Thud!"

We finally got our first special item after we killed our 27th Dark Prisoner! It was an ebon helmet which seemed to radiate a murderous aura. Ohoh, this is clearly a good item!

When I picked up the helmet to inspect it, a huge grin appeared on my face. This was what I had been waiting for!

Dark Prison Helmet (Earth-grade, Outstanding★★)

Defense: 1024

Magic Resist: 950

Strength: +185

Stamina: +160

Passive: Increases user’s Defense by 30%

Outstanding Property: Grip of Darkness, attacks deal 10% additional darkness damage.

Property: Dark Prison Set, Helmet

Level Requirement: 155

……

"Damn, an Earth-grade set…" Lin Yixin’s adorable mouth dropped open in shock. After that, she let out a stunned laugh. "This is incredible. This is the first time I’ve seen an Earth-grade set!"

I nodded my head and said, "Hmmm, the drop rate isn’t too high though. We killed nearly thirty Dark Prisoners before we got our first piece of the Dark Prison set, and that is after taking into account that our Luck stats which are both over 50. If it were normal players, their drop rate would probably be about five times lower! It’s possible that they wouldn’t get one of these even after killing 150 Dark Prisoners..."

Lin Yixin giggled as she nodded her head. "Yeah, this also means that this Dark Prison set will be the most sought-after item excluding the boss drops. If a player manages to scrounge up a full set of these items, I’m afraid that their stats will be quite close to yours, Little Cheat."

It was my turn to laugh. "Ah, don’t even mention that! I’m still wearing some Spirit-grade equipment, you know! If not for the fact that they have very unique skills, I would have switched them out a long time ago. The moment someone equips a full Dark Prison set, their stats will be at least 10% to 25% stronger than mine! Of course, that’s only if I don’t get anything from this Nine Tigers Soul Suppressing Tower. However, that is probably going to be impossible…"

Lin Yixin giggled before she playfully hit me with her tiny fists. "Ohoh, you’re really confident, aren’t you!?"

I grabbed Lin Yixin’s hand and shoved the helmet toward her. "Take it. If we manage to get a full Dark Prison set, I’ll let you wear it first. This helmet is probably way better than the Spirit-grade helmet you’re wearing right now."

"Yeah!"

Lin Yixin obediently took the helmet from me. After that, she took off her own helmet, causing her long hair to spill out in a graceful and beautiful cascade. I sighed appreciatively as this thought flashed through my mind. The top goal of any girl gamer is definitely to look pretty.

……

Our synergy kept improving as we continued to kill Dark Prisoners, and now we had at least a 30% chance of proccing Intercourse when we used basic attacks and skills. Every time Intercourse procced, our damage would at least double and this raised our grinding speed by at least 30%, which was a most wonderful development.

It was at this moment that my guild channel suddenly burst into life.

Li Chengfeng's voice sounded cold and stern as he shouted: "The boss is dead! Fucking hell, I had my hands full with Vienna’s Sorrow and that archer, Frosty Night! Who managed to get their hands on the boss drops after it died?"

He Yi gasped heavily as she replied, "The players from Silver Soul and Hall of Immortality deliberately blocked my way and prevented me from cutting Candlelight Shadow off. Chaos Moon also seemed to have been beaten back by him…"

Chaos Moon whined unhappily: "Candlelight Shadow is really annoying! I only managed to grab a 5-star Outstanding Earth-grade mage staff! The rest of the loot has been plundered by him!"

I immediately asked in a loud voice: "What about the Tiger Soul Essence?"

Chaos Moon: "I don’t know what happened to it…"

He Yi asked: "Lu Chen, what’s the situation like on the seventh floor?"

