Temple Guardian Eternal Stone Statue Tier: E-grade Elite Monster Talent: E-grade Stone Skin (increases HP shield by 10%) Level: 10 Physical Attack Power: 300 HP: 10000 Physical Defense: 200 Magic Defense: 200 Evasion: Unable to evade Kun's attacks Movement Speed: 0.5M/S Skill: Earth Shatter: Swings a heavy fist down at the ground, dealing physical damage within a (5*5) area and reducing the Movement Speed of hostile targets within the area. Unyielding: When the stone statue's HP falls to 20%, it burrows into the ground and transforms into Bedrock Form. Bedrock Form: Physical/Magic Defense +20%, restores 5% HP per second! Introduction: A powerful monster born to guard the Desolate Shrine. Its sturdy body was like an insurmountable chasm. Anyone wishing to enter the very center of the shrine had to face its trial!
The two stone statues had exactly the same stats!
They were roughly the same as the information gathered by human trial-takers who had reached this stage in the past. The elite monsters guarding the shrine in every generation were all level 10 E-grade racial monsters with high attack, high defense, and massive HP!
Its HP was as high as 10,000, and that did not even include the thick layer of stone armor granted by the talent on its surface!
These stats were the very definition of simple and brutal!
Moreover, these two stone statues stood nearly five meters tall. Their long arms gave them an attack range of three meters. Any trial-taker who reached this point and saw them would fall into utter despair!
Even if an ordinary person, like Xu Kun, reached level 10 before entering the shrine, the stat boosts from leveling up would only amount to +10 in each attribute!
Taking a base Strength of 10 as the maximum, that would only give them 20 Strength, translating to a mere 40 Attack Power for a newbie!
Against the Eternal Stone Statues' 200 Physical and Magic Defense, they simply could not break through their defenses!
The forced -1 damage was the silent mockery many newbie trial-takers endured when facing the Shrine Guardians!
Even skills might not be enough to break their defenses, unless the skills came with attribute damage bonuses!
This was why many people, even after entering the shrine, only gained an additional 1% completion rate for the Mist Island Trial. At 61% completion, they received the lowest F-grade evaluation!
E-grade: Destroy the Stone Skin of both stone statues (10% HP shield) (+1.5% +1.5%), completion rate 64%!
D-grade: Reduce one stone statue's HP to 20%, triggering Unyielding (+3%), completion rate 67%!
C-grade: Reduce both stone statues' HP to 20%, triggering Unyielding (+3%), completion rate 70%!
B-grade: Kill one stone statue (+5.5%), completion rate 71%-75.5%!
A-grade: Kill both stone statues (+5.5%), completion rate 81%!
But earning those completion rates was far from easy!
Extremely high burst damage;
HP far greater than even E-grade bosses of the same level;
Area-of-effect damage skills;
An extremely long attack range;
A thick HP shield;
And that imba skill that, once they reached 20% HP, let them turtle underground, gain double defenses, and restore HP!
As a result, the two stone statues before the final boss could stop 80% of the trial-takers who made it this far!
After continuously learning from past lessons, humanity had gradually analyzed the Shrine Guardians' strengths and weaknesses. Their strengths were everything listed above.
This led to one conclusion: if a newbie reached this point and thought about facing the stone statues head-on, that would be an utterly foolish thing to do!
Yet big data analysis showed that, powerful as these two stone statues were, they had a fatal flaw!
Their Movement Speed was too low!
At 0.5M/S, even an old man in a wheelchair might run faster than them. Furthermore, the stone statues' Attack Speed was also very slow. Many trial-takers who cleared this stage relied on their positioning to whittle them down without taking any damage, eventually finishing off both statues!
This was also the optimal solution offered by past experience—dripping water pierces stone!
Of course, even though humanity had summed up this strategy, many people were still stopped at this stage. The reason was simple: they did not have enough time!
With stat panels like these, the two stone statues were not actually that good at killing trial-takers who made it this far—excluding idiots who chose to be real men and confront them head-on!
Their purpose was to stall for time. After all, not everyone could be like Xu Kun and enter the shrine after spending only half a day!
More than 95% of trial-takers needed five days, or even longer, to enter the shrine!
With the remaining time, how easy could it be to whittle down two stone statues with 10,000 HP each?
Not to mention that many people, after painstakingly grinding the statues down to critical HP, would fall into despair once Unyielding triggered and they saw the 5% HP regeneration per second!
That regeneration speed was absolutely greater than the damage trial-takers could deal to the statues!
Their forced damage was -1, but the stone statues regenerated 50 HP every second!
