The next moment He Yi looked at me and asked, “Lu Chen, your Ghost Ice Soul isn’t as good as this Abyssal Sword, right? How about we make a trade?”

I gave it some thought before shaking my head. “Nah, it’s fine. You should have this weapon instead. My Ghost Ice Soul is inferior to this Abyssal Sword, but it’s only by ten Attack or so. You on the other hand need to get strong as soon as possible. You don’t want our guild to be a laughingstock because of you, right?”

Murong Mingyue also agreed with my opinion, “He’s right. The master should wield the Divine Armament, not the other way around! Eve, you should take this Abyssal Sword!”

I nodded. “That’s right. I’m about to hit Level 70 anyway, so I might as well hunt for a Level 70 weapon!”

Even Beiming Xue joined in on the persuasion. “Sister He Yi, just take it. The Abyssal Sword is great, but Lu Chen really doesn’t need it…”

Finally, He Yi sucked in a deep breath and smiled at all of us. “Okay, okay, I’ll take this Abyssal Sword, but all four of you are going to get a 20K increase in salary this month. Don’t try to stop me…”

I laughed immediately. “Why on earth would we stop you from giving us money?”

He Yi rolled her eyes at me cutely before accepting the sword. She took her time to caress it before finally putting it back into her bag.

Nice. This was a huge step forward in our plan to promote He Yi to a powerful war goddess. Sure, she was incomparable to Lin Yixin in terms of skill, but at least her equipment wouldn’t be too far behind.

My heart skipped a beat when I recalled Lin Yixin. I should treat her to lunch or something tomorrow. As for the excuse, me winning the “Who Will Fight Me” should be more than enough.

……

I moved on to check the second item dropped by the Myriad Poison Scorpion King, and everyone was surprised again.

Abyssal Chestplate (Gold-grade)

Defense: 145

Magic Resist: 90

Strength: +30

Stamina: +24

Passive: Increase user’s Defense and Magic Resist by 10%

Level: 62

……

Tsk tsk, a 10% increase to Defense and Magic Resist? If this chest armor doesn’t count as awesome, then I don’t know what does! Also, the Abyssal Chestplate was in the same equipment set as the Abyssal Sword. There was no equipment set bonus, but they still looked good together!

I tossed the Abyssal Chestplate into He Yi’s hands and said with a smile, “Good things come in pairs. Catch…”

He Yi made some weird noises, but all I could tell she was so happy she could faint. She even lost control of herself and gave me… and everyone else a kiss on the cheek, but she kissed me first, and that was important! Ah, a kiss from my beautiful guild leader… I’d better watch out for my heart rate!

Thanks to the kind donation of the Myriad Poison Scorpion King, a powerful and tenacious female knight was soon to be born. To be honest, these two items suited Gui Guzi as well, but he wasn’t participating in this quest, so of course our beautiful boss took priority. Go get your own equipment, Gui Guzi! It’s your fault for being too good at the game!

The last equipment was a greenish ring. Again, it didn’t fail to surprise us.

Abyssal Ring (Gold-grade)

Strength: +35

Stamina: +27

Passive: Increases user’s melee attacks by 5%

Passive: Increases user’s Defense by 40

Level Requirement: 65

……

Tsk tsk, this ring was practically made for me!

Clutching the ring, I looked around me and said, “This ring boosts melee physical attacks, Strength, Stamina, and Defense, so yeah… ahem… you all know what I’m about to say...”

Murong Mingyue snorted. “Oh you, just take it already. You’re the highest damage dealer out of all of us. It’s only natural that you get something out of this!”

I nodded and smiled at her. “Sis, you understand me too well…”

“Oh, yes. In and out.” Murong Mingyue smiled dangerously at me, sending a shiver down my spine.

“I can’t talk to you when you’re like this!”

He Yi giggled and pointed at the purple book on the ground. “What’s up with that skill book?”

“Let’s see!”

“Okay!”

I picked up the skill book, its tooltip window appearing to everyone in the party channel—

Crushing Blow: Destroys the enemy’s defense with a crushing blow and deals double the damage. Only effective against targets who are using a defensive skill. Level Requirement: 65, Class Requirement: Warrior, Magic Knight, Wanderer

My brain literally blanked out for a second when I saw the description of the skill book!

God damn, I never thought I would get this skill book here of all places! The next time someone uses a defensive skill in front of me, I swear I’ll play them like a fiddle!

He Yi nodded at me with a smile. “Well, I need a few more levels before I can learn this skill, so this is obviously yours, Lu Chen…”

I learned the skill immediately and watched my skill list increase by one. I already feel the adrenaline rushing through my veins!

Next, considering that the rest of the girls didn’t get anything from the boss, I pointed at the Phantasmal Magic Stones on the floor and said, “Eve and I won’t be taking these. You girls split it among yourselves, okay?”

Murong Mingyue accepted my offer without hesitation. “Okay, let’s split the stones as soon as possible and get to the third floor already. Heavens, it’s so late already. I just hope we can finish this before the sun rises…”

While the girls were happily splitting the loot among themselves, I put on the Abyssal Ring and enjoyed the sight of my stats rising.

