CH.386 Unika and Einar vs Challenge Room
<span style="font-weight:400">“Alright. So, who wants to test the battle room first?” I asked, after I made sure we wouldn’t be snuck up on by a monster.
<span style="font-weight:400">We were currently on floor 4 of TinaWood dungeon, the same floor that Ria took on a challenge room and earned her Card Summoner skill. Unika should win decently easily, as she is quite a bit higher in level than Ria was, and Unika has evolved whereas Ria hadn’t. The only problem is that Ria’sbat skills are more based on closebat, whereas Unika is an archer/tamer. And I’m not sure how the challenge rooms react when you summon something inside of them. I know you can’t enter with a summoned monster … already summoned, but you might be able to summon one when already inside. The same goes for bringing a monster out of Tamer’s Paradise. I just don’t know because I never tested it.
<span style="font-weight:400">… why do I feel like I have an endless list of things I’ve just never not tested? Why can’t everything just be tested in the Factory? It is way more simple.
<span style="font-weight:400">“I think I should go first.” Unika said. “I am the strongest.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“True. Just be careful. I don’t actually know what you will be facing, but it will either be a single monster, most likely high C-rank, or a group of D-ranks led by a weak C-rank.” I told her. “Also, you can’t walk in with Nitrum. These rooms are one at a time. And I’m not sure if you can even bring out Fer and Rum from Paradise when inside. Summoning Magic might be off limits as well.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“... Not really the best fit for a group of tamers and summoners.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“No. No it is not.” I agreed.
<span style="font-weight:400">“And yet there is a chance to obtain the most broken summoning skill I’ve heard of.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“You know, Card Summoner is kind of useless by itself. You need the cards, which you can’t get without me. No cards, useless skill.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“But we have you, so it isn’t an issue.” Eline said.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Yes. Indeed it isn’t.”
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<span style="font-weight:400">After making sure she was ready and taking Nitrum into Tamer’s Paradise, Unika walked into the challenge room. I opened the door for her, as she never picked up a dungeon card, so she can’t pay the entrance cost of 100 dungeon points.
<span style="font-weight:400">The reason the challenge rooms cost points to enter is actually quite simple. They can give out some pretty nice stuff and we didn’t want anyone just redoing the same room over and over again. And if you do the same room enough times, it will eventually close down. And it isn’t like 100 dungeon points is a lot. Sure it is more difficult for adventurers to get dungeon points than it is for me to get generation points, but getting 100 points is only around 8 skeleton monsters. Also, the points needed to enter the challenge rooms depend on the floor.
<span style="font-weight:400">Floor 1 doesn’t have a challenge room, so let’s ignore that for now. On floor 2, you can enter for just 30 points, but there hasn’t been a single person that has gotten Card Summoner from that floor based on the reports I’ve gotten from Zay and Christina, as well as the data I’ve had Dungeon Founder collect.
<span style="font-weight:400">On floor 3 it costs 60 and one person has gotten Card Summoner from there. Floor 4 is of course 100 points and six people have gotten Card Summoner there. Actually that would be eight if you count Ria and Cardo.
<span style="font-weight:400">Floor 5 costs 150 and four have gotten Card Summoner, five after you factor in Agatha. Floor 6 costs 200 and two people have gotten Card Summoner there and floor 7 costs 300 and no one has gotten Card Summoner from there. So it seems like floor 4 is the optimal for getting the skill, but that is somewhat wrong as not as many adventurers take on the more difficult challenge rooms.
<span style="font-weight:400">But of course with the increase in cost and difficultyes an increase in the reward. Floors 5, 6 and 7 can all drop mithril weapons, with the chance of getting one going up as the difficulty and cost goes up. And let’s be honest here, if you are nning on taking on a floor 7 challenge room, getting 300 points is no problem for you.
<span style="font-weight:400">But enough about point costs and other numbers. Let’s check how Unika will do against a challenge room. I opened Dungeon Founder so that Einar and Eline could also see what was going on.
