Am I going to be controlled by the players too?

Cheng Cheng silently withdrew his gaze.

Although I don't know why, I always felt that this elf team wasn't very reliable.

Chapter 30, Can I Clear the Dungeon While Adhering to the Rites of Zhou? (Bonus Chapter of 6600 Words)

After a moment's deliberation, Cheng Cheng finally decided to join the team.

The elf team's target was the eighth underground level, where the level's boss had not been defeated, and dangerous monsters roamed everywhere, including lower-level demons, making it extremely dangerous.

However, this elf squad was all silver-level, so even if they encountered a demon, they wouldn't be in much danger.

More importantly, few adventurers can reach this level, so many treasure chests remain unopened, along with relics of veteran adventurers and extraordinary items produced by the abyss itself—each one is incredibly valuable.

"With such a complete team setup, it's not impossible for us to take on the level-guarding boss!" The elves were clearly very confident. "The treasure chest after defeating the level-guarding boss will be enough for all of us to refine Nascent Soul Pills!"

"Nascent Soul Pill?" Cheng Cheng was taken aback. "What is that?"

"Oh, it's the breakthrough material needed to upgrade to Gold." Kong Wenbin explained, "In our empire, everything below Silver is called Qi Refining. Silver is divided into Foundation Establishment Realm and Golden Core Realm, while Gold is divided into Nascent Soul Realm and Deity Transformation Realm. It's just that the names are different."

Good grief, I was writing a Western fantasy script, and you guys just started cultivating immortality, huh?

Cheng Cheng smirked. Just as everyone had decided on their destination, they suddenly heard a voice behind them:

Excuse me, are you still hiring?

He turned his head.

The newcomer wore a drab gray cloak with the hood pulled low, revealing only a sharp chin. He was thin and walked almost silently, like a cat approaching without a sound.

The man walked closer, raised his hand, and pulled up his hood.

A young face was revealed—early twenties, with regular features, pale skin, and light gray eyes. A short sword hung at his waist, its scabbard plain and undecorated.

“Loo,” he introduced himself, “from the Holy Kingdom, a Silver-rank assassin.”

Cheng Cheng's brows immediately furrowed.

He had a feeling that something was off about this person, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"No," Cheng Cheng said.

Luo was taken aback, then turned to him: "Why?"

"Aren't assassins supposed to steal kills?" Cheng Cheng said matter-of-factly. "You've already killed all the monsters, what are we supposed to fight?"

Paul chimed in, "Yeah, why kill?"

Loo's expression froze for a second: "With me helping you kill monsters, it will be easier for you, won't it?"

"No means no."

After a moment of silence, he regained his composure, took out a piece of parchment from his pocket, and handed it to Kong Wenbin, the captain of the elven squad: "This is my resume. I have carried out seventeen missions in the Holy Kingdom, with zero failures. In addition to assassination, I am also skilled in tracking, reconnaissance, trap dismantling—and healing magic."

Kong Wenbin took the resume, glanced at it, then looked up, a hint of surprise flashing in his eyes: "You know healing magic?"

“A required course for adventurers in the Church,” Loo said. “It’s common for teammates to get injured during infiltration missions; you can’t always rely on the clergy.”

What level is your healing skill at?

Luo raised his right hand, spread his five fingers, and a soft white halo appeared in his palm. The halo gradually spread and enveloped a two-meter radius around him.

The necromancer Li Xianyu narrowed his eyes, sensed it for a moment, and then nodded: "A pure healing spell. Not low-grade."

Kong Wenbin pondered for a moment, then turned to Cheng Cheng:

“Miss Endlight Judgement, I understand you… well, your little quirk of enjoying killing, but having an additional healing ability will significantly increase the team's survivability. Assassins are good at finishing off enemies, but they can also control their damage output—as long as they don't try to get the last hit, it'll be fine, right?”

She looked at Loo.

Luo Ao's gaze swept across Cheng Cheng's face, a fleeting, unfathomable emotion flashing in his light gray eyes, but he quickly regained his composure.

“Okay,” he said. “You can take the final blow; I’ll just focus on dealing damage and healing.”

Cheng Cheng stared at him for three seconds, and finally nodded. "Alright, but let me make this clear first—if you dare to steal someone's kill, I'll throw you off the tracks."

Luo Ao's lips curled up slightly: "Deal."

…………

Adventurers make a living in dungeons, often without regard to day or night.

Even though the moon was already high in the sky, the group decided after discussion to go to the underground city to test the waters.

Berserker Yang Chen carried a giant axe, necromancer Li Xianyu was wrapped in a black robe, priest Kong Wenbin held a bamboo scroll, archer Tie Dan carried a manhole cover, and Luo Ao, wearing a drab gray cloak, stood quietly at the edge of the group, like a shadow that could disappear at any moment.

Cheng Cheng and Paul walked at the back.

Pushing open the heavy iron door, the familiar damp, musty smell hit me.

The first level of the underground city.

Tents, garbage, huddled figures, and the cloying, sweet smell in the air, a mixture of saccharin, urine, and drugs.

Just as Cheng Cheng had chosen the Abyss Blessing for this level, he saw the elven team ahead stop.

Yang Chen stared wide-eyed at the orc huddled by the tent not far away—he was so thin he was skin and bones, his ribs protruding one by one, holding an empty syringe in his hand, staring blankly at the ground, motionless.

"What...what is this?" Yang Chen's voice was filled with disbelief.

“A wanderer,” Cheng Cheng said, “haven’t you seen them before?”

