Taming Master

Chapter 531: Discovery of the Mechanical Civilization 5

Chapter 531: Discovery of the Mechanical Civilization 5

Ralph and Chesk together with Inisco; Muel was sharing a common chat group and was feeling very uncomfortable.

‘I don’t think this is…’

Though it was natural for them, they were actually on a plan to drive the party of Ian into the fight.

Ralph: Was it the third cave after the gate?

Inisco: Yes, hyung.

Ralph: there was a golem-like guy guarding that thing, right?

Chesk: Right. We just need to remove him as soon as possible and then get the marbles needed to open the last gate.

Ralph: Kay, good.

Chesk: And then we can send Ian and his party to the last sixth cave, and we’ll flee from there with the beads.

Inisco: Right.

Chesk: Ralph’s head sure works in great ways. This way we won’t have to meet the monsters.

Muel wasn’t without greed to complete it.

Because she knew what a huge deal it meant to pre-empt a new content in the Middle-Earth more than anyone.

And whatever was the content, the smallest number of people would get the biggest reward.

So if Ian and his party had been from a competing guild—and was from a hostile guild, they surely would have joined the plans without hesitation to let them down.

But Ian’s party didn’t.

‘For them to go on until this…’

Muel was now thinking that the party of Ian was around 300 levels or such.

In the ranking level; they would have been in some 500-1000 position and that was their guess.

In other words, from the point of view of a 10th rank priest—he wasn’t a competitor of any kind.

In addition, she was feeling guilty as Ian and his party were innocent enough to walk into the trap laid by her team.

‘Yeah. No matter how much I think, it makes no sense.’

Muel’s heart was determined.

Just because of the interest of the guild; she couldn’t betray another party, and that too when the party of Ian didn’t even harm a single of them.

‘Should I let loose a little?’

And as she was thinking, the first Abyss Gate had appeared.

"Kay, this is the real thing. Are you all ready?"

At the words of Ralph, everyone looked at him. And then at the gate, the party which was being headed by Ian stepped into it.

Like a mirage, Ian and his party got sucked into the black abyss.

* * *

As soon as they entered the gate, system messages began to emerge in front of the party and Ian.

Tring-!

[You have entered the Abyss Gate.]

[From here, all the ‘abyss’ attributes will be amplified.]

[From here, all the ‘zion’ attributes will be amplified.]

Just as Ralph had mentioned before, the quest was being played.

[The winds will get stronger.]

[You have entered the dungeon ‘Gorge of Blasts’.]

[The quest ‘Into the blast’ has been initiated.]

-Into the Blast (Epic) (Hidden)

The Abyss Valley had been a very warm and cozy place for the abyss spirits.

The Abyss valley, where everyone could feel the safest feelings and warmth when compared to any other place, wasn’t just a haven for the abyss spirits but for many other spirits.

However, after the mechanical civilization’s invasion, the Abyss valley took a completely different change.

Most of the spirits in the valley had been contaminated and the valley, which had been a safe place was fortified to stop the enemies.

In the end, even the Abyss valley got completely encroached by the mechanical civilization and now only the contaminated spirits remain.

Well, you are brave, you have defeated the contaminated spirits and found the Abyss gate.

And now, if you can find the Abyss Orb which is somewhere in the gorge of the blast and bring it to the altar on the north, you will be able to purify all the contaminated abyss valley.

Once the valley is cleared, the blocked path to the Northern side will be opened.

Find the Abyss Orb and purify the valley, then follow the path on the north to the Spirit Sanctuary.

Find the guardian of the Spirit sanctuary ‘Syarlon’ and he will thank you.

Quest Difficulty: C+

Quest Condition:

User who has found the Abyss gate.

Time limit: None

Reward:

Obtain the title ‘Keeper of Abyss’,

???

*As each minute of the quest increases, the agility of the monster regeneration increases by 10 percent.

*This quest cannot be refused.

The content of the quest wasn’t so difficult to understand.

The story surely was long, but there was just one point

‘So, we need to find the orb and take it to the altar.’

Ian’s eyes moved to see the altar which was at a distant view to them.

A magnificent altar of a mysterious atmosphere where purple haze flowed.

In the center of the altar was a rounded groove and no matter how it seemed, it was clear that it was the spot where the orbs had to be placed.

Ian’s gaze quickly followed the entire map.

