This Is a Little Too Revealing, Isn't It?

Su Li immediately opened the System Panel. A flash of light later, a projection of her current status appeared in midair.

"Let's see..."

Su Li scanned the projection and spotted the problem almost at once.

Holy crap, she had a chin!

Beneath the Flying Wing Helmet, where only her jawbone had been visible before, a beautifully curved chin now peeked out!

"What the hell?" Su Li gaped.

Before, she'd been nothing but a Skeleton Soldier without even a scrap of skin! Even if this was her second evolution, wasn't that a bit too big a leap? She'd gone straight from bones to growing flesh?

Still filled with disbelief, Su Li immediately took off her helmet.

With the faceplate no longer in the way, she finally got a good look at herself.

It was a face she knew all too well, with delicate features and soft lines. It looked exactly like her own face in the real world, right after she'd transformed!

The only difference was that her real-world self had long, jet-black hair, while her in-game self had a waterfall of silvery-white hair!

Looking closer, she saw two balls of crimson Soul Fire burning deep in her ruby-red eyes!

"Damn!" Su Li couldn't help swearing.

"Not only did I change in the real world, I'm a white-haired, red-eyed beauty in the game, too?!"

Did the game world's appearance update in real time to match her looks in the real world?

Or had this skeleton body been female in life, and just happened to look exactly like her now?

"There's definitely something wrong with this body's origins," Su Li thought.

"I'll ask Rosalia when I get the chance."

With that, Su Li reached out and gently touched her cheek.

That was when she realized just how different it felt.

In the real world, her skin was warm and smooth, packed with collagen. It even bounced back when you poked it.

But although her in-game face looked lifelike, it felt cold and stiff to the touch, with no elasticity at all.

"Well... I am a lich, so I guess that makes sense."

After reassuring herself, Su Li chose to hide the appearance of her virtual Valkyrie armor. She wanted to see whether she'd really grown any flesh.

"Whoosh—" The Valkyrie armor on her virtual avatar vanished in a stream of light.

Su Li took one look and fell silent.

Silence descended upon the Corrupted Cave.

As far as the eye could see, apart from that stunning head with white hair and red eyes, everything below the neck...

Was still a bare skeleton!

In the rib cage where the heart should have been, a ball of crimson Soul Fire blazed fiercely.

"This is straight out of a horror movie! Isn't this a little too revealing?" Su Li's mouth twitched.

A stunningly beautiful head, attached to a skeleton from the neck down.

If she went outside in the middle of the night, she'd scare the players out there so badly they'd disconnect!

"Wait..." Su Li suddenly realized something.

"When I first logged in, how did I make that raspy sound? I don't have lungs or muscles. How was I breathing?"

She thought about it for a long time, but couldn't come up with an explanation that made biological sense.

"Forget it. Trying to find the laws of physics in a world of magic must mean I've lost my mind."

If she couldn't figure it out, she'd just test it herself.

Su Li looked toward an empty patch ahead, took a deep breath, and unleashed her Dragon Roar.

"Fus—Ro!" A clear Dragon Roar boomed through the cave!

The power hadn't changed, but the sound effect was completely different!

Su Li covered her face, on the verge of tears.

"What is this supposed to be? I wanted to play the Young Girl Scroll, but I didn't want to turn into a little girl Dragonborn! There's no force behind that shout at all. It sounds like I'm pouting!"

With a resigned sigh, Su Li tried making some basic sounds.

"Ah, wo, uh, ee, oo, yu..."

She paid close attention to how the sounds were produced. Sure enough, it felt completely different from the vocal-cord vibrations of speaking in the real world.

If you enjoyed this book and want to find it again, remember to add it to your bookshelf.

In the game, her voice came entirely from the high-frequency vibrations of the Soul Fire in her chest, which directly simulated sound traveling through the air.

"Well, at least I'm not mute."

After going through all the traditional steps essential to a player's evolution—checking herself out in a mirror, testing her skills, and clowning around—Su Li finally remembered what she was supposed to do.

Pipi Axe and Pipi Finger stood there, dumbfounded.

Their master had spent the last little while touching her face, then shouting at thin air. Those antics were clearly beyond the intellectual capacity of the two of them.

