Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

The Holy Light Rejuvenation Potion’s main effect was to help players eliminate any abnormal states they were in. According to their usage, they could be classified into four categories: Low-Grade, Middle-Grade, Superior-Grade, and Legendary-Grade. A Low-Grade Holy Light Rejuvenation Potion would be able to erase all abnormalities a player of Level 30 or below suffered from. Even if the person who cast the spell was at as high as Level 200, the abnormal states, which he placed his target under, would be erased swiftly by this potion. As such, players often nicknamed this as an all-purpose Poison-Antidote Potion!

Lin Jie was so surprised by the appearance of the Holy Light Rejuvenation Potion, mainly because of its ingredients: one would have to sacrifice the life of one opposing religion follower to create a single bottle of the Holy Light Rejuvenation Potion! It was rumored that the Holy Church used to ‘rear’ opponent followers—those who believed in the Dark—and forcefully plant the Holy Light Seeds inside their bodies. When the Holy Strength filled up their bodies, they would kill those followers and extract the Essence of the Holy Strength to make the potions.

Such cruel punishments were akin to the torturous punishment of Lingchi 1 ! When the Holy Light Seed was planted into someone’s body, it would absorb its host’s nutrients over time, hence draining the host’s energy until his death.

Due to the cruel manufacturing process, the Holy Light Rejuvenation Potion was sold at heavenly prices! One bottle of Low-Grade Holy Light Rejuvenation Potion would require five Merit Points—and five Merit Points would at least require one week’s effort worth of killing monsters! However, not anyone could farm Enhanced Elite Undead monsters like the Bloody Skeletons the way Lin Jie did! Normal players would need to form teams and use at least 10 minutes to kill a Bloody Skeleton. Approximately 0.01 Merit Points could be redeemed by the spawned Bone Dust. Some more, it had to be divided equally among all members of the team. As such, one could just imagine how hard it would be to gather 5 Merit Points!

However, considering the strength of this team, they should be faster than normal players in gathering the required Merit Points. From this, one could see their determination to take down Scout Radner!

What’s more, after all the players present recovered from their injured states, another group of players appeared in the bloody mist. This group of players all donned neat Commander armors! That meant that all of them must have at least killed massive numbers of Dark Shrine players or Undead creatures, and used them to exchange for this equipment. Though the equipment’s attributes were much worse off than normal equipment, they would be very useful when used in PK against players!

All of this equipment could avoid Crowd Control skills and reduce the number of damage players received. They were specially designed PK sets to be used against players!

“Orcc, the first to discover Scouting Eye was you? Great!” commented a Paladin, who was obviously the leader of the team.

“It’s a great feat for discovering Scouting Eye! After we kill the monsters successfully, you will need to treat us all to a good meal!”

Orcc laughed heartily. “But of course! Once any small team is able to lure out the monster Scout Radner, they will be able to get 10% of the total gains. With such great rewards, wouldn’t it be a shame if I don’t use them to treat everyone?”

Lin Jie was shocked. It seemed like they were determined to take down Scout Radner at all costs, and the ‘rewards’… but, what for?

“Who’s there?!”

At this moment, a loud shout was heard!

A blood-red Rune gathered within the irises of a Priest who donned a clean white robe. He scanned the surroundings, and facing the direction where Lin Jie was standing, he shouted sternly, “There’s someone there!”

Orcc got into Enraged mode immediately and transformed into a purplish-black panther. He pranced towards the direction where Lin Jie was hiding, with swirls of wind engulfing both of his paws. Sparks of light were drawn from the air and eventually gathered into great light energy balls, making his attacks look more magnificent! This was the Panther Druid’s specialization skill—Crescent Claw Spell!

“It’s me!”

While surprised by the fact that this Priest could use the rare skill ‘Life’s Pupils’, Lin Jie hurriedly called off the Fog Concealment spell and appeared in front of the group. He felt that since he had saved this group of people from the Dark Blood Bandits before, they ought to give him some face and stop their attacks.

However, a gleam of light flashed past Orcc’s eyes. He did not stop his attacks—the light emanating from both of his claws turned even brighter!

“Captain Orcc! It’s that Warrior, the Warrior who saved us! Stop!” shouted the humble-looking Hunter frantically. However, he was too late! Orcc’s claws clamped down upon Lin Jie’s torso like a butcher’s knife. After the claws hovered around in the air for a while, tens of sharp claws suddenly appeared and descended upon Lin Jie at the same time!