‘So, around the altar, there are six caves…’

The altar was towering on a high ground in the north.

Six caves with tall cliffs on both sides of the altar.

‘We need to go through the caves to find those orbs.’

Reading the quest window, Ian nodded to himself.

It was because the contents of the quest didn’t seem to be much different from the regular instant quests in the general dungeons.

However, the special thing was that the agility of the monster’s regeneration rate would get faster with time.

‘This is like a time limit in a way.’

Even if it was Ian, the monsters that rose to infinity would be hard to overcome.

The key to clearing the quest was to complete it as soon as possible.

And while Ian was coming up with the ideas, the quest began.

[From now ‘In the Blast (Epic) (Hidden)’ quest will begin.]

[Time elapsed: 00:00;01]

Ian recalled what Ralph had told him before entering the gate.

* * *

"Listen carefully to what I have to say from now."

"Go on."

"Like I told you before, we’ve already been here. Before moving to the Frost Cave, we tried this place first."

"yeah, you said that."

"If we go inside the gate, there are six caves and one of which had a key to clear the dungeon."

"Kay."

"And we, we have been in the two of them on the left."

"And you couldn’t find the orb in there?"

"Bingo. It is nice to have a friend whose brain works."

"Continue."

"As you might have expected, as soon as we enter the dungeon, we’ll start searching from the third cave."

"Anyone would do that."

"Yeah. But we are going to split into two teams. Four of us will be on one team and the three of you will be the second team. We go from the third cave and you will move from the last cave."

"That doesn’t seem so bad."

"Nice, then once we enter the dungeon, you three can run over to the left side."

"Let’s do it that way."

Ian hadn’t believed what Ralph had to say from the very beginning.

Ralph didn’t look like a bad guy, but because of the content pre-empt—a betrayal could have happened to anyone.

Due to constant suspicion, Ian could feel it.

‘Huhu, there is no way I can think this will be easy.’

The order which Ralph had given to Ian was reasonable.

In order to shorten the clear time of the dungeon, they were dividing into two teams to find the Abyss orbs.

But in the very order, Ian could ‘smell’ the betrayal.

‘For starters the team configuration is wrong.’

In order to divide the seven members of the party in the best order, the members of both Ian and Ralph had to be mixed.

It was true; the ranking of Ralph’s party was high and the balance of power between the divided team was just too much.

‘Even if we aren’t mixed, at least our party should be given another member to have a certain balance.’

From another point of view, the power of Ian and the twins were considered to be half of the party of Ralph.

Ian and the twins hadn’t revealed theirs skills just yet.

And when the thoughts started to make sense, the doubts started to solidify.

‘If Ralph was indeed trying to make an effective order, he should have at least talked about the instructions after finding out the orbs.’

If it was Ian and not Ralph who had given the orders, then he would have given a detailed direction for the team which would find the orb first.

Ralph on the other side, didn’t even bother to comment on the situation after finding the orb.

It was as if, ‘I don’t care what the next situation was’.

‘This is suspicious. Very suspicious.’

Ian looked over at the sixth cave that Ralph had asked them to take.

Inferring the whole situation that had come, one conclusion had come to their mind.

‘Maybe they are planning on leaving us here and try to break the quest by themselves.’

It was a very convincing doubt, but he couldn’t afford to turn Ralph to an enemy.

It was stupid to follow an order which was suspicious.

So what had to be done now, they had to go even though there was a risk.

In the situation, even if the quest would fail, it was more important to identify who the enemy was.

Ian deliberately slowed down and watched the movements of Ralph’s party.

"Ian, what is it?"

"Why did you stop now?"

"Shhh!"

Ian put his finger to his lips; shushed them and turned back.

After those people entered the third cave, he was going to sneak back.

If he ran into Ralph later, he would say that it was impossible to clear the cave with three.

That wasn’t entirely wrong either.

But the next minute, Ian had to fold his plan completely.

It was because something unexpected was happening.

"…!"

Muel, whom he suspected to be with the party of Ralph was running in the direction of Ian’s party.

For the first time, Ian was shocked.

‘What? Didn’t Ralph just try to throw us away?’

If Muel joined their party, then Ian had to throw out all the assumptions.

Ian was getting much more confused.

‘Was my calculation wrong?’

While Ian was pestering his mind, Muel approached them.

