Chapter 246 – Crystal Crab (2/2)

“You guys finishing?” Fatty asked.

“Yep, yep.” Han Shen bobbed his head.

“Alright then.” Fatty also nodded. He then flicked his fingers, and a strand of fire burned up under the Crystal Crab he was holding. “I’ve learned Cooking, but haven’t touched it for so long it’s unfamiliar.”

The aroma of cooked crab ovaries quickly filled the tunnels. The rest gawked with mouths agape.

“MASTER/FATTY! I’LL KILL YOU!”

Joking around for a little, everyone hugged a stomach full of crab ovaries. Fatty Harvested plenty more before the group set out again.

“Must be this way.”

Stopping at a fork, Xiao Jian point at a tunnel. On their way here, they had quite a great number of scattered Crystal Crabs and harvested many crab ovaries.

“It should be this way, I think.” Cheng Xiong declared after some consideration.

“What do you say?” Liu Lan looked at Fatty.

Fatty leisurely took out the X-Ray Mirror. “Lord Fatty will just calculate the way for ya.”

“A compass?”

“O’ spirit of sky and spirit of land, tell me which path to take. The Grand Supreme Elderly Lord heed my order at once!”

Putting on an act as he activated the function, Fatty scanned the surroundings, then pointed at a tunnel. “This one.”

Kah… kah… The party heard a distinct noise as soon as they set foot in the tunnel. After several steps, the tunnel opened up into a hall, where countless Crystal Crabs crawled back and forth. The smallest ones were palm-sized, the bigger ones were bigger than a table, with one of them no smaller than a tank.

“This is the result of your calculation?” Cheng Xiong tilted his head to look at Fatty.

“It’s a mistake, a mistake.” Fatty smiled fawningly.

Whoosh! Spotting the group, the various Crystal Crabs flocked towards them.

“Withdraw!” Fatty made a quick decision.

The party retreated to the tunnel and employed the old strategy: Liu Lan tanked, Cheng Xiong healed, and the rest attacked.

Whoosh. A golden halo descended. After killing nearly half of the monsters here, Fatty finally reached level 45.

“Oh wow! Level 45 finally!”

It was getting harder and harder to level up from this stage of the game. Level 45 was only half the highest possible level, 90. One could imagine how harsh it was going to be to reach this peak.

The party spent nearly four hours to clean out the mobs until only the biggest one was left.

During the clean-up, Liu Lan and Han Shen also leveled up, while Xiao Jian and Cheng Xiong were only one short step away.

“Let’s hope this boss will be generous and give us a superb item. Best be a Celestial one,” Han Shen prayed.

“Dream on. If this thing has a Celestial item, Sallip would have taken it already. I even suspect we still haven’t reached the real Crystal Maze yet.”

“That’s right. Despite having walked around for such a long time, we’re actually still outside. The Crystal Maze is very big, this is only the outermost layer,” said Fatty.

“How do you know?” Liu Lan looked at him in surprise.

“From my miraculous foresight.” Fatty pulled out the X-Ray Mirror and accompanied it with the face of a prophet.

“This is your miraculous foresight?” Xiao Jian pointed at the crab boss that was thunderously charging at them.

“Cough, just as horses can stumble, everyone makes mistakes. Then again, I’m doing this for the loot,” Fatty replied without feeling any shame at all.

Crystal Crab King

Gold boss

Level: 59

Attack: 120 – 135

Defense: 125

HP: 7500

Notes: A mutated crab living in Crystal Maze. Being the first generation to mutate, it underwent gradual changes and finally became the king of the Crystal Crabs.

By now everyone wasn’t afraid of Gold bosses. Liu Lan tanked as usual while the others attacked.

Puff! A colorful bubble over a meter in diameter floated out from the boss’s mouth and enshrouded Liu Lan’s upper half body. Her health instantly plummeted while Cheng Xiong was caught off guard. After getting over the flurry, he barely managed to maintain her health with a high-rank recovery spell.

“A boss is a boss. Don’t make this kind of elementary mistake again.” Fatty said with a serious expression.

“F*ck! You dared embarrass me?!” Cheng Xiong vented all of his rage on the Crystal Crab King.

In actuality, as a level 59 Gold boss who was only one step away from advancing to Yao boss, the Crystal Crab King wasn’t weak at all. Its physical attack and defense were very high in addition to its ability to fluently utilize water magic. If it was a normal team fighting instead, there was a high chance they’d be annihilated.

Too bad the crab king met Fatty’s team. While few in numbers with poor class coordination, every one of them was a powerful expert who could kill it solo.

“What are you doing?” Cheng Xiong asked while he poured effort into healing.

Fatty wasn’t attacking along with the others. Instead, he held a book of sorts and was drawing something in it.

“Wanna know?” Fatty looked up.

“Mhm.” Cheng Xiong nodded.

“Not telling you.” Fatty grinned.

Ba-thud! The Crystal Crab King emitted a final shriek and fell, quaking the ground with its massive body.

Harvest. Fatty wanted to get some crab ovaries.

Whoosh. A pearl that effused a faint mist appeared in his hand.

“Water inner core?” Fatty was stunned momentarily, then overjoyed.

1. 师娘 (lit. master's wife): address for one's teacher's wife. ↩