136: Chapter 137: Overwhelming with sheer strength is enough.

The two origin skill books purchased at a near-giveaway price from the top-tier auction in "Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand" were undoubtedly the biggest surprise of this trip, aside from the target equipment.

The fact that these two skill books could be included in an auction of that caliber proved that their value belonged to the best among Origin Skills.

If it weren't for the local factions in "Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand" deliberately going easy for various reasons, it would not have been strange for the transaction price to double or triple under normal circumstances.

On his way back to Ziyun Mountain Villa, Lin Muyang carefully examined the two skill books that emitted ancient and powerful fluctuations.

The first one was a Fire Mage skill — 【Dance of the Burning Heaven (Origin)】.

Its effect description was concise yet domineering: Upon activation, the caster requires no additional actions, automatically condensing and releasing 20 "Burning Heaven Rockets" composed purely of highly concentrated fire elements every second, indiscriminately striking all enemies selected by the caster or within a certain range centered on the caster.

Each rocket carries a "Flame Piercing" effect, ignoring 50% of the target's fire resistance.

This skill has no cooldown but requires 10% of the caster's maximum mana per second to maintain.

Each time the skill levels up, the number of rockets, single-shot damage, and resistance-piercing ratio will increase, while the mana consumption required to maintain the skill will decrease accordingly.

When the skill reaches level 20, a qualitative change effect will be unlocked — the released "Burning Heaven Rockets" gain the "Infinite Penetration" characteristic, ignoring the collision volume of enemy units and dealing full damage to all enemies in a straight line!

"This skill... is simply a mobile turret, or rather, a humanoid walking rocket nest."

A hint of amazement flashed in Lin Muyang's eyes.

This skill combined sustainable group suppression with terrifying explosive single-target damage.

Especially after gaining Infinite Penetration at level 20, its clearing efficiency would reach a terrifying level in scenarios with dense enemies.

Compared to the 【Peerless Sword Formation】 that Ao Qingyan had already mastered, the biggest advantage of 【Dance of the Burning Heaven】 lies in being "cooldown-free."

This means that as long as the mana supply can keep up, it can become a permanent, sustained output method.

Of course, for regular mages, a 10% maximum mana consumption per second is terrifying; even for top-tier mages, they might run out of mana after opening it for a few seconds.

But for Lin Muyang, this was not an unsolvable problem.

He possessed the 【Source of Magic Power】 God-Tier Aura, which could provide an extremely considerable sustained mana recovery effect, sufficient to support the long-term activation of this skill.

Now that he had reached level 70, the number of Auras he could activate simultaneously had reached 15, making resource allocation even more effortless.

"This skill book seems most suitable for the little Phoenix."

Lin Muyang had a decision after a moment of thought.

The Nine-tailed Fox Maiden Su Daji's talent "Overthrowing Cities and Nations" was more inclined towards strengthening control effects, so learning this pure output skill would be a waste of her talent characteristics.

And Feng Ling was herself a top-tier Fire Mage, possessing extremely high talent bonuses and damage amplification for all fire-type skills.

In her hands, the power of 【Dance of the Burning Heaven】 would surely reach a higher level.

Imagine the little Phoenix after activating the skill, like an incarnation of a walking apocalyptic disaster, with Burning Heaven Rockets pouring down like rain wherever she went, enough to make any enemy tremble with fear.

The second skill book belonged to the Priest class — 【Light Source (Origin)】.

This was a powerful team damage-boosting skill: After use, it adds a massive amount of additional Light-attribute damage to all of the caster's offensive skills for 5 seconds.

The value of the additional damage is directly related to the number of friendly units around the caster; the more teammates there are, the higher the additional damage.

The skill has a cooldown of one hour.

As the skill level increases, the base value and duration of the additional damage will increase, while the cooldown time will shorten.

When the skill reaches level 20, a qualitative change will occur — the effect changes from "adding Light damage to self-skills" to "adding the same amount of Light-attribute additional damage to the attacks of oneself and all surrounding friendly units"!

This means it upgrades from a powerful personal burst skill to a terrifying team burst god-tier skill.

"This is simply a god-tier skill tailor-made for a Summoner, especially for me!"

Lin Muyang evaluated in his heart.

For ordinary Priests or Summoners, this skill could greatly boost personal or team burst damage within 5 seconds, making it a sharp weapon for overcoming high-difficulty bosses or performing key focus-fire.

But the 5-second duration was too short, and the strategic window was fleeting.

However, for Lin Muyang, who possessed the 【Long Lasting】 God-Tier Aura, the situation was completely different.

The 5-second duration was extended to over 150 seconds, which was more than two and a half minutes!

This meant that Light Source transformed from a short burst skill into a high-value team damage buff that could be sustained for a considerable amount of time.

