Abyss Domination
chapter-12

_Clang! Clung! Clang!_

Soran’s dagger was chipped and cracked after blocking and parrying multiple attacks from the skeleton. It was only natural, as the dagger was just a common dagger that could be bought anywhere. Before reaching Grade 2, he used to carry at least three spare weapons as replacements in case the main weapon broke in combat. Common weapons could be bought from basically every blacksmith, but enchanted weapons were quite rare. Soran first got his hands on one of those after exploring an ancient ruin, but that did not matter right now.

There was one point which should be made clear: his preferred weapon was not a dagger, but a curved sword.

Well-made curved swords could rarely be found in southern cities, thus they were sold at a relatively high price. Even a Common-grade curved sword that had been forged by professional blacksmiths with a steel alloy cost around 5 Gold Derahls. For this very reason, there was a period when the players who had just started playing <<Clash of the Titans>> would feel overjoyed just for a getting a good Common-grade item. Soran’s dagger was just a Poor-grade weapon in terms of quality, as Common-grade daggers were all forged with a special technique using steel.

“I should get my hands on a curved sword after all!”

Soran sidestepped and twisted at his waist almost 180 degrees, sending the dagger straight at the skeleton’s cervical vertebrae. The final traces of energy were shattered in an instant, and the skeleton turned into a pile of bones the next moment. Defeating the skeleton was worth 45 Slaughter EXP, but it cost him one of his daggers.

“There aren’t a lot of curved swords in the southern regions… I guess I’ll have to go to the plains to get a good one.”

Of course, what Soran used previously was no ordinary curved sword. According to his standards in his previous life as a Legendary Rogue, even the swords in the northern plains could not satisfy his needs; only the top blacksmiths from the Underdark could forge a curved sword suited for him. The crescent moon swords originating from the Philosopher Desert were too light for Soran’s tastes, while the eviscerating swords from the Great Northern Plains would snap relatively easily. Soran’s favourite was the type of heavy curved swords that integrated the features of Tang swords and Damascus swords together. As the name implied, this type of sword was heavy and could probably kill an ogre while only using the blunt side. Soran once cut through a three-foot-thick block of marble in a single slash using such a sword.

The attack was so powerful that even an adult dragon would not be able to withstand the strike. There were even rumors about a brutal Legendary Rogue player who dual-wielded curved swords and would cut everything in his path, with some believing that Soran could solo an ancient red dragon if he chose Berserker, Sword Saint, or Weaponmaster as his advanced profession instead of Lurker.

The minimum requirement for using a curved sword was having 14 points in Strength. In the game, Soran went especially to the Underdark to have the master blacksmiths there forge him a pair of Legendary curved swords. One weighed 18 kilograms, while the other weighed 16 kilograms, and the Strength requirement for dual-wielding the pair of monsters was 18.

Back inside the cave, Soran faded into the darkness once again. He did not have wild hopes like acquiring a Legendary weapon from the beginning, but instead aimed for a more realistic goal of getting a high-quality Military-grade weapon. On average, such weapons cost around 15 Gold Derahls.

Currently, the Southern Principality was still using the silver standard, with Silver Derahls as the official currency. Even though Gold Derahls were forged by the followers of the Goddess of Riches, they were officially considered as valuable metals instead of currency and were mainly used by nobles only. A Gold Derahl could be exchanged for 10 Silver Derahls, and every 20 Derahls, regardless of the type, weighed exactly one pound. There were also Copper Derahls, but those coins were forged by the commoners and triads in secret and varied in quality. Countless players had been tricked into thinking that Copper Derahls had a standard exchange rate with Silver Derahls, but that was not the case, and it resulted in monetary loss during currency exchange.

The players cursed the developer for creating such a realistic medieval world where a standard currency was absent, unlike normal games, which used currency like ‘Gold’ or ‘G.’ If the Goddess of Riches did not establish a leveraged foreign exchange system, a lot of players would have suffered from mental breakdowns just from managing all the different currencies used by various races and tribes in different regions.

There were those who found the realistic game world attractive though, and Soran was one of them. To him, the world of <<Clash of the Titans>> was an alternate world and was an inseparable part of his life; it was almost like an extension pack to his life.

This was one of the reasons why he quickly accepted the fact that he was now in the game world.

As he moved further into the cave, the eerie feeling grew stronger and stronger. He soon encountered the first fork, as well as three decomposed corpses with only white bones remaining.

“It’s definitely a trap.”

Soran picked up and inspected one of the dead bodies, then muttered, “Looks like this fellow got killed by a crossbow bolt. There should be a powerful crossbow trap nearby.”

He could tell that the unlucky explorer was shot at least ten times, as the skeleton even had three broken ribs. However, it was hard for a trap to fire off so many shots in a single attack.

Soran shrugged his shoulders as he searched the clothes of the corpses and retrieved a few Silver Derahls, some scribbled-on paper, and a bronze medal. After slotting the coins into his purse, he tried to read the scribbles on the paper, but it was already illegible. The bronze medal was an identification for adventurers issued by the Adventurer Guild; the dead explorer was a Rank E adventurer.

“Such a poor guy. It seems that his partners used his corpse as a shield after he died.”

There was a saying that becoming an adventurer was the quickest way to gain fame and riches, and Soran totally agreed. Just from looting the annihilated group of adventurers, he obtained a dozen Silver Derahls and 2 Gold Derahls; it was just slightly less than the money he gained by killing the entire gang back in the slums.

