119: Chapter 119 Information Exchange, with a copy of the Taipei City student's work.

When Hu Jinsi looked at the list of three dungeons sent by the other party, he didn't pay much attention to the others, but he noticed that one of them was called "Unparalleled Hulao Pass".

He typed a reply to Zhen Jin: "How does Daibei City have an 'Unparalleled Hulao Pass' dungeon? Isn't that obviously a crossover?"

The message Zhen Jin sent back to Hu Jinsi was accompanied by a wry emoticon: ( ´ - ι _- ｀ ). "When we first saw this dungeon, we complained even more than you are now. I heard that there are already four dungeons with the same name near the real Hulao Pass, so there was no space for a new Hulao Pass dungeon to descend."

"It just so happens that a section of the terrain inside the dungeon matches our terrain here, so it descended directly on our side."

"But Brother Jinsi, trust me, don't choose this dungeon. It's too chaotic inside. As Monks, we have almost no place to use our skills in this dungeon."

With Zhen Jin saying that, Hu Jinsi became even more interested. He immediately typed to Zhen Jin: "Tell me about it. If you have time, can you explain in detail what's going on?"

After a while, Zhen Jin replied: "I'll call you at noon. It's not very convenient right now."

"Okay," Hu Jinsi typed back, then continued to close his eyes and meditate on the bus. He didn't dwell on the meaning behind that wry emoticon; he would hear it from Zhen Jin himself at noon anyway.

The jolting of the bus body gradually became rhythmic. The road surface on the national highway was much smoother than dirt roads, and the roar of the engine was dampened by half by the soundproofing layer, leaving only a low, humming echo in the carriage.

He leaned back against the seat, his True Qi rising from his Dantian, flowing through his meridians into his Sea of Qi, and then dispersing to his limbs. The fields outside the window retreated rapidly, occasionally flashing past one or two abandoned buildings that had been twisted and deformed by dungeon erosion, but he did not open his eyes to look.

By the time Hu Jinsi returned home, it was almost twelve o'clock at noon. The bus stopped at the school gate of No. 1 Middle School, and the students filed out. Hu Jinsi and the Dire Wolf parted ways with Lin Rui and Su Wan at the entrance of the residential complex. Before leaving, Su Wan waved her wand and used "Cleanse" on the Direwolf Cub.

A pale green light flashed from the tip of the wand, and a fine shimmer passed over the cub's iron-gray fur. The dirt and grass clippings that had been stuck to it were instantly stripped away, and its fur regained a dry, lustrous shine. Hu Jinsi patted the Dire Wolf on the head, said thank you, and turned to walk towards his apartment building.

...

For lunch, Hu Jinsi planned to just make do with leftover rice and some pre-made dishes. As for the Dire Wolf, he would prepare lamb chops for it.

Because it couldn't speak yet, Hu Jinsi really wasn't sure what the Dire Wolf liked to eat, but wolves loving lamb shouldn't be wrong. After all, even Grey Wolf, such a magical black-tech inventor, loved to eat lamb, so the Dire Wolf should be about the same.

The Gnolls didn't drop much else, but fresh lamb chops were definitely in sufficient supply.

He placed a piece of lamb chop into the electric griddle and closed the lid. The sizzling sound of grease soon wafted out from the kitchen. Xiaoquan Yilang crouched at the kitchen door, its nose pressed against the door crack, its nostrils flaring violently, its tail hanging down, but the tip of its tail twitching slightly.

Just past twelve noon, Hu Jinsi received a call from Zhen Jin. He wiped his hands, placed the terminal on the table, and pressed the answer button. After cutting out the simple pleasantries at the beginning, the content of their conversation quickly got to the point.

Zhen Jin said to Hu Jinsi: "Brother Jinsi, I didn't explain clearly when typing earlier. The 'Unparalleled Hulao Pass' dungeon is a legion-scale battle dungeon for ten thousand people. After you enter, you have to select a faction to bind yourself to, then represent that faction to kill enemies from other factions and capture enemy strongholds to earn points, and finally use the points to redeem rewards."

