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The third one, the fourth one, the fifth one...
The high-frequency, all-out stone-throwing seemed to be quite taxing on the cloud giant. As the frequency of the stones decreased, so did their speed, and Casalos breathed a slight sigh of relief. Thanks to the Feat Climb feat he had acquired earlier in the room, he could maintain flight speed while climbing at the cost of significant stamina expenditure. This allowed him to maintain his speed in a confined space by forcefully climbing and then diving, thus avoiding the cloud giant's attacks.
Five minutes later, the fog finally began to thin out, and visibility extended to more than 20 meters.
At this point, the cloud giant also stopped throwing stones, presumably to recover his strength.
Casalos, equipped with a host of flight-saving perks and related restorative spells, still had some energy left and immediately tried to launch an attack. However, after circling around several times, he found nothing. That guy had used Mist Concealment, another damned home-field advantage spell.
Thus, unable to stop and unable to find the cloud giant, it became the one being worn down again. No amount of stamina recovery could sustain the depletion of stamina, so it had to find a way to regain the advantage.
With a quick thought, Casalos flew off the edge of the floating stone platform in the plaza, skimming the edge of the room as he swooped down to the inverted peaks behind the platform. Taking advantage of the thin clouds that allowed him to vaguely discern the terrain, he slipped into a ravine and hung upside down, panting heavily as he tried to recover.
The area behind the stone platform is not entirely safe either. Cloud giants can also fly—to be precise, they can use magic to levitate and can also come to the back of the stone platform. Casalos' time is very limited.
The clouds and mist remained, and the effect of the Fog Concealment Technique was still perfect. Casalos could not determine how long it would take for the cloud giant hidden in the clouds to float to his location. He could only try to shrink his body as much as possible to reduce the exposed area and try to recover as much strength as possible. Then, when he felt that it was about time, he released his claws and fell back into the air, continuing to maintain his maneuvering flight and engage in a tug-of-war with the air.
Not long after it took off again, another boulder flew over the spot where it had just passed. This time it saw the source of the stone clearly, rolled and quickly turned, sweeping past within a 10-meter radius of it, and with a breath, launched two level 1 offensive spells and weapons.
A burst of sparks, a purple bullet trailing a blue streak, a burning ray, and a tongue of fire converged into the churning clouds, merging together and exploding with a deafening roar.
Without daring to look back to check how much damage he had inflicted on the cloud giant, Casalos rolled again, changed direction, and dove straight into the lower boundary of the room.
The next moment, it returned to the room from the upper boundary and crashed straight down onto the stone platform.
Ignoring the tendon strain, it fully extended its wings to maximize lift. The friction between the wing membrane and the air produced a sharp whistling sound, and the wingtips groaned under the immense torque, finally leveling off just before hitting the ground. It cast a healing spell on itself, enduring the weakness from the tendon strain, and forcefully climbed back up to regain altitude, then switched to evasive maneuvers, narrowly avoiding another stone.
The cloud giant reappeared in Casalos's field of vision, and the weapon station automatically spewed out tongues of fire towards...
Chapter 50
It smeared it on his face, forcing the guy who had just thrown the boulder to turn his head and cover his face with his palm.
Its magnificent Greek-style robe was now tattered, its milky-white skin on the upper body had turned charred black, and a huge, roughly cross-shaped wound lay diagonally across its chest. The charred wound was so deep that the bone was visible, and a faint flame was still burning inside.
"There's a show!"
Casalos was invigorated; if they could break through the defense, they could fight back.
The monsters in the training dungeon are ultimately just monsters; they lack intelligence and the ability to employ tactics. However, if you find the right strategy, there's still a good chance of stalling them.
