Star of the Demon Rats

"Old Huang... no, General Huang, do you know my master?"

(－_－)

Wang Qianduo squinted at the new skill, Elemental Orb, in front of General Huang.

He knew that anything appearing for the first time was a good thing.

But this was too perfect for him! Wasn't this giving him an unfair advantage?

A skill that could completely replace basic attacks, and he just got it? He was going to soar!

"Your master? Who?"

"Never mind!"

The Elemental Orb skill didn't seem to have high damage, even comparable to the initial skill Energy Bullet, and couldn't compare to other rare skills.

It didn't even seem to have the growth potential of a rare skill, but that was only if you looked at the damage.

Similarly, Wang Qianduo's Lightning Chain skill had comparable damage. The damage of Lightning Chain wasn't that high compared to some high-level rare skills reported on the forums.

It wasn't perfectly high, but it was an area-of-effect skill with crowd control.

At the same time, its low cost and short cooldown made it a perfect fit for a perfect-grade skill.

The Elemental Orb skill was similar. Although its damage wasn't high, its cooldown of almost two seconds and casting time of 0.5 seconds allowed it to even replace basic attacks.

And it was a basic attack that could grow. Just as he decided to go the intelligence route, Old Huang sent him such a skill.

It made Wang Qianduo wonder if he had opened a backdoor for him again.

"Old Huang, I'm sticking with you from now on! You're too f***ing awesome!" Wang Qianduo thought.

After bidding farewell to Old Huang and storing some of his gains in the game warehouse, Wang Qianduo logged off, ready to get off work.

"Old Wang, did anything happen?" Wang Jun asked after logging off.

"Nothing at all. The new system is completely stable, and our department can rest for a few months!" Wang Jun said.

"That's good. By the way, what level are you? Can you do dungeons yet? I'll take you!"

"I'm only level four, and it'll take a few more days to reach level five. This game really isn't suitable for old folks like me. It's too hard to snatch monsters!"

"Yeah! Yeah!"

"Get lost!"

As the two were discussing various things in the game, Lin Qimeng walked over again. The two Old Wangs tacitly fell silent.

But this time, she was just passing by, and her five-meter aura was truly "awe-inspiring."

After confirming that there was indeed nothing to worry about today, Wang Qianduo went straight home after work.

After dinner, he logged back into the game. He hadn't finished his fatigue points for the day, only consuming a little while doing loop quests killing star beasts.

Wang Qianduo thought for a moment, then checked the forums to understand the situation before heading to the monster area for levels 10 to 14 in Star Domain Seven.

The experience here was high enough, and the monsters were Magic Rats that appeared in groups. Their strength and numbers were acceptable.

Also, at this stage, almost no one would come here to level up.

New players didn't have enough levels, and veteran players were mostly beyond this level range. There were very few people whose levels were just right.

If they didn't form a team, they couldn't come here alone.

Even if they came, because there were few people, the leveling areas were large enough. They wouldn't interfere with each other, so there was no need to worry about monster-snatching.

Wang Qianduo had been planning to use Bombardment Bombs to level up for the past two days, but he found that his plan wasn't so easy to implement.

He only had four of them, and he needed a place with densely packed monsters.

But such places were hard to find, or basically nonexistent unless there was a beast tide.

And if he lured monsters himself, he would waste too much time, and it wouldn't be as efficient as killing them one by one. It wasn't worth the effort.

He had originally wanted to find Wang Jun and a few friends to help him lure monsters, but they hadn't reached level five yet. It was also difficult to explain to professional players.

So the plan had to be shelved.

Thinking about these miscellaneous things, Wang Qianduo soon arrived at his destination, a ravaged wasteland planet.

Magic Rat Star.

The sky here was gloomy, the ground was scorched earth, and sewage flowed everywhere.

Seeing this scene, who would have thought that this was the second habitable planet humans discovered when they first entered the interstellar era?

The culprit behind the planet's current state was none other than his target for grinding monsters, the Magic Rats.

In fact, the Magic Rats were not native creatures of this planet. Their predecessors were rats from Earth, and they were brought to this planet.

