MMO: Pierce Heaven Til’ It Breaks

The EXP from Allofor’s first kill allowed Li Yi to level up once. He was now Level 59!

‘Just 1 more level, I just need to level up 1 more time…’

“This time it’s Jiaojiao’s blessing…”

Li Yi breathed out faintly and opened Allofor’s Piggy Bank.

“Ding!”

[You open Allofor’s Piggy Bank. To your surprise, you find 5,000 Gold Coins. Just as you are grinning from ear to ear, a Treasure Map Fragment peeks out from within the pile of coins…]

“A Treasure Map Fragment!”

Li Yi perked up and grabbed the Treasure Map Fragment. As they said, he was so happy that he grinned from ear to ear.

His Epic-Level Class Quest had been on hold, requiring that final Treasure Map Fragment to progress for so long. Killing bosses, getting first kills, he had tried everything, but the results were still discouraging. The last Treasure Map Fragment just refused to drop, dragging his Epic-Level Class Quest to a screeching halt.

“Smack-smack-smack-smack!”

Li Yi took out all the Treasure Map Fragments and put them together. A complete orange-quality Treasure Map appeared before his eyes.

“Blade Peak coordinates, 15473,13565…”

Li Yi looked at the orange Treasure Map and was even more overjoyed.

The Treasure Map pointed to Blade Peak, which made things very easy. He just needed to make a trip there when he reached Level 60.

“Soon I’ll know an epic-level skill as well!”

Li Yi swung his fist with gusto and kept the orange Treasure Map away carefully, walking toward the sparkling throne.

Facing the throne, he used the Tidal Key. There was a whoosh, and a dungeon teleportation door that was open to only him appeared before his eyes.

System Notification: [You have entered the 5-man dungeon, Tidal Throne…]

Only five people were allowed to enter the Tidal Throne Instance Dungeon at once, but this dungeon was by no means simple. The design of this dungeon was very well-known. Defeating it was sometimes even more nerve-racking than beating a large 100-man dungeon.

Tidal Throne had a very simple backstory. The mastermind behind the sinking of Atlantis was a sentient Evil Magic Crystal. It destroyed Atlantis and caused it to sink, then it forced countless murlocs to obey it while it hid away in the deepest corners of the sea, controlling the murlocs and making them wreak havoc from afar while it enjoyed its position as an underwater king.

“Wow, Human, did you defeat Allofor?”

The map for the Tidal Throne Dungeon was also underwater. As soon as Li Yi entered the dungeon, a little murloc with a Neutral status swam toward him.

The Little Murloc, Rudderman, was one of the extremely few murlocs who were Neutral toward players.

“Why are you looking at me like that? Do you want to kill me, Human? Goodness, your thoughts are terrifying. Rudderman doesn’t have 200,000 Gold Coins or an orange weapon. Uh-oh, I let it slip.”

The Little Murloc bounced about back and forth in a panic. Two options appeared before Li Yi: one, kill it, and two, capture it.

Most of the players who entered the Tidal Throne dungeon for the first time would choose the second option, and a few would choose the first. However, all of this… was actually a trap.

Regardless of which option they chose, the Little Murloc would no longer help the player. If they chose the first option, they would kill it only to find that Little Murloc had been lying and it only had 100 Copper Coins on it…

If they chose the second option, the Little Murloc would just escape and they would not even get the 100 Copper Coins.

There was only one correct choice, and that was to choose nothing at all.

If they had not reset as Li Yi had, players could still discover the correct answer. They would have to farm their Reputation Value in a small town near the Underwater Remnants. Once they achieved Friendly status, the NPCs in the town would tell the player that there was a very kind little murloc named Rudderman among the cruel murlocs who would often help the townsfolk. If the player was fortunate enough to meet it, they must never kill it…

“Don’t kill me, I don’t have the orange weapon with me.” In its panic, Rudderman took out an orange staff and waved it around before stowing it away again.

That was clearly to tempt the player into killing it…

The Little Murloc bounced about, and Li Yi waited patiently for 5 minutes before the options before him finally vanished.

“The Vile King is very powerful. The only way to weaken it would be to destroy the 5 Magic Crystals.”

Since Li Yi did not take either option, the Little Murloc Rudderman’s affinity for him increased by 500 points, and he revealed the way to beat Tidal Throne.

Tidal Throne had 6 bosses in total, including the final boss, the Vile King, as well as five murloc mini-bosses. Out of these, each of the murloc mini-bosses guarded a precious Magic Crystal. When the player shattered the Magic Crystal, the Vile King’s power would be weakened.

Tidal Throne did not distinguish between the Normal and Heroic Levels, but players could choose the dungeon’s difficulty level on their own accord. If they did not destroy a single crystal before facing the Vile King, they would enter the Hell-level difficulty option.

The Normal difficulty level and the Hell one were two completely different things. In truth, even when players reached Level 90 in the past life, there remained only a few who could successfully pass the Hell-level difficulty version.

“If you want to defeat a powerful murloc, you’ll need to acquire the strength of a murloc. Human, continue walking straight towards the south-west. There, you’ll encounter a Big Murloc. You just gotta find a Magic Crystal and then you’ll be able to control and command it.”

After he finished listening to Rudderman’s lines, Li Yi got onto the Mermaid Princess and proceeded south-west.

Rudderman spoke a ton of nonsensical spiel, but this was the only useful line of the lot. It did not matter if you knew the way to pass the Tidal Throne Dungeon or not. If you did not hear those words coming from Rudderman’s mouth, you would not be able to control the Big Murloc with the Magic Crystal.

