Arrival

"You were damaged by the Blood Demon Lord's self-destruction. You have died."

"You killed the Blood Demon Lord, completed the quest, and obtained the quest's final reward. Drawing Legendary Talent..."

When Lu Qingshan woke up, the system notifications from that fierce battle still echoed in his mind.

Unable to help himself, Lu Qingshan's lips curled into a smug smile—

No matter how the major guilds' reputations soared to the heavens among players, no matter how their influence covered the sky with one hand, hadn't a lone player like me still snatched the prize and obtained the quest's final reward?

This fierce battle, named the God Slaying War, was a tenth-anniversary celebration event specially held by the official Nine Heavens team to commemorate the game's ten years since launch.

That day, the game issued a server-wide announcement: one of the Devil Race's great Devil Masters, the Blood Demon Lord, had been trapped in the Black Abyss while carrying out a special mission and would be unable to leave for a short time.

It called on all players across the server to hurry to the Black Abyss and besiege the Blood Demon Lord, fighting for the human cultivators. The player who landed the final blow on the Blood Demon Lord would receive the quest's final reward: a Legendary Talent.

The moment the announcement came out, the entire server erupted. Every player went crazy.

Devil Masters were among the topmost tier of NPCs in terms of combat power.

Nine Heavens had been running for ten years since its launch. Although the game's main storyline had already entered its middle stage, Devil Masters remained invincible, lethally dangerous bosses in the eyes of players.

Of course, to players, as long as something had a health bar, they could charge straight at it.

Yet even if players could forcefully wear down and defeat a Devil Master through sheer numbers, killing one was simply impossible at the current stage.

The reason was simple. A Devil Master was not an idiot. With his cultivation, once he sensed that things had gone wrong and wanted to flee, players had no ability to hold him back.

That was why this battle was clearly a siege against a Devil Master, yet was called the God Slaying War—for players at the current stage, killing a Devil Master was no different from slaying a god.

Now that the official team had confined the Devil Master within the Black Abyss, it meant players could rely on their numerical advantage to slowly grind the Blood Demon Lord to death. The officials had placed an opportunity to slaughter a god right before the players' eyes. Who wouldn't be excited?

More importantly, the quest's final reward was actually a Legendary Talent!

The importance of talents in Nine Heavens was beyond question.

Ever since the game launched, players had often been cannon fodder in the eyes of NPCs—characters whose cultivation was passable, but whose combat strength was not worth mentioning.

At the same cultivation realm, those famous NPCs could kill players of the same rank as easily as slaughtering dogs. Some absurdly powerful NPCs could even kill players across realms.

Why?

Wasn't it because of the heaven-defying talents possessed by those "protagonist-template" NPCs?

For instance, a certain genius Sword Cultivator NPC possessed the Legendary Talent One Sword Frosty Cold: damage dealt by Sword Skills increased by 100%.

Yes, Legendary Talents were just that simple and brutal!

Every one of their sword strikes dealt double damage. In battles between those of the same rank, wouldn't they kill you as easily as chopping vegetables?

How was anyone supposed to play this?

Couldn't afford to provoke them. Absolutely couldn't.

Damn it, when players played games, they generally assumed they were the protagonists. Then they entered the game and discovered that they were merely nameless passersby, characters whose only purpose was to highlight how awesome the protagonist was. Before NPCs, aside from being able to revive endlessly, players had not a shred of superiority left.

Their mentality had completely collapsed, all right?

Now the officials had placed an opportunity to turn things around and become the protagonist before all players. Who could possibly remain calm?

That damn game designer had finally acted like a human for once!

The reward settlement method for the event quest made players' blood boil even more—the player who dealt the final blow to the Blood Demon Lord would receive the quest's final reward.

Normally, the final reward of this sort of server-wide event was distributed according to contribution rate, with the player holding the highest contribution rate receiving the final reward.

In theory, that settlement method was the fairest, but it also meant that the final reward always belonged to top players. Ordinary players had no ability to compete for it.

Whenever they fought over this so-called grand prize, every event became a clash of immortals. In such events, ordinary players could only join in the excitement and scrape together the most basic participation reward.

However, the drastically different reward settlement method of this tenth-anniversary event set countless ordinary players' minds racing: Hmm... wasn't the official team encouraging kill-stealing?

Kill-stealing was serious business.

Sure, top players were awesome.

But in such a server-wide event, there were countless people and countless hands. At every moment, who knew how many skills were raining down on the Blood Demon Lord at once? Who could possibly calculate all that damage?

No matter how awesome a top player was, he could not guarantee that he would land the final blow on the big boss. If luck was on his side and he happened to deal that finishing damage...