After twenty seconds, the stone statues would return to full HP. Even if someone managed to reduce their HP again, they would still trigger Unyielding!
That was just how shameless it was!
Therefore, for trial-takers who could not break through their defenses, reducing one stone statue to critical HP and earning a D-grade evaluation was already no easy task. At most, they could bring both statues to critical HP and obtain a C-grade evaluation!
That was the limit!
To kill the stone statues and obtain a B-grade, or even A-grade evaluation, one had to reduce both statues to critical HP, then deal more than 50 damage per second to each statue while they had the 20% double-defense bonus from Unyielding!
That required at least 270 Physical or Magic Attack Power!
While Xu Kun was thinking, the Eternal Stone Statues completed their "awakening ritual"!
Their stone mouths let out dull roars. Then, two pairs of eyes carved from stone locked firmly onto Xu Kun, the intruder!
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The two stone statues moved at the same time. Their broad feet stomped the ground, causing pebbles to continuously fall from the Desolate Shrine. Xu Kun could even see cracks spreading across the ceiling!
Swallowing, Xu Kun muttered, "Were you two really born to guard the shrine? Are you sure you weren't born to destroy it?"
Xu Kun's words seemed to provoke the two stone statues. They swung their stone fists and smashed them viciously toward the ground!
Boom!
However, Xu Kun was no longer where the stone fists landed!
The imagined scene of him being smashed into dust naturally did not happen. With his current Movement Speed of 6.5M/S, kiting these two stone statues was child's play!
"Slow. Way too slow!"
Xu Kun's voice came from behind the stone statues.
"Roar!"
The two stone statues roared and laboriously turned around. By then, Xu Kun had already drawn his 4.2-meter-long great flaming sword!
"Wildfire Scorches the Plains, Blood Poison Myriad Miles, Poison Marsh!"
He unleashed three AoE skills in succession. Wildfire Scorches the Plains and Blood Poison Myriad Miles, both with 5*5 ranges, perfectly covered the two stone statues. Poison Marsh, an F-grade AoE skill with only a 1*1 range, could only form a poisonous circle beneath one statue's feet!
Wildfire Scorches the Plains dealt 160 Fire Attack + 210 Magic Attack, then multiplied by 1.2, for 444 Fire Attribute damage per second. Against the two stone statues, which had no Fire Resistance, it was true damage!
The newly acquired Blood Poison Myriad Miles dealt even more terrifying damage. Xu Kun's Poison Attack had now reached 143. The poison resistance ignore was practically useless against the two statues with 0 Poison Resistance, but that did not affect its 424 Poison Attribute damage per second. With Poison Source's 50% Poison Attribute damage bonus, it became 636!
Before the two stone statues could even turn around, they each lost 1,080 HP. Yet their HP bars only trembled slightly, because they still had a Stone Skin shield with 1,000 HP!
After only one second, the Stone Skin on both statues began shedding in flakes, as though veteran bathhouse attendants had scrubbed them down, exposing the more delicate stone bodies beneath~
Although Poison Marsh was merely an F-grade skill, it still dealt Poison Attribute damage per second equal to 5% Magic Attack + 100% Poison Attack. With Xu Kun's 210 Magic Attack and 143 Poison Attack, then boosted by 50%, it could deal 372/S Poison Attribute damage to one of the statues!
In just one second of DPS, Xu Kun dealt 2,532 damage, while the two stone statues had only barely turned around!
Ding, you have simultaneously destroyed the Stone Skin of two Temple Guardian Eternal Stone Statues. Mist Island Trial completion rate +3%. Current completion rate: 64%. E-grade evaluation reached. You may choose to settle or continue the trial!
"Of course I'll continue!" Xu Kun did not hesitate in the slightest!
As he spoke, Xu Kun grabbed a handful of Tang... ahem, Blue Silver Parasites and hurled them at the two stone statues. At the same time, he launched an Explosive Fireball at one of them!
-1125!
The two stone statues were furious. Faint points of light flickered over their stone fists, and Xu Kun immediately recognized the prelude to Earth Shatter!
It was an AoE control-and-damage skill, one that had made many trial-takers attempting to duel and slowly chip away at the statues suffer miserably!
Xu Kun did not act recklessly and immediately withdrew from the skill's range!
At that moment, the two stone statues each suffered another -1080 and -1452 from the AoE damage. The statue struck by both AoE skills had also taken an Explosive Fireball, and its HP bar had already dropped by 25%!
The two stone statues possessed some intelligence. Knowing that the damage above their heads and beneath their feet was continuous, they took huge strides in an attempt to leave the area!
