Chapter 100: The Sealing Item

So, if they wanted to efficiently eliminate these ghostly skeletons without paying too high a price... at the very least, without suffering any casualties, right?

If they didn’t want anyone to get hurt, they’d need a solid plan.

“Lake, go check over there...” After surveying the area, Su You already had a rough plan in mind for taking down these ghostly skeletons. She called Lake over, gave him a few instructions, and he left at once.

Then, Su You took out a backpack full of materials and began setting things up.

As she worked, she kept glancing up to observe her surroundings. During this time, Duoya stood at a distance—not too close, not too far—so she could keep an eye on Su You’s actions without getting in the way.

After about ten minutes, Lake returned. By then, Su You had already surrounded their current position with wooden fences and walls.

“My Lord! It’s exactly as you said! There’s a black, square stone right behind that stone door!” Lake hurried back to Su You and reported his findings, then started asking about her next steps and what the stone was for.

“That stone doesn’t have a name, but it’s quite useful. It can seal the stone door for a while.” The reason it has no name is that different monster spawners have different corresponding “stones.”

Actually, monster spawners don’t always take the form of stone doors. Sometimes it’s a pit, a wooden door, a ladder, a pond...

The sealing item for a stone door is a “stone.” Other spawners have different sealing items—for example, a locked door might require a key, a ladder-type spawner might need a rope, and so on...

Not every spawner has a sealing item, but if it does, it will always spawn somewhere nearby.

Although sealing items can seal a spawner, which sounds impressive, there’s a major drawback: sealing doesn’t stop the spawner from generating monsters. It just traps them inside, preventing them from coming out.

But when the seal is lifted, all the monsters generated during the sealed period will be released at once.

So, in many cases, even if there’s a sealing item available, people often choose not to use it.

Because if only a few monsters come out at a time, they’re easier to handle and can be picked off one by one. But if a huge horde is released all at once, the difficulty skyrockets.

Take now, for example—it hasn’t been that long, and there are already over twenty monsters here. If they sealed the spawner for several days, wouldn’t they have to face a hundred ghostly skeletons when the seal is broken?

However, since Su You had Lake look for the sealing item, it meant she intended to seal the spawner for a while.

Even though the spawner would become much more dangerous when the seal was lifted, no one would knowingly walk into such a situation without making preparations.

Normally, after sealing a spawner, people would either set up a lot of offensive or defensive structures nearby, or use the time to build up their strength until they’re ready to deal with the spawner.

Su You didn’t want to choose—she planned to do both.

She would build structures here and also accumulate fighting power. When the seal broke, that would be the day the spawner was destroyed.

Her greatest confidence came from Meck.

If Su You weren’t sure she could recruit Meck—knowing full well how strong he was—she wouldn’t dare. Even if hundreds of ghostly skeletons appeared at once in the future, he could handle them all with ease.

...

But the immediate problem was to deal with the ghostly skeletons already present. If they couldn’t even handle these, what was the point of sealing the spawner?

After learning about the sealing item, Su You placed the last two arrow towers she needed to build in suitable spots, then turned to Duoya.

“Want to try?” Su You’s meaning was clear—she wanted Duoya to operate the arrow tower.

Although using an arrow tower was different from shooting a bow, the attack methods were similar enough. Since Duoya was already an excellent archer, with the potential to become a master marksman, handling the arrow tower should be no problem.

Duoya didn’t waste words—she immediately took control of one of the arrow towers.

Once manually operated, the arrow tower could not only be aimed and fired by a person, but more importantly, it could benefit from the operator’s attribute bonuses.

The more compatible the operator’s attributes were with the structure, the higher the bonus and the greater the damage.

Duoya was an archer, so her compatibility with the arrow tower was self-evident. Plus, Su You hadn’t built a basic arrow tower this time, but an intermediate one...

The intermediate arrow tower required [Plank x5, Stone Brick x5, Rope x10]. The main difference between intermediate and basic arrow towers was the damage bonus.

A basic arrow tower had a base attack of 5, while an intermediate one had a base attack of 20—a full four times higher!

With the stone arrows’ built-in 10 attack, a single shot from the tower would deal 30 damage!

And with Duoya’s own bonuses, Su You saw that the tower’s attack had reached 45 (10+20+15).

In other words, Duoya’s presence added another 15 attack points to the tower.

The ghostly skeletons had 10 defense, so each shot dealt 35 damage. With 100 HP each, Duoya only needed to fire the intermediate arrow tower three times to kill one.

But that wasn’t enough. After all, two hands can’t beat many—over twenty ghostly skeletons couldn’t be handled just by killing one every three shots.

That’s why Su You built a second intermediate arrow tower, this one for herself.

Although she had no combat attributes and couldn’t add any bonuses, as long as she hit a ghostly skeleton, she could still deal 20 (10+20-10) damage—meaning five shots to kill one.

It wasn’t as fast as Duoya, but every kill helped.

...

While Duoya was testing out the arrow tower, Su You had already assigned Lake his task.

Since the two of them would be manning the arrow towers, the job of luring monsters naturally fell to Lake.

Unlike last time, this time the ghostly skeletons had all spawned from the spawner, so they were packed tightly together—disturbing one could set them all off.

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"101. Beginner Agility Potion

They were like dominoes—if Lake disturbed even one of them, the remaining twenty or so would all target him, toppling toward him one after another.

