Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

‘It’s no wonder these monsters are classified as Enhanced Elites—they even had more bones than normal monsters!’

Lin Jie was delighted. With the death of the monsters, Lin Jie’s Runestone of the Undead Language grew bigger, and the figure on top of it was transformed to ‘459’. When he killed Normal-level Undead monsters, every 10 of the monsters would only help to increase a few figures on the Runestone.

From this, one could see how difficult it was to increase the figure on the Runestone. After taking another look at the Runestone of the Undead Language, Lin Jie started packing up his gains.

The amount of Bone Dust produced by killing all the 400 to 500 Bloody Skeletons would fetch at least five or more gold coins. Furthermore, eight Bloodied Ribs had been spawned. Like red rubies, they glistened and sparkled brightly under daylight. If only Qiu Yuan was here, she would have pounced upon them in delight.

The drop-rate of Bloodied Rib was very low. If not for the fact that Lin Jie had the buff from Over Level kills, he would not get even one Bloodied Rib—not even if he killed thousands of Bloody Skeletons! In any case, one piece of the Bloodied Rib could be sold to NPCs for two gold coins! Considering this atrocious price, one could deem a Bloodied Rib literally as a ‘golden’ rib…

Lin Jie held onto the Bloodied Ribs and pondered for some time before he smashed them into powder. Sprinkling the powder upon the Bone Membrane Armor, he saw that it wiggled around slowly as if it was a living creature, and injected every bit of the powder. A muted red glow then spread across the Bone Membrane Armor, and the membrane armor, which covered Lin Jie’s chest, now had savage-looking, devilish-like runes engraved upon it.

Now, the Bone Membrane Armor would be completely immune to the Blood Toxins! In fact, when it was being attacked, it could infect the opponent with Blood Toxins instead. Meanwhile, its sustainability period had increased to seven days! It was a pity that the Bone Membrane Armor would lose effect as soon as Lin Jie left Midolhaar, or else Lin Jie’s defense capabilities would make even the best of Bandits hesitate when attacking him.

Other than the large amounts of Bone Dust rewards, the Bloody Skeletons also spawned 14 sets of equipment! Most of them Bronze equipment of Level 40 grades, and although their attributes seemed rather ordinary, one of them, a long spear, was surprisingly good!

Bloodied Bone Spear (Silver)

Requires: Level 40

Attack: 355-500

Strength: 12

Endurance: 8

Additional effect: Attack Power increase by 10%

It was just like any other Silver equipment, but with an additional special effect. However, this additional 10% increase in Attack Power was what made this piece of equipment comparable to Gold equipment! When players’ levels generally reached Level 40, this long spear would definitely be one of the most sought after items in the market.

Lin Jie turned back and observed the Flesh Beast. The bloody flesh hole within the beast was still intact despite the fight. It would be a pity if he did not make full use of such a great box out spot! Once the Flesh Beast continued strengthening for a while, it wouldn’t be as easy to find such a great box out spot.

After he made up his mind, Lin Jie summoned Tiger King Bangalash, and charged towards the far end of the map while riding on it.

The Bloody Skeletons were all cluttered densely around Blood Swamp. As Lin Jie charged out like a bullet, he attracted the attention of 10 plus Bloody Skeletons. They were lured by Lin Jie back to the Flesh Beast’s side.

Although the Bloody Skeletons were very slow in turning their bodies around, their moving speed was not any slower than Lin Jie’s! As Lin Jie was bound by the condition that he could not ride on his mount during battle mode, he must take extra care to protect his own safety instead of dealing out blows.

This meant that Lin Jie could only kill the monsters in groups of tens or twenties at most. Although it was not as exhilarating as his previous attacks, seeing how his EXP bar surged steadily was still very rewarding. Furthermore, it was also very exciting to see the gains he got from killing the monsters.

Along with Lin Jie’s massacre, the Blessings From The Source of Holy Light shone even more brightly. At this moment, all the Holy Light around Lin Jie formed layers of haloes: increase in Defense by 35%, increase in Attack Power by 41%, increase in Resistance by 16%, increase in Wisdom by 19%… All of Lin Jie’s Stats were increased to a great extent!

