"The tenth Talent Trait—'Life Plunder.' Effect: You can plunder the life essence of enemies you kill, gaining one percent of their remaining lifespan. No upper limit."
!!!
What am I looking at?
Lin Yuan stared blankly, scarcely able to believe it.
Life essence?
Plundering lifespan?
Does it mean what I think it means?
Lin Yuan immediately merged with the trait.
At once, a stream of information flooded his mind, and he understood everything as naturally as if he had always known it.
"Life Plunder..."
"An unlimited way to gain lifespan..."
"Oh, I can't take it anymore..."
The more he read, the less he could contain his smile. By the end, it had taken on a slightly crazed edge. He really couldn't hold it in.
Because this Talent Trait was every bit as heaven-defying as he had imagined!
Monsters he killed would not only drop experience points. Their remaining lifespan would be plundered and become Lin Yuan's own natural lifespan.
Granted, it would be purified and refined, leaving him with only one percent, but...
There was no upper limit!
Real lifespan, with absolutely no side effects!
"No upper limit... Does that mean if I plunder enough lifespan, I can live forever?"
Immortality!
The very thought made Lin Yuan's breathing quicken.
No matter the world, whether it was one of immortal cultivation or high-level martial arts, how many practitioners held immortality as their ultimate goal?
From ancient times to the present, which kings, nobles, generals, or ministers had not worried about their lifespan? Who had not yearned to live forever and stand eternal over mountains and rivers?
But yearning was all they could do.
How could immortality be so easily won?
Lin Yuan had never hoped for it before.
Or rather, he had never dared to.
Yet now, with a Gold Talent Trait called "Life Plunder," the Game Panel had told him in no uncertain terms:
Kid, don't underestimate your system daddy!
It's only immortality. How hard could it be?
Work hard, level up, and make me happy. There are even more heaven-defying Talent Traits waiting for you.
If you're a man, get your ass to level one hundred...
Ahem.
After that brief bout of split-personality theatrics, Lin Yuan quickly calmed down.
Level one hundred could wait.
Right now, he wanted to test the power of this new trait...
After a moment's thought, Lin Yuan took up his sword and left the Gray Rabbit Plains for another, higher-level training ground.
The Boundless Grassland!
The reason was simple: he had grown too strong.
The Gray Rabbit Plains... could no longer meet his leveling needs.
Over seven days, with the combined boost of "Martial Prodigy" and "Transcendent Comprehension," his Body Tempering progress had naturally broken through its bottleneck and entered the final step—the Marrow Cleansing Stage!
"Four thousand pounds of strength..."
"No, I should be close to five thousand pounds now!"
Lin Yuan clenched his fist. His Body Tempering strength at the Marrow Cleansing Stage had given him even finer control over his body, allowing him to detect every subtle change within it.
He could gauge changes in his strength more accurately, too.
"Five thousand pounds..."
Normally, one had a thousand pounds of strength in the Blood Tempering Stage, two thousand at Blood-Tempering Perfection, and four thousand upon breaking through to Marrow Cleansing.
Yet he had five thousand.
Lin Yuan knew exactly why.
"My sixth Talent Trait, Devouring Vitality..."
Devouring Vitality let him improve his overall condition by eating meat and other food. It could even raise his basic attributes!
He had killed over a thousand rabbits in the past seven days. Though he had not gathered materials from them, he had eaten plenty of rabbit meat.
The flesh of mutated Fierce Beasts was already excellent nourishment. Combined with Devouring Vitality's powerful digestive effect, it let him eat dozens, even a hundred pounds of meat at every meal.
Throughout that time, his strength and physical condition had improved bit by bit. Each gain was small, but little drops made a mighty ocean, and over time they added up to a substantial increase.
"Five thousand pounds of strength..."
"Microcosmic Swordsmanship..."
"Ten Talent Traits..."
Lin Yuan was riding high. The sharp edge of his confidence was almost impossible to conceal.
Nothing in this Wilderness Zone could make him retreat in fear anymore!
Even the mighty Tyrant Ferocious Tiger, known as the king of Fierce Beasts, was something he could now face calmly—or even hunt down by force!
