I pressed the accelerator button twice, and let's assume the current speed is in second gear. To be honest, the current speed isn't very fast, but the wooden boat is moving forward quite smoothly.
Jiang Ran looked out over the river from the edge of the boat. The river water appeared dark green under the reflection of the sky, and he couldn't see what was below through the water.
The wooden boat beneath us is far too small. Even if it doesn't fall apart midway, it would probably capsize if a slightly larger wave came crashing in. If that were to happen, what measures should we take to deal with it?
Jiang Ran's gaze swept over the nine buttons on the right again. The pattern of the third button in the first row seemed to resemble a shield. So, could these nine buttons represent the abilities that the wooden boat could use?
"You'll know once you try."
Jiang Ran pressed the accelerator button again, increasing the speed to level three!
The wooden boat's speed has now moved beyond the "slow" range and is about the same as that of ordinary boats. Jiang Ran stared intently at the river surface, his right hand resting on the button.
"They're here!"
The river surface on the left began to ripple. Jiang Ran immediately pressed the button with the shield symbol. A transparent shield with a faint white glow enveloped the entire wooden boat. The next moment, a strange-looking fish with a body length of two meters thrashed out of the river and slapped its tail against the shield!
The wooden boat didn't rock at all. Instead, the strange fish, in pain, jumped back into the river. Looking at the ripples on the surface of the river, Jiang Ran knew that the fish seemed to be sticking to him and wouldn't leave. It just kept following the wooden boat.
After the shield was activated, two of the will-o'-the-wisps on the wooden boat disappeared. So these will-o'-the-wisps weren't decorations after all, but rather something like mana?
"Gwen, if that fish jumps at us again after the shield goes down, how confident are you in taking it down?"
Gwen looked at Jiang Ran with disdain: "Hey, hey, hey, are you already openly exploiting us?"
"How could that be? This is the best option to ensure we have a greater chance of reaching the other side." Jiang Ran shamelessly began to explain, "Look, the number of ghost fires is limited. Although there are definitely attack methods among these nine buttons, they will also consume ghost fires."
"So if we fire at every fish we see, the will-o'-the-wisp won't be enough to get us to the other side."
As soon as he finished speaking, the shield protecting the wooden boat shattered instantly, and the fish underwater seized the opportunity to leap out again!
"Gwen! Go!"
"Okay!"
Gwen wielded her large scissors, leaped nimbly, and sliced the strange fish into pieces in mid-air before landing steadily on the boat!
Before she could even feel happy, another strange fish of the same kind jumped out from another direction. Gwen felt like she had been tricked, but there was nothing she could do but try again!
After Gwen finished dealing with the fish, Jiang Ran reduced his speed to second gear.
"Is the monster spawn rate this high with only level three? If I upgrade to level four, won't I get ganged up on by these fish?"
Not everyone has a strange creature protecting them. Jiang Ran tried to put himself in Bell's situation, a human without help and without ascension, who could only rely on the facilities on the ship to fight against the monsters in the river.
Even if an attack only requires one ball of ghost fire, then 18 balls of ghost fire can only support him to kill 18 monster fish at most, which is obviously a very unreasonable situation.
Having played so many betting tables, Jiang Ran knew that he couldn't just look at each game from the perspective of the rules. If he treated this place as a real River Styx, what kind of ecosystem would it have?
The monsters will definitely become more terrifying the further we get into the river. The boat has only just started moving, so we've only encountered these ordinary fish monsters so far.
Third gear isn't actually that fast, far from being speeding, so is it possible that different types of monsters are attracted to different gears? For example, third gear might attract ordinary monster fish, but not enough to attract larger ones.
That's right. The referee said that speed is proportional to danger, which means that the danger here refers to the type of fish. The boat has just started moving and is only in shallow water, so it's unlikely that any powerful fish monsters will appear here.
Jiang Ran didn't know what choice Bell would make. Perhaps he would accelerate recklessly, or perhaps he would maintain a low speed to play it safe. Because he didn't know, Jiang Ran didn't dare to go too slow.
"Since this place is relatively safe, we can give it a try."
Jiang Ran activated his shield and then immediately increased his speed to fourth gear!
Gwen's eyes widened: "Are you trying to kill me?!"
"Don't rush, watch me do it!"
Countless strange fish surged forward, terrifying Gwen. Jiang Ran was prepared to slow down at any moment, but seeing the increasing number of fish while the shield remained stable, he knew that these fish could not break through the shield, no matter how many there were.
The shield lasts for 30 seconds. Jiang Ran slowed down to second speed just as the shield was about to expire to make sure he wouldn't attract any new monster fish, and then pressed the button that looked like a firework!
The three will-o'-the-wisps disappeared, and countless eerie green flames fell from the sky above the wooden boat. These flames skillfully avoided Jiang Ran and Gwen, and accurately landed on each of the strange fish!
After gathering the monsters, the next step is, of course, area-of-effect (AoE) skills!
"Holy crap! Are you so sure this is an area-of-effect attack? What if it's just a firework?" Gwen, still shaken, grabbed Jiang Ran's shoulders and shook him hard. "You're risking your life like this! Don't drag me down with you!"
"Don't rush," Jiang Ran said with a smile, pointing to the shield button. "Even if we gambled wrong this time, we can just activate the shield again."
Gwen turned her head and snorted: "If none of these nine buttons have area-of-effect attacks, let's see what you do then. I can't handle so many fish!"
"There is a way to deal with any situation, so area-of-effect attacks are a given."
Jiang Ran was only betting on which button had an area-of-effect attack ability. He even guessed that there was definitely more than one area-of-effect skill among the nine buttons. Combined with the patterns on the buttons, the probability of guessing correctly was actually quite high!
Jiang Ran widened the gap with a speed of nearly 30 seconds in fourth gear, so there's no need to accelerate for now, as this method consumes a lot of spirit fire.
Performing this operation once wastes 5 orbs of spirit fire. Including the previous shield, Jiang Ran has already consumed 7 orbs of spirit fire, leaving him with 11 orbs of spirit fire remaining.
Gwen, turning his little head, suggested, "Now that you know which button is the area-of-effect attack, and those monster fish can't break through the shield, why don't you activate the shield, speed up to the maximum, and we'll just go straight there? Anyway, we can leave three will-o'-the-wisps to clear out the mobs at the end. What do you think?"
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