With a thunderous crash, yet another Ironhide Giant Lizard’s heavy body slammed to the ground, and the red progress bar at the bottom of Jack’s vision surged forward.
The burning flames finally reached the skull icon at the far right. Without any system sound warning, this progress bar had been forcibly rammed to a full 100% by Jack’s absolutely unreasonable slaughter speed.
He had just thought this hidden mechanic was somewhat interesting and killed a few extra monsters on the side. In the common understanding of newbies in this world, such a high-difficulty field challenge progress bar would normally require a full party to grind for hours under strict coordination just to maybe push it to twenty or thirty percent and try their luck.
What Jack didn’t know was that, relying on his utterly abnormal Attack Power, he had accomplished in just a few dozen minutes what others could never hope to do.
The instant the progress bar filled, a dark red light appeared out of thin air in his palm.
[Special item obtained: Elite Entry Ticket (Level 4 Zone Only).]
Jack opened his hand. It was a black card with red light glowing around its edges, and a ferocious beast’s head printed on the front.
Before he could carefully examine the card’s description, the “Local Zone Channel” on the side of his vision suddenly flashed a piercing golden light.
In this datafied world, the Zone Channel was an extremely special communication network. It covered everyone on the current field map. Any rare drops or major events occurring in the area would be broadcast forcefully by the system through this channel.
[System Announcement: Pro “Jack” has struck incredible luck and successfully obtained a Level 4 Elite Challenge Entry Ticket!]
This golden text instantly caused a huge uproar across the vast Level 4 monster zone.
One kilometer away, Mark’s party, who were laboriously kiting monsters in the brush, all froze in unison.
“Jack? Who’s that?” the party’s Rogue yanked back his dagger, his eyes full of bewilderment.
Robin was so frantic he jumped straight up, his voice turning shrill over the team channel: “Damn it! Someone popped the entry ticket! This special Elite only allows one person to challenge it per week. The skill book drop rate isn’t even that high to begin with, and what class the skill book drops for is completely random. If he uses the ticket right now, all the money we spent on intel and the time we wasted this week will be for nothing!”
Robin’s anxiety was justified. This kind of field Elite inside an independent Pocket Dimension had a very strict respawn mechanic. Once someone used the entry ticket, whether that person successfully killed the Elite or failed the challenge and died inside the space, this challenge passage would close directly and not regenerate until the following week.
They had absolutely no idea that Jack had pushed the progress bar to full to obtain this ticket. In Mark’s understanding, the phrase “struck incredible luck” in the system announcement meant Jack was just some lucky nobody who had gotten a dogshit luck drop when his progress bar was still under ten percent.
“Don’t panic. He’s not far from us. We’ll go find him now.” Mark immediately issued the order.
A few minutes later, the four of them locked onto Jack’s figure in a stretch of rocky terrain.
Mark sized up the young man in front of him. Jack was wearing the cheapest burlap clothes and holding a crumbling training shortbow, with a faint Level 3 identifier floating above his head. This shabby getup was completely that of a bottom-tier commoner without any backing.
“Hey, friend.” Mark stepped forward, his tone laced with a hint of unquestionable condescension. “We saw the zone announcement. You got that Elite Entry Ticket, right?”
Jack halted, his fingers tightening slightly on his wooden bow, watching the four Pros wearing identical guild emblems warily. “Is there a problem?” Jack asked calmly.
Robin impatiently pushed his way out from behind Mark. “That entry ticket is just a piece of waste paper to you. You’re only Level 3, and you don’t even have a single decent piece of armor. That ticket is restricted to use in this zone. The moment you crush it, you’ll be pulled into an isolated sealed space. In there, you can’t run away. The only way out is to defeat the Elite.”
Robin paused, trying to see a look of fear on Jack’s face, then continued: “A Level 4 Elite’s stats are terrifyingly high. One touch and your pathetic health bar will be wiped out instantly. Use it, and you’ll only have a dead end.”
Jack narrowed his eyes slightly. Robin’s words had indeed hit the mark. The risk of soloing an Elite was extremely high. In this real world without a respawn mechanic, challenges in sealed spaces like this were usually only attempted by rich kids with high-rank talents, wearing a full set of top-tier gear. Judging by common sense alone, a Level 3 blank-slate Archer going in would be no different from walking to his death.
Jack had briefly weighed whether to use the entry ticket right away. After all, once inside that isolated space, if anything unexpected happened, there would be no way out. But before he could speak, Mark followed up with his offer.
