MMORPG: Rise of the Primordial Godsmith

Chapter 1580: The Realm’s Secrets

As the thought of what their group would soon face came to mind, the young man briefly thought back to the wariness his group had shown towards the enemies back at the dungeon’s 1st layer.

Although hindsight had shown them that they were being wary for no reason, Ataraxia knew that his group had a very good reason why they showed such vigilance towards their enemies in the first place.

Considering that Greater Beyond had systems in place that encouraged punching above one’s weight and not biting off more than one could chew, it also went without saying that it had systems in place that stopped the opposite from happening.

The first of the latter would be the XP reduction system, which discouraged players and NPCs alike from grinding monsters that were lower than their current level.

With each level of difference decreasing the amount of XP earned by 20%, both players and NPCs would obtain a single point of XP from any monster they killed as long as they were at least five levels higher than it.

But of course, that system only discouraged beings from taking advantage of the weak.

Even with the system in place, the young man could still recall multiple guilds from his past life that relied on the mass killing of lower-leveled monsters early on to obtain the XP they needed to level up.

And thus, Greater Beyond had another system up its sleeve to combat that.

The Threat Adjustment System.

Just as the name implied, the Threat Adjustment System was a system that stopped high-level players from taking too much of an advantage of the strength they gained with their levels.

As far as Ataraxia knew, there were only two ways the Threat Adjustment System would kick in.

The first one was to wait for the system to recognize that the being had been using the strength they wielded to take advantage of those weaker than them.

Once the system recognized this disparity in strength, the Threat Adjustment System would gradually increase the strength of the weaker side between the two, only stopping once the weaker side began to overwhelm the opposing side.

On the other hand, the second way the system triggered was when the offending party was at least one class rank above the weaker party it was targeting.

In that case, the Threat Adjustment System would manifest in various ways, depending on the weaker party that had been targeted.

If the weaker party were a group of players, then the system would gradually decrease the stats of the offending party until both sides on even ground.

If the weaker party were monsters instead, then the system would adjust both the level and the tier of the monsters to where their strength would pose a challenge to the offending party.

Then again, just like the first way, it also took time for the second way the Threat Adjustment System manifested to take place. If not, then videos of high-leveled players wreaking havoc on low-leveled players wouldn’t have existed in his past life.

However, considering how their group had been in the Realm of New Horizons for quite some time now, that meant that the Threat Adjustment System had long since activated.

’If the monsters of the 30th layer was either the first or second possibility, farming those Greater Horizon sets wouldn’t have been an issue,’ thought Ataraxia to himself, shaking his head as his group obtained more information from the lone scout.

’After all, both possibilities would still follow the gradual increase in difficulty we’ve experienced so far, with the second possibility only being a slight hiccup.’

’On the other hand, the third possibility is definitely going to trigger that system,’ murmured the young man not long after, inwardly letting out a low sigh as the gears in his head began to turn.

’Let’s just hope the boss doesn’t end up becoming too strong.’

As he passively listened to the information the scout shared with them, Ataraxia thought back to what he knew about the random boss of the Realm of New Horizons.

From what he could recall, the boss of the dungeon was a chimera, a monstrous being that could easily maneuver in both land and air.

Adding on its stats and skills that made full use of that ability, it went without saying that facing one would be somewhat difficult, especially if it decided to stay in the air.

For a while, many players wondered why the Realm of New Horizons had such a monster as its boss. After all, the dungeon only had set equipment and skills to show for it, right?

At some point, the players found out... that the Realm of New Horizons offered more than just those items.

After the player base had fought against the dungeon’s chimera over tens of thousands of times, news eventually spread that the chimera had a small chance of dropping a mysterious black key.

Though people assumed it was a rare collectible from the dungeon at first, once more and more players got their hands on the key, it was there that the dungeon’s true secret had been fully unveiled.

That secret was also the reason why Ataraxia remembered the Realm of New Horizons as an inheritance-type dungeon.

”Are you the only one left?” Taking some time to sort out the thoughts in his mind, Ataraxia eventually asked the lone scout about the other members of the reconnaissance team.

The scout shook his head. ”There’s a couple more still there, but they’ve been forced to go into hiding because of the boss.”

”What are their conditions?”

”Barely hanging on,” replied the scout, letting out a low sigh. ”I was the only one lucky enough to escape from that area.”

”I see.” Nodding at his words, the young man briefly glanced at the remaining members of his group.

Asking the healers to heal the scout back to full HP, he then gave the man some spare equipment he had in his spatial bracelet before asking the latter to lead the way.

”Are we actually going to fight it?” Seeing how their leader showed no hesitation in their group heading for the 30th layer, Thomas and the others could not help but do a double take as they looked at the young man with incredulity.

”The boss sounds like an enemy we’re not ready to face yet.”

”With how strong our guild has become, are you guys really backing out now?” As these words left his mouth, Ataraxia swept his glance over everyone once more before letting out a peal of laughter. ”If you guys are really adamant, then sure. We can give up now and run the dungeon again.”

”However, if we do, we’ll be missing out on an opportunity if we do defeat the boss.”

”...What kind of opportunity?” asked Thomas after that, the group’s interest piqued after hearing the young man’s words.

Seeing that his words had achieved its intended effect, Ataraxia grinned.

”What if I told you...”

”The boss is a key to an inheritance?”