Chapter 363: Going to Makaimura for Supplies
The third major level in Makaimura is the Demon Mountain Cave, and its difficulty has increased to C-rank.
However, Cheng Tian's own growth rate still surpassed the dungeon's difficulty. More importantly, Cheng Tian had already completed his class advancement quest and became a formidable magic-user.
When Cheng Tian re-entered Makaimura, the template of the Magical Vampire Hunter, "Juste Belmont," was synchronized back onto him. The somewhat lacking magic output ability for a Heart Priest was immediately and fully supplemented, even to the point of overflowing!
The "Juste's Spellbook," with five different attributes, was integrated into Cheng Tian's Book of Ys as a template armament. As its pages fluttered, a total of seven different magical fluctuations, including the "Holy Radiance" and "Demonic Nightmare" attributes inherent to the Book of Ys, began to orbit the book and Cheng Tian himself.
When the hordes of monsters entrenched in the Demon Mountain Cave, especially the Red Demon clan who held a racial grudge against Cheng Tian, saw him, the overwhelming magical intensity they felt instead instilled a strong sense of fear, making them hesitant to approach.
If Cheng Tian were to activate his Demonic Nightmare form, they might even mistake him for an ally.
If there was anything regrettable, it was that this time the orb triggered by the three-sphere spell was a "Green Tremor Orb," so he couldn't earn any money... but it allowed his big eaters to feast to their heart's content!
Still, he first accumulated souls, and after gathering 199, Bazett, the Primeval Wyvern, and the Ghost Cicada (summoned for the third time) were all responsible for luring and gathering monsters. Cheng Tian, meanwhile, prepared the Tremor Orb, combining it with magical elements at will to create one clear-out spell after another, each with different attributes.
As the Green Tremor Orb combined with magic, monsters died in droves on the spot. Beside their dissipating corpses, a large number of roasted turkeys, vegetable platters, C-rank individual rations, fruit baskets, pizzas, and hamburgers popped out... Cheng Tian also discovered that the Green Tremor Orb didn't only drop Knights of the Round Table specialty foods, but rather threw all the possible food drops from all the dungeons he had previously experienced into the same drop pool.
This might be because Makaimura's original drop pool didn't contain "food" items.
Compared to the various valuables dropped by the Red Tremor Orb that could be directly monetized, while the spatial recovery price for food was decent, the number that could be carried drastically decreased. The weakest recovery effects could stack at most 9 times, while those with large recovery amounts could only stack 2 to 3 times at most.
Adhering to the principle of not wasting anything, Cheng Tian simply rotated summoning the Mammoth, Wyvern, and Tyrannosaurus Rex, letting them, along with Bazett, eat wildly.
Since he had reserved portions for Aileen and Fina, it wasn't considered eating alone... The monster groups in the Demon Mountain Cave were mainly vampire bats, followed by a large return of zombie units. Occasionally, one could see human-faced stone statues acting as guard towers along the way, and then there were the Red Demon clan, with whom Cheng Tian had a blood feud.
However, Cheng Tian and his group simply crushed their way through. Almost without exception, these monsters all became sources of delicious food items.
Of course, Cheng Tian didn't forget to collect all the hidden items and easter eggs from this original dungeon.
Valuable easter eggs included a King's Statue and a Michi Windmill, two pieces of Knight's Armor, one spear, and one fireball.
But the most noteworthy item was a King's Statue shimmering with golden light.
[King's Statue Curse: Hidden Easter Egg, Valuable Item. The originally valuable King's Statue has been imbued with a terrifying transformation curse, which will forcibly alter the form of anyone who touches it.
To others, this item will appear golden and be tagged as "Valuable," but upon touch, it will immediately trigger the "Transformation Curse" effect, at which point the toucher will be forcibly transformed into a "Frog" for 5 to 10 seconds.
This effect can only be triggered once.]
[Additional Note: Kissing the cursed object will prematurely lift the frog transformation curse.]
Since Cheng Tian already knew the effect of this item, the King's Statue, which originally glowed golden, turned red after he stared at it for over a minute. Only then did the "Curse" suffix slowly appear on the item.
It really is typical of those despicable producers who, during game development, would place demos in the arcade halls next to their company to secretly observe player progress and then modify whatever was too easy. Knowing that players, upon reaching the third stage, had grown accustomed to King's Statues being merely points, they slipped in such a cursed statue.
It can be said that every player encountering this for the first time would inevitably suffer a loss from this cursed statue easter egg.
And the producer's nastiness didn't stop there... They placed a captain-level Red Demon next to the cursed statue!
Truly a living Yama.
Cheng Tian, on the other hand, used the Heart Barrier's indirect levitation to store it in his inventory, not knowing who he planned to inflict this curse upon.
Not far from where he collected the cursed statue was the final boss battle area of Makaimura's third act.
Before the tightly shut steel gate leading out of the cave, a dragon was entrenched, and it was the kind that took the worst aspects of both Eastern and Western dragons.
As the guardian boss, this dragon's appearance leaned towards a five-clawed dragon from his country, long and slender, but without claws, flying as if lifted into the air by some telekinetic force.
The dragon was a pure-mechanic boss; only its head was a hit-point. After taking a certain amount of damage, its body would explode segment by segment like an insect until only a solitary head flew in the air, much like a flying head monster.
Besides having only its head as a hit-point, it was also completely immune to thrown "spear" type weapons.
The FC version of Makaimura was devious in that some bosses were immune to specific weapons, and sometimes the high-attack-speed small throwing knives that players painstakingly preserved along the way became the very reason they couldn't defeat a boss.
The dragon died, or more accurately, it didn't last long against Cheng Tian's group. If the Primeval Wyvern hadn't deliberately engaged it in a one-on-one fight for a while, the subjugation might have been even quicker.
Due to the overwhelming combat and Cheng Tian's aggressive farming, the boss chest's intensity directly dropped to bronze level, only yielding a blue excellent-grade dragon head material, which was better than nothing.
Upon returning to the space, Cheng Tian also happened to hear a familiar knock on the door.
No surprise, it was Aileen.
Seeing a table full of high-calorie junk food, Aileen, familiar with the drill, casually grabbed a Burger King and was about to stuff it into her mouth when the recovery item properties popped up before her eyes.
...So luxurious?
After a slight stunned, Aileen asked a profound question.
Cheng Tian said nothing, merely silently pulled out a dragon head and dangled it before Aileen.
"This thing can most likely help strengthen your dragon head mechanical arm. Say something nice to me, and it's yours."
"Dad!"
The half-elf archer didn't hesitate for a second.