While circling the cloud giant within effective range, maintaining fire suppression from the weapon station, the dragon breath and offensive spells were allowed to cool down. The suppression frequency was deliberately reduced, and a powerful ascent was initiated. A narrow dodge was made, avoiding a stone-throwing attack with a noticeable wind-up. A dive to close the distance resulted in a full-scale attack, followed by a roll and acceleration to evade the cloud giant's furious counterattack. The creature then rushed into the room's boundary, emerging diagonally to regain a safe distance, and flew level to recover some stamina…
After three rounds of attacks, Casalos's stamina was almost depleted, and the cloud giant still showed no signs of collapsing. Casalos could only lure it to the center of the stone platform square and then fly straight into the upper boundary of the room. Using the room's rules, Casalos would then fly back from the lower boundary and rush into the inverted mountain to hang there, buying itself some breathing time.
This time, it timed the cloud giant's levitation spell more precisely, allowing it a little longer to recover and launch another four or five rounds of attacks. However, the cloud giant still did not fall...
"Huff... Whose soul-type boss has such a long health bar? Something's not right!"
"Hanging upside down inside the mountain again," Casalos couldn't help but complain. It finally realized that this cloud giant probably had some kind of healing ability; there was no end in sight to this.
The author says:
Author's note: The semester parent-teacher meeting is finally over... No, you school leaders can talk all you want, but you even have to bring in a stuttering outside helper to ramble on for over an hour about the kids' psychological issues. Don't you even consider how we parents feel?
53. A Pitiful Victory
"Long health bar, high defense, and self-healing? Who designed this monstrosity? Doesn't the developer even play their own game?"
Although it knew it was meaningless, and that the Dragon Treasury was just a game-like system, but essentially a training ground for true dragons to advance, and that its creator had certainly never actually been there, it still couldn't help but make a sarcastic remark.
After regaining some strength, Casalos deliberately lengthened the time between the two rounds of attacks, allowing him to hover at a safe distance for a more detailed observation, confirming that the cloud giant possessed some kind of passive self-healing ability.
The only saving grace is that the Cloud Giant's self-healing ability is not as efficient as healing spells; its injuries take time to heal, and each time Casaroz takes a breath is its effective healing period.
Without an effective way to suppress the healing effect, Casalos, in its current attack pattern, would need to launch seven to eight consecutive attacks to have any hope of killing it. However, this is far beyond its stamina limit, something it couldn't do even at its peak. Moreover, it has been fighting the cloud giant for so long, and the accumulated fatigue and injuries have significantly reduced its stamina bar—if that thing could be transformed. Each time it tries to recover, it can never truly restore its stamina bar to full.
As time goes on, Casalos's condition will also deteriorate. It will need to take a risk to get through this boss room.
Leading the cloud giant back to the center of the stone platform as punishment, he soared into the sky, passed through the boundary, and entered the inverted mountain peak on the back of the stone platform to recover his strength. When the cloud giant slowly chased after him using the levitation spell, he started a new cycle.
"Labour and management will fight with you!"
Casalos roared as he swooped down, but he didn't actually go in to fight. Instead, he launched all his attacks as before and then skimmed past the Cloud Giant, dodging its heavy spiked hammer with a roll maneuver.
After three rounds of this, the Cloud Giant's stamina was depleted by more than half, and its "health" and status were also greatly reduced. Only after launching all its attacks in the fourth round of dive attack did it close its wing hooks and crash straight into the Cloud Giant's more than 5-meter-tall body.
The entrenching snout, propelled by immense inertia, cleaved open the cloud giant's chest, which was covered in scorch marks, like a sharp battle axe.
Casalos felt as if he had been hit in the face by a giant hammer. The stinging sensation, along with the sound of bones breaking, rushed into his eyes. Then his head went blank and his vision was filled with flashing golden light and black shadows.
Its straight, long neck also bent over, and its control over its body seemed to be a beat slower. Its wing forearm was fractured, and its joints were dislocated, but it could not feel any pain.
Even worse, the cloud giant met the charge with its chest.
Casalos's head was half buried in its chest cavity, and two wing hooks pierced its collarbone and shoulder like spears. Blood gushed from the carotid artery under its collarbone like a broken fire hydrant, staining the omnipresent clouds red.
The indestructible in-game weapon station continued firing, splattering dragon breath projectiles onto the cloud giant's face.
