Chapter 337: Harvest: High-Tier Class [Lord of Corruption]

Wind Moon, the nineteenth day of the fourth month.

Valley of Despair.

For the past three days, the humans in the oasis have not dared to approach the central area, because the Hero is staying there.

They are, of course, not afraid of the Hero, but rather the dragon captured by the Hero; a terrifying pressure shrouds that area.

The mother who lost little Nick wanted to see the dragon that killed her child, but before she could get close, she was knocked unconscious by that pressure.

In the oasis, only the strongest, Ya Laer, is able to approach that area.

Step!

Carrying a meal, Ya Laer treads on the fine, soft green grass and arrives at the central zone near the water source, a layer of dense sweat unconsciously breaking out on her forehead.

This is not her first time approaching this place, yet her body remains uncontrollably tense, a feeling of genuine horror and panic rising from within, just like a cat whose fur stands on end when it senses danger.

"Hoo—hoo—"

She takes two deep breaths to steady the palpitations in her heart.

Ya Laer walks deeper inside; she can already hear the soft sound of flowing water and sees a small wooden house coming into view.

There is a faint scent of blood in the air, and she can vaguely feel that the temperature here seems higher than in the surrounding area.

Just by glancing at the wooden house.

Ya Laer feels a sense of trepidation, a desire to drop the food in her hands and turn to flee; this emotion of "fear" is completely beyond her control.

Even when facing the powerful Gray Dwarf clan, with her entire race on the verge of extinction, Ya Laer had never felt as terrified as she does now.

She heard the Hero mention that this seems to be a power called "Dragon Might," which can have a suppressive effect on enemies.

It is too terrifying.

Even after being defeated and captured alive by the Hero, it can still release such power.

Ya Laer truly cannot imagine just how powerful and majestic the Hero, who could fight and defeat a dragon, must be.

Ya Laer sighs inwardly; that is a realm beyond her understanding.

This unimaginable strength fills Ya Laer, who reveres power, with obsession, worship, and a yearning that captures her heart.

"Thank you, Ya Laer."

A calm, gentle voice comes from the house.

Ya Laer’s heart skips a beat at this sound, and her body trembles unnaturally, like a believer unable to suppress their excitement and worship after receiving a response from a deity.

She carefully places the meal in her hands about ten meters away from the wooden house.

"Your, m-meal, it is placed here, Hero."

Ya Laer stammers slightly, not knowing if it is due to the pressure in the air or her own nervousness.

She does not dare to get any closer to the wooden house, fearing that the power of the Dragon Might will cause her to make a fool of herself in front of the Hero.

After placing the food down.

Ya Laer leaves the area.

"Creak—squeak—"

Pulling open the wooden door.

Tang Zheng walks out of the wooden house, his face full of contemplation and complex thoughts as he reaches the place where the tray is placed, sits cross-legged, and begins to eat heartily.

With his current strength, going hungry for a few days would actually be no problem, but as a human, breathing, eating, and sleeping do not disappear just because his strength has increased.

For the past two days, he has been studying the [Heart of the True Dragon King]; the more he studies it, the more he discovers the uniqueness of this heart, as it contains not only alchemy techniques.

But also some special magic and ritual powers.

In short, it is very headache-inducing.

The Eight Greed Kings possessed the World-Class Item [Unknown Grimoire], and the basic effect of this World-Class Item is to record all tier magic in the world.

Naturally, this includes all tier magic from the "Yggdrasil" game before the descent, and Tang Zheng cannot be certain if this World-Class Item developed other derivative abilities after appearing in this other world.

After all, in the background, every World-Class Item is an object formed from a destroyed world, possessing power rivaling a world.

If this [Heart of the True Dragon King] was created using an ability derived from the [Unknown Grimoire].

No matter how much he studies it, he will inevitably have no results.

Therefore.

Tang Zheng's current line of thought is not to figure out how this heart was made, but how it turned the Dragonoid Ladon into a dragon.

Simply put, he does not need to know how a refrigerator is manufactured for the time being; he needs to figure out how to use the refrigerator first.

Three days have passed without any harvest, but from the mouth of the Dragonoid Ladon, Tang Zheng has asked for some information about the Eight Greed Kings.

For example.

