Zhan Long

Chapter 159 - The Blacksmith Old Man

Translated by: Deception, GGP

Edited by: Manvender, Video, Noah, Zdog, Based Jessica

Carrying the giant key, I walked to the bottom of the wolf’s head and slowly placed it into the corresponding place. I heard the sounds of crackling and turning and another “boom” as the mechanisms inside rotated. Holding the heavy steel key in place was almost unbearable; both of my hands were getting numb by the second.

Finally, the key stopped moving but on the outside, nothing seemed to have happened.

“What’s the matter?” Dong Cheng asked, her head tilting as she stared at me. “Xiao Yao, are we missing something that is required to open the door? Do we need to shout out some sort of command to magically open it, like ‘Open sesame or I have come for the princess’?”

I shook my head, “I don’t think that’s it.”

Wan Er piped up with her two cents, “Do we need to turn the key even more? Who else wants to give the key a try?”

“Oh mighty Miss, please give it a try!”

“How about you give it another try?” Wan Er said, her beautiful eyes staring at me.

Even with my full body weight distributed onto the key, my efforts had gone to waste. The key simply would not budge another inch. “God d*mnit, I can’t move it at all! Cang Lei, Old K, Matcha, come here and help me out!

Cang Lei immediately rushed over to help me. Matcha and Old K grabbed the handle of the key and tried pulling on it even Wan Er came over and gave her effort.

“Everyone at the same time!” I barked.

“Okay!”

“ 1, 2, 3, go! 1, 2, 3, go!” I yelled out slowly.

With our combined strength, the key gave a crackling noise, but it still remained motionless. Wan Er flushed red from the exertion, “Nothing is happening still? The key refuses to move even with this many people? How many Lv 40+ people do we need then?”

Dong Cheng picked up her staff, “How are we going to do this then?”

I took a look at the people around us before a sudden thought came to me, “Matcha, what direction were you turning the key?”

She twirled her fingers to show me, “In this direction…”

My face turned green as I realized our mistake, “We have to turn the key clockwise to open the door, not the other way around…Cang Lei, you were making the same mistake as Matcha…”

Cang Lei scratched his head childishly, “Brother Xiao Yao, I don’t know which direction is which…”

Sighing, Dong Cheng Yue explained to her brother, “Brother, you’re so stupid… clockwise is when you turn to the right.”

“Oh…got it…” Dong Cheng Lei nodded his head in understanding.

……

“One more time!” I cried.

This time in unison, we finally turned the giant key. The “kacha” sounds of the key were followed by the earth suddenly trembling. The stone wolf’s mouth opened and looked as if it could snap shut at any time, with us in it!

“Bang!”

We all rode out the trembles as we waited for the statue to stop shaking, though the key in our hands rapidly crumbled away into a pile of steel fragments, never to be used again. To have a key that long, crumble away that quickly-what a strange sight!

The mouth of the giant stone wolf flickered, showing the number 30 on the screen. This was the start of a countdown!

I snapped out of my shock quickly and shouted for the rest to hear, “Come into the mouth! It will close after 30 seconds! Hurry, there’s not much time!”

As I spoke, I held the Frost Rain Sword, took the lead and ran ahead, throwing myself inside the wolf’s mouth. Straightaway, I noticed that the inside had a steep slope that slid downwards. The entire group piled in behind me, but only Wan Er, Dong Cheng Yue, and Wolf readily kept their balance on the abrupt slope. Everyone’s armor flashed different colors as they slid everywhere and bumped into each other. It seemed like all 10 of us had made it into the [Five Barbarians Desolate Tomb] at the very least.

……

“Shashashaaa”

Finally slowing down as we reached the bottom of the slope, we must have traveled at least 100 meters underground from the surface. The map was no longer displaying [Five Barbarian Barren Hill]. Instead, it was showing [Five Barbarians Desolate Tomb - Level 1]!

I stood up and gave myself a pat to clean away all of the excess dirt; the tomb was a pretty large map. The cavern roof tops were all embedded with mysterious soul stones and each emitted a spooky glow as they illuminated the area around us. From where I was standing, the map looked to be in decent condition although there were plants growing everywhere and the stench was almost enough to make me nauseous.

“Sha…”

Wan Er appeared behind me, her Iron umbrella in hand. Raising a single eyebrow, she commented, “Ugh, it’s smelly down here…it’s almost as if there was a tofu shop nearby…”

Note: Stinky tofu is a popular dish in both China and Taiwan.

Turning, I smiled and teased her, “Wan Er, are you getting hungry now?”

Wan Er could only stare at me in disbelief, though she didn’t say anything to answer me.

……

Old K came along dragging his battle-axe, desperately spitting out whatever had gotten caught in his mouth. “Peh! I got some mud in my mouth when we were sliding down, what kind of motherf*cking map is this…”

Wolf jumped down onto the ground laughing, “Old K, you need to polish up on your skills…”

From the air, Matcha and Dong Cheng Yue came gliding down gently. Dong Cheng smiled as she looked at us all, “How exciting, this is the first time we’re doing an SS ranked mission~”

I nodded, “Yea, this is probably the server’s first SS ranked mission, so we must be more careful than usual. It’s too late to retreat anyways.”

Wan Er scoffed as she heard what I had said, “If anyone wanted to back out now, none of you guys are allowed to mention it or else we would lose face here.”

