“Our relationship? You can probably say that we are helping each other.”

Old Man Fang was momentarily stunned before he answered looking like he was thinking at the same time.

“Helping each other…”

Blue Maple started contemplating as he muttered under his breath.

“No matter. Teach me those skills.”

Blue Maple then turned towards Old Man Fang as he spoke.

……

Blue Maple quickly learned his new class skills after his third class advancement.

[Great Rainbow]: Charge towards your target from a distance away. All other enemies along the path will be knocked back and dealt minor damage. The strike on your final target will deal 300% damage. (Longest range: 100 metres. Channelling time: 1 second, but can be channelled while using. Cooldown: 60 seconds. Mana Cost: 75 MP)

[Absolute Barrier]: Release a glyph barrier conjured from spatial power in front of your body to block all incoming damage for one second. (Can be used concurrently with other skills, and can be used for Couple or Brother Classes nearby. Channelling time: Instant. Cooldown: 30 seconds. Mana cost: 10 MP, and a small amount of Heavenly Fire)

[Hidden Wound]: When activated while using basic attacks, physical injury will mark your target with hidden spatial power that will course through your target’s body. Your target will suffer an internal hit that ignores defence after 10 seconds! (Cooldown: 60 seconds Mana cost: 30 MP)

[Sweeping Sword Slash] (Improved): You can now accumulate power while moving, but your movement speed will be 15% lower than before when charging up.

[Instant Chain Strike] (Improved): You can now use this skill and appear within three meters instead of choosing a target.

[Lightning Chain Strike] (Improved): You can choose targets separately and consecutively for four attacks. Every subsequent attack reduces damage by 20%.

[Hidden Attack] (Improved): Extremely effective stealth increased to five seconds. Furthermore, you can continue having normal stealth after attacking for five seconds.

[Spatial Fiery Chop] (Improved): You may change your attack’s direction any time you wish as long as you’re not even a spatial state. The angle of your direction change cannot be more than 45 degrees away from your original direction.

[Airborne Somersault] (Improved): Airborne Somersault’s charges of glyph planes is now increased to four.

Heavenly Fire’s new skills:

Heavenly Fire Assimilation: Choose a sword and assimilate a single type of the sword’s characteristics, its extra skills, and its extra effects (passive), and storing them subsequently. Only four swords can be stored at any one time. The bonuses from these four swords can be given to any sword that you own which is equal to or greater in tier. This effect lasts for 120 minutes.

Heavenly Fire’s other improved skills:

Flames of Heaven’s improvements:

Unleashing Heavenly Fire directly to burn your target will now be more effective, while consumption is also greater.

Heavenly Fire can be directly released outside your body to absorb energy from heaven and earth. Heavenly Fire can follow its user and move slowly during the absorption process.

The user of Heavenly Fire will be immune to low-tier skills based on fire and ice.

Immunity is stronger based on how powerful the other party is. Immunity to mid-tier fire-type skills: 80%-100%. Immunity to mid-tier ice-type skills: 70%-100%.

Immunity is stronger based on how powerful the other party is. Immunity to high-tier fire-type skills: 80%-100%. Immunity to high-tier ice-type skills: 70%-100%.

Grants small amounts of immunity to fire-type skills that are at least high-tier or above. Ice-type skills that are high-tier or above will deal less damage to you.

……

Blue Maple’s overall attributes were greatly increased, along with all his skills!

Blue Maple’s attributes:

[Blue Maple] (Level 62 Sword Hermit)

Attack: 3453-5145 Luck: 2

Defence: 509-615 Prestige: 10130

Magic Defence: 221-249 Glory: 540

Strength: 1137 Evil: 0

Agility: 382 Survival Value: 50

Endurance: 147 Hunger: 78%

Magic: 73

Toughness: 103

HP: 5210

MP: 652

Blue Maple’s attributes were now exponentially higher than before, again!

I’ve gained Prestige and Glory from killing those demon soldiers, while my Luck…

Blue Maple stared at his own increased Luck, and he didn’t know what was going on.

