The next day early morning, I awoke from my dreams and looked outside the window. It was a sunny day today.

I jogged about 500 meters along the streets and bought a bag of buns and soy juice for breakfast. When I returned to the workshop though, He Yi, Lian Xin and Murong Mingyue were still online. Things must be pretty tough inside the Ruins of the Gods. It was a shame I couldn’t accompany them on their journey.

At first, I had been planning to kill the second SSS Rank boss for He Yi and Lin Yixin. However, I was only at Level 211 at the time, and I simply couldn’t risk dying to Breeze and Rain. Worst case scenario, I wouldn’t have been able to use the SSS Rank Ancient Divine Skill Scroll if I had fallen below Level 210, and I would have lost the Xuanyuan Slash to Breeze and Rain. I would be weeping with regret right about now if that had happened. After all, the Chill of the Nine Provinces was the Xuanyuan Sword now. It would absolutely suck for the Xuanyuan Sword to not be able to use its own signature skill.

……

I didn’t log into the game immediately after breakfast. Instead, I returned to my room and browsed the official website using the notebook Lenovo had gifted me. A bolded headline entered my view almost immediately—

The first player of the battle of Sky Vortex to possess an SSS Rank Ancient Divine Skill has been revealed! 7 SS Rank Ancient Divine Skill owners emerged from the Ruins of the Gods in a single night!

I clicked the link and read the details. Last night was without a doubt a tournament between the best players of all the entire servers. Everyone was giving it their all to obtain an SSS Rank or SS Rank Ancient Divine Skill. Countless players must’ve died last night.

7 names were listed below the China server’s Ancient Divine Skill leaderboard—

Xuanyuan Slash (SSS Rank). Score: 100. Owner: Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand. Description: AoE attack, Attack increased by 185%.

Gan Jiang and Mo Ye (SS Rank). Score: 87. Owner: Wind Fantasy. Description: Status, stat increase for 12 seconds.

Xing Tian’s Defiance (SS Rank). Score: 82. Owner: High Fighting Spirits. Description: AoE attack, Attack increased by 90%.

Gonggong’s Furious Strike (SS Rank). Score: 81. Owner: Song of Ice and Fire. Description: Attack increased by 85%.

Shennong Tastes Grass (S Rank). Score: 77. Owner: Gui Guzi. Description: Healing, heals allies’ HP.

Cyan Dragon Slash (S Rank). Score: 75. Owner: Blue Sky Scar. Description: AoE Attack, Attack increased by 78%.

Greedy Wolf Howl (S Rank). Score: 74. Owner: Chaos Moon. Description: Special, steals target’s gold.

……

For a couple of seconds, I remained silent. The fact that He Yi, Lian Xin and Murong Mingyue were missing from the list meant that they hadn’t found their Ancient Divine Skill yet. Their second greatest supporter beside me, Lin Yixin, was gone as well. Could they really do this alone?

It was at this moment I caught a new line at the corner of the screen—

Live Report: Player "From Water" has successfully ascended to the Heavenly River Realm and gained the Ancient Divine Skill, "Chengying and Hanguang"!

……

Holy shit, she ascended like, just now?

My eyes turned as round as saucers as I checked Lin Yixin’s ascension time. It was just 17 minutes ago, meaning that she had ascended after she had gotten a scroll for He Yi. Chengying and Hanguang was identical to Gan Jiang and Mo Ye in that they both increased the user’s Attack by 50%, and attack speed by 100% for 12 seconds. During this time, all of the player’s attacks would ignore Guard and invincibility skills. Technically speaking, both skills were as strong as an SSS Rank Ancient Divine Skill. It was just that it demanded a great deal of skill and power from its user. The higher the player’s burst DPS, the better the Ancient Divine Skill was.

Personally, I still preferred my own Xuanyuan Slash. For one, its name was cool as hell. Two, its attack power was plain tyrannical. If this skill could one-shot God of War, it could one-shot everyone else.

Gui Guzi was the other noteworthy player who had ascended besides Lin Yixin and He Yi. Shennong Tastes Grass was a skill that instantly restored 75% HP to all allies within 1000 yards of the user with a cooldown of 60 seconds. Although it was rated as an S Rank Ancient Divine Skill, its effect was especially broken on Gui Guzi. Gui Guzi’s Dragonlight Cavalry was the strongest cavalry in the world, but the lack of sustain during a charge meant that it was impossible to avoid losses. With this skill though, he could restore everyone’s HP within a thousand-yard radius. Slowly but surely, Gui Guzi was becoming a true god of war whose very ID struck fear in the hearts of any country!

Also, Soul Battle Robes’ best player, Song of Ice and Fire, managed to obtain an SS Rank Ancient Divine Skill called Gonggong’s Furious Strike thanks to the help of Warsky, Farewell Song, God Bone, Song of Cloud and Water and more. It was basically the poor man’s version of my Xuanyuan Slash.

Blue Sky Scar’s Cyan Dragon Slash was even worse since it was just an S Rank AoE skill. Still, it was better than nothing at all.

……

So far, the elites of China had taken the center stage of the Ruins of the Gods by storm. A total of 8 SS Rank Ancient Divine Skills had been picked up thus far, and 4 of them belonged to players from China. That was all the proof one needed to see to know the strength of our server. As for SSS Rank Ancient Divine Skills, my Xuanyuan Slash was the only one that was claimed so far. They were that difficult to get.

