Chapter 281: Global Server Announcement

Star·Blood Dragon Scale is a very powerful skill.

While greatly increasing attack, it can restore its own HP based on the damage dealt, ending the skill when HP reaches 80%.

But Qin Chuan has already discovered the problem with this skill in past actual use.

It requires HP below 50% to be actively activated, and this restriction is stricter than cooldown time.

When facing a stronger opponent and being at a disadvantage, HP often drops below 50%, allowing the skill to be triggered multiple times in a battle to maximize the effect of Blood Dragon Scale.

But Qin Chuan never fights from a disadvantage.

Thus, aside from when the 【Blood Rage】 affix is just activated and can lower HP to meet Blood Dragon Scale's usage requirement, it is hard to achieve thereafter.

Moreover, when there is a large power disparity between us and the enemy, Xiaohei often raises its HP above 80% through recovery after just one or two attacks, forcing the skill to end.

Thus, this skill originally meant for sustained combat in disadvantage ends up, more often in Xiaohei's hands, becoming a burst skill.

After evolution, Xiaohei's traits changed: the original Anger Shield turned into Anger, which can still mitigate damage, and when not taking damage, it can instead be converted into HP for recovery.

This undoubtedly further overflows Xiaohei's already ample HP recovery ability.

Although the effect of Blood Dragon Scale should have been further weakened accordingly, the new skill Dragon King's Wrath Strike instead became a stroke of genius, completely solving the overflow of HP recovery.

HP too high?

Then actively lower HP! Dragon King's Wrath Strike, which deals total damage of 200% attack plus 20% of max HP and has no cooldown, is nearly comparable to the strongest strike after Xue Gao unleashes Double Flying Frost Instant Splendor Dance, and it can also keep Blood Dragon Scale active.

HP increase, Dragon King's Wrath Strike, HP decrease, attack and attack speed increase, HP recovery speed increase, HP increase…

From then on, a complete HP closed loop is formed! "Ya——"

The evolved Xiaohei is equally excited, feeling its current power, and already has an urge to eagerly start the next battle.

"Are you that eager?" Qin Chuan patted Xiaohei's drooping head, gave a dry smile, "Later, for the next subjugation target, let you fight alone."

Xiaohei nodded vigorously, eager to try.

"Ya——"

Beside him, Xiao Bai watched Xiaohei's terrifying strength, several times his own, and a hint of envy appeared in his golden pupils.

"Wait another two days, you'll also break through." Lin Yue gently soothed Xiao Bai, then turned to Qin Chuan, "What's special about Epic tier?"

"Let me check." Qin Chuan opened his personal panel and glanced, slightly shaking his head, "The number of active skills that can be carried becomes 5, and the Contract Slot count becomes 5; nothing else changes."

He tried to equip Xiaohei's five active skills, then added, "Resonance 5 can bring a 25% enhancement to all skills."

"Like that…" Lin Yue showed a thoughtful expression, then after a moment softly said, "If I'm not mistaken, when players reach the Legendary tier, there should be a relatively major change."

"How so?" Qin Chuan asked curiously.

"Because according to the current pattern, the Legendary tier can carry six active skills." Lin Yue chuckled lightly, "Carrying three active skills of the same spirit beast, reaching Resonance 3 unlocks that spirit beast's Descent."

"So theoretically, the Legendary tier can unlock Descents of two spirit beasts at once."

"What specific changes it will bring, we'll only know when the time comes."

Qin Chuan's eyes lit up.

According to the current pattern, Lin Yue's guess is very likely true.

Currently, each time he returns to reality, the skills he carry allow only one spirit beast to undergo Descent; if he could switch between different Descents, the situations he could handle would be more numerous.

Bolder speculation: if two different Contract Spirit Beasts could undergo Descent simultaneously…

It would definitely be far stronger than the current Descent! "You saying that, my motivation to break through Legendary tier just surged." Qin Chuan couldn't help but laugh, "Right, I can now see the requirements for advancing to Legendary tier."

He casually opened Xiaohei's 【Advancement】 panel.

An advancement formation, far more intricate and splendid than before, appeared before his eyes, with as many as seven grooves on it.

In quantity, it has only one more groove than when breaking through the Epic tier.

But after Qin Chuan clicked each groove to check the requirements, his expression turned solemn.

The six outer grooves require six Legendary-tier resources.

These drop in S-rank secret realms, and with Blessing, random equals choice, so gathering them isn't hard.

But the central advancement resource is a bit troublesome.

{Legendary Stone: exists only in the Heavenly Stairway, can serve as the core of an SS-rank dungeon passage, and is the key material for all Epic-tier spirit beasts' advancement}

Indeed, without the harsh evolution requirements, there would surely be other tricks.

