“Level 1, it’s a Level 1 mob!”

Lin Yixin couldn’t control her own excitement. Her delicate shoulders were shaking slightly, and her beautiful eyes were shining with pleasant surprise.

I hurriedly fished out a Sealing Card from my inventory and smiled. “Beauty Yi, this is a competition of luck! Let’s see who can capture this Cyan Skeleton first!”

“Sure!”

Lin Yixin gripped the Creature Holding Stone with one hand and brought out her own Sealing Card with the other. It looked like she had come prepared, and thanks to the Creature Holding Stone she had sold me earlier I too could capture a second pet.

After selecting the Creature Holding Stone as the sealing space, I tossed out the Sealing Card and watched it spin in a circle in midair. It transformed into a hexagram, wrapping around Cyan Skeleton’s head.

Lin Yixin also tossed out her own Sealing Card, its six-pointed star formation overlapping with my own. It really was a competition of luck!

The hexagram formations spun swiftly as the Level 1 Cyan Skeleton became locked in a struggle of power against the formations. It kept growing and shrinking repeatedly.

Suddenly, my heart skipped a beat.

It was because the Level 1 Cyan Skeleton disappeared. It worked? On the very first try?

I looked at my Creature Holding Stone and saw nothing!

I turned around to check Lin Yixin, and the girl was staring blankly at her own Creature Holding stone with her mouth agape. I saw a shrunken Cyan Skeleton trapped inside the translucent crystalline walls, looking curiously at its surroundings!

“Fuck!”

I gritted my teeth for a second. She was already blessed by the goddess of beauty, but apparently the goddess of luck was watching over her as well! Is she trying to kill me with envy!?

“Well, what are you waiting for? Let’s see its stats!” I urged.

Lin Yixin finally broke out of her reverie and nodded. She waved her hand, and a stat window appeared from inside the Creature Holding Stone.

Cyan Skeleton

Level: 1

Attack: 7

Defense: 10

HP: 10

Agility: 9

Growth——

Attack ★★★

Defense ★★★★★

Agility ★☆

……

My god, its Defense scaling is 5 stars. No wonder it was so difficult to kill. It even has 4.5 stars under HP. This Cyan Skeleton is seriously tanky.

“It even has 36 BN! This is a top-tier pet!” Lin Yixin smiled.

I nodded. “Do you plan to level this Cyan Skeleton? You’ll have to give up on your Fire Blade though.”

But Lin Yixin’s eyes shone intelligently. “There’s no need. It’s true that this Cyan Skeleton has impressive Defense and HP, but it only has 3-star Attack, which is lousier than even the Green Praying Mantis and the Wildfire Greedy Wolf. Its Agility is even worse. At 1.5 stars, its owner should thank the heavens if it can attack once under 3 seconds. During the early game, anyone who raises a pet like this is either stupid or too rich for their own good.”

It was a sharp and accurate analysis. I nodded and smiled at her. “In that case, let’s sell it and make a killing after we return to the city!”

“Mhm!”

Lin Yixin looked down at my empty Creature Holding Stone before smiling. “Lu Chen, if we’re lucky enough to run into another Level 1 mob before we head back, I won’t try to compete with you.”

“Mn, thanks!”

“Hehe, you’re welcome~”

……

We went back to killing mobs after that. The poisonous plants growing in the valley should be a terrifying sight to most people, but to Lin Yixin this place was a paradise. She was a herbalist, and her Herbalism was now Rank 4 thanks to all the precious herbs growing in this Ghost Valley.

“Lu Chen, protect me while I collect this Seven-star Flower…”

“Okay!”

“Lu Chen, help me collect these Four-leaf Lotuses...”

“Fuck, I don’t have the skill!”

“Geez, you’re so useless…”

“Fuck…”

A few minutes later, Lin Yixin took me to a short plant with verdant leaves and said, “Here, this is a legendary Rank 4 Herb, the Ashless Wood!”

“Ashless Wood? What is that?” I asked a little curiously.

Lin Yixin gave me a smile before collecting the wood. “There’s a passage in the Compendium of Magic that goes like this: ‘To the south of Flame Mountain lies a plant called the Ashless Wood. Growing up in a fiery environment, it cannot be blown down by any storm.’ This is the plant the passage was referring to. If you burn it, it won’t leave behind any ash at all. Magical, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “Let’s burn it!”

“Do you have a fire?” She smiled at me.

I glanced at her. The girl was bending downward to collect the plants, and I noticed that the way her armor wrapped around her smooth white chest and the ravine in the middle was truly amazing.

So yeah, I did have a fire, burning inside of me. Too bad I couldn’t bring it outside.

Lin Yixin turned red when she saw my dazed reaction. She scolded, “I’m hungry, go find something to eat!”

Surprised, I asked, “Food? I haven’t bought any. Didn’t you bring any bread with you? I’m pretty sure Floating Ice City sells it.”

“I never carry those things unless they drop from another player…”

“Fuck!”

I checked my own Satiety and noted that it was only at 35 points. I wouldn’t last more than 3 hours at this rate, and Lin Yixin was faring no better than I was. We both needed to find something to eat as soon as possible.

When Lin Yixin was done collecting the herbs, she looked at the forest around her and smiled. “There is a fruit in the plant called the Flora Fruit. Sweet and rich in water, it—”

“—impregnates anyone who consumes it. That’s why it is also known as the Fruit of Pregnancy.”

“Go to hell!”