Coupled with the many powerful young ladies under his command, what kind of terrifying suppression would this form?

When dealing with those epic-grade and legendary-grade sea beasts above level 150 in the deep sea, Lin Muyang could clearly feel that even though the young ladies' output was not weak, it still took some time and skill to quickly finish off those top-tier monsters with thick skin and various damage reduction and recovery abilities; it was impossible to truly achieve an instant kill.

The appearance of the 【Light Source】 skill just happened to make up for this shortcoming, allowing the team's overall output to reach another huge level at critical moments, truly achieving a state of crushing destruction.

"However, the difficulty of upgrading this skill is probably even greater than 【Dance of the Burning Heaven】."

Lin Muyang also realized this point.

【Light Source】 had no direct damage and could not gain experience through killing monsters.

It could only gain meager experience by being successfully cast and taking effect.

Even with the 【Infinite Firepower】 reduction, the one-hour cooldown was still not short in the early stages, meaning the upgrade speed would be very slow.

This was also one of the reasons why, although it was strong, the final transaction price was not outrageously high — for the vast majority of people, training it to level 20 might be a task they could never complete in a lifetime.

But for Lin Muyang's team, which possessed the 【Super Speed Comprehension】 Aura, this was not out of reach.

Lin Muyang put away these two precious skill books.

Being able to secure them at the auction for the price of 15 and 17 epic-grade elemental essences was indeed a great bargain.

Behind this, there was undoubtedly the factor of the local factions in "Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand" deliberately trying to curry favor.

When Lin Muyang took Elabess and the invisible Gui Wanwan, bid farewell to Liu Hongyuan who had completed her mission, and quietly left the "Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand" archipelago, he still felt some emotion about the smoothness of this trip.

The performance of those local snakes in New Island City left a deep impression on him.

These people might not be good people in the traditional sense; to be able to thrive in this lawless place, their hands must be stained with blood and ash.

But their intelligence and adaptability at least made Lin Muyang unable to hold any ill will towards them.

They used the lowest cost to cleverly avoid the greatest potential risks, and might even exchange it for some future convenience.

In their view, this deal was extremely worthwhile.

And the situation in "Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand" was not an isolated case.

While browsing international news on his way back, Lin Muyang discovered that recently, many countries or regions globally that were originally neutral, or even had some friction with the Xia Kingdom, had seen varying degrees of subtle changes in the attitudes of their high-level or powerful figures towards the Xia Kingdom.

Words in public were more cautious, cases of taking the initiative to make concessions or seeking negotiations in some interest disputes had increased, and news of privately currying favor with the Xia Kingdom through various channels was often heard.

The root cause of all these changes, in Lin Muyang's view, was very likely the chain reaction caused by his previous unintentional actions.

Although there was no conclusive evidence pointing to the Xia Kingdom or any specific individual in these incidents, the strange abilities and decisive means displayed were enough to make many top global factions and experts wary, leading to rich, and possibly even somewhat exaggerated, associations.

A "mysterious existence" capable of putting hundreds of high-level guards, including Nation-Guarding Level Experts, to sleep silently, and capable of infiltrating the home of a country's top expert to wipe them out without a trace, had unprecedented deterrent power.

No one wanted to be the next target.

Before they could determine the stance, preferences, and action patterns of this "existence," the safest approach was to try not to provoke the country that might be behind him — the Xia Kingdom.

Thus, this wave of friendliness towards Xia across the globe quietly emerged.

Of course, for Lin Muyang, he just paid a little attention to all of this before putting it out of his mind.

He was more concerned about the upcoming Summoner Competition and the growth of his own young ladies.

At ten o'clock that night, Lin Muyang returned to Ziyun Mountain Villa.

The villa was brightly lit, filled with a warm and relaxed atmosphere.

the young ladies who had been busy all day were enjoying their leisure time.

Lilia was taking the new Nine-Tailed Fox sister, Su Daji, to try on clothes in the room that belonged to Su Daji on the second floor.

Since having Lin Muyang as an ATM, Lilia's hobby of online shopping had been completely unleashed, and she had bought a pile of beautiful clothes in various styles and designs.

At this moment, the room was covered with dresses, and Su Daji was wearing a classic dress covered in lace, standing in front of the full-length mirror, feeling a bit shy and curious.

Lilia, like a little tutor, circled around her, helping her tidy up the hem of the dress, and commenting chirpily.

"This one really brings out your hair color and eyes! It's just that the tail is a bit hard to place... Should we cut a hole in the back?"

"Wow, this cheongsam! Daji, you should try it on quickly, it will definitely be super tasteful!"

"And this, an elf-style hunting outfit, it's very handsome!"

