, causing her to level up instantly.

"There's more excitement later. From now until the first large hall, you all will fight. I'll cover the rear!"

After saying this, Huang Chen put his hands into his pockets.

The first two hundred meters of the mine tunnel had fewer monsters, so it was a good chance for them to practice.

The group continued inward. The further they went, the denser the monsters became.

Soon they encountered the second Ghoul. All the women swarmed it and quickly dealt with it.

After walking about a hundred meters, Ghouls appeared almost every dozen steps. Killing one often alerted the two Ghouls ahead of it.

But Huang Chen still didn't make a move. If they panicked just facing two or three, there was no point going to the hall.

Fortunately, Bai Zhaoning and the other two women had high enough attributes, and they managed to resolve the situation without major incident.

Slowly, All the women no longer feared the Ghouls as they did initially.

The extremely high Experience Points caused everyone's adrenaline to pump rapidly.

Every time a Ghoul appeared, the group didn't wait for Huang Chen's signal; they charged forward, howling, and hacked it to death. Even Li Ruo, after adding 45 points of Physique over 3 levels, began to step forward and use skills.

Following Huang Chen, after turning into a small square space, they finally saw a descending staircase.

Huang Chen stood at the staircase entrance and opened his Panel.

He hadn't touched his Potential Points since Level 14. Now, including the Potential Points contributed by the four women, his available Potential Points had reached 505.

Currently, his Physique was 216 points, which translated to 4320 Health Points. Even with the Lotus Halo, it was only 5920.

It was still a bit dangerous, so he added another 200 points to his Physique, bringing his Health Points up to 9920.

This should be enough to tank the damage.

To speed up the monster killing, he directly added the remaining 305 Potential Points to Internal Energy, bringing his Internal Energy up to 677 points.

Then he looked at the Level 20 Wood Elemental Area-of-Effect Skill.

[Sky Full of Flower Rain (Internal Energy Active Skill), Internal Force Consumption 10 points,

Summons a rain of flowers, dealing 6 * Internal Force points of Wood Elemental Spell damage to enemies within 3x3㎡; and inflicting 2 * Internal Force points of Poison Damage per second, lasting 5 seconds.

Skill Proficiency Level 1, Skill Effect 1x]]

Huang Chen now had 667 Internal Energy points, making his attack around 4000 points. With an Attack Speed of once per second, plus the stacking poison, he could clear a wave in 5 seconds.

After allocating his points, Huang Chen turned and said to the group,

"Below is Hall Number One. Everyone needs to be mentally prepared. The monsters inside are extraordinarily numerous."

"When we go down, I will block the staircase. Those with Water Attributes just need to continuously heal me. Also, everyone should take a Great Heaven Reversal Pill first."

"Yi Chun and Xia Qing, since you have more HP, stand in the row behind me. Everyone else stand behind them and cast skills."

After the arrangements were made, Bai Zhaoning, to ensure safety, painfully spent 1.4 Gold Coins to buy 14 nine revolutions soul returning pills, just in case of an emergency.

[nine revolutions soul returning pill: Restores Stamina/Health/Internal Force by 3000 points per second, lasting 15 seconds.]

Huang Chen nodded. Under the Shared Bond Recovery and Life Link, as long as they weren't instantly killed, tanking one wave shouldn't be a major issue.

He first took a nine revolutions soul returning pill. With Huang Chen's command, "Down!"

Chen Yichun and the others filed in behind him.

The scene shifted, and a circular hall appeared before their eyes.

Dense masses of zombies were squeezed together like ears of wheat.

"Ah~" Chen Yichun and the others cried out in surprise, terrified, as cold sweat trickled down their cheeks.

It was corpse-on-corpse crowding; there were at least three zombies packed into every square meter.

"Sky Full of Flower Rain!"

Huang Chen blocked the arched doorway, and his skill immediately landed on the zombies in front of the door.

"Roar~"

The sudden attack was like a drop of water falling into a pot of boiling oil.

The entire hall instantly erupted.

Roaring sounds filled their ears.

Following that, countless fireballs, ice cones... flew directly toward Huang Chen.

Those were Corpse Demons from the mine cave, specializing in Magical Ranged Attacks.

"Don't just stand there, heal me!" Huang Chen shouted.

In that instant alone, Huang Chen was hit by at least five or six Magical Attacks and two or three Ghoul attacks.

His HP bar instantly lost one-third of its volume, but fortunately, it was instantly refilled under the nine revolutions soul returning pill's recovery effect.

"Universal Salvation!"

All the women woke up as if from a dream and immediately threw two bursts of healing onto Huang Chen.

For a moment, skills flew everywhere inside the hall.

Huang Chen's HP bar was constantly fluctuating up and down.

In just 5 seconds, as the first wave of nearly 40 zombies fell, a white light simultaneously shone on everyone in the group.

However, in less than half a second, the area where the zombies had fallen was filled up again.

Soon, 15 seconds passed, and three waves of zombies had already fallen.

Just then, Huang Chen's fluctuating HP suddenly dropped sharply.

The Nine Revolutions Effect was gone!

"Run!"

Immediately, Huang Chen activated Void Teleportation.

After a flash of white light, all 7 people simultaneously appeared in the Novice Village.

When Huang Chen appeared, his Health Points were only 3000, but they slowly recovered segment by segment under the effect of the Halo and Universal Salvation.

"Holy crap, we can't beat this!"

Huang Chen said with lingering fear, "I almost died."

All the women were also pale. Life Link shares half of the damage taken.

Huang Chen lost 6000 HP, meaning the six of them combined also lost 6000 HP.

Each person directly lost 1000 HP.

If they had been slightly slower in running, all seven of them would have perished there.

However, risk and reward go hand in hand. In just fifteen seconds, three waves totaling 120 monsters yielded 420,000 experience points per person.

Even Bai Zhaoning and Chen Yichun leveled up twice.

"Are we going back?" Li Ruo asked, looking at Huang Chen with sparkling eyes.

She had the biggest gain, as 420,000 experience points immediately brought her to Level 22.