The respective appearances and racial guesses of the Eight Greed Kings, and there is one other thing that concerns him quite a bit.

"Judging by the timeline, the Eight Greed Kings only suddenly went to war with the 'God of Darkness' Surshana and killed them after wiping out a large number of Dragon Kings."

"There must have been some irreconcilable conflict; perhaps the Slane Theocracy knows something."

While Tang Zheng ponders, he finishes his meal and stands up to return to the wooden house.

Click!

The wooden door closes again.

Inside the empty house, the Dragonoid Ladon lies unconscious on the ground, remaining under the control of "All-Species Charm."

Tang Zheng speculates that the "Dragon Might" autonomously emitted from the opponent originates from the [Heart of the True Dragon King].

It has little effect on him, to the point of being negligible.

The level gap between the two is not large, and the "Divine Body" of the [Valkyrie] also has relatively strong resistance to various negative statuses.

Tang Zheng does not look at the Dragonoid Ladon for the moment, instead focusing on his attribute panel; in the past two days, besides research, he has not forgotten to collect experience points.

[Experience Bar: 5,500,001/360,000]

He collected 4.5 million experience in three days, which, added to the previous 1 million, has accumulated to 5.5 million.

"Enough to raise [Dark Knight] to max level." A smile appears on the corner of Tang Zheng's mouth.

In the past, he could not have wasted time studying magic and items; just collecting 5.5 million experience points would have been enough to give him a headache.

"Consume experience."

Tang Zheng’s heart stirs.

The experience in the experience bar begins to consume and decrease rapidly.

————

Total Level: 51

[Experience Bar: 440,001/850,000]

Class:

Basic Class: Genius 10lv (Warrior...)

Intermediate Class: Dark Knight 10lv

High/Special Class: ...

————

With the 5.5 million experience points consumed in one go, [Dark Knight] is thoroughly raised to max level.

Tang Zheng sits cross-legged in the wooden house, his aura rising continuously with the increase in level; as he breaks through level 50, a layer of faint, flowing light flashes across the surface of his skin.

Unlike the increase in numerical values,

Tang Zheng senses carefully this time, perceiving a change in his life level from the inside out of his physical body; although it is only for an instant, it is incomparably clear.

If one does not pay close attention, it is easy to confuse it with the increase in physical strength during a level-up.

"If the 'Hero Realm' from level 28 to 29 is a bottleneck, then level 50 is the second layer of the bottleneck."

"Judging by the level of tier magic, it belongs to the 8th tier (50–56lv)."

This thought flashes through Tang Zheng's mind, and after [Dark Knight] reaches max level, it also thoroughly stabilizes.

In an instant!

The light in the entire wooden house seems to undergo some distortion with Tang Zheng as the center, causing the brightness in the room to drop by a few degrees.

A black energy overflows, turning into a faint black mist that appears and disappears, forming an irregular shape around Tang Zheng!

Hum—

The attribute panel vibrates.

[Class construction information satisfied]

Tang Zheng's gaze falls on the attribute panel, looking at the information that appeared, appearing as if he expected it, though his heart is still a bit excited.

[Class [Genius] has been converted to [Paladin]]

[Class construction achieved—Low-tier class [Paladin 10lv], Intermediate-tier class [Dark Knight 10lv]]

[Triggered High-tier class: Lord of Corruption]

[Do you wish to take the class?]

"Take the class." Tang Zheng responds in his heart.

…………

Class: Lord of Corruption

Level: High-tier class

Ability Effect:

Passive·

"Power of Corruption": All attacks or skills can have negative attribute erosion damage added to them.

"Gift of the Fallen": Grants certain bonuses to negative attribute and stealth-type skills, and increases holy attribute resistance by 20%.

"Heart of Darkness": Grants complete immunity to movement impairment.

Active Skill:

Aura of Sinking: Releases a special aura that can shroud a 15m radius, causing a binding effect on everyone within range.

Description: Betray that useless faith; the physical shell is merely a useless vessel. Only darkness and despair are eternal. We are the destroyers of order.

(Note: For every level gained, the four attributes (MP, HP, Physical Defense, Magic Defense) increase by 15 points.)

…………

——Whoosh!

Accompanied by the successful acquisition of the class.

