9: Chapter 9 The Soul Talent Best Matched with Immortality

Lu Yang didn't even think about it, charging straight toward that tall, withered tree.

As soon as he stepped within five meters of the withered tree, the stationary withered tree suddenly came to life.

A face even more twisted and hideous than an elite-grade Withered Treant emerged on the trunk, with two dim green lights burning in its sunken eye sockets.

Three thick, withered branches sprang out simultaneously, resembling three heavy spears, piercing straight toward Lu Yang's chest with a dull sound of breaking air.

Lu Yang quickly glanced at the monster's attribute panel.

It was a Rank 3 Withered Treant Boss.

[Withered Treant (Boss)]: Rank 3, Health 600, Attack 42.

Merely at Rank 3, its health already broke five hundred, which was more than seven times Lu Yang's current health value!

Its attack also reached 42 points, which was 6 times Lu Yang's attack power.

With this gap in attributes, it wouldn't be an exaggeration at all to describe it as an overwhelming crush.

To be honest, if he didn't have Immortal Talent, he wouldn't even be able to provoke a monster with this template at all.

With Immortal Talent, that would be a completely different story.

Lu Yang didn't dodge at all, continuing to charge forward against the three incoming withered branches.

-33!

-33!

-33!

A sharp pain struck, and his vision went black on the spot.

A single wave of attacks killed him directly.

The Withered Treant Boss retracted its withered branches, and before it could transform back into a withered tree, Lu Yang had already flipped up from the ground and initiated a charge once again.

At the same time, the damage from the Flame Aura had already popped up.

Lu Yang didn't dodge, continuing to charge forward.

A sharp pain struck, and three damage numbers floated out.

-6! (Flame Aura)

The withered tree suffered burning, immediately letting out a low roar and waving its thick withered branches to attack again.

However, this time it was only a single withered branch.

The simultaneous attack of three withered branches just now was a skill of the Withered Treant Boss, Triple Stab.

It could not be cast consecutively.

When the withered branch hit Lu Yang, Lu Yang had already rushed in front of the Withered Treant.

He clenched his longsword and slashed down with one strike.

As the blade fell, a faint phantom overlapped with the sword body, striking the rough bark simultaneously.

-1! (Basic Attack)

-1! (Double Basic Attack)

-6! (Flame Aura)

After two basic attacks, two layers of poison effect appeared on the body of the Withered Treant Boss.

Afterward, Lu Yang just stood in place, trading blows back and forth with the Withered Treant Boss.

If he died, he would resurrect, crawl up, and continue hacking.

One had to say, the defense of a boss-class monster was still very high.

Physical defense was equal to the defense value, but magical defense was based on the defense value and converted proportionally.

However, no matter what, the higher the defense, the higher the magical defense would also be.

Generally speaking, monsters in the early stage had very low magical defense; only monsters with boss-level and higher-level templates had a certain amount of magical defense due to their high base defense.

The Flame Aura that originally dealt 9 damage now only had a mere 6 points, and the three layers of poison that originally had 3 damage now only had 1 point left.

As for his own basic attack, it was only a pitiful 1 point.

Counting the time for death and resurrection, his damage per second was around 8 points.

In just a little over a minute, the health bar of the Withered Treant Boss was completely ground down to empty.

It let out a shrill and piercing scream, and its thick trunk collapsed heavily, smashing onto the grayish-white hard mud ground and stirring up a patch of dry dust.

Of course, Lu Yang wasn't without a price during this process.

He died dozens of times, and his face turned pale from the pain.

When the Withered Treant Boss died, Lu Yang felt like his whole body was about to collapse from exhaustion.

It wasn't that he was too tired, but continuous death was simply too painful!

Lu Yang sat slumped on the ground, shivering from the pain, and couldn't help muttering inwardly that it would be great if he could get a Soul Talent that ignored pain at some point.

At the same time, the System prompt sounded in Lu Yang's ear.

[Ding! You have killed the Withered Treant Boss, gained some experience, Withered Branch (Excellent) * 2, Withered Bark Cuirass (Excellent) * 1, Withered Treant Ring (Superior) * 1!]

Lu Yang's eyes instantly lit up, and the pain was diluted a bit by the pleasant surprise.

As expected of a boss-class monster, these drops were far too abundant!

Two blue elite-grade Materials; afterwards, whether he took them to sell for money or used them himself to make equipment was totally fine.

The most important thing was that there were also two pieces of equipment, one blue and one green!

Lu Yang impatiently checked the equipment attributes.

[Withered Bark Cuirass (Excellent)]: Defense +8, Strength +2, Stamina +3, Required Rank: 3

[Withered Treant Ring (Superior)]: Attack +3.

