Heart of Fear

Over on Liu Xuan’s side, he hurriedly checked the rankings before summoning the slot machine to draw a new passive skill.

The slot machine spun with a jingle for quite some time before finally coming to a stop. A new passive skill appeared before him.

【Heart of Fear: If a monster dies while in your “Fear” status and would provide you with at least 1 experience point, you gain 0.1 Intelligence.】

Liu Xuan’s eyes lit up at first, but he immediately frowned.

His Intelligence was too low right now—er, his Intelligence attribute was too low, at only 24 points.

The damage dealt by 【Fear】 was “Intelligence × 3,” which came to a mere 72 damage—nowhere near enough to kill a monster.

Even if he put every attribute point from now on into Intelligence, it still wouldn’t work. His damage growth simply couldn’t keep up with the growth of the monsters’ health.

At present, most of Liu Xuan’s damage came from the 【Poison】 effect of 【Source of Plague】. However, there was a timing gap between the two skills: 【Fear】 lasted only two seconds, while 【Poison】 took three seconds to trigger its damage.

In other words, by the time the 【Poison】 damage activated, 【Fear】 would have already worn off, making it impossible for him to stack his attributes.

“Wait, I think there’s a way to make this work!”

Liu Xuan suddenly realized that when gathering the monsters, he could first let one of them attack him.

Once it was afflicted with 【Fear】, he could wait another second before allowing the other monsters to hit him.

When the first monster’s 【Poison】 triggered, 【Corpse Explosion】 would blow up the other monsters that were still under the effects of 【Fear】.

That way, only one monster per wave would fail to grant him Intelligence—something he could easily accept.

However, this meant that gathering the monsters would require extremely precise control over timing and distance. It seemed he would have to keep investing in Agility in the future.

“I wonder if there’ll be similar passive skills later on—ones tied to Strength and Agility?”

Liu Xuan pondered this.

If there were, then he would become a well-rounded stat monster from then on, with no weaknesses whatsoever.

After finishing the skill draw, Liu Xuan took the two pieces of equipment dropped by the Monster Salamander out of his inventory.

Now that he was level 10, he could finally equip them.

【Fishhead Hat】

Quality: Fine

Level Requirement: 10

Health: +50

Armor: +20

Strength: +3

Intelligence: +3

Effect: After taking physical or magical damage, the next instance of damage of the same type is reduced by 10%. This effect can only stack once. Taking damage of another type immediately changes the effect to that type.

The second piece of equipment was a pair of boots:

【Waterlogged Boots】

Quality: Fine

Level Requirement: 10

Health: +30

Armor: +12

Agility: +5

Effect: Maintains normal movement speed in muddy terrain.

After putting his level-up attribute points into Agility as well, Liu Xuan looked over his current stats.

Name: Liu Xuan

Faction: Human Empire (Blue Star—China)

Class: Pacifist

Level: 10

Strength: 55

Agility: 54

Intelligence: 27

Armor: 60

Health: 52,800/52,800

Mana: -/-

Experience: 43/6,000

Skills: Giant’s Blood, Source of Plague, Corpse Explosion, Voodoo Heart, Medicine Jar, Nightmare Incarnation, Troll’s Blood, Eye of Insight, Heart of Fear

Because he had replaced the 【Door-Sized Greatshield】 with 【Celestial Being】, his Armor had actually decreased slightly despite equipping two new items.

Still, against the damage dealt by the monsters around here, it hardly mattered whether he had Armor or not.

Liu Xuan went to lure more monsters over. To test out his idea, he pulled a group of more than ten Porcupinefolk this time.

Watching the shrieking monsters close in around him, Liu Xuan chuckled. “Sorry, everyone, but if I want to stack my stats, I can’t let you hit me whenever you please.”

With that, he relied on his extremely high Agility to swiftly break out of their encirclement.

Then, he led the monsters toward a pile of logs nearby. By circling around and using the terrain to block them, he successfully separated one Porcupinefolk from the others by several paces.

Only then did Liu Xuan turn around and run back toward them.

