The bump in Xie Feng's stats after equipping the Calm & Storm earring was massive, to say the least.

His intelligence stats broke straight past 1000 and all of his stats were currently above 400.

​​

Just by equipping one item, Xie Feng gained two thousand points of health, five thousand points of mana, approximately two hundred points of extra physical damage, and a total of five hundred points of additional magic damage. In addition, his agility had skyrocketed immensely so that player attacks were much more likely to misfire and turn into a big miss even if Xie Feng did not dodge.

With such an increase in power, coupled with its two skills, Calm & Storm was truly a Heaven grade worthy item. This earring was obviously a balanced item focused on increasing the overall power of its wearer rather than explosively increasing a single attribute or a single quality.

After this, Xie Feng took out the last item he had gained and was a bit surprised to see that it was actually a sky-colored scroll.

[Power Sacrifice (Skill Scroll): To obtain a higher power, you must be willing to sacrifice something in return. Effect: Pay as a price your own mana to obtain a great increase of power in your magical attacks. The increase in magical power depends on the amount of mana you sacrifice in exchange. By sacrificing 25% of your mana, your magical attack power increases by 50%. By sacrificing 50% of your mana, your magical attack power increases by 100%. By sacrificing 99% of your mana, your magic attack power increases by 300%. This skill can be activated and deactivated at will. Secondary effect: All mana recovery consumables become unusable for ten minutes when activating and deactivating this skill].

This scroll was really powerful, but at the same time, it was extremely dangerous.

While it was true that the increase in magical power was huge, the price to pay was also monumental. After all, what was the point of having some magical attack power if the user did not have enough mana to cast spells?

For example, by sacrificing 99% of mana in exchange for a huge 300% increase in magical attack power, the user would probably only be able to cast one small spell before running out of mana... By the time a mage ran out of mana, it didn't matter how much magic attack power he or she had; it was only a matter of time before being slaughtered miserably.

Precisely for this reason, the skill scroll in Xie Feng's hands was a double-edged sword that, if used properly, could become the best ally... But if it was misused, then your worst enemy would be your own skill and not the person trying to kill you.

Also, it had to be remembered that the user could not drink blue potions or consume any item to recover mana for ten minutes. This was another major setback for the wielder of such a skill.

"What a pity..." Xie Feng sighed and shook his head with a pained expression.

To him, the side effect of not being able to use consumables to recover mana was as good as non-existent. With his base mana regeneration, it was enough to recover over fifty thousand points of mana in just one second and with such mana it was enough to cast spells until bored.

However, the biggest problem was that Xie Feng currently only possessed one magic spell.

Ice Apocalypse.

Except for this one forbidden rank spell, Xie Feng had no other attack that relied on his magical attack power. This was a great pain for him as currently, his magic attack was even higher than his physical attack power.

Even if Wind Aura boosted his physical attack power by 100%, the Ring of the God of Destruction boosted his magical attacks by 50%, and considering the current difference between the two stats, his magical attack power was at least 50% higher than his physical attack power.

His Intelligence stat was also his highest stat currently and the only one that had broken the thousand point barrier.

On the other hand, his Strength stat was currently at four hundred and eighty points.

"If I only had more magic attacks..." Xie Feng couldn't help but sigh as he thought about how much things had changed since he obtained the Calamity Spear.

Still, Xie Feng ripped the scroll in two. The scroll disappeared from his hands and turned into a flash of sky-blue light that entered his body and surrounded him for a moment before disappearing.

[Ding!... You have learned the active skill: Power Sacrifice].

The reason why he decided to learn the skill was mainly because the power of Ice Apocalypse would become so terrifying that Hai Lun might freeze to death in those 120 seconds... Of course, Xie Feng could not confirm his theory since Hai Lun was well and truly dead.

Another thing that caused Xie Feng some pain was that, because he was forced to flee, he did not have time to use the skill 'Harvest' on Hai Lun's corpse; otherwise he could have acquired more good things.

Remembering Hai Lun's sword, Xie Feng felt his heart bleed at the loss and once again cursed the King of the Eastern Sea in his mind.

As Xie Feng relaxed, suddenly a little girl passing by saw him and her eyes lit up as she ran toward him in a hurry.

However, what Xie Feng did not know was that apart from this little girl, there was an assassin watching him a hundred meters away. Although Xie Feng was undoubtedly powerful among the players, if an assassin did not get too close to him then there was no way he could discover them. After all, the assassins' Stealth skill was very useful for hiding their presence and making them invisible for a certain period of time.

This assassin was only there just by pure coincidence, but he did not expect to meet the legendary Shiva in this place.

Although Xie Feng had his face covered, his mask had already become too famous along with him and his deeds.

Without saying a word, the assassin retreated and took out his communication tool before calling out somewhere. However, the assassin seemed to think about something and instead of continuing with the call, he disconnected right there and returned to the real world.

* * *

Russian Battle Zone.

The continent where the players of the Russian Battle Zone as well as the various NPCs of that territory resided was called Azuth Continent.

Azuth Continent was in no way inferior to the Adastreia Continent of the Chinese Battle Zone in terms of dimension. This place also possessed countless powerful and terrifying monsters that no one dared to provoke.

Among the areas that no living being dared or should dare to enter was the Abyssal Valley.

The Abyssal Valley was a place where the laws of space were unstable and within it resided a terrifying monster called the Abyss Dragon.

The Abyss Dragon was one of the few Saint Grade existences in the entire Azuth continent and was said to be extremely domineering and tyrannical. Anyone who dared to intrude into its territory in the past was torn to pieces before they could even react.

However, at this moment, one assassin was slipping silently through the shadows without leaving any footprints and deep into the Abyssal Valley.

This assassin was Russia's strongest player, Edik.

Edik was currently a level 35 assassin and was leading the Russian leaderboard by a fairly comfortable margin for him. Not only was he extremely dexterous with his moves, but his skills were so terrifying that he had once killed a level 25 Immortal beast by himself.

In real life, Edik's name was Eduard Vladimirovich, heir to the greatest corporation in all of Russia and, to top it off, nephew of the current Russian president. His status, together with his talent and personal skills, made this young man of only 26 years of age extremely despotic, arrogant, and overbearing.

However, Edik had the qualifications to be so.

The problem was that since the official launch of Samsara Online, the brilliant and arrogant Edik was overshadowed time and time again by the player from China named Shiva; this had been bothering this young Russian hero for a long time.

As the country where Samsara Online was born, Edik believed that Russia should be the brightest and flashiest country. However, 90% of the worldwide announcements so far came from China and Shiva was either the culprit or part of practically all of them.

"Let me see how arrogant they act now." Edik muttered under his breath as he slowed his steps and slowly approached towards a huge monster sleeping peacefully on a mountain.

Without saying a word and not daring to get too close for fear of failing in his plans and becoming dragon food, Edik silently pulled a gold colored token from his inventory.

This token was something he obtained after completing a special quest that a hidden NPC tasked him with. The token did not increase stats in any way and could only be used once before it became useless.

The function of the token was that it could create a spatial rift at the user's will and send a living being to the location chosen by the token's owner.

Edik, like probably every major player in the world, had his own spies inside China as well who constantly provided him with important information.

Precisely for this reason, he risked coming to the Abyssal Valley and provoking this creature that was among the most powerful not only in the Azuth Continent, but in the entire Samsara world!