Reign of the Hunters

Chapter 74: Buren Monastery

Ye Ci had replaced all her munitions with Novice Fire Arrows before heading to the Boneyard as undead and skeleton type monsters were vulnerable to fire type damage. Mage players who go down the Elemental Talent pathway while selecting their Talent would usually party up and farm experience points in the place.

By that time, they would have their first AOE damage skill, Star fall. 10 mages with the help of a Hunter or Ranger to pull in the mobs could level up very fast.

At this point, the Boneyard was still a decently quiet place. Chilly winds blew throughout the entire map, adding to the creepiness and the already eerie background music of the map. Ye Ci's destination was the Buren Monastery. She did not try and fight the mobs roaming around the area. She would walk around them, or simply activate Feign Death.

Before long, she was able to reach the Buren Monastery.

According to the lore, Buren Monastery was one of the five great monasteries that were corrupted during the Great War. However, the zealots of Buren Monastery were not like the zealots in the Blue Shirt Monastery who willingly joined the Dark Side. Their zealots were one of the most faithful in the entire Dalayar Continent. The zealots fought to the last man to protect the pride of their monastery from Naga's minions. The tenacious resistance of the zealots caused great casualties to the Dark Lord Naga's army. Out of rage, he burned the entire monastery with his demonic flames.

The corpses of the zealots were bathed by the demonic flames and were demonized. But their owner's craving for the Holy Light brought them grave pain and suffering. They rose from the dead, turning into skeletons to protect their once holy temple.

Although Ye Ci had read about this sad story in the library of Champion City, she was more concerned about the location of the sacred artifact in Buren Monastery. In her last life, a player claimed on the forums that the sacred artifact that eluded Dark Lord Naga was hidden in a secret place within the Buren Monastery itself.

The thread itself became a hot topic. But the person who posted that thread did it anonymously, and had not given any updates regarding the topic. Many began to doubt the credibility of the poster. As a Sorceress, Ye Ci had tried to search for the artifact, but to no avail. It was revealed after many years that there was indeed a sacred artifact in the Buren Monastery. It was a shard of the Eral Gem.

If Ye Ci was not interested in the Eral Gem as a Sorceress, then as a Huntress, it was definitely the gem that she was dreaming day and night about. The gem was split into 5 pieces during the Great War, and those pieces were placed in 5 monasteries in 5 different continents. Should all 5 of the gems be combined together, it would be a God-tier ornament that players would die for.

Ye Ci's objective in the Buren Monastery, other than leveling up, was to find the Eral Gem shard before other players began exploring the map.

As Ye Ci stood in front of the Buren Monastery, the background music immediately switched into a sad and sorrowful one, adding a tint of dismal atmosphere to the already ruined monastery.

Ye Ci's equipment was way better than players of the same level. With those equipment, her level difference penalty between her and the skeletons were slightly reduced.

However, Ye Ci still avoided getting tangled with too many skeletons. Before she could get to a safe farming spot, she had limited her fights to kiting one melee skeleton at a time. Ye Ci would definitely avoid confrontations with the ranged skeletons. It would be suicide to try and fight one when she was at a level disadvantage.

Fighting monsters that were at a higher level than her did give a lot more experience points.

In Fate, if the monster's level was 5 levels above that of a player, the player would receive twice as much experience points than they normally would. If a monster was 8 levels ahead, a player would receive 4 times the experience points. Monsters that were more than 10 levels ahead of a player would yield 5 times more experience points while monsters that were 20 levels ahead of a players would reward them 10 times the normal experience points rewarded.