Chapter 25 – Challenge the Demonic Rift, Centaur Assembly
Giant Deer City, Main City Mansion.
After finishing his voice chat with Qing Ying, Jiang Chen stepped out of Mentor Evelyn's room and received a system notification.
[The team has accepted the Infinite Challenge Quest: Challenge the Demonic Rift (LV10/A Rank).]
[Challenge the Demonic Rift (LV10/A Rank): A Demonic Rift has appeared in the Nightmare Forest west of Giant Deer City. Please proceed to the rift and challenge the monsters within.]
[Note: Infinite Challenge Quests cannot be abandoned midway; if the challenge fails, all rewards will be nullified, and one random piece of equipped gear will be forcibly dropped, along with a deduction of all current level experience.]
"A Level 10 A-Rank Infinite Challenge!"
Glancing at the notification, Jiang Chen smiled and quickly headed to the first floor of the mansion.
Qing Ying and Tao Xiaoyao were waiting for him there.
"Brother Mortal World!"
Seeing Jiang Chen, Qing Ying hurried over and asked, "I accepted the Infinite Challenge Quest, but I didn't see any reward for completing it. Is that okay?"
"The reward for Infinite Challenges is the loot and experience from the monsters."
Jiang Chen replied simply.
All rewards for Infinite Challenges are tied to the penalties for failing the quest.
If failing the quest means losing equipment, then the monsters in the Infinite Challenge will drop equipment.
If failing the quest means losing experience, then the monsters will provide a large amount of experience.
Players refer to the former as Equipment-Type Infinite Challenges and the latter as Experience-Type Infinite Challenges.
If both are present, it's a Comprehensive-Type Infinite Challenge, and the difficulty is higher.
"Should we go do this quest now?"
Qing Ying looked at Jiang Chen, her eyes gleaming with excitement.
She was now Level 11, and with the two bronze pieces of equipment Jiang Chen had given her, she had 550 Health Points and 75 Defense. She was eager to fight some monsters.
"The potion shop in the main city sells mid-level health potions. Go buy a bunch; you'll need to tank the monsters later."
As he spoke, Jiang Chen traded 10 gold coins from his backpack to Qing Ying.
"Huh?"
Qing Ying was taken aback.
I need to tank the monsters?
Her eyes lit up, and she quickly nodded, "Okay!"
Then she excitedly ran off to buy potions.
"I... can't help at all."
Tao Xiaoyao muttered softly, her head lowered, looking a bit dejected.
"It's okay, you'll get stronger later."
Seeing Tao Xiaoyao like this, Jiang Chen comforted her.
He knew very well that the reason she couldn't help was that Summoners didn't have any standout features early on; their attack and defense were both average.
This was due to the nature of Summoned Beasts.
Summoners would only start to become powerful after reaching Level 20 and changing class to Dimensional Summoner or Contract Summoner.
"Mm! I won't let you down, Master."
Tao Xiaoyao nodded seriously.
Before long, Qing Ying returned with the potions, and the three of them left the mansion, heading to the main city square to set off for the Nightmare Forest.
Because the main city was vast, it would take two to three hours to walk around it at normal speed, so there were four free teleportation arrays in the square.
They corresponded to the four city gates: East, South, West, and North.
"The Nightmare Forest is west of Giant Deer City."
Jiang Chen led the two girls to the teleportation array leading to the West City Gate.
Immediately, a white light flashed over the three of them, and they disappeared from their original spot, reappearing at the West City Gate.
Without pausing, they quickly left the city gate and headed towards their destination.
After nearly half an hour, Jiang Chen and the two girls finally arrived at the Nightmare Forest.
It was an extremely vast forest.
Towering trees reached the sky, and no sunlight could penetrate the forest, making it appear somewhat gloomy.
"We're here!"
After a few more minutes of walking, they arrived at the task-marked location—the Demonic Rift.
Demonic Rifts spawn randomly, and players need to accept the quest to enter.
Jiang Chen was the first to walk towards a twisted space between several large trees.
Qing Ying and Tao Xiaoyao followed closely behind.
Passing through the twisted space, Jiang Chen arrived at a strange place.
The surroundings were shrouded in a swirling, twisted dark red sky.
In front of him floated a two to three-meter-tall black crystal, hovering above the ground.
[You have entered the Demonic Rift (LV10/A Rank), the Infinite Challenge Quest officially begins. Survive for ten minutes to complete the challenge.]
As the notification appeared, the black crystal emitted a ghostly light.
A humanoid demon with a red body, tail, horns on its head, and a trident in its hand emerged from the crystal.
[Demon Soldier: LV10]
[Demonic Blood: Contains a trace of demon blood, possessing strong regenerative abilities, recovering 5% of Health Points per second.]
The demon had 3000 Health Points, regenerating 150 points per second.
If the damage wasn't enough, it wouldn't even surpass its regeneration rate.
However, Jiang Chen wasn't lacking in damage.
"Qing Ying, lure the monster away a bit."
Jiang Chen knew that with Qing Ying's high defense, she didn't need to fear this small fry.
"Mm!"
Qing Ying immediately charged forward.
The demon's attack only dealt about thirty points of damage to her.
"You don't need to deal damage, just focus on dodging. More monsters will appear later, keep an eye on your health."
Jiang Chen reminded her.
A few seconds later, a second demon emerged from the black crystal.
Ten seconds later, another demon appeared.
More and more demons kept appearing, and the rate at which they spawned increased.
Soon, nearly twenty demon soldiers had appeared in the rift.
Seven or eight of them were in front of Qing Ying, and she was constantly drinking health potions as she couldn't dodge them all.
"Sister Qing Ying seems to be struggling."
Seeing Qing Ying's health drop to a third, Tao Xiaoyao grew worried.
She looked at Jiang Chen.
Why isn't Master doing anything?
A few seconds later, Jiang Chen finally took a few steps forward.
His staff glowed, and a hexagram magic circle emitting holy white light appeared at his feet.
This was the Small Holy Light Apocalypse Array!
At the same time, a purple crystal ball suddenly appeared beside Jiang Chen.
The white light from the hexagram magic circle instantly intensified!
-1120!
-1120!
-1120!
...
All twenty demons on the field had a terrifying damage number appear above their heads.
"It triggered the double casting of the Demon Crystal Ball!"
Jiang Chen hadn't expected his first skill to trigger the 20% chance of double casting.
The damaged demon soldiers all turned towards Jiang Chen.
However, within three seconds, all these demons fell to the ground.
A total of twenty corpses.
Each corpse emitted a faint glow!
And more demons continued to emerge from the black crystal.
...
5 PM, Giant Deer City.
On the large teleportation array connecting to the main city, over a hundred beams of light appeared simultaneously.
More than a hundred players stepped out of the beams.
Immediately, another hundred beams of light flashed.
Another large group of players arrived at the teleportation array.
Then, a third group of players appeared.
A total of over three hundred players emerged from the teleportation array, gathering in Giant Deer City.
It looked grand and imposing!
Other passing players looked on in surprise at the large crowd.
"What's happening?"
Many players seemed to sense something and immediately started recording the game.
With the spirit of enjoying the spectacle, some people quickly uploaded the video to the forums.