Chapter 8

Treasure Chest Monsters can indeed eat people, but often they themselves represent the treasure chest. The chance of getting good drops after defeating them is slightly higher.

There's another important rule in the Chosen Space: players cannot directly use monster drops.

Even if a monster is holding a rare item with excellent stats, if it's not a drop item, it will be a blank item in the player's hands with no added stats. At most, it's durable and cannot be taken out of the dungeon.

The radiant light attached to the Gentleman's Cane at this moment signifies that it has become a legitimate "dungeon drop item," a reward for the player.

With the reward in front of him, Cheng Tian, who had just defeated the Vampire Magician, didn't relax because the surrounding zombies hadn't been completely cleared.

He first bent down and snatched the Gentleman's Cane into his hand. Immediately, the item's panel projected before his eyes in a semi-transparent manner.

As a side note, his mobile phone, an external organ for humans, had been shoved into the center of his crotch before the battle. It was now acting as a projection medium, its screen glowing... His large shorts do have pockets!

[Blood Clan's Gentleman's Cane: Green Excellent/Lv1, Cane, One-Handed Weapon, Magic Weapon. Equipment Requirement: Spirit 12. Weapon Damage 1-2. Durability 24/24. Can be taken out of Dungeon.

Spirit +2, Physical Damage dealt to Undead units +50% (common characteristic of wooden blunt weapons).

Equipment solidifies the effect of "Polymorph," allowing "Polymorph" to be cast if equipment conditions are met.

Polymorph: Fires a spell missile constructed from a Hexagram at the target. Upon hit, the target will be transformed into a duck that cannot attack. Polymorph duration is 5 seconds. Polymorph missile requires 1 second of channeling time to cast, consumes 20 MP, and has a Cooldown of 10 minutes.]

[Additional Explanation: When the target unit has suffixes such as "Boss," "Elite," "Champion," or "Leader," the spell effect will experience varying degrees of decay.]

Cheng Tian's eyes lit up at the equipment effects, and he immediately formed two hypotheses.

One was that the Vampire Magician relied on this staff to cast Polymorph.

The other was that Polymorph was a spell ability mastered by the Magician himself, but after his death, it attached itself to the Gentleman's Cane, becoming an equipment trait.

Although the Cooldown was a bit long, as a control spell that only took one second, Cheng Tian could use it as a close-range trump card.

Also, perhaps because it was his first time obtaining Magic Equipment, it thoughtfully provided Cheng Tian with an additional explanation, which also revealed some of the monster settings in the Chosen Space.

Normal, Boss, Elite, Champion, Leader should be the five types of monster templates.

In plain terms, Polymorph would last the full 5 seconds on a normal mob, but against a Leader, it might not even last one second.

Cheng Tian's mindset didn't change regarding his conclusion. As a Veteran Player of World of Warcraft, he had seen too many BOSS Units that were immune to control, so he was already accustomed to it.

"Elite, huh~"

Cheng Tian muttered softly to himself, thinking of the Side Quest displayed on the tombstone screen: "Kill Elite Demonic Units."

The battle continued and was entering its final stages.

Cheng Tian, with the cane in his left hand and the whip in his right, was somewhat clumsily attempting a cane-whip dual-wield style.

Due to the vastly different weapon types, if the Vampire Killer were to be combined with the Gentleman's Cane through Template Armament, the additional Holy Damage would inevitably be significantly reduced.

Fortunately, both fall under the category of one-handed weapons, and the Chosen Player's equipment slots are divided into main hand and off-hand. As long as the equipment conditions are met, they can be used simultaneously.

Helmet, chest armor, gloves, belt, pants, shoes, necklace, rings*2, main hand, off-hand. These are all the regular equippable slots for a Chosen Player's equipment. Besides certain Special Equipment, only items that can fit into an equipment slot will truly take effect.

Even if you wear rings on every finger and dozens of chains around your neck, only two rings and one necklace will be effective.