<span style="font-weight:400">Once Unika made her way fully into the room, the room activated and monsters began spawning. Yes monsters, there were multiple. Three in total. And they were something I hadn’t seen in the dungeon before. Two were D-rank skeletal forest eagles, nothing Unika couldn’t take care of, but the C-rank skeletal hippogriff might be a bit of a challenge. And I do think it is interesting how quickly this dungeon adjusts to new monsters. I mean, we just brought hippogriffs in here and already the dungeon is making skeletal hippogriffs as opponents. The skeletal eagles are also something I’ve personally not seen, but I did know the dungeon could make them. It probably made them because flying monsters are a big threat to an archer.
<span style="font-weight:400">Unika quickly pulled an arrow from her quiver and pulled back her bow. She then put some mana into the arrow, before she shot it towards the hippogriff. While I’m not 100% sure which skill that was, I think that was Embedded Shot. It is a skill that is used to charge an arrow with mana so that the arrow does extra damage, and that does seem to be what Unika did.
<span style="font-weight:400">The skeletal hippogriff for its part didn’t just stand around and take the arrow to the face, instead it began to dodge the arrow, but not moving fast enough, the arrow hit the skeletal hippogriff to the rump, causing it to screech.
<span style="font-weight:400">The two eagles took the chance given by Unika having just shot an arrow to attack, both of them flying towards the fox girl. Unika reacted in time, taking out two arrows and shooting them both quickly. I think she was able to shoot that quickly by using her Quick Shot skill.
<span style="font-weight:400">One of the arrows hit their target, well at least the wing of the target, and one of the D-rank birds fell from the sky. The other was able to dodge, but at least it was no longer on an attack course.
<span style="font-weight:400">Unika once again focused on the big bad, the hippogriff, likely knowing the eagle would have to circle back around before it could make another diving charge at her. She then pulled out another arrow and began charging it with mana.
<span style="font-weight:400">But she was a bit too slow, as the hippogriff wasn’t just standing around. Limping a bit because of the arrow in its rump, the skeletal horse-eagle ran towards Unika, ready to rip her apart.
<span style="font-weight:400">Unika quickly ducked and rolled out of the hippogriffs way, reestablishing a solid form, pulling back her bow and letting the arrow fly as she called out her skills name.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Spirit Shot!”
<span style="font-weight:400">This time, the arrow hit true, right into the side of the hippogriff. And it being a Spirit Shot means that the hippogriff’s defenses should have beenpletely ignored, so the arrow should have caused massive damage.
<span style="font-weight:400">Yet the horse-eagle didn’t go down, instead turning to face Unika again, and charging at her again. While it did so, the skeletal forest eagle hadpleted its turnaround and it was alsoing at Unika.
<span style="font-weight:400">Unika reacted to the two pronged attack by using Quick Shot again. She first shot at the eagle and then at the hippogriff. With just the slightest movement that wouldn’t break its charge, the eagle dodged the arrow, while the hippogriff just took it to the chest and kept up its rush.
<span style="font-weight:400">Unika realizing that her n didn’t work quickly had to think of something else, and what she did was light her tail on fire. No, literally. She used her Foxfire skill to light her tail on fire, pushing the fire out of it to use it as a sort of booster to allow her to move faster, leaving mes in her wake. Rolling under the body of the hippogriff, she quickly took out her knife and shed at the skeletal beast, and the sh left some mes in the stomach of the monster.
<span style="font-weight:400">Unika then boosted herself away from the monster, still using her mes like a booster. She then took a solid position, leveled her bow towards the skeletal hippogriff, pulled out an arrow and prepared to shoot. But before she did, she put both mana as well as her Foxfire on the arrow, before taking the shot. The ming arrow flew and hit the hippogriff in the rear. It then exploded into a massive fire that engulfed the entire back half of the hippogriff.
<span style="font-weight:400">The hippogriff screeched, before dropping to the floor and rolling around, seemingly trying to put out the fire. But since it is a skeletal monster, the fire is held inside of its bone structure, so it couldn’t put it out, no matter how much it tried.
<span style="font-weight:400">Unika then focused her efforts on thest opponent flying around, the skeletal forest eagle. Now that it was thest target, it didn’t seem to be any problem at all, as Unika carefully took aim, shot the arrow and it perfectly hit its mark, causing the bird to hit the ground.
