Chapter 173 Fighting Monsters, Tenacity III
"Alright, retreat a little. I'll deal with it."
The monster in the artificial lake could cause hallucinations according to Lucy. He was interested in it and felt that it might drop a passive skill.
Zhou Chen could sense some monsters inside the lake through the Bloodthirst passive skill. Most of them gave him a mediocre feeling, and only one was relatively powerful. It was very likely the target he was looking for.
'Bloodthirst passive is really helpful.' As soon as he came, he could directly discover the target hiding at the bottom of the lake. Zhou Chen had to sigh at the usefulness of the Bloodthirst passive skill. It had helped him greatly time and again.
He neared the lake and walked toward the southeast corner of it, because the monster he sensed was under the water near this corner.
Swoosh!
Before he could reach it, a huge water pillar suddenly charged out of the seemingly calm lake. A terrifying azure dragon head appeared from the water pillar. Its two eyes were staring at him fiercely, and it slowly opened its mouth that was filled with sharp teeth.
"I was affected? Looks like this monster is really something."
Zhou Chen did not panic when the dragon head suddenly appeared in the lake in front of him, because this was clearly an illusion. Dragons did not exist in this world. Even if it did, it would not be hiding in such a small artificial lake.
Zhou Chen directly ignored the dragon that seemed like it was about to attack and punched a certain spot in the corner of the lake, instantly stirring up a large amount of water.
'Still not coming out?'
Even after being attacked, the monster was not coming out. Instead, it made the huge azure dragon in the lake move to attack him.
Zhou Chen originally did not want to care about this illusion attack, but he still dodged at the last moment. At the same time, he released his Eight Desolates energy to counterattack because he sensed a few ordinary monsters hiding in the dragon illusion. There were also some monsters behind him who took the opportunity to ambush him under the cover of the illusion.
"This monster is quite smart. It knows to use illusions to fool me while also hiding its attacks. However, my perception is strong enough to see through its scheme."
After quickly killing the monsters that he sensed, Zhou Chen continued to attack the main monster in the lake. Then, he saw the dragon illusion disappear and the monster in the lake began to escape.
"Where will you run in this small lake?"
Zhou Chen could only say that the monster was dreaming. He activated the passive skill, Freeze, and jumped onto the surface of the lake, chasing after the fleeing monster and bombarding it with his Eight Desolates True Energy.
Because of the Freeze passive skill, every time he hit a spot on the lake, there was a 50% chance that part of the lake would freeze into ice.
Although the area that was frozen every time was not very large, only about 30 square meters, because of the high frequency of Zhou Chen's attacks, this small artificial lake was quickly frozen.
The fleeing monster was also frozen with the lake.
Such a freezing effect could not directly kill the monster, or even imprison it for a long time. However, Zhou Chen would not give it a chance to escape from the frozen state. He punched the area where the monster was frozen, making a huge pit appear in the ice lake. The monster that was exposed in the pit was shattered by his energy punches.
[Passive Plunderer triggered: You have stolen the aberration's passive skill, "Tenacity III". Detected that it is superior to the passive skill you already have. It will automatically be replaced.]
[Tenacity III
Type: High bronze passive skill
You are immune to bronze-ranked spirit attacks. Higher-ranked spirit attacks will have a 35% reduced effect on you.]
"This passive skill actually dropped. I remember that the low bronze rank version of this passive skill was obtained through a scroll in the Underground City dungeon."
The passive skill, Tenacity, was very special among the many passive skills Zhou Chen had now because he had obtained it through the skill scroll and not through the Passive Plunderer talent.
"Immunity to bronze-ranked spiritual attacks, and reduced damage from stronger spiritual attacks. This is quite strong. It will be much easier when I face spirit-attack type mutants like that black-haired youth in the future."
Zhou Chen had almost been stunned by that black-haired mutant's spiritual attack. Fortunately, his spirit attribute was quite high, and he also had Tenacity passive skill that reduced spiritual attack damage. Otherwise, the consequences would definitely have been bad.
After gaining the passive skill, Zhou Chen glanced at the monster that was shattered into pieces in the bumpy, frozen artificial lake. Then, he turned and walked back to the shore.
He returned to Lucy and the old man, who were waiting some distance away from the lake. He told them that everything was settled here and that they could set off for the next location.
Lucy understood what he meant and immediately walked to the front of the group to lead the way.
The white-haired old man consciously walked in the middle of the group.
However, he was not that silent this time. Instead, he turned to Zhou Chen and asked, "Why did you waste time hunting that monster? It doesn't seem to have provoked us."
The old man was puzzled by Zhou Chen's actions. He did not know why he had come here to fight that monster. Clearly, the monster had done nothing to them.
"I have my reasons," Zhou Chen replied calmly. "If you want to know, tell me your secret in exchange."
The old man immediately fell silent. Clearly, he did not want to talk about himself.
Zhou Chen did not force him, because his plans for him had changed. Killing him to obtain a possible passive skill was put lower in the priority.
They followed Lucy to the other monster grounds that Zhou Chen was interested in. However, Zhou Chen's luck was not that good. Those monsters might have wandered elsewhere as he did not find them even after several consecutive attempts and only encountered the siege of many other ordinary monsters. He had to waste a lot of time clearing them.
In the end, before night fell, Zhou Chen chose a house with good conditions for everyone to rest.
"We'll rest here tonight and set off tomorrow."
He let everyone have a room each. Lucy stayed in the adjacent room, while the old man stayed in the room opposite his.. He did not monitor the old man as strictly as he did in the day.
