Godly Hunter

Chapter 23 – Mutation Conditions

Slime Plains.

On the seemingly never-ending Slime Plains were Slimes of various colours from Levels 8 to 10, each colour with their own special characteristics.

When a Green Slime is attacked, it will produce Green Poison Slime. Close-range attackers stay away from it since fighting it resulted in both parties getting injured.

White Slimes have long HP bars. Black Slimes have very little, but their defence is extremely high – Level 10 players only deal 3 DMG to it no matter how hard they hit it. Red Slimes self-destruct when they are about to die and Lime Slimes will emit a strange sound-wave attack which traps the target in a short period of chaos.

In comparison to the other monsters around the beginner village, the shiny, adorable Slimes were more difficult to deal with. If the beginner village hunting grounds were not so crowded, nobody would have been willing to mess with them.

Chen Mo arrived at the Slime Plains but did not go towards the Slime King right away. Its location was no secret so he did not have to look for it.

Before going to the Slime King, Chen Mo was going to kill 50 Green Slimes first.

At Level 8, hunter players receive a quest in Ayr Town to kill 50 Green Slimes on the Slime Plains. After completing the quest, players will get a “Lesser Poison Crossbow” skill book.

After activating the skill, players will have additional poison damage. The low-level skill deals 3 additional poison damage and the effect stacks 5 times at maximum. If one can keep it stacked constantly, every attack would deal an additional 15 DMG, which is quite good.

“Chopper Group! We have a priest! Looking for long-range players or seasoned close-range players!”

“3 skilled priests! Looking for heavy-hitters with at least 3 pieces of equipment!”

Players basically form parties on the Slime Plains and have no equipment. It was too difficult to kill Slimes one-on-one. It took too much time to kill a Slime and if you sit down to rest and recover HP, you could get killed by a monster if you’re unlucky.

Priests with healing or effect-cancelling skills were most welcome on the Slime Plains. Long-range players were also welcome but close-range players, because of Green and Red Slimes, have difficulty finding a party. Most close-range players join the all close-range Chopper Group. They were slower but it was not dangerous.

“Hey there, hunter buddy! Want to join our party? We have 5 out of 6 slots filled and a priest!” Seeing Chen Mo approach, a fighter went up to ask.

Monster killing quests for hunter players were quite tough in the beginning stages so a lot of people did not choose to be hunters in order to level up faster. Hence, there were not many hunter players.

However, on the Slime Plains, the hunter class was very welcome.

At close-range, the hunter can set traps to slow down the monsters. Crossbows were not terribly long-ranged but with the poison effect mid-range crossbow attacks were quite effective, especially against the high-defence Black Slime. The only thing that could deal more than 3 DMG to it was the Lesser Poison Crossbow skill. A hunter’s normal attack, plus poison damage after stacking 5 times can deal at least 7 DMG to the Black Slime. One hunter, therefore, can deal the damage of 2 to 3 people.

The Black Slime is quite commonly encountered on the Slime Plains so the hunter players, naturally, are hot favourites on the Slime Plains.

“No thanks, I’m already Level 10. I’m just here to take a look around.” Chen Mo shook his head.

“I see.” The fighter turned away, disappointed.

There were too many players on the outskirts. Chen Mo decided to walk somewhere further in.

50 Green Slimes were not a lot but waiting for them to respawn would take some time, especially when there were so many people about.

Chen Mo decided to kill as he went. He estimated that he would kill roughly 50 by the time he found the Slime King.

Ten minutes later, Chen Mo found the huge jade-coloured Slime King.

Though many players had been curious about the Slime King, the novelty soon wore off and few came to throw themselves at it now. Rather than spending 10 minutes searching for the Slime King to off themselves, they let the regular Slimes kill them to get back to town.

The Slime King was on some soft grass, hopping occasionally and checking its surroundings lazily.

Chen Mo had some luck on his way over and already killed 50 Green Slimes. He could afford to experiment a little without worrying about dying.

It was not like he knew nothing about the Slime King. People have killed it before and the forums had a fair bit of information about it.

In general, the Slime King had high defence and strong attack. The current players can only deal a little damage to it and because they don’t have any defensive equipment, they get insta-killed when attacked by the Slime King. Not many came to make an attempt on its life due to this.

It wasn’t actually difficult to kill the Slime King. Simply use a human wave of hundreds or thousands to hit it willy-nilly and kill it.

However, there were too many beginner villages and the guilds have not enough clout to gather hundreds or thousands of players. The only way was to borrow the Richie-Rich Club’s tactics and use money to clobber the BOSS to death.

Unfortunately since the Richie-Rich Club already did it the resulting impact would be much lower and the benefit from doing so was outweighed by the cost.

Chen Mo observed the Slime King’s movements from afar. He was in no hurry. The Slime King’s speed was not very high but without his Degenerate title equipped he would not be able to escape if it chased him.

He spent half an hour hiding and observing. Some players came and sacrificed themselves to the Slime King. For every player that approached, Slime King roared and promptly jumped, flattening the offending one.

“Leap attack, quake attack. Hmm, simple attacks like the forums said.” Chen Mo had observed enough.

There were no other players around. Chen Mo leapt towards the Slime King in a whoosh.

“Roar!”

Seeing yet another challenger, the Slime King immediately hopped towards Chen Mo.

Chen Mo took out a stone and drew a trap as me moved.

It drew close in a bound. In a few more hops it would catch up and make mincemeat out of Chen Mo.

The Slime King was getting nearer. Chen Mo was not flustered at all. He flung the trap at the Slime King.

BOOM!

The Slime King was pushed back over 1m!

“Good! It jumps just over a metre high. The Quake Trap effect was weakened but it can still be pushed back!”

“The problem is its speed. Even with Goblin Shoes and the Degenerate title I am slower than it. When I get back I’ll need to find a way to buy some shoes that add 2 points to speed.”

He had already unequipped the Degenerate title before going back to Ayr Town, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to enter town.

His first-hand experience was telling him that even with the Degenerate title he was still slower than the Slime King.

The Slime King soon caught up with Chen Mo and viciously smashed him to the ground.

A huge damage number flashed and Chen Mo died.

“The speed shoes can wait. The most important thing now is to find out how the Slime King mutates.”

After reviving in Ayr town, Chen Mo pondered.

What were the conditions that triggered the mutation?

Killing a certain number of players?

Nope. If that was it then every beginner village’s Slime King would have about the same number of player kills. According to that statistic, it was impossible for just two Slime Kings to mutate.

So the Slime King mutation must be triggered by an item that’s either used on the player or on the Slime King itself!