<span style="font-weight:400">She then pulled out her knife and went to the first skeletal eagle, finishing it off. Lastly, she pulled out one more arrow, leveling her bow towards the skeletal hippogriff that was still trying to put the fire out, and with one more Embedded Shot, Unika ended the monster.
<span style="font-weight:400">With the challenge room cleared, Unika collected her used arrows as well as her reward, beforeing out and regrouping with us.
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<span style="font-weight:400">“Well done, Unika.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“You were amazing.” Einar and Elineplimented the fox girl when she returned.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Thanks. But it was a bit tough.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Can’t predict everything.” I told her. “But I do agree. I didn’t think something as difficult as a hippogriff would have side monsters. Sure it was only two, but still. And you did well.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“T-thanks. Sadly my reward was just this bow.” Unika said, as she handed over a bow that was her reward.
<span style="font-weight:400">I took a quick look at it, before I ced it into Storage for instant analysis. It was a decently good bow, made out of crimson treant with the bowstring being venomweb spider silk. I see that TinaWood has somehow obtained some info on monster materials from HomeBase. I wonder if Tahlia uploaded them to the TinaWood core.
<span style="font-weight:400">All around the bow was pretty good, maybe even better than Unika’s current bow, so I handed it back to her and told her to at least test it out. If she didn’t like it, she wouldn’t have to use it, but I think it would do her well.
<span style="font-weight:400">“I also attempted to bring Nitrum out of Tamer’s Paradise while inside the challenge room. I think I could have done it, but I did feel some sort of a block.” Unika told me.
<span style="font-weight:400">“... alright. Thanks for telling. I’ll test out summoning myselfter and see what happens with that.”
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<span style="font-weight:400">After Unika, Einar tested out the floor 4 challenge room. He went in with his saber in hand, Einar looked both sure and just a bit hesitant. I think what Unika just faced made him think a bit more about if he was ready or not. But maybe because he is just a bit foolish, or maybe just acting brave, Einar decided to take on the room.
<span style="font-weight:400">And as the door closed, Einar’s opponent appeared. A skeletal mammoth. An opponent Lua once took on in a floor 3 challenge room, so it shouldn’t be too bad, but for Einar…
<span style="font-weight:400">The mammoth is slow, so that makes it easy for long ranged fighters as it is easy to evade while they cast spells or fire arrows, but at the same time, it is quite sturdy and hits like a truck, so against Einar, who is mostly a close range fighter, it should be a challenge.
<span style="font-weight:400">Einar quickly used his Expanding Night skill to darken the room. He hid in the shadows of his skill while nking the mammoth, who had lost sight of him and seemed confused. Einar then rushed in, his body emitting just a bit of Dark Lightning as the lightning crept up his hand and towards his sword. Einar then used his sword to sh at the hind legs of the mammoth, probably trying to prevent the mammoth from moving, as that would limit its power. The lightning surging in his de added to the power, electrocuting the mammoth while Einar’s sword leftrge marks on the bones. It didn’t quite cut all the way through, but the mammoth would definitely be slowed down by that damage.
<span style="font-weight:400">The mammoth didn’t seem to like the sneak attack, and with the Expanding Night still hiding Einar from him, it couldn’t direct any attacks towards the cat-boy. So instead it did what might be the best in its situation. If you can’t attack your target, attack everything and hope it works.
<span style="font-weight:400">With a loud snort, the mammoth casted a spell. A blizzard to be specific, covering the entire room in cold snow. I was a bit worried for Einar, but he didn’t seem to care much, just rushing at the mammoth again with his sword. He then leaped high, likely using Flickering Step from a boost, and ended up on the mammoth’s back, shing at it multiple times as he approached the neck of the mammoth.
<span style="font-weight:400">Reaching the neck, Einar took a solid stance, prepared his sword by charging all of his Dark Lightning into it, and brought it down on the mammoth’s neck, severing the mammoth’s head from its body.
<span style="font-weight:400">He then jumped down andnded on the slightly snowy ground, before turning to the mammoth that was vanishing.
<span style="font-weight:400">“You know, Lumi’s blizzard is way colder than that.” He taunted the dead beast. He then collected his reward, a steel short sword, before returning to us.