Ding~!

System Announcement: Player "Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand" is the first player to reach Level 80 and trigger the new update patch 1.20 "World Famous Generals". It will be updated alongside the Floating Ice City–specific update patch, "Return of the King". Player "Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand" obtains the following reward: Luck +2, Level +3, and "Purple Dragon Howl"!

……

My mind turned blank for a second. Two system messages in a row, and the first player to reach Level 80 in the entire China! I never thought that the day I would become famous would come so soon!

Not only was I now Level 83, I also got an item out of the achievement. I wondered what Purple Dragon Howl was exactly. Was it an armor, a weapon or something else? At any rate, it sounded cool as heck!

I opened my bag in a hurry and found no new armor or weapon whatsoever. However, I did find a purple skill book I had never seen before. Holy shit, it’s a skill?!

I pulled it out of the bag and waved my hand across it. The details of the skill it provided immediately appeared in front of me.

Purple Dragon Howl (Legendary): gather a large amount of purple dragon energy and discharge a draconic howl to deal massive damage to your enemies. Skill Requirement: 100% HP and 100% MP. Upon usage, the player then enters "Weakened" state for 3 seconds, their Defense reduced to 0. Cooldown: 12 hours. Level Requirement: 80. Class Requirement: Warrior. Luck Requirement: 5. Reputation Requirement: 30000!

……

Fuck, if this isn’t a godly skill, I don’t know what is! Not only is it an AoE skill, I bet that its damage was out of the world. There was no way its skill requirements would be this stringent otherwise. Even better, I met all the requirements already! I was Level 83, a warrior, with 7 Luck and over 50K Reputation, muahahahaha!

I activated the skill book, making it disappear. Immediately, a new skill was added to the list.

Purple Dragon Howl I: Attack +20%

……

Tsk tsk, a 20% Attack boost at Rank 1? Could it possibly boost my Attack by 200% at Rank 10? What in the world?

That being said, the skill had a 12-hour cooldown. It would take at least a year or two to get it to Rank 10. Still, that wasn’t a problem. I had all the time in the world right now.

Speaking of which, the server was supposed to undergo a 10-hour maintenance in 30 minutes, and that time was almost up already. I might as well go out and test my new skill!

Before I left, I turned to look at Xinran. She was still curled into a ball at the bed corner.

I walked up to her and gave her a hug. "Xinran, I need to leave now. I’ll come back and see you in a while, okay?"

"Mn. Bye, big brother…"

Xinran didn’t look up. She was still sobbing to herself.

……

After leaving the village, I ran to the west side of Frost Forest. If I remembered correctly, there were a lot of high-level Greedy Wolves around here. I could use them as my test subjects!

It didn’t take too much running before I found a bunch of Level 80 Wildfire Greedy Wolves. They were common mobs, and they had about 10k health or so!

I ran toward the mobs and lured a bunch of them to me. Then, I put some distance between myself and them before turning around. Purple Dragon Howl took about one to two seconds to cast. The spell would cancel itself if I was interrupted during this time, so I couldn’t afford to get hit even once.

Purple Dragon Howl was finally unleashed. A tremendous amount of energy suddenly swelled inside my body, making me feel like I would explode if I didn’t direct it toward something. The next second, the energy gathered at the tip of my Purgatory Sword and transformed into a purple dragon, ready to be fired at a moment’s notice. It looked like the skill gave me the freedom to hold the energy for a moment and fire it at any direction I wished!

How wonderful! How humane! The potential of this skill was endless!

I swung my sword at the Wildfire Greedy Wolves charging toward me. The purple dragon immediately took off toward my target!

"Roar!"

The purple dragon swelled bigger as it let out a mighty roar. It engulfed the Greedy Wolves and dealt an insane amount of damage—

10874!

11667!

12271!

……

Hmm, it looked like the skill had some base damage of its own, not just the 20% boost. Otherwise, there was no way it would deal over ten thousand damage per target.

By the time the purple dragon had finished its rampage, over 50 Greedy Wolves were killed by the skill. However, some of them managed to avoid a direct hit and continued to run toward me. Even worse, I was assaulted by a sudden sense of dizziness and exhaustion!

Ah shit, I forgot that I would enter a "Weakened" state for 3 seconds and lose all of my Defense! I was as fragile as a chicken during this time!

I hurriedly retreated and raised the Purgatory Sword defensively in front of me. Guard was the only skill that could keep me alive now!

The Greedy Wolves finally reached me and swung their claws. But—

765!

213!

1!

984!

2!

……

Hahaha, 1 damage? Guard truly was an incredible skill!

“Glug!”

I downed an HP potion and healed myself. Three seconds had passed, and I had recovered from the "Weakened" status. My Defense had also returned to normal, meaning that the Greedy Wolves couldn’t threaten me anymore.

After killing the last few mobs, I received a message from He Yi: "Lu Chen, we’re logging off now! The server maintenance is about to start!"

"Got it. I’ll be logging off as well!"

I set down a tent at the entrance to Xinran’s village. I guess you could say that, game-wise, I would be staying the night there.

