Chapter 52: Snow Ridge Mountain Howler

Golden Daily Quest: Retrieve one Green Peak Sword left behind by a Qingcheng Disciple on Snow Ridge, and hand in one Snow Yeti Inner Core.

“It really is Snow Ridge… Damn, did I have foresight? I just finished learning about Snow Ridge, and a matching quest shows up.”

Snow Ridge was over a thousand zhang high. The higher one went, the higher the monster levels became, and one would also face additional bitter cold trials.

Large groups of Mountain Howlers lived at the base of the ridge. As one went up a hundred zhang into the Eroding Ice zone, Snow Howlers would begin to appear. They were monsters covered in thick, snow-white fur, with strong, long limbs, thick and large toes and palms, able to run swiftly and move nimbly on the snow.

Speaking of which, Ye Rong was an enemy of these two types of monsters. Back in the Starter Village, after killing that strange Mountain Ghost Ancestral Spirit, he had obtained the title “Mountain Ghost Bane”.

Mountain Ghost Bane: The bearer of this title has Hatred +1 against Mountain Ghost-type monsters and deals 5% increased damage to Mountain Ghost-type monsters.

Mountain Howlers and Snow Howlers were both classified under the Mountain Ghost category in the game, although Ye Rong couldn’t see any connection between them.

However, with proper planning, making good use of this title could actually produce unexpected benefits on Snow Ridge.

The Snow Yeti Inner Core, as the name implied, had to be obtained from Snow Howlers. As for the Green Peak Sword left behind by the Qingcheng Disciple on Snow Ridge, there were no clues at all.

Ye Rong really wanted to know which Qingcheng Disciple would casually bring the Green Peak Sword up to Snow Ridge and then lose this first-rank Immortal Weapon, which was even sold at the Hidden Sword Pool. It was really unreasonable!

As for the reward for this Golden Daily Quest… Ye Rong shifted his gaze. It wasn’t the expected Flying Sword or Magic Treasure, but actually one Diligence Jade Talisman and some amount of cultivation.

What NPCs called cultivation was Experience Points for Players. However, the Experience Points reward for a Golden Daily Quest couldn’t be just a few thousand; it had to be at least tens of thousands. The specifics would depend on what grade the Diligence Jade Talisman was. In any case, the reward would definitely be ten times that of a normal quest.

Without thinking much, Ye Rong directly confirmed accepting the Golden Daily Quest.

No joke, just completing this one quest would give rewards equivalent to ten ordinary ones. No matter how difficult, he had to give it a try.

Success would allow him to widen the gap between the other Qingcheng Players and himself at once, maintaining a sufficient advantage.

He bought three Red Sun Pills, costing six taels of silver. Taking one pill would keep him free from the cold’s assault for one hour, filling him with warmth.

The alchemy room had more effective pills, but after purchasing the Red Sun Pills and a few other pills that replenished Qi and Blood and True Qi, he was penniless, having used up all his money completely.

Minshan ran southwest to northeast, stretching for a thousand li. Nearby, there were also four waterways: the Min River, Fu River, Black Water River, and White Water River. Many Rogue Cultivators seclusively lived here, and there were also plenty of extraordinary Monsters.

Snow Ridge was the mountain peak closest to Qingcheng in Minshan, only about a hundred li away. Arriving by Sword Flight was instantaneous.

The temperature at the base of the ridge was normal; at most, the wind blowing carried some chill, far from being unbearable. Naturally, there was no need to take the Red Sun Pill early.

These pills were not cheap at all. One pill cost two taels of silver and only lasted one hour, meaning one tael of silver per hour.

However, near Snow Ridge, the plants that grew were sparse, with only one or two types of cold-resistant crops. One advantage was that wherever there were monsters, they could be spotted at a glance, not hidden by plants.

