The Era of Gods

Chapter 487: Chapter 487 Lightning Specialization

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The only option left was to run back honestly. After resting overnight at the spawn point, I set out again. Returning to Mooncolor Town, I found that many players had already arrived. Heading out of the town, I noticed many had chosen their specializations.

For instance, warriors could become Weapon War, skilled with various weapons and balanced in offense and defense, Berserk War, also commonly known as Berserkers, known for their explosive power, and defense-oriented warriors.

These are the conventional three warrior paths, and like mages, warriors also have various rare specialization routes, such as the famed magic swordsmen and knights capable of coordinated combat with mounts, among others.

Half a day later, I once again left the boundaries of Mooncolor Town and entered Lightning Hill. This time I traveled by day, encountering monsters only twice, dying once.

This time I didn’t dare to be reckless and honestly ran back to resurrect.

Compared to the forest of Mooncolor Town, Lightning Hill had a typical escarpment and hill terrain: desolate at a glance, with scarce vegetation on the rolling hills. The most prominent feature was the thick lightning that occasionally struck from the sky in the distance, thunderbolts on a clear day.

According to the coordinates, the place I needed to reach was in the deepest part of Lightning Hill, where the thunderbolts struck most often. There were no roads there, and I would have to traverse a wilderness inhabited by monsters above level 30…

“Dammit, this is outrageous!”

I felt like giving up and just picking a specialization at random.

But after running this long, giving up seemed like a loss, so I gritted my teeth and moved forward.

Running along the main road to the point closest to my coordinates, I left the main road and headed into the wilderness.

In the distance, about a hundred meters away, I saw the sand rise in an arch. Soon a sand scorpion, bigger than a tiger, emerged, turned a circle, and then just stood there staring at me.

“The aggro range is that far?”

Looking at my current level, I could only laugh bitterly:

“Well, that’s normal!”

It was level suppression. The sand scorpion was level 32, while I was merely level 11. A level difference of 20 meant it could spot me from far away.

Like when I was level 6 in Novice Village passing through a level 1-2 wild area, I walked right by a grey wolf, which not only didn’t attack me but also slightly avoided me.

I tried edging around cautiously, but after a few steps, the sand scorpion hunkered down, its brown eyes fixed tightly on me.

“Great, can’t sneak past.”

Lin Xiao simply retreated, and again the sand scorpion stood up and watched him.

“Forget it,”

I turned around; the level difference was too great. There was no way to cross this wilderness into the depths of Lightning Hill.

Sighing, I got up and walked towards the sand scorpion, intending to let it kill me, then resurrect directly at the graveyard between Lightning Hill and Mooncolor Town, saving a few hours of running.

The game’s death penalty varied based on the method of resurrection. If you ran back to your corpse to resurrect, you would only lose one-tenth of the experience of your current level and some equipment durability, which meant the equipment would degrade. If the durability reached zero, the equipment would be unusable and need a hefty sum of gold to repair for further use.

If resurrected by a spell, you’d only suffer some equipment damage and no experience loss.

If you gave up on your corpse and resurrected directly at the graveyard, or like my previous forcible resurrection at my hearthstone’s binding point, on top of the loss from running back to your corpse, there would also be a ten-minute weakness period with all attributes reduced by 75%.

In the later stages, dying even once would mean heavy losses, but at my low level with quick leveling, the loss of one-tenth of the experience wasn’t much and could quickly be made up.

However, just as the sand scorpion pounced and pinned me down, the screen went dark and then grey. Lin Xiao, baffled, realized he hadn’t resurrected at the graveyard as he expected, but at another one he hadn’t seen before.

“Dammit! I ran too far.”

Every map had several graveyards for player souls to resurrect and run back to their corpses. Generally, you’d resurrect at the graveyard closest to your death point. Obviously, this graveyard was closer than the previous one.

This was awkward.

I opened the map speechlessly, but then my eyes lit up, and it took me a while to blurt out:

“Dammit, is this what they mean by ‘desperate times lead to unexpected paths, and the dim scene clears, revealing a new village’?”

The minimap showed that I had resurrected in the middle of Lightning Hill, very close to the coordinates.

So close that…

Lin Xiao died and ran back seven times before finally discovering a massive stone tower.

‘Running back’ means rushing out from the resurrection point as fast as possible, not fearing the monsters, and continuing to run until you die.

Then, your soul searches for your body to resurrect, and in the few seconds of invisibility and invincibility after resurrecting, you won’t be attacked. While invisible, you’d run out of the monster’s aggro range and continue running until the next monster kills you. You would continue this method until arriving at your destination.

This tower, located in the densest part of Lightning Hill, was struck by thick lightning virtually every few seconds. Occasionally, there would be a moment when a dozen lightning bolts would simultaneously strike the tower, creating quite the spectacle.

There were no monsters near the high tower. Circling it, I only found a sealed stone door with two giant stone beast statues at the entrance, their eyes were huge blue sapphires.

