Zhang Meng discovered that the several messages Liu Xuan had posted were not only impossible to miss because of their eye-catching font, but also appeared automatically in his quest list.
“Wait, you can issue quests too?”
“You became a GM?”
“No wonder you’re so overpowered.”
“Quick, give your brothers a few hundred or thousand levels’ worth of experience, then throw in a full set of divine gear so we can have some fun.”
Zhang Meng rubbed his hands and sidled over with a shameless grin.
Liu Xuan slapped his hand away. “Dream on. They only look like quests. In reality, they’re just announcements I posted. Think of them as important notices posted by a guild in certain games—something every member can see.”
“Damn. And here I thought I was getting something good.” Zhang Meng spoke, then suddenly shook his head. “So this mutant essence is the ‘good stuff’ you were talking about? If you can farm it solo, there’s no need to split it with us.”
Liu Xuan gave a sly grin. “You don’t understand. I have a grand plan! A world-shaking grand plan!”
“What kind of stunt are you planning this time?”
“You’ll know when we get to the city. Besides, didn’t you look at the map of the Glorious Empire that Captain Finch gave us last time?”
“Of course I did.”
“Then didn’t you notice that two cities were specially marked—one to the east and one to the west—in the area beyond Orenburg?”
Zhang Meng frowned slightly. “I really didn’t notice. At the time, I was only watching where Captain Finch was pointing. You mean the Phase Four campaign might involve attacking two cities?”
Zhang Meng trusted what Liu Xuan said. That guy’s powers of observation were astonishing.
Many hidden strategies in the games they had played in the past had been discovered and revealed by Liu Xuan.
His reputation as a master wasn’t earned through skill alone. He truly was a god in the gaming world.
Liu Xuan nodded, then shook his head. “How many cities we have to attack isn’t important. As long as we’re not required to capture them simultaneously, I’m confident no matter how many there are.
“What matters is this: if a second round of Promotion Defense Battles opens afterward, what happens if both cities need to be defended? I can’t split off another person to handle one of them. We’ll have to rely on everyone’s strength.”
Zhang Meng pondered this. “With great power comes great responsibility. Those who obtain the mutant essence gain greater strength, but that also means they have to shoulder greater responsibility. Just like when the organization put guns in our hands—it wasn’t a gift, but a trust.”
“Old Meng, your soldier’s sense of duty is impressive.”
“You don’t feel the same way?”
Liu Xuan smiled. “How should I put it? I’m just the kind of person who can’t stand losing. If what we’re playing right now were a game, I’d still write an identical strategy guide for my teammates just to ensure we won. Anyway, in any field I care about, I have to win!”
“And what if you still lose?”
Liu Xuan looked at Zhang Meng and patted him on the shoulder. “Then there’s nothing I can do. The teammates were too bad, and even I couldn’t carry them. It’s not like I’ve never run into that kind of situation before.”
“Say whatever you want, but why are you looking at me? Are you calling me a noob?”
“Don’t misunderstand. I’m not singling you out. I’m talking about everyone here…”
“Shut up!”
After explaining the general plan, Liu Xuan sped up and went ahead alone to clear out the monsters.
He was level 16 now, which meant he could benefit from the experience bonus granted by the Orenburg campaign.
With a full twenty-seven times experience multiplier, even killing an ordinary roadside monster gave him one or two hundred experience points.
As a result, by the time they reached the vicinity of Orenburg, Liu Xuan had already leveled up once more.
“It feels like I can easily reach level 20 or higher on my own in the three days before the defense battle begins.”
Liu Xuan thought this as he drew a new skill.
When the slot machine stopped spinning, a new skill appeared.
[Money Offensive: Effective only against other warriors. When the target possesses fewer coins than you, you gain a damage bonus equal to the number of times your coins exceed theirs.]
“Uh…”
Liu Xuan had never expected that the coins he had been unable to spend would first prove useful in the form of a passive skill related to money.
As long as his opponent had less money than him, his attacks against them would receive a damage bonus.
Liu Xuan currently had more than 3,600 coins on him, most of them campaign rewards.
Unless something unexpected happened, there should be no one else on Blue Star with more coins than him.
Still, to get a better understanding of the exact bonus, Liu Xuan immediately sent Zhang Meng a message.
“Old Meng, how many coins do you have?”
“Are you asking to borrow money?” Zhang Meng asked curiously.
He knew Liu Xuan had to be carrying quite a lot of coins. After all, Liu Xuan had sold so many valuable items, and Zhang Meng himself had received a generous share.
However, campaign coin rewards were private notifications, so other people couldn’t see them. Zhang Meng had no idea how much money Liu Xuan actually had.
“Relax. I’m not asking to borrow money. I’m just asking.”
“I never said I wouldn’t lend you any. I have thirteen coins.” Although he had no idea why Liu Xuan was asking, Zhang Meng still answered honestly.
“That’s all?”
“What do you mean, ‘that’s all’?! Do you know how expensive everything is on this battlefield? Equipment, materials, food, lodging, learning skills—which of those doesn’t cost money? Having thirteen coins already makes me incredibly wealthy. And that’s only because I helped you sell your stuff. Most people don’t even have more than one or two coins.
“Skills are the biggest expense. Whether you learn them from an NPC or buy skill books, an ordinary person who wants to obtain a somewhat advanced skill after reaching level 10 can easily empty out their entire purse.”
Liu Xuan: Right. I really didn’t know that. After all, I don’t need to learn skills.
Using the data Zhang Meng had provided, he silently did the math. Old Meng had thirteen coins, while he had 3,600—277 times as many. In other words, did that mean a 277-fold damage increase?
Wasn’t that a little too ridiculous?
Liu Xuan ran the numbers through his head twice before finally confirming that if he fought Zhang Meng, he would receive a damage bonus of more than 270 times.
“So if Old Meng hit me once, the Fear damage from [Nightmare Incarnation] would be 1,954 × 3 × 277… That’s… uh, over 1.6 million!”
And that didn’t even include the bonus from [Golden Wind]. Otherwise, it could reach two million!
The moment he finished calculating the damage, Liu Xuan himself was startled.
This new passive was far too powerful.
And that was with Zhang Meng carrying thirteen coins. If someone had only one coin, wouldn’t the damage bonus be more than 3,600 times?
Of course, if he encountered top-tier experts from other battlefields, they might have somewhat more money on them.
But no matter how much more they had, they couldn’t possibly have more than Liu Xuan.
He estimated that, across the entire Blue Star, he was probably the only person who could produce one hundred coins.
“This feels great. So this is the joy of being rich?”
Liu Xuan no longer complained about having nowhere to spend his money on this battlefield.
As the old-timers used to say, frugality truly was a virtue.
The only flaw in the new passive was that it worked only against other warriors and had no effect on monsters.
But that made sense. How many coins could a monster possibly have?
The monsters on this battlefield were stingier than the next. When it came to being miserly, every last one of them was a champion.
nce】【Lighthearted Comedy】【Ultimate Gentleman's Novel】【Viewer Discretion Advised for Under 16】 The mightiest human hero, Sharen Morian, is resurrected after a thousand years by his wife—the Demon King. This is not your typical hero-vs-demon-king tale.
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?”
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."
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.
