That was right—the shield had a large, gleaming yellow question mark painted in the middle, making it look extremely unserious.
“What the hell is this shield?”
Liu Xuan instinctively reached out to pick it up, but fortunately, he caught himself and tossed a bottle of potion inside first. Only then did he pick up the shield.
[Heavenly One]
Type: One-Handed Shield
Quality: Divine Tier One (Binds on equip. No one else can use it unless the owner dies.)
Level Requirement: Level 1
Flat Damage Reduction: 100
Effect: When you successfully predict the next hostile skill that will land on you, you ignore that skill. If the enemy can provide you with at least 1 point of experience, or if the enemy is another warrior, a successful prediction grants you one count. After accumulating one hundred counts, this equipment’s tier will increase.
Current Count: 0/100
“Holy crap, this is awesome!”
Liu Xuan froze for a moment before slapping his thigh. It was as though he had suddenly figured something out, and his face lit up with realization.
“So that’s how it is. So that’s how it is!”
“I get it now!”
He had been puzzled for a long time. He had cleared the campaign so quickly, so why was he only slightly ahead of the projected schedule?
Now he finally understood. That so-called Ascension Mastermind had calculated every possibility—including this shield, of course!
Who could have imagined that an item of this level would be hidden in the beginner area of the battlefield?
It granted one hundred points of flat damage reduction right from the start. He still wasn’t sure how exactly it worked, but judging from the description, it could probably even reduce true damage.
It might even reduce the forced one point of damage dealt when an attack failed to penetrate his defenses!
And the equipment could be upgraded, too. If the upgrade increased its flat damage reduction, then he would be set.
With that, everything made sense.
With this shield in hand, Liu Xuan could basically rule the beginner area.
The quarry was another matter, but the lumberyard would definitely be a pushover.
No wonder his lumberyard score had only been 404%.
As for the upgrade requirement—successfully predicting the next skill that would hit him—it might be difficult for other people.
But for Liu Xuan, it was a piece of cake. With [Eye of Insight], he knew every skill his enemies possessed.
At present, most monsters didn’t have many skills. As long as he watched their starting movements, he could usually figure out which skill they were about to use.
As for facing other warriors, that would require a bit of combat awareness.
Fortunately, Liu Xuan didn’t think his combat awareness was lacking.
But that was something to worry about later. For now, he could simply find monsters with only one skill and farm counts from them.
......
Although he was itching to test the shield’s effects immediately, Liu Xuan managed to suppress his excitement and put the shield away. He then turned his attention to the other two items in the chest.
The first was a yellow amber the size of a fist, glowing with a soft, soothing light.
This time, Liu Xuan casually placed a piece of Woodland Rat hide inside before picking up the amber.
[Sealing Amber (Special Item): A one-time-use item. After killing an enemy, you can seal it inside the amber. Breaking the amber will release it again.]
This thing...
After seeing the amber’s effect, Liu Xuan raised an eyebrow.
If I can kill them, why would I need to seal them?
It couldn’t be used like a Poké Ball, either.
After being released, there was no mention of the target obeying his commands. Most likely, it would still be hostile.
So what was the point? Was he bored enough to keep an enemy alive for no reason?
Wait!
Liu Xuan suddenly realized something. Who said the target had to be an enemy?
What if the person he killed was one of his own?
This amber could serve as an extra chance at resurrection!
Once he understood that, Liu Xuan immediately felt that the item was every bit as precious as the [Heavenly One] shield—perhaps even more so.
He carefully placed the amber in his bag, only relaxing after he had done so.
He was genuinely afraid of dropping and breaking this treasure.
The third item in the chest was a triangular, arrowhead-shaped stone. It looked extremely sharp.
Liu Xuan was about to toss in another piece of rat hide to exchange for it when he suddenly remembered the description of the [Fortune-Bringing Treasure Tree].
[Nurture]: Items placed inside the Fortune-Bringing Treasure Tree will gradually increase in quality over the course of countless years.
The items he placed inside would improve with time, eventually becoming treasures for future people to obtain when they discovered the tree.
Although the tree could only be encountered once every ten thousand years, and there was no chance he would ever see it a second time, it was still unclear whether the battlefield could even last that long.
But Liu Xuan recalled the many novels he had read in the past. The protagonists were always stumbling across the caves of ancient, powerful figures, where they found piles of treasures and inherited their legacies.
Back then, he had always complained: Why does the owner of every cave leave things behind, while the protagonist almost never leaves so much as a hair behind after departing?
Thinking of this, Liu Xuan put the rat hide back into his bag and took out a plain dagger instead.
[Crude Little Knife]
Quality: Rough
Level Requirement: Level 3
Additional Attack: 4
Its stats were nothing special. Now that everyone’s level had risen, he wouldn’t be able to sell it for much if he took it out.
He might as well leave it in the chest. Perhaps it could one day become an artifact like the [Heavenly One] shield.