As the distance closed, the small-caliber dragon breath bullets were finally able to tear through the cloud giant's relatively fragile facial skin, disfiguring it and blinding most of its senses.
The immense impact didn't simply vanish into thin air. Casalos, carrying the cloud giant, tumbled backward onto the stone platform. Instinctively, Casalos used his still-movable limbs to cling tightly to the cloud giant's body, his sharp claws digging into its skin, his tail wrapping around its thigh, and then, propelled by inertia, he tumbled with it.
After a dizzying spin and before the tumbling had even stopped, a whooshing sound exploded amidst the thunderous collision. Then Casalos felt a heavy blow to his back, and even with his winged limbs blocking, his spine was still broken.
It is now blind and does not know what the cloud giant used to attack it or how badly it is injured. It can only do its best to hug the cloud giant tightly, strangle it, and struggle to continue to burrow its head into its chest cavity.
It is waiting for the dragon's breath to "cool down"—the dragon's breath is always a dragon's most powerful weapon, without exception.
Limited by its own power, Casalos's current dragon breath attack cannot directly inflict much damage on the cloud giant, but if the dragon breath were to erupt from within its body, the outcome would be quite different.
The cloud giant seemed to know what Casalos was waiting for. It abandoned its two-handed mace and grabbed Casalos's tattered wing with each hand, unleashing a terrifying force in an attempt to tear it off its body.
However, rolling was not an easy way to exert force. The Cloud Giant's previous injuries had severely affected its arms, and the dragon used its limbs and tail to grab and strangle. It was unable to move the much weaker whelp for a while.
Casalos opened its massive jaws, waves of pain from its wing joints being forcibly dislocated by immense force flooding its mind, seemingly about to enrage it into a state of dragon fury, yet it held on.
"Don't get angry, or we're doomed!"
It cast Holy Light and Rejuvenation on itself, venting its anger with a roar while also warning itself. The dragon roar that emanated from the cloud giant's chest became deep, accompanied by the churning of blood bubbles and the sound of air leaking from its lungs, like the whispers of chaos.
The rolling finally stopped, and Casaloz and the cloud giant rolled to the edge of the stone platform. The smaller whelp was pinned underneath, making it even harder for the cloud giant to break free.
With two sharp cracking sounds, Casalos's wings were ripped off by the giant, and the soul-tearing pain also severed Casalos's last will.
But it didn't matter; before Shi Lezhi could react, it had already prepared its dragon breath.
The fledgling dragon, enraged, naturally unleashed its surging dragon magic from its chest, the energy rumbling as it flowed down its esophagus and respiratory tract, mixing with its contents and crackling with arcs of electricity.
Chapter 51
Sparks ignited the fire beam, which poured into the cloud giant's chest.
The cloud giant let out a miserable howl as the dragon's breath burned within its sealed cavity released high temperature and pressure, instantly inflating its chest like a balloon before it exploded with a bang. Bone fragments and flesh flew outwards in the shockwave, and half of the stone platform was stained with radial bloodstains.
Casalos was also thrown away by the high-pressure blast wave, landing more than ten meters away belly up and completely unconscious...
After a long while, the fledgling dragon awoke under the continuous healing effects of the Rejuvenation spell. It moved its only remaining conscious right claw, rolled over, and slowly applied Holy Light to itself while panting. After resting for a while with its eyes closed, it finally stood up again.
"hey-hey!"
Casalos looked at the purple gem floating about a meter away and the blood bead surrounded by a purple halo, and let out a relieved chuckle.
In reality, such severe injuries would basically cripple it. But this is the Dragon's Treasure Vault training instance; as long as it's not dead, it's not over.
54. Goal Achieved
Casalos didn't rush to examine the spoils. Instead, he limped around the stone platform, found his tattered wings that had been torn off by the cloud giant, put them in his mouth, aligned the wounds and joints, cast a Holy Heal, and a miracle occurred.
As the treatment took effect, the broken wings "grew" back to their original position, and Casalos was freed from his disabled state!
