Varnyx turned to give Damon a look and nodded in approval. "You did well in defending the blood hall." He turned back to the altar in deep thought, not wanting to continue the conversation.
Damon didn’t care too much about it and casually walked to the new exit. He already had two pending quests with the vampire, which was probably why he was getting the cold shoulder.
Rare quests did have this effect on the NPCs. If a player completed a higher rarity quest, then the rewards would be exceptional. On the other hand, if the player takes his time and fails to finish the quest, the penalties would be equally troublesome.
Eitherways Damon did not plan to prolong these quests any more than he had to. His plan today was to catch up on grinding and farming for mana cores. This would help him finish ’rebuilding the blood hall quest’ and at the same time, help him farm more attribute points and skills, stabilizing his foundation a bit more.
The new exit was a pipeline that led to a back alley behind one of Niera City’s abandoned buildings, a place even the beggars didn’t frequent.
The pipe was rusted, damp, and barely wide enough to crawl through, but it was clearly a system-approved exit because the moment Damon stepped near it, a prompt appeared.
[Ding! You have discovered a Hidden Passage: Blood Hall Sewer Route]
[Travel Time: 20 seconds. Destination: Niera City, Slum District - Back Alley]
Damon smirked. Hidden passages were always useful for bypassing checkpoints or ambushes, especially now that half the Light Faction probably wanted his head mounted on a wall.
Without hesitation, he crouched and entered the pipe. The interior was slick, smelled of rust and stale water, but it didn’t matter since he activated shadow step and arrived at the other end in a fraction of a second.
The slums of Niera city were located at the far end of the city gates, its exit opening into a dangerous Level 40 zone. Many players wouldn’t know this yet, but this place was a gold mine for rogue class and thief class players, and also for illegal activities like gambling and unofficial bounty requests.
Not all cities had zones like this. Only one in five cities probably had a specialized zone for the underworld to thrive, places where the NPC law enforcement rarely patrolled.
In his previous life, Blood Hall had no connections to this place, but now his meddling has changed everything. Damon couldn’t help but wonder what the consequences of such a big change could be. Just what sort of quest did he trigger?
Putting the thoughts out of his mind, he slipped through the city gates that were locked and mostly ungaurded. Well, only for players who used Stealth or Shadow Stalk. Only rogue skills can get one across this particular gate.
Damon did not have any issue and found himself back in the dense forest surrounding the city. As soon as he stepped out, a roar sounded nearby, and a level 41 devil horn cougar charged at him.
"I guess we are starting already." Damon grinned and conjured his blood lance. His spear skills were a lot better now that he had acquired Basic Spear Mastery. In his last life, he mainly relied on blood magic, ignoring weapon mastery, which in the end became one of his biggest weaknesses. He was not going to repeat the same mistake again.
The devil horn cougar pounced at lightning speed, flexing its muscles, but Damon was faster. He side-stepped at the last second and thrust his blood lance directly into the cougar’s exposed side.
A burst of crimson energy exploded on impact, staggering the beast and sending it crashing into a tree with a sharp whimper.
Mana Boost (F Rank, Active) – Consumes 10 mana per second to temporarily increase Strength and Agility by 5%. Duration: 15 seconds. Cooldown: 60 seconds.
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