The Scariest Minion in History

At the very bottom of the chest, there was a mushroom.

It was about the size of a palm, and glowed with the same fluorescent light as the spiders.

"Who would've thought it's a mushroom?"

[Strange Mushroom (Rare Material): A legendary, one-of-a-kind rare material that ordinary people will never get to see in their entire lives. Some master alchemists might know what it can be used for.]

There was no detailed explanation of what this item did, so just like Parker from before, he would have to find a corresponding high-level alchemist to figure out its purpose.

But Liu Xuan had learned by now that the more mysterious an item's description was, the better it usually turned out to be.

After sorting through all the loot, the next step was the tense, exciting part: drawing a new passive skill.

Liu Xuan now realized the system had a good reason for adding a slot machine animation to the passive draw.

It really got his emotions going.

When you're playing a game, you want to feel like you're doing something, or at the very least, that you're part of the process.

If the system just slapped a new passive on you right after you leveled up, it would be totally boring.

As the slot machine stopped spinning, the new passive was revealed.

[Blazing Heart: If a monster dies while under your "Burning" status effect, and would grant you at least 1 experience point for the kill, you will permanently gain 0.1 Agility.]

It's here! Liu Xuan's spirits lifted immediately.

It was the familiar "XX Heart" series!

Just like the [Voodoo Heart] and [Fright Heart] he already had, this one gave him stats as long as he killed monsters that met the conditions.

This time it was the Agility version.

And since Liu Xuan already had [Uncertain Spread], that meant he would never run out of Agility points from now on.

What's more, this [Blazing Heart] worked perfectly with his [Fire God] passive. The higher his Agility stat grew, the stronger the healing reduction effect of his Burning status would become.

He had done the calculations before: once his Agility exceeded 2000 points, he could completely negate any healing effects on targets under Burning.

Liu Xuan's Intelligence was already over 2000, so getting his Agility to 2000 was definitely doable.

On top of that, this new passive would also boost the damage of his [Hawk Spirit Companion], since the hawk spirit's damage scaled entirely off Liu Xuan's Agility stat.

Now that he had a steady way to earn extra Agility points, Liu Xuan figured he could put all his future level-up stat points into other attributes instead.

There wasn't really much to think about, the only other stat worth putting points into was Strength.

"Good thing I was busy all last night and didn't spend those 3 levels' worth of stat points."

Liu Xuan put all 111 stat points he got from those 3 levels straight into Strength.

Looking back now, once you had a lot of stat points to allocate, putting them into Strength had some pretty great returns.

After applying all his passive bonuses, that single move gave him over 11,100 extra hit points.

He had to admit, seeing his health pool jump that high felt incredibly reassuring.

As for Agility, the most useful thing that stat did for Liu Xuan now was let him get from place to place faster.

Use it in combat?

No way. If I'm basically unkillable, why would I bother messing around with fancy combat maneuvers? That would defeat the whole point of being overpowered.

...

After he finished sorting through all his loot, Liu Xuan checked the time. It was just past 6 a.m, not yet 7.

His original plan was completely shot: he hadn't slept at all last night, so there was no way he could travel all day and crash at night like he planned.

That meant he had to adjust his schedule.

The new plan was to sleep through the morning, then set out in the afternoon. His goal stayed the same: reach the small town that was his second planned rest stop before nightfall.

But since his travel time was cut short, he would have to move much faster.

So Liu Xuan sent a message to Zhang Meng: "You awake?"

"Never went to sleep. I've been grinding monsters all night."

"Going that hard?" Liu Xuan asked, a note of surprise in his voice, before getting straight to the point. "The thing I mentioned to you before? I'm going to have to temporarily leave the team and turn off my aura."

"Turn it off now?"

"Roughly five or six hours from now."

"No problem at all. I already gave everyone a heads up ahead of time. Just use that 'Command' mode of yours in the group chat to send out a notice. A lot of people pulled an all-nighter last night, grinding levels as fast as they could while the aura was still active. Most of us have already rushed to level 17 or 18 thanks to the experience boost and your aura, which means there's basically no risk out in the wild at this point. We also scouted out several dungeon entrances, so once the aura goes down, we can head straight in to run them and gear up."

Seeing that Zhang Meng had already sorted everything out, Liu Xuan didn't have to worry about a thing.

He created a "Command" notification in the team chat to announce the exact time the aura would be shut off, then headed back to his place to get a nice, long, comfortable nap.

By the time he woke up, it was already 1 p.m., a little later than he had planned.

He sent a quick follow-up message to the team to let everyone know he was up, then disbanded the group. The entire battlefield had only been able to stay in the same party thanks to the effect of his Aura of Orenburg, so as soon as he left the team, the whole party automatically dissolved.

Stepping out onto the town street, Liu Xuan stretched his legs and arms, savoring the feeling he hadn't gotten to enjoy in a while: the effect of Fleet of Foot.

With over 300 points in Agility right now, boosted by both Fleet of Foot and Nimble Physique, Liu Xuan was genuinely curious just how fast he could push his speed.

Sickened Treants had already started respawning around town again, and as soon as he entered combat, his speed would be locked from ramping up. It wasn't until he left the town limits that the stacks of Fleet of Foot started building up slowly.

Luckily, there were barely any monsters along this stretch of road, so his speed kept climbing higher and higher, until he almost felt like he was skimming across the ground without touching it.

The scenery was moving so fast his eyes could barely keep up, but the main road was wide, well-paved, and perfectly flat, so all he had to do was hold his course and keep sprinting.

After a little while, Liu Xuan spotted something small and green hopping up and down right in the middle of the road ahead.

But he was moving far too fast to stop first. A bolt of lightning crackled down out of nowhere and zapped the little creatures, and then Liu Xuan charged straight right over them.

He could feel his feet crunch right over the little things.

What the hell was that? I thought they were speed bumps at first.

Turns out they might as well have been speed bumps, because entering combat dropped his speed to a crawl.

Looking further ahead, he spotted a bunch of other little green guys carrying spears, blocking the road and posturing like they owned the place. More of them were perched in the trees on both sides of the path. They were barely as tall as the average person's knee, but every single one of them looked unbelievably full of themselves.

Tree Goblin

Level: 29

Attack: 440

Health Points: 5600

Armor: 80

Magic Resistance: 80

Skills: Filthy Hurl: The Tree Goblin hurls its own excrement at the target, inflicting the "Nausea" debuff on hit. Enemies under this effect will vomit once every 4 seconds, forcibly interrupting any spellcasting or attack action they are performing for the full 12 second duration.

Furious Hurl: When the Tree Goblin's health drops below 30%, it will wildly hurl its excrement in all directions for 5 seconds. All enemies hit will gain the "Nausea" debuff, vomiting once every 4 seconds to forcibly interrupt their casting or attacks for 12 seconds.

The second Liu Xuan read their skills, his face fell.

"You win this round!"

No wonder he's acting so cocky. There's no way a guy like me can pick a fight with him!

Liu Xuan immediately turned tail and ran.

His passive ability makes him immune to interrupt effects, but that doesn't stop his actual self from being terrified.

The thunder strike's damage has already been applied anyway. As for attribute gains, there are plenty of other mobs out there to grind on. This one just isn't worth the risk, not at all.

Liu Xuan booked it straight out of there. This was without a doubt the most horrifying monster he had run into ever since he stepped foot on the battlefield.