"Ah? It’s going quite well actually. Since Yiyi is here with me, killing mobs isn’t a problem. Okay, back to the main topic. Eve, we need to figure out who took the Tiger Soul Essence. We can’t finish the quest if we don’t have those items…"

He Yi gave a helpless sigh: "The situation was simply too chaotic just now. Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, Candle Dragon, Hero Alliance, Silver Soul, Hall of Immortality, and Blazing Hot Lips all took part in the boss fight. The last part of the fight was an all-out brawl and we don’t even know who killed the boss. Ah, it was really far too messy…"

Xu Yang spat out venomously: "Fucking hell! It was probably taken by that shameless bastard, Candlelight Shadow! Hmph, he threw Vienna’s Sorrow to ole Li and snatched the boss by himself! What a despicable thing to do..."

It was at this moment that a very soft voice piped up in the guild channel: "Ah… the leader of the eighth subguild, Sis Little Naughty, wanted me to tell you that the Heaven-opening Tiger’s Tiger Soul Essence is with her. Guild leader Eve, Little Naughty is going to trade it to you straight away, since you’re going to transfer it to vice leader Lu Chen later."

He Yi let out a chortle of delight: "Really?"

"Yeah! Sis Little Naughty said that the person with the highest chance of gathering all nine Tiger Soul Essences in Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls is Lu Chen, so she’s just gonna hand it over…"

"Great. This is awesome…" He Yi’s smile grew even sweeter.

I chimed in: "Hurry up and enter the fifth floor. You mustn’t fall behind. Lin Yixin and I will scout out the seventh and eighth floors first. I also have a piece of good news to share with everyone! The monsters on the seventh, eighth, and ninth floor drop pieces of a 2-star Outstanding Earth-grade armor set!

Li Chengfeng laughed: "I know. You’re talking about the Dark Prison set, right?"

"Eh, how did you find out?"

"Haha, I just used a VPN to check Hero City’s forums. Some employees from Eternal Moon already spilled the news on their forums. The true battle of Nine Tigers Soul Suppressing Tower only starts from the seventh floor onward! Lu Chen, you and Beauty Lin need to make full use of your god-given opportunity to sweep the seventh floor. It would also be best if you could kill the boss of the seventh floor as well. Heh heh, we’ll come and join you guys in plundering the spoils as soon as we can!"

"Yeah! Focus on killing the bosses on the fifth and sixth floors!"

"Got it!"

This was the current situation. The Tiger Soul Essences from the first and second floor were in my hands. Vienna’s Sorrow managed to get his grubby hands on the third one, but we managed to secure the fourth one. Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls held a definitive edge above all the other guilds. Furthermore, Lin Yixin and I were probably the only two Divine Generals on the seventh floor, so no one could really oppose us. As such, killing the boss and getting that Tiger Soul Essence wasn’t a pipedream either!

……

We continued grinding for about half an hour, but we hadn’t gotten a second Dark Prison item drop yet. This told us just how low the drop rate of these items really was. However, we were getting a ton of experience, and both our experience bars had risen by a considerable amount.

Furthermore, even though we hadn’t found a second piece of Dark Prison gear yet, the Dark Prisoners were still dropping fairly decent items. They even dropped Spirit-grade equipment. Spirit-grade items were currently the baseline for equipment in the game, and a player would be able to earn tens of thousands of dollars from an excellent Spirit-grade item!

In fact, Beiming Xue sold a Spirit-grade axe for 240000 bucks just the other day! This was because the axe had 7% lifesteal. Lifesteal items were always considered top of the line gear, because they allowed you to grind mobs in a group instead of one by one. This was something I was intimately acquainted with.

Crack!

Yet another dread-rank monster fell to the ground, but Lin Yixin’s beautiful eyes lit up this time. She picked up a pair of ebon boots from the ground and smiled. "Dark Prison War Boots! Heehee, we’ve struck the lottery…"

"Hurry up and put them on. I wanna know the set bonuses."

"Okay."

Light flashed around her snowy legs as the outline of a pair of black boots started to form around them. These ebon boots made her look even fiercer than before.

