It was already six in the evening and Gui Guzi was still busy slaughtering his way through Cyan Tiger Forest with nearly a thousand mounted troops from Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls. Moon Dew had also secretly brought a group of priests over to assist them and gain experience at the same time. After all, these were Level 162 shadow rank monsters we were talking about, so they gave out a lot of experience points.

Oh well, it was a win-win situation for Gui Guzi and Moon Dew, because the grinding in Cyan Tiger Forest got a lot easier now that they had the buffs and healing from the priests.

……

Beep!

I received a message from Beiming Xue: "Big bro, aren’t you coming offline to eat dinner?"

I replied, "Hmm, don’t wait for me. Go get dinner first. If you can, buy some food too. I’ll probably log off at around eleven. Oh right, what are He Yi and Mingyue doing right now?"

Beiming Xue: "I just went offline to take a look. They aren’t around. They both left a note for us. Sister He Yi went to Shanghai to meet the CEO of Blue Star, Ling Xue. She’ll be coming back later in the evening. Sister Mingyue went to Hangzhou to try to broker an agreement with a technical support company. Wow, the both of them are really busy…"

I couldn’t help but chuckle bitterly when I heard those words. They didn’t want to be this busy either, but they had no choice but to bite the bullet if they wanted to continue this lifestyle. He Yi and Murong Mingyue weren’t willing to let go of us or Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, so they buckled down and kept their nose to the grindstone.

I wasn’t willing to give up the life I was currently living either. These had truly been some happy days, so I also had to work even harder to level, create a troop of Cyan Tiger Cavalrymen, and grind more Bloody Dawn sets! Our players were working themselves to the bone so that these happy days could continue, so that we didn’t have to split up and live alone again.

"Yeah, go and eat dinner first, Beiming. I’ll be grinding around Cyan Tiger Forest. After you finish eating, you can bring a squad of people to grind too. The mobs here yield a lot of EXP. Just take it as helping to guard Gui Guzi and his group. I bet that the coordinates of this location will be leaked to the world sooner rather than later…"

Beiming Xue was surprised by my remark. "What? Aren’t our people all pretty reliable?"

"Hmmm, that’s hard to say. Our bunch of hot-blooded guys are definitely loyal, but none of them can resist the sweet allure of a woman. Once those girls around them start to ask them about what they’ve been doing, it’s very likely that they’ll end up spilling the beans. Besides, everyone knows that a woman can’t keep her mouth shut, so the moment they start gossiping about it, this important map of ours will soon be exposed to the world."

Beiming Xue retorted: "Hmph! Big bro, I’m a woman too!"

"Haha! Okay, okay, I got it. Little Xue is a woman, our little lady! Alright, you should go and eat your dinner now. I’m going to continue leveling. The mobs here are really strong and taking on two of them at one time is a little overwhelming, even for me. I need to be fully focused when fighting them and I can’t afford to distract myself by talking to other people."

"Okay, I got it! I’m going off!"

"Okay!"

……

Beiming Xue’s name soon turned dull gray.

I took my sword and continued the eternal grind. This time, I had accidentally lured two Blood Skull Warriors over. Oh man, I’m in a bit of trouble now!

I didn’t have a priest with me, so my health started to rapidly drop. However, I could still handle this as my Stormy Wave War Boots had boosted my movement speed by a ridiculous amount. I kept darting around the battlefield as I used one skeleton to block the blows of the other. This was a rather ingenious way of reducing a monster’s DPS and I still managed to soldier on using my lifesteal, Regeneration of the Undead, and my health potions.

Time flowed by swiftly as I cleaned out the five hundred Blood Skull Warriors in the four necropoleis. I checked the clock and realized that it was already quarter past nine. My experience bar had shot up like a rocket and I had twenty-one pieces of the Bloody Dawn set in my inventory. My 38 points of Luck were really working hard for me today!

