The next day, four women exited the Aether Hall. What was conspicuous about them was their transcendent beauty and their sensuality. These were four women who seemed to have been carefully sculpted with the express purpose of setting every male's testosterone alight. Even some females would have their estrogen flare up when they see the group.
Surprisingly, they did not hold any children like they usually did, and two of the women looked absolutely distressed by this. The two dark-skinned babes kept clamoring and pestering Eva about bringing their dear babies along, but Eva could only gently console them that it would be too dangerous.
Hikari also consoled them as well, understanding just what kind of turmoil they were feeling. Nevertheless, the Aether Hall's Anomaly Realm was undoubtedly the safest place to leave them in the care of Vitae and their sensible elder sister Rila, yet Roma and Zaine couldn't help but fear the worst for their children.
However, in the end, they quietly acquiesced. Luxia dropped down from the skies and cheerfully greeted the four of them. Eva caressed her partner while the other three also petted the Light Phoenix gently.
Luxia received their pampering happily and made sure they were well accommodated on her back before flapping her wings. The Light Phoenix shot away into the horizon with a single line of light depicting her presence.
In about two flaps of her wings, the group reached their destination. They were currently hovering over a seemingly bottomless pit that was located in the middle of a barren wasteland with no signs of life for miles to come.
"Eldest sis… are we really going in there?" Roma asked curiously.
Eva nodded. "That is one of the few public Rank 3 dungeons. The monsters within are the underground types, like rancid Giantworms, Kobolds, and Insectoids. Most of these monsters are weak to fire and lightning. Roma, please prioritize your fire attacks on them while Zaine, focus on zapping them with your lightning."
The two dark-skinned beauties nodded with serious expressions. Eva turned to instruct Hikari: "The Worldly Energy concentration down there is abysmal, so you'll need to either conserve your healing and buffs for crucial moments or you can use your own top-grade Aether Crystals to create more Worldly Energy for yourself."
Hikari showed agreement. "I have a lot of them lying around since no one uses them, so it shouldn't be a problem."
Eva smiled at the three. "I will be acting as a vanguard. Thanks to my Abyssal Inheritance, I can take almost all forms of damage and shrug it off, while the damage that does land will have to go through my powered-up defense thanks to probably being a half-White Dragon."
Eva turned to Zaine. "Did you get what I need?"
Zaine smiled sensually and handed Eva four books. "I did. I could have gotten a lot more, but I hope you'll forgive me for being picky and elitist about it."
Eva waved her hand. "Not an issue, I trust your judgment."
｢Searing Ray – Active Skill (Luxmancer only)
Rank: Epic
Effect: Fire out a solid beam of condensed light energy that has absolute piercing power. This skill deals 300% Light damage.
Note: 800 Light Mastery required.
Cooldown: 10 minutes｣
｢Aura of Light – Active Skill (Luxmancer only)
Rank: Epic
Effect: Emit purified Light energy that makes you 400% resistant to darkness damage and 30% resistant to all other forms of damage.
Note: 900 Light Mastery required.
Duration: 1 minute
Cooldown: 5 minutes｣
｢Light Ball – Active Skill (Luxmancer only)
Rank: Epic
Effect: Concentrate a huge amount of Light Energy into a spherical shape that deals huge AOE damage, amounting to 500% over 100 miles.
Note: 750 Light Mastery required.
Cooldown: 15 minutes｣
｢Purify – Active Skill (Holymancer only)
Rank: Epic
Effect: Send out a wave of cleansing energy that removes all debuffs and converts them into buffs.
Note: 900 Healing Mastery required.
Duration: 5 minutes
Cooldown: 10 minutes｣
Eva nodded her head with pleasure and learned them all. It might seem counter-intuitive for her to learn healing/creation skills when Hikari was around, but Hikari and Eva's category of creation were different.
Hikari had overpowered healing and support abilities due to her racial skills, but that was also a shackle, for she could only learn White Dragon racial skills and none other. This in itself posed a bit of a problem, because they only unlocked as she reached higher levels.
She had to use Worldly Energy and could not store mana for her own use. Eva was pretty much the opposite, as she could use mana for her skills though the amount depended on her stats and equipment.
She could learn any type of Creation skill except those for White Dragons for the above-mentioned reasons. Otherwise wouldn't Hikari's mother have long taught her daughter all her skills?
In essence, Hikari was more powerful in the field of Creation but Eva would be more versatile. As such, it was wiser for Eva to gather a wealth of skills from this category to increase her arsenal and utility in combat to ease the pressure on Hikari.
Zaine had been extremely picky and only chose Epic skills that she could find. Naturally, even four Epic skillbooks would be hard to find in this short amount of time, yet it was possible thanks to Umbra's Rank 7 Shop. Zaine even put up a trade request on the 6th floor for any of the four types of skills Eva could learn, not hiding the fact that it was a request from the Morningstar Clan.
"Alright, let's go." Eva stated calmly.
Luxia flapped her bright wings once more and disappeared into the depths of the crevice, reaching the ground faster than the eye could blink. The ladies realized that they had entered a cavern of a reasonable size, which seemed more like a staging area than anything else.
They all dismounted from Luxia's back, and Eva collected the Light Phoenix into her inventory. There were quite a few tunnels in the cavern, one for each cardinal direction.