I checked the forums for more related news, and I quickly spotted one about Vienna’s Sorrow and Titan God gathering a group of 300 people—almost all of the current elites of the Northern Alliance were involved in this—to battle the SSS Rank guardian boss, the God of War Ares. Unfortunately for him, Ares turned out to be even greater than they imagined, and they lost over 170 players during a failed boss fight. In the end, Vienna’s Sorrow couldn’t find a reliable method to beat the boss, and he left to look for an SS Rank Ancient Divine Skill Scroll instead.

I must admit that I exhaled a sigh of relief. The nine SSS Rank Ancient Divine Skill Scrolls were the stuff of dreams, but they were no easy pickings to say the least. It was impossible to get them without sufficient strength and good luck. Vienna’s Sorrow was the prime example of this. He thought that he could force fate to move to his will, but all he got was a ton of losses and none of the results. It was a true tragedy that befitted his ID.

……

The reason Eternal Moon Corporation made the bosses of the Ruins of the Gods as difficult as they were was because they wanted to give the players who hit Level 210 late the chance to get an Ancient Divine Skill as well. Otherwise, the very first group of players to enter the Ruins of the Gods would be able to claim all 99 Ancient Divine Skills for themselves, which was plain unfair. Everyone had their respective circumstances after all. Long story short, the SSS Rank Ancient Divine Skills wouldn’t be going away anytime soon, and it was up to the truly strong players to take them all!

I briefly wondered how Lian Xin and Murong Mingyue were doing. At least He Yi, Gui Guzi, High Fighting Spirits and Chaos Moon had all gotten their Ancient Divine Skills. The next Nation War was going to be a war of Ancient Divine Skills, and whoever owned the most Heavenly River Realm players would obviously have the greatest advantage.

It was at this moment someone knocked on the door.

I opened it to find He Yi standing at the entrance and still wearing the same white casual wear from last night. She beamed at me and started. "Did you see it? My Ancient Divine Skill!"

I smiled back. "Yeah. Chengying and Hanguang, right? It’s almost the same as Yiyi’s skill."

"Mn!"

She nodded smilingly. "We followed the coordinates you gave us and found a boss's den close to the Ji River. First, we took out the guardian beast defending the Gan Jiang and Mo Ye scroll for Yiyi. Then, we took out the guardian beast defending Shennong Tastes Grass for Gui Guzi. Finally, they helped me obtain my Chengying and Hanguang. Unfortunately, we only managed to get Lian Xin and Mingyue an S Rank scroll because most of the SS Rank scrolls were gone by that point. As for the SSS Rank scroll, that one was just plain impossible. We lost a dozen Dragonlight Cavalrymen during an attempt, and we didn’t even manage to enter the heart of the boss area."

"That’s to be expected. So, sis and Lian Xin both got an S Rank scroll, huh?"

"Yep! The reason they haven’t logged out yet is because they’re holding onto the skill in case they find something better in the next 5 hours. They also have to carry Xu Yang, Heaven’s Rain, Diamond Dust and so on… It probably will be noon before they finally log out. By the way, I saw the breakfast on your table…"

"Yeah. You should eat them now and catch some rest soon. You must be exhausted."

I walked up to her and wrapped an arm gently around her shoulders. "Come, I’ll sit with you…"

"Okay!"

……

After we entered the living room, He Yi sat down on the sofa and drank an entire glass of warm water. She said, "I’ve been starving for too long. I don’t want to get sick because I gobbled down my breakfast too quickly."

"Yeah."

Suddenly, she turned around and stared at me with those dazzling, moon-like eyes of hers. A smirk danced on her lips as she asked, "So… what did you do to me last night?"

I blushed red instantly. "N-nothing? I just… kissed your neck is all…"

"Really?" She tilted her head playfully.

I clenched my fists. "I also… gave you a massage…?"

"And where did you massage me, exactly?"

"I can’t say I quite remember…"

"Hmph!"

He Yi moved closer to me and hugged me tightly, whispering, "Do you know how jealous I felt during the time you stayed together with Beauty Lin at Bagua City?"

I returned the embrace and kissed her cheeks. "I know."

Suddenly, her shoulders started trembling, and when she looked up I saw that her eyes were wet with grievances and helplessness. She sobbed. "Can you promise me something, dear?"

I replied softly, "Yes, Eve?"

She wiped away her tears and continued in a sobbing voice, "Can I be your Lin Yixin instead of your Eve in our next life? I… I want to be with you… I don’t want to be the one who has to shoulder the burden on my own anymore…"

……

I hugged He Yi tighter as a cauldron of mixed emotions churned inside my heart. I knew exactly how much I owed He Yi, but it was only now I realized the true depths of her love for me. It was certainly enough to shatter my already fragile mental defenses into pieces.

I kissed He Yi’s lips lightly, and she responded beautifully. Her lips felt like fire as we rolled across the sofa and kissed like long lost lovers.

During the embrace, the yoke of her shirt came loose, and her pink bra nearly blinded my unworthy eyes. When she noticed my blank stare, she burst into a giggle before grabbing my hands and slowly putting them over her own breasts. The sensation of my fingers sinking into her softness was positively intoxicating.

……

Ten full minutes later, Lian Xin’s voice came from her room. "OMG, am I fated for an S Rank Ancient Divine Skill only?"

He Yi and I immediately awoke from our lust and tidied our clothes. We then waited for Lian Xin to come out.