This equipment system really has the flavor of Diablo.

After the last zombie fell to the ground, One-Ear stared blankly for a moment before collapsing onto the ground, gasping for air with no regard for the terrifying strain on his heart and lungs.

Cheng Tian, also drenched in sweat, looked as if he hadn't had his fill. He felt like he had just found some inspiration for using a cane and a long whip simultaneously when the zombies were already all dead.

His mental reference for using a cane and whip at the same time was actually the "Transforming Cane" from Bloodborne.

The whip for offense, the cane for defense.

Incidentally, that suicidal Phone Bro was also still alive, but not doing very well. His body was already stained red with blood.

Firstly, because most of the zombies were drawn away by Cheng Tian and the others, only two or three were chasing him.

Then, this suicidal bro was still quite quick-witted. He knew that running in circles in an open area would likely attract more zombies, so he chose to flee back to the low mountain. Using the nearly 90-degree vertical climb here, he secured a safe spot where the zombies couldn't reach him.

The blood on his body was actually from the Red-Eyed Crows pecking at him. His back, chest, and upper arms had several very serious peck wounds. His status bar even showed a "Bleeding" Buff, though it was temporarily suppressed by adrenaline, so he couldn't feel the pain. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, he was starting to feel unwell.

But those Red-Eyed Crows were indeed smart. Having tasted fresh meat, they desperately wanted to continue pecking at the bro. However, upon seeing Cheng Tian approaching with a grin, they flapped their wings without the slightest hesitation and landed far away on the branches of a bare, leafless dead tree, staring at Cheng Tian, who was smacking his lips, with vigilance and hatred.

With the intense exercise, hunger and thirst also followed.

The Red-Eyed Crows were greedy and wanted to eat people; Cheng Tian was hungry and wanted to eat crows. It was that simple.

The Vampire Killer was indeed excellent at slaughtering evil monsters, but because it was too excellent, the corpses would almost always be burned to ash by the residual holy power. If it could burn zombies, why not small crows?

Now that he had the Gentleman's Cane, Cheng Tian was quite curious. If he killed a target while Polymorph was active, would the target remain in its duck form or revert to its original form?

This first wave of a "welcome" from the Chosen Space was over, but Cheng Tian's work was not.

As everyone knows, for many online gamers, gathering and killing monsters is a common task. However, after the killing, there is a very annoying, mechanical job waiting for them: the aftermath of the battlefield, commonly known as "looting corpses."

But at this moment, Cheng Tian was far from being bothered by mechanical labor.

Cheng Tian strode proudly through the ash-filled graveyard. A large number of "Innocent Souls," purified by the "Soul Salvation" effect, were drawn into his body like iron filings to a magnet. His Innocent Soul points instantly rose to 75.

He had to admit, it felt quite rewarding.

Considering that not every monster dropped souls, Cheng Tian and the others had indeed encountered a zombie horde of a hundred. If Cheng Tian hadn't had the Vampire Killer template that could instantly kill monsters, a total wipe would have happened in an instant.

However, as he walked, Cheng Tian suddenly stopped. He stopped in front of a crystalline skeleton still wearing Strawberry Pattern Underpants, with no flesh or blood remaining.

This was Arthur's skeleton.

Under the intervention of the Chosen Space, this Arthur became the one who died before achieving anything in many parallel worlds.

Facing this hero skeleton, which could be described as crystal clear, Cheng Tian squatted down after staring at it for a moment. As he ran his hands over the smooth skull, his eyes met Arthur's dark, empty sockets.

"Buddy, I can't promise we can save the Princess, but if I get the chance, I'll definitely help you take down the Demon King."

However, just as Cheng Tian finished speaking, Arthur's hand bones, which had seemed to be clutching something, suddenly loosened. A scroll-like object then fell out and rolled to Cheng Tian's feet.

Cheng Tian's attention was drawn away, and he didn't notice that a large number of Pink Strawberry Patterns were gradually appearing on his white boxer shorts...