Chapter 56 – Strength of a Thousand Men

This chapter was sponsored by William Wang!

Now that I had this Necklace of Bravery, my total HP rose to 930 points, one step closer to 1000! At least now I wouldn’t die as easily. But d*mn, there was still that bitter feeling. I died two times, and dropped back down to level 30!

In my soul form, I returned to the [Desolate Cloud Swamp], and Li Mu was silently standing there while holding his sword. He, together with Wang Jian and Bai Qi formed a triangle formation, with Lian Po holding his longbow in the middle. A typical defense formation. No matter which side I attacked from, I couldn’t get any surprise attacks off.

……

“We killed him twice, equivalent to 2000 gold coins. I’ve already contacted Tyrant of Western Chu, and within the next 10 minutes, I will put the video of us killing Xiao Yao Zi Zai two times on the forums as proof, so that he has to keep his word.” General Lian Po said faintly.

Wang Jian frowned, “That video… can’t it be edited? We 4v1ed, and we still got killed. If people see that we would lose face! Also, Boss’s necklace dropped as well, d*mn it. That necklace is worth at least 50 gold!”

Li Mu stood there quietly and said, “No need. Xiao Yao is originally strong, why else would Tyrant of Western Chu give out a 1000 gold bounty? Although quite a few of us died, ultimately, we finished our bounty hunt. But what kind of class is ‘Scavenger of Dragon City’? How did he get it…”

Bai Qi asked, “Boss, do we continue waiting here and kill him for the third time?”

Li Mu shook his head, “Nah, we can’t be too greedy…”

After saying that, Li Mu faced the open space, and yelled, “Brother Xiao Yao Zi Zai! Today, we Generals were unfair to you, and we apologize for our actions. We only want the 2000 gold. My Necklace of Bravery dropped, you can keep that as our apology. We hope that you won’t hold a grudge against us, and we Generals will remember about you!”

After saying that, Li Mu muttered, “Let’s go!”

All four pets were released, and they backed away carefully.

……

Being in soul form, I couldn’t say anything back so I silently looked on as they left. I revived and summoned Baby Bobo. I wore my recently acquired Necklace of Bravery, a bronze equipment that was worth two levels. Luckily, equipment like necklaces and rings were hard to obtain, so the trade wasn’t too bad.

I continued killing water snakes and collected the venom sacs!

Before long, 10 sacs were in my bag. Okay, time to go to that NPC garrison leader to hand in the mission!

I entered the forest, and found Guche fairly quickly. His face had turned purple from the snake poison and his whole body was twitching uncontrollably. When he saw me, his death-like face sparked a trace of life, and he struggled to get up, “Young warrior, have you brought the venom sacs of the Desolate Water Snakes?”

I nodded, and I took the 10 sacs from my bag to give to him. He washed them and then cracked the sacs and spread the juice from the sacs onto his wounds. It was extremely effective, and with minutes, the rotting flesh started to flow with fresh red blood. Guche tore his clothing to wrap around his wounds, and then he stood with the help of a staff. He patted my shoulder, and said, “New scavenger, your help is very gratifying, I also see the hope in the cold and desolate Dragon City. Since you saved my life, now, I will give you my most precious thing. Also, I represent the garrison when I say my thanks!”

“Ding!”

System Notification: Congratulations! You finished A-ranked mission [Sac Gathering]! You receive 9000 experience points, 10 gold coins, and your fame in Dragon City has increased! Also, you receive the item: [Elite Steel Wrist Guard]!

……

Elite Steel Wrist Guards?

My heart thumped in happiness, I hadn’t heard of the rank Elite Steel before, it couldn’t be black-iron equipment, could it?

I opened up my bag and found an elegant wrist guard made out of silvery steel. I picked it up, waved my hand to see its stats, and I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. I didn’t save Guche for nothing——

【Elite Steel Wrist Guard】（Silver-rank equipment）

Type: Armor

Defense: 70

Strength: +25

Magic: +20

Other: Raises defense by 25 points.

Level Requirement: 30

……

With a golden ray of light, I rose to level 31, and of course, I could wear this level 30 silver wrist guard. I immediately equipped it, and I felt like I got a lot stronger, especially in defense, it rose by a lot——

【Xiao Yao Zi Zai】（Scavenger of Dragon City）

Level: 31

Attack: 558-751

Defense: 417

Health: 936

Mana: 390

Charm: 25

……

My defense was over 400 points now, and the best thing about this wrist guard was it gave me 20 extra points of magic. Scavenger of Dragon City’s magic power to mana ratio was 1:8, so 20 points in magic power gave me 160 extra mana, and at this stage it was invaluable. When my [Combo], [Binding Chains], and [Wind Blade] reached level 4, plus my level 4 [Heal], a rotation of the skills would pretty much empty my mana bar. If my skills went off cooldown but I didn’t have enough mana to use it, that would be a pretty sad scene.

I continued, and without a quest, I started annihilating the water snakes, and two water snake seals dropped. A high agility monster, but the value of it wasn’t high, and I hadn’t seen any level 1 Desolate Water Snakes yet. While killing monsters, I could grind both my levels and my skills, and luckily I still had a few Chilling Wind Pills, or else I wouldn’t be able to grind my skills that much.