……

I checked the time after I returned to the real world. It was past 5 pm, and I had to skip lunch in order to complete the quest. That being said, the reward was pretty sizable. Not only did I leap from Level 78 to Level 83, I gained a new trump card called Purple Dragon Howl. It was such an amazing skill that I bet it was one of the kind in the entire server right now. Its value was immeasurable in a PvP war, especially when the enemy had formed a defense line. I bet that it would tear them apart as if they were paper!!

Very delighted with today’s reward, I stepped out of the room and found the girls fully dressed up as if they were about to go out.

"Are we going somewhere?" I asked.

"Yep, we’re going to the base!" He Yi smiled at me. "We’ve decided to invite the core players of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls to dinner tonight. Xu Yang, Du Thirteen, Gui Guzi, Yamete, Chaos Moon, and so on will be attending as well."

"Oh, that sounds fantastic. I wonder what I should wear…"

"I thought you only had two sets of clothes?" Murong Mingyue teased me.

"Fuck~~"

I rolled my eyes, but she had a point. I was a normal man, so there were only three sets of clothes in my wardrobe at most. But so what? I’m not a prostitute, I don’t have to dress up and attract customers!

We took off after I was done tidying myself. I was the driver tonight, and I overtook countless cars on the elevated highway with Murong Mingyue’s powerful A8. Countless drivers spat at me because of it.

The venue was a hotel, or rather a restaurant, called Zhongtian Business Hotel. It was in the city center. Only twelve of us were attending, so the expenses were fairly small. Besides, Murong Mingyue was the one who would be paying for the meal. She was He Yi’s assistant, and she was entrusted with a fair amount of economical power, so to speak.

Xu Yang, Gui Guzi, and the others were already waiting for us when we made it to the restaurant. Du Thirteen walked up to us with a smile. "Finally, our glorious leaders are here! Now can we get some food on the table already? I’m so hungry I could die!"

"Fuck!" I punched him once before laughing. "How have you been in the past few days?"

Du Thirteen laughed. "Not bad, not bad."

Gui Guzi added in a timely manner, "Oh yes, he’s doing well alright. He tried to invite Chaos Moon to a date, but was turned down. Then he tried to make a move on Moonlight Stone and got the same treatment. Brother B’s casanova legend was completely destroyed as a result…"

I couldn’t help but exclaim in surprise, "Really? He was a legend back in our school days though. He used to go through girlfriends faster than I went through my bed sheets!"

He Yi giggled. "Why does it sound like you’re the one who’s going through your bed sheets too quickly?"

"Ahem…" I coughed embarrassedly before looking at Du Thirteen. "Seriously, how did you fail? Both Chaos Moon and Moonlight Stone are pretty good girls. It shouldn’t be hard for you to hook up with them."

Du Thirteen curled his lips but didn’t say anything. It clearly was a silent plea that he would rather forget the experience.

But Yamete dashed his hopes and laughed loudly. "Allow me! When Thirteen tried to woo Chaos Moon, she asked him: what good points do you have? Are you as rich as Li Le, as skillful as Lu Chen, as tough as Gui Guzi, or as brave as Xu Yang? You don’t even have Yamete’s fluffy tummy, do you? Why should I go on a date with you?"

He Yi and Murong Mingyue burst into a giggle. Our Chaos Moon had quite the bizarre tastes for men, it seemed.

It was at this moment Chaos Moon and Moonlight Stone showed up together. "What are you laughing about?"

"Nope, nothing at all!" Everyone shook their heads in unison.

He Yi leaned against me and said in a soft voice, "If Chaos Moon meant what she said, I doubt she’ll ever find her ideal boyfriend."

I nodded. "Yeah."

……

We entered our room and sat around a large table. The four of us from Frost Cloud workshop and the eight key players of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls totaled 12 people.

Xu Yang had booked all the dishes even before we showed up. He had worked under He Yi and Murong Mingyue for a long time, so he wasn’t completely ignorant about certain things. For example, assuming he hadn’t booked the dishes, and Gui Guzi had gotten his hands on the menu. "What is this Clear Sky exactly? Ah, it’s stir-fried bok choy—wait, WTF!? How can something so simple cost 88 RMB? I’m not eating at this place!"

Of course, it was equally pointless to berate the waiter about the exorbitant price. They would claim that the aroma of wine permeating from the bok choy was because it was imported from overseas and soaked in grape wine before preparation, but in reality we all knew that the chef simply added several drops of Erguotou to the pan to give it the flavor. These days, there was nothing you could buy that didn’t have some level of bullshit slapped on top of it.

He Yi broke out a couple of red wines for everyone after the dishes were set on the table. It was exactly 500 RMB per bottle; not so expensive that it seemed completely wasteful, but not so cheap that it didn’t fit someone who called herself the vice president of GGS. At the very least, it was potent enough to knock the likes of Xu Yang, Du Thirteen, and Yamete out cold.

He Yi raised her glass and declared with a happy smile on her face, "The first glass of the day goes to Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls and our dreams of conquering the virtual world! Cheers!"

"Woohoo!"

Everyone drained the contents of their glass in one go. Gah, I can’t take it! So wasteful!