Zhen Jin paused, his tone becoming more serious: "But that's not the main point. The point is that there are over a dozen factions inside, and they are all hostile to each other with no alliances. Once you go in, it's all kinds of battles: skirmishes on the plains, escort battles, battles to intercept enemy supply lines, siege battles, and defense battles."

"In short, this is a large-scale, massive dungeon. For classes like ours, whether in attack or healing, we won't have any advantage inside. Without group attack or group healing skills, there's not much point in going in."

He caught his breath and continued: "However, to be fair, I remember there is a Soldier class in your team; he should be quite suitable for this dungeon. Anyway, the students in our school who are of the Soldier class brush this dungeon with great excitement every week. According to them, on such large-scale battlefields, Soldiers can get a considerable amount of class experience bonuses, so it is very suitable for them."

"The reason I say it's not suitable for us is not just because of that. It's that all the enemies inside, even the basic foot Soldiers, are in full armor, and the elite enemies are in high-quality full plate armor. There are many other types of enemies too; our classmates even saw wandering sorcerers who could summon wind and rain and release lightning appearing on the dungeon battlefield. In short, for our class, going in means we can't deal damage and we can't heal."

It seemed that Zhen Jin must have suffered a great deal in this dungeon, otherwise he wouldn't have started off with such a long complaint to Hu Jinsi.

Hu Jinsi could imagine the scene: Zhen Jin, a Monk leaning towards healing, standing on a battlefield of thousands of troops, with armored foot Soldiers in front and teammates waiting for group healing behind, while his skill bar only contained single-target healing spells. That sense of helplessness was probably as suffocating as not being able to find an exit in a maze.

Hu Jinsi asked: "What about the other two dungeons? The reason I asked you is mainly that May Day is coming up, and I plan to take these few days off for May Day to visit Daibei City again, check out what special dungeons you have, and take a tour."

The pace of Zhen Jin's speech on the other end slowed down, and he said: "As for the remaining dungeons, 'Dragonman Tower' is a standard, run-of-the-mill dungeon with a bunch of mobs, progressing layer by layer, with a total of three final bosses. It has no special features; it's just a standard, conventional dungeon style. Once the three bosses are dealt with, you can exit the dungeon. There's nothing much to say about this one. But, there is another dungeon called 'Dark Martial Arts Tournament' that has some things to talk about."

Hu Jinsi asked: "What kind of things? Is it difficult or strange?"

Zhen Jin replied: "Neither. This dungeon is in the format of a tournament. You don't need to look for mobs or find a place to stay when you go in. At the beginning, you just fight in the preliminary rounds on the ring, and once you reach a certain level, you can advance from the preliminaries to the top 64."

"If you are fast, you can finish the preliminaries on the first day; if you are slow, you might finish on the second day. After entering the top 64, the subsequent matches are mandatory, with at least one knockout match every half day, but the enemies inside are completely random."

"And looking at it now, for most opponents, if you are outmatched, you can choose to surrender. Once you surrender, you will be forcibly teleported out of the dungeon, your progress and points will be cleared, and you will not be allowed to enter this dungeon again for half a month."

"But there are also existences that do not allow surrender, though everyone hasn't figured out the pattern yet. But most importantly, this dungeon allows you to exit between matches, whether it's during the breaks in the preliminaries or between the top 64 to top 32 matches. It's just that after exiting, you can't enter that day, and when you enter the next day, you will be at your last progress."

Hu Jinsi felt that this dungeon sounded quite interesting, so he asked directly: "What about the rewards? Since this kind of tournament dungeon doesn't have any mobs, where do the rewards come from?"

Zhen Jin explained: "The rewards are divided into two parts. One part is the points you earn in the matches, which can be exchanged at the tournament for general experience or corresponding items, skills, and props, but they are all things with a very strange style. Besides that, after entering the knockout rounds, the enemies you face will also have normal drops."

