The battle lasted for two whole hours. Our super party was wiped 4 times in total—that was two levels lost across the board—which was an unprecedented number of deaths for this party since the beginning of Heavenblessed. There were several factors that contributed to those deaths. For starters, Dylan the Sword Saint had casted Battle Astral Wind three times in total during this time, meaning that the skill probably had a 30-minute cooldown. Next, the boss had a skill that allowed him to enter a berserk state, and absolutely no one had the power to stop him until he was done rampaging, not even me. Speaking of me, I had died at least 7 or 8 times to the boss because I was the MT. I had dropped from Level 216 all the way down to Level 213.

……

"The boss only has 1% HP left now. Are you ready?" Lin Yixin asked.

I nodded. "Yeah. I need this last hit after all the levels I lost, this goddamned S3 instance…"

"Mn!"

Lin Yixin and He Yi backed away while I continued to duke it out with Dylan. Three to five basic attacks later, I unleashed a Rise of the Guardian Dragon combo and finally managed to land the killing blow. As Dylan the Sword Saint slowly dropped to his knees, he said in a very reluctant tone, "Ahhhh! You are strong, adventurers of the future generations, but you won only because you fought me as a group. You would never have won if this was a one-on-one fight… The Guardian Blade is yours now. I hope that you’ll be able to find a fitting master for it…"

Pop!

The sword he was holding, the quest item "Guardian Blade", fell out of his hands after that. Of course, he also dropped a ton of equipment and items. We were overjoyed, of course. How good was the loot of a Level 265 Ancient Immortal Rank boss? We didn’t know yet, but the answer could only be ‘yes’. At the same time, a column of golden light enveloped me and returned me to Level 215, thank the heavens. For me at least, this journey had been a roller coaster for my levels from the start until the end!

Pa!

I stabbed my sword diagonally against the ground and inspected the equipment surrounding Dylan the Sword Saint on one knee. It was my way to pay respect to the ancient and powerful expert. Dylan dropped five pieces of equipment in total: a fiery red chest armor that was almost certainly the last piece of S3 equipment He Yi was missing, the Martial God Armor; two pieces of leather armor and two pieces of cloth armor. Unless I was mistaken, they were all parts of the S3 set. Generally speaking, instances dropped instance-exclusive equipment only. Lin Yixin’s Mow Fireblade was an exception to the rule, not the norm.

I picked up the chess armor and waved my hand over it. As expected—

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

Defense: 8900

Magic Resist: 7550

Strength: +1050

Stamina: +1000

Agility: +995

Tactics: +120

Passive: Increases user's max HP by 50000

Passive: Increases user’s Defense by 45%

Slots: 14

Outstanding Property: Martial God. Increases user’s Attack by 18%.

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

……

"It is ready! Haha…" I passed the Martial God Armor to He Yi while smiling.

Clink! Flames gushed out of my beautiful guild leader’s body the moment she put on the final piece of her set. At the same time, a milky white luster rippled across the surface of the battle armor. It was most likely the S3 set’s unique luster. The set looked incredibly elegant on a female player, which was a great fit with He Yi’s mature aura. Her smile especially was charming and intoxicating in a way that a little girl could never hope to match.

The other four items were split between Beiming Xue and Murong Mingyue as a matter of course. With the amount of pieces they had currently gathered, it wasn’t good enough for them to switch out their current equipment yet. Therefore, they would have to wait until another S3 run and hopefully collect all the pieces they needed. However, Murong Mingyue might not change out her equipment even after she gathered a full S3 cloth-armor set because the set was designed for the other cloth-armor class, Mage, and increased magic attack power instead of healing effectiveness. It truly was a tragedy for the Priest class to have no viable sets.

"Look at this, a skill book…" said Lin Yixin smilingly while holding up a skill book. It looked dusty and ancient, but the bamboo green luster rippling across its surface suggested that it was anything but that!

"Show us what it is," I said.

"Okay."

When she brushed the surface of the skill book with her fingers and brought up its stats screen, my heart nearly came to a sudden stop—

Battle Astral Wind: Divine Rank skill book. Conjure astral wind infused with battle qi to protect yourself from harm. The durability of the astral wind scales with player’s Attack. Level Requirement: 210. Class Requirement: Master Swordsman. Cost: 100000 Reputation and 100000 gold.

My eyes turned round. "OMG, is it… is it really the Battle Astral Wind? My eyes aren’t playing tricks on me, are they? Holy shit, it really is that super OP defensive skill…”

Lin Yixin smiled sweetly as she nodded. "Yep, it’s that skill that tortured the hell out of you, Battle Astral Wind. Even better, its class requirement is Master Swordsman, and neither mine nor Sister Eve’s eighth-promotion classes fall under that category. You’re the only one who can learn this, so rejoice, Little Cheat!"

Battle Astral Wind massively improved my survivability on all fronts. To give an example, my Ghost Deity Armor, Lin Yixin’s Profound Ice Armor and He Yi’s Rock Shield would die from shame if they had a mind of their own. Obviously, this had everything to do with my massive amount of Luck!

