Chapter 53 – Pine and Crane Restaurant (1/2)

Zhan Long Shi Luo Ye 33930K 2022-07-22

Chapter 53 – Pine and Crane Restaurant

This chapter was sponsored by William Wang, John Postmus and Gabio Cunha Cintra!

Ten gold coins for the A rank skill [Binding Chains] was a small price to pay, even if it was not as strong as [Wind Blade]. They were both surely stronger than the regular skills like [Combo] and [Heal] and not something you would usually be able to buy with a little gold, yet they couldn’t be compared to my priceless SS God class sword skill, which had to be earned by thousands and thousands of repeated practice draws.

I was pretty ecstatic that I finally had gotten two completely new skills. First things first, I wanted to test them and see their power.

Using both hands, I raised the sword as I silently cast [Wind Blade]. Immediately, my arms began to tremble as a teal colored aura enveloped the blade. It took 0.2 seconds for the blade to reach the state of being fully covered by the aura.

In the next moment, the blade started to emit a cold wind around it. Suddenly, I executed a downward slash, “Peng!. Rock fragments flew as the rock in front of me was cut about 20 cm deep. Mm, a Level 1 [Wind Blade] raised attack by 3%, already significantly higher than normal attacks. Furthermore, training it to Level 4 would yield a 12% increase in attack, giving it insane power!

After trying [Wind Blade], I immediately went on to the next skill, [Binding Chains]. When I used it, a small “bang” sounded and I could see how a chain came out of earth in the targeted area. It looked almost like a snake strangling its target for 1.9 seconds.

……

When I finalized my testing, I had to say, the skills were definitely useful. Although they both had high requirements to the user, being able to control the actions of your opponent and predict the right timing to strike, they were undoubtedly powerful.

I went and talked with the quartermaster again to look for more quests, but he didn’t have anything for me. So, I decided instead just to go hunting to practice my skills, as they were still Level 1. Even a SSS rank skill wouldn’t be very strong at rank 1.

I chose to walk eastward together with Baby Bobo; after around 10 minutes we reached a high level area, the Cloudy Swamp. ‘Oh yes, this would be a suitable leveling location’ I thought when I saw that the monsters were level 37. They were crocodiles with scales reflecting the approaching sunset, pretty breathtaking if I had to say.

I had a look at their stats. 1886 health and 332 defense. This should be no problem.

“Hua hua…”

I rushed towards them through some shallow water with my Jade Sword drawn before attacking the crocodile with a level 4 [Combo]. 3 points of damage showed.

“367!”

“335!”

“352!”

The crocodile made a furious howl; it lost more than half of its health from that one combo. The crocodile opened it mouth and was about to retaliate, but my [Wind Blade] was ready. It struck heavily on the head of the crocodile, and a huge red number appeared. The crocodile had been killed in just a few hits, without a chance to retaliate.

“998!”

A critical hit! Such a huge amount of damage for a single strike. Its damage was almost equal to the combined damage of the [Combo] skill. The wind blade was deadly if it got a critical hit or was part of a combo attack. If it had been rank 10, with an increase of damage by 30% in addition to the 10% from [Turmoil Sword], the damage would have been incredible.

……

Suddenly I realized, these crocodiles’ skins were probably high quality leather.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I immediately tried skinning the crocodile with my Jade Sword. It was so sharp that it immediately started cutting through the thick skin and sliced off a chunk, but just as I think I had succeeded, the chunk of skin began to blur. A system message appeared: You don’t have the [Skinning] skill! You have failed to collect crocodile leather!

Damn, what a waste of time!

I continued hunting Crocodiles while focusing on practicing my skills; it didn’t take long before [Wind Blade] reached level 2. The offensive bonus increased to 6% and the chance of failure lowered. As it leveled up, it actually highlighted a fairly annoying issue. I didn’t increase my Magic Power stat at all as a healer, leaving me with the very small mana pool of 330. Level 2 [Binding Chains] and [Wind Blade] costed 40 mana per use each, and they would only continue to cost more as they leveled up.

No matter, my primary goal was still to get [Wind Blade] to level 4 as quickly as possible; after all I had more than enough [Chilling Wind Pill]s to keep me going.

……

After training hard for an hour, the familiar system tone appeared and the [Wind Blade] had at last leveled up to lv 4.

As I stood there, quite pleased with myself, I got a message from Wan Er : “Xiao Yao, have you gotten killed by any bounty hunters yet?”

I firmly responded: “Nope, you lost! Time for me to collect my winnings!.“

Wan Er said: “It’s already 1 pm and I’m pretty hungry. So come downstairs and we will decide what to eat”

“Okay!”

I logged off and placed the helmet at the side of the bed. As I looked towards Glasses, I saw him shivering heavily. He was probably in some extreme situation, but it looked so funny that I couldn’t help but laugh as I rushed out the door.