The title of Blue Star’s Number One Warrior had gone exactly as expected. The resurrection chance from its reward had now risen to nearly 50%, and Liu Xuan was quite satisfied.
A few more battles should be enough to stack it to 100%.
What he hadn’t expected was that conquering Orenburg would grant him a second title as well.
[Light of Orenburg] mainly expanded the party size limit to 10,000.
At present, small-party mode allowed a maximum of five people, while team mode allowed slightly more, but still capped the number at 100.
With a limit of 10,000, he could put everyone on the entire 2468 battlefield into one group—and still have plenty of room to spare.
The only thing left was to test the “command” system and see exactly what effect it had.
Liu Xuan equipped [Light of Orenburg], then casually typed “1” into the chat channel.
[Blue Star’s Number One Warrior] [Light of Orenburg] Liu Xuan: 1
Hmm, not bad. The two titles could actually be displayed together.
If he kept earning a whole string of titles in the future, would they all have to be lined up in front of his name?
Anyone standing in front of him would have to turn their head 180 degrees to finish reading all his titles from left to right.
The chat channel was extremely lively at the moment.
It hadn’t been long since everyone crossed the river, and many players were exchanging information with one another.
They discussed where monsters could be found, which roads were difficult to travel, whether there were any clues about NPCs, and so on.
Of course, some people were also talking about the announcement from earlier.
The atmosphere had been perfectly cheerful when, all of a sudden, a name with a dazzling visual effect appeared in the channel.
[Blue Star’s Number One Warrior] shimmered with golden light, while [Light of Orenburg] radiated a pale white glow. Together, they nearly blinded everyone.
“Holy crap, my poor eyes!”
“I pried my eyes wide open and searched through all those special effects for ages before finally seeing the message from the legendary player. It was just a ‘1’! I thought it was a blank message!”
“He just got a title and came out to show it off, didn’t he?!”
“Let him show off! That’s what I say!”
“Hehe, I just got a free level. With more than twenty times the experience bonus still active, what else is there to say?”
“Legendary Liu Xuan, I want to have your monkey!”
After testing the effect with a “1,” Liu Xuan left the channel. The announcement had just rewarded him with a level as well.
That meant he could draw another passive skill.
He spun the slot machine, and a new passive skill appeared before him.
[Adaptive: You can equip items without regard to their level requirements.]
Ignoring level requirements?
It was exactly like getting a pillow delivered when he was sleepy. The pile of high-level equipment in his bag could finally be equipped.
Liu Xuan first put on a full set of [Destroyer] equipment, eight pieces in total.
Some pieces increased his armor, some increased his magic resistance, and all of them gave Agility as their primary attribute. They were quite decent.
After thinking it over, however, Liu Xuan replaced the chestplate with the [General Hamovi’s Breastplate (Fine)] dropped by One-Eyed Hamovi.
The eight-piece [Destroyer] set bonus allowed the wearer to glide for ten seconds after falling from a high place.
He couldn’t exactly say the effect was completely useless.
But since it was only helpful in certain special situations, there was no need to force himself to complete the eight-piece set.
In fact, the five-piece bonus wasn’t very useful to Liu Xuan either. The three-piece bonus was more than enough.
Three-piece set bonus: Agility +10.
Five-piece set bonus: Your normal attacks cause enemies to suffer 500 points of physical damage over time for ten seconds. This effect cannot stack.
However, the equipment pieces were high-level and had excellent base attributes. Liu Xuan also had no better gear to replace them with.
Then there was his weapon. He could now equip the [Golden Wind] dropped by the Golden Blade Lord as well.
It was a golden-yellow one-handed sword, its blade covered in streamlined patterns that resembled the wind. It was exceptionally beautiful.
Liu Xuan turned it over and over in his hand, unable to put it down. It paired perfectly with [Celestial Being], allowing him to wield a shield in one hand and a sword in the other.
He checked Liu Xuan’s current attributes:
Name: Liu Xuan
Faction: Human Empire (Blue Star—Huaxia)
Class: Pacifist
Level: 16
Strength: 71
Agility: 221
Intelligence: 1,954
Armor: 200
Magic Resistance: 100
Health: 313,400/313,400 (To clarify, when farming the Destroyers in the city, he tried to inflict Fear and Poison on every monster only during the first round. After that, he directly used Corpse Explosion. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to complete the objective within the time limit. The monsters killed by the explosions did not contribute any attributes.)
Mana: -/-
Experience: 4,240/14,100
Skills: Giant’s Blood, Source of Plague, Corpse Explosion, Voodoo Heart, Medicine Jar, Nightmare Incarnation... Fleetfoot, Free Will, Hawk Spirit’s Protection, Light Body, Adaptive
Of his three primary attributes, there was nothing much to say about Intelligence. He had farmed it to his heart’s content with [Heart of Fear].
Liu Xuan hadn’t added any points to Strength for a long time, mainly because he didn’t lack health.
The other two attributes affected by Strength—physical attack power and spell resilience—were also of no use to him.
