Mage's Tomb
In the Reincarnator Mercenary Plaza, to recruit teammates, one only needs to write the requirements on a sign, and people will come to apply. This has spawned a bunch of businesses selling similar advertising signs. Li Wei saw a group of people in front of him with a lot of signs next to them, so he walked over.
Those people were very clever; as soon as they saw Li Wei, they surrounded him and started chattering away, trying to sell their own products.
Li Wei selected one, then had the person selling the signs write down a recruitment notice, and then stuck the sign on the ground.
Soon, a crowd gathered around.
"The Mage's Tomb... requires a combat power of C-Rank or above. We are currently short five people. If you are interested, please come and sign up..." A reincarnated mercenary slowly read the requirements written on the sign.
The Mage's Tomb is a dungeon in a quest world, similar to the dungeon Li Wei had visited before. This information was given to Li Wei by Fatty, who said that the mage set was 'farmed' from here.
In Shadow Street, dungeon maps like these are as numerous as hairs on a cow. Among the reincarnators, places like 'Wolf King's Cave', 'Blackstone Mountain', and 'Hero's Tomb' are particularly popular. These places drop a lot of valuable equipment and Skill Book. Reincarnators have made detailed records and analyses of the routes and monster distribution in many dungeon maps. Basically, experienced reincarnators can know the general idea just by looking at the name of a dungeon map.
"Well, the Mage's Tomb is a pretty dangerous place. It's not an exaggeration to say that you need C-Rank combat power. I happen to have some time, and I've been to this dungeon map a few times, so I'm pretty familiar with it. Hey bro, count me in!" A man with a full beard came over.
Li Wei glanced at the other person.
"C3 Rank, Mage..."
That's considered meeting the requirements. In fact, these recruitment ads were written by Fatty a long time ago; Li Wei was just repeating them. Although Li Wei hadn't been to the Mage's Tomb, according to Fatty's description, an A-rank could basically sweep it away. However, some hidden locations were more troublesome; the higher the combat power, the lower the danger. Moreover, to collect a complete mage set, one person alone couldn't do it. In addition, hiring an A-rank reincarnator was astronomical, so they opted for C-Rank or higher reincarnator as a second choice.
The price for hiring C-Rank reincarnator is one-fiftieth of that for an A-level reincarnator. Li Wei was utterly speechless at the fat man's stinginess. However, for himself, it didn't matter whether he was C-Rank or A-level. When he entered the Mage's Tomb, Li Wei was determined to act alone, because he wanted to find the water magic tome inside the Mage's Tomb.
This is why Li Wei was willing to work with the fat man, and the reason he was willing to help the fat man recruit people was simply because he liked the fat man and wanted to help him out.
The items and tools in the Mage's Tomb are all related to magic, and you can obtain basic, beginner, and intermediate spellbooks for all magic types. Generally speaking, magic levels are divided into basic, beginner, intermediate, advanced, master, and grandmaster, which is similar to the martial arts that Li Wei is good at. At this moment, Li Wei is already a grandmaster in martial arts, but when it comes to magic, he is just a novice who has just started.
To learn the S-rank special skill 'Mirror Image', one must raise their water magic to the Grandmaster level. Therefore, Li Wei needs to improve step by step, and dungeons like the Mage's Tomb are essential for him.
As for why Li Wei didn't go alone, it's because entering the dungeon requires a 'key,' and the key is in Shadow Street, which can only be obtained by chance in the quest world. In other words, those who can get the dungeon key are extremely lucky people, so no one will sell such a thing.
Li Wei didn't have a single key like that, and the fat man's temperament was too similar to Li Wei's former best friend. Subconsciously, Li Wei was still willing to help him.
But that's all. After helping the fat man recruit suitable team members, Li Wei planned to act alone after entering the Mage's Tomb.
In the short time that followed, several more reincarnators volunteered. Li Wei completely disregarded those whose combat strength did not reach C-Rank, while the higher-level reincarnators were dissatisfied with the rewards in the recruitment conditions. Therefore, in half a day, he only recruited two people: one was the bearded man from before, and the other was a level C1 reincarnator.
Afterwards, observing the crowd, Li Wei realized that very few people were willing to volunteer. He knew exactly where the problem lay. He glanced at the sign and then changed the number in the "salary" column.
"Hey, you're not kidding, are you?" One of the reincarnators glared. In the revised compensation section by Li Wei, the original reward of 1500 points was now listed as 7000 points.
Generally speaking, hiring a C-Rank reincarnator to enter a dungeon only requires 1,000 to 2,000 points. After all, in the dungeon, apart from some important items, everything else belongs to each reincarnator. So, after one run, each person's gains will definitely exceed 10,000 points.
