Whoosh!

As expected, my Thunderous Charge failed to stun the Thunderous One-horned Dragon. Its level was too high, so the hit rate of my skill was greatly reduced!

Crack crack crack!

I immediately stomped the ground with War Crush and followed up with a Desperate Gambit!

2677!

2349!

2472!

3109!

Fuck, even Desperate Gambit dealt only 3000 damage or so. I supposed that land dragons were famous for their high Defense for a reason. That being said, I did successfully pierce its Defense and tear its dragon scales apart, so my efforts weren’t completely pointless.

It was at this moment the Thunderous One-horned Dragon raised its head and let out a deep growl. It swiped its mighty claws across my Obsidian Dragonscale Armor!

Clang!

2784!

Okay, this was a bit too much damage!

The level gap was so huge that the mob did more damage than it should considering my stats. It was almost as if I was fighting at less than 20% of my real power. I supposed that I was too eager to challenge a higher-leveled mob after all. I should’ve grinded those Level 137 Hellhounds if I really wanted to be safe.

Well, I can’t quit now, can I? Pardon + Ice Ray!

MISS!

7642!

Nice. The tankier a mob, the more useful Pardon’s defense reduction became.

Suddenly, the Thunderous One-horned Dragon rushed me without warning and prompted me into a hasty parry. A loud clang later, I found myself sliding backward at least a dozen meters or so before I finally came to a stop. That one attack had cost me almost 3000 HP and made me feel a bit sluggish. This must be its Thrust skill!

That wasn’t the most powerful skill in its arsenal, however. Before I could steady myself, the Thunderous One-horned Dragon charged me again while its horn crackled with incredible lightning energy. The next moment, I was hit by its Thunder Strike before I could react. My HP dropped drastically as the pain spread from my shoulder all the way into my bones—7248!

Holy shit! My eyes turned into goggles. That one skill nearly emptied my health bar! I can’t take another hit like this!

I decided then I couldn’t fight this mob head-on even with three Spirit-grade items. It would be unwise to say the least!

Tenacity of the Dead!

+3050!

“Gulp!”

+3500!

I recovered half of my health in an instant. As my max HP increased, Tenacity of the Dead also became more and more useful. To restore over 3000 HP in one go was like consuming a health potion. This skill was destined to be a core skill that paved my path to supremacy!

I ran along an S-shaped path to the right of the mob and swung my sword at it, eliciting a cry of pain. I then circled around it and hit it everywhere for a while to locate a weak spot. It wasn’t long before I realized that the Thunderous One-horned Dragon had great Defense, great Attack and great HP, but absolutely abysmal turn-rate. What this meant was that it was so huge and clumsy that it took it ages just to turn around and face me. It was all the weakness I needed to “tickle” it to death!

The average player could dodge about 20% of the mobs’ attacks, but a top-class player like me could dodge at least 70% of its hits without fail. This should save me a lot of health potions.

For nearly two minutes, I ran circles around the Thunderous One-horned Dragon and “tickled” it until its HP dropped to half or so. Then, the mob let out a frustrated roar and gathered lightning energy around its horn. It was definitely planning to use Thunder Strike again!

Thud!

My boots hit the ground hard as I forcibly changed my direction and speed. A near-perfect Z-shaped maneuver later, I somehow managed to shake off the mob’s target lock, forcing a miss right before Thunder Strike could finish channeling!

“Hahaha, 0.15-second reaction time really is OP!”

I was overjoyed. I didn’t think that it was actually possible to dodge a Thunder Strike myself until I did it. How many players in China had the reaction speed to pull off a maneuver like this, I wonder?

……

There was a saying that went something like: “poverty induces change, and change induces prosperity”. There was always a way to beat a mob or a boss you couldn’t fight head-on.

Less than five minutes later, the Thunderous One-horned Dragon lost its final sliver of HP, groaned and collapsed in a cloud of dust. At the same time, a shiny helmet popped out of its body and rolled next to my feet. I picked it up and examined its stats—

Lightless One-horned Helmet (Dark Steel–grade)

Defense: 278

Magic Resist: 185

Strength: +40

Passive: Increases user’s Attack by 2%

Level Requirement: 125

……

Yeah, this was basically garbage to unload at the NPC store later. Even if someone might be interested in it, its level requirement was just too high. Currently, the average level of top-tier players was between Level 100 and110, meaning that literally no one could equip it right now.

I tossed the helmet into my bag and put it to the back of my mind. Then, I walked to the dragon’s body and used my profession skill, Foraging. Unlike Death Plunder, this skill only gave me meat when used on a corpse.

The Foraging process took ridiculously long , so much so that I nearly fell into despair. Nearly 30 seconds later, I finally received a system notice—

System Notice: Congratulations, you have foraged "Inferior Dragon Meat" x117!

……

WTF! I was stunned. 117 Dragon Meat in one-go? What kind of efficiency is that?! The 5 minutes I spent killing 1 mob wasn’t wasted after all!

