I was overjoyed as a matter of course. Not only did I get 1 Luck for being the first player to be fourth-promotion, I also got one Rank 2 Gem and one Rank 3 Gem! It also happened that Cyanfire Gems—gems that boosted Attack—were exactly what I needed right now. In total, I could slot 3 Cyanfire Gems into my Heaven-stealing Sword and boost its attack power by 15%! That’s amazing!

I immediately brought up the gem system interface, took out the three Cyanfire Gems and slotted them into the Heaven-stealing Sword. Three dings later, the Heaven-stealing Sword lost 3 slots but was enhanced to +3!

Heaven-stealing Sword (Spirit-grade, Outstanding★★★★)

Attack: 640~875

Strength: +100

Stamina: +95

Passive: Increases user’s attack power by 40%

Passive: 30% of the damage will be dealt as splash damage

Property: Level Requirement reduced by 20

Slots: 1 (Enhanced +3, attack power +15%)

Outstanding Property: User gains the "Heaven Stealing" effect. When damaging a target, 14% of the damage is converted into health.

Introduction: During the ancient times, the Heaven-stealing Beast secretly ate the Essence of Heaven and angered the gods. Absolutely furious, the Ice Soul War God tore it in half, froze its spine and used his spirit energy to turn it into a divine weapon like nothing the world had ever seen. And thus, Heaven-stealing Sword was born.

Level Requirement: 125

……

Tsk tsk, with this, my weapon’s base attack power had officially exceeded one thousand. It was incredible to say the least! Moreover, another way to rate a weapon’s attack power was to combine its minimum and maximum attack power. The Heaven-stealing Sword’s minimum and maximum attack power were incredibly close to one another, and because of the low spread, their sum was incredibly high. It was why it currently sat at the first place of the Weapon Ranking, and its total rating was 3 times the rating of the runner-up, the Scepter of Snow Region’s Heart!

……

Suddenly, I remembered that I was now qualified to learn new magic from the holy magus Rinser since I had just undergone my fourth promotion. I longed to combine them with the rest of my skills too!

I walked up to Rinser and spoke with him. As expected, the skill window displayed two new fourth-promotion skills to learn—

Thunder and Wind: Concentrate the powerful elements of lightning and hurricane to unleash a powerful offensive magic. Deal massive amounts of damage to all targets within a 10x10 yard area. Level Requirement: 100. Class Rank Requirement: 4. Cost: 2000 Reputation and 20000 Gold.

Wind Shadow Shield: Summon a hurricane and turn it into a shield that protects the user from harm. Huge chance to cause all physical damage to miss. Level Requirement: 100. Class Rank Requirement: 4. Cost: 2000 Reputation and 20000 Gold.

……

Motherfucker! If I didn’t know Rinser’s true colors before, I knew it now. He was a gold hoarder all the way to the depths of his soul! How many players in the world could afford to spend 20k gold on a single skill? Who would even consider it besides rich people Like Li Le, Lu Chao, and Wang Dongliang or pros who got rich from gaming like me?

I clicked Accept and learned Thunder and Wind. Just like before, the skill fusion window popped up and asked me to choose an existing skill for fusion.

I gave it some serious thought before making a hard decision. Thunder and Wind was a magical offensive skill, so I would fuse it with my most powerful skill—Thousand Mirage Slash!

The system sounded after I confirmed my choice—

Ding~!

System Notice: Congratulations, your skill "Thousand Mirage Slash" has successfully fused with "Thunder and Wind." You have produced a new skill—"Thousand Ice Slash"!

……

Thousand Ice Slash? I rubbed my eyes to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. Did I just create an ice-based skill by fusing wind and thunder together? Is this how element conversion is supposed to work?

Eh, whatever. I’ll think about it after I check out my new skill!

I brought up my skill list and found a brand new cyan-colored skill on it. The new skill button was surrounded by impressive-looking ice vapors—

Thousand Ice Slash I: Propels several streams of icy sword aura and deal AoE damage to the area in front of you. Deals 105% of basic attack damage. Damage increases with skill rank. Also slows down the enemy with a 10% chance to Freeze the target. Cooldown: 15 seconds. MP Cost: 100. Weapon Requirement: Sword-type weapon.

……

Holy shit! Not only was it a lot stronger than Thousand Mirage Slash, it slowed down the enemies, and had a 10% chance to freeze them too. The value of this skill just skyrocketed, be it in PvE battles or PvP battles! Double cultivation truly was as OP as it looked!

Mn, I could train this when I go on the grinding date with Murong Mingyue and Beiming Xue. The sooner it reaches Rank 10, the better!

I happily moved on to the second skill. The Wind Shadow Shield was a kind of Magic Shield that could cause physical attacks to miss automatically. It wasn’t a bad skill, so I decided to merge it with my Ghost Deity Armor. Both skills shared the same element, so there shouldn’t be any conflict or unexpected stat loss.

The system dinged again after I confirmed my choice—

Ding~!

System Notice: Congratulations, your skill "Ghost Deity Armor" has successfully fused with "Wind Shadow Shield." You have produced a new skill—"Ghost Deity Armor (Wind Shadow)"!

……

Ghost Deity Armor (Wind Shadow) I: Summons the power of the dead and transforms it into armor. Defense +8%, and a 3% chance to force physical attacks to miss.

The reborn Ghost Deity Armor surprised me again. Holy shit! I still remembered that Ghost Deity Armor added 5% Defense at Rank 1, but this new skill was 60% stronger than the original skill. How high would my Defense be at Rank 10?