Yup, I definitely needed to find more maps like this to farm equipment. At the current stage of the game, Purple Gold–grade armor sets were worth their weight in gold, but they would start rapidly losing their value once players progressed further.

After I had absorbed a large amount of undead sparks, I felt my body swell up with energy. When human players used skills, it came from the internal energy or magic power circulating within their body. But for a puny skeleton like me, my skills had always relied on this undead spark of mine. If my undead spark grew stronger, it was possible that my skills would grow stronger as well. These were some of the hidden mechanics in the game that wouldn’t show up in any publicly-released data. But as an old hand at these sort of games, I was well aware of "unwritten rules" like this one.

When the clock struck twelve, a beam of golden light finally erupted from my body. I had now reached Level 141. I was leveling up really quickly in this place. After I had absorbed the undead sparks of these skeletons, I realized that the undead energy in my body was starting to surge. It felt as if something was changing inside of me. At the same time, a beam of bloody light pierced through the dome of heaven and fell right onto my body.

Finally, this puny Asura was about to transform into an Asura King!

Wild joy surged through my heart as a ringing sound soon reverberated in my ears. I tensed up with excitement as I waited for the system notice.

Ding~!

System Notice: Congratulations, you have evolved into an Asura King! You have learned a new skill exclusive to Asura Kings—Dark Pupils!

……

Dark Pupils? What is this?

I anxiously opened up my skill interface and as expected, I saw a skill highlighted in a mysterious black color in my skill window. I immediately clicked on it to check its effect.

My eyes widened as I read those words. Damn, this skill looks really good.

Dark Pupils: Gather the power of darkness in your eyes. This skill allows the user to perceive the stats of any monster that is not fifty levels higher than the user. Furthermore, there is an extremely high chance that the user will be able to perceive a monster’s weak spots. After perceiving the enemy’s weaknesses, critical chance will be greatly boosted. Additionally, once a user activates Dark Pupils, they will be able to perceive any hidden units and features within 50 yards of them.

……

By the time I reached the end of the description, my eyes widened even further in shock. Really good? Fuck me sideways, this skill was as strong as hell!

It not only allowed me to perceive the stats of monsters, it could even pinpoint their weaknesses. Moreover, this skill was the absolute bane of any assassin. When I activated Dark Pupils, Farewell Song’s stealth would be absolutely useless against me, no matter how strong it was. In the past, I only had a 60–70% chance to win against Farewell Song in a duel, but now that I had Dark Pupils, my win rate had definitely shot to above 80%!

When I thought about that, I couldn’t hold back the urge to throw my head back in laughter. Hot fucking damn! A new Asura King rises! Tremble in fear, noobs![1]

……

After my bout of wild laughter had subsided, I continued to grind. Beiming Xue had already come back with my food, so I had to finish my grinding within the hour, else my food might go spoiled by then.

There were only a few Blood Skull Warriors left and I used about twenty minutes to finish them off. I got two more pieces of Bloody Dawn equipment on the way and the total amount of Bloody Dawn equipment in my inventory had grown to fifty-seven pieces. I did a quick scan of the equipment I had, and realized that I had managed to gather about eleven full sets of the Bloody Dawn set. I’m gonna make a killing this time!

I had donated all fifteen of the Split Galaxy sets that I had grinded to the guild, so I had already done my duty as a vice leader! I decided to sell these eleven Bloody Dawn sets at the auction house. I mean, I still had to look out for myself in the end. Besides, He Yi and Murong Mingyue’s pocketbooks were definitely hurting right now. I had no choice but to pick up the slack.

I continued to advance into the graveyard and I soon discovered an imposing figure dressed in blood-colored armor. He looked like an ancient general and he held an archaic warblade in his hand. His skin was pale and his eyes were the color of blood. It was an Asura, evident from the fact that his flesh had been completely regenerated.

Looks like I’ve found my next opponent!

I activated Dark Pupils, my body tensing up as I used the skill for the first time. My eyes were instantly shrouded in dark light as the boss's stats soon appeared in front of me.