The price Li Wei offered was high enough to recruit a B-level reincarnator, which is why the onlookers were so surprised.
"Have you changed your recruitment standards? You know, at this price, you could hire a B-level reincarnator!" a C3-level person said to Li Wei.
Li Wei shrugged. "7000 points each for those with C-Rank combat power or above. Anyone interested, hurry up..."
This time, Li Wei recruited five reincarnators with remarkable ease, their combat strength ranging from C1 to B1. Having achieved his goal, Li Wei then took these reincarnators to find the fat man.
"Brother, you're really capable! I've almost finished preparing things here. We'll set off as soon as Lord Wang arrives!" The fat man was quite satisfied with the five team members. In his mind, it would be good enough to recruit a few C-Rank reincarnators, but he didn't expect to find a B-level one, considering that his own combat strength was only C1 level.
Soon, Lord Wang, who had come to keep the appointment, arrived with three subordinates. He glanced at the fat man and said disdainfully, "Hey Fatty Jin, your team members are much stronger than you. Since you're all ready, let's set off!"
The dungeon key was in Fatty's hands, which was his greatest asset. Otherwise, Lord Wang could have easily organized people to farm the 'Mage Set' himself, without having to go through Fatty.
The latter was naturally aware of this, so he led his men in a large group to the building leading into the dungeon world. After verifying the number of people, the fat man took out a Teammate Contract and had everyone sign their names on it.
Only in this way can they enter the same instance world.
As the team leader, the fat man now had the right to check the attributes of his team members. He first looked at the combat strength of City Lord Wang and his three followers, which were basically all at the B-level. These four were the main force this time.
The reincarnators that Li Wei recruited were quite powerful, although the weakest one was about the same level as the fat man, only C1. However, the opponent was also a mage, so it didn't matter much since he only needed to attack from a distance.
The fat man was stunned after glancing at Li Wei's combat strength.
He thought he was seeing things, so he rubbed his eyes and looked at it again.
"S... S-rank?"
The fat man's expression changed like a comedian's, switching between more than a dozen expressions in an instant, but without exception, they all showed surprise.
He certainly knew what S-class meant.
Unable to see any of this, Lord Wang glanced at the fat man and said impatiently, "Hey, you fatso, are you stupid? Hurry up and open the dungeon..."
Normally, the fat man would probably have smiled obsequiously and said a few polite words. But now, he clearly wasn't in the mood to say anything more to Lord Wang. Staring at Li Wei, he hesitated for a moment, then used the key to open the dungeon passage leading to the 'Mage's Tomb'.
The fat man didn't reveal Li Wei's combat strength. He wasn't stupid. S-rank was far stronger than A-rank. The fat man had only heard of such a rank, but had never seen it. As far as he knew, the strongest in Shadow Street was only A2-rank, and it was unknown when A2-rank would break through to A3-rank.
After the initial shock came a secret delight.
Unexpectedly, the person he casually recruited possessed such combat power. However, since the other party wanted to keep a low profile, he absolutely couldn't reveal it. Besides, if he could cultivate a good relationship with this super expert, why would he need to fear that City Lord Wang?
However, what puzzled the fat man was that although the Mage's Tomb had many good items, the other party was an S-rank expert, so there shouldn't be anything that would interest him.
"Maybe these experts are just bored and that's why they do this kind of thing!" The fat man, unable to understand, led the way into the dungeon passage.
Li Wei had been watching the fat man's expression closely. It was clear that the other man already knew his combat strength. However, Li Wei had never intended to hide it from the beginning. As soon as he entered the dungeon, he would leave and go find the water magic book on his own.
... After passing through the dungeon passage, the surrounding environment changed rapidly, and a few seconds later, the group arrived at a gloomy and terrifying tomb. This tomb was about the size of a basketball court, hexagonal in shape, and had a stone door on each wall.
The six stone gates are engraved with patterns of the sun, rocks, flames, lightning, ice, and flowing water, representing different magic systems.
Li Wei had heard from Fatty before that each elemental stone gate would only drop items and Skill Book of that element.
"Entered the Mage's Tomb area... The instance has a 5-day time limit, but you can return to Shadow Street at any time!"
Such a prompt reached everyone's ears, but Li Wei had already rushed into the water-magic stone gate the moment it happened, ignoring the shouts of the reincarnators outside. After passing through the narrow passage, the shouts of those people soon disappeared.
The tomb was very quiet, with only the occasional echo of water droplets falling in the hollow air, indicating that there was a water source. After walking through a tomb passage lined with rocks on both sides, Li Wei arrived at a tomb chamber. In the center of the chamber, there was a square pool of water, on which a coffin floated.