ID: Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand

Class: Undead Swordsman (Silver Swordsman)

Level: 69

HP: 2640

Attack: 452~720

Defense: 542

Magic Resist: 319

Reputation: 29850

Luck: 3

……

At Level 69, I had 2640 HP, 720 Attack and 542 Defense. This was incredible for a warrior, and I was sure that there was no one in the entire city who had a higher Attack than me. Undead Swordsman had great strength scaling, and I’ve decided to specialize in offense rather than defense!

I checked the quest details before walking to the front of the party. “I need the Heavenly Poison Snow Lotus to cure Shadow Dancer Xue Wei’s ailment, and this herb is said to reside at the bottom of Myriad Poison Cave, or namely its third floor. This means that all we need to do is find the herb on the third floor, we don’t have to fight the final boss of this zone.”

He Yi nodded. “Yes, Myriad Poison Cave only has three floors. Also, it’s standard practice to encounter a boss on the third floor of a dungeon, and I’m sure that this one is going to be even stronger than that scorpion king we just killed!”

Murong Mingyue pouted and complained a little, “We should’ve brought more people with us, to be honest. This would be so much easier if we had a 20-man party with us.”

I shook my head. “It’s unnecessary. It’s harder to command a lot of people, and they’d all die anyway if the third boss also has an AoE skill like this scorpion king.”

“Okay, okay. Now can we get to the third floor already? I’m so sleepy I could die…” Murong Mingyue said.

We exchanged a smile with each other before departing to the third floor!

After we passed through the only passage leading to the third floor, we entered a completely new zone.

Ding~!

System Notice: you have entered an evil zone—Ghost King Palace!

……

Huh? Judging from the name of the zone alone, it looked like it was on a different level from the previous two zones. This should be the final map of Myriad Poison Cave!

The Ghost King Palace wasn’t as desolate as the previous two floors, but it was filled with poisonous gas, and the floor was covered in poisonous purple moss. Our war boots felt as unsteady as ice skates as we walked on top of them.

Thud...

Murong Mingyue slipped and fell on the ground immediately after she took the first step. As I walked up to her and pulled her back up to her feet, she complained, “OMG, this zone truly is as evil as it says…”

That was one way of putting it. As I turned around, He Yi almost slipped as well, but she plunged her sword into the ground just in time to catch herself. Considering her usual performance, she had some surprisingly good reflexes...

It didn’t take too much walking before we encountered a hooded person holding up a stone lantern. A solemn atmosphere loomed over them like a shadow.

“Hey, it’s a person! Do you think it’s an NPC?” Murong Mingyue chirped excitedly.

But a cold breeze blew off the person’s hood to reveal the terrifying face of a skeleton!

“Yuck!” Murong Mingyue swore through gritted teeth. “Even skeleton Lu Chen was more handsome than him!”

He Yi raised her sword with a smile. “Less talking, more fighting! Now that I’m Level 60, I want to participate in the battle as well!”

I nodded. “Of course. Go get ‘em!”

He Yi’s equipment was now a lot better than before. The Azure Wolf Wristguards gave her a boost in Attack, Defense and HP, so it shouldn’t be a problem for her to deal with an average mob. Once she reached Level 62 and put on the Abyssal Sword and Abyssal Chestplate, she could even tank a boss head-on and kill it!

……

The Ghost King Palace was an eerie and scary place. Monsters carrying stone lanterns were everywhere. Although the flame in their lanterns had been gone for countless millennia, these monsters continued to patrol the hallways to this day.

Ghost Lantern Guard (Elite)

Level: 75

Attack: 485~625

Defense: 500

HP: 14000

Skills: Crush, Blood Rage, Lantern Swing

Introduction: The guardians of the Ghost King Palace. Once the subordinates of the Myriad Poison Ghost King, they continued to serve their master loyally and protected the Ghost King Palace for thousands of years. These lantern-swinging guardians possess great attack power, and it has been thousands of years since anyone has heard of them.

……

“Watch out, 625 max Attack is no joke!” I warned.

He Yi moved toward a Ghost Lantern Guard and swung her blade horizontally!

Clang!

The attack sent the Ghost Lantern Guard stumbling backward. At the same time, a damage number popped above the mob’s head—374!

Hmm. Without the Abyssal Sword, the amount of damage He Yi could do was limited at best. In fact, it couldn’t even match up to Beiming Xue’s damage. That being said, the situation would be reversed once she equipped the two Level 62 Gold-grade items. After all, Magic Knight was a melee class that scaled with Strength.

Angered by the unprovoked attack, the Ghost Lantern Guard roared angrily before retaliating with a swing to the chest.

“Ah?”

Of course He Yi wasn’t going to let it hurt her precious body, so she took a step backward and parried the attack at the same time!

Clang!

387!

Although it was a successful parry, He Yi still took almost 400 damage. This meant that a direct hit would’ve resulted in 1000 damage or so. It was unthinkable that a Level 75 elite mob could do this much damage. At the very least, they were much stronger than the elite undead swordsmen above the ground!