As I approached the stone door, the left statue lit up, its sapphire eyes shining light at me as a voice rang out:

“Please present your access card!”

“Access card?”

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Lin Xiao was puzzled as the pupil of the statue on his right burst forth with a red glow that shone upon him. The red light grew increasingly bright, causing Lin Xiao to feel an inexplicable palpitation.

“What pass?”

As the sense of danger intensified, he hastily took out the token he had obtained from the Mooncolor Town Mage Mentor and presented it. The light scanned over, the red glow flashed and vanished, and the stone door silently retracted:

“Pass detected, entry granted!”

Upon entering the tower, he was met with a spacious hall where two NPCs were conversing. One was called Junior Lightning Mage Phil, and the other was Intermediate Lightning Wizard Dalia. A Centaur Servant was cleaning nearby. Hearing the stone door open, the two NPCs turned their heads, and Junior Lightning Mage Phil said:

“It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a young apprentice come here. Are you here to learn lightning spells?”

Lin Xiao nodded earnestly:

“Yes, I’ve heard that lightning spells are very powerful. I have traveled from afar to learn them.”

Junior Lightning Mage Phil smiled and said:

“A wise choice. Now you can learn lightning spells from us.”

“I can learn now?”

“Yes, you can learn now.”

This was beyond Lin Xiao’s expectations; he had thought there would be some quest, but to his surprise, he could learn directly.

But on second thought, it made sense. Players barely past Level 10 coming from Novice Village and traversing through regions inhabited by monsters over Level 30 was a significant challenge—the real test had already been passed.

He then conversed with Phil and a light screen appeared before him, displaying various lightning spells he could learn.

Compared to other specializations, Lightning Specialization had less quantity, but each spell was powerful.

However, being only Level 11, he could only learn four lightning spells: Lightning Chain, Lightning Shield, Thunderbolt, and Lightning Field.

And their levels weren’t high because he couldn’t afford to learn higher-level spells.

Level 2 Lightning Chain: Unleashes a chain of lightning within a 90-yard range that can bounce four times, dealing 55-75 lightning damage to the first target and reducing by 15% for each following target, up to four targets.

Mana cost: 35 points, casting time: 2 seconds.

Level 1 Lightning Shield: Casts a lightning shield on yourself or a teammate, which lasts for fifteen minutes, reducing 50% lightning damage and 120 points of armor, dealing lightning damage equal to 0.6 of the caster’s Intelligence to any melee attacker and causing a slight paralyzing effect for three seconds.

Mana cost: 45 points, instant cast, cooldown: fifteen seconds.

Level 1 Thunderbolt: Summons a thunderbolt to strike enemies within a 120-yard range, dealing 375 lightning damage and interrupting the target’s casting.

Mana cost: 60 points, casting time 3 seconds, cooldown: five seconds.

Level 1 Lightning Field: Summons a ring of lightning that shocks surrounding enemies, dealing 128 lightning damage to all enemies within a 60-yard range, stunning for two seconds followed by paralysis for four seconds.

Mana cost: 60 points, instant cast, cooldown: ten seconds.

All these were effects after being enhanced by the Star Spirit Talent, making them stronger than other specializations.

After he chose his specialization, the few spells he’d learned before vanished, and now he only knew these four spells. His Talent Tree was also unlocked.

Lin Xiao opened his Talent Tree to find two paths, one called Sky Wrath and the other Thor.

After examining the Talents within both trees, he understood what each path represented.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Sky Wrath Talent Tree followed the single-target burst route.

Thor Talent Tree was the path of area-of-effect group damage.

It was possible to choose both Talent Trees, but because of the limited Talent points, he had to focus on one path. If he dabbled in both, neither would be strong.

After examining the two Talent Trees, Lin Xiao decided to follow the path of the Thor Talent Tree.

Initially, there were two Talents to choose from: Lightning Extension and Strengthening Lightning Chain.

Lightning Extension Talent had five levels, each level increasing the range of lightning spells by 1 yard.

Strengthening Lightning Chain had three levels, each level adding one bounce target.

There was no need to think about it; with his innate triple range advantage, why bother with that? He directly chose Strengthening Lightning Chain, placing both points there, adding two extra bounce targets. A Level 2 Lightning Chain could hit four targets, and now it could strike six.

After learning the skills and being unable to learn new ones for the time being, he rubbed the Hearthstone and teleported to Mooncolor Town.

Learning from his previous lesson, he bound his Hearthstone to Mooncolor Town.

After a continuous casting duration of ten seconds, he appeared in the Mooncolor Town inn, greeted by a burst of light-hearted music. The inn was filled with people, both NPCs and players.

Having lost a few days, many players had caught up and arrived here.

Outside the inn, on the plaza, there were even more people. A small box at the bottom of his view represented the various channels, and at that moment, the regional channel was full of players’ messages, ranging from chatting to forming parties and trading. Among them, the most eye-catching was a message about forming a party for a dungeon raid.