"Come here." Su Li beckoned.

Su Li felt a deep fondness for these two loyal dunces who'd stuck by her all this time.

She opened the System Panel, found the [Special Unlock: Retinue Knight] option, and selected Pipi Axe and Pipi Finger as her targets.

[Bind the Berserker Skeleton and Mutated Finger Bug as your Retinue Knights?]

[Yes!]

[Binding successful! Your Retinue Knights are now linked to your soul imprint. The level cap has been removed, and they can gain experience and level up alongside you!]

"Great." Su Li nodded with satisfaction. "Now the whole Pipi Trio can keep getting stronger. They won't get left behind by the next update and turned into cannon fodder."

After dealing with her underlings, Su Li opened the [Update Announcement].

It boiled down to four things: multiplayer was now available, the restrictions on the beginner areas had been lifted, the entire world map had been opened up, and more beta slots had been added.

"What do I think?" Su Li rubbed her chin. "This update feels a little too simple."

Just as she was about to close the panel, she noticed a little red dot in the lower-right corner.

As a veteran player with a serious case of completionism, Su Li couldn't stand the sight of a red dot. She promptly jabbed it with a finger.

[You have an update compensation package waiting to be claimed!]

[Item obtained: Multiplayer Scroll ×10]

[Item obtained: Equipment Adaptation Enhancement Stone ×1]

[Equipment Adaptation Enhancement Stone: A special consumable. When used on a piece of equipment, it will deeply enhance it based on the current player's class and traits. If the equipment has any empty affix slots, it will automatically generate the best possible affix for the current player!]

"What the hell?!" Su Li's eyes lit up, and her breathing quickened.

"This is great stuff! It's like getting a pillow just when you're nodding off! The devs may have phoned in the announcement, but they're pretty generous with compensation!"

As she examined the Enhancement Stone, the system notification sounded again.

[Class Advancement Quest triggered: Find a Staff]

[Quest description: As a noble lich, how can you get by without a flashy staff? With your current look, people will think you're just a brute who likes to hack things apart.]

[Option A: Venture deep into human territory, explore the Mage Association headquarters, and snatch a top-tier staff.]

[Reward: Agility +10, Faith +10, Spirit +10, Experience +2000. Difficulty: S]

[Option B: Explore deeper into the heart of the Undead Mountain Range and defeat the final BOSS. Perhaps you can inherit its entire collection.]

[Reward: Strength +10, Constitution +10, Spirit +10, Experience +2000. Difficulty: S]

[Option C: Search the outskirts of the Undead Mountain Range for a wandering Death Ritual Bird and defeat it to obtain a treasure chest.]

[Reward: Strength +5, Spirit +5, Constitution +5, Experience +1000. Difficulty: A]

Along with the options, a Main Quest notification appeared:

[Main Quest unlocked: Venture into the Undead Mountain Range]

[Description: The newly evolved lich is now capable of taking on greater challenges. Explore deeper into the Undead Mountain Range! Defeat the final BOSS to earn massive rewards and unlock hidden story content!]

At the last line of the postscript, Su Li's eyes lit up!

"Rewards aren't shared? Everyone gets their own drops and settles separately?!"

Su Li's smile stretched wider and wider. This setup was practically screaming at players to team up and get into a big fight!

"At our current levels, we probably can't go to the Mage Association in the human world. Not unless we max out Stealth. And if we head straight into the depths of the Undead Mountain Range to challenge the Big BOSS, we'll just get ourselves killed. It's better to get stronger first."

"Besides, now that multiplayer's available, taking down one little Death Ritual Bird should be easy, right?"

Images of the Chatty Spider and that Slime flashed through Su Li's mind.

She had ten Multiplayer Scrolls. If she didn't recruit those two free laborers as meat shields, she'd be wasting all these items!

"But before that..."

Su Li lowered her gaze to the Equipment Adaptation Enhancement Stone in her hand.

"Enhance!" Without hesitation, Su Li used the Enhancement Stone on the Revered Corrupted Dragon Sword. After all, offense was the best defense!

"Bzz—!" Light instantly engulfed the Revered Corrupted Dragon Sword.