Muel then spoke with a smile,

"I think it is a bit too much for three to handle. Is it fine if I enter?"

With a light face, Ian nodded without realizing it.



Next chapters

Chapter 534: Getting a New Spirit 1</h3><p>"Chesk, cover for me please!"</p><p>"Inisco, cover the monster in the back!"</p><p>The north passage of the Gorge of Blast dungeon.</p><p>At the road that would lead them to the altar, three men were sweating like hell while fighting.</p><p>And countless Abyss spirits were attacking them in all directions.</p><p>"Ugh, hold on just a little longer!"</p><p>"Ralph hyung, isn’t it better to just step in and get it? If we push in any further, we might end up with dangerous aggression!"</p><p>"Don’t hang on the orders, Inisco. It is done once we arrive at the altar, anyway. That’s it!"</p><p>"Okay… uh, hyung. But we still have three minutes ahead of us!"</p><p>"That is all we need!"</p><p>In fact, the Gorge of Blast dungeon wasn’t a large map, and the distance from the third cave to the altar wasn’t that far either.</p><p>However, that road was the last part of the dungeon to be cleared, so the number of monsters that appeared and the level of difficulty was a bit harder.</p><p>Because of that, the strategy was this, killing one monster and then taking a step in.</p><p>If they just ran toward the monsters, they would get surrounded by the spirits.</p><p>The situation of Ralph’s party was similar to that.</p><p>Kwang- Kwang-!</p><p>Numerous purple bullets flowing in the sound of an intense explosion came in from all directions.</p><p>Subsequently, a system message appeared in front of Inisco.</p><p>Tring-!</p><p>[The summon ‘Linkis’ has been damaged fatally!]</p><p>[The Vitality of summon ‘Linkis’ has been reduced by 1,029!]</p><p>[The summon ‘Linkis’ has been damaged fatally!]</p><p>Linkis was a legendary summon in the shape of a giant bean beetle.</p><p>It was the most powerful tanking familiar of the highest tier compared to all tanking summons in the higher tier, and it could provoke the aggros and draws in the aggros to prevent an enemy attack.</p><p>But even that kind of guy wasn’t able to endure the intense bombardment of the powerful abyss spirits.</p><p>The vitality of Linkis eventually got exhausted.</p><p>Tring-!</p><p>[The summon ‘Linkis’ vitality has been drained.]</p><p>[The summon Linkis has been summoned back.]</p><p>"Dammit!"</p><p>Inisco cursed under his breath.</p><p>If he went in slowly without overdoing these stuff, then he wouldn’t have had to lose Linkis.</p><p>Of course, it wasn’t like the orders of Ralph were incomprehensible.</p><p>The ‘monster’ guy was up there before they went to the altar. Because of that, they tried to take down the party of Ian and run out of the altar.</p><p>All the plans they had put together would be in vain if it didn’t work out.</p><p>But apart from that, Ralph’s orders were too self-centered and that was inevitable.</p><p>"Ralph hyung! This is just too much!"</p><p>"It is done! Just 20 seconds!"</p><p>Kwaah-!</p><p>Ralph’s sword was stained in red, giving out tremendous heat waves in all directions.</p><p>And in the place where the heatwave exploded, a wide path had opened up.</p><p>Not all monsters were gone, but the explosion was big enough to push the monsters back a few feet.</p><p>Ralph recovered his sword and jumped in without delay.</p><p>With the altar within their reach, they were hoping to clear the quest.</p><p>Tatt-!</p><p>"Ahhhh-!"</p><p>Ralph leaped forward with all his strength and might.</p><p>At the same time, an unexpected system message had come up before his party.</p><p>[The conditions have been met.]</p><p>[The terrain will be changed. Some party members will be disconnected.]</p><p>[The divided party will now be reorganized.]</p><p>[Current party members: Ralph, Chesk, Inisco.]</p><p>Chesk and Inisco who noticed the system messages asked out loud about what they just saw,</p><p>"Uh?"</p><p>"What is this? Why would the party split?"</p><p>But Ralph, who put his head into work, smiled out of realization.</p><p>"Idiots, can’t get the situation still?"</p><p>"Huh?"</p><p>"What is that supposed to mean, hyung?"</p><p>Arriving at the altar, Ralph smiled and pulled out the orb from his inventory.</p><p>He then opened his mouth and looked at Chesk and Inisco.</p><p>"Why did the party split?"</p><p>"…!"