Fake Professor, Misunderstood As Strong - Chapter 160

Chapter 160: The Benevolent Fairy powder… Part-2.
An hour went by in a flash, and Jareth and Aria walked continuously and reached the end of the long path.

Unlike the other floors of the dungeon, the fifth floor had no mazes or monsters residing in it.

The only monster on this floor is the dungeon master.

The final floor is basically the ‘home’ of the strongest beast in this whole dungeon; thus, no other monster is allowed to wander around in its home.

As a result, after walking for a while, Jareth and Aria arrived directly at the giant door of the final boss room.

Most dungeons in this world follow the same pattern; the final floor in most dungeons is relatively empty, and only the final boss resides there.

Strong monsters are extremely protective of their territories; after all, they won’t let random monsters wander around in the place that they live and consider their home.

This is also one of the reasons why the boss monsters always attack the invaders at first sight, because they mistake the invaders for challengers who want to seize their home and territory.

For a beast, its home and territory are its source of food and very important to its survival; challenging it for the territory is basically asking it to initiate a death battle that will only end when one party dies.

Most adventurers who raid dungeons only have two endings: they either win and return with a lot of fortune, or they end up dead and never come back from the dungeon.

There are rarely any who are able to run and make it out of the dungeon alive, even after losing a battle with the dungeon boss.

The Dungeon boss won’t let you run; it will chase you till you die or run out of the dungeon’s main entrance.

Therefore, you need to be ready for a life-or-death scenario prior to entering the ultimate boss room.

…

Unless, of course, you are already too over-leveled for a dungeon.

*Boom!*

Jareth kicked the giant door casually, and the whole stone door broke apart and flew away as if it were made up of cardboard or something.

Since Jareth already showed Aria his physical power, he didn’t bother hiding it in front of her anymore.

For someone like him who has ’99’ in strength stats, most doors and barriers are just as weak as paper; he can break them easily.

When the broken door fell to the ground, a gigantic hall appeared in Jareth’s vision.

There were many statues of knights holding swords placed near the walls as decoration, and the floor was also quite smooth with a giant magic circle-like design carved on it.

Jareth wasn’t much surprised about it, as he had already seen this in the game, but Aria was indeed quite surprised.

She has rarely been to the final boss room of a dungeon, as she doesn’t really like fighting much.

“This boss chamber looks quite beautiful, actually… It’s hard to believe such amazing architecture is hidden beneath hordes of monsters that reside on the upper floor…”

Aria’s eyes shone in admiration when looking at the amazing designs made on the ceiling of this hall.

This place actually looks like the interior of a five-star hotel.

“Well, of course it is beautiful; the great architect Erik Aigner personally designed this place!!”

Just when Aria was admiring the scenery, a hoarse and eerie voice rang out in the hall.

Jareth and Aria glanced towards the small stage built in the front area of the hall and found an undead person standing there.

The undead skeleton was wearing a dark black robe and had a big hat on its head; moreover, it had a blue staff in its hand.

Aria was really taken aback by the appearance of that undead.

“A greater Lich!? How come there’s a peak grade-2 monster in this dungeon!?”

There are many types of undead in this world, and this type of undead is one of the most dangerous of them all.

They can control mana much more effectively than humans, and nearly all of them have the ability to control a huge army of lower-grade undead monsters.

“Ah, no wonder the undead skeletons on the upper floors were cooperating with the wolf-type monsters!! You were controlling the skeletons and stopping them from attacking the wolves!”

Erik nodded his head and replied in a shrewd tone.

“Yes! Those are all my subordinates; I use them to monitor everything that happens in the dungeon; I keep an eye on all who come to this dungeon with their help of them…”

“And whoever tries to reach the fifth floor, I gather all my minions and attack them continuously to make them retreat or die on the spot…”

“You two are the first who have made it to this hall ever since I took over this dungeon…”

Aria was perplexed by those words; she also used her detection before, but she didn’t sense the presence of the Lich, as he’s much stronger than her.

