Coins are bursting out

"Why has Brother Wang been gone for so long?"

Zhao Can and the rest waited in the woods for quite a while, a faint sense of foreboding rising in their hearts.

Hua Xiangrong was taken aback. "Did something happen?"

Zhao Can just shook his head.

"Song Gua is only level 5, while Brother Wang is already level 16. His gear is leagues ahead of Song Gua's, too. What could possibly go wrong? Chances are he actually found some good loot on Song Gua and just made a run for it."

Just then, a power-leveling team member standing behind Zhao Can exclaimed, "Oh no!"

"What's wrong?"

"Brother Wang is dead!"

"How do you know?"

"We've been in a party this whole time. When a party member dies, the party channel gives a notification!"

"This..."

Hua Xiangrong was dumbfounded once again.

"Song Gua killed him?"

Zhao Can looked unconvinced as he said, "Let's go take a look!"

The group hurried over to the edge of the swamp. Neither Song Gua nor Baldy was there, and there was not even a single trace of a battle.

Are you kidding? With two hundred people working together to clean up a scene, they could turn over the entire layer of turf in a matter of minutes.

Since Song Gua was making off with the loot, he naturally had to wipe away every last trace of his presence.

Even though the official Profession Law Enforcement Department had no jurisdiction over player killings out in the wild, Song Gua still refused to leave behind any leverage that could be used against him.

"It must be that guy named Song Gua who killed Brother Wang!"

"We have to avenge Brother Wang!"

"Hua, he's a classmate of yours, right?"

Hua Xiangrong nodded, her brow furrowing slightly. "If you want revenge, don't do it at the school. I don't need you causing trouble for me."

Zhao Can quickly threw cold water on their plans.

"Song Gua killed him without leaving a single trace or piece of evidence behind. He must have someone helping him. You all better not go throwing your lives away. What's all this about avenging Brother Wang? Aren't you just suspecting that Song Gua has some kind of experience-boosting item on him?"

Having their true intentions exposed, the group let out a few awkward coughs.

Zhao Can stared out at the pitch-black swamp, muttering to himself, "Who would be helping or backing a trash class? Does this person just have terrible judgment, or did they see something special in Song Gua?"

No matter how hard Zhao Can wracked his brain, he never would have guessed that Song Gua was actually a lone wolf.

After dealing with Baldy, Song Gua and a few of his clones scooped up all the dropped loot and stuffed it into their respective backpacks.

Song Gua then dismissed all the clones and darted into the woods alone, quickly slipping away.

Anyone experienced in taking lives knows that, unless you are a psychopath, the psychological aftermath of killing someone is never pleasant.

But Song Gua felt absolutely nothing.

He and his clones had come to this world to pull off something massive. This tiny ripple was nothing, not even worth mentioning.

Furthermore, the recent battle had been entirely digitized. He had only seen damage numbers pop up without any gory scenes, so the visual impact was virtually nonexistent.

Battles between Profession users could certainly become bloody and brutal, complete with severed limbs flying everywhere.

It was just that his recent opponent had been clad in heavy armor with incredibly high physical and magical defense, making such a gruesome outcome highly unlikely.

Baldy had been taken down purely because he fell victim to true damage.

Sprinting all the way, Song Gua left clones behind along his route, having them hide and stand guard to ensure no one was tailing him.

He did not stop until he was two or three kilometers away.

After the hidden sentries reported back that the coast was clear, he finally relaxed and began to inventory his latest haul.

"That dead Baldy was just out here to power-level Zhao Can, so he didn't actually have much useful stuff on him."

There were 20,000 Federation Credits, which was likely the power-leveling fee Zhao Can had paid.

There was some low-quality Level 15 gear, along with a few red and blue potions.

He also found two Common-grade Town Portal Scrolls.

"The Town Portal Scrolls are pretty useful. Once I hit experience fatigue, I can just teleport back and rest."

Due to his limited funds, Song Gua hadn't even bought these essential travel items before heading out. Taking the bus back was vastly cheaper than burning a scroll.

The clones immediately roasted him.

"Fatigue, my ass!"

When a Profession user continuously gained experience past a certain time limit or threshold, they would enter a state of Experience Fatigue, preventing them from gaining any more experience.

The existence of this mechanic gave Profession users a much-needed breather during their growth. Otherwise, everyone would just grind endlessly out in the wild, refusing to stop until they hit the max level.

Baldy's backpack also contained an Excellent-grade, First-Advancement Guardian sequence skill book.

Skill books were incredibly valuable.

For Profession users, aside from automatically comprehending skills during a class transfer, the only other way to acquire new skills was by learning them from skill books.

Upgrading skills also required skill books.

Skill books were divided into three categories.

General Skills, such as Sprint, Power Jump, Heavy Strike, and Self-Destruct. These were not restricted by sequence or class, meaning all Profession users could learn them, though they were always of the lowest White quality.

Sequence Skills, which could be learned by any class under a specific sequence.

Exclusive Skills, which could only be mastered by one specific class.

"Brothers in the Guardian sequence, take it."

Song Gua summoned all of his clones that belonged to the Guardian sequence.

With too many mouths to feed and not enough loot to go around, the group of meat shields immediately began flexing their muscles to compete for it.

Having mostly sorted through Baldy's dropped loot, all that remained were the daily necessities he had brought along for his power-leveling trip.

Overall, the haul was rather shabby.

After all, he was only Level 16 and hadn't accumulated much wealth yet.

"What is this?"

Just as he was casually tossing aside Baldy's daily necessities, a particular item caught Song Gua's eye.