Lu Yang took a deep breath, his face filled with excitement.

As expected of blue equipment, these attributes were more than a tier stronger than the white-board and green equipment on his body.

There was also a rare ring equipment!

Without a second word, he directly changed into it.

Now Lu Yang's equipped items included: Withered Bark Cuirass, Warrior Greaves, withered bark bracers, withered bark belt, withered bark boots, Withered Treant Ring.

The weapon was still the beginner weapon, Warrior Longsword.

There was one blue piece plus three green pieces!

This had already far left ordinary civilian professionals behind, and could almost compare to the descendants of professional families with decent backgrounds.

The bonuses brought by these equipment were also quite considerable.

Lu Yang's current health reached 100 points, attack reached 14 points, and defense reached as high as 24 points.

Just changing into the Withered Bark Cuirass and Withered Treant Ring allowed Lu Yang's overall strength to complete a small leap!

Lu Yang glanced at his experience value again.

The experience bar that had just leveled up to Rank 3 was now directly raised to 36%.

This was the bountiful experience brought by a boss-class monster.

Lu Yang let out a long breath, stood up from the ground, and patted the dust off his body.

With his Flame Aura activated, he ran straight toward the path.

An attack of 14 points made the effective range of the Flame Aura reach 14 meters.

Before even entering the hostility range of the Withered Treants, the Withered Treants were already burned by the flames.

-14!

-14!

The two elite treants were burned into angry howls, pulling their root-turned legs out of the mud and rushing toward Lu Yang with a fierce Aura.

-5!

-5!

The attack power of Rank 3 treants was slightly higher than that of Rank 1, but for Lu Yang, whose defense had already stacked up to 24 points, this bit of damage was no different from an itchy scratch.

He didn't even stop his steps, directly leading the two treants to continue running deeper into the forest.

Along the way, the Flame Aura was like an invisible giant net, continually pulling treants disguised as dead wood along the path into it.

Before long, Lu Yang was already dragging more than a dozen Withered Treants behind him. They crowded together following closely behind, their withered branches waving wildly and producing a dense sound of breaking air.

But because there were too many treants clustered together, the ones that could actually attack him were always just the four in the innermost circle, and their combined damage each time was only around 20 points.

With his current health pool of 100 points, Lu Yang indicated that he could last five rounds before dying.

Thus, he simply let go and ran, dragging a huge group of treants like pulling a train, AOE-grinding purely relying on the burning of the Flame Aura.

Even though the health of Rank 3 and Rank 4 treants was slightly higher than that of Rank 1, under the halo burning of 14 points per second, they couldn't last twenty seconds.

Batch after batch of treants screamed and fell to the ground while running, shattering into full grounds of withered branch residue.

Lu Yang's experience bar rose visibly to the naked eye, and various drop prompts rang endlessly by his ears with a clinking, crisp, and melodious sound.

The look of excitement on Lu Yang's face grew thicker and thicker.

Rank 3, AOE-grinding twenty or thirty elite monsters!

If this were told out, probably not many people would believe it!

Because the efficiency of AOE-grinding was simply too high, in just a little over half an hour, Lu Yang leveled up once again.

He directly stayed in place and opened the talent selection.

[Please select your Soul Talent:]

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

[Death Bloom (Purple Legendary)]: When killing an enemy, deals a range damage of 10% of its max health to the surroundings

[Thorn Skin (Blue Excellent)]: When attacked, returns (20% * damage received) damage to the attacker.

Seeing these three options, Lu Yang had originally intended to choose Death Bloom.

A purple legendary talent that triggered range damage upon killing, matching with the Flame Aura for AOE grinding was simply invincible!

But when he saw Thorn Skin, his whole person froze.

Damn...

This talent...

Counter-damage?!

It was simply the most suitable talent for him!

For ordinary combat professionals, this talent wasn't actually all that strong.

After all, counter-damage could only return 20%. If they really competed on health bars, under the same Rank, a combat professional was almost impossible to out-compete a boss.

But Lu Yang was different!

He was immortal; he could resurrect once he died!

Therefore, his health bar could be considered infinite.

For him, as long as it could counter-damage, even if a god stood before him, theoretically he could bounce them to death relying on infinite resurrections.

Of course, this was only theoretically speaking.

Monsters of higher Ranks all possessed a certain level of intelligence; the higher the template, the higher the intelligence.

When seeing that Lu Yang couldn't be killed and could counter-damage, they would definitely choose to run away directly, or restrict Lu Yang through some other methods.

Even so, Thorn Skin was still a talent with maxed-out compatibility for him.

Even though a purple Death Bloom was right beside it, Lu Yang didn't hesitate at all as he reached out and tapped the third one.

Confirm selection!