Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

The gunshots from the treetop shocked everyone—five bullets shot down from above! All these bullets were like scorching Dragon teeth, and they were all aimed at Wei Lu and the four Paladins!

“Protect team leader!” The Paladin guarding Wei Lu shouted and started casting the Divine Shield spell in his hands, readying himself to face the attacks by the bullets.

However, the bullets did not go straight for Wei Lu, who was standing in the middle of the group as expected. Instead, they shot right through the head of that Paladin. The moment a 400 plus damage figure jumped up from his head, a sealing power attacked the Paladin’s hands simultaneously and wiped all traces of the Divine Shield spell away.

Silence!

Before the Divine Shield spell could be cast, it faded into bright specks of light and disappeared.

The Paladin stared down at his hands in horror—he had already guessed Lin Jie’s intentions. Squeaking out in a high-pitch voice due to fear, he cried, “Quick, cast the shields!”

It was too late! After all, Lin Jie had seven years of gaming experience in his previous life, and his mastery of guns was not to be undermined. He was using what was commonly known as the ‘throwing of gun’ tactic, which could change the direction of the bullet the moment it was fired, and hence making the opponents confused as to how best to react.

Each of the three bullets shot right through the other three Paladins’ heads accurately, and their Divine Shield spells were all disrupted! The last bullet was aimed at the center of the group. Wei Lu panicked, but just when she was about to use the Teleportation Scroll to escape, she felt pressure coming down from above her head!

She raised her head and saw a sword!

Wei Lu was, after all, just a weak Priest. Her health points were not more than 1,000, and as such, this single slash would definitely kill her! She gritted her teeth, and an unobvious ring on her right thumb shone brightly, enshrouding her with a transparent shield.

“Guardian Heart!”

-201! Immunity! Immunity!

The only attack which managed to cause any real harm to Wei Lu was the Dragon Breath bullet!

This was something Lin Jie definitely did not expect to see. After all, Wei Lu was a mere low-level Priest—how could anyone expect that she actually possessed a piece of Invincible equipment on her!

Heaven Plume who was standing nearby, was also stunned. His mouth was opened wide in shock, and he found himself incapable of uttering a word. The person standing in front of him was none other than his intended partner of collaboration—Codename Lone Wolf!

Lin Jie wore the Lone Wolf helmet, and donning the Beast King armor, he looked like a metallic figure, an unbeatable steel beast!

He was not holding his signature Broken Blade in either of his hands. Instead, he was wielding a skeleton-like gun, and spooky vibes were given off from the white bones!

Lin Jie pointed the Silent Killer right at Wei Lu and shot five bullets mercilessly at her temple—those bullets came out from the other side of her head!

-217! -201! -225! -263!

…

Wei Lu’s body flew out due to the impacts of the shots, and a bronze ring was spawned.

“Kill!” cried Lin Jie as he threw a brief glance at Heaven Plume.

Heaven Plume understood his intentions right away, and raising his right hand, the members from the Steel Allies immediately pounced upon the rest of the Paladins!

The Paladins did not bother to retaliate—it was as if they had lost all will to fight after they saw Lin Jie getting Wei Lu’s equipment.

Heaven Plume looked at Lin Jie in surprise, and said in a serious tone, “I was thinking who that bloke who could get his hands on Sub-Legendary equipment was. Now it makes sense—so it’s you, Brother Lone Wolf! This was so ridiculous, it was like attacking our own allies! If I had realized earlier that the person being pursued was you, I would have helped you!”

Lin Jie placed the Silent Killer on his back. From afar, it looked as if he was carrying a Dragon Tooth Spear. He smiled and said, “Well, no matter what, I still have to thank Heaven Plume Chairman for your help this time.”

“You are welcome, it’s what I should do. How’s your consideration of collaborating with us?” Heaven Plume maintained a courteous smile on his face. No one knew what he was actually thinking.

“I am quite keen on it. However, I still insist, I would rather work with Heaven Plume Chairman alone.”