Now that she had gotten two items of this Earth-grade set, Lin Yixin gleefully checked her stats. After that, she laughed and said, "This is awesome! Wearing two items from this set increases user’s Attack by 35% and Defense by 40%. That is on top of the 10% bonus darkness damage…"

"Cool," I said as I nodded my head. As Lin Yixin continued grinding, I quickly noticed that she dealt two different types of damage, causing two numbers to pop above the head of these Dark Prisoners. One of these numbers was in red and the other was in black. Furthermore, the number in black was precisely 30% of the number in red. This was the incredible effect of her 30% bonus darkness damage passive!

……

As we continued grinding, we suddenly heard a tiger’s furious roar resound from the great hall that we had to turn into. Lin Yixin and I exchanged stunned looks when we heard that sound. Did someone already start the boss?

This meant that Lin Yixin and I weren’t the only ones who had been sent to the seventh floor. In fact, when I thought about it logically, I realized that there was no way that only Lin Yixin and I had been sent to the seventh floor. There were so many people around us, so there were definitely others who had been caught in the Heaven-opening Tiger’s teleportation skill.

"Let’s go and take a look!" I said as I hefted my sword with a merry grin.

"Yeah!"

Lin Yixin bent her waist forward and crept behind me. She looked for all the world like a beautiful female thief as she inched forward carefully. However, it was also clear that she was a wild, heavily armed little bandit who would simply rob you at swordpoint if she didn’t manage to steal the item she wanted. I shuddered a little as that thought flashed through my mind. One must never offend these sorts of girls.

……

I stuck my head out to take a peek before we rounded the corner. Just as expected, there was a fierce tiger wreathed in violent cyan flames stalking the great hall. It was currently roaring in rage as it chased after a bunch of pitiful players.

"Little Cheat, there are some people from the Northern Alliance!" Lin Yixin tugged on my arm as she peeked her head out.

"Hey, they’re players from the Hero Alliance. Vienna’s Sorrow’s men!"

"Let’s kill them then!"

"No need, the boss will kill them for us! Let’s wait for all of them to die before we make our move!"

"Okay."

……

I activated Dark Pupils as I silently observed a dozen Hero Alliance players get methodically slaughtered by the Heaven-shaking Tiger, an Level 191 Immortal Rank boss.

"Rooaaaar!"

The Heaven-shaking Tiger raised its sharp claws in the air and beams of cyan light shot out of it, instantly stunning seven of those players. This skill was so powerful that it caused both Lin Yixin and I to stare at it in shock.

After its sharp claws whistled through the air a few times, a few mounted players slumped to the ground. Even the Bloodthirsty Beast Cavalrymen couldn’t take this much abuse.

As their cries of misery rang in the air, the dozen Hero Alliance players were picked off one by one, and not a single survivor remained.

……

Lin Yixin pursed her lips before she giggled. "Hah, these noobs actually thought they could take on an Immortal Rank boss! They really don’t know how to measure their own strength, huh. Little Cheat, let’s go. It’s our turn."

"Wait a minute!" I said as I grabbed one of those beautiful shoulders. "There are still two assassins in stealth mode, and they seem to be waiting for reinforcements! We need to get rid of those two assassins before we focus on the boss!"

"Why can’t I see them?"

"I have a detection skill."

"Oh…"

"Yiyi, I’m going to kill the first assassin. I’ll leave the second one to you. His coordinates are (0983, 0087). Let’s move!"

"Alright!"

My Ice Qilin Horse gave a loud neigh as I spurred it forward. I had already unleashed a Dragon Slaying Slash which was flying toward the assassin and I immediately followed up by hurling my sword forward. As my sword spun through the air, the assassin on the right let out a cry of misery as he slowly slumped to the ground.

Lin Yixin’s Ice Flame Slash exploded into the empty air at nearly the same time. However, the assassin still had a sliver of health left, so he hurriedly backpedaled. Unfortunately for him, Lin Yixin had already urged her mount forward and a cold streak of light flashed past his throat as she lashed out with her dagger. The assassin’s body crumpled to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. The fight was over as soon as it began!