Equipment

After leaving his teacher, Huo Ling told Xia Yang that he had successfully become a disciple.

After all, Teacher Xia had been running around for him; he had to be the first to hear the good news.

Huo Ling put the spatial bracelet on his wrist. After leaving his mark on it with his mental power, he sensed the space within.

The space inside this bracelet was a full four cubic meters—quite good!

If he had bought it with energy crystals, it would have cost at least eight hundred.

Then he looked at the other gift: a bone staff.

Bone Staff (Black Iron)

Inscribed Spell: Bone Cone 3/3 uses

Spell Power: 50 degrees

Casting Time: 2 seconds

Spell Charge: 1/day

Passive Enhancement Enchantment: Increases spell damage by 15%, mana recovery by 5%

Staff Attribute: Sturdy

This Black Iron-grade staff was extremely practical as well.

Not only did it have a passive enhancement effect, it also had an actively cast spell. For Huo Ling, that meant three more spells he could unleash in battle.

Although the staff could only restore its spell effect once per day by absorbing mana on its own, Huo Ling was a mage. He could use his own mana to charge the staff.

As long as he had ample mana, Huo Ling could keep the staff's spell charges full at all times.

Huo Ling stored the staff back in the bracelet.

Both enchanted pieces of equipment were worth a great deal. The staff alone was worth at least three hundred energy crystals. He had not expected to receive such generous gifts merely for becoming a disciple.

His teacher really was a good person!

In the blink of an eye, Huo Ling had already spent over three months at Southern Heaven University. Every day was filled to the brim.

After class, he went to the Spirit Realm to hunt and cultivate. Every weekend, he could also ask Golden-rank instructors about the problems he encountered.

As his strength rose, so did his ambition.

He needed more equipment to improve himself, so he set his sights on the creatures of the Spirit Realm.

Aside from walking corpses, the part of the Spirit Realm where he was had quite a few other Spirit Realm races.

Among those he had discovered so far were goblins, giant dragons, and War Lizardfolk. Who knew how many more creatures remained undiscovered?

What was the fastest way to get rich? Without question, robbing Spirit Realm races. As the saying went, murder and arson earned golden belts.

At present, aside from being a Black Iron-rank mage himself, he had amassed eight Black Iron-rank skeletal warriors under his command.

The strongest of those skeletal warriors had already reached Black Iron Level Three. Its strength was fairly decent.

As for the target of his plundering, naturally, he would start with the easy ones before tackling the hard ones.

In the Spirit Realm, more than a dozen goblins were carrying seven or eight walking-corpse bodies, chattering away as they walked down the street.

Huo Ling followed over two hundred meters behind them, intending to trail this group of goblins back to their lair.

The goblins were the target he had chosen this time.

Goblins themselves were not particularly strong. Most of them were weaker in combat than ordinary humans. As the saying went, squeeze the soft persimmon first.

Back then, his very first potential point had come from goblins. Huo Ling was not someone who forgot old ties.

All along the way, the goblins chattered incessantly. Partway through, Huo Ling used Language Comprehension and moved closer to listen to their conversation.

But the goblins' intelligence and culture were lacking, and their conversation was nothing worth mentioning.

After walking for more than two hours, around three or four in the afternoon by his estimate, the goblins finally returned to their lair.

Keeping some distance away, Huo Ling carefully surveyed this goblin tribal nest.

They had reached the outskirts of the city. The goblin nest had probably once been a residential compound in the suburbs.

Low buildings, crumbling walls, and, after being occupied by goblins for so long, all manner of excrement piled into mountains, shit and piss flowing everywhere.

It was hard to imagine how these goblins managed to survive here.

One area in the center of the goblin nest was comparatively tidy. It appeared to be where the higher-ranking goblins lived.

After waiting for a while, Huo Ling spotted a target worthy of his attention.

Hobgoblins—this race that looked somewhat like goblins—were present here as well.

Unlike goblins, hobgoblins were muscular, sturdy, and hairy humanoids.

They were taller than goblins, generally growing to between 1.6 and 1.8 meters.

Hobgoblins were a militarized race, extremely aggressive and frequently attacking other races.

Relying on experienced individual combat skills and strict organizational discipline, they often managed to defeat the strong with the weak.

Many rulers of evil nations liked to use hobgoblins as officers in their armies. Not only did they possess formidable personal strength, they were also skilled at organizing and commanding troops.

Adult hobgoblins could reach high apprentice rank after receiving military training.

Hobgoblins often took on martial professions such as warriors, knights, rogues, and the like.

Though hobgoblins were far stronger than their goblin cousins, they never produced spellcasters.

Instead, it was the goblins, weak as chickens, who occasionally had a lucky one become a spellcaster.

In this camp, Huo Ling saw quite a few hobgoblin warriors.

These hobgoblin warriors wore leather armor and carried weapons. Even as the sun scorched the ground, they continuously trained their fighting skills.

After observing for a while, Huo Ling gained a general understanding of this tribe's strength.

There were likely between twelve hundred and fifteen hundred goblins in the entire tribe.

Goblins were not strong in combat. Most had strength similar to ordinary humans, but a few sharper ones cultivated breathing techniques like battle aura and reached apprentice-level strength.

Besides the goblins, there were also around one hundred seventy or eighty hobgoblins in the nest. Excluding the underage hobgoblins, there were at least one hundred twenty or thirty who qualified as warriors.

Among them, Huo Ling had already discovered seven Black Iron-rank hobgoblins. As for whether there were others he had yet to find, he estimated there probably were.

Still, even by the most conservative estimate, there would not be more than ten Black Iron-rank hobgoblins.

Most of the hobgoblin warriors were fighters.

However, Huo Ling discovered that a corner of the camp housed over a dozen dire wolves.

Most of these low-level Magic Beasts only possessed apprentice-level strength. They were probably the mounts of those hobgoblins.

In the beast pen, Huo Ling also saw hobgoblins bringing food to feed the dire wolves.

In other words, apart from their huge number of goblins, the tribe also possessed more than a dozen dire wolf cavalry.

This goblin tribe was fairly strong. Taking it down would be difficult, but it was not beyond possibility.

With eight Black Iron skeletal warriors and himself, a Black Iron mage, Huo Ling could easily bring down this goblin tribe as long as he launched a few ambushes.

Once the fighting was done, he could put away the skeletal warriors, duck into any room, and return to Blue Star.

Then, if he came back to harass them again a few days later, this bunch of goblins definitely would not be able to withstand it.

The question now was whether taking down this goblin tribe would yield anything.

If there was no profit, Huo Ling might as well kill walking corpses instead. The danger was far lower.