‘If only the Blessings effect can continue… By the way, I wonder if Yatasha can be kept as a Follower? With such a cute and powerful little loli as my Follower, the whole gaming community would probably be shaken!’ Lin Jie couldn’t help but remember that there was an unwritten rule on the issue of keeping Followers—female Followers were always higher-priced than male Followers!

Especially pretty female Followers, they were the most sought after for by players. Just imagine: when you become tired from training and leveling up, you turned and see a pretty girl smiling at you while healing your wounds. What a pleasing sight this would be! On the contrary, if you turned and saw a burly chap with thick chest hair and bulging muscles smiling at you… Most probably, you would not be that happy.

While fantasizing about this, Lin Jie continued killing the Bloody Skeletons. With the skills Flame Boost and Wind Rider Blade Aura Executioner, most probably even Ophadi Wantless would have to take his hat off to Lin Jie’s efficiency at leveling up! However, the crowd attack spells of a Mage were ever-changing, and considering how Wantless’ forte lay in exploring all kinds of maps, it was still unsure who would be better in this aspect.

With the buffs from the EXP Gem and Over Level kills, Lin Jie’s EXP bar rose steadily. Soon, it would surpass the 50% mark!

“Gru… gruuu…”

When Lin Jie finally finished clearing off one batch of Bloody Skeletons, the ground suddenly started shaking. Blood started gushing out of the hole, and the heavy smell of blood spread in the air. It made the already dense and sticky bloody mist look creepier.

Whoosh—

One blood-red shadow jumped out, and ‘it’ seemed to be observing the surroundings. The moment its eyes started scanning the area, a shiver ran down Lin Jie’s spine. A sense of danger rose up!

“Fog Concealment!”

Lin Jie concealed his whereabouts and did not dare to move for fear of being discovered.

This shadow was named Scouting Eye and was Scout Radner’s clone. Meanwhile, Scout Radner was one of the three main commanders within Blood Swamp!

In Blood Swamp, there were a total of three commanders, five mature Flesh Beasts, tens of young Flesh Beasts, and countless Undead soldiers! Since Blood Swamp was one of the five main maps of Midolhaar, the commanders within these maps were definitely more powerful than the Undead Raid Commander, which guarded over the area’s teleportation circle.

Hunting down any commanders could allow one to get handsome rewards! The experience points that one could get would most probably allow Lin Jie to level up by two levels, saving four or five days of leveling up. Just thinking of the rewards to be gained made Lin Jie drool.

Within the three commanders, the conditions for invoking the appearance of Scout Radner were the easiest to fulfill. As long as one cleared all the monsters within an area, he would alert Scouting Eye. Killing it would subsequently lure Scout Radner to appear.

However, Lin Jie held his breath and did not dare to act rashly. As the saying went, ‘The higher the gains, the higher the risks involved.’ Since the experience points rewarded for killing this commander were so handsome, it meant that its abilities were also much more powerful! This was not something Lin Jie could tackle at this stage in time.

Scout Radner was a Boss, which was several times more powerful than the Stray, and a true Region Commander! As an Undead, it did not have any obvious weaknesses. Unless Lin Jie could find 50 or more players, who had about the same capabilities as himself, to form a team, he would absolutely have no chance of killing it at all!

Scouting Eye scanned the surroundings. Its body grew dimmer and was about to disappear.

Just when Lin Jie was about to heave a sigh of relief, he heard a shout of surprise from afar, “Captain! Look at that!”

“Oh? Scouting Eye? There’s actually someone farming monsters here?”

This guy was none other than the team leader Lin Jie had met along the way—Orcc! There were about 20 plus people who trailed along behind him. This wasn’t any small team for sure.

Orcc waved his hands and commented, “Hunters, throw your Flare Arrows out! MTs, lure Scouting Eye over. Be careful, don’t fall for the enemy’s traps. This might be a trap set up by the players from the Dark Shrine!”

Shoosh!

Four to five Flare Arrows rained down. It was lucky that Lin Jie was still rather far from them, and thus his whereabouts were not revealed.

Orcc frowned. “This is weird, there’s actually no one here? I remember the condition to invoke Scouting Eye is to kill all the monsters within the area? The purpose of our raid this time round is to kill Scout Radner. For this, we even engaged 79 powerful Fire Mages with excellent AOE skills and near to 100 Blazing Sea scrolls. Yet now all this effort is wasted?”