The faint black mist permeating Tang Zheng's body quickly became dense, with a faint black light flickering on the surface, looking somewhat eerie and terrifying.

He opened his eyes.

A sense of oppression filled the room.

A black light faintly flashed in Tang Zheng's eyes. Looking at the black mist coiling around his body, he raised his arm and gave a casual wave.

Swish!

The black mist dissipated completely.

"Similar to the situation with [Holy Knight] and [Lord of Holiness], both are further enhancements of the previous class."

Tang Zheng scanned the class information for [Lord of the Fallen] on the attribute panel and compared it with [Lord of Holiness].

He discovered that the new class seemed even more practical.

The "Power of Pain" and "Power of Corruption" of the Dark Knight look somewhat similar.

But the effect of "Power of Corruption" can not only add negative attributes to normal attacks but also to skills, making the attack methods more diverse.

"The class name sounds impressive, but overall it is still relatively mediocre," Tang Zheng evaluated.

Among the class's passive abilities, what surprised Tang Zheng most was the addition of "complete immunity to movement impairment," and even the class skill is a range control type, all of which are quite practical.

He raised his hand and grabbed at the void, and a magic greatsword appeared in his palm.

"Holy attribute."

The surface of the blade vibrated slightly, and a layer of holy energy covered the magic greatsword. Tang Zheng flipped his wrist: "Negative attribute."

The holy energy on the magic greatsword immediately twisted and dissipated, replaced by a layer of black energy, looking somewhat terrifying.

"[Mad Mage] and [Magic Swordsman] can be used together to employ physical attack methods of the four elements."

"Now that I have [Lord of Holiness] and [Lord of the Fallen], I can also use holy and negative attributes."

Tang Zheng chuckled; unknowingly, he found that he could already use the power of six attributes.

He looked at the resistances he possessed on the attribute panel.

…………

Complete curse immunity, complete movement impairment immunity, fire attribute nullification, poison attribute resistance II (below 30lv), dark attribute resistance (80%), holy attribute resistance (40%), extra weapon specialization (Slash 100%, Range 50%).

(PS: Brand new information has been updated in the comments section.)

…………

"Holy and negative attributes are theoretically completely opposite, yet now I can use both powers simultaneously," Tang Zheng thought thoughtfully.

He had not forgotten that when he was preparing to learn "Undead Summoning," he discovered a skill conflict with "Angel Summoning."

But now there was no class conflict; presumably, it is related to the fact that the basic construction of both high-tier classes originates from the base class [Holy Knight].

"Next is to level up these two high-tier classes; I wonder if it will trigger a special class," Tang Zheng's eyes brightened.

Next.

He continued to downgrade, removing [Dark Knight] from the class build and retaining only the newly acquired high-tier class.

Tang Zheng continued to study the "True Dragon King Heart" of the dragon-man Ladong, and indirectly learned from the other's mouth the true situation surrounding this Valley of Despair.

This place is located at the far east of the entire continent, in a very remote position; apart from the dragon-man Ladong, there are basically no strong individuals present.

What Tang Zheng was most worried about—whether there would be other True Dragon Kings or remnants of player forces—also did not exist.

The following night.

Tang Zheng walked out of the wooden house and came to the outskirts of the water source, seeing the two people who had been waiting for a long time.

"Lord Hero!"

"Lord Hero!"

Ya La'er and Chieftain Diyelong spoke respectfully in a hurry.

Ever since Tang Zheng defeated a giant dragon in front of everyone's witness, the entire oasis population's feelings for Tang Zheng were no longer just respect, but also added worship and fanaticism.

"I plan to leave the oasis tomorrow, so I'm telling you in advance."

Tang Zheng waved his hand very casually, signaling that the two did not need to be so restrained, and spoke with a smile.

"Ah!"

Ya La'er let out a cry of surprise and hurriedly looked up: "Lord Hero is leaving so soon?"

Last time, Lord Hero stayed here for half a month, and she thought he would stay longer this time.

Ya La'er unconsciously pinched her pants.

"Ya La'er, Lord Hero naturally has his own ideas," Chieftain Diyelong rebuked.

"No need to be so serious, Chieftain Diyelong."

"I obtained more detailed intelligence about this area from that dragon-man who attacked you, so I have new ideas," Tang Zheng said gently.

(End of chapter)