History is rife with examples of the dangers of invasive species, a lesson humanity has learned repeatedly since ancient times. Even after entering the interstellar age, humans remained vigilant.

However, humanity also possesses a bad habit: getting complacent.

After the first planet was successfully terraformed in the interstellar age, this old habit resurfaced. Humans brought two rats to the second terraforming planet.

Then, they reaped what they sowed. As people toiled to build the planet, these two rats began to multiply at an alarming rate and fought against the planet's environment.

Ten years later, the planet's construction was largely complete. The rats had evolved into demon rats, hollowing out most of the planet's underground.

Then, one day, for reasons unknown, they began to attack the surface.

Where the demon rats passed, nothing was left standing. The planet humanity had worked so hard to build was instantly destroyed.

Finally, human experts were dispatched. They plunged into the earth and decapitated the demon rat king, who had already reached level 50.

Only then did the human coalition decisively defeat the demon rat army, leaving behind only small, scattered groups of rats that were difficult to eradicate.

But this planet, after this ordeal, was utterly reduced to wasteland. Ten years of construction efforts turned to ash.

Later, through genetic analysis, it was discovered that humanity had brought this disaster upon themselves.

The demon rat planet, having endured this great destruction, became a training ground and could serve no other purpose.

In truth, this planet wasn't the worst case of invasive species. There were far more severe instances, some even requiring the planet's complete annihilation.

In the interstellar age, humanity's star fleets frequently engaged in planet-destroying events.

But none of this concerned Wang Qian Duo at the moment. He simply viewed the planet's background as a story.

Worried about the nation and its people? He didn't have the time for that.

He only needed to take care of himself!

While exploring, Wang Qian Duo soon discovered a nest of demon rats. These creatures, larger than tigers, still bore a faint resemblance to rats.

Demon Rat (Normal) LV10 HP700 MP50 Attack80 Defense10 Skills: Bite, Claw Attack

The demon rat's stats were quite weak for a level 10 monster, but their troublesome nature lay in their tendency to swarm.

Upon seeing the stats of this group of demon rats, Wang Qian Duo unleashed a lightning chain.

Seven demon rats struck by the arc instantly perished, granting him nearly 100 experience points.

The remaining demon rats, far from retreating, charged at Wang Qian Duo en masse.

With a swing of the Minghong Blade in Zero's hand, a fireball flew towards a demon rat.

-470

This was Wang Qian Duo's Elemental Orb skill. This skill could condense energy projectiles of various attributes to attack enemies, making it quite flashy.

However, it was a single-target skill. The best approach for the current situation was an area-of-effect attack.

He charged up his Minghong Blade horizontally. He didn't care even if the demon rats attacked him.

When the entire group of demon rats entered his attack range, a cold glint erupted, instantly killing several of them.

The monster-clearing efficiency was acceptable, but the fact that about twenty demon rats dropped nothing was quite disappointing.

However, Wang Qian Duo no longer expected to get equipment from farming monsters. After all, this game's rip-offs weren't a new development; he had grown accustomed to being fleeced.

After dealing with one wave of demon rats, Wang Qian Duo immediately flew off to find the next, and the next. In reality, compared to other areas, the total number of monsters here wasn't significantly higher.

It was just that monsters scattered across other regions were grouped into smaller piles here.

With no competition, Wang Qian Duo quickly found another group of demon rats. He dealt with them using the same method.

This time, however, the demon rats dropped a strange item – the only elite drop from this group.

[Unknown Tooth Fragment 7-4] (Exquisite): The tooth of an unknown creature carried by a demon rat elite. Its purpose is unknown.

"So it's a 'rip-off tooth'!" Wang Qian Duo said after picking it up, then tossed it into his backpack.

This tooth was rumored to be a trigger for a hidden quest, but it required collecting all seven fragments.

But why was it rumored? Because no one had ever seen the seventh fragment.

Consequently, the item became a tool for deception, until it was fully exposed on the forums.

"Something like this, I won't even bother thinking about it!"

Wang Qian Duo generally avoided dwelling on particularly difficult quests like this.

If so many people couldn't solve it in a year, how could he be so "clever"?