The Demon Rat Star

"Old Huang... No, I mean, General Huang, do you know my master?"

(ー_ー)

Wang Qianduo eyed his new skill, Elemental Orb, then narrowed his eyes at General Huang.

Wang Qianduo knew that anything appearing for the first time was bound to be good.

But this was way too perfect for me! Are you giving me cheats or what?

A skill that could completely replace basic attacks—and I just happened to get one? Am I about to take off or what?

"Your master? Who's that?"

"Never mind!"

Elemental Orb didn't look like it dealt much damage. In fact, it seemed about on par with the starting skill Energy Bullet, and nowhere near as strong as the other Rare skills.

Its growth potential didn't seem like that of a Rare skill, either—but that was only if you looked at its damage.

A similar skill was Wang Qianduo's Lightning Chain. Compared to the damage of several high-level Rare-grade skills posted on the forums, Lightning Chain wasn't all that powerful.

It wasn't even powerful enough to be Perfect-grade. But it was an area-of-effect skill that also came with crowd control.

It also had low MP consumption and a short cooldown, which was what made it worthy of Perfect Skill status.

Elemental Orb worked the same way. Though its damage wasn't high, its cooldown was practically nonexistent at just two seconds, and it took only 0.5 seconds to cast. It could even replace basic attacks.

And it was a basic attack that could grow stronger. Just as he'd decided to focus on Intelligence, Old Huang had handed him exactly the skill he needed.

Wang Qianduo couldn't help wondering if Old Huang had given him another special advantage.

Old Huang, I'm sticking to you like glue from now on! You're freaking amazing! Wang Qianduo thought.

After saying goodbye to Old Huang, he put some of his loot in the game storage and logged off, ready to clock out.

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

"Nothing at all. The new system's completely stable now. Our department can take at least a few months off!" Wang Jun said.

"Good. By the way, what level are you? Can you enter an Instance Dungeon yet? I can take you."

"I'm only level four. It'll take me a few more days to reach level five. Maybe this game really isn't suited to middle-aged people like me. It's too hard to get the kills!"

"Yeah! Yeah!"

"Get lost!"

While the two of them discussed all sorts of things in the game, Lin Qimeng walked over again. The two Wangs tacitly fell silent.

This time, though, she was just passing by. Still, her five-meter aura was truly intimidating.

After confirming there was nothing that needed his attention today, Wang Qianduo clocked out and went straight home.

After dinner, he logged back into the game. He hadn't used up today's fatigue yet; he'd only spent a little while completing Repeatable Tasks and killing Star Beasts.

Wang Qianduo thought it over, checked the forums for information, then headed to a monster zone in the Seventh Star Domain where the monsters were around levels 10 to 14.

The experience here was good, and the monsters—Demon Rats—appeared in groups. Their strength and numbers were manageable, too.

Besides, at this stage of the game, hardly anyone came here to level up.

New players weren't high enough level, while most veterans had already outgrown the area. There were very few players at just the right level.

They couldn't come here alone unless they formed a party.

And even if they did come, there were so few people that the leveling area was spacious. They could each keep to themselves, so there was no need to worry about competing for kills.

For the past couple of days, Wang Qianduo had been planning to level up with Blast Bombs, but he'd realized it might not be so easy to pull off.

He only had four of them, and he needed a place with monsters packed together in large numbers.

But places like that were hard to find—or, more accurately, almost impossible unless there was a monster tide.

If he lured the monsters himself, he'd waste too much time. It was more efficient to kill them one by one, so the plan wasn't worth it.

He'd originally wanted to get Wang Jun and a few friends to help lure the monsters, but none of them had reached level five. Asking professional players would be difficult to explain, too.

So he had to put the plan on hold.

Lost in all sorts of random thoughts, Wang Qianduo soon reached his destination: a desolate, ravaged wasteland planet.

Demon Rat Star

The sky was gloomy, scorched earth stretched in every direction, and polluted water flowed everywhere.

Who would have imagined, looking at this scene, that it was the second planet humans had discovered for colonization after entering the space age?

The culprit behind the planet's ruin was none other than his target for this hunting trip: the Demon Rat.

The Demon Rats weren't actually native to this planet. Their ancestors were rats from Earth, brought here by humans.

