Chapter 21 : Chapter 21
Chapter 21: The Ownership of the Iron Mine
“Captain Tian, other than the school, where else are there dungeons?”
“You want to go to another dungeon?” Tian Ye asked. “What level are you now?”
Lin Yuan glanced at his EXP bar. “Level 9. But I’ll be Level 10 very soon.”
“The Class-Holder Association has some dungeons. The Enforcement Squad, the Demon Suppression Army, and the major guilds all control quite a few dungeons as well.”
“But those are basically all Level 10 and above.”
“As far as I know, there are currently only three dungeons in Tianfeng City that class-holders below Level 10 can enter.”
“Golden Fang Ruins, Skeleton Graveyard, and Narcissus Garden.”
“There’s no need to consider Golden Fang Ruins. You’ve already Perfect Cleared it.”
“Narcissus Garden belongs to No. 2 High School next door. That dungeon is rather special. It doesn’t require fighting. It’s a puzzle-type dungeon, and its highest difficulty is only Adventure.”
“With your temperament, you probably wouldn’t choose it.”
“As for the last one, Skeleton Graveyard, that dungeon is extremely difficult.”
“The monsters inside are all undead creatures. Alert one of them, and you’ll draw an entire swarm. It tests a party’s coordination to a very high degree.”
“The level restriction for Skeleton Graveyard is Level 1 to 15. The Boss on Normal difficulty is Level 11. If you choose Nightmare difficulty, then the final Boss will definitely be above Level 15.”
Seeing the look of interest on Lin Yuan’s face, Tian Ye offered a suggestion.
“I know full well that you’re definitely thinking about challenging Nightmare difficulty.”
“My suggestion is that you first challenge Hard or Adventure difficulty, raise your level to 10, put together a full set of Silver equipment, and only then consider challenging Nightmare difficulty after obtaining your second Summoned Beast.”
Lin Yuan nodded slightly.
It was a very good suggestion.
But he was not accepting it.
With a full set of Gold equipment on him, why would he still need to scrape together a set of Silver?
Kill a few monsters in a Nightmare difficulty dungeon, and he would reach Level 10 anyway.
At that point, he could immediately learn the Level 10 summoning skill. How convenient would that be?
Besides, each dungeon only rewarded Evolution Points the first time it was cleared.
Nightmare difficulty gave 1600. Normal difficulty only gave 100.
Would that not be throwing away 1500 Evolution Points for nothing?
“Captain Tian, where is Skeleton Graveyard located?”
“At the very south end of Tianfeng City, near the outskirts. There’s a bus that goes straight there.”
Lin Yuan nodded.
Got it.
Tomorrow, he would sleep until he woke naturally, then head there.
“Oh, right.” Tian Ye smacked his forehead, suddenly remembering something important. “There’s something I forgot to tell you.”
“If you want to enter other dungeons, you first have to go to the Class-Holder Association and obtain the dungeon pass they issue.”
“A pass?” Lin Yuan was puzzled. “You need a pass to enter a dungeon?”
“I didn’t need one when I entered Golden Fang Ruins before.”
“That’s a beginner dungeon. It’s specifically prepared for class-holders below Level 10 like you, so naturally it doesn’t require a pass.”
“All dungeons above Level 10 require a pass.”
Tian Ye took the opportunity to explain some basic knowledge about entering dungeons to the two of them.
“Xia Country manages class-holders very strictly. If you want to enter a dungeon, you must possess a pass issued by the Class-Holder Association.”
“Passes are also divided into ranks. The lowest is Normal, and the highest is Nightmare. They represent the difficulty of dungeon a class-holder is qualified to enter.”
“This greatly reduces class-holder casualties.”
“It also lets class-holders quickly find suitable teammates when forming parties.”
“I understand.” Lin Yuan nodded. “So this basically helps class-holders filter out useless teammates in advance.”
After all,
a class-holder who held an Adventure difficulty pass
would never enter a dungeon together with someone who held a Normal difficulty pass.
Unless they were being carried.
After thinking it over, Lin Yuan settled tomorrow’s schedule in his mind.
Sleep in, go to the Class-Holder Association first, get the pass, and then head for Skeleton Graveyard.
While they were talking, a silver-haired man in an Enforcement Squad uniform, about thirty years old, appeared high in the air.
“How nostalgic. The scent of youth.”
Walking through the air step by step, the man descended until he stood before Lin Yuan and Tian Ye.
The corner of Tian Ye’s mouth twitched slightly.
“Captain.”
The newcomer was none other than the Commander of the Tianfeng City Enforcement Squad,
Liao Chen—
the Level 48 Blast Fist, known as Swift Storms!
“Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Liao Chen.”
With a toss of his hair, Liao Chen revealed a bright and sunny smile.
“Commander of the Tianfeng City Enforcement Squad.”
“External Strategic Consultant to the Demon Suppression Army.”
“Three-time runner-up of the Tianfeng City Martial Tournament.”
“A plain and unremarkable Level 48 Fist Master.”
Lin Yuan: ...
At the side, Sun Xu muttered quietly, “Brother Lin, this guy’s even better at showing off than you.”
“But he hasn’t grasped the true essence of it.”
“Who praises himself like that?”
“He doesn’t understand that the most lethal kind of showing off is the kind you don’t say yourself.”
“Now, if someone beside him loudly shouted out his name, and then a few more people followed up by listing all those messy titles, that would actually feel right.”
Standing nearby, Tian Ye heard every word clearly. He held back a laugh with great difficulty.
Liao Chen’s expression first froze, then his eyes lit up.
That skinny kid had said something rather interesting.
The next time the Martial Tournament was held, that was exactly how he would do it.
“Captain, the derivative dungeon is over there. Hurry up and handle the real business.”
After Tian Ye’s reminder, Liao Chen finally turned to proper work.
He first checked the stability of the derivative dungeon, then confirmed that there were no problems with the yield.
The final issue was determining ownership of the dungeon.
Ordinarily, when a resource-type derivative dungeon appeared, the mining rights would go to the power that possessed the original dungeon.
But Golden Fang Ruins was a beginner dungeon. It belonged to the whole of Tianfeng City and to no individual faction.
That was precisely what made it the most troublesome.
It meant that the Enforcement Squad, the Class-Holder Association, and the Demon Suppression Army all had the right to mine it.
“Tian Ye, can our Enforcement Squad swallow this Plain Mine by itself?”
Liao Chen asked Tian Ye in a low voice, only to receive a look that made him seem like a fool.
“Captain, you’re not thinking of monopolizing it, are you?”
“This is two hundred million tons of iron ore. Once Association President Lin Yandong of the Class-Holder Association and General Meng Zhan of the Demon Suppression Army hear about it, they’ll join forces and beat their way straight to our door.”
Liao Chen let out a sigh. “True enough. Those two are hard to deal with.”
“Forget it. I’ll report the matter to the Vice Mayor and let him decide.”
At present, the position of mayor of Tianfeng City was vacant, so all major and minor affairs were being handled by Vice Mayor Shen Zhong.
Shen Zhong was a life class Barrier Master, only Level 42.
Every barrier in Tianfeng City had been set up by him.
With him there, the city’s safety had increased by at least tenfold.
Shen Zhong was handling official business when he received Liao Chen’s report. After giving it some thought, he proposed a reasonable allocation plan.
“There have recently been signs of instability at the Insectoid Fortress. The Demon Suppression Army will take fifty percent, the Class-Holder Association thirty percent, the Enforcement Squad ten percent, and the remaining ten percent will go to Lin Yuan.”