Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 584 - 567 Earth Attribute Monster

Chapter 584: Chapter 567 Earth Attribute Monster

In the previous two gacha draws, Chen Tingquan pulled Glacier General and Echio, and skipped Xing Ying and Ningyun Monarch.

After all, he is a free-to-play gamer and doesn’t have many draw chances.

Moreover, Chen Tingquan’s XP is different from others; he prefers majestic and domineering male characters, especially when they are strong.

The combination of Glacier General and Echio was simply irresistible for him.

Both are mature male characters; one as cold as ice, the other as passionate as fire. Plus, the ice and fire element could react to melt together, giving a high damage multiplier. In the past two weeks, he has been mowing down enemies on the map with them.

Even as a free-to-play gamer, he was enjoying it quite a lot.

"The Earth Country shouldn’t be a big problem either.

"Although it lacks the ice element’s counter to the fire monsters in Fire Country, the Earth Country has a lot of human enemies. My Xiyun’s water spray, Glacier General’s freeze, and Echio’s melt can still wreak havoc."

With this strong confidence, Chen Tingquan controlled the Hero to enter the border of Earth Country and officially started the story.

This Chapter of the story is divided into two different parts:

One is rescuing disaster victims, mainly driven by Ningyun Monarch; the other is the court of Great Liang, mainly pushed by Little Lolita Xiyun and some important local characters of Earth Country.

Overall, the plot was a standard performance, everything that was expected was there.

In the people’s homes, life was miserable; Xun Xiang Cult followers took advantage of this to preach and created even more chaos; in the court, the Little Emperor was bewitched by the high ranks of Xun Xiang Cult, and these cultists wanted to perform a mysterious ritual to summon terrifying monsters.

As he ventured deeper into Great Liang, the myriad facets of this country were vividly presented to the player.

"Not bad, it’s the usual standard of ’Endless Fantasy Legend’, well done.

"The plot is in the same universe as ’Ascension’, but the details are presented differently.

"But then again, I wonder if Li Huanzhen will be included in the gacha draw, if yes, definitely need to draw him."

Chen Tingquan took his time to appreciate the storyline while playing, initially satisfied with the experience.

But gradually, he felt the difficulty of battles was increasing.

He still could win, but the battles seemed to drag on longer and longer.

"Man, why are there so many Xun Xiang Cult followers!

"How many of them are there!

"And why does this main quest keep directing me towards the underground ruins? I have a bad feeling about this..."

Both story arcs actually lead to the same conclusion, the grand conspiracy of Xun Xiang Cult.

This grand conspiracy is essentially to excavate several of Emperor Huang’s Mausoleums using various secret techniques, allowing a dreadful deity to rise through the filthy and faith energy from the common folk.

Thus, the player gradually ventures deeper underground.

From small peripheral mausoleums at the start to larger ones later, the underground world is intricate and sprawling, and it’s apparent that the Xun Xiang Cult has put a lot of effort into this plan, utilizing a large number of cult followers.

Once underground, the level design immediately becomes more complicated.

Because the caverns are sprawling and not on the same level, they appear close but often require a big detour to reach.

Although ’Endless Fantasy Legend 2’ has a layered map, figuring it out can still be extremely vexing.

Most importantly, the deeper underground, the more Earth Element monsters appear!

Not just Xun Xiang Cult followers with Earth Element shields but also many originally designed to guard the mausoleums, including Soldier and Horse Puppets, General Statues, and tomb guardian beasts!

These monsters are essentially of Earth attribute.

Of course, even within the Earth attribute, their properties differ.

For example, Soldier and Horse Puppets are made of clay and inherently brittle. By alternating the temperature with ice, fire, and water, they can be easily defeated.

Then there are incomplete Soldier and Horse Puppets, not yet fully fired and still mostly raw clay.

For such creatures, no need for fire or ice elements; simply attach a water element, and they will slow down and continuously lose health due to being mired.

Every player has Little Lolita Xiyun, or other characters that can manipulate water, and if there’s Glacier General or Echio, then it’s even simpler.

So at the start, players didn’t feel the difficulty.

But as more monsters appeared, the situation got complicated.

General Statues are purely stone; water doesn’t help, and while the melting effect of ice and fire does cause some brittleness, it’s nowhere as effective as when fighting Soldier and Horse Puppets.

And the tomb guardian beasts are absurd; these giant beasts have hard stone bodies and are coated in filth.

As the tomb guardian beasts move, they leave a trail of mud, or simply fling it around, slowing down any player that steps into it.

Players must first use water or fire elements to clean the filth off the tomb guardian beasts.

Water element washes it away, while fire element dries and flakes it off.

After this, they can then attack the stone bodies of the tomb guardian beasts.