"So the rewards are still decent. Of course, the best I've ever done in this tournament was reaching the top 16. That is, after breaking through the preliminaries, I only won two rounds before I didn't continue, because some of the enemies I faced were simply unreasonable."

Hu Jinsi became even more interested in this dungeon at this point and asked: "How were they unreasonable?"

Zhen Jin explained on the other end: "In one of the knockout matches I encountered, one of the enemies only had a strength level of at most 18 points at the start, but as the battle progressed, its muscles began to swell, and by the end, it definitely exceeded 20 points."

"And it wasn't just the strength exceeding 20 points; he expanded his muscles during the fight, turning his muscles into armor. You have to know that although I am a Monk leaning towards healing, we are still Monks after all. The damage I dealt to him was -1, -1; it was too damaging to my self-esteem."

Hu Jinsi said: "For such a physically strong enemy, didn't you have a spellcaster in your team? Find a spellcaster to deal with it, apply a debuff!"

Zhen Jin said: "Although the magic-wielding class in our team dealt damage to it, this muscle-head not only had amazing strength but also had self-healing skills. The mage hit it for thirty seconds, but the mage was the first one to be found by that guy and punched out of the dungeon. Then the rest of us just watched helplessly as its wounds healed. If I hadn't seized the opportunity to choose surrender, I'm afraid I would have been like the mage, having to pay out of my own pocket to buy a forced teleportation talisman."

Hu Jinsi talked with Zhen Jin for half an hour just like that. After hearing Zhen Jin's description, he also exchanged some information with Zhen Jin, telling him: "We have another dungeon here where we can get Monk balance experience, similar to the last 'Raccoon City'."

"If you have time, you can consider coming over to grind it, but the entry level is quite high; you need to be at least level 14 to enter. As for other information, I will send you the text version of the data and information later. You can take a look yourself, and if you have time, you can choose to come over here to grind it."

After ending the call, Hu Jinsi sent the data they had collected in Lakeside Town over the past few days to Zhen Jin.

Once everything was finished, he looked at the Dire Wolf curled up on the sofa watching TV, and Hu Jinsi decided it was time to take care of the business he had been putting off.

… But before getting down to business, he still had to follow his usual routine: bathe, change clothes, and then pray to the random gods of his past life.

After bathing, Hu Jinsi changed into clean clothes and sat cross-legged on a meditation cushion in the living room.

He didn't start praying immediately, but instead re-checked his experience pool.

The experience in his experience pool was indeed enough to level up.

He didn't hesitate and chose to level up.

A line of pale gold text lit up in his field of vision.

[Level Up: 15 → 16]

[Chi: 7 → 8]

Hu Jinsi felt the changes within his body; his Health points hadn't changed.

Leveling up to sixteen itself only provided an increase in saving throw modifiers; the real gain was the increase in Chi.

Going from seven to eight meant he could cast one more Chi-consuming skill during battle, slightly improving his endurance.

Immediately afterward, notification sounds rang out in his mind one after another.

"Monk (Classic School) gains new skills: Light Body Drop, White Crane Flapping Wings."

[Light Body Drop: When you are about to take falling damage, you can reduce the damage by an amount equal to your Monk class level.]

(Synergy: Detected that the feat [Crane Form: Lonely Phoenix Stance] contains a similar effect; the skill [Light Body Drop] will be merged into this feat.

Partial effects of the feat [Crane Form: Lonely Phoenix Stance] have been changed to "and immune to falling damage (immune to a height equal to twice the class level)")

[White Crane Flapping Wings: You use your arms to interfere between yourself and the enemy, increasing the chance of a successful dodge (+3). If you successfully dodge an enemy attack and the attacker is within your reach, you can launch a counterattack using the Crane Form stance; this counterattack cannot be dodged. Charges: 1, Recharge time: 30 seconds.]

Hu Jinsi glanced at the descriptions of these two skills, his expression unchanged.

As his most basic profession, the skills obtained from the Classic School probably wouldn't be of much use in actual combat.