“One, two, three…”

Soran tossed the bones aside without feeling any strong emotions; he had experienced way too much in the game to feel uneasy or terrified when handling dead bodies and corpses.

“Including the dead guy used as a shield, that’s a total of four adventurers. Hmm, since they were all warriors equipped with leather armor, they probably didn’t have any wizards in their low-rank squad.

“There should be a rogue though?”

Wizard, Priest, Druid, and Sorcerer were professions for rich people; even a single Arcane Missile scroll cost over 30 Gold Derahls. Considering the costs, it was impossible for low-rank adventurer squads to hire spellcasters.

As they were so powerful in combat, players with spellcasting professions were all treated with respect. However, levelling up a spellcasting profession was no simple matter. With over thirty Level 1 spells that were commonly used, just learning all of them through scribing arcane scrolls would take around 1500 Gold Derahls. It would cost half the price if learned from an NPC, but they were hard to find, and it would still cost 700 to 800 Gold Derahls, which was certainly not a small sum. This was just for Level 1 arcane magic as well—higher levels would cost even more.

Unlike wizards, druids used divine magic instead of arcane magic, but the ceremony of Divine Blessing and the ritual for Nature’s Gift still required over 500 Gold Derahls to buy the necessary items. Though the shrines would bear part of the cost if the player was a follower of their faith, it would still cost around 300 Gold Derahls.

Although sorcerers had the advantage of automatically learning new magic spells through bloodline awakening, the awakening ritual itself was expensive nonetheless. If Soran remembered correctly, the first bloodline awakening ritual required materials that cost around 1000 Gold Derahls. He could roughly remember the price since his sorcerer friend once borrowed a large portion of his savings for that purpose.

On the other hand, melee classes did not have such complicated issues. The player could hack and slash as long as he had a weapon. Due to the differences in levelling costs, most players with melee professions would have reached Level 8 or 10 by the time the spellcasters reached Level 5.

The difficulty of earning money in this world could be reflected in Soran’s life in the slums. Nine out of ten spellcasters led a harsh and poor life in order to gather the money required to level up.

There was once a saying in the taverns: “It was impossible to hire a spellcaster if the reward for them was less than a hundred Gold Derahls.”

Spellcasters with low profession levels were relatively weak, and they would need to reach at least Level 5 before they could start displaying their overwhelming power. For this very reason, most low-rank adventurer squads did not bother hiring them.

As the skill Detect Trap, which had a success rate of over ninety percent, was exclusive to spellcasters, the squad would have to rely on rogues to spot and disarm traps. This was also why Soran determined that the annihilated squad of adventurers must have had a rogue with them.

To be completely honest, low-level Rogue players had limited ability when it came to spotting traps. With their levels being so low, they could only focus on picking locks and had limited skill points assigned to Snare. It was not surprising for the rogues to die when attempting to disarm the traps, as failing the procedure meant triggering the trap.

The career of an adventurer could be concluded in four words: high risk, high reward.

It was common practice for adventurers to treat everyone at the bar to a drink after returning from an expedition without suffering any casualties. As a matter of fact, Soran had only done so several times even though he had gone on countless expeditions.

It did not take long before Soran spotted the corpse of the rogue up ahead. Without the patience to investigate his death like a detective, Soran held up the dead body, which was missing half of its head, with a cramped look on his face and muttered, “Acid trap?”

Acid trap—one of the most troublesome and deadliest traps for rogues in the early stages of the game.

Judging from the missing half of the head and the little concave spots on the ground, it was almost certain that the trap which killed the rogue was an acid trap. Half of the person’s head was probably corroded by the strong acid, and the little spots on the ground were created by the splashes of acid that sprayed on it.

“This looks really troublesome.”

Soran took out a small wooden hammer and began hitting the ground with it. In order to avoid the traps being triggered by mice, most traps had a mechanic that allowed them to be triggered only when the weight on the pressure plate was around a human adult’s weight, which was why halfling rogues were especially popular among adventurers.

There were two types of acid traps: magical and physical. The former was a magic circle connected to a trigger device, while the latter was a device filled with strong acid that would spray the contents out when triggered.

Before reaching an advanced stage in professions, acid traps were still very deadly. Even Level 5 warriors might be killed immediately when hit by an acid trap. If they somehow managed to survive, they would still lose a limb or two and become a cripple.

After reaching the advanced stages, there were a lot of enhancement rituals, which could grant defence buffs. Warriors with insanely high Constitution and buffs could still fight without any problems after tanking acid traps, explosive traps, or even magma traps, but the current Soran could not afford to get hit by the acid trap.

He would definitely die if he did.

*[advantage]: by having their erection in contact with her

*[ cent bills]: China has cents in bills called jiao

*[Guoshu]: Guo here means country and shu means technique

*[ 190 centimeters]: Over 6ft tall

*[Lake Cui]: Cui Hu, also means Green Lake

*[hundred dyuan bills]: 100yuan is their biggest bill

*[Daoist Fierce Tiger]: The author of this novel

*[Noodles]: made of wheat

*[Rice Noodles]: made of rice

*[Zhang Tian Tian]: Tian means sweet

*[Bajiquan]: Also known as Eight Extremities Fist, but Bajiquan sounds nicer to me

*[Long Taos]: side characters in Chinese operas who perform acrobatics and fight scenes

*[12.47 to 13.07]: don’t ask me about the tree sap