Heh heh.

Given Nine Heavens' popularity, an account with a Legendary Talent would be worth more than a lottery jackpot if sold immediately. The money earned would be enough to squander for a lifetime.

This time, even many laid-back players who had always been indifferent to such events could no longer hold themselves back, and one after another headed for the Black Abyss.

Who couldn't indulge in a daydream?

Lu Qingshan was one of that mighty tide of players carrying dreams of kill-stealing. However, unlike ordinary players, he could barely be considered a well-known player. He ranked among the top ten Sword Cultivators on the player leaderboard, and was the only unaffiliated player among those top ten without a guild.

As one of the top ten great Sword Cultivators among players, Lu Qingshan naturally possessed a few trump cards that ordinary players did not.

Heaven and Earth as One Sword: At the cost of dropping one major cultivation realm, the first damaging skill the player used afterward gained the following special effects: true damage, execution effect, and ignore death immunity.

Each of those three special effects, taken alone, could be considered a Legendary Talent.

Let alone all three stacked together. Its power could only be described with one phrase.

Terrifying beyond measure!

Naturally, obtaining such tremendous power came at an equally tremendous cost. The casting price of dropping an entire major realm meant that although Lu Qingshan had acquired this skill long ago, he had never used it even once.

Especially as his cultivation realm rose higher and higher, the cost of falling one major realm became increasingly heavy.

He had thought this skill would rot away in his skill bar.

But now, an opportunity for a massive gamble lay before him.

Even with the effects of Heaven and Earth as One Sword, he could not guarantee that he would land the final blow. Yet the odds would undoubtedly increase by far, and he was willing to gamble this once.

If he failed to obtain the final reward, then in the time ahead, he would just have to grind hard and cultivate his way back up. But if he succeeded, a Legendary Talent—and the first Legendary Talent ever possessed by a player in Nine Heavens—would make even falling all the way to the Foundation Establishment Realm a blood profit.

Thus, when the Blood Demon Lord's enormous health bar had fallen to rock bottom beneath the players' siege and he prepared to self-destruct, Lu Qingshan used Heaven and Earth as One Sword and unleashed his strongest Sword Skill.

After that came a dazzling flash of red light and two system notifications.

When Lu Qingshan heard the first system notification, he thought he had failed.

Fortunately, the second system notification followed soon afterward.

In the end, he had succeeded.

Lu Qingshan felt that his body was somewhat stiff and cold, as though he were soaking in some kind of liquid.

He could not help frowning. Revival should not have felt like this.

Could this be an aftereffect of using Heaven and Earth as One Sword?

Lu Qingshan's first reaction was to curse furiously in his heart. Damn game designer, what kind of nonsense are you pulling now? Dropping an entire major cultivation realm wasn't enough, and you still had to mess around with revival in such strange ways?

Subconsciously, Lu Qingshan sensed the spiritual power within his body.

Mm, completely empty, just as expected...

Wait, completely empty?!

As a veteran Nine Heavens player, hadn't I long since grinded my cultivation to the current version's cap—the Body Integration Realm? Even if Heaven and Earth as One Sword had caused my cultivation to drop by one major realm, there was no reason for not a trace of spiritual power to remain in my dantian.

Could there be a bug?

Though countless thoughts floated through his mind, only an instant had passed from the moment he regained consciousness until now.

Filled with doubt, Lu Qingshan slowly opened his eyes.

This was a dark, damp cave. Pearls that glowed in the night were embedded in its walls, flickering with ghostly white light and allowing Lu Qingshan to see his current circumstances clearly.

So it had not merely been a feeling. At this very moment, he truly was soaking in liquid.

A small pool was filled with murky black liquid, and he was inside it, like he was soaking in a hot spring, with only his head above the surface.

Looking around, he saw that aside from himself, dozens of adorable little heads poked above the water in the small pool, arranged in neat rows.

??????

To New Readers

1. Questions about attribute points and the book title can be found in the work-related section.

2. This book had only 60 first subscriptions at launch, a terrible start, but it was never abandoned. I kept writing until now, and the average subscriptions have reached 4,400, a seventyfold increase. The results are not especially outstanding, but it is the kind that gets better the more it is written. This newbie author does not update especially fast, but is determined to finish the book and is constantly learning and improving. Investing in it definitely will not be a loss; I recommend buying in heavily.

3. If this book suits your taste, it would be my great honor. If it does not suit your taste, that is fine too—exit from the upper left corner, and let us part on good terms. Everyone reads novels for relaxation and entertainment, so let there be a little less hostility~

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2021.07