Lin Yixin threw an annoyed punch at me before saying, “Come on, let’s kill some skeletons while we search for something to eat at the forest over there. It’ll be embarrassing if the Top 2 players of the Heavenly Ranking die from starvation…”

……

I entered the forest and took out a Level 47 Blood Skeleton who happened to be in my way. A pop later, it dropped a Big Magic Stone and a card!

“Huh? A card…”

Pleasantly surprised, I picked up the card and shared its tooltip with Lin Yixin.

Blood Skeleton Card: Increases the user’s HP by 15%, restores 15 HP per second. Duration: 30 minutes.

Lin Yixin stuck her tongue out before smiling. “This is great. You can use it during a boss battle or PvP!”

I nodded and tossed the Blood Skeleton Card into my bag. I happened to already have Regeneration of the Undead, a powerful recovery skill. If I use this card, my survivability will rise to a new height!

As we moved deeper into the forest, Lin Yixin suddenly took out her dagger and used it to dig something out of an old tree. It was a slug. She smiled at me and said, “I saw someone eating this while I was doing survival training in the wild. Come here, Lu Chen, this is my treat…”

I felt my stomach churn in disgust. “I don’t feel like it right now, so you should eat it yourself…”

Lin Yixin giggled and shook off the slug on her dagger. No way she was going to eat something like this.

I looked up and watched the wildlife going about their lives on the trees. More specifically, I was looking at the sparrows chirping at the top of a huge tree. I asked, “Let’s shoot a couple of birds and roast them…”

Lin Yixin rolled her eyes at me. “Using what? Do you have a gun or a sling?”

I shook my head. “Neither.”

“Hmph, I knew it…”

“But we can make a sling right now!”

I cut off a Y-shaped tree branch from a tree and smiled. “Now I just need two rubber bands, and we’ll have our super accurate sling!”

“Rubber band?” Lin Yixin looked a bit confused. “Where are we going to get that?”

I stared wordlessly and meaningfully at her shoulder and chest area. All bras had rubber band in them, and two shreds were all I needed.

Lin Yixin was a smart girl, so she understood my meaning immediately. She immediately stomped her foot in anger. “Don’t even think about it! I’m not wearing one!”

I asked, “Really?”

Lin Yixin’s cheeks were completely red. “Go to hell. Say that again and I’ll kill you!”

Suddenly a rustling noise came from the forest, and a Bloodthirsty Porcupine emerged from a bush. It was a Level 45 beast, thick-skinned, and it was covered in spikes from head to toe. It was probably the only thing that could survive in an undead-filled valley like this.

“Here comes our dinner…”

I rushed over and aimed a Pardon + Slayer Slash combo at his head. The Dark Wasp came to help as well.

“Roar…”

The wild porcupine collapsed. I spread my palm and shouted, “Death Plunder!”

Swhoosh!

Porcupine hide with many spikes protruding from it was added to my inventory. The wild porcupine’s body was full of quality meat, and Satiety-wise it was even more valuable than the pigs that were bred in pig farms.

The setup took me a while. I built a wooden frame and propped the porcupine above it. Then, I gathered some dry wood and placed it underneath. Having finished the grill, I got ready to start a fire.

Start a fire… fire...

I suddenly returned to my senses. Dammit, how the heck am I going to barbecue anything without fire!?

Lin Yixin snorted from the side when she saw this. “I guess it’s my time now. Out of the way!”

While saying this, she walked up to the porcupine, opened her hand and chanted. “Fireball!”

Crackle!

The dry wood started burning vigorously. I was very surprised by her skill though. “Yiyi, where did you learn this?”

“You really are dumb…” She shot me a sideway glance before smiling. “There’s a place at Floating Ice City where players can learn a bunch of skills that are available to all players. However, these skills can only go up to Rank 2 at most.”

“Oh I see, I’ll pick up Fireball after I get back to Floating Ice City…”

“Hmph hmph!”

I began barbecuing the meat. Although we had no oil, salt, onion, ginger, cumin or anything of the sort, the meat itself was 100% natural and devoid of growth hormone. It didn’t take long for a wonderful fragrance to start spreading through the air.

I poked the burning branches a bit with the Weeping Fire Blade. Lin Yixin sat beside me and watched the flames with a smile on her face. Her beautiful eyes were filled with anticipation.

It took a while, but the meat was finally cooked. Lin Yixin sliced a piece of meat with her dagger and took a bite. She laughed. “It’s burned…”

“Yeah, burned meat is crispier. Don’t hold back!”

I myself tore off a huge chunk of meat out of the porcupine and stuffed it ravenously into my mouth. Of course, I knew my manners, so I made sure to cover my mouth with my arm as I ate just like Lin Daiyu when she was rinsing her mouth[1]. It wasn’t because I was embarrassed or trying to act gentlemanly, however. I was a Bone Lord, and it didn’t take much imagination to know that a half-skeleton was ugly especially when he was eating meat. I had no intentions of scaring away Lin Yixin with my horrifying appearance. She was a beautiful and strong companion, not to mention that losing her would mean lowering my leveling speed by a lot.

After my Satiety slowly returned to full, I stood up and said, “We’re incredible, Yiyi. The two of us actually ate an entire porcupine!”

Lin Yixin shot me a dumbfounded look before saying, “Let’s kill some Blood Skeletons and level a bit longer. It’s almost time to turn in our quest.”

“Mn.”

The moment we returned to the combat zone, a Blood Skeleton growled and charged toward us.

“Ah!”

“Ah!”

Lin Yixin and I became frozen at the same time. Was today really our lucky day?

The tiny skeleton staggered more than it walked. A line of text hovered above its head.

Blood Skeleton LV-1

1. Female character in Dream of the Red Chamber