Such was the effect of the Crescent Claw Spell! Whenever Panther Druids used this skill, they would produce many illusionary claws, but only one would be real. When the skill was leveled up, the whole sky would be filled with the illusion of claws, and that could easily confuse anyone’s judgment!

While other players might be fooled by all the light reflected by the claws, Lin Jie was not. In fact, he did not even take out Broken Blade. Infusing his health points into the Enchanted Scaly Armor, one could see scales forming on top of his skin!

Clang-

There was an explosion sound!

The Paladin leader curved up his lips. With such a strike from Orcc, he felt that this Warrior would definitely be killed! Not even a Shield Specialist could hold out against Orcc’s consecutive explosion of skills. After all, a Druid was most notorious for his physical and Mana consecutive attacks, which would render anyone defenseless!

At this moment, a damage figure jumped out.

-110!

‘How come the damage is so low?’ The Paladin frowned. He was about to speak when he saw an unbelievable scene—Lin Jie, who was supposed to be under attack, had a layer of purplish-black scaly armor covered all over his body. He looked like a monster himself!

Meanwhile, Orcc’s claws had ripped through Lin Jie’s chest scales. No one could pick any fault with his skills—even when he was countered with Lin Jie’s sudden explosion of the Enchanted Scaly Armor, he had still managed to find a slit among the scaly armor. He had reached his claws in, and was about to strike his attack—

Yet, the moment his claws touched Lin Jie’s body, it felt as if they had hit against a steel wall! When Orcc observed closer again, he saw that there was a layer of bone membrane covering Lin Jie’s body, which emanated powerful vibes! Where his claws touched Lin Jie’s body, it felt like his blood was transformed into wriggling worms. They moved up to his arm from his claws, making his whole arm swollen and red!

That 110 Damage Dealt was actually made by Lin Jie, not by Orcc!

Orcc gasped in shock. “What’s happening! What’s all this?! Why can’t my attack get through your defenses? And I got infected with the Blood Toxins?! How’s this even possible!”

A cold look flashed past Lin Jie’s face. The two of them could be considered acquaintances after all that they had been through, and it wasn’t necessary for Orcc to launch such powerful attacks on him. It was obvious that Orcc had wanted to kill him just now. In that case, since Orcc was now infected with the Blood Toxins, well…

“Captain, what’s going on with you? He’s that Warrior who saved us!” The simple-minded Hunter ran forward and looked at Orcc with a mixed expression of surprise and distaste. He smiled at Lin Jie. “Expert! We meet again, this is so fortunate!”

Both Lin Jie and Orcc froze. They were at a loss of what to say.

In the end, Orcc broke the silence and initiated conversation. He grabbed onto Lin Jie’s hands and did not seem to mind about the fact that the upper limit of his health bar was now decreasing with every passing second. Ignoring Lin Jie’s indifferent attitude, Orcc started speaking in an extremely sincere tone, “Bro, so sorry for that just now! My Crescent Claw Spell has a very long effective period. Coupled with its Forward Charge effects, it’s like a whirlpool that can’t be stopped once it’s being activated. Sorry for the offense! Here, let me introduce you…”

This team was a famous one in Midolhaar, and it had a magnificent-sounding name, ‘Slaying Heavens’! However, Lin Jie had not heard of this team in his previous life.

Making a quick observation, Lin Jie noticed that the whole team consisted of 210 people, out of which almost half of them were Mages. From the dim shimmering light emanating from the Mages, it seemed like they were all Fire Mages! The rest were all professions who were great at fighting in the wild, such as Bandits, Hunters, and Druids.

The leader of the team was named ‘Windy Hum’, and he was a Paladin! The equipment he donned gave off golden sparks as if it was made from a combination of steel and jade. Yet, it was just a piece of soft armor!

Windy Hum nodded at Lin Jie and addressed him cordially. “Hello, great to meet you, my dear brother. I see that, like us, you are a member of the Guild of Light. Are you on a mission, since you are actively killing monsters in Blood Swamp too?”

It would be impolite if Lin Jie continued behaving cold and impartial. As such, he followed through with the fabricated story he told Orcc previously, replying cautiously, “Yes, I am here to collect some specimens.”

