Doomsday Lord

Cheng Yang put the ring on his finger and used his consciousness to probe it. Suddenly, he felt an independent space open up inside the ring. It was rather small, so it couldn’t fit bulky items, but it was suitable for storing potions.

Since Space Rings didn’t provide any Attribute bonuses, it wasn’t considered equipment. As such, it wouldn’t take up one of Cheng Yang’s ring equipment slots.

Seeing Cheng Yang put on the ring and prepare to leave, the Grocery manager couldn’t help but say: “My Lord, are you sure you don’t need anything else? My store has-“

“Not at the moment. The next time I have the opportunity to visit your shop, I will.” Cheng Yang smiled backward at the manager before walking out.

Then, Cheng Yang began training.

The thirty-two times training speed Cheng Yang unlocked earlier was gratifying for him. It was the highest training bonus he could obtain for a long time to come since the next level up required a million Experience Fragments to unlock.

Once Cheng Yang finished training, his experience bar was 13.1% full. As long as he was able to maintain this speed, Cheng Yang would level up in forty days.

In his previous life, the highest level human was still an Apprentice, but in under two months, Cheng Yang would surpass that and reach the second stage of evolution. Progressing that quickly gave him an advantage you can only imagine.

Once the sun rose, Cheng Yang left his house and started new research for the Mage statue. For the four primary class change statues, there was only one research topic remaining. Once that research finished, the statues would reach Pinnacle Grade, and there would be explosive growth in the number of Professionals in Phoenix Village. Cheng Yang didn’t forget to start new research for the Priest statue as well.

When he was done, Cheng Yang prepared to enter the Blood-Soaked Cathedral.

With his current combat strength, Cheng Yang no longer felt pressured by the Hard Difficulty instance, so he set his sights on the Nightmare Difficulty. Obtaining the prizes from the first clear of the Nightmare Difficulty was one of the fundamental reasons Cheng Yang chose to use Divine Grace instead of waiting to level up.

Someone in his past life had managed to clear Nightmare Difficulty of the Blood-Soaked Cathedral before, so Cheng Yang knew that the Boss at the end was a Low-Grade Mature monster.

Although the Boss was a Mature monster, that wasn’t why Nightmare Difficulty used the word “nightmare.” Although Cheng Yang had been referring to the strongest monster in an instance dungeon as a Boss, only those at the end of Nightmare Difficulty instances or higher were truly Boss monsters. In other words, in a Nightmare Difficulty instance, Boss wasn’t just a title; it was a rank similar to Elite.

According to the divisions created in his past life, the Boss title granted to the boss of a Nightmare Difficulty instance was only the lowest rank possible. Even so, the title raised the monsters Health by 1000% and both defense attributes by 100%. Although its damage didn’t increase, its survivability truly warranted calling it a boss monster.

To defeat a Boss, a party would need sustainable damage output instead of high damage output, putting a focus on defense and healing. Having a Priest was especially useful since the Boss would eventually kill the Warriors if they relied on potions for healing unless that Warrior could carry hundreds of potions.

A normal Low-Grade Mature monster would have a Health of 480, so a Boss would have 4,800, and its Physical and Mental Defense would be raised from 16 to 32.

In Cheng Yang’s past life, the hardest difficulty anyone had cleared was Nightmare. As for the Hell Difficulty, although people attempted it, no one had beaten it. Almost everyone was hunted down by the Boss, with the rare few being able to escape by hiding until the timer ran out.

If it was just the Health that increased, a party could still torture the Boss to death, but since the defense doubled as well, High-Grade humans wouldn’t even deal damage. Even normal Pinnacle-Grade humans would only deal single digit damage to the Boss. Killing it would be nearly impossible.

Cheng Yang started thinking about clearing the Nightmare Difficulty a long time ago, but he wasn’t strong enough, and no one in the village was able to help him. Now that he was Pinnacle-Grade, the situation changed.

Cheng Yang now dealt a staggering 130 damage, so the amount of damage the Boss would take would be considerable. As long as there were two people at his level in the dungeon, they would only need twenty-five rounds of attacking to kill the Boss.

However, during those rounds, the party would have to withstand the attacks of a monster that dealt 80 damage. Even Pinnacle-Grade Warriors equipped with Purple Silver equipment would find it hard to survive more than eight direct attacks.

To survive the fight, everyone involved would need to drink a Standard Grade Health Recovery potion after every attack.

Buying enough potions for a whole part would be expensive but acceptable as long as they cleared the instance. However, that was only assuming the fight went exactly as planned. Once a Boss started using skills, even the most prepared party would quickly crumble.

So, Cheng Yang planned to bring a Priest. Not only would this increase their damage output, but it would also secure their lives in a crisis.

Cheng Yang summoned the head Priest in the Imperial Guard, someone with an SS-Rank Innate Ability and the obvious choice. At the same time, Xue Yu and the other Elite Imperial Guards were summoned to make clearing the instance as smooth as possible.

Cheng Yang summoned the Elite Imperial Guard a few days ago and gave them some Experience Fragments yesterday, so they already knew their class’ advanced skills. Now Cheng Yang just needed to pay for the advanced Priest skill.

• Shield Bash (Low-Grade): Triples the users speed and stuns a target with less than twice the user’s Physical Attack | Range: 25 m | Stun Time: 1 sec| Cooldown: 1 min | Level Needed: Standard Grade Apprentice | Price: 100 Experience Fragments

• Spectral Arrows (Low-Grade): Increases damage by condensing the users will onto each arrow, adding a second, spectral arrowhead | Buff: 10% | Duration: 1 min | Cost: 30 MP | Cooldown: 90 sec | Level Needed: Standard Grade Apprentice | Price: 100 Experience Fragments

• Shield of Faith (Low-Grade): Call upon the gods to defend an ally by increasing their defense attributes | Buff: 5% | Duration: 1 min | Cost: 20 MP | Cooldown: 30 sec | Level Needed: Standard Grade Apprentice | Price: 100 Experience Fragments

• Dire Wolves (Low-Grade): All summoned wolves are now Dire Wolves with a 10% stat increase compared to normal Wolves | Passive Skill | Level Needed: Standard Grade Apprentice | Price: 100 Experience Fragments

Without a doubt, those four skills were incredibly useful and would play a key role in enhancing the combat effectiveness of their party.

The only dissatisfying skill was the Priest’s Shield of Faith. Of course, the unhappy person would be the Priest, not the rest of the team. Not being able to do damage would continue to be every Priest’s sore spot and a source of apprehension.

On the other hand, Priests would be in even higher demand, especially the ones from Phoenix Village. They would be able to buff damage, buff defense, and heal. What more could you need? Priests with high-level skills would become the core of every party.

Cheng Yang didn’t care about Priests being unable to attack since he only cared about their ability to strengthen a team. That was definitely better than just dealing damage. After all, there were only a few Priests in the village, so even if they could do damage, it wouldn’t help much.

Once the people he summoned arrived, Cheng Yang visited the Alchemy Tower to buy recovery potions. Then, he walked over to the entrance to the Blood-Soaked Cathedral.

Cheng Yang opened the status pane and without hesitation, selected Nightmare Difficulty.

As soon as they entered the instance, everyone felt an indescribable sense of awe. Endless red clouds covered the sky, releasing bloody rain onto the ground below.

The only difference between the Normal and Hard difficulties was that the sky was a little darker, but now the entire atmosphere had changed. Although the name hinted that this would be the case, it was still quite shocking.

Cheng Yang wasn’t surprised since he knew that in the Hell Difficulty, it was even worse. The entire instance was painted red with rivers of blood flowing through the area.