Chapter 118: The Boss Hidden Among the Small Fry

Zhang Shan sent out the panda cub to lead the way. The monsters in this dungeon weren’t densely packed, so even if they all charged at once, he had no reason to fear. The panda cub should be able to hold its ground, especially with over ten support members following behind the team.

As soon as Zhang Shan and the panda cub appeared, dozens of corrupted mountain bandits immediately charged forward, brandishing cleavers. Yes, cleavers. The corrupted mountain bandits wielded nothing but cleavers.

Dozens of cleavers struck the panda cub, damage numbers continuously popping up. Although each hit wasn’t particularly strong, the bandits attacked at an incredibly fast pace.

“What the hell, how do these bandits attack so fast? Their attack speed is way higher than that of current players.”

As the panda cub held off the group of corrupted bandits, the rest of the team quickly joined the fray.

“Haha, these corrupted bandits are weak. They just swing quickly, but their health isn’t high, and their defense seems lacking,” Zhang Shan said, pausing to fire a few shots at the bandits. Each bullet dealt over four thousand damage, and two shots were enough to take down one bandit.

They really were weak.

Checking the bandits’ stats:

Corrupted Mountain Bandit: Level 30, Attack Power 980, Health 7000, Skill 1: Frenzy.

Frenzy (Passive): These inhuman bandits become even more frenzied after corruption, greatly increasing their attack speed.

What? These bandits had a passive skill that boosted their attack speed—no wonder their cleaver swings created afterimages.

This passive was incredibly powerful. If only he could farm such a skill, that would be fantastic. “Come on, bandit brothers, be generous and hand over your passive skills, hehe.”

Seeing such a valuable passive, Zhang Shan became even more motivated, bullets flying nonstop as one bandit after another fell.

However, with so many enemies around, no matter how fast he shot, he could only take down a small portion. Most of the bandits were still being dealt with by his teammates.

There was no other way—he couldn’t just let others do all the fighting. Even if he fought alone, it might take until tomorrow to clear this many monsters.

There was no chance in sheer numbers, so it was down to luck—hoping for a lucky drop so he could obtain that passive skill.

“Boss, why don’t we split up to farm? These bandits aren’t strong; even splitting up, we can still handle them,” someone suggested.

Gathering fifty people in one spot was inefficient. With such a large map, how long would it take to clear everything?

Splitting up was definitely the way to go to speed things up.

“Alright, let’s split into groups of five. Each group must have at least one support. Pair up with others and find partners,” Zhang Shan ordered.

“Haha, I’m teaming up with Divine Artifact Brother. Maybe we’ll run into a mini-boss and can take it down easily without calling for help,” Feng Yun Yidao said without holding back.

His words weren’t unfounded. Other groups of five might not even be able to defeat a purple-tier boss. Even with a guardian warrior in the mix, it would take a considerable amount of time—nothing like Zhang Shan, who could farm mini-bosses like regular mobs.

In the end, Feng Yun Yidao, Feng Yun Tianxia, Feng Ling, and Feng Yun Qingqing joined Zhang Shan’s team.

The others formed their own groups and headed off in different directions to farm monsters.

The map was vast. Soon, everyone scattered, and only the five of them remained near Zhang Shan.

The ever-dedicated little secretary was left behind again, as his position overlapped too much with Zhang Shan’s panda cub.

Though she had entered the dungeon this time, she was relegated to a regular damage dealer role—no longer needed to tank.

In the five-person squad, there were two supports—an unusual combination.

Luckily, Feng Ling had a summoned celestial general, and along with her own support skills, she could provide some damage output. Together, the two supports plus the summon did more damage than a single damage dealer.

The five pushed forward. Level 30 monsters didn’t yield much experience for Zhang Shan, but the farming speed was faster, so it was fine.

Overall, experience gain remained steady.

“Divine Artifact Brother, how much longer until you reach level 30?” Feng Yun Qingqing asked. She was a witch doctor class, whose damage output was far weaker than a Taoist.

She could only cast poison spells, which dealt minimal damage if her base attack wasn’t strong.

However, the witch doctor’s support abilities were superior to the Taoist’s, with totem and curse skills—essential for boss fights.

The downside was cost; these two skill books were rare and required resources to obtain.

“Still a ways off. I need seventeen million experience points to reach level 29, and to get to 30 might take around ten more days,” he replied.

“Farm more bosses to level up faster.”

“Of course, but bosses are hard to find. Hopefully, this dungeon has more bosses so I can earn more experience—otherwise, leveling will be a slog.”

“Boss, that’s enough complaining about leveling. Look at the leaderboard—the second place is only two levels behind you, but that means tons of experience. They must be farming nonstop for at least a week, not to mention us,” Feng Yun Yidao couldn’t help but joke.

“I farm a lot! I’m online late every day, mostly just farming monsters.”

“You make it sound like we’re just wandering around. I’m farming late too. I don’t even have time to work on life skills anymore. I wanted to learn blacksmithing, but never got the chance.”

“Yidao, why compare yourself to Divine Artifact Brother? He’s got a legendary weapon that’s better than all your gear combined, plus a panda cub pet. You can’t even beat him.”

“Damn, Feng Ling, that’s harsh. I’m usually nice to you.”

“Hehe, Feng Ling’s right. You just can’t beat the panda cub,” Feng Yun Qingqing added, fanning the flames.

“Damn you two! So what if I can’t beat the panda cub? Tell me, who can handle the pet of Brother Six-Tube? Its combo skill lays everyone down, got it?”

The group was playfully bickering when suddenly Feng Yun Yidao shouted, “What’s going on? Heal me fast, I’m about to die!”

What? Could these little bandits actually kill him? Impossible.

Zhang Shan looked over to see Yidao’s health bar nearly empty. Two beauties rushed to heal him frantically.

Two or three corrupted bandits were chasing and hacking at him. Damage numbers above his head showed a few hundred for some hits, but others soared above two thousand.

“Damn, Brother Yidao, run! One of them is a boss.”

These blasted bandits all looked identical. The boss looked exactly like a regular bandit. If you didn’t check the monster’s name carefully, you wouldn’t be able to tell.

Zhang Shan immediately commanded the panda cub to move beside Yidao and turned his own attacks around.

First, he cleared the two regular bandits near Yidao, then quickly focused on the last boss.

“Damn it, these bandits are sneaky. This is a boss, yet it doesn’t even stand out—mixes right in with the regular ones and looks exactly the same. That’s ridiculous.”