Eva led them to the westward one which was their target. When she was about to enter with the ladies, she formed their party and chose the normal difficulty for the dungeon and the traditional mode of clearance.
She was confident that they could handle Rank 3 foes, but she dared not gamble the lives of her companions until they saw what they were up against. As such, she chose the humble modes of conquest.
It should be noted that Area Dungeons were not accessible to NPCs usually. NPCs could enter Continental, World, Legendary, and Divine Dungeons, but not the common and widespread Area Dungeons.
This was a privilege reserved for players, in order to give them an uncontested and unregulated means of progression. NPCs could only be brought here if they were added to a player party, and that required the NPCs to be a part of the player's clan.
For Zaine, Roma, and Hikari this was a new experience, and they humbly followed behind Eva while trying to learn what kind of dungeon this was.
Eva had cast out her Control the moment they had entered, so she had already honed in on a singular target. In lower Rank dungeons, weak monsters usually fought together in groups due to necessity, but higher Ranked monsters had higher intelligence and a sense of pride.
To fight in a group would be a disgrace to their power and growth. Also, they were territorial, so if any other monsters entered their turf, a territory war would ensue.
Of course, that was the in-game logic. The meta reason was obviously to give Rank 3 players some breathing space when fighting such powerful monsters, otherwise their parties would just be wiped and they would lose their precious experience.
Eva and co came upon a small cave where a horrible stench wafted into their noses. Immediately, all four of them grimaced but didn't cover their noses as they needed to stay prepared for battle.
The cave was lit with some glowing rocks and in the center of it was a large grey worm with a greenish-pus like fluid leaking from its mouth and anus. It had no eyes, just short feelers around both its holes that wiggled about lazily.
｢Name: Rancid Giantworm – Sergeant Rank monster
Level: 105
HP: 15,000,000/15,000,000｣
From the movement of its torso, the ladies could ascertain that it was likely resting or asleep. Either way, the element of surprise was on their side, which they would use to the utmost.
Roma cast her Black Fire after a little bit of chanting while Zaine timed her attack with Roma's perfectly, firing out her Mind Blast skill. The Black Fire was a technique while Mind Blast was a skill, yet they worked in perfect tandem.
Mind Blast dealt 60% mental damage and stunned a target for 1.5 minutes, and that 60% damage was imbued with Lighting Energy from Zaine's Lightning Aura passive skill.
As such, it dealt critical damage to the sleeping Giantworm and it screeched with pain as it rolled around trying to futilely put out the black fire that burned its flesh menacingly.
-120,000!
All of them were left speechless by the small amount of damage compared to their raw power and potency. Even though they were 1 Rank lower than the worm and had both Level and Rank suppression on them, the damage they dealt should be far higher than this.
Only Eva remained unsurprised. She already knew that on higher Combat Ranks, monsters began to create a gap in quality compared to players of the same level and Rank. Basically, while you got stronger by 1x, they got stronger by 2x.
For a game to make combat harder and more impossible as the Ranks went up appeared to be utterly dumb. It should mostly be the other way round. That's why it would become a running joke that Boundless was less of a game and more of a military training sim.
Zaine, Roma, and Hikari were level 59 each, so they suffered from 50 levels of suppression, meaning that their stats had been dragged down by 50%! The Rank suppression reduced damage and defense by another 30% for them, while it buffed the worm by that amount.
Damn, no wonder they dealt far less damage compared to before!
As for Eva, she had it even worse off at level 15. with a level suppression of over 85 levels, meaning 85% stat reduction. Now, she was no better than a common class at the same level. Not to mention the double Rank suppression that reduced damage and defense by 60% and raised the damage and defense of the worm by 60%!
This was why fighting 2 Ranks above oneself was deemed impossible for even the most overpowered existences. Even Draco, with his theoretically unbeatable abilities and items, still could not climb two Ranks to beat Rank 4 foes at Rank 2.
By herself it would have been an impossible task, but luckily Eva had three other overpowered beauties with her who suffered a much weaker suppression overall. On top of that, Eva had not chosen this dungeon randomly. In fact, this was the easiest Rank 3 dungeon around.
"Don't give it a moment's rest. We have to bombard it to death at all costs if we want to defeat it!" Eva instructed while waving her arm.
She simultaneously used her newly acquired Searing Ray skill as well as her own basic Light techniques from her Inheritance by burning Bloodline Energy. This way, she fired out two Searing Rays, one by the system and one by her bloodline.
Both were not equal in power. Her bloodline attack was stronger, yet it cost a lot more energy compared to the mana cost of the Searing Ray.
However, Eva had many positive modifiers for her light-based attacks, like;
｢Might of Light (Rank 1) – Passive skill
Effect: All attacks are infused with the cleansing and edifying property of light, boosting damage by 1,000%.｣
｢Passive 1 – Light Amplification: Light-based skills and techniques are boosted by 300%.｣
｢Passive 2 – Light's Might: Light and Fire based skills, spells, or techniques deal 500% more damage.｣
With these passives, Eva's damage almost reached a 2,000% boost! However, this final amount was hit with the 60% damage reduction, and the 60% defense increase granted to the Rancid Giantworm.
As such, the final number became -16,000!