At this moment, the humble-looking Hunter, who had been rescued by Lin Jie, asked smilingly, “Captain, I think this must be done by the Warrior we met along the way! He must be at least an expert of level 30 and above!”

“Hmph, Warrior? An expert?” Orcc snorted.

“Even for a Level 50 or Level 60 Warrior, it will be absurd to think of farming monsters alone in Blood Swamp! The Blood Toxins of the Bloody Skeletons are the bane of every Warrior—just imagine how scary it would be to lower the upper limit of your health bar? Even if I transformed into a bear and have a health bar with Defense capabilities similar to that of a Warrior, I will be bitten to my death! As such, how can the deaths of all the Bloody Skeletons within this region be one person’s doings?”

“That’s right! What Captain said made a lot of sense. You brat, don’t guess since you know nothing at all!”

A Weapon Specialist who was not more than Level 25, and donning a whole set of Silver equipment, reprimanded the Hunter for commenting too much. He started flattering Orcc enthusiastically.

This Warrior was the weakest among the whole team. Even so, he still donned a Silver Decanus set!

Orcc seemed to be very pleased by the Weapon Specialist’s words. He smiled and said, “If I am not wrong, there should be one young Flesh Beast around this region!”

The Warrior replied hastily, “Indeed, Captain, you predict with miraculous accuracy! Look at the shadow there—if I didn’t guess wrongly, that must be the young Flesh Beast!”

“That’s right!” Orcc said as he clapped his hands.

“The young Flesh Beast will need to absorb a lot of nutrients during its growth. The Bloody Skeletons must have been devoured by it, and as such, Scouting Eye was invoked to scout this area! That’s great for us—we can just kill Scouting Eye conveniently, and then continue with Scout Radner! At that time, my military rank will increase to the ranks of a Captain, and I can command Paladins to fight for me! Mighty Wings of the Heavens, you go and inform all the rest of the team to gather here now. The rest of you, kill Scouting Eye!”

“Yes!”

Everyone agreed and started dealing out blows at the Scouting Eye.

Scouting Eye had 50,000 health points in total, and it only had one skill: Corrosive Blood. This was a crowd release type of skill, where it could release massive amounts of Blood Toxins after making a judgment. The time it took for making its judgment cycle would be 10 seconds. If it made an accurate judgment, it would release three rounds of the Blood Toxins. If not, it would release two rounds of the Blood Toxins.

After all, Scouting Eye was something like the cannon fodder for the Bosses. The only reason for its existence was to reduce the opponents’ capabilities to as low as possible for its master when it finally appeared!

From Lin Jie’s rough estimation, with Orcc’s team attack power, after they killed Scouting Eye, their average health points would be lower than 800 points. If they were to fight Scout Radner with such health bars, it would be akin to mass suicide!

However, since someone else was brave enough to attempt killing the Scout Radner, Lin Jie was more than delighted to watch from the sidelines.

As Midolhaar was the battle frontline, as long as players from the same camp—regardless of whether they had formed teams or not—participated in killing a Boss, all would get extra Reputation Points. Of course, it would be impossible to share the experience points and gains the players got from the fight.

In other words, if this team had the ability to kill the Boss, Lin Jie would only need to touch the Boss before it died, and he would be considered that he had participated in the killing of the Boss. He would then get great rewards! Furthermore, since Mighty Wings was also present, Lin Jie also had the intention of watching how this old ‘friend’ had progressed throughout this while. After all, he had lain low for so long purposely—surely, wouldn’t he have other ulterior motives, like taking revenge on Lin Jie?

In less than six minutes, Scouting Eye was killed! However, they also suffered drastic negative impacts: out of the 27 player team, everybody was covered in smelly blood and looked absolutely ghastly. What was worst was that all of their health bars’ upper limit was now less than 800 points!

“All right, Scout Radner is about to appear! Everyone, drink the potion!”

With a wave of Orcc’s hands, everyone took out a potion radiating golden light and gulped it down. All the blood and dirt which covered their bodies immediately vanished. Holy Light surrounded all of them, and the players all appeared very saint-like.

Lin Jie’s pupils constricted.

‘I… f*ck! Those are the Holy Light Rejuvenation Potions, and each worth at least five Merit Points! How much did they invest in exactly for tackling this map? One whole’s week of efforts for getting the Merit Points is just gone with that single gulp!’