Qin Chuan never expected that the resource needed to break through Legendary tier would not be found in the Dream World or secret realms, but in the Heavenly Stairway.

As the dungeon is gradually explored and the 2.3 update announcement analyzed, Qin Chuan has a vague guess that the Heavenly Stairway mentioned by Darlesayi and Salma earlier should be the content appearing after the next world update.

And to have the next update appear, Blue Star needs its first Mythic-tier player.

Thus, wanting to go to the Heavenly Stairway to find the Legendary Stone for breakthrough becomes a chicken-and-egg deadlock.

Therefore, only one path lies before Qin Chuan.

Let the S-rank dungeon descend into reality, lift the suppression to upgrade it to an SS-rank dungeon passage, then destroy the passage to obtain its core.

A road that's troublesome in every aspect…

Qin Chuan couldn't help but sigh.

"Is advancement that hard?" Seeing Qin Chuan's expression, Lin Yue couldn't help but worry a bit.

"Indeed very hard." Qin Chuan nodded slightly, "Each spirit beast breaking through to Legendary tier needs one Legendary Stone, and the Legendary Stone…"

After Qin Chuan finished explaining how to obtain the Legendary Stone, Lin Yue also fell silent.

"Just now, when you broke through, the global channel posted another announcement." She said softly, "It's very similar to when Shui Hua first broke through the Epic tier."

Qin Chuan's heart sank, and he opened the global channel.

{Congratulations to player 【Luo】 for advancing to Epic-tier player! }

{Due to the emergence of many powerful Epic-tier Level 50 spirit beasts, the Dream World's capacity further declines; numerous, higher-level spacetime rifts break free of suppression and are about to descend! }

{New SS-rank secret realm, to appear after the next Dream World entrance opens! }

This... it's even more troublesome now. He stared fixedly for a moment, then Qin Chuan spoke softly.

Before Shui Hua's breakthrough to Epic rank caused an S-rank dungeon to descend into reality, it had already sparked a minor backlash against Qin Chuan worldwide; they believed his power breakthrough had hastened the disaster's arrival.

These voices basically appeared outside of Huaxia Nation, and as Qin Chuan swiftly cleared S-rank secret realms with unstoppable momentum, the backlash died down, but those holding this view never disappeared.

An SS-rank secret realm appearing is a minor matter.

The SS-rank dungeon that follows, however, is a major matter.

By then, the public opinion surge will inevitably reach a higher peak.

Moreover, for Qin Chuan to continue breaking through, he needs to let an S-rank secret realm descend and form a passage.

He can already imagine the public opinion surge surging like a tide at that time.

Lin Yue gently pulled Qin Chuan's hand, "No matter what, I will stand by your side."

"Mm." Qin Chuan squeezed Lin Yue's hand, "I'll contact the Special Affairs Group." He proactively initiated a friend chat with Feng Yin.

Soon, Feng Yin's image appeared before his eyes again.

"Just hung up the phone and you've caused a big news story." Feng Yin wore an exasperated expression, "No matter what, congratulations on advancing to Epic-rank player."

"If I'm not mistaken, what you want to talk about should be related to the Legendary Stone, right? To obtain the Legendary Stone, you need to let an S-rank dungeon descend."

"You know?" Qin Chuan was slightly surprised, then realized, "Insight?"

"Mm." Feng Yin nodded, "I drew this piece of information a few days ago."

"This matter, the Special Affairs Group already knows about it and has held several meetings regarding it."

"What the higher-ups mean…" He glanced at Qin Chuan, then spoke slowly, "As long as safety is ensured, the Special Affairs Group will back you up and keep domestic public opinion under control."

"But the premise is ensuring safety." Feng Yin emphasized, "My personal suggestion is that you wait until Yue Li also advances before attempting; that would be safer."

"If two people aren't enough, we can wait for Long Ji to advance." His expression turned a bit strange, "Long Ji has already mastered Spirit Descent; based on the priority of his golden talent, the Special Affairs Group will next use him as a resource focal point, going all out to produce an Epic-rank."

"However, it will probably take a while." Feng Yin sighed, "Epic-rank resources are fine to say, but the main issue is that equipment enhancement and crafting consume too much material."

"This guy is a non-lucky."

From outside the chat box came Long Ji's dissatisfied muttering.

"Let Long Ji come to Sector 5149." Qin Chuan smiled wryly, "The Divine Forge is on our side; it should be able to help with equipment enhancement."

The Special Affairs Group also helped him quite a bit; as repayment, letting Iron Hammer help the other side is also reasonable.

