Vampire Princess Guide in Progress - Volume 1 Chapter 20

Chapter 20: Beginning the Strategy for the Second Floor

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After that, three days quickly passed.

Nolan and Cross’s two-person team rapidly increased their combat power. While leveling up, they also took on several key side quests. During these quests, Cross unexpectedly received a green quality magic staff as a reward, which immediately amplified her magic bullet’s power.

During this time, Cross also noticed that Nolan’s fighting style seemed to have changed somewhat.

Perhaps because he was already at ease on the first floor, she saw that Nolan no longer fought solely with a “one-handed sword,” but was trying almost every type of weapon, apparently trying to improve some kind of proficiency level — a point Cross didn’t quite understand.

There were many weapon types in the game, including common ones like “sword,” “spear,” “axe,” “staff,” “book,” “bow,” “shield,” and even specialized skill systems for “dagger,” “whip,” “fan,” and “chain hammer.”

However, players typically chose only one of these as their weapon and continuously deepened their mastery of it.

After making thorough preparations, Nolan and Cross began advancing to the second floor, where they coincidentally met Kilo and Karl, who also wanted to go to the second floor, the burly warrior and the swordsman who had lost his close friend.

After that, they indeed formed a small team.

Considering the unknown dangers of the second floor, Kilo proactively proposed the idea of team collaboration, merging the two small teams into one to explore the second floor area together. A team of four people would undoubtedly greatly enhance their combat power.

Nolan agreed to this proposal, thus beginning their strategy for the second floor.

On the map of the second floor, it was no longer the original endless flat grassland terrain, but instead had numerous forests scattered throughout. In the forest environment with its complete ecosystem, enemy types suddenly became much more diverse, with poisonous snakes, giant bees, and man-eating flowers visible everywhere.

Moreover, these monsters no longer appeared solely as individuals but were typically accompanied by 2-3 others.

As the difficulty increased, the experience values and equipment drop rates also increased accordingly. More notably, because fewer people had reached the second floor, resource competition wasn’t as intense, so there wouldn’t temporarily be situations where monsters were cleared out before they could get to them.

“Kilo! Watch your damage intake! It’s the last round, we have a chance!”

“Alright, I’m getting ready! Come on!” Kilo clenched his fists together and gripped his iron axe vigilantly. When the Lv.10 elite monster 「Giant Man-Eating Flower」 in front of him violently slammed its head toward the ground, he immediately charged forward!

With a loud metallic clash, he swung his heavy axe with all his might, blocking the Giant Man-Eating Flower’s attack, and seized the perfect moment to trigger the parry and counter mechanism, stunning the Giant Man-Eating Flower.

“Well done. Karl, now’s the time, cut off its vines!”

“Yes!” Karl, holding his longsword, split up with Nolan as they both ran swiftly with lowered heads toward either side of the Giant Man-Eating Flower. After several flashes of blade and sword, they cut all of its tentacle-like vines to the ground.

“Cross, aim for its head, that’s its weak point. Only ranged weapons can hit it, it’s up to you!”

“Mm!” Cross had already prepared herself, gripping her magic staff with both hands as magical light emanated from her entire body. She infused the elements into the top of her staff, then fired a beautiful 【Triple Magic Bullet】 directly hitting the Giant Man-Eating Flower’s weak point.

“Hiss——!!!” The Giant Man-Eating Flower immediately let out a rustling hissing sound.

Due to the recoil from firing consecutive magic bullets, Cross couldn’t help but take two steps back, but having already gained basic insight into magical combat, she elegantly spun in place while perfectly neutralizing the recoil force, and lightly jumped twice.

She raised her head to look at the HP value beside the Giant Man-Eating Flower, while also shifting her gaze to Nolan who had already begun his run-up.

“Go for it! Nolan! It looks like we can make it this time! We can finish it before it uses that move!”

“Leave it to me, haaaah——!”

After the elite monster’s three HP bars were reduced to just the red bar, Nolan quickly ran up along its thick stem, his sword emitting a blue glow. After completing his charge, he leaped into the air.

— Fall down!

Nolan made an extra rotation in mid-air, completing the second-stage charge with a ding sound, and with a powerful shout, he slashed downward, using 【Gravity Slash】!

Although the Giant Man-Eating Flower still had half of its third HP bar left, Nolan’s strike directly emptied it. Its massive form froze in the air, then was covered by unstable frequencies, and with a bang, it transformed into crystal fragments.

【Congratulations to your team for obtaining: the first kill of the elite monster “Giant Man-Eating Flower”】

【Player Nolan gained experience: 4,000 Exp】

【Player Cross gained experience: 3,000 Exp】

【Player Kilo gained experience: 3,000 Exp】

【Player Karl gained experience: 3,000 Exp】

【Obtained items: Writhing Vines x7, Decaying Stems x4, Intermediate Healing Potion x2, Lucky Coin x1, Wind Walker Boots (Green) x1, Swift Wind Sword (Blue) x1, Basic Enhancement Stone x10, Star Coin x2,500】

【First Kill Reward: Emerald Necklace (Green) x1, Moonlight Essence x3 (Green Forging Material), Sunlight Essence x1 (Blue Forging Material), Basic Healing Potion x20, Intermediate Healing Potion x5】

The moment the elite monster Giant Man-Eating Flower was defeated, the battle victory results appeared in front of all team members.

Because the enemies on the second floor had significantly increased in strength, the rewards also immediately improved, much more abundant compared to the elite monsters on the first floor, to the extent that the number of items in the inventory increased by several rows.

“Oooooh——!!!” Kilo clenched his fist and let out a victorious cheer.

Nolan, who had landed on the ground from the air, was breathing heavily and stuck his sword into the ground.

Seeing that the enemy had been defeated, he also sighed in relief, stood up and returned to the team. Kilo and Karl both patted him on the shoulder, while Cross happily ran up and lightly jumped to high-five him.

It would have been troublesome if the Giant Man-Eating Flower had released its poisonous spores move, fortunately their DPS (damage per second) was high enough.

“Nolan! How did you do that move just now! Can Gravity Slash actually have a second-stage charge!?” Karl, who had admiringly witnessed Nolan’s extraordinary swordsmanship and damage, couldn’t help but ask immediately.

“Yes, the prerequisite for the second-stage charge is to be in an airborne state after completing the first-stage charge, then you need to perform a full-body rotation to complete it.”

“So after jumping into the air, you need to do another rotation to deepen the power?” Karl grasped it quickly, but looking at the sword in his hand, he wasn’t sure if he could perform the same action.

This kind of gymnast-like movement sounded difficult to execute.

“Swordsman gentlemen, though I hate to interrupt your sword technique discussion, come see what this is. The elite monster seems to have dropped something incredible.” Kilo, looking at the battle results from earlier, discovered something among them that gleamed with a blue light.

That’s right, blue quality.

This was the first time in all these days that they had seen blue quality equipment, and it was even the most difficult to drop — a weapon.

【Swift Wind Sword (Blue)】

【Physical Attack +100, Agility +40, Critical Rate +10%】

【Special Effect: Each attack has a chance to trigger the 「Wind Walker」 BUFF, increasing Agility by 15%, lasting 3 seconds, stackable up to 2 layers】