As for spellcasting, he didn’t have any active spell skills to begin with.
Physical attack power was another matter. It didn’t increase all physical damage. First, the damage had to come from an “attack.”
Passive physical damage such as [Poison] did not benefit from this attribute.
As for Agility, the [Destroyer] set had provided quite a lot of it, and Liu Xuan had also invested plenty of points himself.
Including the level he had just gotten for free, he now received a full 37 free attribute points upon leveling up. He put every single one into Agility.
Increasing his speed wasn’t just useful for traveling faster. It also determined whether Liu Xuan could move faster than the monsters. Only by being faster than them could he farm attributes however he pleased.
Otherwise, they would all be killed by [Corpse Explosion].
“Ugh, my class really does require way too much micromanagement...”
After closing the panel, Liu Xuan prepared to leave the city.
The compensation reward was only available for one day. With no time to waste, he had to hurry over and bring Zhang Meng and the others to Orenburg after shutting down the Destroyer portal.
The region between the outpost and Orenburg was simply enormous, and the road was filled with monsters around level ten and above. The group hadn’t even traveled a fifth of the distance yet.
After sending Zhang Meng a message and confirming their location, Liu Xuan set out of the city.
The commotion caused by his clearing the third-stage battle was far from over. Instead, it was growing more intense by the minute.
Outside the battlefield.
The people who had read the announcement were completely dumbfounded, especially those from the Asian countries.
They had long since accepted that Huaxia was progressing at astonishing speed. Unless something unexpected happened—for example, that Liu Xuan fellow suddenly died—Huaxia would definitely be the first among all the countries to complete the remaining battles and gain enormous benefits from them.
But nobody had told them that after completing the third-stage battle, they would still have to fight some kind of ascension defense battle!
And if they lost, they would be demoted to a lower-level civilization and become Huaxia’s vassals?
“This is unreasonable! Didn’t the first announcement only say that ‘the victorious nation will represent Blue Star in the battles to come’? Then let Huaxia go fight them! We don’t mind!”
“If we’d known we were going to become another country’s vassals, we never would have taken part!”
“Wake up. Who do you think you are? Whether you’re willing to participate or not doesn’t matter. The original announcement even said that, because the Human Empire had entered the war, Blue Star was automatically joining as well. Is it possible that the entire Blue Star has always been a vassal of this damned Human Empire, and we just never knew it?”
“Oh, come on! Of all the countries, why did it have to be Huaxia? They used to be our Great Cold Nether Kingdom’s subordinate, and now they’re turning the tables on us?”
“Bah! You’re the one who’s got everything backward!”
“Hey, I’ve got an idea! Why don’t we just defect to Huaxia right now? Then we won’t have to be demoted, will we?”
“Dream on. The rules say we can’t change nationalities for the next few days.”
“Who said anything about changing nationalities? I haven’t changed my nationality. I’m still utterly loyal to the Monkey Kingdom. It’s just that my country was wiped out and annexed by Huaxia, so I’m no longer a citizen of the Monkey Kingdom. What’s the problem?”
“You little punk, trying to exploit a loophole, are you? Why not suggest that we all leave Asia and join Europe while you’re at it?”
“I don’t even know what you’re all panicking about. So what if we become vassals? How many of the countries around here haven’t been vassals at some point in the past?”
“I don’t understand why everyone keeps talking about being demoted to vassal status, as though our chances in this promotion defense battle are hopeless from the start. However you look at it, it’s thirty thousand against fewer than five thousand. We have the advantage!”
“India guy’s got a point!”
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."
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
e vast world of cultivation, where he becomes the master of the Heavenly Ruins Sacred Hall, a dying old man with barely a tenth of his former cultivation remaining. He is immediately confronted with a deadly crisis: his subordinates have rebelled, and his protectors are forcing him to abdicate. At the critical moment, the system descends from the heavens: [Ding! The host has been detected facing a life-or-death crisis. The system is now officially activated!] [As a gift, you have received the Supreme Beginner’s Pack and awakened the ultimate cheat: ten thousand years of pure cultivation essence every second!] Yin Tianjue: “Wait… ten thousand years of cultivation every second? That’s six hundred thousand years a minute, and in one day… I can’t even calculate it. Either way, I’m already invincible!” You’re a peerless prodigy rarely seen in ten thousand years? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. You’re an undying ancestor who has guarded a sacred land for countless ages? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. You’re the strongest chosen one, blessed with heaven-defying destiny? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. From this day forth, I have only one thing to say: “I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. Now, how exactly are you supposed to deal with that?”
lities. One day, Qi Yuan was buying groceries when he unfortunately came face-to-face with a monster. Just when he thought he was going to die on the spot, he suddenly heard the monster's thoughts... "This aura, he's definitely not an ordinary master!" "So terrifying, so terrifying." "A fight with my back against the wall, I can't take it anymore." Qi Yuan: Ah, no one told me that my awakened ability isn't telepathy, but rather the stronger my enemies imagine me to be, the stronger I truly become. PS: Zhou Hai in the first chapter is not the protagonist.