But how could Xu Kun let them have their way? The large handful of Blue Silver Parasites he had scattered had already absorbed the Earth Shatter energy from both statues and begun taking root and sprouting. After the two statues endured three more waves of damage, Xu Kun clenched his hand!
"Blue Silver Entanglement!"
Thud!
Their raised feet came down. The two stone statues were firmly bound in place and began tearing at the Blue Silver Grass on their bodies. But Xu Kun had thrown at least a hundred seeds just now, so even if they wanted to tear them apart, it would take quite some time!
Although Xu Kun himself could only control five Blue Silver Grass plants, that did not stop the naturally growing Blue Silver Grass from spontaneously launching entangling attacks against the Eternal Stone Statues!
Poison Marsh's five-second duration ended first. During that time, together with the two large AoE skills and one Explosive Fireball, it had already dealt 8,385 damage to one stone statue. The two AoE skills continued, and another second passed. While the other stone statue was still struggling with the Blue Silver Grass...
The statue that had endured repeated damage had already collapsed, turning into chunks of broken stone that fell to the ground.
Just two AoE skills, over a total of six seconds, had reduced this stone statue with a 10% HP shield to 20% HP. Its stones piled together into a small hill as it entered Unyielding's Bedrock Form regeneration state!
Ding, your damage has reduced one Temple Guardian Eternal Stone Statue's HP by 80%. The Eternal Stone Statue has entered the Unyielding state. Mist Island Trial completion rate +3%. Current completion rate: 67%. D-grade evaluation reached. You may choose to settle or continue the trial! Ding, your damage has reduced one Temple Guardian Eternal Stone Statue's HP by 80%. The Eternal Stone Statue has entered the Unyielding state. Mist Island Trial completion rate +3%. Current completion rate: 70%. C-grade evaluation reached. You may choose to settle or continue the trial!
Not long after one stone statue collapsed, another notification sounded. Xu Kun did not respond.
Looking at the first stone statue to fall, Xu Kun first threw an Explosive Fireball. The HP bar above that pile of stones flickered and instantly dropped by half!
Then, without the slightest hesitation, Xu Kun activated Charge!
Charge: Locks onto a target within 20 meters. The target cannot evade. Movement Speed *2. Deals (Physical Attack *2) Physical Damage to the target and stuns it for 3S!
Xu Kun's Physical Attack had now reached an astonishing 364. Multiplied by two, it became a terrifying 728!
Even against the Eternal Stone Statue in Unyielding state, with only 240 Physical Defense after its 200 + 20%, he could still deal 488 damage. That stone statue's HP bar was already close to 5%!
Using Swift Attack to follow up with a normal attack, with Fire Line and Azure Sand Palm active, Xu Kun watched a number rise above the little mountain!
-999!
Swift Attack's 5% Physical damage bonus, combined with Xu Kun's 100% critical hit chance from max Luck!
Fire Line's additional 5% Fire Attribute damage, plus 100% critical hit chance, plus 2.5 times Fire Attribute critical damage!
Azure Sand Palm's additional 100% Poison Attribute attack, plus 100% critical hit chance, plus Poison Source's 50% damage increase!
The combination of all three gave Xu Kun such terrifying normal attack damage!
One sword, 999 damage!
Rumble!
One stone statue turned into a pile of rubble with Xu Kun's casual strike, with no chance of getting back up!
Ding, you have killed one Temple Guardian Eternal Stone Statue. Mist Island Trial completion rate +5%. Current completion rate: 75.5%. B-grade evaluation reached. You may choose to settle or continue the trial!
"Continue!"
Xu Kun immediately turned his gaze toward the other stone statue, which had transformed into a small hill nearby!
First came a Bone-Melting Palm!
Sinew Corrosion: Cast on a single target, reducing its five basic attributes—Strength, Spirit, Vitality, Resolve, and Agility—by 20% for 30S. Bone Erosion: Deals (Poison Attribute Attack + Magic Attack) *1.5 Poison Attribute damage!
The stone statue's HP bar flickered and suddenly rose by a segment. Naturally, it was not healing. Rather, its original 10,000 HP had become 8,000 under Sinew Corrosion, and 2,000 HP now represented 25% of its total HP!
That was not important. What mattered was that the small mountain's Physical and Magic Defense had both become 192!
Reduced by 20% from 240, the debuff was actually more significant than the Unyielding buff!
Then the HP bar that had just risen flickered again. This time, it decreased, as Bone Erosion's damage effect triggered!
Bone Erosion's base damage was 353*1.5, or 530. With Poison Source's +50% Poison Attribute damage, the final damage was...
794!
That was not all. Xu Kun flipped his palm, and a Locust Stone appeared!
He threw it toward the small mountain!