"That's all you can do with mental and physical abilities," it couldn't help but sigh.
In reality, having wings torn off is no easy feat to restore – Faerûn has no shortage of crippled dragons with broken wings or arms, and self-healing doesn't mean limbs will regenerate.
However, within the Dragon's Vault, Casaroz is essentially a peculiar spiritual state. As long as it doesn't "die," it can recover from any injury through the most ordinary "healing" methods. In fact, even without finding its wings, Casaroz can slowly "grow" its wings back using Holy Light, Rejuvenation, and the self-healing effects of Bejuri's Flame, given enough time.
This is a hidden perk that Dragon's Vault offers to trial participants... Slowly recovering your status in a room that has already been cleared is a basic roguelike skill in room mode, and I didn't expect the creators of Dragon's Vault to have borrowed this as well.
Similarly, Casalos's magic and physical strength also recover in this way; otherwise, how could he have sustained high-intensity combat for such a long time?
In reality, the recovery of a dragon's magic power is closely related to its physical condition and environment. If that were the case, it would have already exhausted its dragon magic power due to its low condition. Real-world physical strength is not a stamina bar. Even for elemental subspecies dragons, the accumulation of lactic acid and other secondary metabolic products after strenuous exercise is a huge problem.
Thanks to the three healing effects, Casalos had a wonderful "sleep," restoring himself to peak condition before eagerly rushing towards the spoils.
"That's a bit stingy. Such a difficult battle and they didn't even give me a golden legendary reward."
The purple glow indicates that at least one of the loot options is epic; gems represent classes; blood orbs represent feats; and the fact that the Cloud Giant's drops are on par with the Hag's House is slightly disappointing for Casaroz. Complaints aside, this is to be expected. The Hag's House is a rare challenge house, not always encountered, while the boss room is a guaranteed drop in a fixed level—provided you can beat it.
Perhaps it was the special blessing of the Miracle Light, Casalos continued to have the good luck he was supposed to have in this game. Among the three options provided by the gem, there was a gold card that could "increase the total level of existing classes by 2". Casalos decisively gave up the two new classes, Warlock +1 and Sword of the Warrior, and raised his Paladin level to 3.
"Ha, this... the Supreme Slash... this is a skipped version, isn't it?"
A golden light flashed, and Casalos, feeling the new power he had gained and transforming it into a visible panel, was slightly bewildered. No wonder his Paladin class looked so out of place, lacking even the Evil Slash; it turned out it was the wrong version. That explained everything... Not at all. It was born long before the fifth edition timeline, and based on everything it had observed so far, this world mostly corresponded to the rules of the third edition, with only minor differences. Most importantly, its growth, including the inherent growth of the Paladin class, had so far followed the rules of the third edition.
Perhaps this explanation makes more sense regarding the uniqueness of Jackie Chan's treasure vault.
"Well, it's ultimately in my best interest. The 5th edition Paladin is definitely a top-tier class, much stronger than the 3rd edition. I just don't know what's going on outside."
After a brief sigh, it selected its combat style as the greatsword style corresponding to its innate weapon, and swore a sacred oath of dedication. The Dragon's Treasury dungeon didn't actually require it to uphold the oath. Besides, it was just constantly grinding against these mindless monsters in the dungeon; how could it possibly break an oath?
Upon taking the oath of devotion, Casalos gains the ability to cast level 1 paladin spells, as well as the spells Sanctuary and Protection from Evil.
Next, the guiding divine power was injected into the shoulder-mounted weapon station, making it shine with golden light. The weapon's quality was enhanced, and its damage was also increased. Casalos felt very pleased.
When the Paladin reaches level 3, it gains an additional feat slot. After a little consideration, it chooses to master initiative, then touches the purple blood orb and selects the super breath feat to maximize the effect of its breath weapon. Its combat power then shows a step-by-step increase.
Unfortunately, this power was ultimately just an illusion; its only effect was to allow it to go further in the dungeon and obtain more gold coins—the Cloud Giant directly dropped 600 gold coins and 1000 silver coins, making Casalos full of anticipation for the next boss.