The leading Porcupinefolk had no idea why the guy in front of it had suddenly stopped running. But as a monster, it did not have the intelligence to think too deeply about it. It screeched and charged forward, swinging its axe.

The attack dealt no damage at all. Instead, the Porcupinefolk itself was afflicted with [Fear], involuntarily turning around and crashing into the pack of monsters chasing behind it.

Liu Xuan silently counted the seconds. Timing it just right, he charged into the crowd as well. In an instant, he was surrounded by Porcupinefolk, with axes, shields, and saws raining down on him from all directions.

But they were soon afflicted with [Fear] as well.

“1!”

“2!”

Liu Xuan snapped his fingers.

The [Poison] effect on the first Porcupinefolk triggered, setting off [Corpse Explosion]. With a deafening boom, all the other dozen or so monsters still under the effects of Fear were instantly wiped out.

“Porcupine Warrior killed. Gained 3.5 EXP.”

“[Poisoned] monster killed. Base HP +1.”

“[Feared] monster killed. Intelligence +0.1.”

“...”

A flood of notifications filled the screen. Every monster that attacked Liu Xuan not only gave him EXP, but also helped him stack two different attributes.

Sixteen Porcupinefolk had given Liu Xuan a total of 56 EXP, 16 base HP, and 1.5 Intelligence.

Even capitalists would be ashamed of themselves in comparison.

There was only one word for it: amazing!

And with this, his Intelligence would definitely skyrocket from here on out. Once he finished leveling up this level, he would have three or four hundred Intelligence.

By then, when most monsters hit him, he would not even need to wait for the damage-over-time from [Poison] to trigger. The damage built into [Fear] alone would be enough to kill them instantly!

At that point, stacking layers for [Heart of Fear] would become even easier.

He would no longer need to pull out a single monster to serve as a “detonator” like he did now.

Liu Xuan could not help sighing. “Sure enough, with this troop type of mine, even if I wanted to pull off fancy moves, I couldn’t.”

Still... taking it easy really was great. Hehe.

Before long, Liu Xuan had cleared all three hundred-plus minor monsters in the dungeon. His Intelligence had risen by a full 30 points—already more than the 27 points he had started with.

Now, only the boss remained on the field, a commander without an army.

The last time Liu Xuan had come here, his level had been too low to see the boss’s skills.

But now, he could see them clearly.

[Porcupine Chief (Boss)]

Level: 8

Attack: 120

HP: 3500

Armor: 40

Magic Resistance: 10

Tenacity: 25%

Skills:

[Pig Charge: Charges at a target within 30 meters, knocking back enemies along the path and stunning the target for 3 seconds.]

[Brutal Slam: Smashes an enemy with its shield, dealing physical damage equal to Attack × 1.5.]

【Whirlwind Slash: Spin in place, using the momentum to saw through all nearby enemies, dealing 100 physical damage per second to enemies within range.】

The skill 【Pig Rush】 differed slightly from the skill book Liu Xuan had obtained—the stun lasted one second longer.

Those skills, however, were not important. What caught Liu Xuan’s attention was the creature’s HP.

3,500—just enough to take one hit from his current poison damage.

He could use it to raise his 【Heavenly One】 counter once or twice.

With that in mind, he stepped forward to draw the boss’s aggro. The moment the 【Porcupine Chief】 picked up the shield and saw blade beside it, Liu Xuan silently thought, “Pig Rush!”

Sure enough, the boss charged at him without a second thought.

But before it could even get close, the skill was directly nullified by 【Heavenly One】. After taking only two steps, the boss froze in place, utterly bewildered.

A large “?” popped up above its head.

The status icons for 【Poisoned】 and 【Fear】 also appeared on its HP bar.

Once it came to its senses, the 【Porcupine Chief】 flew into a rage and swung its shield down with 【Mighty Slam】.

However, the skill’s wind-up was far too obvious. As Liu Xuan silently recited the skill’s name, this attack failed as well.

The shield slammed down onto nothing, and another “?” appeared above the boss’s head.