If he couldn’t escape in time, just a few hits from each of those twenty-odd ghostly skeletons would be enough to finish him off. After all, ghostly skeletons had a decent attack power—20 points each.

Although Lake was equipped with some gear, sheer numbers would overwhelm him. Having equipment just meant he wouldn’t die instantly, not that he wouldn’t die at all.

“Take this. If you find you can’t outrun them, drink it right away. Don’t try to save it—your life is more important than anything else.” As she spoke, Su You handed Lake the Beginner Agility Potion she’d been keeping for emergencies.

Seeing Lake’s curious look as he held the potion, Su You briefly explained, “It’ll boost your speed for five minutes.”

【Beginner Agility Potion】(Ingredients: Wind Millet Grass*1, Greenheart Herb*5, Water, Container)

Type: Potion

Quality: Green

Effect: +100 Movement Speed (Duration: 5 minutes)

Description: The main ingredient of the Beginner Agility Potion is Wind Millet Grass. When consumed, it can temporarily unlock the body’s potential, greatly increasing movement speed. Due to the strength of its effects, do not use consecutively. After each use, you must wait about one hour for the remaining effects to wear off (translation: 1-hour cooldown). If you use it again before the effects have fully worn off, you do so at your own risk.

So, what does a 100-point movement speed boost actually mean?

Here, a normal person’s walking speed is about 300, running is anywhere from 500 to 800, and only those with special talents or skills might reach 900. If you can hit 1,000… that’s fast enough to dodge attacks from some high-level non-human creatures.

So, a 100-point speed boost is actually quite significant. As long as nothing unexpected happens, if Lake drinks it in time, he’ll definitely make it back safely.

As for the potion’s ingredients, Su You had previously mentioned Wind Millet Grass—she kept one stalk as a seed, and used the other three to make just this one bottle of agility potion.

Greenheart Herb, on the other hand, is a special plant with no medicinal effects of its own, but it can enhance the properties of other herbs.

Not just agility potions—strength potions, healing potions, mana potions, and so on—all can use Greenheart Herb to boost their effects and reduce the amount of main ingredients needed.

Otherwise, the basic recipe for a Beginner Agility Potion would have been: [Wind Millet Grass*3, Water, Container].

But thanks to Greenheart Herb’s special properties, Su You was able to substitute it for some of the Wind Millet Grass in the recipe.

“Understood, my lord. Don’t worry.” Lake carefully took the potion. To make sure he could use it quickly, he didn’t even put it in his pocket—he just held it tightly in his hand.

With Lake’s task settled, Su You turned to Duoya. “How’s it going?”

Duoya, already at the top of the arrow tower, nodded at Su You, then demonstrated her skill by shooting an arrow that pierced three falling leaves in a row.

Lake, who had been about to leave, saw this and couldn’t help but blurt out an uncultured exclamation—

Lake: “That’s badass!”

Su You: “...” Did the system accidentally mix in some other data templates during import?

...

Although Lake had always admired Duoya’s skills because of the Black-striped Tiger incident, he’d never truly witnessed her abilities firsthand, so his admiration wasn’t all that deep.

But with that arrow, not only did Su You see that Duoya could handle the arrow tower perfectly, Lake also got a real sense of her strength, which boosted his confidence for the task ahead.

After watching Duoya’s display, Lake didn’t waste any time. Clutching the potion, he dashed behind the stone gate, then led a group of ghostly skeletons around the area three times—

This was the monster-pulling technique Su You had taught him.

Normally, to pull monsters, you’d just rush in to get their attention and then lead them back. That works, but the problem is it draws all the monsters at once, making them too densely packed and putting a lot of pressure on Su You and Duoya.

It’s best to take them out one by one—not scatter your attacks all over the place. But if the monsters are too tightly packed, even the best aim can’t prevent certain situations—for example, monsters crowding together and accidentally shielding each other.

Even with Duoya’s archery skills, she couldn’t avoid that.

But if you circle the area a few times with the ghostly skeletons in tow, their numbers will naturally thin out due to various factors.

There are many reasons for this—differences in movement speed, environmental obstacles, or even the monsters tripping over each other and knocking their companions down...

The goal is simple: to break up the dense mob into smaller, more manageable groups.

It sounds easy, but it’s actually quite difficult—especially since ghostly skeletons come with a “physical stealth” buff. Lake had to be extra careful when pulling them and planning his escape route.

Otherwise, if he tripped over a ghostly skeleton lying in wait, he’d be done for.

Luckily, nothing went wrong. After about three laps, Lake managed to bring five or six scattered ghostly skeletons to the front of the arrow tower.

To avoid friendly fire, Su You didn’t attack, but Duoya was different—she was confident enough to strike first, targeting one of the ghostly skeletons.

Although Lake was the initial aggro target, the hatred generated by an attack is always greater, so the skeleton Duoya hit naturally broke off from chasing Lake and started attacking the sturdy wooden barricade Su You had set up, trying to break through and reach the arrow tower and its occupant.

For her second shot, Duoya didn’t aim at the skeleton attacking the barricade, but instead targeted the remaining ones still chasing Lake. Just like before, her attack drew their aggro, luring them all to the barricade."

"Here is a fluent, natural English translation of the provided Chinese text:

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