Because [Light Body Drop] had already merged with [Crane Form: Lonely Phoenix Stance], his immune falling height had now stacked up to thirty-two meters.

That was almost equivalent to a ten-story building, and Hu Jinsi felt that even if he were feeling suicidal, he wouldn't jump from ten stories high.

You have to realize that the highest diving platform in his past life's Olympics was only ten meters.

In terms of jumping off buildings, Hu Jinsi had already crushed more than half of the superheroes from his past life.

However, this was purely a useless skill.

Even before, he wouldn't have jumped down from a height of ten-plus meters in such an exaggerated way.

After all, he had [Water Bird Steps], which allowed him to maneuver in mid-air, and he also carried a [Dragon Wing Membrane Gliding Cloak], so he was quite safe.

He wasn't bored enough to jump down from thirty-plus meters just to seek thrills, especially when there were no peerless secret manuals down there.

Therefore, the first skill of this round was evaluated by Hu Jinsi as a dispensable skill; it was a bad start.

As for the skill [White Crane Flapping Wings], since he hadn't actually used it in practice yet, Hu Jinsi couldn't evaluate it.

In his previous battles, there were very few enemies capable of engaging him in a direct exchange of attacks, so this method of using his arms to interfere with the enemy's vision wasn't his standard tactical approach.

He temporarily shelved this skill, waiting to test it in a couple of days to see if it was any good.

… Next were the skills for the Mistweaver Monk.

"Monk (Mistweaver School) gains new skills: Vivify, Magic Dispersion."

[Vivify: Immediately restores (Perception × 2) Health points to the target and additionally heals one other friendly target within 8 meters with the lowest Health (Perception × 2 × 50%) Health points.

Range 15 meters, cooldown 15 seconds.

Consuming 1 Chi allows for immediate casting, ignoring the cooldown.]

[Magic Dispersion: After activation, it lasts for 6 seconds, reducing magic damage taken by 60% and shortening the duration of newly applied curse, poison, and disease effects on you by 50%.

Cooldown 90 seconds.

Consuming 3 Chi allows for immediate casting, ignoring the cooldown.]

The two skills provided by the Mistweaver School were both very practical.

[Vivify] was the first stable instant-cast healing skill Hu Jinsi had obtained, and it could also cause a fifty-percent bounce heal, which could be considered a quite practical skill.

At the very least, the first healing skill Zhen Jin had drawn on his side was [Vivify], so he had much better luck than Hu Jinsi.

[Magic Dispersion] was an active defensive skill targeting magic.

How should he put it? It was best to have this skill, but it was even better to never have to use it.

After all, it wasn't a one-hundred-percent damage reduction; the most frequent application scenario would probably just be activating the skill to tank unavoidable magical area-of-effect damage.

… Following that were the changes to the Crane Form: Lonely Phoenix Style.

"Monk (Crane Form: Lonely Phoenix Style) skill Water Bird Steps has advanced to Water Bird Steps · Modified;"

"Monk (Crane Form: Lonely Phoenix Style) feats Unarmed · Finger Blades and Piercing Bone Sting have been strengthened and merged into the superior feat Vacuum Claw"

[Water Bird Steps · Modified: After using this Water Bird Steps, your next unarmed attack is guaranteed to be a critical hit, skill charges +1]

[Vacuum Claw: Your unarmed attacks are treated as +1 sharp weapons and gain the Slashing trait, capable of cutting through airflow; the attack range of unarmed attacks is +0.6 meters.

Additionally, unarmed attacks can cause the target to bleed and reduce the target's movement speed by 10%.]

On the side of Crane Form: Lonely Phoenix Style, Hu Jinsi's previous feeling had been correct.

Indeed, thanks to his persistent efforts, his two previous unarmed-related feats had been strengthened.

They had merged into a more powerful superior feat: [Vacuum Claw].

Many of the traits of this superior feat, [Vacuum Claw], were not important to Hu Jinsi, but the most important change was that his unarmed attack range had increased, and unarmed attacks were now treated as +1 weapons.

