As the very first target John had set his sights on,
this A-Rank treasure chest was naturally the top priority.
The chest was silver in color and carried an ancient, timeworn aura.
[A-Rank Random Treasure Chest]
[Description]: Dropped in the dungeon Catacomb. Upon opening, one A-Rank item will be randomly drawn (including but not limited to equipment, skills, props, etc.)
…
Simply put, this A-Rank random treasure chest was basically a high-end blind box.
Whether what came out was good or bad depended entirely on the player's luck.
In his previous life, John had once opened an accessory from an A-Rank chest that increased critical hit rate.
It had benefited him enormously and officially allowed him to step into the ranks of elite assassins.
Of course, there were also times when luck failed him. For example, he had once drawn a completely useless trash item.
"But with my stat-modification system, even the most worthless item can be turned into a divine artifact!"
Filled with confidence, John pressed the open button on the A-Rank chest.
With a click, the chest opened on its own.
In an instant,
a violet glow lit up the entire room.
When the purple light faded,
John saw a… hood inside the chest?
The hood was exquisitely made, smooth and soft to the touch, and entirely black.
Its related information appeared before John's eyes.
[Thousand-Faced Mask] (A-Rank)
[Effect]: After equipping it, the user can transform into the appearance of any person they have seen, perfectly imitating them in every aspect.
(Maximum recorded targets: 100)
…
This was a hood that allowed John to disguise himself flawlessly.
If he wanted, he could even disguise himself as Guild Master Sein right now.
He would be able to perfectly imitate Sein's expressions, movements, and voice.
Unless it was someone extremely familiar with Sein, no one would ever be able to tell the difference.
This was practically a must-have divine item for traveling!
The only drawback was the limit on how many identities it could record.
It could store no more than one hundred people.
Once the number of recorded forms reached one hundred,
John would only be able to switch among those one hundred appearances from then on.
That was why it was only A-Rank.
But that was fine. As long as an item involved numerical values, John could modify it!
He smiled faintly and decisively pulled up the Thousand-Faced Mask's panel, making adjustments again and again.
When he was done,
the Thousand-Faced Mask's maximum number of recorded forms had been directly increased to a cap of ten thousand!
Ten thousand was more than enough for John to imitate the appearance of every enemy he would ever meet.
After tossing the Thousand-Faced Mask into his inventory,
John still did not leave in a hurry.
Because what came next was the true reason he had entered this dungeon.
John stood and walked to the stone platform where the Thousand-Faced Mage had previously been seated.
Only after stepping onto the platform did he notice that a stone coffin was embedded in its center.
The coffin lid fit perfectly with the surrounding surface, without the slightest unevenness.
There were also many incomprehensible symbols carved into the lid.
Drawing upon memories from his previous life, John identified one circular symbol among them.
This was the hidden mechanism that opened the stone coffin.
He pressed his hand firmly against the circular symbol, then began turning it with force.
Buzzz—
As the mechanism was triggered,
the coffin lid, once seamless with the surrounding stone platform, slowly began to sink downward.
There was actually another space hidden beneath this room!
And that was precisely John's destination.
As a reincarnator,
he knew better than anyone why the Thousand-Faced Mage had revived in this underground catacomb in the history of the game.
Because at the very bottom of these catacombs, there was a time rift.
Inside that time rift surged incomparably chaotic temporal currents.
Its existence had thrown the time and space of this entire area into disorder.
The Thousand-Faced Mage had originally been a figure from several thousand years ago.
For him to suddenly appear in the underground catacombs outside Novice Village
was naturally the result of the turbulent time currents.
Standing atop the stone coffin, John silently waited as it continued descending into the region below, where the time-space rift lay.
After dropping dozens of meters,
a streak of light flashed past.
John's eyes flickered. When he came back to his senses,
he found himself standing on a circular platform.
The platform was enormous, spanning several hundred meters.
Beyond its edges lay a pitch-black, bottomless abyss.
If one fell, death was certain.
And at the very center of the platform,
within a cage formed entirely of lightning, floated a pale golden scroll.
It was none other than the Class Change Scroll countless players dreamed of obtaining!
"So it's still here."
John's gaze grew heated as he stared at the scroll.
The accumulation of the experience pool also had its limit.
At most, it could only store enough experience to raise him to Level 50.
By John's current estimate, if he had been able to level up directly, he would probably already be above Level 40.
The only thing restricting him was the lack of a class advancement.
As long as he could obtain this Class Change Scroll,
he would immediately jump from Level 30 to the forties!
He was determined to claim this Class Change Scroll!
"Come out."
John rolled his neck and spoke indifferently toward the darkness surrounding the platform.
Boom!
A bolt of lightning crashed down violently onto the platform area opposite John.
There stood a lion cloaked from head to toe in crackling lightning.
John's gaze sharpened, and the lion's information leapt into view.
[Thunder Lion] Lv.40 (Hidden S-Rank Boss)
[HP]: 100,000
[Attack]: 5,190
[Defense]: 5,010
[Skills]: Lightning Chain, Lightning Double
…
A Level 40 hidden boss.
The most terrifying thing about this Thunder Lion was not its absurd stats, but its two skills.
[Lightning Double] could replicate two clones, and those clones shared HP with the original.
Without a powerful detection ability, it was impossible to tell which one was the real body.
Even more disgusting was this: if a player accidentally attacked a clone as though it were the real body,
then when that clone's HP dropped to 1, it would forcibly lock its health in place.
That meant players could pour in a huge amount of damage and accomplish absolutely nothing.
Even in his previous life, John had suffered plenty because of those clones.
To kill this Thunder Lion,
both the clones and the original had to die at the same time.
And its [Lightning Chain] was even more outrageous.
The Thunder Lion could cast it on all players at once, branding them with a Lightning Brand.
Any player struck by it would be linked to the others. As long as the Thunder Lion attacked one of them, every other branded player would suffer the same amount of damage.
It was somewhat similar to John's [Annihilation of All], but even more impossible to deal with.
Because the Lightning Brand ignored distance.
Even if a player had already escaped the underground catacombs and fled all the way back to Novice Village,
as long as another branded player was attacked by the Thunder Lion,
that player back in Novice Village would still suffer identical damage because of the brand.
This was a true "curse."
The only way to remove it was to wait for the brand to fade over time.
Those players who liked running dungeons in teams had cursed this Thunder Lion countless times.
Because this skill had clearly been designed specifically to target them.
As long as one person got hit by mistake,
the entire team would pay a painful price.
Fortunately,
for John, this move was basically meaningless.
Because he had come here alone.
John alone was the whole team!
"Come on, then. Let me see how your strength compares to what I remember from my previous life."