Chapter 48: Chapter 32: Flame Demon Advancement
The giant lizard was like a burning car chasing after him, its speed was astonishing!
Chun turned and ran, even faster—indeed, he was an expert level runner, with beginner marathon level 10, plus 300 points of physical strength!
Quickly, Chun pulled away, his mind clearing. Now he could confirm one thing: this boss coming out of the river to gnaw on the fallen rock was definitely because there was edible ore in the rock! Can I eat it? I have to try a bite!
So, relying on his speed advantage, he rushed back to grab the ore.
Chun circled back to the fallen rock and suddenly discovered the stone had been gnawed away to reveal a yolk-like core!
Chun dual-wielded two pickaxes and went down, digging out two huge chunks—system prompt: Congratulations! Your master level mining technique successfully excavated "Magic Sulfur," proficiency +10.
——Magic Sulfur: A mysterious mineral, seemingly full of energy.
Actually increased mastery proficiency crazily! And it’s in powder form, let’s taste it first.
——System prompt: You are not a Hell creature and cannot consume it.
Holy shit, what kind of trial is this!! Could it be that two of the little ones could directly consume it? But they’ve died!
Seeing the giant lizard about to catch up, Chun gritted his teeth; if I can’t eat it, you’ll have to stay hungry!
He hurriedly dug two more chunks with the pickaxe and then took off running.
Perhaps the giant lizard was heartbroken over the stolen food, this time it actually didn’t chase, just focused on burrowing its head into the stone to gnaw and suck.
How can that be?
Chun picked up a rock, advanced throwing skill—wham! Hit the giant lizard smack on the face, sparks flew, damage immunity!
Didn’t break through its defense, giant lizard completely ignored Chun.
That means the rock isn’t big enough!
Chun found another rock the size of a soccer ball, charged forward and smashed it with force—wham! "Throwing damage -13!"
But a flying spark still floated far and hit Chun "Flame rebound -10"!
Holy shit! This simply can’t be fought in melee!
The giant lizard finally got angry, Chun turned and ran. He started summing up the damage from his previous attack, although not high, but his small character’s basic attack is 0! Thus, for this small character without any professional attack skills, in a situation where the opponent can throw flames, the throwing skill is the only combat skill that can be used, and it’s based on high weight capacity, allowing heavy, far throws, and the pickaxe can be used anywhere to dig up rocks as ammunition, cost-effective at its peak, this skill needs serious training!
Then Chun circled back to the fallen rock again, dug fiercely two more times, but this time only uncovered a single chunk.
That’s all? So this fallen rock only yielded this bit of sulfur, not withstanding a few master level pickaxe hits.
The giant lizard came back and gnawed a bit more on the rock, while Chun took the opportunity to rest from a distance to recover his physical strength.
The giant lizard realized there was truly no ore left and started chasing after Chun again without any sign of stopping.
Is this about exhausting the boss’s stamina? Chun got a bit nervous! Once the boss’s stamina is gone, it can stop to rest or even return to the river, and he can’t do a thing about it. But without stamina himself, each mushroom is one less to eat!
He can only try to lighten the load; sulfur mustn’t be thrown away cheaply, so he can only throw 4 pickaxes—hmm?
Thinking about throwing pickaxes, Chun had a sudden flash of inspiration, reversed his grip, and threw a pickaxe at the giant lizard, the pickaxe whistling and spinning—wham! The tip nailed the forehead "-46!"
——System prompt: Congratulations! Your outstanding wisdom, module combination skill successfully combined the effects of master level Mining Pickaxe Mastery and advanced throwing skill, advanced throwing skill upgraded to level 2! Achievement gained: weight +1, stamina +1, hit rate +1%.
Holy shit, this damage far surpasses throwing rocks!
So, as a master level miner, of course, it’s about leveraging your two highest skills and throwing the pickaxe! He has 4 pickaxes with enough durability, finish one round, come back to pick them up and continue throwing, completely dominating!
But next moment, the giant lizard shook its head, and a row of "Self-recovery +10, +10, +10" popped up on its head.
Instant full health recovery!
Chun felt deep despair, not afraid of the boss having a lot of health, just afraid of the boss recovering health! Is this even considered a trial with no chance at all? Or, take this opportunity to challenge a set of skills, dying is not a loss?
While wandering helplessly, suddenly a whistling sound of falling rocks accompanied by a red light came from overhead, Chun subconsciously dodged away—wait!
Chun suddenly realized if he intentionally stood at the landing point of the falling rocks, wait for the giant lizard to chase over or simply throw the sulfur at the landing point as bait, then immediately dash away, the falling rock would just hit it—could it directly kill it?
Theoretically feasible! But it’s extremely difficult to execute, and you must have the luck to encounter a large enough and correctly positioned flying stone—no, no, considering these stones full of malice targeting me, the chances should be quite high!
So before encountering it, treat it as skill practice. No rush!
After organizing his thoughts, Chun’s confidence surged, as he continued to swing his pickaxe and pay attention to the shadows and patterns of the flying stones’ landing points...
...
