Chapter 17：Elite Barren Gold Mine

Barren Gold Mine:

Dungeon Challenge Difficulty: 2-

Dungeon difficulty: Elite

Dungeon requirements: Kill all the Dog-head Men inside the Barren Gold Mine.

PS: You are entering the final difficulty of a dungeon. The monsters in the final difficulty will be stronger than what you had originally challenged. The boss monster that appeared will obtain special abilities and even monster classes. The little monsters will obtain stronger stats and increase in resistance.

PS: After challenging the final difficulty of the dungeon, one will obtain the highest reward from the dungeon, rare drops and dungeon collectibles. Once completed, the dungeon will disappear.

"Will you challenge Barren Gold Mine (Elite difficulty)?"

"Yes!"

Along with the familiar dizzy feeling, Yi Qiu entered the dark cave.

As they said, people who were skilled were more bold. As his strength increased, Yi Qiu wasn't so nervous when he challenged new dungeons or new difficulties. Instead, he was more eager about it.

Newborn calves are not afraid of tigers, this probably described Yi Qiu's current mentality.

This time Yi Qiu didn't bring quicklime, he only brought javelins and pepper spray. Truthfully, Yi Qiu felt no pressure at all dealing with the Dog-Head Men.

Although Barren Gold Mine had many turns and corners, it wasn't that long.

Yi Qiu walked for a while and he bumped the patrolling minion. Yes, the patrolling Dog-Head Man minion who was wearing a body of random equipment. It didn't look very scary, just really amusing.

"Wang wang wang!"

The Dog-Head Man minion waved its shovel and charged at Yi Qiu. Yi Qiu was too lazy to use pepper spray, after all, these minions didn't need him to punch twice previously.

"Peng!" He dodged the shovel of the first Dog-Head Man and he punched right at its face!

It didn't feel good, actually, it felt a little hard. The Dog-Head Man staggered back, holding its nose while barking at him. 

Yi Qiu who didn't use Eight Gates had only 12 Strength. However, to the minions, even at Hard difficulty one punch was enough to kill them. It seemed like the Elite difficulty minions were much stronger.

However, no matter how much stronger they were, they were just minions. Only their stats and resistance were increased, to them it just meant that they took a few more hits.

Yi Qiu followed it up with a whip kick and then he used Ki to launch Flurry of Blows to KO the minion.

"You have killed Dog-Head Man minion, obtaining 20 Experience Points."

After consuming close to 20% Ki, he finally killed the bunch of Dog-Head Man minions. As he had Reflex Dodge, Yi Qiu didn't get injured. Reflex Dodge based on 12 Sense points was enough to dodge all the random and uncoordinated attacks from the Dog-Head minions. 

"Hu." Yi Qiu adjusted his breathing. Such a battle was just a warmup to him now.

He followed the dark cave and walked forward and he noticed that all the Dog-Head Men were all gathered together.

The head was the Sadistic Dog-Head Man. It rode on the pangolin. Unlike the Easy and Hard difficulty where it held a whip, this time it held an old looking staff.

Yi Qiu touched his bald head. The discovery of the staff gave him a headache, magic wasn't that easy to deal with.

Before learning Diamond Soul which increased magic resistance, Monks and other classes weren't much different toward magic.

Most of the time, the effects of magic weren't purely just physics or chemistry, especially damage magic.

The theories of normal damage magic was: Using psychic forces or the energy in one's own body to gather the tiny floating particles all around, restricting them in a designed model. After gathering it, one will shoot out the magic from a designed exit. The chaotic particle ball will scatter in a short time. The enemies that are caught in the trajectory will be damaged by the sharp and chaotic damage. 

Such damage was hard to defend against.

Like the fireball technique, the burning effect was due to the high-temperature particles that formed the fireball. The main damage itself was still the piercing-type damage caused by the particles. The high-temperature particles that formed the fireball would be called Fire Essence and the damage caused by the essence was flame damage.

This is why it was best just to charge instead. 

Yi Qiu squinted his eyes, the Ki in his body surged toward the Gate of Opening...

Yi Qiu's pupils slightly constricted...

"Eight Gates - Gate of Opening, open!"

"Xiu!" He didn't say anything, directly clenching his fist and charging at the Sadistic Dog-Head Man!

"...in popo" The Sadistic Dog-Head Man chanted some weird curse and a red light appeared on his staff. The Dog-Head Man minions protected beside it.

"Hong!" Very quickly the Sadistic Dog-Head Man completed the casting and an eye-catching fireball appeared in the sky. It swiftly flew toward Yi Qiu!

The fireball was really quick, in just a blink of an eye, it was right in front of Yi Qiu!

The light that shone when the fireball was formed was too eye-catching. Yi Qiu who had gotten used to the dark environment was temporarily blinded. This was why when the fireball was about to hit him, he only had time to use his arms to block.

An unimaginable pain nearly made Yi Qiu pass out. Luckily, the fireball technique from the Sadistic Dog-Head Man wasn't too strong. Yi Qiu guessed that the casting method was Azeroth's wizard system, using his body's own energy to cast it. This was why it could grasp such a damage spell at such an early stage.

If it was the fireball technique in DND which used psychic powers and used the strength of The Weave, Yi Qiu would probably be outside the dungeon and in a weakened state.

The high-temperature particle scattered, not dealing any extra burning damage to Yi Qiu. However, the flames from the fireball itself dealt great damage to Yi Qiu's hands and body. On the Integrated Network interface, it was pretty much a loss of 40% health.

Eight Gates was still reducing his health, Yi Qiu bore with the pain and continued to charge at the Sadistic Dog-Head Man!

The Dog-Head Man minions blocked Yi Qiu so he could only deal with them first. While fighting, he saw that the Sadistic Dog-Head Man was chanting once more.

He definitely couldn't allow it to cast the fireball, if not it would be GG for Yi Qiu.

He could only take a gamble! Yi Qiu sidestepped and dodged a shovel smack from a minion. He took a few steps back. The minions didn't chase and just protected around the Sadistic Dog-Head Man.

Bearing the pain, Yi Qiu directed his Ki toward the second gate in his head - Gate of Healing!

"Eight Gates - Gate of Healing, open!"

The lowest requirement for Gate of Healing was Physique 13, Senses 13, Yi Qiu didn't reach either but he forcefully opened it.

An unimaginable stabbing pain nearby caused Yi Qiu to faint. His health was quickly dropping! At the same time, 17 points of Strength and Agility and the quick recovery of stamina caused Yi Qiu to feel a tale of two worlds. 

He had no time to hesitate! Any second and his body could explode, resulting in his death!

17 points of Strength gave him 17 times more explosiveness than normal humans!

In the dark cave, Yi Qiu and his loud voice was like a high-speed train charging right at the Sadistic Dog-Head Man.

A minion tried to block but the powerful momentum caused it to fly toward the wall. After a "peng" it became a pile of meat mixed in with pieces of clothes.

Yi Qiu's body was in flames. His small blood vessels couldn't take the pressure and exploded. However, this sort of pain couldn't be compared to even a small percent of the stabbing pain in his body.

"Hong!"