Throw—Throws a Locust Stone, locking onto a target within 20M to deal damage. Cooldown: 10S!
Under Bone-Melting Palm's Sinew Corrosion effect, the Locust Stone's pure Physical damage was fully dealt as well!
-536! (Critical Hit!)
In the end, Xu Kun had not even moved his feet. Another fireball formed in his palm—the prelude to Explosive Fireball!
Boom!
-1125!
The fireball blasted into the pile of stones. It was as though Sun Wukong's mother had exploded, and the stone pile scattered into rubble across the ground!
The notification sounded once more!
Ding, you have killed one Temple Guardian Eternal Stone Statue. Mist Island Trial completion rate +5%. Current completion rate: 81%. A-grade evaluation reached. You may choose to settle or continue the trial!
"Phew~"
Xu Kun blew at the dust-filled air before him, a broad smile spreading across his face!
The two insurmountable mountains for ordinary newbies had been effortlessly dealt with by him in less than ten seconds!
From start to finish, aside from when the two stone statues first ran toward him, he had not given them any chance to move!
With a full set of skills, Xu Kun had already reached the terrifying level of over 2,000 damage per second during the newbie trial stage!
At this moment, Xu Kun really wanted to shout something loudly and arrogantly: "Who else!"
Xu Kun naturally had every reason to be confident. While other newbie trial-takers faced the two stone statues and agonized over being unable to break through their defenses, only dealing forced -1 damage, Xu Kun had bombarded both statues with a barrage of skills and effortlessly crushed them!
That was while his weapon skill, Wrath of the Fire Dragon, was still on cooldown, and without using his trump card, Unyielding Starfire!
At present, among all of Xu Kun's skills, the one with the highest total output was still Wrath of the Fire Dragon, the terrifying large-scale AoE skill that dealt 5,000 Fire Attribute damage per second for 10S!
Even SSS-tier Unyielding Starfire could not compare to Wrath of the Fire Dragon in total damage!
But Wrath of the Fire Dragon had no growth potential. Its damage was fixed. Against a target without Fire Resistance, its total output reached 50,000. That was its upper limit!
But Unyielding Starfire was different. As an SSS-tier skill, it would improve significantly along with Xu Kun's growth. At present, its single-target damage was 37,000. Xu Kun believed that once he entered the second level of the Haotian Pagoda, Unyielding Starfire's damage would have a chance to surpass Wrath of the Fire Dragon's total damage!
Just like those SSS-tier talents, a 1280% bonus was 1,280 if the attribute was 1—but what if it was 10,000?
It could only be described in four words: utterly terrifying!
As the dust settled, Xu Kun was finally able to see what lay ahead!
After that battle, he felt even more strongly that the already dilapidated shrine was now on the verge of collapse!
The damage caused by environmental destruction was terrifying, far beyond what Xu Kun's current frail body could withstand. Thus, he cautiously made his way toward the scattered piles of rubble!
The Shrine Guardian naturally had drops as well!
As an elite monster, it had its own prestige!
Moreover, through the metal bracelet, Xu Kun knew what the Shrine Guardian would drop!
Or rather, all elite monsters had the same drops!
That was... spirit stones!
That's right. Unlike bosses, according to the collected information, elite monsters dropped nothing but spirit stones aside from the massive amount of experience that was useless to the max-level Xu Kun!
"Based on past information, the Shrine Guardian should drop one E-grade spirit stone each. I wonder whether my maxed-out Luck and Heavenly Blessing: Child of Fortune will make any difference?"
Flipping over a pile of broken stones, Xu Kun found what he had been longing for!
"One, two, three—there are three!"
The familiar sight made Xu Kun excitedly wipe the drool from the corner of his mouth. He reached out and scooped up the three smooth beads.
D-grade Spirit Stone ×3 Description: A naturally formed crystal created from the power dispersed by the Haotian Pagoda. As a mid-to-low-grade spirit stone material, D-grade spirit stones possess strong stability. The power stored within each is a hundred times that of an E-grade spirit stone! Function: The pure power within can be extracted and used as energy for forging D-grade weapons and equipment. It can also serve as the power core for various D-grade energy weapons and as an essential material for setting up D-grade formations.
"Haha, another three D-grade spirit stones in hand!"
Xu Kun smiled in satisfaction, but when he noticed the ceiling above trembling again, he hurriedly covered his mouth.
Using the same method, he carefully made his way toward another pile of stones.
After fumbling around for a while, he found another three D-grade spirit stones just like before. Including the five D-grade spirit stones dropped by the Corrosive Poison Termite Emperor, Xu Kun had collected a total of eleven!
