Zhang Shiyao’s gaze sharpened.
Looking at the incoming magic projectiles, she neither dodged nor retreated—instead, she raised her bow and fired several mithril arrows!
Whoosh! Boom!
Whoosh! Boom!
The arrows collided with the magic projectiles midair, exploding on impact—both attacks canceling each other out!
But clearly, Zhang Shiyao had the advantage, because her rate of fire was faster.
The Magic Lord quickly went from trading blows, to raising shields to block, then to flickering away to evade—and finally, to fleeing in a sorry state.
At this point, Zhang Shiyao had roughly figured out its mechanics:
- Magic projectiles: high power, fast speed, no cooldown—but require about one second of casting time.
- Magic shield: can block about two mithril arrows, has a cooldown, cannot be used continuously.
- Blink: similar to the shield, but with roughly double the cooldown of the shield.
After understanding all this, Zhang Shiyao pulled out a slender dark red arrow from her storage card.
Seizing the moment when the Magic Lord wasn’t focusing on her, she drew the bow to its fullest and released!
[Phantasmal Collapse—Demon-Gathering Thorn (Pseudo)!]
The arrow shot toward the Giant Lord that had just arrived—and exploded before even striking its head!
BOOM!!
A headless giant corpse slowly collapsed.
Before it could even fully fall, its body had already turned into white light and vanished!
Immediately afterward, Zhang Shiyao took out another dark red arrow, nocked it, and aimed at the Magic Lord…
The Magic Lord, having just recovered from its panicked retreat and about to counterattack, instantly froze upon seeing that arrow.
Instead, it condensed three magic shields in front of itself!
Though it was unclear why it could summon three shields now but hadn’t done so earlier, Zhang Shiyao’s lips curved slightly into a smile…
With a sudden turn, she ignored the Magic Lord—who was fully prepared to take the hit—and instead redirected her shot toward a Cavalry Lord that was charging in to continue smashing buildings.
She released the arrow!
Boom!
Another Cavalry Lord was instantly killed—right before the Magic Lord’s furious and horrified gaze…
Out of the seven Lord-class enemies, five were now dead.
The outcome was already decided.
Under Zhang Shiyao’s relentless barrage of attack, the remaining two Lords could only meet unwilling deaths.
“I wonder if that chest is still there…” Zhang Shiyao muttered.
The building where the Magic Lord had stood also collapsed under her assault.
If Bai Qiu had witnessed all this, he would have been utterly shocked.
Not only had Zhang Shiyao replicated his Noble Phantasm, she had even added an explosive area-damage function to it!
But Zhang Shiyao herself understood—although she had copied the base form of Bai Qiu’s Noble Phantasm, she failed to inherit its true properties:
- Guaranteed weak-point hit
- Guaranteed critical strike
- Irreversible Noble Phantasm damage
- Even magic recovery…
She hadn’t obtained a single one of these original traits.
Making the Noble Phantasm self-detonate to create wide-area damage was merely her way of increasing her margin for error during combat.
Noble Phantasm: Phantasmal Collapse — Demon-Gathering Thorn (Pseudo)
Grade: C
Condenses the Noble Phantasm Demon-Gathering Thorn, consuming 80% of magic power and inheriting 70% of base stats. The Noble Phantasm can be detonated, increasing damage and area of effect by an additional 50%!
Cooldown: 3 hours
Trait 1: Replication
Can replicate any offensive Noble Phantasm up to C+ grade into a personal arrow form. The magic cost varies depending on the strength of the Noble Phantasm. With repeated replication, a higher percentage of its stats can be retained—up to a maximum of 99%.
(Note: Unique intrinsic properties of the original Noble Phantasm cannot be copied!)
Trait 2: Storage
Noble Phantasm arrows can be stored long-term, with a maximum of five arrows.
…
The building that once housed the treasure chest had already collapsed during the battle.
Zhang Shiyao dug out a large chest from the rubble—about one meter long and roughly 0.7 meters wide.