When he heard Lin Jie’s reply, Heaven Plume furrowed his brows, and let out a bitter chuckle. “Okay, then let’s talk about the specifics when we have the chance.”

“Of course.” Lin Jie nodded.

“Well, today’s episode has ended anyway. I will be going off to think about how my guild should tackle the Epidemic Pond dungeon. Let’s hope Brother Lone Wolf will be slower in tackling this dungeon this time around, and at least spare us some face, hahaha!”

Lin Jie pondered for a while and decided to drop him a small clue. “Well, 100 bottles of Middle-Grade Poison-Antidote Potions with 100 Light points from the War of Light can be used to exchange for a Dispel Scroll.”

Heaven Plume was startled by this, but he immediately caught on and replied, “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. In any case, since you need to buy these items, I will still be the one earning off you,” said Lin Jie in a magnanimous attitude.

Heaven Plume: “…”

————————————

This farce was somewhat rather comical.

What Lin Jie was certain of was that Baili Xuanyuan was still unable to act openly—but this was the most worrisome fact! In Lin Jie’s previous life, Baili Xuanyuan had not appeared at all. As such, Lin Jie knew nothing of him. It was hard for him to imagine what else this genius who thought of trading slaves could be up to next.

As for Wei Lu… Well, Lin Jie had never considered her as a threat.

A rusted ring lied within Lin Jie’s hands.

Rusted Ring (Bronze)

Requires: Level 5

Defense: 10

Endurance: 1

Note: You try to identify the words on this ring until your vision gets blurry…

“What the heck is this?” Lin Jie inspected this ring. He saw that there were some small characters engraved inside the ring, but as it was too blurry, he gave up all intentions of trying to read it.

He kept the ring in his backpack and finally received a notification which everyone had long been waiting for.

The second Main Plot dungeon, Epidemic Pond was launched!

Due to the opening of the Devils Fork, many courageous people were attracted to the cause of fighting against evil beings. However, many unscrupulous speculators were also attracted by the Devils Fork—one of them was the Potioneer Venom Lei Zhika. This Potioneer was attempting to catch some devils for research purposes and achieve a breakthrough, but he was seduced by a Succubus. He ended up losing all his senses and became a crazy Undead Potioneer, who caught massive numbers of human beings, elves, animals, and elements and used them as test subjects for his decaying experiments and research. He even created the infamous Epidemic Pond!

The Epidemic Pond would produce endless Undead creatures like Corrosive Mud, Corrosive Hatred, and it was an important military production line for the Undead.

This was the background story of Epidemic Pond.

From this background story, one could guess some of the battling techniques the Boss would use: venom, and shadows! This was being confirmed after Kingdom of Glory revealed more information about the Epidemic Pond.

Kingdom of Glory announced information about three of the big Bosses and 20 plus types of small monsters in the Epidermic Pond. Many teams hence used this information and carried out their own research, by purchasing equipment which could fend off Dark-type spells, Poison-Antidote Potions, and even practiced killing monsters with roughly the same attacking styles. This was to increase their chances of killing the Boss and thus earn the first clear of the dungeon.

Lin Jie withdrew 300 bottles of Middle-Grade Natural Recovery Potions, large numbers of Health Potions and Magic Potions from the Provisions Shop, and proceeded to the dungeon-group at the War of Light.

The Savage Blade team had already gathered there.

All members were standing in front of the dungeon with determined eyes and serious looks on their faces.

There were a few new faces who were standing nervously in front of the dungeon, but when they saw Lin Jie, they greeted him excitedly, “Leader Lone Wolf!”

The Epidemic Pond was a 25-person dungeon, and there were not enough people within the original Savage Blade team. Lin Jie had hence invited three Holy Priests and one Holy Paladin from the First Savage Blade team to join them. The Holy Priests’ healing skills were the best within all the jobs in The New Age. Compared to Ascetic Priests, the strength and continuity of the Holy Priest’s healing skills were stronger, and they also had better crowd healing abilities.