A bright system notification could be heard, one that everyone could hear.

Ding! Announcement: “A player has successfully completed his third class advancement quest and advanced, thus they will be rewarded with a Tier 1 reward. This player already has a pet, so the reward has been changed impromptu. He shall be rewarded with a high-tier area of effect skill tome. This player will also be given one extra Luck. Good luck to all other players, and continue working hard.”

Another announcement rang out in Blue Maple’s ear afterwards.

Ding! Announcement: You have obtained a high-tier area of effect skill tome. The skill is: Sword Blade Lotus!”

Blue Maple calmly retrieved the skill tome that the system had placed in his backpack, and he scanned over it before he immediately opened it to learn it.

[Sword Blade Lotus]: Unleash tremendous amounts of sword qi through formidable sword intent. These countless blades will be like a lotus that cuts magnificently at all enemies within 10 metres, dealing 200% of your attack damage to every enemy. (Cooldown: 60 seconds. Mana Cost: 75 MP)

“Boom!!!”

Blue Maple suddenly used Sword Blade Lotus out of the blue as he completely disregarded Old Man Fang, who was right beside him.

Sharp air waves billowed against Blue Maple’s cloak as countless blades started wreaking havoc around him. These blades automatically dissipated as they touched Old Man Fang, and they couldn’t hurt him at all.

The blades disappeared after a few moments, and everything returned to tranquillity. Blue Maple glanced at Old Man Fang plainly as he pushed his glasses up.

“Crack.”

Light flowed within its lenses as Blue Maple muttered coldly to himself.

“I’m not very used to this pair of glasses.”

Old Man Fang appeared like he thought everything was entirely normal.

“That’s completely normal. Your basic Strength value is too high. This pair of spectacles can restrain your attacking power, too. You can try if you don’t believe me.”

Blue Maple checked his Attack once more after he heard the old man’s words.

He realized that his Attack had declined by 30%!

Blue Maple frowned when he saw that as he questioned Old Man Fang coldly.

“Why is it limiting me so much?”

Old Man Fang’s expression seemed to say that this was none of his business.

“That’s not my problem. The system thinks that you are too powerful, and this affects the game’s balance, so the system has required me to increase your restraints. However, this isn’t really considered a limit or a restraint as you can just take off your glasses when you’re fighting.”

Old Man Fang immediately flashed a mysterious smile after he finished talking.

“There’s something else interesting about your glasses. Why don’t you open it and see?”

Blue Maple was momentarily stunned by the old man’s comment before he opened his spectacles’ attributes.

[Goblin Glasses] (Special Item): Used to suppress your unstable Eyes of Heavenly Fire, while suppressing 30% of your Attack. One month later, you may remove your glasses and control Eyes of Heavenly Fire freely.

If you remove your glasses before that, you shall receive 10 minutes of an additional 50% Attack bonus as long as you’ve had it on for more than 24 hours. This bonus will gradually decline within ten minutes.

Special effects:

Track: A tiny goblin robot will be released onto your target. It will provide 24 hours of location tracking, effective within 10,000 metres. This effect will be completely ineffective outside of 30,000 meters.

Confusion: Your glasses’ lends will release flowing late to confuse your opponents, causing between one and two seconds of dizziness. (This effect is determined by your spiritual power).

X-ray Vision: You may look through a piece of clothing that isn’t considered equipment, cards, and whatnot. (Using X-ray Vision to view players of opposite genders’ private parts will be discovered by the other party, while the other party will have the authority to activate the anti-pervert system.)

……

Any normal male would be attracted by this pair of glasses’ final ability, but it didn’t serve much practical purpose…

However, for Blue Maple…

“Can the tracking ability be paired with Heavenly Fire?” Blue Maple asked Old Man Fang seriously. He didn’t seem like he was going to ask about the glasses’ x-ray vision…

Blue Maple had imitated Old Man Fang’s mark on his own body with Heavenly Fire’s tracking ability before, and his target back then was White Cherry. Old Man Fang was momentarily stunned by Blue Maple’s question. Why wasn’t he asking about the X-ray Vision?

