[ Ding! You obtained a material: Mutated Blood Lion bones. Stored in your inventory. ] [ Ding! You obtained a material: Mutated Blood Lion eyes. Stored in your inventory. ] [ Ding! You obtained a material: Mutated Blood Lion beast whip. Stored in your inventory. ] [ Ding! You obtained a rare crystal (Psychic Class) ×1. Stored in your inventory. ] [ Ding! You obtained a top-grade common piece of equipment: Blood Lion Ring ×1. Stored in your inventory. ]
Listening to the notifications that kept ringing out,
Jiang Yuan's eyes lit up.
What a haul!
No wonder it was a mutated version of a rare monster. It dropped so much stuff!
He immediately checked his new loot.
[Rare Crystal (Psychic Class)]: A crystal containing strange psychic power. It can be used to make tools, accessories, weapons, and more. It can also be absorbed through certain methods to harness its pure psychic power and strengthen one's own psychic domain.
[Blood Lion Ring (Top-Grade Common)]: When equipped, Strength +10, Stamina +10, Psychic Resistance +10.
[Required Level]: LV10.
"Not bad, not bad."
Jiang Yuan was quite satisfied. After putting the Bone Spear back in his inventory, he turned to Liu Shi. "It's all over now. You should still be able to walk, right?"
"..."
Liu Shi sat on the ground, staring at him blankly.
Jiang Yuan: "?"
Had her mind been destroyed, leaving her an idiot?
He waved a hand at her again. "Hey."
Only then did Liu Shi snap out of her stunned daze. Stammering, she said, "I-I'm fine. Th-thank you for saving me..."
"Good. I'm leaving now. The exit is that way. Be careful." As he spoke, Jiang Yuan pointed in the right direction and prepared to leave.
Seeing him about to go, Liu Shi panicked and called out, "P-please wait!"
Jiang Yuan turned and looked at her questioningly.
"All my teammates are dead. There's no way I can get out by myself. Could you—no, could you please take me with you?"
Jiang Yuan was about to refuse. It was much more fun killing monsters alone. Why bring along a burden?
But the woman in front of him hurriedly added,
"I-I can pay you one million. No, two million as a reward!"
"Deal!"
Jiang Yuan took Liu Shi all the way back from the depths of the Abyss to the entrance. Along the way, they encountered first-tier beasts of all kinds, but none could withstand even a single punch from him.
Every one of them was killed instantly.
This left Liu Shi even more shaken. She was convinced that the excessively young boy beside her had to be a Tier-Two, or even Tier-Three, Class-Transferred Warrior!
At the same time, she was extremely puzzled.
With the strength he had, he could have gone to a second-tier or even third-tier Abyss. Why had he come to this little first-tier Abyss?
[You have reached the Abyss exit. Leave?]
"Yes."
After spending half a day escorting Liu Shi to the Abyss entrance, Jiang Yuan crossed the spatial rift and came out of the Abyss as well.
Killing more than a dozen first-tier beasts had only raised his LV9-to-LV10 experience bar by less than ten percent.
Leveling up by killing monsters in a first-tier Abyss and breaking through his bottleneck to reach Tier-Two Martial Artist would take far too long. It wasn't worth it.
Besides, he had promised Xu Yihan that he would fight the Thunder Martial Arts Hall... That should be tomorrow.
As the space before his eyes shifted,
blue skies and white clouds came into view once more.
Jiang Yuan's first trip to the Abyss had come to an end.
First-Tier Abyss Entrance, Hunter Plaza.
Several soldiers on guard spotted him emerging from the Abyss from a distance and were astonished.
"That's the kid from four days ago. He's still alive! I thought he'd died ages ago."
"The girl who was with him is gone. She must've died."
"I get it. That woman with him was a female archer from the Huai River Guild. He must've gotten out by clinging to her."
"See? How could a rookie stay in the Abyss for four whole days?"
"Bah! I can't stand good-looking freeloaders like him. I'm so jealous."
The soldiers stationed here every day had a safe, stable job, but it was also incredibly boring. Whenever they had nothing to do, they paid close attention to the guilds and hunters coming and going through the Abyss entrance. They were quite the gossips and knew plenty about the various guilds.
Under the astonished gazes of the soldiers,
Liu Shi, overwhelmed with emotion and close to tears at having made it out alive, bowed deeply to Jiang Yuan. "I never thought I'd get to see the blue sky again. Thank you so much for saving me."
"I've already transferred the two million we agreed on to your account."
Jiang Yuan opened his status panel to check. Sure enough, his account balance had increased by two million.
He nodded. "Got it."
Liu Shi said nothing more. She bowed to Jiang Yuan once again, then turned to leave, eager to get home and see her parents.
Jiang Yuan also left the plaza and headed for a tavern in town.
After eating roasted beast meat for several days, he was eager to try something different and have a proper meal.
The soldiers on guard were baffled.
"Was she bowing to that kid? Wasn't she the one who brought him out?"
"What on earth happened?"
Jiang Yuan approached the guard post. There was a magic array beneath it that could detect whether any Class-Transferred Warriors passing through had been contaminated or possessed by an Abyssal Monster. It also prevented Abyssal Monsters from hiding inside people and entering human society.
The gate could only be opened by scanning a Merit Card.
Jiang Yuan swiped his card, and the gate opened.
One of the soldiers caught sight of the glowing number on his card out of the corner of his eye. He froze, then rubbed his eyes. When he realized he hadn't misread it, his eyes widened and his mouth fell open in shock.
The magic array glowed blue, and the machine spoke in an artificial voice.
[No problems detected. You may pass.]
Jiang Yuan left.
"Hey, what's wrong with you? You look like you've seen a ghost," the veteran asked.
The young guard stared blankly. "W-was that really his first time going into the Abyss?"
"Yeah. I was the one who let him in. Why?" another soldier replied.
"I just saw his merit points."
"Oh? How many?"
"I'm guessing three."
"That's too many. I'll say two. Hahaha."
The young guard swallowed. "Three hundred and fifty-seven..."
Everyone fell silent.
"How many?"
"Three hundred and fifty-seven." The young guard repeated himself, certain of what he'd seen. "I swear I didn't misread it."
The soldiers' faces took on the same stunned, bewildered, disbelieving expressions as his.
That wasn't a particularly high score. Plenty of independent hunters could earn that much by killing monsters and trading resources and equipment.
Some veteran hunters, guild leaders, or wealthy people who bought points could even reach several thousand or tens of thousands.
But the problem was...
This was his first time in the Abyss!
Going from zero to 357 meant he'd killed nearly three hundred first-tier beasts in the Abyss!
"Hiss..."
The realization made all of them suck in a sharp breath, their faces filled with shock.
"Good heavens, is he even human?"
"What kind of monster is he?!"
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