Chun and the lizard circled around for half an hour, with both Advanced Throwing and Intermediate Module Combination complementing each other and being trained to level 4. He also basically figured out the pattern of the stone shadows and landing points. However, for a young adult like Chun, engaging in such high-intensity operations without room for error over long periods was quite taxing, yet he could only persist bitterly!
The long-awaited giant stone finally appeared—an opportunity not to be missed!
Chun seized the opportunity, estimated the landing location, paused, and threw down sulfur.
As he watched the lizard and the giant stone closing in, Chun ate a mushroom and activated expert-level speed, making a full-speed escape!
——Boom!! A loud explosion, and through the flying dust a ball of light flew over.
——System Prompt: Congratulations! You have killed the hidden Boss Molten Giant Lizard, leveled up to level 10, Attack+9, Life+9, Carrying Capacity+9, Physical Strength+9, and you’ve obtained the loot "Molten Lava Earth Fire Crystal Core."
Molten Lava Earth Fire Crystal Core: Divine Artifact-level material, Flame Demon advancement item. Once activated, it can unleash a Flame Barrier that absorbs flame damage and stores it as flame energy, transforming the user within the barrier into a Flame Demon physique. Current flame energy 100 points, maintaining the barrier for 1 second consumes 1 point.
——System Prompt: Congratulations! Your Marathon skill has successfully leveled up to Intermediate level 1, Carrying Capacity+1, Physical Strength+1.
...
Victory!
This sense of calculated success that came from bitter persistence made Chun extremely delighted! Leveling up 9 times, the experience from this Boss exceeds that from the Dog King and Fish King combined by a large margin and even broke through Intermediate Marathon level!
Checking the only loot, it all became clear! This trial is essentially about transforming and advancing into a Flame Demon. The mainstream types of demons are basically two: Flame Demons and Blood Demons. The non-mainstream ones include various Shadow Demons, Corpse Demons, Ice Demons, Poison Demons, Nightmares, and so on.
Compared to the mainstream and commonplace, non-mainstream demons are like hidden races with distinctive individual strengths, otherwise, they would have been long suppressed by the mainstream.
Anyway, a Flame Demon is what it is. The advantage of mainstream races is their large influence, wide resources, and it’s conducive to rapid advancement, which is exactly what my small character needs for swift leveling up.
Chun attempted to activate the crystal core, a red airflow enveloped his whole body.
——System Prompt: Flame Barrier is deployed, your Fire Resistance increases by 30%, and absorbs 30 points of flame damage. Current flame energy 99 points.
Holy Shit, absorbs 30 points! The Cleaner Fish only absorbs 10 points of poison!
Normal flame damage is similar to poison damage, both are continuous multi-stage attacks, absorbing 30 points is quite impressive. As for explosive-type flames, which cause massive single-time damage, 30 points is far from sufficient.
Seeing the flame energy rapidly decreasing as if on a countdown, Chun immediately dipped one foot into the lava river. Lines of "absorb 30" popped up, and he truly didn’t lose a drop of life! Meanwhile, flame energy stopped being consumed, quickly restoring back to 100!
Holy shit, truly worthy of Divine Artifact-level! Is this setting up for swimming practice in the lava river? Of course, this is probably related to the current spirit body constitution; if it were an ordinary flesh body, no divine artifact could allow bathing in lava.
Chun attempted to step in with both feet! Then continued to submerge up to his knees, but at that point, flame energy began to be consumed.
Chun immediately retreated, the flame energy consumption stopped and started supplementing.
Got it! This barrier isn’t yet to the point of free swimming; once too much of the body is submerged in lava, the barrier’s consumption increases, leading to deficits.
But it doesn’t affect the swimming practice plan; I can aggressively train swimming for a few dozen seconds, then quickly return to the shore to recharge and recover.
Chun immediately tried, as expected, the swimming proficiency soared, but the physical strength consumption also massively increased. The viscous resistance isn’t comparable to ordinary water, and the few mushrooms he brought are far from enough.
No, it’s not the right time to deliberately practice swimming yet. But he can practice soaking feet, just submerge up to his knees to ensure the crystal core doesn’t get consumed and see how the crystal core transforms the body.
After soaking for about five minutes, it finally happened—System Prompt: Your feet have been transformed by the Molten Lava Earth, Basic Fire Resistance +0.1%.
Holy shit! Five minutes for an increase of 0.1, and the hunger level is unaffordable! This progress probably means finding a lava mining area and soaking while auto-grinding for a long time.
And such a safe mining area can only exist in volcanic caves, so the ultimate goal of this trial area is to find a cave mining area, probably heading up the mountain!
But there’s another possibility, would such a large scene only have one Boss? If I kill several similar Bosses and collect these crystal cores, maybe I could double the speed of cultivation? Most importantly, it would be a waste not to use the valuable flying stone patterns summarized to kill this Boss once more.
As he thought so, the sky echoed with roaring again, as a giant stone, with a yellow trail, flew over to the other side of the mountain.
The yellow indicates sulfur, if there’s another Boss it will surely attract the Boss to appear! So, the decision is made, go find that giant stone.