The scenery before their eyes shifted.
They appeared in a dimly lit place.
Torches lined the surrounding walls.
An NPC stood by the edge of the wall.
That was where they could replenish potions and similar items.
However, the price was more than double that of NPCs outside.
Compared to player shops, it was even more expensive.
Few people would replenish resources here.
Unless they were truly out of supplies and the dungeon hadn't been cleared, no one would spend this unnecessary money.
As they entered the dungeon, aggressive background music began to play.
Chu Tian frowned slightly at the music and casually turned it off.
"Prepare for battle! Same old rules..."
The captain uttered a sentence.
He replaced the full statement with "same old rules."
This proved he hadn't assigned any tasks to Chu Tian.
Besides Chu Tian, there were five other people in their team.
They were a shield warrior, a priest.
A mage, a sharpshooter, and a rogue.
The captain was the sharpshooter.
As soon as he finished speaking, the shield warrior adopted a defensive stance.
This fellow hadn't been carrying a shield before.
At this moment, he finally took out his shield.
A door-sized shield was planted in front of him.
It was a tower shield.
Wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, with a sharp edge at the base.
He directly stuck the shield into the ground.
He then positioned himself behind it.
The spot he was blocking was the only exit from the safe zone.
Beyond it lay a bridge.
A very narrow bridge, and his tower shield covered more than two-thirds of it.
He also positioned himself slightly to one side.
Only the left side of the tower shield had a small opening.
The rogue then directly went into stealth and stood beside the shield warrior behind the tower shield, facing the opening.
Chu Tian observed from the outside.
He nodded.
The formation and positioning of these individuals were quite appropriate.
The trial ground appeared, and monsters launched wave after wave of attacks.
The first wave of monsters appeared, advancing across this bridge.
Their current positioning was perfect.
The mage, priest, and sharpshooter stood at the ranged positions.
Soon, a deafening roar echoed from ahead.
The large gate on the opposite side of the bridge opened.
Countless monsters poured out furiously.
They were all skeleton soldiers.
They advanced onto the bridge in four neat rows.
As they walked, the sound of bones rubbing against each other could be heard.
Creak, creak.
It was a grating sound.
It also evoked a sense of fear.
Kacha, kacha, kacha...
The skeleton soldiers marched extremely quickly.
However, they were restricted by the narrow bridge.
They could only advance in formation.
Boom...
Finally, a dull thud occurred.
Three of the rows collided with the shield warrior's obstruction.
That shield warrior was also a powerful fellow.
The muscles in his arms bulged.
The tower shield trembled slightly and then remained steady.
Only the leftmost row of skeleton soldiers encountered no obstruction.
But as one of the skeletons reached the same level as the tower shield.
The stealthy rogue made his move.
With a sweep of his arm.
Something like dust was thrown out.
"Blind..."
Chu Tian nodded, recognizing the rogue's perfectly timed action.
As the blind skill was used, the first skeleton in the left row began to spin in place.
But it did not continue moving forward.
The skeletons behind it were blocked by it.
The duration of blind was sixty seconds.
The cooldown was also sixty seconds.
Monsters or players affected by blind would only have the effect removed when the time elapsed or if they received even the slightest bit of damage.
The rogue used the blind skill to create a choke point.
While the entire skeleton horde was being held back.
The mage and sharpshooter at the ranged positions simultaneously began casting their spells.
The sharpshooter's volley of cannonballs and the mage's firestorms were all directed at the rear of the skeleton ranks.
The controlled skeleton would not receive any damage.
The skeletons in the rear, unable to advance and lacking ranged attacks, could only stand there and be attacked.
As wave after wave of skills were unleashed, the mage grew somewhat confused.
"What's going on? My mana has dropped by a third, and this wave of monsters isn't dead yet?"
At this moment, the skeletons covered by the sharpshooter and mage's area-of-effect skills had less than a fifth of their health remaining.
"Hmm?" After the mage spoke, Chen Shengsou, the captain, also noticed something was wrong.
The rogue also spoke.
"I've already thrown my sixth blind."
His blind skill had a one-minute cooldown, meaning six minutes had passed.
Under normal circumstances, a section of monsters should have been killed within four minutes.
Then they would proceed to the next wave of attacks.
Until all the monsters on the bridge were cleared, the mage should only need one mana recovery.
The sharpshooter class didn't have mana, but rather recovered energy points like a rogue.
Therefore, the sharpshooter, despite being the captain, wasn't the first to notice.
The mage, as one of the magic users, was extremely sensitive to his mana.
A mage with mana was a terrifying existence.
They could be called mobile artillery.
Thus, mana was their lifeblood.
A mage without mana was like a cripple who had lost their wheelchair.
"Has the monsters' health increased? Was it secretly changed? The system didn't announce any updates, right?"
These individuals were filled with doubt and uncertainty.
The priest's mana had also decreased by a fifth.
He was primarily responsible for healing the shield warrior.
Although the damage taken by the warrior when tanking those monsters was minimal,
The shield warrior's shield block chance wasn't 100%.
There were always some attacks that bypassed the shield, causing the shield warrior to suffer some knockback damage.
