Chapter 21: The Skull Captain

  "Ding dong! Congratulations, player Shi Tou Cheng has discovered the Black Stone Tower, experience increased by 2000, reputation increased by 20."

  In the system's prompt, the scenery in front of me suddenly underwent a huge change.

  It was just blue sky, white clouds and green grass, but in the blink of an eye it turned into a vast expanse of gray sandy land, with a blood-red sky, coupled with desolate scenery, making people extremely uncomfortable.

  The entrance to the Black Stone Tower is located under a protruding boulder in the desert, with giant skull-shaped stone carvings on either side of the entrance exuding an aura of infinite mystery, and from time to time, a low humming sound can be heard.

  At the entrance of the Blackstone Tower, five or six skull soldiers holding black long swords wandered back and forth, with the sound of "creaking" bones echoing as they moved.

  A glimpse of insight:

  Skeleton Soldier: Level 18, 1000 HP, Skill: Heavy Strike. The bones of the dead on the battlefield are tainted by dark energy and form a bloodthirsty monster without brain or thought, fond of making "Kakaka" sounds.

  The monsters in Blackstone Tower are very powerful. The lowest-level skeleton soldiers at the entrance are already level 18, and without sufficient strength, one wouldn't dare to touch them lightly.

  Although I'm a pervert, I'm still wearing 5th-grade equipment, so I don't know the depth of the situation. I can only carefully approach a skeleton soldier and try my knife on it first.

  -150, -170, I used "Heavy Strike", and with two swift slashes, a series of numbers popped up above the skeleton soldier's head. However, the skeleton soldier reacted quickly and immediately turned around to attack me.

  Haha, no wonder you're a knight, your defense is indeed strong.

  -25, -30 damage appears on my head, the skeleton soldier's attack doesn't seem to be a big deal, I can easily withstand it, and my attack speed is twice that of the skeleton soldier, so with less than 100 blood, I easily took down the skeleton soldier.

  "Ding dong, congratulations player Shi Tou Cheng for collecting bone ash, gathering skill proficiency increased"

  Bone Ash: Bones imbued with magical energy, can be used to brew poisonous potions.

  Defense is fine, but the attack is a bit low. If I had a level 10 blue weapon, these skeleton soldiers would be no match, but in their current state, they're still manageable, and taking out individual skeleton soldiers isn't too difficult.

  Killing monsters across levels is fast. Just solved the few skeleton soldiers at the entrance of Blackstone Tower, and experience has risen by 3%.

  The Blackstone Tower has been sealed, and by rights, monsters shouldn't be able to come out. But now there are moving skeleton soldiers at the entrance of the Blackstone Tower. Looks like something's wrong, let's go take a look.

  But just as I was about to transmit into the Blackstone Tower, the system issued a prompt:

  "Stone Castle, you have been in the game for 8 hours, please pay attention to rest and protect your physical health. If you do not log off for 10 consecutive hours, the system will automatically log you out."

  Dizzy, really, just when I was in the midst of having fun, the system actually sent out a reminder. Anyway, good rest is key to success, and it's time for a break now.

  I don't mind other players catching up with me because I need to rest and others do too, everyone has the same amount of time online playing games.

  Exiting the game and taking a look at the time, it's already midnight, time for sleep.

  After taking a hot bath and lying down in bed, the "Emperor's Divine Technique" inside his body began to circulate rapidly.

  "The Emperor's Secret" is an ancient secret book that I accidentally obtained while traveling abroad before my senior year of college. After a year of practice, I have achieved significant results.

  "The Emperor's Secret" is mainly divided into four realms, namely Building Foundation, Hegemony, Royal Way and Divine Way. Each realm has five levels, and I am currently at the fourth level of Building Foundation.

  To be honest, when I first started practicing the "Emperor's Divine Technique", because it was my first time coming into contact with martial arts, progress was very slow. As a result, I couldn't grasp the key to it and didn't have much of an effect.

  But just as I persisted in my cultivation for half a year, the "Emperor's Divine Technique" finally entered the first layer of foundation building, and the speed suddenly increased, as if it had reached a critical point, and within five months, it had already entered the fourth layer of foundation building.

  But just as I entered the fourth layer of foundation building in "Emperor's Divine Seal", my cultivation ran into another problem. The true energy within me stopped increasing, and there was no progress at all. No matter how hard I tried, it didn't have much effect, as if my cultivation had reached a bottleneck.

  In spite of my great efforts and specialized study of the "Emperor's Secret" for a long time, there was still no effect. There is nothing to do but let things develop naturally.

  "The Emperor's Divine Technique" is absolutely not an ordinary martial art, and its power is enormous, I am now very certain of this.

  Although my current cultivation is only the fourth layer of foundation building, it can be said that I have just entered the threshold of "Emperor's Divine Technique", but now I can control internal energy to float 5 meters in the air, cut steel with my hands, shatter giant rocks with my fists, and even remotely control a basketball within 10 meters. It's really as powerful as the martial arts masters in TV dramas.

  I often marvel that the lowest level of foundation-building in "The Emperor's Divine Technique" can have such an effect, so cultivating to the higher levels of "The Emperor's Divine Technique" would be just like those legendary immortals with their divine powers and great abilities.