They had olive-colored long fur, horse-like faces with protruding noses, enormous mouths, and incredibly strong arms. They tread perilous mountain ridges as if on flat ground, walking like the wind. They were born with one or two innate magical abilities. Although they couldn’t cultivate to advance, the sophistication of their abilities wasn’t much inferior to the spells of human cultivators.

Different Mountain Howlers possessed slightly different innate magical abilities, so one definitely couldn’t use a single method to deal with all Mountain Howlers.

Players who clung to such empiricism often suffered greatly due to carelessness when facing Mountain Howlers.

Perhaps because of the Mountain Ghost Bane title, two Mountain Howlers suddenly stood up from thirty or forty meters away, facing Ye Rong with fierce, glaring eyes. They kicked off with their legs, leaping distances of over a zhang, using all four limbs, truly moving like the wind.

As usual, Ye Rong sent out a sweep of Sword Light, the Taixuan Ice Soul Sword aiming straight for the Mountain Howlers’ facial vitals. The Mountain Howler on the left suddenly beat its chest hard, opened its enormous mouth, and spat out a mottled, impure yellow light that blocked the Taixuan Ice Soul Sword. The Mountain Howler on the right roared at the sky, and a layer of glossy, pitch-black sheen emerged on its body. Its entire frame enlarged several times.

It charged towards Ye Rong with large strides, stomping the ground beneath its feet with loud bangs, as if causing minor earthquakes.

“Buddhist School Divine Light?”

Ye Rong felt his Flying Sword as if trapped in mud, sluggish and hard to maneuver, no longer moving freely and smoothly.

That mottled, impure yellow light seemed to have great stickiness, trapping Ye Rong’s Flying Sword. This shared a lot of similarity with Buddhist School Divine Light. Among several famous Buddhist School Divine Lights, there were similar effects, though they would also possess properties of breaking evil and destroying demons.

However, this kind of innate magical ability of Monsters probably didn’t have the extra property of breaking evil; it just had a power characteristic somewhat similar to Buddhist School Divine Light. Fortunately, judging from the current situation, not every Mountain Howler seemed to have this divine light as a means to counter enemies. Otherwise, each Mountain Howler shooting a yellow light, a group of seven or eight could probably block even a Fifth-Rank Flying Sword.

Bang!

That glossy, pitch-black Mountain Howler spread its hands, lifted a thousand-catty giant rock, and hurled it over. Ye Rong jumped sideways. The giant rock brushed past the corner of his clothes, slammed into the ground with a sky-shaking sound, and broke into several smaller pieces.

Its front limbs and toe-palms slashed forward and swept back, whooshing loudly, stirring up gusts of palm wind. Each palm strike contained a terrifying, immense force that seemed unstoppable.

Ye Rong estimated that this Mountain Howler’s innate ability was likely similar to the Mountain Ghost’s, both enhancing the Strength attribute.

However, whether in terms of the boost amount or the duration, it was far beyond what the Mountain Ghost’s Mountain Power Fierce Strike could compare to; the difference was like heaven and earth.

For a while, Ye Rong was chased into a sorry state, relying on his quick reactions to dart left and right, dodging the Mountain Howler’s fierce palm strikes. Moreover, he didn’t dare run too far. Ye Rong discovered that once he moved beyond ten meters, his control over the Taixuan Ice Soul Sword became even worse, teetering on the verge of falling at any moment under the envelopment of that mottled, impure yellow light.

The connection between him and his Flying Sword also became faint, as if it could break off at any time.

If there was a significant disparity in strength between Players, and one possessed a special treasure-seizing technique or a Magic Treasure with a similar function, it was possible to directly seize the opponent’s Flying Sword or Magic Treasure during combat.

This mottled, impure yellow light clearly had a similar effect. Although its effectiveness was poor, if Ye Rong stayed too far and his control over the Flying Sword was insufficient, it was highly likely the Mountain Howler could forcibly take it.

This was four thousand dollars!

For Ye Rong, who was close to utter poverty, the Taixuan Ice Soul Sword must not be lost. Terrified, he quickly circled around and came back.