Chapter 038: Second Floor of the Stone Tomb

“Done!” With only three wild boars and one scorpion-serpent left, the three brothers dashed out from the cave entrance, each taking on a creature. The eldest and his skeletal pet quickly dispatched a red wild boar and a scorpion-serpent together before turning to the youngest and Lin Jia. “Shall we take a break from grinding for now? How about we push forward and see what’s up ahead?”

Lin Jia had intended to focus on leveling up, but his two brothers, reliant on their little mage companion to kill monsters, were growing bored and restless. In truth, a level 20 warrior or taoist could solo, but compared to the high-damage, low-health mage, it was much less efficient; it took ages to kill even a single monster. After growing lazy from the little mage’s overpowered support, neither of the brothers was eager to grind alone anymore.

Each of them readied a random teleport scroll and a return-to-town scroll, prepared to flee at the first sign of trouble. As always, the eldest led the way with his little taoist, Lin Jia took the middle, and the youngest brought up the rear. The eldest sprinted ahead, luring monsters along the path into corners to clear the way for his brothers. Yet, because the monsters on the third floor of the Fragrant Stone Catacombs were so densely packed, and the candlelight was dim, he was often surrounded and trapped by a horde. Every so often, he would appear from behind Lin Jia and the youngest—having been forced to double back—shouting as he dashed ahead again.

Eventually, the eldest devised a strategy: lure large groups of monsters into dead ends, use healing potions to withstand their attacks, and when completely surrounded, use a random teleport to escape. This way, most of the monsters were drawn into various dead corners of the paperclip-shaped map. But the final short corridor was so densely packed with creatures that the brothers had to hide behind the “e”-shaped wall, unleashing a barrage of spells to clear the area.

At the entrance leading from the third floor of the Fragrant Stone Catacombs to the next level, the three paused to check their supplies, finding that red, blue, and random scrolls were running low. Lin Jia glanced at the youngest, asking, “What should we do? You two go back and restock while I stay here to clear monsters? As long as they don’t respawn in a huge wave, I’ll be safe hiding behind the wall.”

The youngest thought for a moment before replying, “Let me go ahead and take a quick look first!” The eldest and Lin Jia handed over their only recently looted medium healing potion and a few sunwaters, letting him risk scouting the next floor for new dangers.

The youngest took the potions from his pack and assigned them to the six quick-use slots above the chat window: 1, 2, and 3 for medium healing potions, 4 for strong healing, 5 for sunwater, and 6 for a return scroll.

In this game, to use a potion, players had to open their inventory and double-click the item. However, at the bottom of the screen was an action bar: on the left, a transparent orb showed HP and MP, with current values displayed within. Below the orb was the map name and coordinates, such as “Fragrant Stone Catacombs 88:88,” indicating the player’s location.

On the right side of the action bar were four thumb-sized circular buttons: “Status Info,” “Inventory,” “Skill Info,” and “Sound Toggle.” Clicking these opened the attributes window, inventory, skills, or toggled sound. The first three buttons also corresponded to F10, F9, and F11, allowing quick access to a player’s inventory.

Below these buttons were level (LV), experience (EXP), and weight (WST) bars. Slightly above the right corner, at the bottom right of the four buttons, was the much-despised time display, showing a sun and moon icon alternating to indicate the current in-game time.

At the center was the large chat window, displaying all system and player messages. Player speech also appeared as floating notes above their character, while system messages showed in bold crimson within the chat window. Above the chat box was the six-slot quick-use bar for potions and scrolls, allowing players to instantly consume items with the 1-6 number keys in emergencies—no need to fumble through the inventory at critical moments, risking lost time and blocked vision. These hotkeyed potions could easily save a life.

Fully prepared, the youngest took a deep breath and darted into the hole in the ground—this time, not a tunnel in the wall but a staircase descending below, clearly showing the map was moving underground.

Lin Jia and the eldest didn’t bother watching their own screens; instead, both anxiously watched the youngest’s. The moment his screen flashed, before they could see anything, he immediately darted back out. Lin Jia and the eldest looked at him in confusion, and he chuckled sheepishly, “Ha, too nervous! Way too nervous! Let me try again!”

“Come on!” The eldest and Lin Jia looked at him with disdain, feeling they’d wasted their expressions for nothing.

In that brief flash, Lin Jia hadn’t seen the usual monster-filled screen like the previous floors. He said, puzzled, “It didn’t look like there were any monsters in the next map.”

“What?” The youngest and the eldest turned to him in surprise. Even the youngest hadn’t seen anything in that split second, having focused solely on retreating. Yet Lin Jia, sitting at another computer, had somehow seen it? The youngest had barely entered the stairs before frantically clicking to return, forgetting to check the map. Lin Jia’s ability to catch details in that fleeting instant was almost superhuman.

“How could you see anything with your nearsightedness?!” The youngest, embarrassed at having made a rookie mistake out of nervousness, grumbled defensively and carefully entered the stairs again.

This time, after passing through the stairs, he found that there really were no monsters. The map was enormous—standing on the small landing, only a patch of flat ground was illuminated by candlelight, the rest shrouded in darkness, vast and oppressive, creating a suffocating, eerie atmosphere.

Seeing it was safe, the eldest and Lin Jia quickly joined him on the new map. The lower-left corner showed “Stone Tomb Floor Two 206:225”—finally, no longer the Fragrant Stone Catacombs. But where had they heard of this “Stone Tomb” before?

After a moment’s thought, unable to recall where they’d seen or heard of it, the three brothers began to explore the area, determined to see the adventure through to the end.

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(Trouble: 5555, my ranking dropped two spots—could this be because of my turtle-paced updates? You’re all too ruthless! I’ll go all out! Tonight at midnight, it’s time to climb the charts again. If you wild beasts get fired up, I’ll unleash my best! Let you see the update speed of “Clear water has no fish, shamelessness is invincible!”)

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