The grassland terrain was a natural hunting ground for Archers — no obstacles to block their sight or their arrows.
Everyone was a little shocked when Bai Qiu pulled out that massive longbow.
Wait… you’re fully armored like a knight, but you’re actually an archer?
From the moment Bai Qiu revealed the Darksteel Longbow, Zhao Daqiang’s gaze had been locked on it.
As an archer himself, he could sense a strange, heavy aura radiating from that weapon.
“Whoosh!”
The Darksteel arrow split the air with a cracking sound.
As the arrow whistled off into the distance, system notifications began to pop up for everyone — except Bai Qiu.
“Ding! Experience +12.”
“Ding! Experience +13.”
“Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!”
The sound of arrows cutting through the wind filled the air again and again.
One after another, the arrows pierced through the rarest creatures on the grassland — the leopards.
There were only four of them in total.
Their stats weren’t high; aside from agility, the rest of their attributes were fairly average.
“Holy… holy crap!”
“Damn! He can hit from that far away?”
“I didn’t even see it happen…”
Everyone was dumbfounded.
They knew Bai Qiu’s level was high, but they never expected that he could shoot from one corner of the instance map and hit a leopard all the way on the opposite side — a full kilometer away.
The poor leopard didn’t even know where the attack came from before it died.
To put it in perspective, even with a top-tier sniper rifle, you’d have to account for wind speed and scope precision at that range — and even the tiniest error would ruin the shot.
Now, as they looked at Bai Qiu, their eyes held not only shock and admiration, but also a hint of awe.
A true powerhouse indeed.
Ning Xingxue stared at that longbow, comparing his figure to a certain screenshot in her mind.
The more she looked, the more convinced she became…
Could he really be that Silver-Armored Archer everyone’s talking about?
“Hey, you—”
“The elite monster just spawned. Keep watch around us. Don’t let any wild mobs interfere — and don’t accidentally hit the elite!” Bai Qiu cut her off mid-sentence, dashing forward before she could even voice her question.
As he ran, he stowed away his longbow and drew the Thorn Staff, charging toward the elite leopard that had appeared at the far end of the plains.
His guess had been correct.
The beasts in this instance were divided into four species, and the map showed four elite monsters — yet none had appeared among the existing groups.
The only logical explanation was that an elite would spawn only after its entire species was wiped out.
Sure enough, after he exterminated all the leopards, an elite leopard burst into the instance from beyond the invisible wall that bordered the map.
Wielding the Thorn Staff, Bai Qiu advanced — and wherever he passed, the grass and plants withered away.
Their life force was drained and absorbed by the staff.
In this kind of environment, he could feel the weapon’s power far surpassing what it normally displayed.
Both Bai Qiu and the leopard were incredibly fast; the kilometer between them vanished in mere seconds.
But clearly, he was faster.
Just as the two were about to clash, Bai Qiu sidestepped the leopard’s pounce and began circling it — running in loops so swiftly that even the elite leopard couldn’t keep up.
“What… what’s he doing?”
“No idea.”
“I was about to ask you the same thing.”
The three onlookers stared at Bai Qiu spinning around the leopard without attacking, baffled as to what kind of bizarre quest he might be on.
“Wait a sec… don’t you guys think he’s actually running faster than that elite leopard?” Huang Qi rubbed his eyes, starting to wonder if he really had drunk too much.
“Yeah, you feel it too? I thought I was imagining things,” Ning Xingxue said, glancing at the deep footprints he’d left in the soil.
Zhao Daqiang’s eyes stayed fixed on Bai Qiu.
“Be confident. Drop the feeling part — he is faster. Way faster. Not just in dodging and circling — even in a straight sprint, he’s leaving that leopard in the dust!”
“I’ve got a scouting skill called Eagle Eye,” Zhao Daqiang added firmly.
“I can confirm it — so far, Bai’s brother hasn’t been hit even once! This isn’t a fight — it’s domination. One-sided toying!”
“…Yeah, but why’s he running around holding a stick?”
Ning Xingxue: “……”
Huang Qi: “……”
At this moment, Bai Qiu was continuously accumulating the power contained within the Thorn Staff.
Just like the Tidal Staff, its initial burst was extremely weak — it required storing up energy for a single, explosive release to ensure that the leopard could be killed instantly, even at full health.
“Now! Rise!”
As the green gem at the tip of the Thorn Staff flared brightly, Bai Qiu thrust the gem-embedded end of the staff fiercely into the ground.
The leopard, seeing him standing still, turned sharply and lunged at him — but just as it came within a meter, two slender bamboo spikes suddenly shot out from the ground.
One pierced into its abdomen, and the other stabbed through its foreleg!
“Puchi!”
“Puff! Puff! Puff…”
“Ssshh! Ssshh! Ssshh…”
After the first two spikes pinned the leopard in place, dozens more greenish bamboo spikes burst upward from all directions, impaling it into a bloody honeycomb.
But that was far from the end.
From the joints of those green bamboo stalks, countless barbed vines sprouted, wrapping around the leopard’s entire body.
The sight of the densely packed, triangular thorns was enough to make one’s skin crawl.
Elite Leopard — Killed.
The leopard’s body was drained dry by the green plants before dissolving into white light and disappearing.
The plants quickly withered, and their pure energy flowed back through the staff, returning to Bai Qiu.
Since he had no external injuries, that pure energy was immediately converted into mana within his body.
Heh, mana bar full again!
Thorn Staff quest: complete!
Bai Qiu grinned, then pulled out the Stone Staff, intending to give it a test run — but suddenly, his expression changed.
“It’s… weaker?” he muttered to himself.
When he tried channeling the Stone Staff, he realized it was much harder to draw upon the surrounding earth-elemental mana to aid his attacks.
Could it be that the grass-element mana in this area was too dense?
He focused his magic, carefully sensing the environment.
“Ah, truly — blessings and curses come together,” he sighed.
Earlier, the Thorn Staff had been greatly empowered by the abundance of grass-element mana in this environment, but now that same energy was suppressing the earth-elemental mana, forcing it deep underground.
When he tested a spell, the casting time had doubled, and its power noticeably weakened.
After regrouping with Ning Xingxue and the others, they began hunting the weakest hyenas — the lowest-level creatures around.
Each time Bai Qiu used the Stone Staff to conjure a massive boulder that crushed a hyena, golden patterns briefly appeared along the staff’s surface.
The hyenas moved in packs, and there were four clans in total within this domain.
Under the team’s coordinated assault, they were soon wiped out — until, at last, an enormous hyena emerged from the edge of the secret realm’s barrier!
— The end of the Chapter–
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