Chapter 422: Player of the Fourth Scourge (2)

Su Chen looked at the interface before him.

It was a vast miniature of the world. He stood suspended in midair as a numerical popup appeared before his eyes.

[Register as a Player?]

[Upon successful registration, a talent will be drawn at random. Once drawn, it cannot be reselected.]

Su Chen clicked to draw.

The interface flickered.

[Congratulations, Player. You have obtained the King-rank talent: Extreme Combat.]

[Extreme Combat (King): Can be activated at will. Burns energy to erupt with tremendous power. After use, the body gradually falls into a weakened state.]

Su Chen estimated that a King-rank talent was about what this life's draw would yield. Obtaining King-rank was already decent.

Just as he was about to confirm, the King-rank talent displayed before him suddenly changed.

[Diligent Study (Venerable): All experience gained +10%.]

Su Chen stared. There was actually such a windfall?

The talent had jumped two ranks at once, from King to Venerable.

This one was far more practical than Extreme Combat.

"I didn't expect someone to set their sights on me so quickly."

Su Chen naturally did not believe the Fourth Scourge had suddenly shown mercy and altered his talent.

This world contained all sorts of item cards. He figured some lucky soul must have been reborn. Rebirth was nothing rare to him. Perhaps some great power had calculated the risks and feared entanglement in karma, or perhaps a fortunate person had been swept up in a battle that shattered space-time, survived the aftershocks, and fallen into the river of time, returning to the past.

Clearly, the brief future that lucky person had experienced matched the present. In that future, Su Chen would rise rapidly to become a top-tier powerhouse, leading the lucky person to believe he possessed some unprecedented talent and to use an item card to swap their talents. Unexpectedly, the lucky person's own talent proved stronger than the one Su Chen had originally drawn.

Trying to steal a chicken only to lose the rice.

The sheer irony nearly made Su Chen laugh.

His rise in this life would not depend on any Player talent. It would rely on himself alone.

...

Xu Le's heart was full of anxiety.

The talent before his eyes shifted rapidly.

[Congratulations, Player. You have obtained the Venerable-rank talent: Diligent Study.]

"Just the same as last life after all."

Xu Le felt a touch of disappointment. A Venerable-rank talent was already impressive. Darao City might not produce one in a thousand years. Yet for someone who had seen the wider world it was far from enough.

Saint-rank, Emperor-rank, Super Emperor-rank...

The owners of those talents were each more monstrous than the last, so monstrous that Xu Le could only gaze up from the dust. Diligent Study was merely the most mediocre of Venerable-rank talents, inferior even to most Emperor-rank ones. Facing those monstrous talent holders, he could only remain humble and look up from the dirt.

Yet even those talent holders had to look up to one person.

Xiao Chen!

A legend that could never be replicated, a legend that forced the holders of Saint-rank, Emperor-rank, and Super Emperor-rank talents to keep their heads down.

Suddenly, the talent before Xu Le vanished and was replaced by another.

Excitement, anxiety, unease.

Xu Le stood frozen in place.

This was no Emperor-rank, Super Emperor-rank, or Super-Super Emperor-rank talent.

[Extreme Combat (King): Can be activated at will. Burns energy to erupt with tremendous power. After use the body gradually falls into a weakened state.]

Xu Le rubbed his eyes.

He rubbed them again.

Then rubbed them once more.

At that moment, the scene before him became a small town.

"Fuck! Goddammit!"

Heart-rending screams rose from within the small town, enough to move listeners to sorrow and witnesses to tears.

Xu Le spat out a mouthful of blood and fainted on the spot.

Even the most mediocre Venerable-rank talent was still Venerable-rank.

Dropping from Venerable to King... how could he possibly accept that?

Su Chen knew nothing of any of this.

He had already left the small town and begun the "game."

Playing the game naturally meant killing monsters, leveling up, and farming bosses, just like an online game.

For many novices, they were still locked in cunning battles against a rooster or a rabbit.

Su Chen went straight for the first boss.

The Shadow Wolf King.

The Shadow Wolf King regarded the tiny human who seemed oblivious to death.

"Perhaps an extra meal is in order," it thought.

Su Chen remained perfectly calm.

He held a branch he had casually picked up by the roadside across his chest.

"This human in front of me seems a bit simple. Eating him might lower This King's intelligence."

Did the fellow truly think a mere twig could stop it?

Utterly laughable.

At that moment, a prompt appeared on the panel before Su Chen.

[Congratulations, Player Xiao Chen. You have comprehended the ???-rank skill: Absolute Supremacy of the Sword Dao.]

[Congratulations, Player Xiao Chen. You have slain the novice boss Shadow Wolf King.]

[Congratulations, Player. You have gained a large amount of experience. Cultivation has broken through to Rank Two, Level Three.]

A boss nearly at Rank Three had been instantly slain by Su Chen.

"Why bother with small fry when farming bosses levels you up so much faster?"

With that casual strike, the branch in Su Chen's hand had already turned to ash.

Yet its purpose had been fulfilled. A great sword wreathed in black aura burst forth before him.

Su Chen claimed the great sword and continued on his way.

With the novice village boss dealt with, he could now head elsewhere to farm other bosses and level up.

...

[Player Xiao Chen of Village No. ... has successfully slain the novice village boss Shadow Wolf King. All players of Village No. ... may now leave the novice village and proceed to the cities.]

The system's merciless announcement rang through the minds of players still locked in clever struggles against mountain chickens, wild rabbits, and the big yellow dog at the village gate.

"What? We haven't even left the village, and you're telling me someone already took down the boss?"

"Admin! Admin! I want to report this guy for cheating. He's not even pretending anymore!"

"Cheating? This isn't some ordinary game. There's not even a pay-to-win interface. Where would he cheat from?"

"One-star review. Absolute must. Terrible experience. Can I quit this game?"

"..."

The moment the announcement of Su Chen's kill of the novice village boss echoed out, the novice players exploded in uproar. They had never heard of anyone so outrageous, instantly killing the boss the moment they arrived in the novice village.

Many began to suspect cheating. Unfortunately, this was no ordinary game. Even the greatest Federation had no clear understanding of it. How could anyone possibly cheat?

When Xu Le awoke and heard the news that the novice boss had been cleared, he felt a wave of disorientation. Anyone unaware might have thought he had slept for several months.

Listening to the noisy discussions around him, Xu Le gave a bitter smile.

Cheating... there truly was such a thing.

He himself was a cheater, having brought treasures from the future to this place, enough to dominate in every direction and seize a starting point far ahead of countless others.

Yet now it seemed he had run into an even greater cheater.

"How could this be? How could Xiao Chen's talent be nothing more than an ordinary King-rank talent?"

Xu Le still refused to believe it.

"Xiao Chen must have used some method, or obtained some item. He can't have only one talent!"

He could not imagine that anyone in this world could comprehend a Super Emperor-rank skill in a single instant.

He stubbornly insisted that Xiao Chen must have relied on some unparalleled powerful talent or treasure to kill the novice boss so quickly.