Chapter 20: Flashing Golden Light

  That afternoon, Zhou Jian didn't return to Huadu either. He made a phone call to inform Xiao Yin and Lu'er, and he directly stayed in Pengcheng. First, he went to apply for a visa to go to Hong Kong Island.

  In the last century, to travel to Hong Kong for tourism, you had to go through many formalities to apply for a visa. However, after that disaster, if you were a university student, you only needed your student ID and ID card to apply for a visa, but you had to pay a handling fee of 100 yuan.

  Zhou Jian had his ID and student card with him, so he was able to complete the formalities that afternoon. At 5 o'clock in the evening, Zhou Jian returned to the hotel, put on his gaming headset, and agreed to help Susan clear the new instance tonight. Susan originally offered to give him 50,000 gold coins as a reward, but Zhou Jian declined. His only request was to kill all the way through the new instance and gain as much experience as possible. Susan readily agreed, after all, that experience was just as valuable to them.

  "Hehe, Mr. Dark Sword, you're finally online! I thought you were going to stand me up again since you didn't show up all afternoon." - Susan's message

  Zhou Jian smiled and said: "How could it be? Last time was just an accident. Where are you guys now?"

  "In Nüwa City, I didn't even dare to inform them to gather, otherwise everyone would have gathered and you wouldn't be there, that would be too embarrassing for me."

  "Miss Su can rest assured, notify them to gather, I'll be there right away."

  Susan's guild is called Gusu World Family, the third-ranked guild in Nüwa City. Although it is slightly weaker than the Tianzun Guild, it can still easily form a 14-man full-purple team.

  After Zhou Jian arrived at Nüwa City, the deputy team of Gusu Family soon gathered, with levels all between 33 and 35. What was unexpected for Zhou Jian was that the captain of the Gusu team turned out to be Susu. He had thought that girls playing games would not be too sharp, but looking at Susu's equipment, he had to negate his previous view.

  Susan, a 35-level female warrior, had almost a full set of legendary warrior equipment on her body, just missing a pair of rings and a necklace to complete it. The ring Susan wore wasn't bad either - one was the Soul Ring awarded by the system when she reached level 20 in the top 100 district ranking, while the other was a task item obtained from completing high-level tasks. As for Susan's necklace, although it was just an ordinary purple equipment, it was a 40-level gear that she couldn't equip due to her low level, so she embedded a Carnelian gemstone that lowered the requirement, which fit perfectly.

  This agate is worth a lot of money, Zhou Jian secretly sighed that there are really many rich people in this world.

  Apart from Susan, the team also has a shield warrior, four mages, five pastors, a thief, a hunter and an archer.

  Their equipment is very good, at least a full set of purple suits, and there are usually several pieces of orange legendary equipment on their bodies.

  Zhou Jian was very satisfied. The strength of this small team was not much different from that of the Tianzun team, and there were many mages. Mages were the fastest to level up after all.

  Susan introduced Zhou Jian to everyone, and as for Zhou Jian's great name, no one in the room was unaware of it. So although these rich sons still looked down on Zhou Jian, thinking he was just a lucky dog who had walked into good fortune, at least on the surface, they wouldn't show any contempt for him.

  Zhou Jian didn't waste any more words on these people who didn't want to have much to do with him at heart, and the team set off directly, targeting the Devil's Nest.

  Among the fifteen members of the team, most were entering the Devil's Nest for the first time. Seeing the ominous and terrifying entrance to the cave, hearing the eerie wind sounds coming from inside, most of them felt excitement rather than fear.

  After entering the cave, a pack of hellish gatekeeper dogs rushed towards everyone. These hellish gatekeeper dogs had low blood but high attack power and were worth a lot of experience points, making them ideal monsters for leveling up. Last time Zhou Jian followed Tian Zun's team, in order to save time, whenever they encountered such a group of monsters, the thieves would take care of luring them away, then the main force would pass through, after which the thieves would use stealth to shake off the monsters and rejoin the team. This way of rushing forward naturally wasted a lot of experience, leaving Zhou Jian drooling with envy.

  "Stack shields on top, mages group attack." Susan gave the command, this was usually how they leveled up in groups.

  Four mages calmly chanted their spells, and for a moment, shooting stars and fire rain combined with the blizzard to smash into the monster group. In "Gods and Demons", mages are divided into three systems: ice, thunder, and fire. Players have no right to choose, but rather the system determines it based on the player's comprehensive quality when registering an account. Fire and ice mages are the most common, while thunder mages are extremely rare.

  In the squad, there were only ice and fire mages. That group of hellhounds was struggling to survive in this icy and fiery double heaven, and they all died in no time.

  Zhou Jian didn't need to do anything, just eating snacks while watching his experience bar rising rapidly, what a thrill.

  In order to upgrade by killing all the way, this time the Suzhou team brought enough supplies. Guangbei, a heavy shield warrior known for his physical strength, was carrying an ultra-heavy load of medicine, and everyone else was carrying as much as they could, with their bags full.

