What Should You Do When There's a Rich Girl on Your Team? Enjoy It, of Course!

At the city gates.

Chen Ming put on the four new pieces of equipment Qin Zhixue had given him.

"Hmm?"

He had just opened the attribute screen when his eyes suddenly lit up.

"This... holy crap?"

These four pieces of Epic Grade equipment...

all had their rune stone bonuses maxed out!

[Black Rhino Meteor Armor: Constitution +1500!]

[Shadow-Bearing Blade: Strength +30!]

[Sky Feather Boots: Agility +30!]

[Jade Bracer: Recovery +150!]

Three full levels' worth of attributes, all packed in!

Chen Ming blinked, then stood there stunned for quite a while.

It was one thing to give him equipment, but they'd even come with rune stones?

Wasn't this team's joining bonus a little too good?

He glanced at his current stats.

[Level]: 6

[Strength]: 95

[Constitution]: 5200/5200 (20%)

[Recovery]: 510 (19%)

[Agility]: 93

[Spirit]: 1520 (20%)

[Skills]:

[Grade C · Battle-Hardened (lv.9)]

[Grade SSS · Absolute Defense (Max Level)]

[Grade SSS · Spirit · Annihilation (lv.0)]

His attributes had just shot way up!

At level 6, his Constitution had already surpassed five thousand!

His Strength was almost at a hundred, too.

Now that he'd awakened Annihilation Strike, every point added to Chen Ming's Strength was a significant boost.

After all, it was calculated with a 10,000% multiplier.

"Brother Chen, are you going to the guild to have the equipment reforged and the rune stones removed?"

Sun Yang walked over.

He was holding the four pieces of equipment he'd retired, his face brimming with excitement. "Shall we go together?"

"Now?" Chen Ming asked.

Sun Yang nodded as if it were obvious. "Of course, now! We can take the rune stones off and add their bonuses to our new equipment. Aren't we heading out into the wilderness soon?"

At Sun Yang's words, Chen Ming immediately caught on.

Only his four pieces of equipment had their rune stone bonuses maxed out.

This premium treatment was meant for him.

"Brother Chen, should I take yours over for you?"

Sun Yang asked.

Chen Ming coughed lightly and handed him his old equipment.

"Take mine over too."

"Sure thing!"

Sun Yang took the equipment and immediately hurried toward the guild.

Only then did Chen Ming look over at Qin Zhixue.

She was chatting with Lin Wei.

When she noticed Chen Ming looking their way, she shot him a quick glance, then soon turned away.

The corners of Chen Ming's mouth lifted in a smile.

A hint of inexplicable smugness suddenly stirred in his heart.

What should you do when there's a rich girl on your team?

Enjoy it, of course!

Sun Yang returned before long.

Chen Ming led the three of them out through the city gates, heading toward the spot marked on the map.

Exotic Beast Forest.

In a certain stretch of dense woodland.

Thud—

A gigantic red-armored turtle crashed to the ground.

As an exotic beast with extremely high defense, it was covered from head to toe in thick, hard shell, as if wrapped in steel plates.

Yet now, the Red-Armored Turtle lay...

cut in two!

Its enormous shell had been sliced cleanly down the middle!

The cut was smooth and even, with traces of azure flames still smoldering along the edge.

[Killed Red-Armored Turtle (lv.7), experience +110!]

[Obtained: Red-Armored Turtle Beast Core (lv.7)]

Chen Ming stepped forward and pulled his blade from the Red-Armored Turtle's corpse.

With a wave of his hand, the flames covering the blade vanished.

"So that's how it works. After my skill starts stacking attack damage, the so-called one-hour duration keeps refreshing in real time."

Ever since entering the Exotic Beast Forest, Chen Ming had wanted to test how the duration of Annihilation Strike was calculated.

Did the one-hour timer start when he first stacked attack damage, with all the stacks resetting once the hour was up?

Or did every attack restart the timer?

It turned out to be the latter!

Once he started stacking attack damage, as long as Chen Ming launched an attack within an hour, the effect would last for another hour!

That meant a prolonged battle had no time limit to worry about.

All he could say was...

As expected of an SSS-grade spirit skill!

It was damn powerful.

Not only did it last a long time, but it stacked at a ridiculously fast rate, too.

Ever since entering the Exotic Beast Forest,

aside from the first few exotic beasts he'd run into, which let Chen Ming build his stacks for a while,

he'd been able to kill nearly every beast with just a dozen or so strikes.

And he was getting faster and faster!

Until just now...

Chen Ming had stacked his attack damage to 6000%!

He'd taken down a level 7 Red-Armored Turtle in just two strikes!

One strike to pierce its armor, then another to finish it.

"Holy crap, the first hit did 5,400 damage, and the second one jumped straight to 11,000?!"

"Brother Chen, your combat power is terrifying!"

A short distance behind him, Sun Yang swallowed hard, staring in disbelief.

He hadn't even gotten a proper look at the Red-Armored Turtle.

Then he'd seen Brother Chen charge in.

He leapt into the air and swung his blade twice.

And just like that, the Red-Armored Turtle was dead.

Clean and decisive.

Not a wasted movement.

The real shock was the damage...

Ten thousand?!

What did that even mean?

To put it this way, he was a level 3, Grade B assassin.

With a 20% boost from his class talent and a bonus from Epic Grade equipment, his Strength had reached 66.

Against an exotic beast of the same level, he could deal over 100 damage by unleashing an attack skill at full force.

But now, a casual swing from Brother Chen had dealt a hundred times that!

"Miss, he..."

From another direction,

Lin Wei stared wide-eyed, her gaze full of shock.

"That's just absurd!"

How could anyone possibly deal that much damage?!

Qin Zhixue couldn't answer Lin Wei. She was just as astonished.

She knew Chen Ming had the ability to stack his attacks.

But she hadn't expected the boost to reach such a terrifying level...

And from the looks of it, his attacks also had an armor-piercing effect.

He'd ended the fight against a level 7 exotic beast in two strikes.

She hadn't even had time to attack.

What kind of skill could possibly have an effect like that?

Ever since entering the Exotic Beast Forest, Chen Ming had kept shattering Qin Zhixue's understanding of what was possible.

And now...

A level 6 Class Changer had killed a level 7 exotic beast in two strikes.

Honestly, even though she'd seen Chen Ming demonstrate his strength during the test, Qin Zhixue had still thought she could be of use if she teamed up with him.

After all, she was an SSS-grade Holy Radiance Angel.

A rare class even among angel-type classes.

Offense, defense, and team-wide bonuses!

It was practically the perfect class.

But now, for the first time, Qin Zhixue began to doubt herself...

Could she really work alongside Chen Ming?

Or rather, could she truly be the other "main force" on the Morning Light Squad, as she'd imagined?

Just then, something else occurred to Qin Zhixue.

Her "team bonus"—

[All Attributes +20%!]

At least that had to be of some help to Chen Ming.

But the next second, Qin Zhixue realized what she was thinking.

She was an SSS-grade class.

How had she somehow ended up...

thinking of herself as a support?