This greater Lich is a peak grade-2 monster, and Aria is still not at the peak of grade-2; thus, it was impossible for her to sense his presence beforehand.

“I see, so the reason why I was not able to sense the presence of any monster in the final boss room was because you were suppressing your mana fluctuations… sigh, and here I thought that there were no monsters here…”

Aria was not able to sense anyone in the final boss chamber, so she thought that it was empty, but it turns out that from the start to the end, their every move was being monitored by the greater lich.

“W-wait, if you already knew that we were heading in your direction, then why didn’t you attack us with your minions….”

The lich shook his head and said,

“I may have lost my wits a lot after dying and becoming a lich, but I have become extremely sensitive to ‘Death’ now… and I didn’t want to provoke ‘Death’ for no reason…”

The lich glanced at Jareth and stopped talking.

Although he can’t sense any mana fluctuations from Jareth’s, he can already sense in his bones that the moment he tries to attack, he will meet his death.

Jareth, on the other hand, was still indifferent.

He had already sensed Erik’s presence before even entering the dungeon; in fact, he knew that Erick would be here, as he had completed this dungeon in the game many times.

The main reason for bringing Mark and Risa to train here was so that he could also visit Erik, who is one of the game’s few hidden NPCs.

Yes! Erik is not actually a monster; he’s a hidden NPC merchant. You can buy a lot of rare and shady items from him.

“Erik, the Greatest Smuggler of ‘Benevolent Fairy powder’… It’s nice to meet you. I am Jareth Ayad, a humble wizard…”

Hearing Jareth’s words, Erik went silent for a moment and then laughed a bit,

“Hahaha, I didn’t expect that there would still be some people left who would have known about me! Ahahaha, this is amazing!!”

“It’s been more than fifty years since I have felt so excited and happy!!”

Erik didn’t bother upholding the status of the boss monster anymore; he put his wand back in his space ring and walked over to Jareth and Aria’s side, completely defenseless.

Jareth wasn’t surprised by this move, but Aria backed off quite a few steps in fright.

In the game, you have two options to deal with this hidden NPC: one is that you fight him and loot his equipment; the other is that you say that he used to smuggle ‘Benevolent Fairy Powder’.

Saying this will turn him from an enemy to a friend.

He will consider you a customer who came to buy the ‘Benevolent Fairy Powder’ from him, and thus he will turn into a merchant.

Aside from that powder, you can also buy some other things from him, like the heart of a fox-man from the fox tribe that lives in the Beast Folk Empire.

Also, he sells illegal drugs and poison, and if you buy a lot of Benevolent Fairy Powder from him, he will even sell you some shady forbidden spells.

One of them is the spell that can be used to turn humans into literal potions that can help you improve your grade temporarily.

That kind of potion has severe side effects, and you need to use a human as ‘material’ to extract life essence and soul power to make that potion.

Thus, it’s forbidden magic.

In the game, there are also unique methods to use these forbidden magic books. If you give this book to Aria, who’s a pure-hearted merchant, she will go mad and lose her mind.

Eventually turning into an evil alchemist, this is basically a bad ending scenario for Aria’s character in the game.

Some players, who like to complete the game 100%, engage in this shady behavior to earn trophies.

Jareth himself never tried it, as Aria is a very useful NPC in the game, and he didn’t want to lose a merchant who sells potions at a low price.

Even today, Jareth only came here for that ‘Benevolent Fairy Powder’ and not for those shady forbidden spells.

“Let’s cut the chit-chat and talk about business… I want the whole stock of that powder you have; we can negotiate the price…”

Erik laughed happily at Jareth’s words and said,

“Hoho, it’s a rare occasion to meet a customer who has a lot of money in their hand, it seems it’s my lucky day today!”

“But, forgive me, Mr. Jareth, I don’t need money from you… How about you do me a favor instead, and I will give you the whole stock for a very big discount!”

Jareth’s eyes narrowed a bit at those words.

“Hmm… sell them to me first and then tell me more about it…”