Chapter 11

Di Tomb Village, before the Origin Containment Wall.

Qi Sheng stood with his eyes closed, his consciousness traversing the real network world, looking for suitable recruitment targets.

Without exception, in the several player groups he entered, the members all treated him as a scammer.

Most would choose to delete the link he sent and then kick him out of the group chat.

Regarding this, Qi Sheng had no desire to explain at all and decisively changed recruitment targets, adopting a wide-net strategy.

The 50 spots were quickly distributed, divided up by players from three groups.

Just then, the guidance water ball suddenly appeared:

[Boss, there is a tough guy among the players recruited this time!]

"How tough?" Qi Sheng turned his head to look at the guidance water ball and said irritably.

[Last time, when players gave feedback about the pain setting issue, didn't you adjust the pain level for players entering the game for the first time to the lowest 10%.]

This adjustment was made by Qi Sheng himself, so he naturally wouldn't forget.

At that time, the first batch of players, including Li Zheng, complained in the game that the game's pain feedback was too realistic, making him realize that this problem had to be addressed.

After all, one of the main reasons for players' strength was fearlessness, and overly realistic pain feedback ran counter to this philosophy.

After careful consideration, he set the initial pain feedback at 10%.

The reason it wasn't 0% was that pain is essentially a form of feedback on the body's state; the existence of pain allows players to discover changes in themselves in time and can also hone combat skills during the hunting process, rather than just having reckless behavior.

[One of the players recruited this time, after checking the game functions, actively pulled the pain feedback to 100%.]

"That is indeed a tough guy."

With curiosity, Qi Sheng's head suddenly turned into a cluster of scarlet flames, and the flames spread from the top of his head across his body, wrapping him in raging flames.

After switching to the Di Zhao form, his vision jumped to the guidance clone following the "tough guy player" mentioned by the guidance.

The sky seemed to be stained with thick ink, losing its former brightness, with only a demonic crescent moon hanging in the sky, casting mottled light and shadow.

Black wind howled across the earth, carrying willow-catkin-like ash clusters flying all over the sky.

Crack!

A crisp sound of bone breaking rang out. Li Tie broke the arm of the Curse Soldier in front of him, then decisively activated the petrification form. A layer of pitch-black substance immediately plated his body surface, hard-resisting the attacks coming from the left and right sides by the other two Curse Soldiers.

Along the way, Li Tie was extremely satisfied with the realism of this game.

Successive battles also allowed him to understand the correct way to use the Gargoyle's "Petrification" ability.

He discovered that there was no so-called skill cooldown limit in the game, and the use of the petrification skill could be retracted at any time.

The guidance's explanation was that there were two energy bars in the game, namely the Vitality value and Mental Power.

The use of active skills required consuming one of these energies.

For example, the Gargoyle's petrification ability required consuming Vitality value each time it was used, while the Eagle-Headed Demon's Grudge Chant and the Bone Fire's Ink Flame ability consumed Mental Power when used.

With no skill cooldown limit, the reasonable timing for releasing skills became particularly important.

The Curse Soldiers became the objects for Li Tie to train his skills.

Petrification, release, counterattack... Whenever the Curse Soldiers attacked, Li Tie would activate the petrification state to hard-resist the damage, and retract the petrification to counterattack during the gaps in the Curse Soldiers' attacks. He soon became familiar with the rhythm of using the petrification ability.

After several rounds of attacks, the three Curse Soldiers blocking the road were dismantled into a pile of broken bones by his heavy punches.

After absorbing the energy condensed after the Curse Soldiers died, he successfully leveled up to level 4 and clearly felt that his physical fitness had significantly improved again.

Picking up the broken war hammer left by the Curse Soldier on the ground, Li Tie continued to walk east.

Half an hour later.

Crossing a hillside, what appeared in Li Tie's eyes was a valley. The ground was covered with a thick layer of black ash, and the smell of scorched earth in the air became pungent.