The gold-trimmed red chest was still intact, shining brilliantly.
She let out a sigh of relief.
Although she had killed seven Lord-class monsters and obtained many C-grade equipment pieces and skills—enough to significantly upgrade her gear later—it didn’t diminish her love for opening chests.
That sense of uncertainty and anticipation was just too satisfying!
Besides, this was a system-generated chest—there was no way it would turn into a mimic or something, right?
As she opened it, three items glowing with red light lay quietly inside.
System Notification:
- Storage card capacity +10
- Obtained: Engraving Stone ×1
- Obtained: Transcendent Item Card Advancement Blueprint ×1
- Obtained: Skill Card — Continuous Blink ×1
After carefully reading through the three items, Zhang Shiyao was overjoyed.
Without wasting a moment, she hurried back toward the safe zone—she had to share today’s gains with her brother!
…
As system logs continued updating, more players began challenging and claiming system-deployed resources.
This would rapidly accelerate the growth of many.
Those who dared to take risks—and were fortunate enough to obtain resources—would quickly rise into the true first tier, gaining the power to defeat one or even multiple Lord-class monsters on their own!
Situations like Zhang Shiyao’s or Huang Hailing’s were unfolding intensely across dozens of regions…
Some soared to new heights after obtaining resources, while others, lacking strength, perished at the hands of Lord-class monsters.
In short, opportunity and danger went hand in hand.
…
Night fell.
A priest skeleton cloaked in robes emerged from a building.
Its soul fire flickered as it stared in the direction Zhang Shiyao had left for a long time.
After a while, it slowly turned and began walking toward a certain direction.
This was not an isolated case.
Many priest skeletons had begun to consciously avoid players—hiding during the day and moving at night, as if plotting something…
…
After getting off work and returning to his room, Bai Qiu enjoyed a long, refreshing bath for an hour, easing the fatigue from the day’s labor.
His mobility turned out to be stronger than he had expected.
Leaving at five every morning and returning to Safe Zone 2233 by noon, he had managed to unlock up to ten teleportation points in a single day.
That pace was a bit too fast.
At this rate, conservatively speaking, he would be able to unlock all teleportation devices within three more days.
However, near one of the safe zones, he discovered a large reservoir.
During the day, it was shrouded in mist—just from the mountainside, one could see clouds and fog swirling below, like a corner of a heavenly palace.
The reservoir resembled three massive lakes connected together.
According to the locals, it was called Sankeng Reservoir, and in the past, it supplied water to the entire county.
He decided that tomorrow he would take A’Yuan there for a walk.
He had been too busy lately—basically feeding it and then sending it back into the contract space to sleep.
He had indeed neglected it a bit.
As for today’s gains—of course, there were some.
First, while passing by a certain zone, he traded with a military unit and obtained 1,500 E-grade potions and 400 D-grade potions, all of earth and wood attributes.
Although drinking them wouldn’t have immediate noticeable effects, consuming them daily like beverages and absorbing their energy was still beneficial.
He also planned to collect more water-element potions—not only for himself and Zhang Shiyao, but also for A’Yuan.
Lastly, there was his progress in the alchemy lab.
Since the production of healing potions was nearly saturated—even with every player buying fifteen bottles a day, there was still surplus—Bai Qiu shifted focus.
Today, he successfully crafted mental power potions of F, E, and D grades, from low to high quality.
Even Guinelia was astonished by his talent, as she herself found the process of making that potion extremely difficult.
Because he had been consistently taking mental power potions every day, his Spirit strength rating had already risen from D++ to C-.
However, whether he had reached the enhancement limit of the potion was still unclear—he would need to keep drinking it for a few more days to find out.
Until it completely lost effectiveness, Bai Qiu had no intention of giving up this rare method of increasing mental strength.
At that moment, there was a knock on the small connecting door from the next room, and Zhang Shiyao’s voice came through.
“Brother, do you have time? I want to talk to you about something.”
— The end of the Chapter–
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