pappabearbooks Chapter 662 Tower of Desire
Chapter 662 Tower of Desire
[Natural disaster (only one)]
[The holder can activate the Cataclysm Aura, which consumes 10% of their maximum mental energy per minute.]
[The Calamity Aura will cause all targets within a certain range, except the holder, to suffer negative effects, including but not limited to a continuous decrease in various attributes such as mental strength, physical strength, power, and speed, up to a maximum decrease of 50%. The minimum range of the area is 100 meters in diameter, and the maximum range is calculated based on the holder's mental strength value. The speed at which the negative effects appear also depends on the difference between the holder's mental strength and the target's mental strength.]
[Targets under the Cataclysm Aura take 10% of their maximum health as true damage per minute, while the user takes 5% of their maximum health as true damage per minute.]
[Note: True damage refers to damage that will definitely be dealt when the target can be selected, and cannot be avoided by defensive items or skills.]
[For every ten minutes the Cataclysm Aura is active, the holder can transform into Cataclysm form for three minutes. In this form, the holder's size increases by 100%, the range of all damaging skills or items increases by 100%, and the damage is increased by 200%. During this time, the holder is immune to most control effects, and each attack deals additional splash damage equal to 150% of the original damage.]
[In Cataclysm mode, the holder can actively upgrade the Cataclysm aura to Cataclysm, which includes, but is not limited to, random appearances of calamity symbols such as meteor showers, lightning storms, and plague swarms. The original Cataclysm aura's true damage effect still applies.]
[Note: Calamity is an indiscriminate attack, and the holder will also be affected. Please use with caution.]
Wu Wangren was somewhat numb.
This was the first time he had ever seen such a long description of the effects on a title.
Most importantly, all the effects of this thing are presented as percentage data.
What a noble percentage!
And what does it mean to reduce other people's attributes by up to 50%, burn other people's health bar every second, and double your own strength in various ways?
This is no natural disaster at all!
This guy is basically turning himself into a dungeon boss!
Wu Wang's mind immediately conjured up images of his past experiences playing video games, such as guilds raiding world bosses.
Holy crap, this is way too insane!
Where did Qinglong get this incredible title?
If Wu Wang's own "Heretical" title is abnormal in its mechanism, capable of altering all skills and items with heretical effects, then the "Catastrophe" title is genuinely powerful in terms of its numerical value.
This is a purely combat-oriented title.
It doesn't have any fancy auxiliary functions.
This title has only one purpose.
That's it—battle! So exhilarating!
"How exactly is this real damage presented?" Wu Wang was slightly curious about this.
He instructed Mary and Lilith to stay on the ship, while he flew into the air to try out the title effect for a while.
After all, even the title holder will suffer this damage, only half the amount compared to other targets.
But after hearing about the effects of the title, the two dungeon bosses expressed great interest in experiencing it for themselves.
Wu Wang couldn't persuade them otherwise, and since he couldn't feel the debuffs caused by the Cataclysmic Aura, he decided to activate the title effect on the deck and see what happened.
hum-
As Wu Wang's mind stirred.
Mary and Lilith on the deck immediately felt as if they were enveloped in some kind of invisible container, the surrounding air began to thicken, and their every move felt heavy.
"Hmm... I feel like my own weight is gradually increasing, and both walking and exerting force are becoming slower." Mary earnestly described her experience: "It would probably take about fifteen minutes to reduce it to half of what it is normally."
Lilith nodded just as seriously: "It will also take me at least twenty minutes."
As a former High Priestess of Pain, her mental strength was greater than Mary's, and she was more effective at resisting these negative effects.
For a battle, lasting ten or twenty minutes seems quite long.
But Wu Wang was not very surprised.
After all, these two are real dungeon bosses; their mental strength is far beyond what most players in the Spirit Disaster dungeon or any creatures within it can match.
To be honest, it's quite outrageous that it can reduce all of its attributes by half in about twenty minutes.
Moreover, Wu Wang's spiritual power, under the training of the Abyss God's Mark, will only increase faster and faster, and has now reached three thousand.
Once one's mental strength reaches a certain level, even when facing a crying-face monster, one can usually weaken its attributes significantly in a short period of time.
Now, everyone needs to wait a minute.
Ding--
As Wu Wang watched the minutes tick by on his phone, he suddenly felt as if his whole body was being burned by some kind of raging fire.
Even though there were no visible injuries, he had a feeling—
I got hurt!
It wasn't the feeling of a specific part of the body being attacked; it was more like all the cells in the body were damaged in that instant.
At around 5%...
