When Liu Xiyue came to Cheng Yang's side, her expression wasn't looking too good.
"Are you all right?" Cheng Yang asked with concern.
Liu Xiyue gently shook her head, she said, "I'm fine. This is my first time killing so many people, so it was hard for me to stomach."
Cheng Yang deeply sighed, "This is the way this world is now, you'll get used to it. Now that the problem with the military has been resolved, we should be free of problems for the time being."
Liu Xiyue didn't ask what happened, since Cheng Yang said the problem was solved, she just need to accept the result.
Cheng Yang understood well in his heart that even though Yuan Jianze promised to his conditions, he wasn't sincere in doing so, but was forced into it because of him. Of course, the reason for the agreement was due to their lack of strength.
Yuan Jianze chose to compromise to win time for himself. However, what he didn't know was that Cheng Yang also did it for the same reason. Now it was time to see which side would progress the fastest.
As a person who had experienced rebirth, if Cheng Yang wasn't confident in this matter, his one year of experience after the apocalypse might as well be blank.
The time was almost noon. Carefully thinking about his next plan of action, Cheng Yang decided to continue on according to the morning plan: Go to Xianghe Village, and clear the hard difficulty level of the instance around it.
From here, the distance to Xianghe Village wasn't very far. It was only less than seven km away. The two of them only spent half an hour, before entering the village.
"Lord, how did you get here so quickly? Could it be that Yuan Jianze and his group of men didn't find the entrance to the Undead Canyon instance?" Liu Hao was currently eating lunch with everyone in the village. A giant wolf leg that had been baked golden had a piece torn off by him, before being scrupulously eaten inside his mouth.
Cheng Yang leaned over the huge wolf's body and pulled off a piece of meat, he replied, "They came, but I drove them away. I also forced them to sign a contract with me. Therefore for a short time, they will not be picking a fight with us."
Cheng Yang began to briefly narrate the details to the negotiation.
Liu Hao had a look of pity, he said, "Boss, that's such a waste. Why did you only ask for 500,000 points of power value? Why not ask for 1 million? With 1 million points of power value, you can open up 10 times cultivation speed. That would've also made the territory upgrade faster. When you reach scholar rank, who in the world would be able to stop you?"
Cheng Yang warned him, "No matter how powerful I am, I can't protect the entire station by myself. As far as the current situation is concerned, my strength is already powerful enough. My first peak-order strength is a huge deterrence. Even if the other side can create first medium-order professions, the deterrence would still be there. In any case, they still wouldn't be able to break through my defense. Therefore, the most important thing for us now is a period of peace to develop. Taking advantage of this period of time, we must speed up the enhancement of our overall strength. In the meantime, we should also pay attention to the penetration of the main city's forces. Try to draw in those small mercenary groups and militias, so that when the main city is divided to a certain extent, Yuan Jianze won't consider troubling us."
Liu Hao said, "Urg, all this scheming is hurting my head. Since you think this method is good, then it's settled. No need to ask for my inputs. Lord, that being the case, are you here for the purpose of clearing the hard difficulty level of the instance?"
3/5
Cheng Yang beckoned Liu Xiyue to sit down besides him, he said, "Of course, I'm here for the instance. Did you think I came to only see your fat face? Now, let's get to it. What type of instance is this?"
Even though Liu Hao had cleared the first clearance of the normal difficulty of the instance last night, but when his team returned back to Luo Feng Village, Cheng Yang has already gone to Xiangcheng City. As such, the two sides didn't encounter one another, which was why Cheng Yang has yet to know what the instance was.
Liu Hao revealed a rogue smile, "Lord, can you guess?"
Cheng Yang wasn't in the mood to joke around, he slapped the back of the other side's head, "What on earth is going around in that big head of yours, playing such childish games. Just say it!"
Liu Hao chuckled, "The name of the instance is Abandoned Ancient Citadel, The situation inside is fairly easy to understand. There are a total of four layers, the final wave and boss wasn't any different from the other instances so it wasn't hard to clear. After I cleared it, I also obtained a really good item."
Cheng Yang wasn't surprised by this at all. Within a month of the apocalypse, no one worldwide had touched upon a small-scaled instance, so naturally the first clearance couldn't be taken away by others.
Liu Hao noticed that Cheng Yang wasn't the slightest bit surprise, so his interest immediately subsided. He took out a bead from his bosom and handed it to Cheng Yang, he said, "This is a skill heritage bead for the archer's statue. As for its specific properties, Lord can check it himself."
Cheng Yang immediately grabbed the bead, its properties instantly reflected into Cheng Yang's mind.
Skill Heritage Bead (Ranged Shot): After the death of the ancient professions, their strongest skills were sealed within the spirit beads, allowing them to be pass on to future generation. Incorporating a skill heritage bead into the corresponding profession statue allows the profession to learn this skill.