That would count as leaving something good behind for future generations.
After putting down the [Crude Little Knife], Liu Xuan was just about to pick up the triangular stone when he suddenly thought of something.
The rules said that he could take one item after putting one item in. There shouldn’t be any problem with putting in several items, right?
He immediately tossed in several bottles of healing potions and some assorted materials before picking up the stone.
Its edges were incredibly sharp. Just looking at them made his eyes sting faintly.
[Stone of Sharpness (Divine Material): Find a use for it yourself.]
Another divine item!
This time, however, it was a material. Unlike the rare materials from before, whose uses had been clearly stated, this one didn’t even reveal what it was for.
Still, Liu Xuan was quite satisfied. The more mysterious something was, the stronger it might be.
“I’ll keep it for now. I’ll find a use for it sooner or later.”
The [Nurture] effect of the [Fortune-Bringing Treasure Tree] should be calculated based on time.
The longer the nurturing period, the greater the improvement in quality.
But because of the tree’s unusual mechanism, most people would probably try to take the items in the chest as soon as they saw them, causing the treasure tree to vanish immediately.
That was why the treasures inside had usually been left there for an extremely long time—allowing him to pick up three exceptional items.
After all three treasures were taken, the [Fortune-Bringing Treasure Tree] vanished on the spot.
Liu Xuan removed his massive door-like shield and equipped the [Heavenly One] shield instead.
Although he lost 10 points of Strength and 30 points of Armor, neither could compare with the benefit of 100 points of flat damage reduction.
As luck would have it, this area was still part of the [Mischief Monkey] territory. Liu Xuan soon found one.
When the [Mischief Monkey] spotted him, it chattered twice before raising its hand.
Liu Xuan knew that it was preparing to use its [Throw] skill to hurl a stone.
He silently recited the word “Throw” in his mind.
The monkey hurled a stone at him. The moment it touched the shield, it vanished automatically.
Immediately afterward, Liu Xuan saw the question mark in the center of the shield suddenly light up.
A huge yellow question mark appeared above the monkey’s head as well.
Liu Xuan couldn’t help laughing. So that was what the question mark in the middle of the shield meant!
He also discovered something else: although the monkey’s [Throwing] skill was ignored by the [Heavenly Being] shield, it still triggered [Nightmare Incarnate] and [Source of Plague].
After all, both of those passives activated whenever he was “attacked.”
And because he could still benefit from the experience bonus, the level-five [Mischief Monkey] still provided more than one point of experience. As a result, it not only granted Liu Xuan one point of base health but also added one more stack to [Heavenly Being].
“This monkey is practically the perfect target for farming [Heavenly Being] stacks.”
Liu Xuan planned to gain one level in [Heavenly Being] here first and see what effect it had. The Porcupinefolk in the lumberyard would be much harder to predict.
The [Porcupine Warrior] used [Throwing Axes] when it was on the verge of death, but before Liu Xuan, it would only ever be killed instantly and would never get the chance to use its skill.
As for the [Porcupine Shieldguard], its skill was a passive that blocked physical damage, so there was no way to predict it either.
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
uld barely embark on the path to immortality. Just as he was on the verge of death, his golden finger awakened. No matter whether it was poison, drained blood and vital energy, diminished lifespan, or any other physical debuff caused by paying a price—once midnight passed, everything would be refreshed. From then on, whenever someone asked what kind of person Chu Ran was, the answer was simple: Forbidden arts that other cultivators dared not learn? Chu Ran would learn them. Prices that even demonic cultivators dared not pay? Chu Ran would pay them. Lifespan that even righteous cultivators dared not burn? Chu Ran would burn it. All the blood essence in his body? Take it. Want both his hands and feet? He would cut them off and send them to you. You say he’s finished? He wasn’t built to sit idle. You think he’s gone mad? No—he was simply waiting for midnight. From that day onward, Chu Ran would respect neither Heaven nor Earth, bow to neither gods nor ghosts. He had only one wish: For midnight to arrive a little sooner.
. As long as he maintains the villain image and follows the plot to the grand finale, he can obtain generous rewards and return to the real world. So Gu Chen'an entered the role and began to act as a scumbag villain, but who would have expected that the female leads could hear his inner thoughts. Miss Su from the Su family was shocked: "I originally thought Gu Chen'an was a scumbag, but I didn't expect he turned out to be a gentleman! What? You said I have to call off the engagement? I definitely won't, I'll piss you off!" Bai Yuan Tian was dumbfounded: "Young Master Gu is usually unreasonable and a complete brat, but he actually calls me little sweetie in his heart? What, Young Master Gu even said he likes me?" As the female leads' images collapsed more and more, the plot also collapsed with it. Gu Chen'an looked at all this chaos. "Ladies, don't aggro me, if you keep this up the male lead really will stab me, I still need to survive to the grand finale!"
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