  More than thirty hellhounds, only bursting with scattered gold coins and a few pieces of small equipment, even Zhou Jian was too lazy to pick them up, those rich young masters didn't even bother to look, the team continued to move forward.

  Soon they had a new target, a group of Hell Wyrmkin, and among them was a two-headed Hell Wyrmkin mini-boss.

  This time, no need for Susan to command, a group of people started taking action. The level of the Hellish Viper was slightly higher than that of the Hell Gatekeeper, but under everyone's crazy bombing, it didn't last long and all fell down. Only their leader, the Double-headed Hellish Viper, persisted for a little while longer, ultimately also perishing in the endless flames and ice.

  The two-headed hell snake burst out some decent potions and a bit of barely passable equipment, Zhou Jian picked up his share, while the others, still excited from their first boss kill in the new instance, rummaged through the hell snake's loot, saw that there was nothing valuable, and lost interest.

  The crowd continued to advance, killing all the way like a clearing husband, leaving no chicken or dog behind. Zhou Jian's experience bar rose rapidly, like blooming sesame flowers, and he reached level 21 in just over an hour.

  At this time, everyone finally passed the first layer and entered the second layer. The monsters in the second layer were much fewer, but each one's experience was comparable to that of a small boss in the first layer. Of course, it was also more difficult to kill them, with high attack power and thick blood. In order to ensure safety, the thieves took turns luring the monsters, bringing three or four at a time to be killed. At this point, the large-scale magic of the mages seemed to have a somewhat low cost-effectiveness, while the hunter's traps were just right for use.

  The cloth is a good trap, and the thief lures the monster in. After the trap is triggered, the monster becomes a sheep to be slaughtered.

  Zhou Jian occasionally threw a few spiritual piercings, not to help them kill monsters, but simply to practice his skills, because the 0-level spiritual piercing needed to be used 1000 times before it could be upgraded.

  Half an hour later, the crowd entered the Devil's Palace. As soon as they entered the Devil's Palace, everyone immediately heard that heavy "Boom! Boom!", each sound seemed to be pounding on people's nerves like a heavy hammer.

  "What's that noise?" Susan frowned.

  "The heartbeat of the demon king." Zhou Jian replied.

  "The Demon King's heart? Is that what you want to seal?"

  "Uh-huh, the boss of this copy is a servant of the Demon King. His power comes from the Demon King's heart. In a moment, you guys hold off the boss while I go seal the heart. This guy should be here soon."

  As if to verify Zhou Jian's words, the ground suddenly shook violently, and magma spewed out of the cracks in the rocks. A monster over five meters tall, like a giant tank, charged towards the crowd.

  The heavy shield warrior in the team didn't say a word and directly charged forward with his heavy shield.

  "Bang!"

  The boss's hard skull crashed heavily on the heavy shield of the tower shield warrior, and that warrior had never experienced such a fierce impact, his hind legs directly sank into the rock crevice.

  The mages behind the heavily armed warrior hastily gave him various buffs, and the heavily armed warrior barely held on.

  "Hold on for ten minutes, I'll take care of the rest." Zhou Jian said, and a stealthy figure rushed past the boss's side.

  In the grand temple of the demon, a red fog filled the air, but this could not hinder Zhou Jian, who possessed the scouting skill. Relying on his thief's intuition, Zhou Jian easily found the altar.

  It was just like last time, the place was swarming with monsters. Zhou Jian proceeded cautiously while enduring the choking red mist and the increasingly intense heartbeat sounds.

  This taste is really unbearable, even Zhou Jian, who has already tasted it once, gritted his teeth and persisted, treading carefully through the gaps between the monsters. Zhou Jian didn't dare to breathe heavily, and just as he saw the altar in front of him, he inadvertently caught a glimpse of something shining with golden light in the red mist, about ten or so meters away, vague and indistinct. What was it?

  At this time, Zhou Jian was surrounded by monsters, with all sorts of sharp claws and fangs everywhere. Even though he was in stealth mode now, it was still very dangerous if he stayed for too long. Who knows when one of the monsters would suddenly stretch its limbs or something, and Zhou Jian might end up missing an arm or a leg.

  So reason told Zhou Jian to hurry through this dangerous area as soon as possible, but he couldn't help being curious and wanted to squeeze through the twenty-meter distance to take a look. Zhou Jian was a person who liked excitement and taking risks, otherwise he wouldn't have sold the system's reward soul ring and used the most precious leveling time of the first three months after opening the district to do tasks.

  In Zhou Jian's words, anyway, I originally had nothing to lose. If I lost the gamble and was beaten back to my original shape, I wouldn't have lost anything. But if I won the gamble, I could rise to great heights. Either don't do it, or do it with a bang.

  Zhou Jian first used a scouting skill (stealth state cannot replenish potions, cannot use combat skills, but can use basic skills and auxiliary skills, such as unlocking, scouting). The golden light was neither a trap nor a monster. After confirming this point, he took a deep breath and began to approach the golden light.