Dust exclaimed in a trembling voice, "Brother Don... you’re living with Lily?"

Don’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. He stammered, "Dust, you absolute menace, don’t blow this out of proportion! What do you mean ’living together’?"

Then Kira delivered the killing blow with perfect timing. "That’s right. Not only Lily, I’m also staying with this guy."

Don nearly choked on his own blood. "Damn it. One sentence and I’m dead."

Diana looked at him with a knowing smile and asked no questions. "Don really should find a partner. He’s not getting any younger."

Don stared at the ground, desperately trying to change the subject. "I lost more than a dozen gold coins, failure. Only two pieces of equipment, failure. One of them is a blank item, failure. And the other one, I can’t even use, complete failure."

Diana picked up the only bronze-grade cloak from the ground. "It really is a failure."

[Scar’s Cloak, Bronze Grade]

Physical Cloak | Level Req: 25 | PDEF +80 | MDEF +120 | Evasion +120

+20 STR | +30 AGI | Sealed Slot: 1

Don immediately stated that he already had a cloak. Although his Flame Cloak was only Level 15, its unsealed attribute added 0.2 m/s movement speed, and he wouldn’t easily give that up. Diana was a core member of Sword Song, and her own cloak was excellent, so she didn’t participate either. That left Lily, Dust, and Kira to roll for it.

Dust’s luck was atrocious, a roll of 2 basically sealed his fate. Lily managed a 50, barely doing justice to the audience. Kira rolled last, landed a perfect 100, and won instantly.

After receiving the cloak, Kira looked annoyed. "Another sealed slot."

Don smiled. "What’s wrong with sealed slots? I wish all my gear was covered in holes."

"You know my luck. I’ve opened no fewer than ten slots so far. Four of them rolled durability."

Lily laughed. "Then leave it to me! I’m the famous Little Golden Hand! Accurate every single time!"

Don glared at her. "I saw cows flying in the sky."

"Hmph! If you don’t believe me, just watch!"

Kira shoved the cloak into Lily’s hands. "Here. Unseal it for me."

Lily agreed eagerly. She picked up an Unsealing Stone and pressed it directly onto the equipment. The stone cooperated beautifully, merging smoothly into the cloak’s surface.

Then the attribute that was revealed shocked everyone.

[Scar’s Cloak, Bronze Grade]

Physical Cloak | Level Req: 25 | PDEF +80 | MDEF +120 | Evasion +120

+20 STR | +30 AGI

Unsealed: Physical Defense +60

Not just now, but in the future, physical defense would never go out of style. To put it bluntly, if you put a knight in front of equal amounts of HP and physical defense, she would choose the defense every time, because higher physical defense increased the effective value of every single hit point. And for Kira specifically, 60 points of physical defense didn’t simply translate to 60, it became 72 once her Divine Armor’s 20 percent bonus was factored in.

Kira took the cloak from Lily and equipped it immediately. "Little girl, you really do have a golden touch. From now on, you’re in charge of unsealing all my equipment."

Lily said smugly, "You don’t even have to ask. As long as I’m standing next to you, you can forget about ever rolling durability again."

Don gave the girl some credit too. "It is strange. My leggings were unsealed right in front of Lily, and both attributes combined for 700 HP."

Dust was startled. "No wonder you’re so tanky."

"Alright, enough about that. Let’s find a way forward, we need the entrance to the next level."

Just as Don finished speaking, the ground around them trembled once more, and pairs of skeletal hands reached up through the cracked earth.

Don looked at them with disgust. "Damn it. How tacky. Why do they always do the same thing twice?"

But the plot was where the similarities ended. Everyone burst out laughing when the owners of those skeletal hands finally clawed their way out of the ground.

Before them stood rows of pristine white skeleton specimens, each wielding a rusty short sword.

[Anya Supervisor, Elite Monster]

Level 34 | HP: 250,000 | ATK: 1,500–1,800 | PDEF: 900 | MDEF: 800

Skills: Heaven and Earth Strike, Combo Slash, Backstab

Kira’s expression turned serious. "The attack power is genuinely high. It can break through my defense."

Don scanned the area. The monsters on this floor weren’t too densely packed. "How about this, we pull three at a time. You three warriors each grab one, stand close together so you can use AOE attacks when needed. Lily and I will burn one target down first."

There was no way they could rampage through packs the way they had on the first floor. Dust simply couldn’t survive being swarmed.

Everyone moved. Three heavily armored warriors each pulled the nearest skeleton toward them. The undead supervisors howled and charged, swinging their broken swords. Their movement speed wasn’t terrible, but the real problem was their damage output.

A powerful strike glowing with crimson light exploded on Dust’s shoulder.

[1,795!]

A third of his HP vanished in a single hit. Almost simultaneously, Diana took a combo.

[489!] [575!]

Bernita cast heals on both of them in rapid succession.

Diana clicked her tongue. "Level suppression and attack suppression. These things are genuinely strong."

At this point, Diana’s equipment was nearly all silver-grade, so losing that much HP was beyond what she’d expected. The monsters in Realms Online were on a completely different level from Battle Online. The days of frantically pulling hundreds of elite monsters and AOE-ing them down were essentially impossible in this version, unless your equipment was astronomically powerful.

Don continued unleashing Backstabs from behind the supervisor he’d targeted. Rogues were masters of hiding behind enemies, expecting him to face-tank was hopeless. At this level of incoming damage, three or four sword strikes would send him straight back to town.

Since undead creatures generally had low defense, the team’s high attack power shone through. All four main DPS players were maxed on Strength, making them devastatingly effective. Dust deserved special mention, wielding that thick, powerful halberd was exhilarating. Each swing shattered the skeleton’s ribs audibly.