Blood Skull (Earth Rank Boss)

Level: 165

Attack: 2440~3050

Defense: 3500

Health: 11,000,000

Skills: Blade of Blood, Perfect Defense, Soul Cleave

Introduction: Legend has it that Blood Skull was once a templar that lived several millennia ago. This brave warrior had been taken captive during a battle with the Night Creatures and he eventually fell and became a general of the undead. He now leads a bunch of former subordinates who had been transformed into undead slaves. Blood Skull is extremely powerful and every human warrior trembles at the sound of his name.

……

Hmmm, a Level 165 Earth Rank boss! Even though his Attack wasn’t as powerful as a Heaven Rank boss like the Star Dragon, his Defense was absolutely bonkers. In fact, it looked like it was even higher than the Star Dragon’s. It even seemed to have a defensive skill called Perfect Defense!

My hand shot out as I used God Binding Art. Four divine weapons howled through the air as they fell around the boss and formed a binding formation. I had successfully bound him!

As expected, once my level and Luck were high enough, it would be much easier for skills like this to succeed. I mean, I had bound a Level 165 Earth Rank boss just like that! Heh, this is great!

I flew forward and the Cyan Netherworld Sword danced in the air!

Clang!

I used a basic attack to test out the boss's Defense. A damage number of 7904 popped up above his head. Not bad! However, it looked like it was going to take forever to wear down the eleven million HP that Blood Skull had.

It was at this exact moment that Blood Skull let out a furious roar. Even though no wind was blowing, air started to swirl around his body. Blood-colored scales of armor began to appear around him. They began to stick themselves to his armor, forming fierce-looking spikes that stuck out of it!

Beep!

Combat Notice: Blood Skull has activated the skill "Perfect Defense", increasing his Defense by 80%!

……

"Shit!" I cursed in my head. I lashed out at him with the Cyan Netherworld sword again. As the edge of my blade slammed into the Blood Skull’s head, the damage number that popped up above his head was so pathetic that it put me to shame. 1784!

Fuck me, this is terrible! If I can only deal this much damage to the boss, it’s gonna take me an entire year to kill him!

I gritted my teeth before I activated Dark Pupils. Okay, it was now or never. Black light radiated from my eyes after I activated the skill and I was shocked by what I saw once I looked at the boss again with Dark Pupils activated. It looked like I was seeing something out of a sci-fi movie. The skill seemed to be independently analyzing the boss's body and four limbs and his thick layer of armor wasn’t able to hide anything from it. Finally, I saw something different! The area under Blood Skull’s right armpit was glowing a bloody-red. As I squinted my eyes, I realized that the armor in that area had started to grow rusty and weak after the relentless passage of time had chewed away at it.

My Cyan Netherworld Sword hummed with energy as I took careful aim at Blood Skull’s weak spot. It was a small area that was about ten centimeters wide, so it wasn’t easy to hit at all. However, that was true for an average player, not an expert like me.

I shot a Burning Blade Slash at it, the three crescents of burning energy swiftly and accurately striking against its weak point! Blood Skull immediately let out a miserable yell of pain as a bunch of shocking damage numbers popped up above his head.

11092!

17823!

42884!

……

God damn, what kind of damage is this...

My jaw dropped to the ground when I saw those damage numbers. The last hit of my Burning Blade Slash had been a critical hit! The effect of Dark Pupils was truly incredible. This was especially true for a player who had reached the peak of mechanical skill and control like me! I could easily maneuver myself into any position I wanted, so I could even hit a monster in the crotch if I had to.

Let’s do this again! Universe Break! As an Eight Trigrams formation appeared beneath my feet, my sword exploded out and the indigo spiral of blazing energy drilled into the boss's weak point!

59028!

Damn! Another crit?! This is too fucking amazing!

1. Looks familiar, huh? Anyone caught that throwback?