Chapter 393 This is a Brand New Version

Looking at the system notification, Duan Fei felt a surge of emotion.

He had used [Rough Healing Technique] nearly a thousand times during this last dungeon instance.

Each time the loop reset, his stamina would be restored. And since he needed to frequently spread his love to others, he had finally broken through the bottleneck of his [Rough Healing Technique], advancing it to the next stage.

Gleefully, he opened his Attributes interface and began to read the new Skill Description.

“[Rough Healing Technique] (Master Level)

Through constant practice, you have gained extraordinary insight, allowing you to advance this Skill to the Master Level.

A Master-level Skill. It provides the target with an amount of healing related to your [Medical Skill] Level and dispels one Curse. If a Curse is too strong to be removed, it will at least be weakened.

Furthermore, if you wish, you can apply a temporary negative buff to the target. This allows them to choose one of their Attributes and gain the effect of “Transcendence (Lesser)” for a minimum of five minutes. If the boost from Transcendence (Lesser) is less than the original Attribute’s value, the original Attribute’s value will be used for calculations.

Note: It may be rough, but it gets the job done.”

After reading the Description, Duan Fei noted that not only had the healing amount increased and gained the ability to dispel Curses, but it could also grant the Transcendence effect.

The “Transcendence” term was extremely important.

After all, this term could transform a player’s originally linear Attribute growth into exponential growth.

Take his [Spiritual Armor] for example. After he spoke, his Spiritual Power Attribute would increase to 37, but because of Transcendence, the overall effect would jump to 131 points—thirteen times that of an ordinary person.

And because [Spiritual Armor] also boosted his other Attributes by one-third of his Spiritual Power, he could instantly become four times stronger than a normal person overall.

However, normal Transcendence provided a 10% boost per Attribute point, whereas Transcendence (Lesser) only provided 5%. By that logic, unless the target’s Attribute was above 37 points, the effect of Transcendence (Lesser) would be barely noticeable.

Understanding the effects of this Skill, Duan Fei was quite satisfied.

After logging off, he was just about to show off his new acquisition to Jinghong when he remembered she had plans today and wouldn’t be coming home tonight.

Even though she wasn’t coming back, she had still prepared dinner for him—and even his breakfast and lunch for the next day.

She had placed each exquisite dish in an insulated container and put them in the fridge, with a thoughtful note on each box detailing its contents and when to eat it.

Duan Fei took out his dinner for the evening, heated it up, and started to eat. But something tasted off.

It just wasn’t the same.

The apartment also felt cold and empty. The previous warmth and life seemed to have vanished, leaving only a spacious, lonely silence.

At that moment, Duan Fei suddenly missed Jinghong terribly. He wished she were sitting across from him, listening to him brag about the new Master-level Skill he had just acquired.

“Sigh… Jinghong, when are you coming home?”

Jinghong finally returned the next afternoon, carrying a stack of documents.

She had gone back to the old family estate to deal with a whole slew of uncles, aunts, and cousins, then stopped by her university to pick up materials to study for her final exams.

At the door, she slipped off her translucent sandals. Her rounded toes were finally liberated, wiggling apart to embrace their freedom.

She was wearing a white dress today, and her hair had been trimmed slightly, making her look quite vibrant.

Brushing a stray lock of hair from her forehead, she composed herself, slipped on her house slippers, and walked inside. “Duan Fei, I’m home… What are you doing?”

“Just bored,” said Duan Fei from the floor, where he was doing a reverse plank.

“Not playing the game?”

“I was waiting for you.”

Jinghong felt as if a sharp arrow had pierced her heart. ‘Let’s get married!’ The words nearly escaped her lips.

But the Ye Family’s ancestral teachings—and her own self-respect—made her pull back from the brink. Still, a slight blush crept onto her cheeks, making her look breathtakingly beautiful.

Turning her head away, she partially covered her face and asked shyly, “Waiting for me to do what?”

“To play the game together. But actually, it’s mainly because the game updated again. It’s version 0.082 now. Say, why isn’t it 0.081?”

Jinghong narrowed her eyes at Duan Fei, then sighed. “You, honestly… Never mind. Give me a minute, and we’ll log in together.”

“Okay.”

“You can go play for a bit in the meantime.”

“It’s fine. I’ll just watch you.”

Looking at Duan Fei, Jinghong smiled.

She really wanted to ask if he had missed her, but then she reconsidered. ‘This is Duan Fei I’m talking about. He probably didn’t, right?’

After she quickly organized her documents, the two managed to log in to the game just before the window for long dungeons opened. They started by reading the patch notes to see what had been updated.

Since it wasn’t a major update, the server downtime wasn’t long—only ten hours.

According to the official announcement, the previous “Corruption Invasion” event had concluded, and the administrators had discovered a new zone: Stratum 4, the Prison.

Compared to Stratum 2, the City, the Prison was gloomier, more claustrophobic, and far more chaotic.

Dungeons within the Prison ranged from Tier 4 to 5 in difficulty. The enemies inside were more dangerous, and there was a greater probability of finding corrupted items.

After finishing the notes, Duan Fei looked at the message and asked in confusion, “I remember there was an open beta before, right? Was there no Prison then?”

“I don’t think so,” Jinghong said from beside him. “Every time the open beta resets, the internal strata of *Abyss* change. The previous Stratum 4 was the Grand Apartments, but now it’s the Prison.”

“Hmm… Sounds like it’s worth a visit. Ah, there’s more. Guilds were updated, and bounty quests are out now.”

The updated guild system introduced a new stat: Guild Honor.

Originally, the only guild function was access to a permanent instance, but now guilds could use Guild Honor to increase their guild Level and unlock more features.

Bounty quests were a supporting feature for guilds. It seemed the developers of *Abyss* were intentionally steering players toward guilds and encouraging cooperative dungeon runs.

Each bounty quest corresponded to a specific dungeon, and these dungeons had a cap on the number of participants, which also limited how many times the quest could be accepted.

Most bounty quests involved finding someone, searching for a specific item, or clearing a particular dungeon. Upon completion, in addition to the standard rewards, players would also earn Guild Honor—a double reward, in a sense.

“Looks like the Prison must be really difficult,” Duan Fei commented. “Otherwise, the devs wouldn’t be pushing players to explore in groups.”

“Indeed. Interested in taking a look together?”

“Let’s go.”

The method for reaching the Prison was also full of intricate details.

They had to wander through the City to find a black-and-white office building, then head down to the basement level and find a black-and-white stairwell.

The end of that stairwell would lead to the Prison, where players could begin new explorations and find new challenges.

After sorting through a pile of bounty quests, Duan Fei accepted one. Then, he and Jinghong set out to find the way to the Prison.