Choosing not to comment, Yuzi Chengshuo looked off into the distance, “Ahem, handsome men and pretty girls shouldn’t be having such a light conversation in this atmosphere. If you take a look around us, monsters are already starting to spawn; we need to kill them quickly to find the entrance to the second layer of the tomb. With the starting layer being so large, who knows how long it’ll take for us to find either a second layer, or if there’s actually a BOSS to defeat.”

Pumping up her fist, Wan Er said, “There better be a BOSS at the end of every level or else our 10 man team would be wasting time.

“Yea!”

The Frost Rain Sword stuck to my hand as I walked to the front; it didn’t take long to find red dots on the map, indicating that monsters were nearby. A sword wielding skeleton soldier came running at us as we approached. This monster was wearing animal skin as a hat and its armor had whiffs of animal fur too. It really reminded me of a Turkish soldier, but this monster was a skeleton and not a soldier. Immediately, I took a look at its stats-

【Di Knife Soldier】(Elite Monster)

Note: Di is one of the Five Barbarian Tribes.

Level: 57

Attack: 1000-1320

Defense: 850

Health: 7000

Skills: 【Moon Slash】【Heavy Chop】

Description: A soldier from the Di Tribe; they came from beyond the Great Wall and possess extraordinary talent with the art of killing. Despite death, they retained their wild nature and reveled in murder. Following Ran Min’s death, these soldiers became the guardians of his tomb so that no one would come to free his soul.

……

“A Lv 57 Elite Monster with a high attack power of 1300! Combined with its hidden attack, its actual attack power should be at least 1800! Be careful everyone!”

Readying the Frost Rain Sword, I dashed forward with the blade glowing bright. It was time for [Strength of a Thousand Men]!

672!

599!

701!

821!

1727!

The chain of hits did a great amount of damage; this Di Knife Soldier was already at less than half health! He howled in great pain as I broke off one of his arm with the combo and the other arm brandished a sword as it used [Heavy Chop] to try and take out my shoulder!

“481!”

The damage it had dealt to me wasn’t all that strong, though I retreated backwards just in case. A Lv 6 [Combo] took out the rest of his health. I didn’t even give a chance for the Di Knife Soldier to show off its [Beheading Moon Arc]!

Yuzi Chengshuo spoke out after I killed the soldier, “Li Xiao Yao’s strength really is abnormal. For a Lv 57 Elite Monster to do only 481 points of damage with a skill, eh, the attack and defense of him truly marks him as an expert front line soldier. I’m afraid that Jian Feng Han and Q-Sword’s would not have much of an edge against Xiao Yao.”

Waving her dagger with a hint of pride, Wan Er smiled cheerfully, “Hehe, Chengshuo, I did tell you that my people wouldn’t be too shabby right?”

Yuzi Chengshuo shook her head in disbelief, “Ah, the youth today. You’re only in your first year of university, so it’s far too early to be dating. Instead, you brag about him…”

Wan Er’s face once more flushed red after hearing Chengshuo, “I’m…I’m not dating him…”

“Covering up your secret isn’t helping…”

“……”

……

In front of us, Di Knife Soldiers quickly spawned as we eagerly took them out.

Dong Cheng carried her staff and suggested, “This isn’t working well; let’s divide into two teams so we can kill them more efficiently and move forward. It’ll be faster. Otherwise, we’ll never kill off all of the Di Knife Soldiers!”

“How are we going to split up?” Wolf questioned.

Dong Cheng Yue smirked, “Do whatever you wish as long as Xiao Yao and Wan Er are with me. We are great friends in real life, so we shouldn’t be separated…”

Wan Er and I both stayed silent.

Shrugging it off, Yuzi Chengshuo said, “Well then how about this, Cang Lei, Old K, Wolf, Fox and I will be in one group. The other group will be Xiao Yao, Wan Er, Cang Ye, Darling Duck and Matcha.”

Giving it some thought, I said, “Alright, that sounds reasonable.”

Laughing, Dong Cheng Yue said, “Could it be that I thought too much? To split the team up into groups like this, how evil! Our group has 1 male and four females, while your group has 1 female and 4 males. This is just too cruel…”

Snapping in a playful way, Yuzi Chengshuo said, “In that case, you come to our group, and we’ll give up Glass Fox.”

“No, no, the group arrangements are fine as it is. Let’s go kill before we get killed…”

……

Following the right hand side of the map to move forward, I killed hundreds of Di Knife Soldiers. The experience I received was simply too rich! While I was the main attacker, Wan Er came in from behind to attack and Dong Cheng Yue used her magic spells from afar. In the blink of an eye, the Di Knife Soldier was killed. Darling Duck barely had a chance to cast [Heal] on any one of us and as a result of that, she would happily chatter away with Matcha while being an experience baby.

Note: Experience baby is a leecher. You let other people do the work and reap the benefits.

“Look over there, do you see something strange?” Matcha suddenly said, pointing ahead of us.

Sure enough, there was a small blue dot on the map, it wasn’t a monster, but rather, an old man. A group of Di Knife Soldiers rushed to attack him while he quietly lay on the ground.

“Let’s carve a way over there to save him!” I cried, holding my Frost Rain Sword.

Wan Er nodded and began to kill monsters at a faster rate!

……

After a few minutes, the Di Knife Soldiers that were surrounding the elderly man were wiped out. To our surprise, the old man was rooted to the ground with purple vines trapping his legs. It looked as if the vines came from the old man himself, and fused with the ground and the man.

He lay there motionless as words floated overhead-

【Blacksmith Old Man】

Level: 70

Description: An old man trained in the arts of the blacksmithing. He is a grandmaster for his generation in weaponcrafting.