“Sell it to us.” Mark held up five fingers, striking a magnanimous pose. “We’ll give you 5 silver coins. Trade the entry ticket to us. With that money, you can go back to the city store and buy yourself a slightly better iron bow. To a commoner like you, this is definitely a fortune. Hand the item over to us, better than throwing your life away inside.”
5 silver coins? Hearing this number, Jack only felt it was laughable. In this world’s currency system, 1 gold coin equaled 100 silver coins. The cheapest consumable arrows, a bundle of 100, cost 2 silver coins. The price Mark offered was just enough to buy two and a half bundles of novice arrows.
And at the Pro’s Guild auction house, even the most basic skill book was priced at dozens of gold coins at minimum. This Elite Entry Ticket that could potentially drop a bound skill book had a true value that was shockingly high.
These people in front of him were completely treating him like an ignorant bumpkin. There was no room for negotiation in their attitude, and their eyes were full of arrogance. They assumed Jack couldn’t use this ticket for anything and would only die if he challenged it, so they offered 5 silver coins, even feeling they were mercifully helping Jack cut his losses.
“No need.” Jack’s tone was flat, leaving no room for negotiation. “I don’t plan to sell this.”
Mark’s expression instantly darkened. The Rogue behind him even put his hand on the dagger at his waist. But in the newbie zone on the outskirts of Prospect City, the system had an extremely strict protection mechanism. If a guild player maliciously attacked a guildless commoner newbie, they would suffer a red-name penalty lasting several months, during which they couldn’t even enter the city gates.
“You’ll regret this, kid.” Mark gritted his teeth and warned in a low voice, “You have no idea how terrifying a Level 4 Elite really is. When you die in that space, this entry ticket will have been completely wasted!”
Jack completely ignored the threat. He turned around and strode away from the rocky area.
After walking a few hundred meters, Jack confirmed there were no other Pros in the vicinity. He found a secluded corner surrounded by several large boulders and took out the dark red card from his backpack.
An Elite not only meant generous loot drops, but more importantly, as long as he killed it, it would trigger the special bonus effect of “Infinite Plunder.” According to this SSS-Rank talent’s mechanics, killing one Elite was equivalent to killing 10 normal mobs of the same level, directly providing him with 10 points of permanent Attack Power bonus. This was the real temptation that Jack could not refuse.
Without any hesitation, he forcefully crushed the entry ticket in his hand.
The card instantly transformed into a mass of red light, enveloping Jack entirely. The wild landscape before him began to twist violently. In the next second, Jack felt his feet land on a hard stone floor. He had been pulled into an independent Pocket Dimension.
There were invisible air walls all around, and the entire arena was a few hundred square meters. There were no obstacles to hide behind, the terrain was completely open.
Right in the center of the arena, a colossal beast was slowly rising to its feet.
It was a mutated Ironhide Giant Lizard Chieftain. Its scales were a dark, blood-crimson, and its back was covered with sharp bone spikes. A pair of dark yellow vertical pupils fixated dead on Jack, who had just barged in.
Jack raised his head and looked at the top of his vision. Suspended there was the detailed panel of this Elite monster.
[Bloodthirst Giant Lizard Chieftain (Elite)] [Level: 4] [Health: 350/350] [Attack Power: 70-85]
Seeing this data, an ordinary newbie Pro would absolutely feel despair.
A Level 4 mob with a maximum Attack Power of 85 points was practically a ruthless killing machine. Jack had just reached Level 3, and his current maximum HP was only 55 points. He had no defensive skills whatsoever, and no armor equipped. Inside this sealed space of several hundred square meters, as long as this Giant Lizard Chieftain got close and so much as grazed him, that 70-plus damage would punch straight through his health bar and kill him on the spot. There was no room for maneuvering. This was the lethal danger behind the high reward.
But there was not a trace of panic in Jack’s eyes.
He gripped his worn training shortbow tightly, feeling the surging power within his body.
350 health sounded very thick. But to the current Jack, it was not an insurmountable wall. He had just been slaughtering Level 4 mobs crazily outside, continuously plundering with his talent, and his current panel physical Attack Power had already stacked up to over 80 points.
This meant that within this several hundred square meter space, he had plenty of room to kite. He only needed to create distance and steadily fire five arrows to turn this Elite monster, which countless newbies feared, into a corpse that delivered experience.
The Giant Lizard Chieftain let out a deafening roar. Its thick limbs suddenly exerted force, and like an out-of-control heavy chariot, it charged at Jack with a gust of bloody wind. Jack calmly pulled a wooden arrow from his back quiver, steadily nocked it onto the bowstring, and began to rhythmically step backwards.