Pop pop pop…

A ton of items and equipment erupted from Ochil’s body and littered the floor as his HP hit zero. However, despite his failing knees, the man managed to keep his eyes open and his body upright as he cursed, "The dignity of the War God Academy will not be violated. You may have beaten me, but you’ll never be able to defeat my teacher, boy!"

……

I sat next to Ochil’s body and examined the loot at leisure. I didn’t even activate Dark Pupils because we were inside an instance, meaning that there was no need to check for lurking assassins. Instances were dynamically-generated independent shards of reality, just for you. No one except us could enter. For example, Warsky’s party was currently fighting in a separate instance of the War God Academy right now. I wonder how they are doing.

The four girls surrounded me as I flipped the boss up and down to make sure that I didn’t miss any loot. For the first boss of the S3 instance, Ochil was quite the generous giver. He had given us 5 pieces of equipment in total: a fiery helmet, a steaming pair of wristguards with complex magical runes on them, a shield, a dagger and a pitch-black round-shaped object that I didn’t recognize.

First, I picked up the helmet smilingly. "Who wants to bet that this is one of the equipment of the S3 set?"

I waved my hand, and the helmet’s stats appeared in the party channel. The way Lin Yixin and He Yi’s mouths parted looked incredibly sexy—

Martial God Helmet (Immortal-grade, Outstanding★★★★★)

Defense: 6900

Magic Resist: 6550

Strength: +950

Stamina: +900

Agility: + 895

Tactics: +110

Passive: Increases user's max HP by 40000

Passive: Increases user’s Attack by 35%

Slots: 12

Outstanding Property: Martial God. Increases user’s Attack by 15%

Introduction: The War God Academy is a legend of ancient times, and its president was a master martial artist renowned for his strength. After many years of cultivation, the president explored the world in search for a kind of special metal before giving it to a divine smith. That is how the Martial God set came to be. It is said that the person wearing the Martial God set will gain protection of the gods.

Level Requirement: 200

Reputation Requirement: 400000

Class Requirement: Fighter

……

As I thought, the helmet was a part of the Martial God set. It added 35% Attack in total, and it was a 5-star Immortal-grade item. Overall, its stats were pretty good, and its Outstanding Property increased the wearer’s Attack. The obvious difference between the S2 and S3 set was that the former was focused on Defense, while the latter focused on Attack. Personally, I thought that the S3 set was the better of the two. Purely defensive equipment might make an excellent tank, but the tank themself might then lack Attack to hold the boss’s aggro, which defeats the whole purpose of stacking defensive items to be the main tank.

I moved on to reveal the wristguard’s stats. As expected, it was yet another component of the Martial God set. As 5-star Outstanding Immortal-grade metal-armor wristguards, their stats were very powerful.

I passed both items to He Yi with a smile. "Here, Eve. I said the S3 set is yours, right?"

"Mn." He Yi smiled and nodded in thanks.

I then said to Lin Yixin, "When we clear the S3 instance, and you’ve all undergone your eighth class promotions, let’s grind the S4 instance together and get you the first S4 set in the entire world, Yiyi."

Lin Yixin giggled. "It’s a promise! And that applies to everyone here, okay? No matter what is keeping y’all, you must make time and help me grind my S4 set, okay?"

"No problem…"

……

I moved onto the shield next, but what I saw shook me to my core. Motherfucking Dark Steel–grade trash from an Ancient Immortal Rank boss!?

Shame on you, Ochil, shame on you. I tossed the shield behind me and picked up the fourth item he dropped, a fiery dagger. It was long enough to be called a shortsword instead of a dagger, and its blade was engraved with strange but elegant patterns. If I had to guess, it was probably a weapon used by the ancient nobles. I turned my wrist and brought up its stats screen in front of everyone—

Mow Fireblade (Immortal-grade, Outstanding★★★★★★)

Attack: 4500~7500

Strength: +1050

Stamina: +1000

Agility: +950

Tactics: +125

Passive: Increases user’s Attack by 115%

Passive: When swinging the Mow Fireblade, 10% chance to trigger Flame Attack and deal massive damage.

Slots: 12

Outstanding Property: Armor Break. When attacking a target, 100% chance to reduce the target’s Defense by 20% for 15 seconds.

Introduction: In ancient times, there existed a demonic flame, hidden deep within the mountains. Stumbling upon it, a hunter faced its guardian, a fierce tiger, and succeeded in killing it, but succumbed to the fire. Devouring the hunter and his dagger, the blade was refined by the demonic flames.Thousands and thousands of years later, the dagger reappeared in the world as the Mow Fireblade, a weapon imbued with powerful flames.

Level Requirement: 200

Reputation Requirement: 500000

……

I smiled. Neither Lin Yixin nor I had entered the S3 instance thinking that we would walk away with something, but that was no longer the case for Lin Yixin. This dagger was the perfect compensation for her hard work.

"Fruit Knife, you want this?" I asked while holding the dagger in a reverse grip.