Unarmed damage had risen from the equivalent of an ordinary white-tier weapon to the effect of an equivalent magical weapon.

The +1 wasn't just a simple numerical change; it also meant that Hu Jinsi could now harm non-magical creatures that were immune to physical damage through unarmed attacks, such as those ghosts or low-level constructs.

As for the 0.6-meter extension in attack range, it was even better news for Hu Jinsi.

He finally didn't have to actually touch those creatures he found disgusting with his hands.

Now he could launch attacks at enemies from a distance of over half a meter, expanding the application range of his unarmed attacks significantly once again.

Many enemies he had previously been forced to beat with a stick could now be engaged with his hands.

The change to [Water Bird Steps · Modified] only added one charge for Hu Jinsi, allowing for a second mid-air displacement.

As for the critical hit effect after displacement, it didn't seem to have much application for now.

Because Hu Jinsi's current fighting style wasn't accustomed to launching attacks at enemies from mid-air after displacement, this change in how he applied force would require long-term practice.

… Finally, he arrived at the Life Stream Sect.

"Monk (Life Stream Sect) gains new skill: Inoculation Therapy;"

"Monk (Life Stream Sect) skill Life-Giving Hand gains new effect: Healer's Benevolence."

[Inoculation Therapy: You have learned how to combat epidemics, and your patients will also develop stronger resistance to the same disease for a short time.

When you successfully treat a disease through direct means and the target fully recovers from said disease, the target gains medium (+3) resistance to saving throws against the same disease for 1 week.]

[Healer's Benevolence: The healing amount of your Life-Giving Hand is doubled; and the healed target gains a small (+2) advantage on one saving throw against disease/poison within the next 6 seconds.]

As for the new skill and new effect obtained by the Life Stream Sect, one could only say they arrived a bit late.

If they had come two weeks earlier, Hu Jinsi felt Lin Rui could have suffered less.

After all, the effect of [Inoculation Therapy] could greatly reduce the probability of Lin Rui contracting rabies, allowing him to suffer less and drink fewer of those foul-tasting specialized healing potions.

As for the doubled healing effect of [Life-Giving Hand] brought by [Healer's Benevolence], Hu Jinsi could only comment that he rarely used this skill, [Life-Giving Hand].

Even though he could now trigger a free [Life-Giving Hand] during [Flurry of Blows], Hu Jinsi rarely used this skill directly unless Lin Rui's Health was below the danger line.

The main thing was that using [Life-Giving Hand] would disrupt the continuity of Hu Jinsi's own attacks.

Originally, he only needed to continuously punch and kick to attack the enemy, but now he had to count while fighting.

Hitting twice, then patting the last strike onto Lin Rui beside him—not only did he have to change his habits, but the force was also difficult to control.

Most of the time, Hu Jinsi was still accustomed to placing a [Renewing Mist] on Lin Rui; it was simpler.

The skills drawn at level sixteen provided a medium level of enhancement for Hu Jinsi, because not every school's enhancement was immediate for him.

He closed the skill panel, stood up from the meditation cushion, and flexed his wrists.

The living room was quiet, with only the sound of the Dire Wolf breathing on the sofa.

Outside the window, the afternoon sunlight shone obliquely onto the floor, making the dust clearly visible.

He didn't immediately go to test the new skills; healing skills required a test subject, and the Dire Wolf at home was actually behaving quite well, so it would be somewhat cruel to use it as a test subject.

It would be more humane to use Lin Rui as a test subject after going to school in a couple of days.

As for the remaining skills, whether it was [Water Bird Steps · Modified] or [Vacuum Claw], they couldn't be fully utilized within the confines of the house; the best place to test them would be at school, utilizing the school's training grounds.

As for the skill that prevented damage from falling from a height, there was no need to test it; it was best if this thing never had to be used, and even if it did, testing it at school would easily cause a bad impression.

He would know whenever he went to a dungeon and found a ten-meter-high rock to jump off of.