Ranged Shot (Level 1): Passive skill. Increase the range of the archer by an additional 2%. Each increase in level, the range increases by 1%. The skill level increase along with the profession rank. Learning conditions: First low-order archer apprentice, 200 points of power value.
In fact, even without looking, Cheng Yang could tell the properties of the item.
Ranged Shot was certainly a remarkable skill. For remote profession, increasing the range was just as important as increasing the attack power. When the range was raised to a certain extent, it was equal to having one or more round of attack. And at some point, the advantage of the range could even lead to the complete demise of others before they could even attack.
Of course, at the early stage, the effect of the skill wasn't very obvious. However, if combined with Zhou Jie's talent and the profession's own range boosting talent, it could reach a terrifying 7% bonus in range. Moreover, this was only for first low-order archer. If the rank was higher, the effect would become even more powerful.
If Yu Kai learned Ranged Shot, the range bonus would increase to 21%*, this was equal to an increase of nearly 6 meters., Of course, under normal circumstances Yu Kai wouldn't be a subordinate of Zhou Jie, so his usual range bonus would only be at 12%.
Cheng Yang took the skill heritage bead, he smiled and said, "This is a good item! It seems the Abandoned Ancient Citadel is related to archers. I wonder what we'll get from clearing the hard difficulty level today. I hope it's something good."
After everyone hurriedly finished eating their lunch, they walked out the east side of Xianghe Village under the guidance of Liu Hao.
When Cheng Yang arrived at the location of the instance portal, he secretly scolded the gods. Just an instance portal, was it necessary to make it so well hidden? Three large trees encircled the instance portal in the middle, leaving only a slit available to accommodate a single person through. Looking from a distance, you would never know that an instance portal would exist in this place.
The three people didn't choose to linger, Cheng Yang immediately chose hard difficulty level and they were sent directly in.
The situation inside was as Liu Hao described, this was indeed an abandoned citadel. Moreover, it was a western-style citadel. The four layers Liu Hao had said wasn't from top to bottom, but from bottom upward. When they were transported in, they were right in front of the gate of the castle.
This is only a primary-grade instance. Even if it was on hard difficulty level, it wasn't a challenge for Cheng Yang to solve. They bulldozed their way through each later and in less than half an hour, rushed to the top layer of the citadel.
When Cheng Yang's group of three laid their eyes on the the giant dwarf before them, he felt like laughing. This was clearly a first peak-order dwarf, but the monsters he saw along the way, even the first late-order dwarves were still very normal in size. This dwarf in front of him was practically a giant.
"Lord, have you ever seen a two meters tall dwarf before?" Liu Hao swallowed his saliva and asked.
Cheng Yang showed the whites of his eyes, "I doubt normal dwarf can grow this tall."
"Aren't dwarves an intelligent race? Those dwarves we fought moment ago were making weird sounds out their mouth. I wonder if this big guy can talk." Liu Hao gazed at the giant in anticipation.
Cheng Yang said, "Don't keep your hope up. Although they look like people, they are still enchanted beast."
At this time, the colossus dwarf noticed the appearance of Cheng Yang and the others, it immediately howled and charged at them.
"Time to start!" Cheng Yang didn't hold back. For a hard difficulty level instance, there was no need to waste time and effort. He instantly used Freeze, causing the monster to be in a frozen state.
Two seconds of stun wasn't long, but for Cheng Yang and Liu Hao, it was plenty. After two round of attacks on the dwarf, its health was immediately reduced by 150 points.
When the monster recovered from his frozen state, he lifted his stick and slammed down toward Liu Hao who was standing in front. Liu Hao was without fear, he raised his shield up to block the attack.
The dwarf was much stronger than Liu Hao, but fortunately, after many small and large battles these past couple of days, Liu Hao became quite skilled in fighting. The moment the stick struck the shield, his body was already retreating backward. This may have lessen his stability, but he was able to removed most of the initial impact. In addition, it gave their side another chance to attack.
Cheng Yang took this time to shoot out an ice puck, and at once the dwarf's health drop to a dangerously low level.
The monster may have realized its life was soon ending, as it let out a roar of anger from its mouth. Liu Hao suddenly felt his head goes dizzy, he couldn't tell left from right.
After the roar ended, the dwarf raised the stick up and swept towards Liu Hao. Unaware of the actions around him, Liu Hao remained daze.
"Pa …" A dull blow came, and Liu Hao's chubby body instantly flew into the distance. However, he has already blessed himself with an anti-damage skill, so the attack didn't actually deal him much harm.
But Liu Xiyue didn't know this, so when he flew, a healing light fell on top of Liu Hao's head.
"Give me death!" Although Cheng Yang knew that Liu Hao wouldn't be killed from this, but seeing his friend fly out like a piece of ragdoll, his anger couldn't be contained. He immediately shot out and ice puck, taking away the dwarf's last remaining 20 health points.