  I lay in bed and soon fell asleep.

  The familiar "Emperor's Seal" immediately circulated along the meridians, although it no longer increased my true energy and its power was not enhanced, but the effect it brought me was equivalent to three hours of ordinary people's sleep in just one hour.

  The next day, I woke up early and went for a half-hour run at Huaxia University. After returning home to take a shower, I continued my campaign in the game.

  My house is just next to Huaxia University, only a 10-minute walk from Huaxia University. As a national key university, the school's construction is very beautiful and natural, and it is a nationally renowned garden-style university and art university. And my morning run every day has become an indispensable part of my life.

  Entering the game, a flash of light flickered and appeared beside the entrance of the Blackstone Tower where I logged off yesterday. Drawing my steel sword and equipping my shield, I marched towards the Blackstone Tower with vigor and pride.

  "Ding dong, Stone Castle, below is Blackstone Tower first floor, enter or not?"

  "Yes."

  A flash of light, and I entered the first floor of the Blackstone Tower.

  The dark marble and dim light, as well as the occasional creaking sounds from ahead, were indeed oppressive. Fortunately, there were some oil lamps on the stone wall that lit up the passageway, or else it would have been too frightening to move forward.

  The Blackstone Tower is very simple, with only a few corridors leading to three large halls, which are filled with rows of skull soldiers that move mechanically and wander around like puppets.

  "What a great place for an upgrade!" I couldn't help but sigh, and immediately rushed towards the skeleton soldier in the large hall on the left.

  Undead skeletons that don't attack on their own are truly my delicious lunch, brushing them off one by one and watching the experience fly up from killing monsters above my level, what's more exciting than this?

  After the skeleton soldiers on the left side of the hall were cleaned up, I came to the middle hall. Just after killing two skeleton soldiers, I saw a tall and majestic skeleton with a halo under its feet and holding a large sword in both hands actively coming towards me.

  Something is taking shape.

  "The Art of Insight"

  Skull Captain: 23-level ordinary BOSS, 2000 HP, skills: Bone Spike, can reflect attacks, Heavy Slash with stunning effect, leader of the Skull Soldiers, likes black stones.

  Isn't this the Skull Captain who snatched away Merchant Wang Wu's Chuihua Necklace? Looks like he's the big shot of the first floor of Blackstone Tower.

  "Kill!" I shouted loudly and charged forward towards the skeleton captain.

  Back in level 9, I didn't even care about the level 20 Silver BOSS Black Bear Charla, and I killed the evolved level 30+ Gold BOSS Golden Battle Bear Charla (of course, it was a weakened Golden Battle Bear Charla). So why would I be afraid of this small BOSS? Besides, I've already changed jobs and my abilities have greatly improved.

  Unleash the skill "Heavy Blow", -120, -100 damage appears above the Skeleton Captain's head, while the Skeleton Captain can only deal over 40 damage to me.

  The attack is still a bit low, but our attack speed isn't slow. In addition to the high agility bonus and the attack speed bonus from the rabbit mask and "Quick Draw" skill, there's also the high burst damage and stun effect under the influence of Lucky Break. After a fierce battle, the 23-level Skeleton Captain fell to the war knife of the 13-level Knight Stone Castle at the cost of three medium red potions, dropping two pieces of equipment.

  "Ding dong, congratulations player Shi Tou Cheng's level has risen, now at level 14. Life increased by 10, magic increased by 10, with 5 attribute points available for distribution."

  Hehe, upgraded again, Skeleton Captain's experience is indeed a lot, Strength and Constitution 3:2 continue to add points.

  "Ding dong, congratulations player Shi Tou Cheng for killing the Skeleton Captain, reputation increased by 30."

  Facing the skull captain's corpse is a "harvesting technique", we must make use of everything, and absolutely cannot waste resources.

  "Ding dong, congratulations to player Shi Tou Cheng for obtaining Black Crystal Stone, gathering skill proficiency increased"

  Obsidian: Mid-level material, widely used.

  Take a look at the two pieces of equipment that burst out, haha, excited, and there is actually a piece of golden equipment:

  Skull Helmet: Golden Equipment, Requirement: Level 20, Effect Unknown, Unable to Apply.

  It can only be used at level 20, and I'll go for appraisal then, but thinking of that exorbitant appraisal fee, my heart is a little apprehensive.

  Another thing is not simple, although it's blue equipment, but it's actually a ring.

  Rings, necklaces and ornaments are relatively hard to hit things.

  Black Crystal Ring: Blue equipment, requires level 15, Attack +10, reduces damage from undead monsters by 5, Additional: Defense +10.

  The Black Crystal Ring is absolutely a good thing, the damage reduction of 5 means that if a death-type monster deals you 10 points of damage, wearing the Black Crystal Ring will reduce it to 5 points of damage.

  Imagine wearing four black crystal rings, I reckon you can roam freely inside Blackstone Tower.

  Unfortunately, it requires level 15 to use, and I'm only at level 14 now. Need to upgrade one more level to use it. Okay, let's work hard to level up!