Immortality, Enhanced Bones, and Undead Aura. All three skills were so good that I forgot the world around me for a while.

As I thought, the new skills didn’t disappoint me. Any one of them could’ve increased my strength by leaps and bounds. Although there were no active offensive skills this time, I was fine with it. After all, I had acquired a lot of offensive techniques through other means.

Pardon + Desperate Gambit was my ultimate one-shot combo!

Ice Ray + Slayer Slash was my ultimate CC combo!

Thousand Mirage Slash was even more amazing because it was the first physical damage AoE skill I had ever seen in Heavenblessed. Although its rank was a bit lacking right now, it was only a matter of time before its attack power and attack range increased dramatically. Its might would astound the world and make my opponents wish they were dead, especially since I’m the kind of player who put all stats into Strength!

Every skill cost 50 gold to learn. There was no negotiating here.

I stared at Suren. While his bones were white, his heart was as black as charcoal. Thankfully, I had saved up quite a bit of money for myself, so I paid him 150 gold and learned all three skills. They were seriously expensive though. Right now 1 gold was worth around 20 RMB, so 150 gold was basically 3000 RMB. It was a nightmarish cost for anyone who prioritized grinding experience!

The moment I learned Undead Aura, a bloody hexagonal formation fell from the sky and landed at my feet, my body at the center. The partially-visible magic array was the range of my buffing aura, although it was only effective on undead players and creatures. To be honest, it was a bit of a huge flaw.

Next, I activated Immortality!

“Roar!”

A soul suddenly appeared out of nowhere, enveloping me and entering my body. It looked and felt like a guardian spirit. Hmm, a 1% chance to revive at full HP, huh? I guess I should practice my faith a lot more often from now on.

I brought up my friend list and contacted Yamete. “Mamate, I have over 200 Rank 5 pelts with me. You want them?”

Mamate replied quickly, “That’s exactly what I need right now! I love you, Lu Chen!”

I felt chills all over my body. Mamate’s love was too much for me to handle!

I crushed a return scroll and appeared in Floating Ice City’s teleportation formation in an instant. I saw Mamate making armor at the square not far away from here.

I ran up to him and selected the hundreds of pelts in my warehouse. Then, I dumped them all to Mamate. His eyes widened in surprise at my giant collection of random skins and pelts, so he couldn’t help himself and asked, “Holy shit! Where do you get so many pelts, Lu Chen?”

I smiled. “I have a skill called Death Plunder that loots the body of a monster’s corpse. When I use it on beast-type monsters, four out of five times the skill will yield a pelt or two, so…”

Mamate’s eyes lit up. “In that case, please collect as many as you can and give them all to me. Gui Guzi and Lil Beiming spent a whole night farming pelts, but you easily outdid them in just a couple of hours! Anyway, I’m going to rely on you guys to farm as many pelts as possible and give them all to me. I’ll buy the ores I need and get my Armorsmithing to Rank 7!”

“Everyone’s working hard, eh? I promise I’ll farm some pelts whenever I’m free!”

“Okay!”

…...

After bidding Mamate goodbye, I went away to carry out some black-hearted cooking business!

I bought dozens of stacks of Salt and threw them into the warehouse. Then, I sat next to the warehouse manager and went about my business. The Rank 6 Magic Consumable, Steamed Fish Soup, required the following ingredients: Fish Meat x25, Salt x10, Green Pepper x10 and Garlic x10. I had enough Fish Meat to last me for a month, and Salt could be bought for cheap at the stores. I also had some Green Pepper and Garlic left in the warehouse, meaning that I could start making Steamed Fish Soup right away!

I brought up the cooking screen and selected 25 Fish Meat, 10 Salt, 10 Green Pepper and 10 Garlic. Then, I clicked “Confirm”!

Ding~!

System Notice: Congratulations, you have made Steamed Fish Soup x5. Cooking Proficiency +5!

I did it!

Several Rank 6 Magic Consumables appeared inside my bag. Each of these could restore 600 MP to a player, and it was going to become the new sweetheart of all the mages at the current stage of the game!

Also, I wasn’t expecting one set of ingredients to yield a total of 5 Steamed Fish Soup per craft. I’m rich!

I continued to make more Steamed Fish Soup, and I wasn’t surprised to find that I could consistently craft 5 Steamed Fish Soup with just one set of ingredients. When 10 of the same Magic Consumables were created, they automatically bundled into a stack. In just the blink of an eye, I had created 20 stacks of Steamed Fish Soup and greatly increased my Cooking Proficiency.

Not long after however, I ran out of Green Pepper, and I had to restock at the local foragers. Luckily, every forager had reached Rank 3 at this point, and since it was really easy to find Green Pepper in the wild and bring it back to the city, its price had fallen drastically. For the mere price of 2 gold I bought 25 stacks.

2 gold was worth 40 RMB, maybe 50 RMB at the very most, and it would probably take a player ten whole hours to gather this many Green Peppers. With that hourly wage, it could only be called hard labor.

Still, it was their own fault for not getting to the appropriate rank fast enough to surpass their competitors. If you couldn’t be the first, someone else would, and take all the profits that came with it. “First come first serve” had been the king of all business principles since forever.