After I used the Foraging skill, the land dragon’s carcass also turned into an empty, fleshless skeleton. It was because I had foraged all the meat, I supposed.

Next, I used Death Plunder!

Swhoosh!

Three scales appeared in my hands. They were high-grade Armorsmithing material that could be used to forge metal armors and shields. Out of all the armorsmiths in the guild, Mamate was the highest-leveled and best armorsmith out of all of them. He should be able to forge metal armor now. Regardless, I decided to toss them into my bag and give them to Mamate later. If he could forge some awesome metal armors for our players out of these, then all the better.

After everything was done, I continued trekking for another 3 minutes or so before another Thunderous One-horned Dragon emerged from the fog. Here we go again!

I never imagined that a single dragon would yield over 100 Dragon Meat. My dream of mass-producing Rank 10 Dragon Soup was becoming a reality!

While killing the land dragons, I diverted a bit of attention to peek into the guild chat—

Xu Yang: "Hey, how many mounts have we gathered so far? Do we have enough for our magic knights already?"

Gui Guzi: "Not even close. There are only a handful of mobs that a player can tame, and they have to be Rare to have a chance to be tamed. Basically, the chances you might run into a mob like that are less than 1%. Last night I ran into a Rare Skeleton Horse and tried to tame it, but I failed ten attempts in a row, and it hit Level 2. I had no choice but to kill it…"

Xu Yang: "..."

Chaos Moon: "When can we warriors ride a mount? Boss’s Snow Domain Windchaser is so beautiful that I can’t help but feel envious…"

He Yi smiled. "Don’t worry, all other melee classes will get a pet mount slot when they’re Level 150 and after their sixth promotion."

Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun: "Well… I managed to tame my first mount this morning…"

Chaos Moon replied excitedly, "What is it? Show us!"

Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun: "I’ll share a screenshot, but promise me you won’t laugh…"

Chaos Moon: "Fine fine, anyone who laughs is a puppy…"

Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun shared a live feed in the guild channel. The moment I opened it, it took all I had to stop myself from bursting into laughter. In the game, Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun was a manly metal-armored knight wielding a longsword, but the creature he was riding was a huge bald-haired dog with its tongue lolling at the side of its mouth like it was about to die of fatigue or something. Worse, the dog had pretty short legs, and Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun the opposite, so his feet were literally dragging across the ground as the master and pet blazed across what seemed like a green field.

"WAHAHAHAHAHAHA…" Chaos Moon laughed heartlessly. I bet there were tears in her eyes too.

Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun said furiously, "Fuck, you promised me you wouldn’t laugh!"

Pure Love: "Eighteen, where the heck did you catch this dog?"

"What are you talking about? This is a Bald Wolf. I caught it on the plains…" Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun tried to defend his beloved mount.

Chaos Moon nodded. "Like hell it is. This is clearly a Chinese dog!"

Pure Love: "Eighteen, I heard you fucked High Fighting Spirits during the Who Will Rise LAN tournament. Is that true?"

Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun: "..."

High Fighting Spirits: "..."

The guys sounded the gong of defeat and left the girls to laugh to their hearts’ content.

……

The conversation was humorous, but it also made me realize that there were really, really few players who had a mount right now, even though it had been a while since the Mount system was unlocked. In fact, He Yi’s good karma must’ve exploded when she got the Purple Gold–grade Snow Domain Windchaser during the battle of Skull Castle. Right now it was literally a treasure you couldn’t get even if you had all the money in the world!

Looking at the stats of the Bald Wolf Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun posted in the guild channel, the poor thing didn’t even have 20% of the Snow Domain Windchaser’s Strength, Stamina, extra stats, and so on. It showed just how amazing Purple Gold–grade mounts were. This was good though. This meant that He Yi was slowly but surely becoming the strongest knight of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls.

As for me, I was just a lowly foot soldier who was a long way from getting a mount. For now, my goal was to hit Level 120 and my fifth promotion, then Level 150 and my sixth promotion so that I could get a pet mount slot as soon as possible. Any frontliner without a mount would be at a huge disadvantage during the upcoming guild territory wars and Nation Wars, so it was imperative that I hit the requirement to get one as soon as possible. Also, I’m a hot-blooded guy. Why would I play this game if I couldn’t get a horse, ride across the battlefield and trample over the bodies of my enemies?

……

The grind continued until past 6 pm, which was way past the time I spoke to Lin Yixin earlier, so the girl left to have dinner herself. Meanwhile, I continued to kill the land dragons and push deeper into the map slowly. Once I found the magic scroll, I could head back and turn in the quest. Then, I could come back and farm more Dragon Meat. Ah, days with a clear goal in mind are so fulfilling!

I continued to fight my way through the fog until finally, I found a number of carriages in the middle of a forest. It was Captain Budo’s lost equipment for sure!