Chu Fu began setting up the formation.
Six dandelions.
Four cleavers.
The main issue was that there wasn’t enough space to place more, and the game was incredibly realistic—any extra plants without a proper position couldn’t attack the boss.
Besides, Chu Fu’s current control limit was also ten mutated plants.
Otherwise, her talent would be even more overpowered than an SSS-rank—if she could just keep placing plants endlessly, what boss couldn’t she take down?
Soon, all the traps were fully set.
Everyone entered the cave.
“I’ll go lure the monster. I can’t just take that 10% cut for free!”
Shen Chi said as he moved along the cave wall, then shot the boss.
“Squeak! Squeak!”
The boss roared in fury and chased after Shen Chi.
Shen Chi circled along the wall, making the boss go around, and then led it to the area where the cleavers were placed.
Chu Fu activated plant control.
The four cleavers extended countless vines, wrapping around the boss’s body. The cleavers truly delivered penetrating damage, inflicting an incredibly high 250 points of damage.
With a single wave of attacks, the four cleavers dealt 1,000 points of damage.
Meanwhile, the six chainsaw dandelions kept grinding away. The boss’s defenses were high, so each chainsaw dandelion could only deal 10 points of damage per hit, but six together attacked for 600 health points.
The cleavers’ power was formidable—they even managed to immobilize the boss.
What’s more, the boss stopped chasing Shen Chi and instead bit down on the cleavers.
The mutated plants could also draw the monster’s aggro.
Didn’t that mean Chu Fu essentially had an extra tank standing in the front line?
She immediately cast Poison Art, while Shen Chi, Who’s Calling Me Blind, and Proud But Not Spoiled started attacking from behind the boss.
Ten seconds.
The fearsome hard-mode boss was completely dead.
It was way too easy.
[You have cleared the instance: Mutant Rat Lair (Hard Mode).]
[Instance clear time: 32 minutes, 34 seconds.]
[You have received the first-clear reward: All stats +3, one bronze chest.]
[A global announcement is about to be released. Hide ID?]
“Don’t hide.”
[Global Announcement: Players “Who Wants to Be a Plant Guy,” “Racing in a Wheelchair,” “Who’s Calling Me Blind,” “Proud But Not Spoiled,” and “Suture Saint” have cleared the instance Mutant Rat Lair (Hard Mode), achieving the global first clear! Rewards have been distributed.] ×3
Outside the Novice Village, at the red-eyed rabbit respawn point, the Huanyu Studio members were listlessly grinding monsters.
When they heard the announcement, Huanyu Kuangba nearly chopped his own foot with his blade.
“Damn!”
His underlings nearby stayed silent, afraid to provoke Huanyu Kuangba’s anger.
“Tch, they clearing hard mode is one thing, but there’s no way they can clear nightmare mode!”
In reality, many players in the beginner village might never set foot in a nightmare-mode instance before graduating from it.
This wasn’t an online game where death meant revival.
Here, death meant account deletion.
In nightmare-mode instances, even the minor monsters were like bosses—utterly terrifying.
Plus, the Mutant Rat Lair was a level 5 instance, and once you hit level 6, you couldn’t enter anymore.
Only studios with organization, financial backing, or an S-rank talent leading a team decked out in bronze gear could possibly challenge nightmare mode.
What did the Plant Guy crew have?
No way, absolutely no way!
Sure enough, for the next two hours, he didn’t hear any system announcement about it.
They must have given up by now, right?
In fact, Huanyu Kuangba even thought maliciously, brimming with rage, that perhaps those people had overestimated themselves and tried to challenge a nightmare-level dungeon, only to get themselves killed.
...
Actually.
Chu Fu and the others opened another batch of chests, and this time, everyone got good items.
Chu Fu even obtained an extra skill!
[Slow Spell: Upon release, deals poison damage equal to 120% of magic attack power to the target, and slows their actions for 7 seconds, reducing movement speed, attack frequency, and casting speed by 30%. Not stackable.]
A great skill!
Not only that, but Shen Chi also got a [Explosion Robot] crafting blueprint.
Jiao Jiao Bu Jiao pulled a tank's key skill [Taunt].
Ma Shui Xia Zi Ne and Suture Saint both acquired bronze-tier gear, specifically for the chest piece—a crucial slot.
After that, Shen Chi bought a batch of materials and crafted a bunch of explosion robots.
A [Mechanist]'s initial skill is [Mechanical Manufacturing], but crafting requires blueprints.
Shen Chi currently had two blueprints, [Mechanical Flight Wings] and [Slingshot], both created out of thin air using his talent.
These two blueprints could be infinitely duplicated using [Mechanical Manufacturing].
He still had one free creation ability left unused.
If he hadn't gotten a silver-tier handgun, Shen Chi's combat effectiveness would have been very poor. In fact, most mechanists starting out can only screw around with basic gadgets and can't fight at all.
Now, the explosion robots made up for his lack of damage.
He had become a swarm-style player like Chu Fu.
"GOGOGO, nightmare dungeon begins!" Chu Fu waved her small hand and entered the nightmare-level dungeon.
The passage of the nightmare dungeon was very wide. Not only that, but once inside, the environment changed dramatically.
The cave was extremely neat, with the ground so smooth and level it looked like a finely polished corridor.
As soon as they entered, they ran into a large number of mutated rats.
[Steel-Claw Mutant Rat Guard (Nightmare): Level 5, Health: 3750.]
Such thick health.
Chu Fu immediately released her climbing vine to block the passage, keeping these mutated rat guards from getting through.
"The nightmare dungeon is different from the other two dungeons. It has two bosses. The first boss is a Mutant Rat Sorcerer, who can keep summoning Mutant Rat Guards. So if your damage output isn't enough, the monsters will just keep piling up.
Of course, if your damage is sufficient, you can just kill them right here. Once you've taken out 1,000 of them, the Mutant Rat Sorcerer runs out of mana to cast the summoning spell!"
Jiao Jiao Bu Jiao looked at Chu Fu in surprise.
"Plant girl, you know a lot! I remember that there are no publicly available guides for the nightmare dungeon on the forums. Those guides are all passed around privately by guilds. How do you have such detailed information?"
In other games, guides would be shared with love by countless players.
But [Primordial Gate] was too special. A single clear could directly drop bronze-tier gear, which could sell for around 2,000 to 5,000 in the open market right now.
A single successful run could mean over ten thousand in earnings. Nightmare dungeon guides were tied to a guild's profits, so everyone doing the dungeons signed confidentiality contracts, vowing never to reveal them.
Chu Fu, thin and small, didn't seem like a pro gamer at all.
How did she know so much?
Chu Fu was also taken aback, then said weakly and somewhat shyly, "I heard it from my brother. He’s a top-tier player and always talks about this stuff in front of me, so I remembered it."
Jiao Jiao Bu Jiao and Suture Saint were a bit surprised, but after hesitating for a moment, they didn’t ask further.
They felt they shouldn’t touch on Chu Fu’s sore spot.
She really did look so frail.
Probably truly in a vegetative state.
Just then, Shen Chi suddenly said, "You’re able to play normally in the game world—your brother would be really happy to know that. Want me to help you notify him, so he can stop worrying?"