Three Level 50 large-sized Elite Murlocs appeared before him. They had 100,000HP, and the long spear in their hands had a chain tied to it as well. If they messed up the toss, they could pull the spear back and throw it again. That made them much stronger than the murlocs outside the dungeon who could only throw it once.

Li Yi summoned the Violent Bear King and cast Mislead on it. Meanwhile, he shot an arrow toward one of the Elite Murlocs before quickly falling to the ground activating Pseudocide.

The Elite Murlocs that had been shot ran toward the Violent Bear King, whereas the other two stayed put. Archers were second to none when it came to luring monsters.

“Violent Bear’s Protection!”

Land Pets could not linger underwater for too long. When he saw the Elite Murloc approaching, Li Yi immediately used Violent Bear’s Protection.

The Violent Bear King was soon forcefully dismissed. The Elite Murloc shook the Chained Spear in its hand, launching an attack on Li Yi.

The first time it threw its spear, Li Yi managed to dive away successfully. However, the enemy did not retrieve its spear immediately. Instead, it followed the chain and swung until it was directly in front of Li Yi. Then it quickly flashed its jaws.

“Pfft!”

[−1,201]

Even with the support of the Violent Bear’s Protection, Li Yi still abruptly lost more than 1,000HP. The terrifying ATK of the Elite Murloc had stopped countless people in their tracks.

“Acceleration!”

The Mermaid Princess applied force and instantly shot away, creating distance between Li Yi and the Elite Murloc.

This time, Li Yi was more cautious. He fought with the Elite Murloc from afar. When he saw that it was throwing its spear, he would immediately duck away ahead of time so that it would not be able to approach him rapidly using the chain.

Its HP, 100,000 in total, meant that Li Yi had to struggle for quite some time before he finally defeated it.

Upon approaching and looting it, Li Yi received a piece of blue equipment. He shook his head in disappointment and proceeded to fight the next Elite Murloc.

The Elite Murlocs carried the Magic Crystal that could control the Big Murloc. However, how many he would have to beat before he could obtain one depended completely on chance.

Li Yi rinsed and repeated the same process, quickly defeating two more Elite Murlocs. All he got for his troubles was one piece of white equipment; the Magic Crystal was nowhere to be seen.

3 High-ranking Murlocs holding Magic Balls appeared ahead.

The High-ranking Murlocs were the direct descendants of the Ancient-level Murlocs. Although they were not as powerful as Allofor, a murloc with the pure blood of the Ancient-level Murlocs, their powers were still far beyond that of the Elite Murlocs.

These 3 truly were a pain to deal with. Neither Mislead nor Pseudocide could separate them. It would be much easier if he had a party member because they could control one each with crowd control skills and then kill the last one with concentrated fire.

It was considerably harder with just one person.

Placing a Frost Trap at his feet, Li Yi attacked the three High-ranking Murlocs.

“Pfft! Pfft!”

[−2,042]

[−2,567]

Li Yi shot out two arrows and then rapidly retreated.

The three High-ranking Murlocs squawked as they rushed at him. The Magic Balls in their hands kept twinkling as they unleashed magical attacks at Li Yi.

The biggest difference between Wizards and Archers was that spells had something like a half-lock-on system. They just had to aim at the target’s general direction and the spell would definitely hit. Archers, on the other hand, had no lock-on function at all. Whether or not they could hit the target depended wholly on their own skills.

In other words, magic was a pain to dodge!

This included the Ice Awl Spell, the Ice Spear Spell, and worst of all, the Water Current Prison. This attack immediately made it so that the targets could not move for 10 seconds. Although it did no damage, it was still extremely dangerous when used in tandem with other spells.

Archers could only learn the skill that would allow them to dispel Abnormal Statuses at Level 60. Right now, Li Yi could only use the Trickery Ring’s special skill. However, the cooldown period was extremely long, so if Li Yi was hit by two consecutive charges of the Water Current Prison spell, he would not be able to dispel it.

He would just have to snipe them from a long distance away, using the Frost Longbow and the Black Feathered Arrow to increase his shooting range. Now that he was out of the Water Current Prison’s attack range, he was no longer in any danger.

It was easier said than done, however. The Tidal Throne Dungeon was full of monsters, and there was a limit to how far Li Yi could move freely. Unlike the outside world where every monster was extremely powerful, the danger in dungeons lay in the risk of attracting too many monsters at once and losing control of the crowd.

Li Yi’s strategy was to use the Frost Trap to freeze the three High-ranking Murlocs, control the Mermaid Princess to rush behind them, and then hit them a few times before setting up yet another Frost Trap and dashing behind them once more. He repeated this a few times, leaping back and forth repeatedly in the limited space he had.

Be it in the past or present life, not many people could lay claim to the achievement of soloing the Tidal Throne Dungeon.

Li Yi fought for more than half an hour before he finally managed to kill the three High-ranking Murlocs. He then rubbed his hands and looted their corpses.

“Ding!”

[Congratulations! You’ve obtained a Magic Crystal.]

“Ding!”

[Congratulations! You’ve obtained a blue Treasure Map.]

“Ding!”

[Congratulations! You’ve obtained a blue-quality Murloc Crossbow.]

“Yo, are my winds starting to change?”

Li Yi looked at the three items in his hands, pleasantly surprised.

[Murloc Crossbow (blue quality)]

[Equipment level: 50]

[Damage 200–350]

[Crit Rate increased by 1%]

[Special effect: ATK SPD increased by 50%]