“Oh, I see. It’s not easy to see a player who’s so highly-leveled as you are in Midolhaar!” Windy Hum continued with another round of flattery, before touching the main topic, “We are about to kill Scout Radner. Good brother, since you are so powerful, why not join our team? Scout Radner is considered as one of the leader Bosses in this region. After killing it, you can get great rewards! How does that sound?”

“Oh? Sounds good.” Lin Jie agreed smilingly. He seemed to brighten up at this invitation.

Windy Hum nodded. “Since you have now officially joined our team, you will be one of our brothers from now on! Orcc, you attacked Brother Fu Sheng rashly without recognizing him, that’s absolutely horrible! I have always advised you to think twice before you act, why won’t you ever listen to me?”

Orcc appeared to be deeply ashamed of himself. His head drooped down as he commented, “Umm, we were ambushed by a team of Dark Blood Bandits previously, and thus I thought he was a member of Dark Shrine…”

“Dark Blood Bandits! You guys met those three Dark Blood Bandits?!” Windy Hum was shocked.

The Hunter interrupted then, “Yes, yes. If not for the fact that this expert rescued us, we would all be in peril! He had instakilled them—just with a single strike!”

Gasp—

Everyone couldn’t help but draw a deep breath when they heard that. They now looked at Lin Jie in a different light—some even looked at him in awe and utter admiration. It seemed like all of them had suffered at the hands of the Dark Blood Bandits before.

For any guest player who experienced such treatment, they most probably would feel like they were floating on cloud nine now. Coupled with the warm welcome by the team leader, it appeared as if the whole team truly felt very honored to have their guests join them. Any other player would probably be too overwhelmed to think of anything else and agree to join the team all-heartedly.

As the Chinese adage goes, ‘The scholar is willing to die for anyone who recognizes his worth.’ Yet if one bothered to think further, he would be able to recognize that this saying could also be hinting at the means a leader would resort to when he wanted to recruit talented experts.

Although Lin Jie wore an expression of extreme satisfaction, he was secretly on guard against this group of people. After all, he was no idiot—Earlier, Orcc definitely intended to kill him! Druids were known for their abilities to distinguish the presence of different beings, so by no chance would he believe that Orcc had not recognized him! However, he was curious about their motives. Since this team had almost up to 200 members and would have no difficulty killing him, why would they bother to invite him to join them?

‘Perhaps… it’s because of the Bone Membrane Armor?’ An idea flashed past Lin Jie’s mind, and he immediately comprehended their intentions.

‘Yes, that must be it! They are after my Bone Membrane Armor. Scout Radner is one of the commanders in Blood Swamp, and its skills at releasing Blood Toxins to target players are superb! Since I can also use the Blood Toxin skill, they must feel that I am the best candidate to help them tank the Blood Toxins while they are fighting the Boss!’

“Those three Dark Blood Bandits are some of the few most powerful experts from Dark Shrine, and they used to tyrannize Midolhaar. Up to 200 members in our team had suffered at their hands before.” Windy Hum changed topics neatly, and started flattering Lin Jie again, “Brother, I can’t believe you actually killed them! You are indeed powerful!”

Lin Jie blinked and kept up with the change of topics. He commented, “Then what about the remaining 10 players?”

“Well, the remaining 10 people are us, the Priests,” said the Priest, who had used the Life’s Pupils skill. He scratched his head and smiled embarrassingly. “Since we are all Priests, it’s only reasonable that we run to save our own necks when we see danger ahead!’

“Cheh, you are just a scaredy-cat!”

“Wth, didn’t you, a Warrior, use the Forward Charge and escaped when you saw those three Bandits too? What makes you think you can criticize me?”

“At least I run in a more fashionable manner than you! Why don’t you comment about Li there—he’s an Assassin Bandit, and he used up all his escape skills when he met them!”

“Aiyo wtf, don’t direct all the grievances at me. I am a Bandit, and all the skills I have are skills like Stealth Move, Dark Shadow Steps, Gale Steps, Rush, Mad Run, and Shadow Flash. Isn’t it normal for me to use them?”

The whole team suddenly became very noisy, and the ambiance felt as if a person was amidst a loud but heartwarming university hostel room. It was all just guys talking among themselves and no hard feelings towards anyone.

Yet Lin Jie felt a shiver ran down his spine…

‘Though they were making jokes, blaming and turning up their noses at one another in a ‘good-naturedly’ manner… why do their eyes appear so cold and unfeeling?’