Now Iron Hammer not only helps Qin Chuan and Lin Yue enhance equipment, but also, whenever other guild members' Spirit Beasts reach Hall Tier, they ask him to help enhance equipment.

The fact that the Divine Forge is in Luoyue Guild has long been an open secret.

"Fine, let him come." Feng Yin agreed without hesitation, apparently already having this plan, just waiting for Qin Chuan to speak.

"Rest assured, I won't mess up the Legendary Stone matter." Qin Chuan's expression turned a bit solemn, "Coincidentally, an SS-rank dungeon will descend soon; I'll clear a few more SS-rank dungeons to make sure I can handle it, then try to obtain the Legendary Stone."

"All right." Feng Yin gave a slight nod, "By the way, an A-rank dungeon will descend tomorrow; your breakthrough right now is perfectly timed."

"Yes." Qin Chuan nodded.

When the number of A-rank dungeons increases, some will inevitably become uncontrollable; although Qin Chuan will prioritize clearing the unknown A-rank dungeons, there will still be times when he arrives late.

The A-rank dungeon set to descend tomorrow is Blue Star's first-ever A-rank dungeon descent.

If it weren't for the fact that he will advance to Epic rank in the Dream World tonight, Qin Chuan would feel somewhat apprehensive.

But now…

It's a minor issue.

After hanging up, Qin Chuan's expression calmed considerably.

The Special Affairs Group being on his side made him much more optimistic about future public opinion pressure.

The girl walking up to him brought Qin Chuan back to his senses.

In the next instant, the girl lunged into his embrace.

The warm, familiar soft body made his heart gradually calm.

"Even if we don't want to grow stronger, the ever-increasing dungeons are forcing us to become stronger." Lin Yue lifted her head, gazing steadily at the boy before her, and spoke softly, "Don't blame everything on yourself."

"Mm." Qin Chuan gave a slight nod.

With the continual increase in daily dungeon numbers, the phenomenon of dungeon descents has been occurring frequently over the past seven days.

In just seven days, over a hundred dungeons have descended into reality.

From now on, there will only be more.

And the passage of a descended dungeon is one rank higher than the dungeon's level.

As Lin Yue said, the descended dungeons have been pushing Blue Star humanity to grow stronger, and growing stronger brings even more higher-rank dungeons.

The only way out of this impasse is to break through to Mythic rank.

"I don't want to think about these anymore." Qin Chuan smiled, "I'll go complete my exclusive subjugation first."

He hasn't used today's exclusive subjugation count yet.

Now that he has broken through to Epic rank, the four Spirit Beasts' strength has undergone a qualitative leap, so he can try it.

Before today, Luoyue Guild's daily exclusive subjugation speed had slowed to the point of only being able to kill three subjugation bosses.

The bosses' health has increased to a hair-raising extent.

In a flash, Qin Chuan and his four Spirit Beasts vanished from the spot.

The 71st subjugation boss quickly fell, followed immediately by the 72nd, 73rd…

Ultimately, Qin Chuan slew nine subjugation bosses within one minute, ending the battle.

The subjugation points awarded for killing a single subjugation boss officially broke 4w.

Qin Chuan, as usual, used the subjugation points to upgrade the group battle chart; moments later he showed a delighted expression, "I can upgrade the second battle chart entry!"

Lin Yue smiled, "Consuming that many subjugation points, it's finally enough."

The first battle chart entry 【Ever-Victorious in Battle】 has already brought astonishing benefits; the second entry will likely not be far behind.

Qin Chuan took a deep breath, upgraded the last prerequisite formation diagram to Lv10, and immediately looked at the second major formation diagram.

Do you want to consume 100,000 subjugation points to upgrade the 【War Horn】 to Lv1?

War Horn (Lv1): All Contract Spirit Beasts of guild members within the nearby range, each brings a 0.25% increase to the total Contract Spirit Beast race value.

Group Formation applies to all guild members.

【Yes】【No】

No wonder it's a grand formation; the points required for the upgrade are huge.

Qin Chuan felt a pang of heartache, then immediately and without hesitation chose to upgrade.

The War Horn is currently only Lv1; following the previous pattern, the increase ratio at Lv10 can reach 2.5%.

It seems not much, but in the secret realm, a 5-player subjugation team formed by hall-of-fame level players can have at most 20 Contract Spirit Beasts.

The effect brought by this formation's trait will become a 50% increase in race value for all.

Without a doubt, this trait is very strong.

The remaining subjugation points are only enough for now to upgrade the War Horn to Lv1.

After completing the group formation upgrade, Qin Chuan looked toward Lin Yue.

"Let's go to the next secret realm."

Feng Yin said it very correctly; on the path to becoming stronger, he cannot be a lone wanderer.

(End of chapter)