"Do you remember what monsters were on floor 4?” Zen asked Sasha.
Shaking her head, the Draconian sniper turned to ask if anyone else in their party remembered. Unsurprisingly, nobody did. After all, they were powerful assassins. Why would they remember details about their enemies, especially those who were weak?Ring!Looking at the call notification, Zen realised that Damian was trying to connect to them. Quickly, they accepted and joined his group call.“Ahem! Can you hear me now? I sent the pedometer program to you in the mailbox. It required a little tweaking to send a program over because I doubt the academy thought there would be a programmer attending. Please let me know if you have trouble installing the software.”One by one, Damian guided everyone step by step in downloading and installing his customised software. According to the cyborg, the system administrator kept blocking his access for unauthorised codes detected in the embThe location that Liu Feng, Oritha and Zen arrived at turned out to be a dud. Akiko and Sasha were still confirming the hideout’s location so Zen took the opportunity to harvest a new variety of herbs from the forest area. In that time, Damian idly looked through all his new player settings after accepting the party invitation.“Did any of you turn on inventory and skill sharing as well?” he asked.???“What’s that?” Zen asked, realising that Damian had been unmuted for a while now.Sending Zen a screenshot of what he was looking at, Damian explained how he found them under advanced party settings. Zen blinked. When did the system administrator add this feature? It wasn’t there previously!“When did you find this?” Zen asked urgently, checking is personal settings. True enough, it was there too.Shrugging, Damian explained how it had always been there. However, Zen swore he did not see it previously.
Ping!On the way back, Zen received a notification from the game. Oritha received one at the same moment, and they exchanged questioning looks.“Oh? It appears as if I can claim the smokescreen grenades too,” Damian announced through the group call. “I can also see the new main quest. That’s very convenient!”Jaw falling open, Zen quickly checked his notification. Sure enough, the updated party quest-sharing system marked the chain quest as completed for everyone in Godly Food. They claimed the rewards happily and stared at the new quest requirement that Liu Feng accepted on everyone’s behalf.===Quest: Shady Business Part 2Objective: Infiltrate the Kobold’s Mine and obtain a map layout for the Shady MerchantQuest item: Self-updating magical mapReward: 5 flash grenades===Whatever purpose the Shady Merchant had in mind for recruiting them for his scouting mission, Zen didn’t
Thanks to the stealth training Zen received from Liu Feng before the Treasure Hunt event, he was barely able to avoid detection by Karina. Sasha had no issues either, and the archer elf admitted defeat. These weren’t rookie adventurers. They had some skills.“I don’t know how useful this skill is, but please take it. You’ve passed the first trial.”Ping!===17. Shadow StepsEffects: When activated, helps player avoid getting detected for 30 seconds while moving.===Checking the new skill, Zen rejoiced. Unlike Sasha, who was a natural at activating stealth, he struggled to maintain his cool in stealth mode. Moving while remaining stealthy was something he never learned. The new skill would definitely come in handy.“Sweet! How do I use the skill?” Sasha asked.Zen could understand her enthusiasm. Gaining new skills in a game was always exciting for gamers. This had to be Sasha’s first activ
Chuckling to himself, Liu Feng refused to comment on the two children’s excitement about the new skills. For professionals like Akiko and himself, dismantling a trap or two was basic. They didn’t have to worry about carefully removing parts without triggering the detection mechanism. With enough brute force and finesse, physical traps like the ones the Kobolds made using primitive resources could be destroyed five times quicker than a scout could disarm it.“That’s nice,” he congratulated Zen over the group voice call when the gamer and sniper informed everyone they successfully cleared the third training in a single try with Damian’s live coaching. “You can dismantle basic traps now with basic accessory crafting and armour crafting skills. Two Shots might have to finish the other side quests to use that skill if she’s interested. However, there’s no need to assist us. Oritha should be turning in the next quest soon. The Dea
“I’ll wait here,” Zen smiled. “You should go check it out. Many secret quests come with special skills and rewards only chosen players can get.”Hearing how the secret quest granted only specific players unusual rewards, Sasha’s curiosity got the better of her. Even Damian, who was observing them, became interested. However, Oritha shrugged.“It must be another ranged skill,” she sighed. “If it were a strength-related skill, I might be interested.”“We wouldn’t know yet,” Damian hummed, studying Sasha’s perspective from over the group call. “I’ll tell you what she got after she finishes the quest.”Leisurely, everyone else resumed what they were doing. Akiko and Liu Feng only had one more quest for the main chain quest. They were to find the Mega Furnace schematic by defeating the Kobold Mad Scientist. The boss monster wasn’t difficult to defeat. However, l
“Take a left turn after two forked paths, and you’ll be at the boss room,” Zen urged.After failing once to get both Liu Feng and Akiko to the boss room, Zen devised a new strategy. Honestly, this was a fourth-floor boss. With how strong Liu Feng and Akiko were before they integrated with their bloodline, it was unnecessary for both powerhouses to be there. Hence, the objective was to get at least one of them to the destination.Sending Liu Feng and Akiko to different areas on standby, Zen predetermined where the new boss room would appear. After seeing so many failed attempts, Zen narrowed down the possible locations of the boss’ room that he would include in the gamer guide. True to his hunch, the new boss’s room appeared near Akiko.Flying over at top speed, Akiko smashed through any traps from walls and ceilings. Ground traps were easy to avoid with her newly gained aerial skills. Although the Death Princess was still unfamiliar with
“Do you think the boss was harder to locate because we were there together?” Akiko asked as soon as Zen showed up with the two other girls.Surprised, Zen asked if there was a difference between the boss dungeon Akiko had just defeated and the first time she speed-ran the dungeon. According to everyone else in the party who cleared floors by skipping the main quest, the boss monster did not drop armour upgrade tickets as a reward. Instead, they received various machine parts such as scrap metals, bolts or broken gears. It wasn’t very useful, but Damian wanted it, so they gave it to the cyborg for free.“The boss did not change rooms either,” Sasha confirmed. “He was just there at the end of the cave. I didn’t run into many kobolds or traps while doing the dungeon with Oritha. We bypassed every other monster here when we could in search of the boss room. After all, you can trigger the portal to the next floor by simply killing the b
After making arrangements with Damian to meet on floor five tomorrow, Zen logged out. The rest of his party members wanted to remain logged in while he prepared dinner as they wanted to become more accustomed to the new abilities they gained. Damian offered to record their training progress, and Zen didn’t want to interrupt their fun.Ping!Seeing a private message from Charlie and his party, Zen thought it might be a good time to discuss the new farming strategies with Party Freedom while he prepared dinner. They worked just as hard as those in the vanguard team, so Zen didn’t mind cooking any special requests they might have. Liu Feng wanted fried rice tonight, so Zen was thinking of making an assortment of rice-related dishes.Checking the fridge, Zen noticed nothing for his party members to eat if they were hungry. Apart from two bottles of supplement drinks, it was empty. Feeding these assassins was starting to become a full-time job. Zen wondered if