54: Chapter 54 The School Beauty Being Harassed

Before long, on the exquisite and cute little face of the Gu family's second young lady, Gu Xiaoyu, her mouth had already opened into a round "O" shape, and her large, ripple-like eyes were filled with disbelief and pure admiration.

She watched helplessly as those five mountain-like piles of magic crystals, radiating heart-palpitating energy fluctuations, were continuously sucked into that seemingly simple and unadorned princess bracelet on the mysterious senior's wrist with a casual wave of his hand, like a hundred rivers returning to the sea!

The entire process was silent, yet it carried an indescribable composure, almost like a "rule."

"Senior's... storage space... just how big is it?" Gu Xiaoyu felt her perception was being completely refreshed. How terrifying was the physical volume of over 150 billion magic crystals? Yet they were all stored away so nonchalantly!

This had completely exceeded her understanding of storage items!

"As expected of Senior! Truly unfathomable!" The last trace of doubt in her heart vanished, replaced by an even firmer determination to maintain a good relationship with this mysterious powerhouse.

...

Ultimately, Lin Muyang left the bustling and noisy Tianhai City quietly, carrying the fully loaded 155 billion magic crystals and that Assassin-type origin skill book that Gu Xiaoyu had taken the initiative to gift him as a "meeting gift."

He checked the detailed information of that skill book:

[Blood Shadow Flying Dagger (Origin)]

Class Restriction: Assassin-type

Skill Effect: Condenses blood shadow energy to create a highly penetrating blood-element flying dagger to fire at the target. Upon hitting, it applies a "Deep Bleeding" state to the enemy, continuously dealing a large amount of physical damage for 12 seconds. Cooldown: 20 seconds.

Growth Attributes: After the skill level increases, the number of flying daggers released at once can be increased, the base damage of a single flying dagger can be raised, and the duration of the bleeding state can be extended.

Special Effect: After the skill level reaches 20, all released Blood Shadow Flying Daggers can be controlled to a certain extent with mental power during flight, changing their flight trajectory!

"A quite good continuous output and harassment skill," Lin Muyang commented. The instantaneous damage from the flying dagger itself, combined with the subsequent continuous bleeding, made the total damage output quite considerable.

However, its 20-second base cooldown did seem somewhat lengthy for assassins who pursued instantaneous burst and flexibility. Most assassin practitioners would concentrate their limited attribute resources on attack power, attack speed, critical hit rate, and physical penetration, making it difficult to have any spare energy to stack the "skill cooldown reduction" attribute. This also caused the actual value of this skill book in the outside world to be somewhat affected.

However, this problem almost didn't exist for Lin Muyang.

Because he possessed the God-Tier Aura known as [Infinite Firepower], which could be called a bug! Its effect was a simple and crude 90% skill cooldown reduction!

This meant that once this [Blood Shadow Flying Dagger] reached his hands or those of his future assassin partners, the base cooldown would plummet from 20 seconds directly to 2 seconds! If paired with some cooldown reduction attributes provided by equipment, it wouldn't be difficult to release three to four flying daggers per second!

"This skill can only fire one flying dagger at level 1, which indeed seems a bit thin."

"But as the skill level increases, the number of flying daggers released at once will continue to grow..."

"If it reaches level 20, I could instantly fire 20 controllable flying daggers... That scene..."

A picture instantly flashed in Lin Muyang's mind: accumulating flying daggers in advance, letting countless blood-colored flying daggers surround him like a loyal swarm of bees. Once encountering an enemy, with a single thought, ten thousand blades would fire together like a blood-colored metal storm, instantly tearing the target to shreds! Such explosive power would probably be hard for even some top-tier bosses to withstand.

The only pity was that among the three partners he had currently summoned, none were of a pure assassin class.

"I'll keep it for now; there will come a day when it's useful." Lin Muyang tucked the skill book away properly.

In his eyes, any ordinary Sovereign-rank or Emperor Level skill books were merely transitional items. Only origin skill books were the ultimate skills that could truly accompany his partners' growth and possessed infinite potential. The former were limited by level and fixed effects, while the latter could be upgraded infinitely and evolve constantly.

Of course, the difficulty of equipping every maiden under his command with a set of fully functional, high-quality origin skill books was as hard as reaching the heavens. This wasn't a problem that could be solved just with money; it required immense luck and opportunity. Even someone as powerful as Lin Muyang could only wait patiently and plan slowly in this regard.

During this trip to Tianhai City, Elabess had always followed quietly and obediently by Lin Muyang's side. Aside from necessary communication, she remained silent most of the time, perfectly playing the role of a mysterious powerhouse's follower, not undermining the expert image Lin Muyang had deliberately cultivated in the slightest.

Lin Muyang couldn't help but think that it was fortunate he had brought the steady Elabess. If he had changed her for that overly lively Elf Princess Lilia, she probably would have been chirping and making a fuss all along the way, so how could he have maintained such a mysterious and unfathomable aura?

...

And Lin Muyang didn't know that his and Elabess's brief appearance in Tianhai City, although low-key, was still like a giant rock thrown into a calm lake, stirring up quite a stir in certain circles of this top-tier metropolis in the Xia Kingdom.

Two powerhouses of mysterious identity, whose faces and figures couldn't even be seen clearly, had suddenly appeared and sold dozens of top-quality Emperor Level equipment and skill books at once, with a total transaction value as high as over 150 billion magic crystals!

This fact in itself was shocking enough.

