8: Chapter 8 Two Soul Talents

Lu Yang didn't care that there was still a Withered Treant huffing and puffing beside him, poking his head with a withered branch, and directly opened his inventory to check his equipment.

[withered bark boots (Common)]: Defense + 1, Required Rank: 1

Lu Yang's face darkened.

"That's it?"

He shouldn't have had any expectations in the first place.

Although he was complaining inwardly, Lu Yang still silently put on the withered bark boots.

As soon as he put on the boots, the Withered Treant lashed out.

-11!

The damage was slightly lower than before.

Not bad.

Lu Yang stopped being distracted and continued to hack at the Withered Treant with his small broken sword.

Under the dual consumption of physical attack and toxin damage, after about thirty seconds, this Withered Treant also let out a hoarse scream and shattered into a pile of withered branches with a crash.

[Ding! You killed a Withered Treant, gained some experience, Withered Branch (Common) * 1]

It didn't drop any equipment this time.

Lu Yang wasn't surprised by this.

After all, the drop rate of monsters was actually quite low.

Because he killed an elite, every single one of them dropped items.

If he fought ordinary monsters, they might not even give a single hair, just experience.

Lu Yang glanced at the experience bar.

10%.

Elite monsters gave several times more experience than ordinary monsters, with a single one yielding 5% experience.

Calculated this way, he only needed twenty of them to level up.

Lu Yang couldn't wait to level up.

For Lu Yang, leveling up was not as simple as increasing a few attribute points.

This meant he could continue to choose a Soul Talent!

He stepped through the narrow entrance ahead.

The scene behind the withered wood wall suddenly opened up, truly entering the interior of the Withered Forest.

Underfoot was a winding path that extended forward for about forty meters before splitting into three fork roads, leading to different directions deep within the forest.

The grayish-white ground was still hard when stepped on, and the branches of the withered trees on both sides intersected overhead, cutting the already grey sky into even more shattered pieces.

Every time he entered the dungeon, although the general internal environment was the same, the route was random.

Therefore, the school's courses only explained monster types and attributes, and there were no fixed walking paths for dungeon maps.

Lu Yang didn't mind; he could completely explore the map bit by bit, as long as he could encounter monsters.

Thus, he continued to walk deeper along the path.

Along the way, treants disguised as withered wood would suddenly launch attacks from time to time.

When there were fewer, two would bunch up together; when there were more, four would crowd together.

A round of concentrated fire from four Withered Treants caused Lu Yang to turn cold before he could even hum.

Fortunately, there were gaps between the attacks of the Withered Treants.

Especially the moment he just resurrected, the treants would have a brief stagnation.

This gave Lu Yang an opportunity to attack.

As long as he didn't die, he could bit by bit use his pitiful ordinary attacks and poison-type damage to slowly grind down the health of the Withered Treant.

After walking a few hundred meters, another Withered Treant shattered into dust under his sword.

At the same time, a warm current surged from deep within his body without warning, washing over his limbs and bones like warm water.

Lu Yang could clearly feel that his body was tougher than before.

[Ding! You have leveled up! Gained: Four-dimensional attributes + 1, 1 free attribute point!]

[Your current Rank: 2!]

He casually added the free attribute point to strength, and his strength reached 6 points.

Afterward, he impatiently looked at the Soul Talent column at the end of the panel.

[Soul Talent: Immortal (Over-limit · Prismatic Myth) [Selectable]]

Lu Yang's breath stagnated, then his heartbeat accelerated violently, and his face turned slightly red with excitement.

As expected, he could choose again!

Awesome!

Invincible!

Without saying another word, Lu Yang clicked.

The next instant, a brilliant colorful radiance flooded the entire panel like a tide.

After the radiance dissipated, several lines of text emerged on the panel.

[Please choose your Soul Talent:]

[Enhanced Basic Attack (White Common)]: Basic attack damage increased by 10%

[Enhanced Defense (White Common)]: Defense value increased by 10%

[Dual Basic Attack (Blue Fine)]: Your basic attack can additionally trigger one basic attack (can trigger attack special effects)

"Hmm?"

The quality isn't very high this time?

Judging by this, is this Soul Talent completely random?

But why was the quality so high the first time, all of them Prismatic Myth?

Beginner reward?

Lu Yang shook his head and stopped dwelling on this question.

Although the quality this time wasn't very high, having a Blue Fine talent wasn't bad either.

Basic attacks could trigger an additional one, and it could also trigger special effects!

This meant that poisoning could also be triggered.