It didn't seem like a very serious situation, but Wu Wang knew very well that it was only on the surface.
Because the body has been injured, more physical and mental energy is needed to recover. If this kind of injury is suffered every minute, plus the energy and stamina consumed when fighting enemies, then this is even more difficult.
Wu Wang speculated that when this percentage of damage reaches a certain level, or when the body's own repair ability can't keep up, visible injuries will likely appear.
For example, internal bleeding, bone fractures, and similar situations.
Mary and Lilith's faces paled for a moment, then they immediately checked their injuries.
They were even experiencing a 10% level of stress.
After taking a moment to assess the situation, Mary added, "I estimate that my body can recover about 8% per minute. If I were fighting someone with similar strength to me during this process, it would probably drop to 7% or even 6%."
In other words, a small portion of the injuries Mary sustained were not able to heal within the first minute of being injured.
In the event of a prolonged battle, such injuries will become increasingly noticeable and may even become a significant factor in the eventual defeat.
Lilith sighed, "I estimate it will only recover about 5%."
Compared to this nun with strong mental power, Mary is superior in physical strength.
After all, when they experienced the dungeon on the cruise ship, Wu Wang had witnessed the incredible strength of her waitresses.
There was no further testing of the changes in the Calamity state, since the bonuses in this state were all percentage-based on the original data, and Wu Wang could probably deduce his combat power after receiving the bonuses.
The only thing that still piqued his curiosity was the advanced effect of "Calamity Descends".
However, Wu Wang cannot guarantee whether this calamity will disappear when he turns off the title's effect after it befalls the real world.
Take, for example, the plague swarm.
Viruses don't seem like things that just appear and then disappear into thin air.
But if this plague were to randomly spread to other residents of Mingyang City, that would truly be a heinous crime.
He's just a enthusiast, not a novice.
Wu Wang briefly tested the limit range before turning off the title effect.
Based on his current mental strength, he can expand the aura of natural disaster to a radius of ten miles.
As for the duration...
For ordinary people, mental energy consumption might be a problem, but in the hands of Wu Wang, whose state is refreshed upon death, he can keep this thing running indefinitely.
Moreover, even if it were an indiscriminate attack from a calamity, Wu Wang would be able to face it calmly and composedly.
Of course, it's not that I can withstand it, but rather that I'd rather die than not die.
In a sense, this title is a perfect match for the fall of Wu.
Having earned this title, he truly becomes a walking human-shaped calamity in the eyes of ordinary players.
Ding-dong-
Just as Wu Wang finished testing the title's effects and was about to ask the AI [Bai] to book the fastest flight to the capital to check on the situation at the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs headquarters,
A message from a friend has arrived.
The person who sent the message was none other than Qin Shusheng, who had left during the day.
"Come find me at the [Tower of Desire]." Upon seeing this, Wu Wang raised an eyebrow but didn't seem too puzzled.
Because he was well aware that these [Calamity Towers], imbued with the power of the Venerable Law, would bring resources to the players of the Spirit Calamity while also foreshadowing more unknown dangers after they descended into the real world.
A more cautious lone wolf player might observe the situation for a while before deciding whether to enter and explore.
The more radical ones will likely embrace the adventurous spirit of "being the first to try something new" and start climbing the tower directly.
But this is just a choice for lone wolf players.
For any organization of any size, the emergence of something like this necessitates sending people to explore it. It is absolutely impossible to wait for other organizations to acquire something before hastily and lagging behind in trying it out.
Moreover, this is the Bureau of Extraordinary Events, currently the largest player organization dealing with supernatural disasters.
Wu Wang believed that after Qin Shusheng left him, he would definitely arrange for people to try it out as soon as he returned to headquarters.
only……
The Tower of Desire should be located on the north slope of Mount Everest, right?
When those [Calamity Towers] descended, in addition to Qin Shusheng using props to display the exact location, Wu Wang himself also sensed their location in the real world.
He didn't know whether other players of the Necropolis would have the same feeling after time started flowing again.
But only one day has passed. Apart from the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs and a few other organizations, there probably aren't many people who can travel such a long distance to try it out quickly.
Is it really necessary to be in such a hurry?
Just as Wu Wang was pondering how to quickly reach Mount Everest, Qin Shusheng sent his second message, seemingly supplementing the content of the previous message—
"If you've finished what you're doing, there's an extra [Enter the Tower] option at the bottom of your personal panel. Just click on it and select [Tower of Desire]. If you're not coming right now, please let me know."
Upon seeing this message, Wu Wang also brought up his personal panel and scrolled to the bottom.
