Chapter 28
After half an hour, Chen Mo had over a hundred pieces of Wolf Meat.
He unequipped the Degenerate title and entered Ayr Town, then used 50 Wolf Meat to complete the Beggar’s Wolf Meat quest twice to get two Shabby Green Slime Poison Bottles. Chen Mo stored the rest of the Wolf Meat in the Warehouse and bought Wooden Bolts, some coils of Rope and a few Shovels from the General Store.
Everything was ready. Now, time to kill the Mutated Slime King.
If a player were to hear someone say that the Mutated Slime King could be killed one-on-one, he would think the person was insane.
Player attributes are always dwarfed by BOSS attributes. Even though the Mutated Slime King was just a Level 10 BOSS, the players stood no chance on the obstacle-free Slime Plains.
The Mutated Slime King’s aggro-range was huge. Chen Mo had no way of luring it out of the Slime Plains and could not find any environmental obstacle to use for killing it.
However, Chen Mo had thought of another method.
On the Slime Plains, Chen Mo spent the last of his game money to buy 100 Green Poison Slime and got two bottles of Slime Poison. Then, he looked for some players and found three male players. “Hey bro, you interested in making some fast cash?”
“Fast cash?” The three looked at Chen Mo with great interest.
These three were not randomly selected. Chen Mo could tell if a person needed money and these three exuded the aura of poverty.
“I’ve received a quest to dig for hidden treasure. The area I need to cover is quite large so I need your help to dig. You’ll dig for one hour and I’ll pay you 200 RMB.” Chen Mo had thought about what to say and it was not something random he had come up with.
“We’ll do it!” 200RMB for an hour, and not real time but game time! The trio agreed right away.
Additionally, the mention of treasure had their tails wagging in excitement.
The exchange was simple. This time, Chen Mo and the trio used the traditional website to initiate the transaction. Chen Mo made an advanced payment and the three just had to provide evidence of work done to have the money deposited into their accounts.
Chen Mo brought them to an area in the Slime Plains which had neither players nor monster spawn.
“Is there really treasure here?”
Looking about them at the empty plains, the three began to doubt Chen Mo’s words.
“An NPC told me about it in confidence. We’ll know if it’s true after the digging is done. You’re getting paid anyway so don’t ask about it!” Chen Mo could not be bothered to say more to them and threw three Shovels to them, indicating that they should start digging.
When the trio heard Chen Mo’s words, they picked up the Shovels and began digging in earnest. If they get caught slacking off the 200RMB might slip through their fingers.
That’s right – in order to kill the Mutated Slime King, what Chen Mo had to do was… Dig a pit!
A pit with a radius of 1m and depth of at least 3m!
The Mutated Slime King could only jump over 1m high. If he could get it into the 3m pit, the Mutated Slime King was his to slaughter!
A huge pit would take him ages to dig alone so he hired these three to help.
Of course, saving time was an issue but Chen Mo had another motive for hiring three people.
The trio examined the ground as they dug. They had already decided to grab the treasure if they found it. Treasure was worth much more than 200RMB!
Chen Mo saw their furtive glances and grinned to himself.
If there really was treasure here, nobody would hire you to dig for it! Naïve fools!
Unlike in reality, the game digging speed is actually quite fast and players do not feel tired when digging. Only physical strength will be depleted and it will recover by itself with a little rest.
About half an hour later, a round pit with a diameter of about 3m had formed.
“Not one sign of treasure.” One of the hired players looked at Chen Mo in dissatisfaction.
They had been digging in anticipation of treasure for over half an hour and though they were being paid for it they couldn’t help feeling like they’d gotten bamboozled somehow.
“Looks like the NPC was lying. All right, stop digging. You guys logoff and collect your payment.” The job looked done. Chen Mo waved his hand dismissively at the trio to signal them to stop and threw three ropes down for them to climb up.
After they left, Chen Mo quickly unequipped his Shoes of the Storm and half-buried them in the dirt, making it look like he had uncovered it while digging. Then, he took a picture.
He saved the image, then climbed out of the pit.
He didn’t go far though. He used his camouflage skill and hid close by.
Not long after, a player came back sneakily under the cover of night. He did not see Chen Mo. He hesitated, then clenched his jaw and jumped into the pit and began sniffing around.
The player found nothing and crawled dejectedly out of the pit.
It was well into night-time and the sky was dark. Chen Mo looked at the retreating figure of the player and chuckled darkly. This bastard was tenacious but he shouldn’t be back after this. Now, he could lure the Mutated Slime King here with no worries.
“Time to speed up!”
Chen Mo equipped the Shoes of the Storm and sped to the Slime King.
A pit like this dug by players would be erased by the system automatically if no player activity was detected after an hour.
“Good, there is no one around” Chen Mo got close to the Slime King and noted that there were no other players nearby. He immediately downed a bottle of Slime Poison.
“Roar!”
The Slime King reacted and bounded towards Chen Mo!
Chen Mo immediately equipped the Degenerate title and began running, luring the Mutated Slime King to the huge pit.
It was night time in-game and players’ visibility was limited to about 10m. There were players in the distance killing monsters but none of them was aware that the Slime King had mutated and was chasing a player.
It took a little under 5min to get to the pit – Chen Mo had checked it on his way to the Slime King. He wouldn’t run into any other players unless they stumbled across his path but that was unlikely as he had chosen a spawn-free area.
Chen Mo used his trap attacks on the Mutated Slime King as he raced ahead.
The Mutated Slime King’s HP bar was very long. Chen Mo estimated that it had about 100,000 HP. Killing it would take a lot of effort.
Chen Mo’s trap attacks were limited in these 5min. Even with the Slime Poison effect, he could only deal about 100 DMG each time. The Mutated Slime King’s HP recovery rate was not slow either so the overall HP loss was not a lot.
A few minutes passed and his read-dug pit could be seen about 10m ahead. The Mutated Slime King’s HP had only decreased by 8000+ and it still had over 90,000HP.
Chen Mo had had a few tough minutes dealing with the Mutated Slime King. It was fine if he didn’t attack it but when he did, it not only chased but occasionally sped up to try to body-slam him.
If it hadn’t been for the Quake Trap which could disrupt the Mutated Slime King’s charge, Chen Mo would have died long ago.
The pit was straight ahead. Now, the next problem was to get the Mutated Slime King into the pit.
If Chen Mo jumped right in, the Mutated Slime King would not be stupid enough to blindly follow him in. Chen Mo lured the Mutated Slime King to the side of the pit and ran close to its edge.
The Mutated Slime King came chasing after Chen Mo.
Camouflage!
Chen Mo suddenly used his camouflage skill. The Mutated Slime King stared blankly for a bit before it discovered Chen Mo.
How could a dubious camouflage skill pull the wool over the eyes of a Mutated BOSS? The camouflage skill had only distracted it for a moment.
But this moment was enough. Chen Mo leaned towards the Mutated Slime King and threw a Quake Trap.
BOOM!
The Mutated Slime King’s huge body was suddenly pushed forward and it fell into the pit!