</p><p>"Those dumbasses smashed the iron gates; they are trapped inside the cave."</p><p>"Ah, because of that…?"</p><p>Only then did the other two people managed to understand the situation.</p><p>And their expressions brightened.</p><p>If Ian and his party were trapped in the cave with that ‘monster’, then they had a longer time in their hands.</p><p>Smiling, Ralph put the orb on the altar.</p><p>Blue light began to dance around the altar.</p><p>Woong-!</p><p>Ralph, Chesk, and Inisco were very elated, seeing that scene unfold in front of their eyes.</p><p>They didn’t have to fight anymore.</p><p>The moment the altar began to work, all the monsters which were surrounding them would get wiped out.</p><p>Kung- Kung-!</p><p>At the same time, a loud vibrating sound rang out from the altar, and the blue light started to spread on all directions.</p><p>Subsequently, they were all shooting toward the monsters around them.</p><p>Pung- Pong-!</p><p>And with a sound of crackers bursting, all the spirts and monsters were taken down in a second.</p><p>As the altar started to work, the Abyss Valley began to get cleared.</p><p>"Done! Told you we could do it!"</p><p>Ralph clenched his fist and looked over at the cave where the monster was trapped.</p><p>In fact, putting the orb on the altar had been successful when they tried that previously.</p><p>Nevertheless, the reason why they failed to clear the quest was because the altar began to work, which made the monsters come out and destroy the orbs.</p><p>If the orbs got destroyed before the valley got purified, then the last gate won’t activate.</p><p>In other words, the road to the ‘spirit sanctuary’ wouldn’t open.</p><p>So Ralph still couldn’t feel assured even though the altar worked.</p><p>If that monster broke out of the cave and came running in their direction, it would turn into another fail.</p><p>It was not over until the messages said that the gate was active.</p><p>‘Please, don’t come on this side!’</p><p>As if planned, all of their eyes were stuck onto the entrance of the cave with the desire to not cross path with the monster again.</p><p>Their hopes seemed like it would come true.</p><p>10 seconds, 20 seconds, no 1 minute.</p><p>Yet, the monster didn’t come out.</p><p>But the three still wouldn’t celebrate.</p><p>"…?"</p><p>"What is this?"</p><p>"Nothing? Is something up?"</p><p>The monster didn’t appear, and the gate to the spirit sanctuary didn’t activate either.</p><p>Right before their eyes came messages which they hadn’t seen before.</p><p>Messages they wanted to deny so badly.</p><p>[‘Abyss Orb’ is now active.]</p><p>[The conditions have been met.]</p><p>[The Abyss valley has begun to get purified.]</p><p>[Purification rate 10… 25… 70, 80, 85, 90 percent.]</p><p>[Some areas of the valley have been cut off by an unknown force.]</p><p>[Purification of Abyss Valley was failed.]</p><p>Woong-!</p><p>With low resonance, violent vibrations around the altar began to subside.</p><p>The blue energy surrounding the altar began to disappear like it never existed.</p><p>"No, no way…"</p><p>Chesk started to get nervous.</p><p>In front of the three people, an additional line of system message came up.</p><p>[Purification was failed, the contaminated spirit has been recreated.]</p><p>Abyss spirits began to form again in front of the three who looked like dead people.</p><p>* * *</p><p>Grrrrk-!</p><p>An audible sound was heard; a monster stood in front of the party of Ian.</p><p>Kung-!</p><p>To be more specific, rather than a monster, the more appropriate term was a giant monster.</p><p>‘What kind of monsters are here? They’re bigger than Thor.’</p><p>With the name guardian machine, he had a very complex appearance made up of numerous hardware components.</p><p>Ian really couldn’t help but admire the appearance of that monster.</p><p>‘Keu, cool! I want to have a summon that looks like a mechanical monster!’</p><p>However, Ian’s thoughts didn’t last long.</p><p>Muel who was next to him was feeling rather down.</p><p>"We are so done now…"</p><p>"Huh?"</p><p>"Since you smashed the gate, we will all get wiped out."</p><p>"Hmm…?"</p><p>Muel was shaking her head with a desperate expression.</p><p>Ian couldn’t understand her because the accident hadn’t occurred from her side.</p><p>"What is that supposed to mean? Why will we get wiped out?"