Sure enough, the "Enter the Tower" option, which had never been used before, appeared here.
Following Qin Shusheng's instructions, he clicked on the option and saw the name of each disaster tower pop up in the list.
The name "Tower of Desire" is listed at the top, perhaps because it was the first tower of calamity to descend.
Anyway, I was planning to report to the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs anyway.
Wu Wang then made his choice directly.
call--
The next second, his figure vanished from the deck of the Mary, leaving Mary and Lilith speechless.
Mary's gaze immediately turned towards the land, and she said with some confusion, "The master's aura... seems to be in a very, very far place."
And that's exactly what Mary said.
After making his choice, Wu Wang sensed a familiar teleportation sensation.
It felt exactly like when I was teleported out of a dungeon.
The surrounding environment changed in the blink of an eye.
He found himself seemingly immersed in some kind of liquid, his body slowly sinking downwards.
This made Wu Wang subconsciously reach out and swim upwards, only to find that he stomped his foot down as if he had stepped on the bottom, and could stand up directly without swimming.
wow——
As the water splashed, Wu Wang suddenly stood up from a fountain pool. The liquid under his feet only reached his waist. He didn't know why he had the illusion of sinking to the bottom of the sea.
But after seeing clearly what kind of liquid it was, he found it unsurprising.
That was the filthy waters of a sea of desire.
"Wow, you're here pretty fast."
A familiar voice sounded behind him. Wu Wang turned around and found Qin Shusheng standing not far away, with many people in the uniforms of the Bureau of Strange Affairs behind him.
Everyone is looking at themselves with a mix of longing, admiration, curiosity, excitement, and even a hint of challenge.
Wu Wang lifted his leg and stepped out of the fountain formed by the water of the Sea of Desire. Strangely, he did not feel wet at all. Not a single drop of the water of the Sea of Desire remained on him; it all fell back into the fountain as he left.
This scene caused everyone's pupils to shrink sharply, and even people in some distant places turned their gazes over.
The group of members from the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs behind Qin Shusheng couldn't help but whisper among themselves.
"Holy crap! Really? They made it out already? I swam for half an hour!"
"Can we even call that swimming? It's more like crawling, inching its way outside the fountain."
"Why does he walk so easily? Is the fountain watered down? I demand a rematch."
"Comparing goods will only lead to discarding them, comparing people will only lead to ruin."
"Is this Yan Shuangying? He truly lives up to his reputation! He's amazing!"
"..."
From their few words, Wu Wang gleaned a subtle message—it seemed that not everyone could emerge from the fountain smoothly.
Although they all eventually came out, their experiences seemed to differ.
Seeing this, before Qin Shusheng could even offer an explanation, Wu Wang said, "Let me guess, this is already inside the [Tower of Desire]? So we don't need to huff and puff climbing Mount Everest after all?"
Qin Shusheng has always acknowledged his observation and thinking abilities.
Nodding, he said, "Yes, the situation is different from what we initially expected. We can teleport directly in by selecting the Tower of Calamity in our personal panel. This should be considered the first level. There's no danger here, and it's not a dungeon world. It feels more like..."
Wu Wang interrupted, "An alternative kind of spiritual disaster plaza?"
Qin Shusheng's gaze sharpened.
That's right, that's exactly what he wanted to say.
For some reason, this place has a sense of déjà vu, like the Disaster Square, or even a more subtle one.
It's more like a gathering place for adventurers, or a starting village, built on the outskirts of a dungeon before they venture into it, as depicted in some Western fantasy games or novels.
However, this place should be called a gathering place for players of the Spirit Disaster.
The first level is just the starting point.
This is not the beginning of the tower climb.
"The fountain behind you is a teleportation point, or like a resurrection fountain in the game. In any case, all players who enter the [Tower of Desire] are first teleported to this fountain. There are several similar fountains on this floor."
"However, the resistance of the black water that everyone feels when they come out is different. Some people feel like they are stuck in the mud and have difficulty moving, while others feel that the black water has solidified and they can't even swim or walk in the water, but rather crawl out little by little."
"You're probably the first person to get up and walk out like that so far."
Qin Shusheng said with a serious expression.
This also indicates that even he didn't emerge with the same swift strides as Wu Wang.
Wu Wang did not offer any explanation for this.
He's already swum through the Sea of Desire several times, and given that he possesses the [Soul of Desire] within him, it's normal that he remains unaffected.
He has only one thought right now—
I couldn't see any exit or entrance, let alone doors or stairs.
So how do I begin climbing the tower? (End of Chapter)