And besides...
Lin Yuan glanced at the Game Panel—
Player: Lin Yuan Level: 10 Experience: 66/1024 Talent Traits: First Talent Trait—"Swordsmanship Mastery" Second Talent Trait...
Reaching level 10 was a watershed.
From level 10 onward, each level required over a thousand experience points.
The lowly Ferocious Gray Rabbit, the most basic herbivorous Fierce Beast, gave only one experience point. It could no longer keep up with his leveling pace.
He needed stronger monsters worth more experience!
"The Boundless Grassland should be a good choice."
If the Gray Rabbit Plains were the safest beginner area in Wilderness Area No. 09527,
then the Boundless Grassland was its most dangerous paradise for Fierce Beasts.
Countless herbivorous Fierce Beasts roamed there in herds: Yellow-Flower Dire Deer, Black-and-White Zebras, Great-Horned Cattle Herds...
Naturally, they drew great numbers of powerful predators that gathered to hunt them.
Creatures like the Red-Tailed Fox barely counted.
Bloodthirsty Dire Wolves, Shadow Panthers, and even the Tyrant Ferocious Tiger, king of the fiercest predators, appeared there regularly.
It was a feast for top-tier Hunters!
And that was a major reason Lin Yuan had chosen the grassland as his next leveling ground.
"Top-tier predators... They should give more experience points, right?"
That day, the Rabbit Slayer finally left the Gray Rabbit Plains, and the trembling rabbits escaped disaster for the time being.
Meanwhile, the countless Fierce Beasts of the Boundless Grassland welcomed the nemesis of their lives...
Swish!
A streak of sword light lit up the sky.
Pfft...
A line of blood sprayed out. The massive black figure let out a wail and crashed heavily to the ground.
Sunlight spilled across it, revealing its form.
It was a Shadow Panther nearly three meters long!
"Shadow Panther. A predatory Fierce Beast with black fur, an agile body, and exceptional speed. A fully grown specimen at its peak has four thousand pounds of strength and excels at ambushes in the dark..."
Lin Yuan emerged from the shadows, sword in hand. He stood straight, his eyes sharp as lightning, and gave the thoroughly dead Shadow Panther an indifferent glance.
Ordinary Hunters would probably need a whole group before they dared hunt such a powerful predator.
Even a veteran Hunter at the Marrow Cleansing Stage would struggle to gain the upper hand against a Shadow Panther whose strength was no less than theirs. The effort would hardly be worth it.
But Lin Yuan was different.
He had only five thousand pounds of strength, not much more than the Shadow Panther. By rights, he should not have been able to crush and kill it in a single strike.
But his swordsmanship had already reached the Micro-Insight Realm!
Such fine mastery brought an enormous improvement.
It made him more agile and more keenly aware of subtle movements, but it also gave him a real boost in strength. His swordsmanship let him exert two hundred percent of his power—twice his normal strength!
That meant he could bring far more than five thousand pounds of strength to bear.
He could wield a true ten thousand pounds of force!
That was the true worth of the Micro-Insight Realm!
Why else was such fine mastery said to be a realm only true Starry-Sky Warriors could enter?
Ordinarily, Body Tempering Realm apprentices found it extremely difficult to attain that mastery and exert twice their strength.
Without reaching a high enough level, no amount of effort could break through that barrier.
But Lin Yuan was different. He had "Swordsmanship Mastery"!
Reaching the Micro-Insight Realm with a sword... was merely the most basic ability he had been born with.
"Ten thousand pounds of force in a single sword strike!"
"And the Blue Ice Battle Sword is a technological creation forged by the Human Federation. Its edge is incredibly sharp..."
That was why Lin Yuan dared face any Fierce Beast in the Wilderness Zone!
Even the strongest Tyrant Ferocious Tiger topped out at ten thousand pounds of strength. If Lin Yuan went all out, he had nothing to fear.
"You killed a Shadow Panther. Experience +2..."
"Passive Talent Trait 'Life Plunder' activated..."
"Your natural lifespan has increased by..."
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