As for a Holy Paladin, they were known as ‘King of Single Healer’—they definitely had abilities to sustain their own health bars, but it would take a longer time for them to heal themselves.

Other than these three people, The Heavenly Shield, and Abstruse Gray Wind were also in the team.

Lin Jie browsed the team and asked, “Where’s Water?”

Netherblue shook her head despondently and sighed. “Everyone has their own path. He will not come online anymore.”

Lin Jie’s heart flopped. In his previous life, he had not been close friends with Water, and he had only heard that Water’s family had run into some trouble soon after the game had been launched. As such, Water had left the gaming community and focused his energy on building his family business.

“We are still short of one Shield Specialist.” Lin Jie looked at The Heavenly Shield and said, “Old Shield, do get a trustworthy Shield Specialist to join us.”

The Heavenly Shield nodded and went back to find a Shield Specialist.

Lin Jie looked at the distribution of roles in the team:

Healing jobs: Ascetic Priest Bu Yi; the three Holy Priests brothers I’m No. 1, I’m No. 3, I’m No. 4; Holy Paladin Monthly Leaks.

MTs: The Heavenly Shield, Mixed Breathless.

The rest were all jobs specialized in damage output. This was the standard allocation of a team.

The difference was that everyone’s levels had increased by lots this time around. In fact, there was an important addition to the team—

“Look here, this is my new pet!”

“Where did you get it?”

“Will you believe me if I say it dropped down from the skies? Aye, this is the bad point of being too good-looking.”

“And yes, you are seeing it correctly, it is of gold grade—this is its lowest grade some more! Do you believe me if I say It can be upgraded to immortal grade? Hey, what’s that look for, why won’t you believe me? Come, come, come, let me tell you, this Mechanical Gargoyle of mine is…” Zheng Ziliang was standing akimbo in front of his Mechanical Gargoyle, and he was just left with carving his name on the Mechanical Gargoyle to announce that it was his. He pulled Abstruse Gray Wind close, conveniently ignored the desperate look on Abstruse Gray Wind’s face and continued boasting about how great his Mechanical Gargoyle was.

Lin Jie looked at Bu Yi. “How’s your mission?”

Bu Yi smiled and showed him her Skill column.

Mass Dispel: Effective area is 10*10 meters. You can purify all your comrades’ strange conditions, or dispel your opponents’ spells with increased effects within the effective area. Cooldown time is 10 seconds, and you will use 100 Mana points.

Lin Jie brightened up at this—he did not expect that Bu Yi would achieve such a feat.

All the players must possess some sort of poison-relieving skills if they wanted to go into the Epidemic Pond dungeon! Other than Spellcasters, who could consume poisons, and hence develop resistance to certain poisons, the rest of the jobs were helpless against the venom of the Epidemic Pond Boss Venom Lei Zhika!

Poison-Antidote Potions were too mild to be of any real use.

As such, Lin Jie had hoped for Bu Yi to learn the Priest skill ‘Dispel.’ This was a skill which every Priest could learn from their mentors once they reached Level 35, and it wasn’t a rare skill to own. It would use up large amounts of Mana points and deplete a Priest’s Mana bar just with a few rounds of activating this skill.

However, it was pretty awesome to be able to use this skill at this point in time! Moreover, Bu Yi had learned the advanced version of the Dispel skill—Mass Dispel!

“Since everything’s prepared, we should have no trouble trying to take down the first Boss in this dungeon?” muttered Lin Jie as he flicked his fingers.

At this moment, the person which The Heavenly Shield had found arrived.

This player donned a silver soft armor and held a great shield in his hands. There was a sense of superiority in his eyes as he looked around, and his steps were slightly pointing outwards—it looked like this person was used to assuming great airs.

“It’s… it’s you!” He was shocked when he saw Lin Jie.

This person was none other than the team leader of a small team within the Ironwall Empire—Silver Shield!