The monsters in the subsequent rooms became progressively stronger, but they posed no obstacle to the lucky Casalos, which it easily defeated.
Passing through the 28th room, Casalos is forcibly propelled into adolescence with a fixed amount of extra HD, awakening the inherent magical spellcasting power of the Atheros and gaining spell-like abilities of scorching metal. His paladin rank also increases by an additional level...
After room 32, Casalos, carrying nearly 2000 silver coins, encountered Kressa again in the permanent shop and bought two good items. Then, in room 34, he encountered the second boss, a young Eternal Punishment Dragon.
Under the relentless bombardment of the Holy Slash and the golden dragon breath, the evil dragon from the Eternal Punishment Domain died in resentment without even scratching Casaloz's scales, dropping a glittering golden gem, a chest surrounded by a purple halo, plus 1200 gold coins and 2000 silver coins.
Like a snowball rolling downhill, Casaroz found the game easier and easier. Until, after clearing the 46th room, a passage emanating a menacing aura reappeared. Full of confidence, Casaroz charged into this rare boss room, only to be confronted by an elderly Calamity Dragon. Tormented by various vicious curses and spells, he was left in a state of agonizing confusion, dying and being ejected into the empty hall without even understanding what had happened.
This time it died with almost no pain—the pain all happened during the torment before death, which is excellent news.
"It seems I can't enter this rare boss room until my own strength has truly improved!"
Having lost the power to slay monsters and dragons that once blocked his path, Casalos, now back to his original form, took a long time to adjust to his "weak" fledgling body before eagerly opening the Realistic Augmentation Shop.
It currently holds 2167 gold coins, which is enough to purchase its own advanced target for the Carved Skin Dragon.
55. The Kobold's Prayer
Boom!
After the flash, another thunderous roar that shook the earth swept across the rift valley, causing ripples to spread across the lake's surface, followed by howling winds.
Eisen stood on one of his protruding sentry posts, his bright eyes...
Chapter 52
Zhu Zi stared intently at the spot where the explosion had occurred. Darkness obscured everything; she could only see a faint blue light flickering and disappearing before she finally let out a long sigh of relief.
The crisis has been temporarily averted, but only temporarily.
This is the fifth bomb dropped by Myris, the tribe's top demolition expert, and the twelfth in total.
While the great dragon was busy with its advancement, the slimy Kotō murlocs seized the opportunity to launch another attack. The white lime and falling rocks became ineffective, and a powerful spellcaster emerged from among the Kotō murlocs, casting a group protection spell to shield all the murlocs that were climbing.
Left with no other choice, the Carrick tribe resorted to their deadly weapon, the iron-shell bomb.
Because the detonation time was difficult to control, the bomb detonated below the climbing Kou Tao fishmen. Although the shockwave and bright light swept them all back into the lake, it did not kill many fishmen.
Most importantly, the high-level spellcaster on the other side did not suffer any damage.
The murlocs quickly returned, but this time the high-level spellcaster used a lightning bolt to shatter the falling bombs. The gunpowder ignited by the lightning burst forth with dazzling light like blooming flowers, but failed to cause any effective damage to the murlocs.
If the Kou Tao fishmen hadn't retreated back into the water to recover from the intense light, they would have been able to attack then.
During the third climb, Kou Tao's spell to intercept the bomb turned into an ice ball. The cold magic froze the fuse, and the iron-shelled bomb became an ordinary rock that crashed into the lake, causing only a few ripples.
Myris then stepped forward and directed the other kobold demolition experts to cut the fuses of the five bombs into different lengths, ignite them simultaneously, and drop them.
Unable to intercept so many bombs at once, the Koto fishman quickly jumped back into the water to escape. The five bombs then exploded at different heights. Although the Koto fishman was successfully repelled, Myris's wasteful action displeased the three elders. In their view, two or at most three bombs would have been enough to force the Koto fishman to retreat.
The tribe has a limited stockpile of bombs, and they are determined to punish this fool who squandered strategic resources.