"What’s wrong? Aren’t you happy?" He Yi said while smiling at me. "It’s an incredible skill book…"

It wasn’t that I wasn’t happy, but because my brain couldn’t catch up to sheer fortune that had just landed in my lap. About half a minute later, I finally returned to myself and suddenly wrapped my arms around Lin Yixin in a bear hug. I gave both her and He Yi a wet kiss on the cheek before laughing like crazy, "You could ask, and I still won’t give this skill book to anyone! Finally, I don’t need to worry about being hunted by Breeze and Rain and God of War in the foreign lands anymore, hahahahahahahaha…"

While the two girls froze like a statue, Beiming Xue chuckled and said, "Did big brother eat a bear’s gall today? I can’t believe he kissed both of them in a row!"

Murong Mingyue pouted. "Just two? If he really had balls he’d make 4 kisses—"

Before she could finish, I kissed the Battle Astral Wind skill book twice and shut her up.

Murong Mingyue: "Fuck…"

……

Swhoosh!

The skill book turned into a ray of bamboo green light and seeped into my body. A moment later, I activated the super skill that had appeared in my skill window—

Beep!

Combat Log: You have activated the skill "Battle Astral Wind”. The durability of "Battle Astral Wind" is set to 123850 based on your current Attack!

……

I made a quick calculation. It was exactly 5 times my max Attack!

Astral wind and battle qi immediately surrounded my body. I could literally feel the energy protecting my body like some sort of divine armor. I slapped my chest confidently and said to Lin Yixin, "Hit me, Yiyi!"

"Sure!"

Lin Yixin smirked as she changed her attack mode to free for all. Then, she hit me right on top of my head with Ice Flame Slash!

Boom!

Combat Log: Player "Wind Fantasy" has attacked you. Their attack has been canceled by Battle Astral Wind. Battle Astral Wind loses 7% durability!

……

Er, huh. It wasn’t as powerful as I thought it would be. Still, it would take a lot of hits for even a player at Lin Yixin’s level to breach my Battle Astral Wind, so I should be fine unless I went up against an entire army alone. Moreover, this Battle Astral Wind was like a permanent invincibility skill in 1v1s!

There was no more loot that was worth mentioning, so we simply split the random magic stones et cetera among ourselves and picked up the Guardian Blade. Five minutes later, the system automatically teleported us out of the instance.

Swhoosh!

We appeared at the entrance of the instance where the meeting stone was, and it just so happened that Warsky, Song of Ice and Fire and the rest of his party were running out of the instance. October Rain, Song of Cloud and Water, Farewell Song and the rest of the gang were present as well. They looked like they were ready to head home or something.

……

I spurred the Ancient Divine Dragon toward Warsky and greeted him with a smile, "Remember our bet, Warsky?"

The guy shivered from head to toe before checking out my level. "It can’t be! Your level’s almost the same as before!"

I smiled even wider. "That’s right, we’ve cleared the S3 instance. If you don’t believe me, you’ll soon hear a system announcement saying that we’re the first to defeat the S3 instance after we turn in our quest. What’s your progress, by the way?"

October Rain shrugged. "What else were you expecting? They’re still stuck on the first boss Ochil, and they’ve been killed around 7 or 8 times already. We were just planning to head back to A6 and grind back all those levels they lost. After all, it’s more important to hit the eighth class promotion…"

Warsky still looked like he couldn’t believe us. "Did you really beat the S3 instance? God dammit, I just can’t accept that…"

I turned around and put an arm across He Yi’s shoulders. "See this? This is the S3 set. It’s pretty, isn’t it?"

"OMG, it really is the S3 Immortal-grade set…" Warsky wailed.

A milky sheen rippled across the elegant red armor. It looked so beautiful that even October Rain couldn’t help her mouth from falling open. "Wow, the female version of this S3 set really is gorgeous. I should’ve made a warrior account instead…"

I shrugged once before saying, "Now then, you won’t renege on your bet, right Warsky? I expect you to head back to Warsky City and transport those resources to my Dark Moon City now. Send us a message when your resource carts exit your city, by the way. I’ll ask Xu Yang to escort them…"

Warsky clenched his fists. "Fuck me! Oh well, a bet is a bet. I’ll start now, but it’ll still take until tomorrow morning to prepare all these resources, so I’ll send you a message then. You don’t need to send your troops over though. It’s not like there’s anyone who would dare to rob our resources in our domain."

I chuckled. "It’s not like I don’t trust you, but we’re the ones who stand to lose here if something does happen to the resources. Just let my Dragonlight Cavalry escort them…"

"Whatever. Anyway… did you really beat the S3 instance?"

"Oh fuck off already"

"..."

……

Warsky and Soul Battle Robes left after their catastrophic, broken-halberd-sinks-into-sand levels of failure to clear the S3 instance. The girls and I returned to the camp to log off and eat a full meal before we turned in the quest. We were both starving and exhausted after the grueling session.