Rewards

That was why, although No. 5 High School ranked fifth in Dongning City, its actual strength ranked second in the city, second only to the city-run No. 1 High School.

At that moment, Vice-Principal Xu Yundong continued:

"The rewards for the top ten will be issued automatically. You have three minutes to choose the Five-Star Cards you want. As for the Super Freshman Summer Camp Spot, it is currently with the Old Headmaster. After the Final Exam, students who obtain a spot will receive an official invitation letter from the Super Freshman Summer Camp."

As soon as he finished speaking, a screen of light popped up before Lin Xiao's eyes. It displayed: "Congratulations, student Lin Xiao. You have obtained third place in this extra Endless Mode. You may choose any one Five-Star Rare Card, or any two Common Five-Star Cards. Please select the type you require."

"So it can be exchanged like this?"

He immediately said, "I want two cards."

"Vice-Principal, I have a question."

Lin Xiao looked up in surprise and saw that Yan Renjie had not looked at his reward at all. Instead, he was looking at the Vice-Principal and asking him a question.

Xu Yundong glanced at the Class Teachers from both classes, his gaze finally pausing on Zheng Yifan, the Class Teacher of Class Two. Then he turned back and said:

"What do you want to ask?"

"I want to ask whether the Vice-Principal knows who received that spot."

Lin Xiao looked up in surprise, his brow twitching. Just like Vice-Principal Xu Yundong, he was taken aback. The Vice-Principal shook his head and said:

"You'll know after the Final Exam is over."

"Can't you tell us now?"

The Vice-Principal gave a snort and said with amusement, "The spot is with the Old Headmaster, and the Old Headmaster didn't tell me either. How would I know who he gave it to? Rather than wasting time asking about this, you'd be better off performing well in the upcoming assessments. Perhaps that might increase your chances of obtaining a spot, instead of standing here asking pointless questions."

By the end, his tone had become somewhat stern. Clearly, Yan Renjie's ill-timed question had made the Vice-Principal unhappy.

Seeing Yan Renjie retreat in embarrassment, Lin Xiao shrugged. Why even ask about something like that? The school would arrange things however it saw fit. Yan Renjie was probably spoiled by his usual privileges and actually dared to question the Vice-Principal. He only received such treatment because his grades were good. If it had been an ordinary student, he probably would not even have received an answer.

Lin Xiao did not place too much importance on this so-called Super Freshman Summer Camp Spot, nor could he. After all, he had come in third. Under normal circumstances, it would never be his turn. Rather than dwelling on this, he might as well focus on doing well in the upcoming exams. If his grades were good, then after the Final Exam, he could go home and ask his dad and mom for something nice.

Or, once the Final Exam was over and vacation began, he could visit the outer-domain plane where his parents were stationed and see whether he could get his hands on anything good.

Coming back to his senses, he lowered his head.

"Two cards."

Lin Xiao hesitated. There was basically no way to choose any particularly good cards.

For example, the Class Cards he needed were at least Legendary-grade cards. Divine Domain Cards were possible, but the area added by a Common Five-Star Divine Domain Card was far too small. It did not seem very useful.

His Divine Domain did not currently lack resources. Or rather, the resources useful to him right now were not something Common Cards could provide.

Other than that, Weapon Cards, Species Cards, skills... "Hmm, Skill Cards seem like an option."

Lin Xiao had always felt that having only one skill was too little for his Kinfolk. Salted Fish Thrust had powerful burst damage, but its cooldown was too long, so it could only be used as an ultimate move. The Nagas needed a skill they could use regularly.

But when he searched through the skills, he found himself in a dilemma. It was not that there were too few skills, but too many.

The school had dedicated channels for obtaining skills. It could not claim to have every skill imaginable, but it had a considerable variety. There were several hundred Five-Star Skill Cards alone. To pick one suitable for Nagas, Lin Xiao checked the time. Yan Renjie's question to the Vice-Principal had just wasted some time, and now he only had a little over a minute left.

After thinking it over, he first excluded magic and ranged skills, cutting the number by more than half.

Then he excluded melee skills with cooldowns exceeding one minute, reducing the number by another half.

Fewer than a hundred remained. He rapidly skimmed through them, marking those that seemed suitable at first glance and removing those that could not be used. In the end, he filtered the list down to thirteen skills. To his surprise, five of them overlapped in function with Salted Fish Thrust. Pass.

Seven remained in the end: four passive skills and three active skills.

The three active skills were:

Momentum Strike LV1—Whenever a target was killed, any excess attack power accumulated and stacked onto the next attack.

Combo Strike LV1—Attack the same target twice in succession, consuming a small amount of stamina. Cooldown: thirty seconds.

Acceleration LV1—Movement speed +20%. Continuously consumed stamina. Cooldown: one minute.

Heavy Strike LV1—Charge for one second before striking an enemy heavily, dealing double damage. Depending on the weapon and attack method used, there was a chance of producing additional effects.

The five passive skills: One-Handed Sword Specialization LV1—Improved proficiency when using one-handed sword-type weapons.

Polearm Specialization LV1—Improved proficiency when using polearms.

Basic Footwork LV1—Improved footwork-related techniques in battle.

These were all Five-Star Cards. The greatest difference between them and the Two-Star Card Thrust was that these skills could be upgraded, while Thrust could not. Thus, although Thrust's power was considerable, its card rank was very low.

The Blackscale Nagas currently had no foundation and could only learn these types of skills. Lin Xiao swept his gaze over them and quickly selected two cards: Momentum Strike and Basic Footwork.

He chose Momentum Strike because it worked well with Salted Fish Thrust. Salted Fish Thrust dealt fivefold critical damage and could easily instantly kill an opponent. Often, there would be excess damage left over. If he had Momentum Strike, the surplus damage would stack onto the next attack. That would be incredible. If the enemies were not too strong, a single charge might let them instantly kill an additional enemy afterward. It was ridiculously powerful.

As for Basic Footwork, it would allow the Nagas to evade attacks better in close combat.

If possible, he actually wanted to collect Polearm Specialization as well, along with Acceleration, Combo Strike, Heavy Strike, and the rest.

Well, he wanted all of them, but he could only choose two right now. Or rather, he would find a way to gather a full set later.

Lin Xiao already had an excellent idea: gather all sorts of basic skills and fuse them into an ultra-rare All-Weapon Card.

For example, he could collect the basic skills for every weapon type—one-handed swords, two-handed swords, one-handed hammers, two-handed hammers, one-handed axes, two-handed axes, daggers, polearms, fist weapons, and so on—then fuse them into an All-Weapon Basic Skill Card. Just thinking about it, he knew it would be incredibly powerful.

He put away the two cards for now and decided to use them later.

Once the three minutes were up, all ten winners had made their selections. To Lin Xiao's surprise, the Vice-Principal did not announce the rankings. Everyone only knew their own rank. Lin Xiao knew he was third, but he did not know whether Yan Renjie or Wan Ying had taken first place.

Endless Mode was judged by the number of enemies killed, not by who lasted the longest. Otherwise, nobody would need to fight; they could simply drag things out.

So although Lin Xiao had returned third from last, that did not necessarily mean he had ranked third.

Of course, he was still highly suspected of it.

This was a good thing for Lin Xiao. It spared him some trouble.