Growing up in the dark Demon Locking Tower, with only coarse cloth to cover her body, where had Su Daji ever seen so many exquisite and gorgeous clothes?

Her eyes, which possessed Innate Charm, were full of novelty and joy at this moment, her pink fox ears twitched slightly with excitement, and her nine big tails swept around restlessly, full of the desire to try on every piece of clothing.

When Lin Muyang pushed the door open, this was the "fashion show" scene he saw.

"Ah! Brother Muyang, you're back!"

Lilia discovered him first and immediately flew over like a happy little bird, her emerald eyes shining brightly.

"Hmm, I'm back. Brought you guys some 'gifts'."

Lin Muyang smiled and rubbed Lilia's blonde hair, then handed her the Priest origin skill book 【Light Source】.

"Another Origin Skill?"

Lilia took the skill book in surprise, quickly browsed through the effects, and her beautiful eyes suddenly widened even more, "Wow! This skill... so powerful! The more people around, the stronger I am? Then if I find dozens of teammates to stand nearby, wouldn't I be able to turn into a super turret?"

For this Elf Priest who was not focused on her job and loved output, this kind of skill that could directly and violently increase damage was far more exciting than those complex healing or buff skills.

She had never learned a particularly powerful Priest output-type Origin Skill, and this 【Light Source】 just happened to fill this gap.

"The day after tomorrow is the first round of the Jiangnan Province Summoner Competition Provincial Tournament."

Lin Muyang looked at the excited Lilia, then looked at Su Daji, who was looking over curiously, and said, "According to the Provincial Tournament rules, the first round is a group round-robin, and each Summoner needs to send out four different summons to fight one match each. That is to say, we need at least four participating members."

He paused and looked at Su Daji: "Daji, do you want to participate? Experience the competition of this world."

"Ah? Summoner Competition... I, can I?"

Hearing this, Su Daji's pink fox ears subconsciously drooped, and a trace of nervousness and unease flashed in her eyes, which were filled with watery light.

Her hands twisted together unconsciously.

She had only been summoned for two days, and her understanding of this world was still very limited, let alone the competition.

She hadn't even seen any Class Transferees other than Lin Muyang and the sisters.

In her imagination, those who could participate in the competition must be very powerful people; would she be unable to beat them?

Would she embarrass her master?

"Of course you can."

Lin Muyang saw her nervousness, smiled gently, stepped forward, and habitually rubbed her furry fox ears.

The soft touch made people feel comfortable, "Don't worry, your strength is already very strong now. Besides, I won't let you go first; let Lilia lead the charge in the first battle. You just need to go up and show your power to your heart's content in the scheduled matches."

Feeling the warmth of Lin Muyang's palm and the trust in his words, the nervousness in Su Daji's heart dissipated for the most part.

She nodded vigorously, a firm look appearing on her pretty face: "Hmm! Master, Daji will work hard! I definitely won't embarrass you!"

For this master who rescued her from the lonely and terrifying Demon Locking Tower and gave her a brand new life and power, Su Daji was full of gratitude and attachment.

As long as it was Lin Muyang's request, she would do her best to complete it.

"Then, the preliminary lineup is set. Lilia, Su Daji, plus Feng Ling and Seraphina."

Lin Muyang made a quick decision.

Feng Ling needed to master 【Dance of the Burning Heaven】 as soon as possible, as a secret weapon and a powerful output point at critical moments.

Seraphina's 【Blurring Shadow】 was still in a period of rapid improvement, and she was more suitable as an assassin or special tactical executor at critical moments.

Elabess and Ao Qingyan, as veteran main forces, could deal with various complex situations and were choices as substitutes or when dealing with strong enemies.

He then carefully checked the specific rules of the first round of the Provincial Tournament.

In the twenty-seven cities of Jiangnan Province, a total of 88 people advanced to the Provincial Tournament.

These 88 people would be divided into eight groups, with 11 people in each group.

A single round-robin would be held within the group, and everyone needed to play 10 matches.

The same summon could play at most 3 times.

This meant that each Summoner needed to prepare at least four different summons.

Finally, according to the number of wins, the top two in the group would advance to the second round of the top sixteen.

"Hmm, the rules have a bit of a flavor of Tian Ji's horse racing."

Lin Muyang stroked his chin, "Need to reasonably arrange the order of appearance, use relatively weaker summons to consume the opponent's strongest ones, and ensure that our core main force can secure enough wins. However..."

He glanced at the young ladies beside him whose talents, levels, and skills were all growing rapidly, and then felt his own numerous God-Tier Auras that could be called bugs, the corners of his mouth curling up.

"But for us, it doesn't seem that complicated. Just crushing them with raw power is fine."

In the face of absolute power, any tactical arrangement seemed pale.