Another crazy round of cooking later, I finally used up most of my ingredients to create 74 full stacks, or 740 Steamed Fish Soups. It was a devastating number of Rank 6 Magic Consumables to say the least, and I was certain that it would dominate 50% of the market at the minimum the moment I started selling them!

I wasn’t in a hurry to make the rounds, however. It was currently 4:50 in the morning, and Floating Ice City was almost a ghost city at this time. I should wait until peak hour before making the sale!

Now that I had finished everything I could possibly do for the day, I sent a message to Gui Guzi, Beiming Xue, Du Thirteen, and Mamate. “It’s time to rest and go to sleep, everyone. Let’s get up and resume work after noon!”

Gui Guzi: “Got it, boss!”

Beiming Xue: “Thanks for the hard work, boss~”

Du Thirteen: “Woohoo! Work’s over!”

Mamate: “Okay!”

Beiming Xue really was a considerate person!

It wasn’t long before everyone’s IDs turned dark. I also went to an inn and logged out of the game.

After getting a glass of water, I lay on my bed and fell asleep immediately.

……

Inside my dream, I opened my eyes and found myself standing in the middle of a lively, fantastical forest. I was clad in a bloody battle armor, a pitch black cloak and wielding a divine weapon. I looked imposing and impressive at the same time.

A young girl carrying a basket walked up to me, gave me a big ya pear and smiled. “Do you want to eat a pear, big brother?”

“Oh, you’re…” I stared at her. “Are you Xinran?”

She stared at me and didn’t say anything. Suddenly, both her face and her figure started changing without a warning. Her unimpressive breasts became a lot more impressive, and her face had changed into someone else’s.

“Sis?” I exclaimed in surprise. Still smiling, Mingyue shook her head and underwent a transformation yet again. The elegant-looking woman asked with a smile, “Will you walk with me until the end, Lu Chen?”

“Boss… He Yi?”

I blurted. She spread her arms, hugged me and pressed her smooth, pale face against my chest.

However, as a breeze blew past the two of us, I looked down and saw that the girl had changed her appearance once more. The gorgeous girl in my embrace looked at me with playful eyes and teased. “Confess now, you Little Cheat. Who are these poor girls who fell for your tricks?”

“Ah? Lin Yixin… Yiyi. It’s you?”

I was both stunned and petrified at this point. Was this just a dream, or my subconsciousness trying to tell me something?

…...

It was at this moment I felt someone shaking my elbow. “Boss, wake up. It’s 12 already…”

I opened my eyes and was greeted by a shocking sight. The whole gang was inside my room, and everyone was staring at me with widened eyes for some reason.

Gui Guzi said with a concerned look, “Boss, did you have a nightmare or something? It looks like you were sweating a lot. Even your pillow is completely drenched…”

Beiming Xue shot my pillow a look before giggling aloud. “I can prove to you that that’s saliva, not sweat.”

Du Thirteen was also laughing and rubbing his palms in agreement. “Judging from the amount of saliva, Lu Chen must have been dreaming about girls, haha!”

“Of course not!” I hurriedly defended myself.

Mamate said with a kind expression, “Lu Chen, you are the founder and the strongest player in Bloody Mercenaries. You can tell us if you really need that sort of release, you know. Lil Beiming is a kind girl, she’ll help you. As the saying goes, the goodies should be kept within the family, am I right?”

Redfaced, Beiming Xue glared at Mamate and said, “Why… why the hell would I help him with that!? Do you want an arrow to the face that much?”

I let out a cough and said, “Alright, enough. It seems like our workshop needs a new rule starting today. Anyone who teases Lil Beiming about that again will have to wash the toilets for half a year!”

The gang immediately fell silent after that.

“Now, get out.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Because I want to change my clothes?”

The nosy bunch scattered like birds, and I spent half a minute reminiscing the weird dream I had earlier. He Yi, Murong Mingyue, Lin Yixin and even Xinran had appeared inside my dream for some reason. What was going on here? Scientifically speaking, anyone who appeared in my dreams was probably important to me. Did that mean that Lin Yixin was very important to me as well? Who knows?

I shook my head to clear my mind a little. At the very least, I knew that both He Yi and Murong Mingyue had an important place in my heart. I knew that half the reason I entered Heavenblessed was to prove myself, and the other half was for their sake.

…...

We went downstairs and ate lunch at a fish restaurant. At 1 pm sharp we returned to the workshop and got back to work!

Swhoosh!

I ran to the potion shop the moment I appeared inside the inn. Then, I contacted Du Thirteen and threw my entire stock of Rank 6 Magic Consumables to him. “Remember, Rank 6 Magic Consumables are luxury items right now, so anything less than 50 silver each is a no sale. That being said, if the buyer decides to buy them in bulk, you can give them a 10% discount.”

“Okay. Just leave it to me!” Du Thirteen promised while patting his chest. When he looked at the goods though, he couldn’t help but say, “700 Rank 6 Magic Consumables... You’re insane, you know that?”

I laughed at his praise and said, “Once everything is sold, we’ll split the money with everyone and enjoy double portions of everything!”

“Hahaha, I look forward to that!”