Also, at Rank 1 physical attacks already had a 3% chance to miss. So at Rank 10, the miss rate should be between 25% to 40% or so, right? What a lifesaver!

The pleasant surprises seemed like it would never end today. I tried chatting with Rinser again, but the two skills were all I could wring out of the miserly old man. Still, I was satisfied with my Thousand Ice Slash and Wind Shadow Ghost Deity Armor. I was already much stronger than I was before, but once I retrained all my skills to Rank 10 my power would grow even higher!

I crushed a return scroll and teleported back to Sky City. At this point, my vision was actually starting to blur a little. I would probably die if I stayed up any longer, and I saw no reason to since the boss was killed, and I had laid claim to the first dibs to fourth promotion. It was finally time to go to bed!

I logged off after greeting Murong Mingyue, He Yi, and Beiming Xue.

Then, I took off my gaming helmet, took a bath and blacked out on the bed in no time.

……

I dreamed of passing seasons in my dreams, unaware of the passage of time in reality. By the time I woke up again, I discovered that it was past 3 am. I had been sleeping for 15 hours straight!

I opened my eyes and looked outside the window for a second. It had been raining non-stop in Suzhou as of late.

I closed my eyes and went back to sleep again.

When I opened my eyes again, it was 6 in the morning. I rose to my feet, washed myself, and went downstairs to buy some breakfast. By the time I returned, Murong Mingyue and Beiming Xue had returned as well.

Murong Mingyue smiled while we were chugging down our breakfast. "Lu Chen did a great service to our guild yesterday, hehe. Not only did we finally score one over Candle Dragon, this is the first time we overshadow Candlelight Shadow completely. Not only did he miss his signature Famous General Skill, ‘Martial God’, he even missed the chance to become the first fourth-promotion player…"

I smiled. "I got lucky, that’s all. If I hadn’t entered that secret map by accident, I might not have gotten ‘Martial God’. I gotta say though, Famous General Skills really are as scary as they come. These buffs are absolutely ridiculous. I heard that each person can only have one Famous General Skill, so the two of you should work hard as well!"

"Mn mn!"

Beiming Xue asked me with a smile, "By the way, big bro, the Heaven-stealing Sword sitting at the first place of the Weapons Ranking is yours, am I right?"

I nodded. "You found me out!"

"Wah, that’s amazing…" Beiming Xue exclaimed in envy before urging me, "Why don’t you take Sister Mingyue and I on that grinding trip today, big bro? Show us how powerful your new sword is!"

"No problem!" I thumped my chest reassuringly. Right now, there were no shadow-rank mobs below 125 that could withstand the 14% lifesteal from the Heaven-stealing Sword, War Crush and Thousand Ice Slash. As long as I didn’t run out of Magic Consumables, I could fight tens of thousands of mobs and still do swimmingly.

That being said, my first priority of the day was to head to the palace and apply for a piece of land to open a shop. After all, it was unrealistic to think that the good days of equipment selling could last forever. Operating a shop wouldn’t make me filthy rich overnight, but it would provide me with a steady stream of income that wouldn’t dry up without warning.

Beiming Xue took a bite from her bread before remembering something. "Oh right, there was an incredible equipment set sale at the auction house yesterday, the Frozen Earth leather armor set and the Gold-grade Outstanding Blood Maddened Lion metal armor set for auction. They were so good that Hegemon Palace, Flower Room, and Mad Dragon fought over them like maniacs…"

I replied, "Yeah, those were mine too. Lin Yixin and I grinded them yesterday…"

"Fuck!"

Murong Mingyue shot me a look of disbelief and amazement. "I should’ve known that you and a handful others are the only ones who could do this. I mean, I did suspect that the equipment sets had something to do with you when you told me that you and Beauty Lin are going to grind at Dragonbone Mountain Range, but really?"

I asked excitedly, "So, how much did those equipment sell for?"

"The Blood Maddened Lion set sold for over 2 million gold. The Frozen Earth sets also sold for more or less 80k each. Finally, there was a Dark Gold–grade Chest Armor of Barbaric Strength that sold for 110k. That one’s also yours, am I right?"

"Yep. Lin Yixin and I agreed to a 50-50 split, and I’ll transfer 20% of what I got to your account as the workshop’s capital."

"Very good!" Murong Mingyue smiled. "Lil Beiming and I actually found a Level 90 Dark Gold–grade scepter yesterday. We sold it for 100k and transferred 20k to the workshop’s account as well. I was planning to buy a couple of LVs and show off a bit, but with all this new income I’m going to buy a couple of diamond rings instead~~"

I exclaimed in astonishment, "Diamond rings? What for? And why are you buying things that your future husband is going to give you anyway?"

Murong Mingyue puffed up her amazing chest before replying, "Forget it, there are no reliable men in this world. I already made up my mind to stay single forever…"

Suddenly, she smiled deviously at me before saying, "But if it’s you we’re talking about, then maybe I can consider it…"

I shook my head immediately. "Thanks but no thanks. If you don’t want to get married that’s fine, worse comes to worst I’ll support you forever…"

“Fuck!"

Before Murong Mingyue could fly into a fit of rage, I escaped into my room with my soybean juice while saying, "Get online soon, you two! I’m not busy today, so I’ll act as your MT and damage dealer for free, and let you choose the map we’re heading to! See you in half an hour!"

Behind me, the girls giggled like silver bells.