</p><p>"…?"</p><p>"I don’t think I saw a phrase in the quest window which said that we would get wiped out."</p><p>"Eh?"</p><p>Ian pointed to the mechanical being which was in front of him and asked, "That guy over there. Can’t we get out of here if we catch him?"</p><p>"That… that is true, right?"</p><p>"Then let’s get that lump of iron now!"</p><p>Ian smiled at Muel and took the Judgment of the Spirit King in his hand.</p><p>Muel stared at Ian and shook her head.</p><p>‘Well, it sure is nice to be confident…’</p><p>As mentioned earlier, Muel did acknowledge Ian’s skills.</p><p>But even then, she didn’t think that Ian would be able to kill that monster.</p><p>‘That monster isn’t a thing that could just be defeated easily…’</p><p>The ‘Guardian Machine’ in front of their eyes wasn’t just a powerful monster.</p><p>Starting from his vitality to all his combat abilities, everything was enormous, and he was a monster that had a nasty ‘attribute’.</p><p>‘How is a Zion boss monster of 100,000 transcendence vitality be taken down…?’</p><p>The term Zion had appeared for the first time in the spirit dimension.</p><p>The monsters with that attribute were characterized to have tremendous vitality recovery rate.</p><p>Zion normal spirits were hard enough to kill, and how were they going to kill a boss monster which had dozens of vitality compared to normal ones.</p><p>A mechanical guardian whose vitality never went below half even after the pole deal done by Ralph’s party.</p><p>No matter how good Ian was, she thought that it would be impossible to take that guy down.</p><p>‘Well, maybe it would work if Ralph’s party manage to arrive here as well, right?’</p><p>If they knew that the strength of Ian’s party had a great deal, then maybe Ralph would have attacked the boss along with them.</p><p>However, it all made no sense.</p><p>Muel, shook the thoughts out of her head as she was starting to think of silly stuff.</p><p>She went behind Ian’s party to prepare for the battle.</p><p>Even though she thought it was a worthless fight, she couldn’t help but join in because of her pride.</p><p>[Kuek. Who… dares… to wake… keuk… humans…]</p><p>Thud-!</p><p>The guardian machine began to approach Ian’s party with thudding footsteps.</p><p>Kiyaaa-!</p><p>After a while, a white light started to emanate from the body of the guardian.</p><p>It was a very familiar effect that the party of Ian had witnessed from the Zion earlier in the dungeon.</p><p>"Zion…!"</p><p>A word left from the mouth of Vanessa.</p><p>Zion, which was the most difficult attribute of the dungeons’ contaminated spirits.</p><p>Because of that white and cloudy energy which was shining around it, it could be considered that the mechanical guardian </p><p>On the other hand, there were characters who were responding quite differently.</p><p>"Zion attribute… looks fun, right?"</p><p>And Muel who heard that couldn’t help but feel shocked.</p><p>Ian wasn’t feeling down, not one bit, even after realizing that the huge machine was of a Zion attribute.</p><p>On the contrary, he was feeling rather elated.</p><p>‘What kind of confidence does he have?’</p><p>Her shock didn’t end there though.</p><p>Ian and the twins were having an incomprehensible conversation.</p><p>"This… We can’t help it anymore."</p><p>At those words from Ian, Vanessa added,</p><p>"Yeah, Ian. We cant get wiped out after coming all this way, right?"</p><p>Sarah who was right next to her joined the conversation.</p><p>"It is a miracle that you were able to hide it so far."</p><p>"Right. That ridiculous Knight cosplay…"</p><p>"You know what is really creepy, Vanessa? This was harder for those who knew the truth."</p><p>"Right, Unnie. In addition, this current situation wasn’t a normal one."</p><p>Unable to understand their conversation, Muel just kept staring at them.</p><p>After a while…</p><p>Woong-!</p><p>Along with a resonating sound, a flash of light began to surround Ian one after the other.</p><p>A summoner skill that only a summoner could perform.</p><p>Subsequently, a number of summons began to appear around Ian.</p><p>"What is this!?"</p><p>Muel wasn’t able to close her mouth for a long time.</p><h3>Chapter 534: Getting a New Spirit 1

Theme Customizer


Customize & Preview in Real Time

Menu Color Options

Layout Options

Navigation Color Options
Solid
Gradient

Solid

Gradient