“Uh… that is possible. But, you dirty fellow, why aren’t you asking if X-ray Vision can be used together with your Eyes of Heavenly Fire? The suppression effect is only on your Heavenly Fire eye Beam. You can also use your X-ray Vision!”

Old Man Fang seemed extremely exasperated and flustered, and he was trying exceptionally hard to pursue this topic. The only thing that he wasn’t doing was grabbing Blue Maple’s neck and hollering at him!

“Oh.”

Blue Maple answered plainly…

“Oh? ****… You’re just going to say, ‘oh’?” Old Man Fang started cursing as he felt extremely resentful for Blue Maple failing to meet his expectations. He was fuming…

“Yes.”

“I…”

……

Old Man Fang was speechless…

With today’s technology, the game naturally had its dedicated server entries for grown men and women. If Blue Maple did want to see those things, why would he want to use his X-ray Vision that could risk incurring a penalty from the anti-pervert system?

Seeking thrills? Blue Maple probably had to have a stroke for that to happen…

Moments later…

“Forget it. I’m not going to stand here and bicker with you. The system’s main God’s announcement should be here in any moment.”

Old Man Fang mumbled to himself before he released Heavenly Fire and started teleporting them.

The two of them disappeared from beside the magma lake subsequently.

“Whoosh.”

They appeared in Old Man Fang’s residence as a bright system notification appeared out of nowhere.

Ding! Announcement: Tonight, the system will release a big update to adjust the game. Notes on the update will be as follows.

“Number one: The pet system will be opened. Players can capture a Rank 1 normal wild monster within their available maps, or they can kill a Boss to drop a high-tier pet egg. For Warriors who have advanced into Knights, the mount system will be activated. Players will receive mount bonuses, and normal players can also start using mounts.”

“Number two: The guild system will be opened. Every player can create their own guild and become a guild leader. Creating a guild requires a single Guild Creation Token, which has a chance to be dropped upon killing Bosses. Rank 60 to Rank 120 Bosses have a chance to drop Guild Creation Tokens that range between Tier 1 and Tier 3.”

“Number three: Classes will again be strictly categorized. The categorization details are as follows.”

“Swordsmen will now be categorized as: Swordsman, Agility Swordsman, and Magic Swordsman.”

“Warriors will now be categorized as: Warrior, Knight, Shield Warrior.”

“Archers will now be categorized as: Archer, Demonic Archer.”

“Wizards will now be categorized according to their magic types. Every Wizard can choose to train a secondary magic type.”

“Priests will now be categorized as: Priest and Dark Priest. Dark Priest can be attained through a player’s mentor after the third class advancement.”

“Summoners will now be categorized as: Summoner and Puppet Master. Puppet Master can be attained through a player’s mentor after the third class advancement.”

“Thieves will keep their flexible model, and types can be determined individually.”

“Tacticians’ categories remains unchanged.

“Number four: The game will incorporate aspects of reality. The wounding system will be added.”

“If a player deals damage to another player within a short period of time that’s more than 90% of the other player’s life total, then the other player will enter a ‘heavily wounded’ state.”

“If the damage dealt is more than 70%, then the target player will enter a ‘wounded’ state.”

“If the damage dealt is more than 50%, then the target player will enter a ‘lightly wounded’ state.”

“If a player is wounded too much over a continuous period of time, even if those wounded states have been healed, this player will enter a wounded state for a period of time that cannot be healed.”

“Number five: Altering of races will be activated after a player’s fourth class advancement. All players, please make the necessary preparations beforehand and decide which race you wish to alter into. Spots are limited, please take note.”

……

The system’s voice paused for a few seconds before it continued.

“Finally, as a sincere reminder to all players, please minimize the number of deaths, or try to increase your Survival value. At the same time, try to achieve as much as you can in this game world.”

……

The system’s voice stopped there, as a strange look flashed across Blue Maple’s eyes…