"What? Beauty Lin became a Famous General?" Xu Yang exclaimed in shock.

Li Chengfeng sucked in a deep breath and said, "What an incredible female gamer. Not only is she the second Famous General of Sky City, she’s probably the third player to complete her fourth promotion quest in China, isn’t she?"

Gui Guzi nodded. "Mn. Wind Fantasy is an incredibly skillful and intelligent player. Her combat tactics are pretty unique as well. Back when I first ran into her Floating Ice City, my chances of winning against her were less than 10%. She was the one who PK’d me from first place all the way out of Floating Ice City’s Heavenly Ranking…"

A meaningful smile crossed Du Thirteen’s lips. "What are you talking about, Little Gui? Your chances of winning against Wind Fantasy are still less than 10%, just like before..."

Gui Guzi teared up immediately. "Fuck you, Brother B! You didn’t need to say the truth to my face…"

Du Thirteen laughed heartlessly. "Kakakakaka…"

……

Still fighting against the boss, I brought up the Famous General Ranking. As I thought, the first three IDs at the top were inked in gold, and they were of course Candlelight Shadow, I and Lin Yixin. Candlelight Shadow’s Famous General Skill was Ghost God Prophecy, mine was Martial God, and Lin Yixin’s was Bombshell. When I checked the description of her skill, I was stunned by how powerful it was—

Bombshell: Beseech the power of the goddess and increase the stats of all party members within 1000 yards by 25%. Costs 1 MP per second. Skill exclusive to player "Wind Fantasy".

……

Fuck! What… what is this? Increase the stats of all party members by 25%? Does that mean that everyone’s Attack, Defense, Agility, HP, Magic Resist and so on would all be increased by 25%?

I sucked in a deep breath. As the skill name might suggest, Lin Yixin’s Famous General Skill really was a bombshell. My Martial God might be the best skill in the entire world if we looked at grinding efficiency alone, but in terms of PvP there was nothing stronger than Lin Yixin’s Bombshell. To have all stats increased by 25% was like having a superbard following you wherever you went. It was just awesome!

He Yi smiled. "Things are getting more and more interesting. The Guild Wars haven’t even begun yet, and there are three Famous Generals in China’s servers already. This level of competition is simply incredible."

Xu Yang grinned. "Candlelight Shadow must be feeling a ton of pressure right now, isn’t he? Wind City is now outnumbered 2 to 1 in terms of the number of Famous Generals."

But Li Chengfeng said, "Not necessarily. I’ve met Candlelight Shadow before, and I know him as an arrogant man whose blood pumps harder the stronger his opponents become. People like him are incredibly difficult to deal with."

Du Thirteen asked, "If you were to fight Candlelight Shadow 1v1 right now, do you think you could beat him, Chengfeng?"

Li Chengfeng pondered for a moment before answering, "To be honest, not really. I would be lucky to have even a 30% chance of winning!"

"What?" Xu Yang exclaimed in shock. "Is Candlelight Shadow really that powerful?"

"Of course. He isn’t called the number one player in China for nothing, you know."

……

I ignored their conversation and focused most of my attention on the boss. At the same time, I sent a call request. A couple seconds later, Lin Yixin’s melodious voice came from the other side of the communicator. "How is it? My Famous General Skill didn’t disappoint you, did it?"

I asked in a strange tone, "Of course not. In fact, I want to ask you if a GM of the game happens to be a relative of yours."

"Of course not!"

"How many Tactics do you have right now, Yiyi?"

"64. What’s wrong?"

"Mn, that means Bombshell adds around 41% to every stat. That’s seriously incredible. Let’s find a day to kill some bosses together. Increased HP, increased Defense, increased crit rate, et cetera... This skill is just perfect for killing bosses!"

"Hehe, sure. Let’s do that when we’re both free!"

I turned off the communicator and turned my attention back on the boss again!

About five minutes later, the Desert Giant King used its stupidly powerful Blazing Rock skill again. This time, the bastard killed almost 400 players before we finally stopped it. Thankfully, the Level 140 Spirit Rank boss had lost most of its HP, and our torment was nearing its end. My heart rate seemed to increase at the same rate the boss was losing its health!

"2%! Eve, now’s the time! Everyone, stop attacking! Priests, keep the guild leader healed at all costs!"

I hollered before dishing one last combo to drop the boss's HP to 1%. I watched its health pool closely as He Yi ran over to delete its last sliver of HP!

My beautiful guild leader hit the boss with an Ice Ray + Heavy Slash right from the start!

2304!

2271!

Not bad. The Soul Stealing Spear was a Purple Gold–grade weapon with amazing Attack after all!

The boss looked away from me and turned to attack He Yi instead, but thankfully her health pool and Defense were good enough to tank the boss without dying instantly. Behind her, the guild’s priests also did their best to keep her healthy!

He Yi’s DPS just barely exceeded the boss's regen, so it took another excruciating seven or eight minutes for her to finally kill it with a Green Wave Slash. It was as if a volcano was crumbling when the Level 140 Spirit Rank boss howled in despair and collapsed. Burning hot lava and a bunch of equipment and items piled across the ground.

……

Swhoosh swhoosh swhoosh...

A column of light flashed around He Yi several times in a row, and He Yi was overjoyed to find herself sitting at Level 99. She looked at me excitedly while declaring, "I’m Level 99 and 57% full right now! I should be able to do my fourth promotion quest in two days max!"

I nodded just as joyfully. I thought that the Level 140 Spirit Rank boss might be a treasure trove of experience, and I wasn’t disappointed. Not only did He Yi level up 4 times in total, even I got 5.5% experience from the boss and saw my experience bar fill up to 10% or so, at Level 105. Of course, everyone else in the party got some experience as well. Li Chengfeng had even gained a level out of it.