But what shocked some observant people even more was that there were many senior powerhouses present at the time whose levels exceeded 100 and who were proficient in various investigation and appraisal skills. Yet even so, not a single person could see through any of the two mysterious people's backgrounds!

This state of being completely unable to be pried into represented a meaning far more heart-chilling than the massive transaction itself. This meant that the strength level of those two mysterious powerhouses likely far exceeded the cognitive range of everyone present!

"Could they be newly emerged reclusive powerhouses?"

"Their accents don't sound like it... and their style of doing things is also different from those known old monsters."

Various speculations circulated in the upper circles of Tianhai City.

Fortunately, Lin Muyang and his companion had only conducted a transaction and hadn't caused any trouble in Tianhai City. Therefore, although it sparked heated discussion, it didn't temporarily attract a dedicated official investigation.

And these storms far away in Tianhai City were already stories from another world for Lin Muyang, who had returned to Zhongnan City, and no longer had anything to do with him.

All his attention now was focused on the upcoming auction at the Hongwu Mall to be held locally!

He was determined to obtain that swordsman source skill book, which was the grand finale item, and he had to win it for the Dragon Lady, Ao Qingyan!

Of course, there was still some time before the auction officially began.

Lin Muyang first took Elabess back to the villa at Ziyun Mountain Villa to rest for a bit.

As expected, the Dragon Lady Ao Qingyan was still in her own room, concentrating on her meditation and cultivation, with faint, almost imperceptible spiritual energy fluctuations lingering around her.

But the Elf Princess Lilia was a completely different scene. As soon as she saw Lin Muyang return, she immediately bounced up from the sofa like a cheerful little deer, blinking her large emerald eyes and complaining in a tone that had become incredibly familiar and even carried a bit of intimacy she hadn't noticed herself:

"I'm so hungry! Brother Lin Muyang, you're finally back~ I'm almost starving to death!"

After these two days of "intensive training," although she might not completely agree with the address "Brother Lin Muyang" in her heart, she at least called him that smoothly and no longer felt awkward all over like she did at the beginning.

Lin Muyang was quite satisfied with this and naturally didn't intend to cancel this "order." He didn't want to hear this girl call him "human" without regard for seniority anymore.

"Let's go, let's go out to eat something first, then go to the auction," Lin Muyang said to Lilia and Elabess, and then raised his voice a bit toward the upstairs to ask, "Qingyan, should I still bring you steamed fish?"

"...Um, thank you." From upstairs came Ao Qingyan's signature response, cold yet seemingly mixed with a hint of imperceptible embarrassment.

Lin Muyang nodded and asked no more, taking Lilia and Elabess with him as they left the villa and headed for the city center.

On the way, he took out his phone and checked the supplementary information Hong Wuliang had sent earlier regarding tonight's auction.

"Oh? Tonight's auction has actually attracted quite a few young geniuses from Tianhai City?" Lin Muyang was somewhat surprised but then understood. "It seems that batch of low-level Platinum equipment and the grand finale origin skill book are indeed quite attractive."

At 7:30 PM, the lights were beginning to come on.

This time, Lin Muyang didn't choose to be invisible. Instead, like an ordinary wealthy young man, he brought along the exceptionally beautiful Elf Maiden Lilia with her distinct temperament and Elabess, who had already disguised herself as a human but still couldn't hide her charm, and they arrived together at the brightly lit Hongwu Mall.

However, as soon as the three of them reached the grand entrance of the mall, they saw a familiar figure caught in a predicament—it was the ice-cold campus belle, Shen Muyao.

At this moment, she seemed to be pestered by two people. Her stunningly beautiful face wore obvious impatience and distress, her eyebrows slightly furrowed, wanting to leave but unable to get away for the moment.

The ones pestering her were an old man and a young man. The old man wore a simple grey long robe, his eyes half-open and half-closed, his aura restrained, standing a step behind the young man like a piece of withered wood, indifferent to the surrounding noise and focused only on protecting the safety of the young man in front of him.

And that young man, about seventeen or eighteen years old, wore a well-tailored brocade robe with a magnificently decorated sword hanging at his waist, and between his brows was an arrogance born of a wealthy background and a lack of setbacks. Judging from his attire and temperament, he was clearly a swordsman practitioner and likely a talented scion from some major family in Tianhai City who had just recently changed classes.

It was this young man who was currently talking to Shen Muyao with a face full of enthusiasm (or rather, pestering her), and Shen Muyao, having come alone, found it difficult to find a suitable reason to leave firmly in the face of such persistent pestering.

Until the figures of Lin Muyang and his companions appeared in her field of vision.

The moment Shen Muyao saw Lin Muyang, her dim beautiful eyes suddenly lit up as if she had seen a savior. She instinctively wanted to say hello, but the words reached her lips and she forced them back down. She was worried that if she rashly recognized Lin Muyang, she would draw this trouble to him and cause him unnecessary bother.

Unfortunately!

Her subtle eye change and instantaneous emotional fluctuation did not escape the eyes of the Brocade-robed young man from Tianhai City.

Although he wasn't old, growing up in that kind of environment, he had long ago mastered the skill of observing people's expressions. The look Shen Muyao gave that suddenly appearing boy was completely different from her polite and distant attitude toward him!

This caused an extremely unpleasant fire of jealousy and the indignation of being outdone to surge in his heart instantly.

How could he endure this?

Immediately, he couldn't be bothered to pester Shen Muyao politely anymore. His face darkened, and with the Grey-robed old man behind him, he took a few quick steps and headed straight to intercept Lin Muyang, who had just reached the mall entrance!