"At a million each, that's more than ten million!"
"Slurp... More than ten million! How much delicious food could that buy? Pah, pah, pah! With that much money, how can I be thinking about food? I should first consider moving to a new home!"
Whenever he thought of the old, sunless tenement building where he and his mother lived, Xu Kun's heart ached!
Humanity had only enjoyed stability for less than a century, and that was all thanks to the great man known as Sky Eye!
Back then, Sky Eye had defied all opposition and represented humanity in negotiations with the upper echelons of the myriad races. In the end, at the cost of humanity as a whole, humanity became a subordinate race of the Black Tortoise Race, one of the Seven Royal Races!
For the first time, humanity entered the Myriad Races Sequence as a subordinate race!
It was said that many humans had opposed Sky Eye's decision at the time, believing that he had sold out the interests of the entire race!
But the outcome proved that Sky Eye's decision had been correct!
Only by entering the Myriad Races Sequence could humanity gain its rightful privileges, instead of being scattered across the land, hunted, imprisoned, toyed with, and reduced to food by the myriad races...
Humanity was finally able to stand beneath the sun. Over the course of a hundred years, it rebuilt its homeland across the original six continents, divided war zones, and established base cities!
The price was that humanity had to form its own army, follow the Black Tortoise Race into the Myriad Races Battlefield, and become a subordinate force under the Black Tortoise Race's command!
Naturally, the base cities that were built could not be as numerous as they had been a thousand years ago. After several centuries of turmoil, the six continents had already become playgrounds for certain races. For humanity to gain a foothold was no easy task!
The Black Tortoise Race naturally offered no help in humanity's efforts to build a homeland. Led by generations of martyrs, humanity hacked through thorns and briars, began a new era of land reclamation, cleared out weaker races, claimed territory, and built cities!
In the Huaxia War Zone where Xu Kun lived, six major base cities had been established. He and his mother lived in Jiangnan Base City, near the ocean!
Although Jiangnan Base City was large, it had to accommodate more than two hundred million people, making land extremely scarce. It was impossible for every family to have its own homestead as they had a thousand years ago. For an F-tier talent user like Xu Kun's mother, obtaining even a run-down tenement apartment was no easy feat!
Ten million might sound like a lot, but it was not enough to buy a villa. Still, in Xu Kun's judgment, buying an apartment in a residential complex in a prosperous district would not be difficult!
His thoughts racing, Xu Kun quickly steadied himself. Now was not the time to lose himself in fantasies of the future!
Out of habit, he reached toward the Shrine Guardian's "corpse," but the familiar sensation of touching dropped materials never came. Xu Kun's eyes widened as he watched the two scattered piles of stone turn to ash and drift through the air.
"Damn it, not even giving me a chance to loot the corpse!"
Xu Kun stood up angrily after getting dust all over himself, silently cursing the two elite monsters for being so useless. They had only given him a few spirit stones—were they trying to dismiss a beggar?
Eternal Stone Statue: Try insulting us again?
Stepping forward, Xu Kun found a pitch-black passage behind where the two stone statues had stood. Their duty had been to guard this passage and prevent outsiders from entering!
With the information provided by the metal bracelet, Xu Kun knew that the final boss of Mist Island awaited at the end of this passage!
Using the flames rising from the Flame Spirit Sword as light, Xu Kun slowly walked inside.
His expression was especially tense. The unknown always made people uneasy!
Along the way, in the level 1–10 monster zone, aside from the unexpected Mist Island Hunter, the Corrosive Poison Termite Emperor, nothing else had gone beyond Xu Kun's expectations.
Now, the greatest mystery was what kind of creature this final boss would be!
He continued deeper into the pitch-black passage. In the enclosed space, Xu Kun actually heard gusts of howling wind!
Whoosh!
A violent gust swept past, making Xu Kun stumble. Even the flames on the Flame Spirit Sword showed signs of going out!
Tap. His footsteps echoed through the passage, and Xu Kun's nerves had already drawn taut.
The Myriad Races Bestiary had appeared in his palm. Completely unaffected by the surroundings, the book continued to emit a faint glow.
Suddenly, Xu Kun shivered from head to toe!
His neck turned cold. An invisible sword carrying a piercing chill was already pressed against his throat. It was so fast that Xu Kun had no time to draw the Flame Spirit Sword to defend himself.
The next sound he heard made Xu Kun's eyes widen.
"Finally... I waited... for so many years... She's back..."
Ding! Congratulations, you have passed the test. Mist Island trial completion +10%. Current completion: 91%. You have received an S-grade evaluation. You may choose to settle or continue the trial!
Xu Kun: ???
Before you continue