Level 3 [Wind Blade] and level 3 [Binding Chains] both needed 60 mana per use and to raise them from level 3 to 4, I needed to use the skill 1000 times. It was a very tedious process, and after grinding non-stop for 3 hours, it was already 7 o’clock at night. With a ding, [Wind Blade] reached level 4. LV-4 [Wind Blade] increased attack by 12%, extremely powerful!

But, [Binding Chains] still needed a bit more time until it reached level 4. I would take it slowly.

……

Tick!

As I was killing the water snakes, I got a message. It was from Wan Er, “Xiao Yao, have you looked on the forums?”

“I haven’t. What happened?”

Wan Er opened up a voice call, and laughed lightly, “You’re getting famous… The 4 Generals went to some remote place to kill you, but unexpectedly you killed quite a few of them. This video on the forums is getting near a million views! You should pay more attention…”

“Sigh…”

Wan Er continued, “You be careful. I hear that in Fan Shu City a few groups want to go to Ba Huang City, and even in Jiu Li people want to go too. For a bounty of 1000 gold coins, these people are even more vicious than the Generals!”

“I got it, I’ll be careful.”

“Mm, then I’ll continue level grinding.”

“Okay.”

Just as Wan Er’s call ended, I got another message. This time it was from Qing Qian, “Xiao Yao!”

“Mm, Qing Qian. What’s the matter?”

“A lot of people from Ba Huang City are going to the forests in the north. I suspect that their goal is you, what are you going to do?” She seemed very worried.

I smiled, “Don’t worry Qing Qian. If I can beat them, I’ll kill them. If I can’t, then I’ll just disconnect and go offline. It’s not like I’m going to keep on dying for no reason. If I go offline, those people will leave. I doubt they would play a waiting game with me.”

Qing Qian replied, “Mm, if you do that, I’ll feel relieved. That’s right, I’m coming towards you, throw me your coordinates. I have something to give to you…”

“Oh? What thing?”

“When you get it you’ll know!”

“Okay.”

……

After giving her my coordinates, I continued level grinding and I also checked the weapon ranking of Ba Huang City. In the rankings, Jade City Sword was ranked first, the second was a gold-ranked pike, and the third was a gold-ranked dagger. All of their owners hid their IDs. That was expected, no point of getting into trouble from people being jealous. As for the armor rankings, my Silver-Locked boots and Elite Steel Wrist Guard were ranked as 278 and 311 respectively. The rest of my items didn’t even reach the top 1000. Rank first in the defensive items was a gold-ranked level 32 helmet, and who knew who had that item. This game was full of violent developments because there were so many skilled players!

Whoosh!

Light bounces off my sword, and I continued using the continuous strikes of [Stab+Slash+Hack+Ram+Wind Blade], and every time it took shorter and shorter time to use it. It got along very well with my power, and it felt like it had already become one of my skills. Also, as my strength got bigger and bigger, the power of the strikes also slowly increased.

After a long time, and who knew how many times I had used these 5 strikes, finally, I heard a noise next to my ear that shook my heart. Had it finally come?

“Ding!”

System Notification: Congratulations! You have successfully created a [Combo]. It satisfies the requirements of practice, power, speed, angle, etc. Your combo is composed of [Stab+Slash+Hack+Ram+Wind Blade]. Please make a name for it, if no name is given within 300 seconds, the system will automatically create one!

……

Damn, I finally created the combo!!

I couldn’t hide my happiness, and I silently entered a row of words. I named my combo【Strength of a Thousand Men】!

“Ding!”

System Notification: Congratulations! Your combo “Strength of a Thousand Men” has been created. The system ranks it as a S-rank combo, and you are the 7th player to successfully create a combo. Charm +3!

My heart almost stopped, and looking at my reward, I was already sure that my [Strength of a Thousand] was S-rank, higher than Yan Zhao Warrior’s A-rank and Li Mu’s B-rank combos. It was really powerful!

My excitement didn’t stop, and holding Jade City Sword, I looked into the distance, and I found a level 39 water snake slithering around, and without any hesitation I slammed it to the ground!

Whoosh!

With [Binding Chains], I trapped the water snake. I took my sword and rushed over there, creating ripples with my Silver boots. I silently cast [Strength of a Thousand Men], and the combo immediately activated. A wave of air spread from my feet, and with a whoosh it scattered all the droplets of water around me. My sword quickly slabbed, slashed, and hacked with lightning speed, then vigorous power flew from my body, and I slammed into the water snake; with that it was stunned for a short while. My sword started to glow teal, and it collected wind for 0.2 seconds. [Wind Blade]! A chain of damage numbers flew up——

“278!”

“301!”

“298!”

“407!”

“1274!”

……

The last strike instantly killed the water snake. With a [Combo] I instantly killed a monster that was 8 levels above me! This was the real instant kill that I had been hearing. The system calculations were in front of me, my combo used 1.2 seconds which was a frightening speed. Compared to Yan Zhao’s 1.7 seconds, Li Mu’s 1.9 seconds, this combo was way quicker. Not only was the time shorter, the power was also stronger, and because it was shorter, it was harder to defend against. The difference was extremely clear!

TL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwJj2EpC8vg