The minion monsters were more or less like the Corrupted Fish Spores Liu Xuan had encountered before.
Those spores didn’t attack; they mainly focused on crowd control.
These resin droplets, on the other hand, existed purely to make life miserable for melee fighters. Their attack and health weren’t particularly high, but they specialized in exploding. The lower their health, the easier it was for them to die.
Every Diseased Treant was accompanied by at least six or seven resin droplets. If they all exploded at once, even an ordinary party would take a serious hit.
Liu Xuan simply approached and gave them a round of electrotherapy.
While traveling, he had discovered something: after the damage of his Thunder Aura increased, it became harder to stack Voodoo Heart and Heart of Fear.
Monsters killed by lightning didn’t count toward the stacks at all.
Fortunately, Thunder Aura only triggered once every five seconds. He could simply wait for the lightning to strike before moving in to stack his attributes.
Still, it was definitely less efficient than before.
But it wasn’t really a matter of losing out. After all, there was no level cap in this battlefield, and Liu Xuan now gained a full 37 free attribute points every time he leveled up. There was no longer any need to deliberately farm attributes.
Over the same period, whether he farmed 370 points of basic health through passives or gained 37 points of Strength by leveling up, the increase in health would be the same.
One might argue that farming attributes also allowed him to increase his Intelligence, but leveling up granted passive abilities as well.
So leveling up as quickly as possible and obtaining more passive abilities was another viable approach.
He would farm as many attributes as he could.
The instant the lightning struck, Liu Xuan charged toward another group of monsters and plunged straight into their midst.
The Diseased Treants immediately tried to use Dragging Devour to pull Liu Xuan toward them, only to discover that their “prey” had come to them on its own.
What a pleasant surprise!
A Diseased Treant opened its enormous maw and tried to swallow Liu Xuan from above.
The moment its jaws closed around him, it was killed by Nightmare Incarnation.
“−6457!”
“Killed Diseased Treant. Gained 34 experience.”
“Killed a poisoned monster. Basic health +1.”
“Killed a feared monster. Intelligence +0.1.”
As for the other Blighted Resin Droplets, they were all killed by Corpse Explosion.
As minion monsters, each one only gave a little over one point of experience.
That was what made these monsters so annoying. Even though he had to fight a whole bunch of them, they barely gave any experience.
After rubbing the spot where the tree had “clamped” his head, Liu Xuan had a rough understanding of the monsters’ habits.
Knowing a monster’s skills didn’t mean he fully understood it. A monster might open with a skill, or it might begin by landing a couple of basic attacks.
The Diseased Treants before him clearly had a habit of using Dragging Devour as soon as combat began.
So Liu Xuan simply pulled out the Heavenly One shield. It had been a long time since he had deliberately farmed counts for his shield, and Heavenly One was still only at divine tier two.
Its current count was 768/1000.
It wasn’t far from advancing to the next tier, so this was the perfect place to fill it up.
In any case, Heavenly One didn’t interfere with his attribute stacking.
Liu Xuan fell into a steady rhythm: let Thunder Aura strike one wave, use Heavenly One to farm two monsters, then let the aura strike another wave.
Maintaining this rhythm, he quickly cleared his way from the southern end of the town to the northern end.
He planned to follow the edge of the town through the areas he had barely visited and clear them again on his way back. That should be enough to fill the count.
By then, it would probably be completely dark, making it a good time to rest.
However, after reaching the northern side of the town, he discovered a strange stone pillar outside the town.
It was shaped roughly like a pagoda and stood about three meters tall.
The entire thing was pitch-black and incredibly smooth.
At the top was a square hollow opening. At first, Liu Xuan thought it might be a stele erected by the town, but after walking around it, he found no writing or carvings whatsoever. That made it seem unlikely.
He climbed up and looked inside the opening. In the center was a small lamp.
There was still some congealed, oily substance at the bottom of the lamp, though only a thin layer remained.
“Could it be an oil lamp?”
Liu Xuan found it strange. Why would they place such a bizarre oil lamp outside the town?
Even if people really needed to travel outside at night, they could have simply erected an ordinary pillar. Why use such unusual stone?
It wasn’t even attractive.
Yet as he made his way back along the town’s outer perimeter, he discovered many more of the same lamp pillars.
There was roughly one every twenty meters.
Unable to figure out what they were, Liu Xuan could only set the matter aside. Perhaps they were simply a type of local architecture.
He continued walking and fighting along the way. By the time he returned to the southern side of the town, just as he had expected, he had finally filled Heavenly One’s count.
“Heavenly One shield count has reached 1000. Tier upgraded.”
Heavenly One
Type: One-handed shield
Quality: Divine Tier Three (Binds on equip. No one else can use it unless the owner dies.)
Required level: 10
Fixed damage reduction: 500
Effect: When you successfully predict the next hostile skill that will hit you, ignore that skill. If the enemy can provide at least 1 experience point, or if the enemy is another warrior, a successful prediction grants you one count. Accumulate 10,000 counts to increase this equipment’s tier.
Current count: 0/10000
The fixed damage reduction had become 500, which was certainly something to celebrate.
Liu Xuan’s armor was only a little over 200, while his magic resistance was just over 100. This 500 points of fixed damage reduction more than doubled his damage-mitigation capabilities in one stroke.
Although Liu Xuan now had a huge amount of health and seemed not to need the additional 500 points of fixed damage reduction, that wasn’t actually how it worked.
This effect could prevent the situation of “ants biting an elephant to death.”
Take Liu Xuan, for example. With a little over 200 armor, plus 500 fixed damage reduction, any physical attack dealing less than 700 damage couldn’t inflict even a single point of damage on him.
Not one point.
Even if hundreds of thousands of people attacked him simultaneously, their attacks would still deal zero damage.
Other people might have as much health as Liu Xuan, but without those 500 points of fixed damage reduction, even 700 armor wouldn’t save them. Hundreds of thousands of attackers could still kill them.
Moreover, there weren’t many people in the entire world who could deal 700 damage in a single attack right now.
Hidden classes should be capable of it, but as for ordinary classes, it was difficult for someone around level ten to exceed 700 damage unless they had a skill with an exceptionally high damage multiplier.
Some skills dealt damage in multiple hits, with the total exceeding 700, but that was useless.
If a single hit couldn’t exceed 700 damage, it was as good as nonexistent.
In other words, across the entire Blue Planet, perhaps only some hidden classes could make Liu Xuan lose health.
Everyone else couldn’t break through his defenses.
Liu Xuan was very satisfied with Heavenly One after its upgrade. The only problem was that its new count requirement was a little excessive.
It had jumped straight to 10,000. That wasn’t something he could fill in a short time.
After putting away the shield, Liu Xuan found a house in town that was relatively clean and didn’t smell quite as bad.
Many of the houses had collapsed roofs. Exposed to wind and rain, and surrounded by forest, their interiors had become overgrown with grass and moss. They were completely uninhabitable.
After tidying up the floor a little, Liu Xuan took out the sleeping bag Finch had given him.
This thing lets people rest in the wilderness, even outside safe zones. Normally, though, it’s only used when a party ventures out.
Everyone takes turns sleeping to guard against monster ambushes.
But Liu Xuan didn’t care:
Let the monsters spawn if they wanted. They could worry about surviving his heavenly thunder first.
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."
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
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?”
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