Lin Yixin replied with a small but sweet smile, "Its Attack is very high. Not bad, not bad at all! This is a good replacement for my current dagger!"

He Yi chuckled. "It even has a good name! Moe Fireblade, haha!!"

Lin Yixin’s smile grew even sweeter.

……

Lin Yixin sheathed her new dagger in the scabbard around her waist. If necessary, she could switch her weapon in an instant. Unlike most, if not all the other players out there, Lin Yixin could equip two main weapons—a sword and a dagger—and enjoy both of their stat boosts at the same time. As far as I was aware, it was an advantage that was entirely unique to herself.

Finally, the round-shaped object was the only item left. He Yi rubbed it curiously while saying, "What is this thing? It’s so weird…"

I shrugged. "We’ll know in a second."

I waved my hand again and brought up its stats screen. Immediate silence overtook us—

Brave General Horseshoe: Quest Item.

Introduction: The Brave General Horseshoe can be slotted into any land mount that is Level 150 or higher. All mount stats are increased by 15%. Increases user’s Attack and Defense by 35%, and max HP by 50000.

……

For a time, the girls and I could only exchange shocked looks with each other. Finally, Lin Yixin, I and He Yi blurted out at almost the same time, "What a godlike item!"

This Brave General Horseshoe was very similar to the Qilin Stone I had dug out of the Ice Dragon Kris’s anus. However, unlike the Qilin Stone, it couldn’t be used directly because it was a quest item. How do I use this?

Oh well. I tossed it into my bag and said, "We’ll find an NPC to identify this after we exited the instance. For now, let’s continue."

"Yep."

I took point again and led the girls deeper into War God Academy. Next stop, the Magic Academy.

……

A warm breeze brushed against our skins as we entered the Magic Academy. The students here were all wearing robes as a matter of course. The scene would almost be homely if it wasn’t for the fact that they were all walking skeletons whose flesh had rotted away completely.

Unlike the Martial Zone, the Magic Academy consisted of just one big student hostel. The building was surrounded by a thick swarm of Level 258 fiend-rank mages, and their magic damage was so high that even I was afraid to approach them.

Thud!

I abruptly stopped in my tracks and pointed at the mages. "There’s enough mages here that they can one-shot me just by casting Fire Dragon Spell once, can’t they?"

Lin Yixin laughed heartlessly. "Don’t worry. If you die, we’ll hold a special barbecue funeral for you!"

Me: "..."

……

I glanced at the mages again. Generally, a mage had an attack range of 40 yards, and judging by how huge the crowd was, as many as 100 mages could attack me at once. These were all fiend-rank monsters too, so one Fire Dragon Spell could deal at last 20k+ damage to me. This meant that I would need at least 2 million HP to prevent myself from getting one-shot. Obviously, I didn’t have 2 million HP.

Beiming Xue said concernedly, "Let’s try something else. Big brother will definitely die if he tries to tackle this head-on!"

I immediately hugged Beiming Xue’s shoulders and said to Lin Yixin and He Yi, "I knew you would worry about me, Beiming! You two should learn from her example!"

Lin Yixin snorted. "We do worry about you, you shameless fellow! Oh well. If it’s really impossible, we’ll just use the pet suicide tactic. While our pets absorb the first round of attack, we’ll go all out, spam our Divine General Skills and kill as many enemy mages as possible. For now, I can’t think of any other way…"

I nodded in agreement. "You’re such a smart girl, Yiyi. Since your ice dragon has the highest Magic Resist of all our pets, let’s have her suicide charge the enemy for our cause. While she’s getting beaten up, we’ll pick an area full of mages and try to kill most of them in 5 seconds. It’s either them or us, so let’s make sure it’s them."

"You bastard…"

Lin Yixin complained with a pout, but her objection was ignored as a matter of course. Her ice dragon could fly, and it was the tankiest of all our pets. There was no better choice than it.

……

Whoosh!

After the Ice Dragon Kris glided over the enemy mages and covered their faces with dragon flames, I immediately charged to the edge of the mage group and executed Thousand Ice Slash + Burning Blade Slash combo!

Boom boom boom!

Countless damage numbers rose to the air, and almost half of the student mages were encased in ice. He Yi and Lin Yixin appeared right after me and unleashed their God’s Tear, Godslaying Blade, Ice Flame Slash, Purgatory of Ice and Magma and more as well. Meanwhile, I spammed my non-melee skills such as Ancient Seals, Summon the Storm, and Coiling Dragon Revolution. The students only had less than 2 million HP, so they never had a chance of surviving our greatest attacks.

However, we couldn’t overlap our skills to cover all the mobs, so around 40 students were able to survive. They fired their fire dragons, ice blades and more at us, and all three of us dropped below 50% HP immediately. It was terrifying.

Thankfully, we had a top-tier priest with us. Unperturbed by the seemingly dire situation, she healed us with her single-target spells repeatedly and never allowed our HP to fall below the safety line. Three minutes later, all 100+ mobs had been killed, but we all felt like we had just fought a hundred battles.