Both General Statues and tomb guardian beasts come with strong domineering bodies; although their movements are slow, players’ attacks hardly make them flinch, and they deal high damage. Without strong shield characters or healers in the team, players can easily be wiped out.

"Damn, what’s with these minor monsters!

"All talent and sweat, no stats at all?

"Man, my Glacier General seems a bit useless here!"

At the beginning, Chen Tingquan could still gradually grind down these monsters with operations and regular elemental reactions.

After all, these elemental reactions still had a basic damage multiplier, and were not entirely useless.

But as the plot deepened, more and more of such monsters appeared, and Chen Tingquan naturally found it increasingly difficult to cope.

"I really don’t understand, how should I deal with this Earth Element shield!

"Can it really just be purely overpowering me with numbers?"

Although a bit late, Chen Tingquan finally realized that something was off.

The current difficulty in terms of numbers seemed rather unreasonable, at this rate, it was feared that some people wouldn’t be able to get past the main storyline.

Isn’t this too absurd?

Chen Tingquan wasn’t stubborn, he quickly searched online.

The search results made his face change a bit.

"What the heck? I need to draw Xing Ying and Ningyun Monarch?

"No way bro, I don’t have either of them!"

By now, the netizens had already started a fierce debate, and there were many curses.

However, one video because of this had become popular, it was the one released by Zhuge Jun previously.

Now, Chen Tingquan saw the comment section of this video, and it had completely changed, no longer looking like before.

"Prophet sliced it!!"

"Wow, ultimate prediction huh? UP, quickly predict the next double-color ball numbers and send them to me privately, thanks!"

"Didn’t expect it’s really Earth Country, truly breaking shields, I’m convinced!"

"Damn, regret not listening to UP, didn’t draw Ningyun Monarch last week, what do I do now?"

"UP released it too late! Although Ningyun Monarch was still in the UP pool when UP released it last week, Xing Ying was already gone. I only have Ningyun Monarch, and it still feels a bit tough to play, sigh!"

"It’s over, the hardcore gamers lost big time!"

"After all, Nitiandang isn’t human, who does this! Everyone in this tomb has an Earth Element shield, how can we even play!"

"The ones who drew Xing Ying and Ningyun Monarch are already having a blast, it’s like mowing the lawn, hehe!"

"Those without Ningyun Monarch still have hope, the current UP pool character called ’Jiye’ is Time Element + Ice Element, just match any Earth Element or Water Element character and you can still play."

"I’ve tried, this kid is far worse than Ningyun Monarch!"

"Well, there’s no other choice, this is the only Time character, so you decide if you want him or not!"

"Only the last 70 draws left, if I mess it up I can only find a tofu block and kill myself."

"What if I use up all my draws on a 2-star Echio?"

"No saving it, wait for death, farewell!"

Chen Tingquan watched the whole video from start to finish, and he was also shocked.

"What? There’s even such an ultimate prophet, perfectly predicting all of Nitiandang’s predictions?

"Damn, why didn’t I see this video two weeks ago!

"If I had listened to him back then and drew a Ningyun Monarch in advance, I wouldn’t be in this situation now.

"So you’re saying, I can only go draw Jiye now?

"I have no choice but to draw, the Earth Country just started, and we have to play for at least a month!"

Chen Tingquan, like other players, was caught in a dilemma.

He could only silently open the gacha page again and go draw the young boy character "Jiye".

There were definitely many players cursing Nitiandang online, after all, the mechanism of this Earth Element shield was practically tailor-made for Xing Ying and Ningyun Monarch.

But at this point, facing an unselectable unit like Nitiandang, players could only curse while continuing to play.

Time Element is a must to break the shield.

From this perspective, Nitiandang still retained the very minimal human decency, for those who had missed Ningyun Monarch, they at least had the chance to draw this young boy Jiye.

Of course, besides Jiye, there are a few four-star characters who have mastered the Time Element.

If you really can’t afford it, you can make do with four-star characters.

But obviously, in terms of mechanics and numerical values, four-star characters < Jiye < Ningyun Monarch.

Because Jiye’s other attribute is Ice, which basically does not synergize much with the Time attribute and does not enhance the main DPS character in the team much.

But Ningyun Monarch is different, she has both Time and Wind attributes, both of which are very useful support attributes.

To break shields on a large scale, one needs to spread effects widely. Currently, players lack means to hang effects widely, so they have to use the Wind attribute to spread.

Ningyun Monarch alone can meet the requirements of spreading elements + promoting Wood attribute growth through Time element to break shields, and also benefits from various support sets, boosting the damage for the main DPS in the team.

Absolutely the optimal solution.

But unfortunately, her card pool has already passed, and players who didn’t draw have to wait for the next rerun.

Specifically, it’ll probably be a few months at least.