Yang Chen turned to look at him, his dark golden eyes filled with confusion: "Wanderers? Isn't the kingdom... shouldn't it be very wealthy?"

"rich?"

“Yes,” Kong Wenbin replied, his gaze sweeping over the dilapidated tents around them. “When we were in the Empire, we heard a lot about the Kingdom. They said the Kingdom worshipped the Church of the City Builders, and the church gave each believer credits—money you could receive without doing anything. They said the Kingdom government had all sorts of welfare policies; the poor lived in government-allocated housing, and there were free healing mages for the sick—”

He paused, then pointed to the dwarf rummaging through a pile of garbage not far away:

"This... apart from the air being indeed sweet, the rest is quite different from what we've heard."

“Yes,” Li Xianyu nodded. “I’ve heard similar rumors. It’s about a primary school student in a kingdom who lost his pet sparrow. So he called the queen, and she immediately ordered all the scouting sorcerers in the country to help find the sparrow.”

"Because the kingdom has done a good job in greening and ecological protection, there are too many sparrows. So the queen asked the elementary school student what the characteristics of sparrows were. The student said that his pet sparrow had a steel ball with a diameter of 0.5 nm embedded in its leg. Only the kingdom has the ability to produce such steel balls. After receiving this information, the queen's reconnaissance magic team found the sparrow in just half an hour, but it was entangled in a high-voltage line."

"So the Queen immediately ordered the shutdown of all the high-voltage power lines in the country and dispatched invisible magic planes to rescue the sparrow. In the end, the sparrow was saved, and everyone was happy." Li Xianyu said, then sighed, "Shutting down the entire country's power lines for a single sparrow—this spirit of putting life before anything else moved a generation of the empire... But how could the real kingdom be like this?"

The hysteria is ruled out as a fabrication; the diagnosis is that the author has been reading too much of the novel "Hysteria Forest."

Cheng Cheng sighed and pointed to the figures huddled in the shadows:

"Of those people, a third went bankrupt because of divorce, a third went into debt because of illness, a third went into debt because they couldn't pay their student loans, and a third were veterans... The kingdom's rules exploit all the poor equally, and eventually drove them here."

Yang Chen fell silent.

Li Xianyu gripped his staff tightly, his knuckles turning white; Tie Dan took the well cover off his back, held it in his hand, and his playful expression vanished.

"This...this is against the rites of Zhou!"

Kong Wenbin sighed and muttered something under his breath, as if he were praying for these people.

…………

The group continued their journey, passing through the first floor and entering the second floor. The familiar humid heat hit them, steam pipes meandered overhead, and emergency lights flickered in the dim light.

Without lingering, they went straight through the narrow passages and found the iron door leading to the third floor.

The iron gate opened, and a strong wind rushed in.

The third level is the roller coaster nightmare.

It was still that endless track, still those metal pillars suspended in the air, still the churning sea of ​​clouds and the blinding sunlight, with howling winds swirling the thin clouds.

Yang Chen was the first to step onto the tracks, turning back with a grin:

"I've heard about this place since I was in the Empire, and I've always wanted to come and see it. I heard that the roller coaster here takes adventurers down through the clouds—it's so thrilling!"

"Exciting as it may be, be careful." Kong Wenbin stepped onto the tracks and steadied himself.

Cheng Cheng stood at the edge of the track, his gaze sweeping across the surrounding clouds, then over the winding, crisscrossing tracks in the distance, and finally settling on the churning sea of ​​clouds below.

The devil of elbow strikes, the devil of plane crashes.

I died at their hands the last time I explored the dungeon. I wonder if I'll encounter them again this time?

"Everyone," he hesitated for a moment before speaking, "I have a rumor that there's a problem with the roller coaster on the third level. There might be a demon hiding in the first roller coaster, specifically targeting adventurers."

The air was quiet for a second.

"Demons?" Yang Chen scratched his head. "Are there demons in the lower three levels? Wasn't it said that you wouldn't encounter them until at least the eighth level?"

"It's better to believe it exists than not to believe it doesn't," Cheng Cheng said. "I suggest that when the roller coaster comes, don't rush to get on. Let me check it out first."

Kong Wenbin stared at him for two seconds, then nodded:

Okay. I'll do as you say.

Fifteen minutes later, a metallic roar could be heard in the distance.

"Clang, clang..."

An old-fashioned roller coaster sped along the track, its body rusted and paint peeling. Its six carriages swayed violently on the track. Cheng Cheng stood high on the track, staring intently at the approaching roller coaster. In the last carriage, in his seat—

A basketball.

Exactly the same as last time.

"that's it!"

Cheng Cheng raised his left hand, palm up, and black flames shot out, turning into a fireball the size of a human head, rushing towards the roller coaster!

"boom--!!!"

The fireball exploded in the last carriage, and black flames instantly engulfed the entire train!

The train carriage exploded, and the basketball was propelled into the air by the flames, suddenly expanding and deforming in mid-air—

Countless pale arms grew wildly from the basketball, one, ten, a hundred, densely packed, layer upon layer, like a blooming flower of flesh and blood. Each arm had a bloodshot eyeball in its palm, and each arm was scratching and writhing frantically.

Those arms tore through the carriages and the tracks, eventually coalescing into a massive limb cluster over five meters in diameter, suspended in the air!

Countless eyes rolled simultaneously, fixed intently on the people on the track—

The devil of elbow strikes has descended!

"Look at you!"

Yang Chen was the first to rush forward, his dark golden eyes meeting the demon's gaze. A burst of red light erupted, and he became like a raging bull, his giant axe cleaving towards the writhing arm!