"Haha, I can’t believe I leveled up when I barely did anything at all! Tsk tsk, Level 140 bosses are so awesome!" Li Chengfeng laughed.

Murong Mingyue walked toward the boss's corpse and scanned the loot for a moment. Then, she took all the equipment and showed us their stats screens. The boss dropped five items in total, and practically all of them were top-tier equipment. Well, I was the party leader with 15 Luck, and we killed a boss who outleveled even the highest-leveled player of ours by 35. It would be stranger if the equipment turned out terrible.

The items were three Purple Gold–grade armor pieces, one Dark Gold–grade axe and an orange shield. I was almost certain that the shield was the best equipment out of everything we got! As expected, all the items dropped by the boss were pretty amazing, so much so that we couldn’t stop exclaiming our admiration—

Vibration Wristguards: Metal armor, Purple Gold–grade Outstanding★. Defense +250, Magic Resist +175, Strength +70, Stamina +62. Outstanding Property: 2% chance to trigger a vibrating attack that stuns the target for 3 seconds. Slots: 1. Level Requirement: 125

Dream Chest Armor: Leather armor, Purple Gold–grade Outstanding★★. Defense +240, Magic Resist +150, Agility +72, Stamina +65. Outstanding Property: Increases user’s long-range physical attack power by 17%. Slots: 1. Level Requirement: 125

Priestess Robe: Cloth armor, Purple Gold–grade. Defense +170, Magic Resist +100, Intelligence +55, Stamina +48. Increases user’s Magic Attack by 6%. Level Requirement: 125

Edgebreaker Battle Axe: Weapon, Dark Gold–grade Outstanding★★. Attack: 475~670, Strength +65, Stamina +58. Outstanding Property: Increases user’s Attack by 24%. Slots: 1. Level Requirement: 125

……

He Yi and I acted as the judges as our core players rolled the dice to determine who the items would go to. In the end, Xu Yang got the Vibrating Wristguards and Beiming Xue got the Dream Chest Armor without competition. She was the only one in our main party who could utilize the 2-star Outstanding Purple Gold–grade chest armor to its full potential. As a result, her long-range attack power was increased even further.

Moonlight Stone also got the Priestess Robe without competition. The sad fact was that our guild barely had any first-rate female mages to begin with, and to help Moonlight Stone was to help ourselves. The Edgebreaker Battle Axe went to High Fighting Spirits because he was the one who rolled the highest score out of all competing fighters. If we could get everyone a Convenience Gem and reduce the level requirement on these items by 20, their strength would increase drastically.

Finally, Murong Mingyue brought up the orange-colored shield and smiled teasingly. "It’s time for the climax. Can anyone guess what grade this equipment is?"

Li Chengfeng replied with shiny eyes, "Could it be the legendary Spirit-grade equipment?"

"Hehe, correct! You don’t get any prize for getting it right though!"

Murong Mingyue waved her hand across the shield and brought up its stats screen. A stunned silence wrapped the cave for a time—

Titan Barrier (Spirit-grade, Outstanding★★★★)

Defense: 780

Magic Resist: 540

Strength: +90

Stamina: +85

Passive: Increases user’s HP by a fixed amount of 2000

Passive: Increases user’s Defense by 12%

Slots: 3

Outstanding Property: 25% chance to reflect all damage

Introduction: The Titans were an ancient divine race that went extinct a long time ago. They were often described to be as big as a mountain range or as vast as the sea. Their souls were scattered across the continent after they passed away, and under the World Tree’s guidance, most of them were gathered unto a giant rock and transformed into a tough barrier. It became a holy shield that the humans are proficient at using.

Level Requirement: 125

……

"Wah, a 4-star Outstanding Spirit-grade equipment…" Beiming Xue’s mouth was agape. "Just look at its stats! Heavens, this is broken as heck…"

Xu Yang smiled a little. "It looks like today is the lucky day of the guild’s magic knights…"

I looked around. Truth be told, there were only so many top-tier magic knights in our party, and they were He Yi and Gui Guzi. The rest just weren’t up to snuff.

So I said, "I promised everyone that Eve and I would not be taking any equipment before we slayed the boss, so we’ll be giving to the highest guild contributor instead, also known as Gui Guzi. Does anyone object to this?"

Li Chengfeng lowered his voice and said menacingly, "Obey the leader, or he might find you after it’s dark outside!"

"Fuck you!"

"Hahaha!"

He’s a member of the Ministry of Public Security alright. Dude really knows what to do in situations like this.

Murong Mingyue tossed the Titan Barrier to Gui Guzi’s hands and said, "Work hard, okay? This shield has a level requirement of 125, and you are still a ways away from it!"

Gui Guzi nodded strongly. "I will not let your hard work go to waste, leader!"

Murong Mingyue curled her lips in response.

I walked up to the loot and looked around for a bit. After I found a Convenience Gem, I gave it to Gui Guzi immediately and said, "Slot that in. It’ll reduce the Level Requirement by 20, meaning that you will be able to equip this once you hit Level 105!"

Gui Guzi was overjoyed the moment he saw what a Convenience Gem did. It would take god knows how long for him to hit Level 125, but Level 105? With his unique style of grinding, like he was sacrificing his lifespan for levels, he could probably hit Level 105 in around half a month at most. Frankly, even I was scared of a serious Gui Guzi. With high Defense, high HP regeneration, and a powerful AoE skill, Gui Guzi’s solo grinding speed couldn’t be slow.