Chapter 602: Black Locust Thunderwood

As Princess Celeste continued her enthusiastic explanation, Marcus gradually got a better grasp of how chain attacks worked. There were two main ways to obtain a chain attack skill.

The first was through self-realization. A player had to master their class and its related skills, then combine and refine their techniques until they eventually found a way to link them together. Princess Phoenix’s Phoenix’s Fury Chain Combo was exactly that kind of self-realized skill.

The problem was that self-realization was brutally difficult. Skill mastery alone wasn’t enough. A player also needed the right opportunity, enough experience, and a fair amount of luck. In most cases, reaching Level 80 was the minimum before someone had a realistic chance of developing a chain attack on their own.

And Princess Phoenix was already an extreme example, a Phoenix Knight with exceptional talent and overwhelming combat ability, yet she had only managed to create one self-realized chain attack so far: Phoenix’s Fury Chain Combo.

The second method was through Chain Attack Skill Scrolls, which was also the method most players relied on.

The ancient wars had left behind countless Chain Attack Skill Scrolls. As long as a player’s class was compatible with the skill, they could use one to learn it. The problem was that most of those scrolls had limited uses.

After being activated several times, the scroll would disappear, and finding a permanent Chain Attack Skill Scroll was extremely difficult.

Even Princess Phoenix had yet to find a permanent scroll compatible with the Phoenix Knight class. Naturally, self-realized chain attacks were usually the strongest, unless someone happened to find a class-exclusive scroll or, better yet, a divine-grade one.

By this point, Princess Celeste was smiling proudly. "Stone, once we return to the palace, I’ll see if I can find a Chain Attack Skill Scroll suitable for your class. If I find one, you can experience the power of chain attacks for yourself."

"Really? That would be amazing!" Marcus immediately broke into a grin. "Thank you, Princess!"

A beautiful princess was offering him a powerful Chain Attack Skill Scroll. There was no reason for him to refuse, and he couldn’t help feeling that Celeste was becoming more likable by the minute. She had a way of making even a generous offer sound as though helping him was the most natural thing in the world.

With Princess Phoenix clearing the way, the group passed through several territories occupied by high-level monsters. They still found no trace of the Heavenly Thunder Leopard. After five hours of steady travel, however, they finally reached their destination: Red Thunder Valley, the location marked on the map left behind by Silas the Wanderer.

Red Thunder Valley was a small canyon enclosed by towering cliffs. The entrance behind them was well hidden, making the valley difficult to find unless someone already knew where to look. Clusters of short, reddish trees grew along the cliffs, their branches covered with faint blue sparks of electricity.

These were the Red Thunder Date trees Marcus had heard about earlier, and they were also the reason the valley had been given its name.

Deeper inside the canyon stood a huge tree. Its trunk was so thick that even four people joining hands would have struggled to encircle it.

There were no leaves on the trunk itself, but thick branches spread outward above them, covered in dark foliage threaded with blue flashes of electricity. The wood was so dark and dense that it almost looked like black iron.

Marcus immediately recognized it as the Black Locust Thunderwood Silas had mentioned, and he activated Insight without hesitation.

—

Black Locust Thunderwood: A thousand-year-old Mythic-grade tree. Originally an ordinary locust tree, it was struck by lightning repeatedly in Ten-Thunder Valley and gradually transformed.

Five thousand years ago, a Thunder Orb that formed in the sky fell here. Its impact not only gave birth to the Mythic Beast Heavenly Thunder Leopard, but also transformed this locust tree into Black Locust Thunderwood.

After five thousand years of growth, it has become a Mythic-grade tree. With Advanced Logging, it is possible to harvest the Mythic-grade material Thousand-Year Black Thunderwood from its trunk. The material can be carved into lightning-element staves or crafted into bows and arrows.

—

’Mythic-grade material. Thousand-Year Black Thunderwood.’ Marcus stared at the tree, then felt like crying. ’Of all the auxiliary skills I could have forgotten to learn, why did it have to be Logging?’

Back in Newbie Village, players could choose six basic auxiliary skills from Mining, Forging, Herb Gathering, Potion Making, Gathering, and Taming. However, the system contained many other auxiliary skills as well, including Angling, Logging, Tailoring, Cooking, and more. To learn those, players had to reach Level 10, find the appropriate NPC, and complete a long quest chain.

The official website never explained how those skills could be unlocked. Players had to discover the requirements themselves and then share their findings with everyone else.

Logging, for example, had first been discovered when a player found a piece of Five-Light Wood in the forest south of Dragon’s Peak Citadel. That discovery triggered a quest from an old lumberjack in the Elven Kingdom’s Forest City. After completing the entire quest chain, the player finally learned Logging.

By the time the method was made public, Marcus was already Level 30. Other players had started learning the skill around that time, but Marcus had been so focused on leveling and completing quests that he had completely forgotten to go and learn it himself.

’Ugh...’ This time, he really did want to cry.

Trying to stay at the top came with a price. When you spent all your time racing ahead, it was easy to overlook something that seemed unimportant at the time.

’No matter how troublesome it is, I’m learning every auxiliary skill I can as soon as I get back.’ Marcus made a firm mental note of it. This was a mistake he wasn’t going to repeat. If there was something useful he didn’t know about, he needed to find out sooner rather than later.

There were even rumors among players that more auxiliary skills, including hidden ones, had yet to be discovered.

Marcus looked at the Black Locust Thunderwood again. It required Advanced Logging to harvest the Thousand-Year Black Thunderwood, so even if he had learned Logging earlier, he wouldn’t necessarily have been able to make use of the tree yet.

Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about that now, and he could only watch as Princess Phoenix took a Logging Axe from her bag and approached the tree.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

After several strikes, she managed to cut out two pieces of Thousand-Year Black Thunderwood. Apparently, enough time had passed since Silas’s previous harvest for two new pieces to grow back.

Princess Phoenix took both pieces, then turned toward Marcus. "Stonehaven, without your guidance, we never would have found this valley, much less this Black Locust Thunderwood. So you should have one of these." She handed one of the pieces to him.

Marcus hadn’t expected that. Princess Phoenix was proud and straightforward, and she could easily have kept both pieces for herself. Instead, she had given him one without making a big deal out of it, using a perfectly reasonable explanation to justify the gesture.

"Thanks!" Marcus accepted the Thousand-Year Black Thunderwood with a grin. A gift from a beautiful woman was something any sensible man would accept, especially when the gift itself was a Mythic-grade material.

His first thought was to turn it into lightning-element arrows. If he could actually craft Mythic-grade arrows from this material, the result would be incredible.

After collecting several ripe Red Thunder Dates, the group moved behind a massive boulder in the valley, following the instructions in Silas’s notes. They sat there eating the sweet dates and talking quietly while they waited for the Heavenly Thunder Leopard to return to its usual resting place.