At the very least, it could make him stack three layers of poison a bit faster.

Moreover, the damage of each of his basic attacks was equivalent to being directly doubled.

Lu Yang directly chose it.

[Soul Talent: Immortal (Over-limit · Prismatic Myth), Dual Basic Attack (Blue Fine) [Selectable Talent After Leveling Up]]

Looking at "Selectable Talent After Leveling Up" still hanging at the back, Lu Yang's heart completely settled down.

It seemed that he really could get a choice opportunity every level.

Then continue!

After leveling up, his attack improved, coupled with having the Dual Basic Attack talent.

Lu Yang's monster-grinding efficiency stepped up a notch visibly to the naked eye.

A single basic attack could deal a full 2 points of damage!

Coupled with the Dual Basic Attack effect, it was equivalent to 4 points of damage per attack.

Coupled with stacking three layers of poison, 3 points per second.

Lu Yang now needed less than twenty seconds to kill a Rank 1 Withered Treant.

Of course, the most important reason was that he didn't need to dodge; he could just stand in place and recklessly charge forward.

The experience needed to level up from Rank 2 was obviously much higher.

A Rank 1 Withered Treant only provided 1% experience.

However, as Lu Yang went deeper, Rank 2 Withered Treants began to appear.

Coupled with his extremely fast monster-grinding speed, before long, the warm current of leveling up surged through his whole body once again.

[Please choose your Soul Talent:]

[Critical Enhancement (Green Superior)]: Critical strike rate increased by 5%

[Critical Enhancement (Blue Fine)]: Critical strike rate increased by 10%

[Flame Aura (Purple Legendary)]: Deals 100% of attack power as flame damage per second to enemies within (100% attack power) meters around.

Seeing these three talents, Lu Yang's eyes lit up, revealing an expression of excitement.

His luck this time was not bad.

There wasn't even a white one, one green, one blue, and even a purple one!

Furthermore, this Flame Aura was an area-of-effect aura talent!

Sustained damage, effective throughout the whole process!

Although the critical strike rate was actually quite useful too.

But for the current Lu Yang, a 10% critical strike rate was obviously not as practical as area passive damage like Flame Aura.

Without even thinking, he directly chose Flame Aura.

A pale red aura quietly unfolded beneath his feet, with tiny flames faintly leaping at the edges, casting a warm color onto the grayish-white ground.

Lu Yang found that he could turn this aura on or off at any time.

After turning it off, the visual effect of the aura also disappeared accordingly.

With the sustained damage of this Flame Aura, coupled with his infinitely resurrecting Immortal Talent.

As long as he stood there without lifting a finger, the aura alone could burn surrounding enemies to death.

Wasn't this much more satisfying than bitterly hacking at monsters one by one by himself?

At this moment, less than an hour had passed since Lu Yang entered the dungeon.

And his Rank had already reached Rank 3, possessing a full three Soul Talents!

Not only that, Lu Yang had killed nearly a hundred elite-grade Withered Treants, and naturally had also obtained quite a few things.

Materials like withered branches and withered trunks wouldn't be mentioned for now.

He had even obtained a full six pieces of equipment, and even two pieces of green fine-quality equipment!

[Withered Bark Bracers (Superior)]: Defense + 2, Agility + 1, Required Rank: 1

[Withered Bark Belt (Superior)]: Defense + 2, Endurance + 1, Required Rank: 1

Besides these, there were a few pieces of bark clothes and bark pants, which only added 1 point of defense and had no attraction to him.

However, even just changing into these two green pieces of equipment made Lu Yang's attributes much stronger than before.

His health reached 70 points, and his defense reached 14 points.

It could be said to be a massive upgrade.

Because defense and attack were not equivalently offset, but reduced according to a certain formula proportion.

The damage dealt by Rank 1 Withered Treants to Lu Yang was still 7 points.

But even so, the number of times Lu Yang died was much less.

However, his attack didn't change much, currently only at 9 points.

This meant that his Flame Aura only dealt 9 points of flame damage per second.

Although not very high, it was already much stronger than three layers of poison damage.

Lu Yang continued to explore forward along the path.

Just a few meters out, the vision before him suddenly brightened.

The overlapping withered wood neatly retreated at a certain position, revealing a circular open space.

In the center of the open space, there were no messy withered branches, only an exceptionally tall withered tree stood silently.

Its trunk was thicker than any treant encountered before, and its bare branches, like an open giant palm, cast a large shadow under the grayish-white sky.

Lu Yang's eyes instantly lit up.

He finally encountered a boss-grade monster!