What surprised him was that several weapons were floating in the air in front of the valley, wandering around as if they had life.

Moving forward along the downhill, a passage of text floated before his eyes as he entered the valley.

[Challenger Notification: Discovered domain node scene "Weapon Spirit Valley."]

Accompanied by the notification, the map automatically popped up, the fog at his location dissipated, and the three golden characters "Weapon Spirit Valley" appeared as a label.

Continuing to walk forward for a distance, his gaze focused on a battle axe in front with red energy flowing on its surface.

[Force Barbarian (First Generation Origin)]:

Hunting Level: 10

Guidance Analysis: A special monster that controls origin power, evolved from a part of Di Zhao's killing power, has already been born with primary intelligence, and craves battle and killing.

Turning his gaze to the cyan battle blade floating next to the battle axe, the analysis information surfaced again:

[Shattered (First Generation Origin)]

Hunting Level: 10

Guidance Analysis: A special monster that controls origin power, evolved from a part of Di Zhao's killing power, born with primary intelligence, and craves battle and killing.

After checking the attributes of the floating weapons in front one after another, Li Tie was surprised to find that these weapons were actually the extremely precious First Generation Origin mentioned by the guidance.

Although their hunting level reached level 10, Li Tie did not retreat but took the initiative to walk toward Weapon Spirit Valley.

The floating weapon spirits reacted at this time, shooting toward him one after another, surrounding him, and then hovering.

Thinking he would be besieged, Li Tie discovered that these weapon spirits did not do so.

The leading red battle axe trembled slightly after floating in front of him, and immediately the other four weapon spirits surrounding Li Tie scattered, clearing an open space.

"Guidance, what does this mean?"

[My analysis is that it is challenging you, wanting to have a 1v1 real man collision with you.]

"Interesting!"

Li Tie gripped the broken iron hammer in his hand at this moment, stepped forward, and swung the war hammer violently to smash down heavily toward the battle axe.

After the sound of metal clashing, sparks flew, the war hammer in Li Tie's hand shattered, metal fragments flew horizontally, but there was no damage on the surface of the weapon spirit battle axe.

Boom!

The battle axe's attack also unfolded at this moment, a violent red airflow rushing toward his face. The battle axe was raised high and slashed down heavily toward Li Tie's head.

Crack!

The half-broken war hammer Li Tie raised was instantly shattered, leaving only the handle, and the battle axe continued to fall without losing momentum.

Petrification!

Li Tie moved his body to the right and decisively activated the petrification ability.

Ding!

Sidestepping to hard-resist the battle axe slash with his shoulder, the domineering energy seeped into his body. The intense pain made a ferocious smile appear on Li Tie's face, and he couldn't hide the excitement in his eyes.

The pain instead aroused the ferocity in his heart.

He let go of the war hammer that only had a broken handle left, and after removing the petrification ability, he smashed his fist fiercely toward the battle axe.

But what Li Tie didn't expect was that the other four weapons watching the battle shot over at this moment, instantly piercing his body.

[Challenger Notification: Player died, deducted 10 points of Sacrifice Power, entered a one-hour resurrection cooldown!]

The notification information surfaced, and the scene before Li Tie's eyes transformed into a gray-white tone.

One hour later, Li Tie appeared at the Di Tomb Village resurrection point.

"Guidance, wasn't it supposed to be a one-on-one, why did the other weapon spirits suddenly attack me?"

Facing the inquiry, the guidance gave an analysis after a brief silence:

[The situation at that time was that you dropped the broken war hammer in your hand, and then you were attacked by the other weapon spirits, so a one-on-one likely needs to be conducted while you are holding a weapon. Having discarded your weapon, you were no longer the object of the weapon spirit's challenge.]

"So that's it."

After understanding the reason, Li Tie had the idea of going to Weapon Spirit Valley to fight again.

But the weapons on the ancient battlefield were all very broken and couldn't withstand a round of the weapon spirit's attacks at all. He now needed a high-quality weapon.

(End of chapter)