Human history was full of lessons about the dangers of invasive species, and people had remained vigilant even after entering the space age.

But humans had another bad habit: they got carried away easily.

After successfully terraforming the first planet of the space age, humanity fell back into its old ways and brought two rats to the second terraformed planet.

Then they reaped what they'd sown. While people worked hard to build up the planet, the two rats bred like crazy and struggled to adapt to its environment.

Ten years later, the planet was almost fully developed, and the rats had evolved into Demon Rats, hollowing out most of the ground beneath the entire planet.

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

Wherever the Demon Rats went, not a blade of grass remained. The planet that humans had worked so hard to build was completely destroyed in the blink of an eye.

In the end, humanity's experts had to step in. They charged underground and beheaded the Demon Rat King, who had already reached level 50.

Only then did the Human Allied Forces manage to completely defeat the Demon Rat Army, leaving behind just a few small groups that were too difficult to eradicate.

But after that battle, the planet was reduced to a wasteland. Ten years of hard work had vanished into thin air.

It was only later, after investigating with genetic technology, that humanity discovered it had brought the disaster upon itself.

After the great destruction, the Demon Rat planet had become a training ground—and that was all it could ever be.

This planet wasn't even the worst case of species invasion. There were more severe cases, some so bad that the entire planet had to be destroyed.

In the space age, incidents of planetary destruction by humanity's Starfleet were frequent.

But none of that had anything to do with Wang Qianduo right now. He treated the planet's history as nothing more than a story.

Worried about the fate of the world? He didn't have time for that.

He just had to take care of himself!

As Wang Qianduo explored, he soon spotted a nest of Demon Rats. These beasts were bigger than tigers, but they still vaguely resembled rats.

Demon Rat (Normal)

LV10

HP700

MP50

Attack80

Defense10

Skills: Bite, Claw Strike

Among level 10 Demons, the Demon Rats' stats could be considered quite weak. The problem was that they moved in packs.

After seeing the stats of this group of Demon Rats, Wang Qianduo fired off a Lightning Chain.

Seven Demon Rats struck by the arcs died instantly, earning him nearly 100 experience points.

The remaining Demon Rats didn't retreat at the sight of this. Instead, they all charged straight at Wang Qianduo.

Unit Zero swung the Minghong Blade, sending a fireball flying toward one of the Demon Rats.

-470

This was Wang Qianduo's Elemental Orb skill. It could condense energy into bullets of various elements to attack enemies, making it a very flashy skill.

However, it was a single-target skill. Against the situation at hand, an area attack was still the best option.

He braced the Minghong Blade horizontally and charged up. He didn't even bother to dodge the Demon Rats' attacks.

When the whole group entered his attack range, a flash of Frostflash burst forth, killing several Demon Rats in an instant.

The hunting efficiency was decent, but he'd killed over twenty Demon Rats without getting a single drop. It was seriously frustrating.

Still, Wang Qianduo wasn't counting on monsters dropping equipment anymore. This game had been screwing him over for ages. After getting burned enough times, he'd gotten used to it.

After clearing out one group of Demon Rats, Wang Qianduo immediately flew off to find the next group. Compared to other places, the total number of monsters here wasn't actually all that high.

The difference was that the monsters were divided into small groups instead of being scattered around.

With no competition, Wang Qianduo soon found another group of Demon Rats and dealt with them the same way.

But this group dropped a strange item—the only Elite Demon in the group had dropped it.

[Unknown Tooth Fragment 7-4] (Fine-Grade):

An unidentified creature's tooth, carried by an Elite Demon Rat. Its use is unknown.

"So it's one of those damn teeth!" Wang Qianduo said after picking it up and taking a look, then tossed it into his bag.

They said the tooth was needed to trigger a hidden quest, but all seven fragments had to be collected first.

Why did people say that? Because, to this day, nobody had ever seen the Seventh Fragment.

Then the item became a tool for people to scam others, until someone exposed the whole thing on the forums.

Forget it. I won't waste time thinking about something like this.

Wang Qianduo generally didn't dwell on quests that were especially difficult.

So many people had spent a whole year failing to solve this mystery. What made him think he was so "smart"?