"The damage these monsters are dealing to me is wrong!"
Even the shield warrior spoke up at this moment.
"Before, when we played on normal difficulty, the occasional knockback damage was less than a hundred, but now, each hit deals one hundred and twelve, or even... the frequency of knockback damage is also higher than before!"
Upon hearing this, everyone finally realized.
There was indeed a problem.
Chu Tian had remained silent.
However, the sharpshooter's attack paused slightly.
Seeing the captain's action, Chu Tian knew he couldn't keep it a secret any longer.
As the captain turned around, he used the detect skill.
Everyone had the detect skill.
And it was the most commonly used one.
By this point.
Everyone's detect skill should be at Expert level, right?
Expert level detect skill could view monster attributes up to level 30.
When the captain used the detect skill.
His gaze flickered.
He already understood what was happening.
The levels of these few individuals were around ninety-seven or ninety-eight.
Therefore, the monster levels should not exceed 98.
Moreover, they believed that bringing Chu Tian, a player of much lower level,
Would reduce the monster levels by about five.
However.
The data he obtained was... Skeleton Soldier Level: 101.
With no changes to the team members.
An increase in monster level within this elastic dungeon.
There was only one possibility: someone in their team was of a significantly higher level.
This had pulled up the team's overall level, resulting in monsters spawning at a higher level than theirs.
And the only person here they were unfamiliar with was Chu Tian.
Thus, at this moment, the captain's gaze locked directly onto Chu Tian.
"Brother, you..."
The words that came out of his mouth became strange.
His tone of voice was slightly off. They had initially thought Chu Tian was a noob of a low level.
But now...
They themselves were the fools!
And they were also speechless towards Chu Tian.
You have such a high level, yet you're wearing such trashy gear. Are you trying to play the pig to eat the tiger?
"Don't look at me like that... I'm genuinely in trashy gear!"
Chu Tian understood the meaning behind their gazes.
He shrugged, wearing a wry smile.
"Buddy, what level are you?" The rogue then threw out another blind skill.
He retreated and asked Chu Tian.
The rogue was the least busy person on the field. He only needed to throw out a blind skill every minute to maintain the monster choke point.
Preventing the monsters behind from breaking through.
Chu Tian's expression was slightly peculiar.
"Level one hundred and twenty-four!"
As soon as Chu Tian finished speaking.
With a clatter...
The shield warrior was knocked back by an attack.
The situation immediately descended into chaos.
The three rows of skeletons that were originally blocked by him, due to his step back, left an opening.
In an instant, the skeletons swarmed forward.
The shield warrior tried to reposition his shield to block their path again.
But it was too late.
However, the shield warrior was also an experienced player.
After all, the game had been officially running for two full years.
As a veteran class among shield warriors, anyone who had persisted until now.
Certainly had their own set of skills.
He hurriedly brought his shield horizontally.
The tower shield, which was originally vertical, was now horizontal, its length exceeding the width of the bridge.
However, by positioning his shield this way.
He blocked the path of four rows of skeletons.
Although the skeletons behind were stopped, about ten skeleton soldiers had already pushed through.
Besides this shield warrior, there was only one other person who could engage in melee before the attack.
The skeleton soldiers wielded long swords and moved very quickly.
The rogue also reacted, launching a sap skill at one of the skeletons.
Instantly controlling one.
Then, he unleashed a combo of stuns.
Control skills have a diminishing effect in player versus player combat.
However, there is no such diminishing effect against monsters.
Therefore, for skilled rogues, when killing normal monsters, as long as their technique isn't completely terrible.
They can achieve infinite stun kills.
The drawback is that a lot of energy points have to be used to put monsters into a stunned state.
This leads to fewer finishing moves and attack skills.
This slows down monster-killing speed.
But it is very safe.
For bosses, almost all control skills are ineffective.
Boss-level monsters do not succumb to crowd control.
While the rogue was handling one by himself.
The sharpshooter captain then launched an area-of-effect skill.
Instantly drawing the aggro of several monsters.
He then began kiting and maneuvering.
The mage also instantly cast a blizzard.
A crowd-controlling slow spell accompanied by damage.
It also drew away several monsters.
He was a fire mage, and although he knew a few frost spells, they weren't suitable for this kiting style of combat.
He was best suited for having someone tank in front while he acted as a turret, outputting damage.
Therefore, while he drew away a few monsters, it was a strategic move.
On the field, only the priest and Chu Tian remained.
And five skeleton soldiers who had not been aggroed by anyone.
However, they charged towards the priest in unison.
The reason was that the priest had been continuously healing the warrior.
Resulting in him having some aggro.
Priests, being healing classes, rarely faced monsters head-on.
Faced with five skeleton soldiers all at once, he immediately panicked.
And this priest was a girl.
She lacked the skills of a seasoned player.
The others frantically told her to run, as they were unable to disengage and provide assistance.
But as a priest, their movement speed was inherently the slowest.
How could she outrun the fast-moving skeleton soldiers?
However, at this moment, a flash of pure white.
Accompanied by a charging sound effect.
Swish...
It directly collided with the five skeleton soldiers.