39: Chapter 39 A One-Man Battle! Forge Upgrade, Skill [Molten Shield]!

After entering the dungeon, Zhang Jian first circled around the furnace.

He found a suitable spot, gently lowered Wang Fei from his back, and let him lean against one side of the furnace.

After thinking for a moment, he found a few lumps of iron and moved them in front of Wang Fei.

This formed a small partitioned space between the furnace and the passage ahead.

In this way, even if monsters rushed over, they would not immediately discover or attack Wang Fei.

It counted as an extra layer of natural protection.

After finishing all this, he came to the front of the furnace with peace of mind.

The one-man battle was about to begin!

The familiar Thugs, wearing dark blue work uniforms and holding steel pipes, appeared once again.

Zhang Jian did not wait where he was but actively rushed forward to meet them.

[Whirlwind Sword Slash]!

Eighteen streaks of Sword Qi spread out toward the front like scattered flowers.

The reinforced attack range easily and perfectly covered all the Thugs together.

With a high probability of 60%, a full twelve Thugs triggered the [Sword Mark] status.

Their bodies stiffened, and their movements slowed down.

The max-level skill characteristic even rose into streaks of Sword Qi hurricanes, pulling in the surrounding targets.

The hurricanes generated by so much Sword Qi even pulled in the Thugs that hadn't been hit by the [Whirlwind Sword Slash].

Zhang Jian strolled leisurely as he wove through the crowded Thugs.

Sword light descended from above, the strikes swift and powerful!

Every [Sword Qi Slash] that went down could cause tens of thousands of points of cumulative damage.

How could these Thugs with only 2,000 points of health resist?

Naturally, they collapsed at a single blow.

Zhang Jian took them out one sword strike at a time, very easily.

The entire team of Thugs hadn't even taken a few steps forward after appearing.

They were all broken one by one by Zhang Jian and turned into corpses.

Although there was no buff from Wang Fei's skills, the cooldown speed of [Whirlwind Sword Slash] was a bit slow.

But with this method of attack, Zhang Jian only took less than a minute to clear all the Thugs.

Instead, while resting and waiting for the second wave, Zhang Jian decided not to use [Whirlwind Sword Slash] for the next few waves for the time being.

The consumed mana recovered slowly automatically.

Even with the furnace's buff, it wasn't much faster.

If he used mana potions, there was still a cooldown time.

For Zhang Jian, it was all too slow.

It was better to take them out one by one with his sword; it was both free and convenient!

"You have gained 80 (+280) experience points."

"You have gained 120 (+504) experience points."

"You have gained 160 (+784) experience points."

"You have gained..."

Wave after wave of monsters were killed, and the notifications for gained experience flooded the screen one after another.

Zhang Jian pushed forward with the dungeon's progress at a steady rate.

It was just that this method ultimately had some flaws.

The 10th wave.

When the BOSS, leaders, and elites appeared together.

Even though Zhang Jian relied on the accumulated critical hit stats to instantly kill a few monsters.

But under the restrictions of cooldowns and mana, he couldn't do it like before, almost continuously instantly killing everything on the screen.

This led to a few monsters being missed, and they ran to the vicinity of the furnace.

One of them, a long-range Sharp-toothed Flame Rat leader, even fired an exploding fireball at the furnace.

-235!

Although the damage wasn't high.

But with a bang, the sound coming from the furnace made Zhang Jian's heart tremble.

Although he rushed over immediately and killed this leader, he didn't let the furnace take any more damage.

But this battle also sounded an alarm for him.

In the following few waves, such situations appeared one after another, and they were all handled by him in time.

Zhang Jian also decisively consumed points to upgrade the furnace.

"You have consumed 50 points to upgrade the furnace to Level 1."

"You have consumed 50 points to upgrade the furnace to Level 2."

"You have consumed 50 points to upgrade the furnace to Level 3."

The Level 3 furnace had its health increased to 13,000 points.

It also gained an additional passive skill.

[Molten Shield]: The furnace automatically recovers 0.1% of its maximum health per second.

The lost health began to rise slightly, but the speed was extremely slow.

Zhang Jian simply continued to upgrade it.

After consuming another 150 points and upgrading it to Level 6, a selectable option appeared.

Upgrade [Molten Shield] by 1 level, or activate a new passive skill: [Ember Burst].

Zhang Jian looked at the skill effect description; it was that after the furnace was attacked, it had a chance to deal fire damage based on a percentage of its current remaining health.

He hesitated for a moment but still chose to upgrade [Molten Shield].

With the current fighting style, it was better to try his best to keep the furnace from being attacked.

Relying on that little bit of automatically triggered attack wouldn't affect the overall situation at all.

[Molten Shield] LV2: The furnace automatically recovers 0.2% of its maximum health per second.

The upgraded shield's color deepened by another layer.

The effect was also significantly improved.

With the current 16,000 points of health, it could automatically recover 32 points of health per second.

Just during the waiting time for each wave, it could recover nearly 2,000 points of health.

The effect was very good.

Relying on the furnace's upgrade, Zhang Jian easily cleared another 3 waves.

While resting, he was still thinking.

The furnace's upgrade effect was quite good.

Why was it so difficult for many teams to clear it before, or rather, why didn't they come to farm this dungeon more often?

If Meng Hu could hear his inner thoughts at this moment, he would probably cry out in injustice.

"Big Brother, you really are standing and talking without back pain!"

For a normal team, even after clearing the first 10 waves, each person would only gain 350 points.

These points were either used up in the middle to exchange for medicine.

Or, some well-prepared and strong teams were still thinking about exchanging for their class's weapons or skill books at the end.

How could they bear to use them to upgrade the furnace?

And, if they upgraded the furnace, even if they cleared it in the end.

Relying solely on the monsters' own drops, there was basically no gain.

Even if the BOSS dropped some good things after being killed, there wouldn't be much left after being split among a team.

It was basically losing money.

Points, for them, were money and life.

Unlike Zhang Jian.

Because of the bonuses for over-leveling and team size, the points gained were three times that of others.

Even if he consumed 300 points to upgrade the furnace, he felt nothing.

After killing three more waves of monsters alone, Zhang Jian felt a bit of strain again.

He continued to upgrade the furnace.

This time, after upgrading to Level 9, options appeared again.

Continue to upgrade [Molten Shield], and activate one of the two new skills: [Ember Burst] and [Flame Barrier].

The effect of [Flame Barrier] was that after the furnace's health dropped below 30%, it could automatically generate a barrier with damage absorption, which could reduce the damage taken by the furnace.

For normal teams, it could be used to stall for time during a crisis.

But for Zhang Jian, it was useless.

He naturally chose to upgrade [Molten Shield] again.

Letting its automatic health recovery percentage reach 0.3%.

It was just that the points consumed to upgrade the furnace again became 100 points.

Zhang Jian stopped.

"This should... be enough, right?"