Chapter 21: Flickering Ambush

  The twenty-meter distance was extremely dangerous, and Zhou Jian had just walked five meters away when a hellhound that was originally lying on the ground sleeping suddenly kicked its leg, and its sharp claws directly embedded into Zhou Jian's right ankle.

  Zhou Jian only felt a heat under his feet, a strong pain surged up to his brain, he bit his teeth and didn't make a sound, in stealth mode unable to treat the wound, Zhou Jian could only drag his bloody right foot forward.

  Fifteen meters... ten meters... Zhou Jian had already seen that golden light when he walked to this place, and it turned out to be a golden treasure chest.

  Zhou Jian took a deep breath, he had been playing "Shen Mo" for three months and it was the first time he saw a golden treasure chest.

  The thief's basic skill "lockpicking" can open the vast majority of treasure chests and mechanism doors on the map, which sounds great, but the things Zhou Jian gets from opening treasure chests are really disappointing, usually just a few gold coins, and occasionally one or two bottles of potion is considered a good harvest.

  Those treasure chests are all gray without exception, and what will be inside this golden treasure chest?

  Zhou Jian didn't expect to get any divine equipment, that was unrealistic, being able to get a purple epic suit would be enough for him.

  Little by little, fortunately on this road, the monsters were relatively honest, occasionally a lion-like monster moved its body, and Zhou Jian narrowly escaped.

  Near the treasure chest, the number of monsters around suddenly decreased a lot. Zhou Jian looked at it for a while and thought to himself that opening the treasure chest wouldn't trigger a monster stampede, right? If he were to be trampled here, he would definitely be crushed into meat paste. The pain sensation in "Gods and Demons" was very realistic, and the feeling was not pleasant.

  I took a look around, but there's no crevice to hide in. If I'm discovered, it's all over. Well, at least I won't lose much experience. As for those brothers who are still running the instance, all I can say is sorry.

  Zhou Jianxin's eyes swept horizontally as he used his skill - Unlocking.

  "Bang."

  A crisp metallic sound echoed, and the golden treasure chest opened with a creak. To Zhou Jian's relief, although the surrounding monsters turned to look in this direction due to the noise, they didn't make any unusual movements. With their intelligence, it was clear that they couldn't figure out why the treasure chest had suddenly popped open.

  Zhou Jian couldn't wait and looked into the treasure chest, where a simple leather scroll was lying quietly inside.

  Taking a deep breath, Zhou Jian picked it up, and as soon as he did, he felt an extremely rough sensation, as if this sheepskin scroll had gone through the ages.

  System Prompt: "Acquired hidden combat skill - Flicker Strike, consumes 0 skill points to learn. Level 0 Flicker Strike effect: Instantly move to the enemy's front and launch an attack, dealing 0.5 times agility damage, casting distance 10 meters, cooldown time 60 seconds, consuming 20 magic points, do you want to learn now?"

  Nonsense, of course I learned it. It's just that for no reason at all, an extra skill appeared. If not for being in a pile of monsters, Zhou Jian really wanted to burst out laughing several times.

  In the "Shenmo" game, there are many hidden skills waiting for players to discover, which can be obtained by completing tasks or killing bosses, so even if players of the same profession and level have different skills.

  You never know what skills your opponent has, so PK is always unpredictable. A good PK player doesn't rely on practiced operations or PK strategies, but rather on intuition, reaction and combat experience.

  In "Gods and Demons", a high-handed person in reality is likely to defeat an ordinary person with better equipment by relying on his combat intuition.

  System Prompt: "Learning Flash Strike successful, skill point consumption 0, current skill level 0, upgrade after using 1000 times."

  Zhou Jian is in a great mood, this is an unexpected surprise, delayed for a few minutes, I guess those brothers can't hold on anymore, hurry up and seal the devil king's heart.

  The last seal almost took Zhou Jian's life, he survived by relying on his reaction and quick and accurate judgment, and also thanks to the fact that Zhou Jian had left a level of experience unspent, which was used to upgrade at the critical moment.

  This time Zhou Jian learned his lesson and came to the lake's edge, then found the rock crevice from last time and jumped right in.

  Although there is no magma in this rock crevice, due to the long-term baking of geothermal heat, it's incredibly hot inside, and the rock wall can be used to bake pancakes.

  Zhou Jian endured the scorching heat and took out Pandora's seal, using his spatial retrieval ability to control it as it floated bit by bit towards the Demon King's heart.

  Seal flew forward along the surface of the magma lake, as there were fewer monsters by the lake and with the red fog drifting about, no monster noticed this small thing.

  Gritting her teeth and persisting for a minute, Pandora's seal finally sank into the heart of the Demon King...

  The massive demon king's heart was like an engine with a stuck piston, suddenly emitting a loud roar before coming to an abrupt halt.

  The monsters by the lake were shocked by this sudden change, and they all looked towards the heart that they had been guarding for a while. Then the lava lake exploded, and the monsters collectively went berserk. Outside the rock crevices, everything was already in chaos.

  Zhou Jian was hiding in the crevice of a rock, feeling the vibrations of the rock and listening to the roar of monsters outside. At this time, even if there were super masters with full orange suits outside, they would still be blown to pieces.

  After a while, until the outside gradually calmed down, Zhou Jian finally unfolded his stealth and crawled out of the rock crevice, hurrying to leave.

  The final boss, having lost its source of power, had greatly reduced strength. Under the close cooperation of the Suzhou team, they smoothly killed the boss into a black blood state. At this time, the boss went berserk and slapped the frontmost shield warrior flying with one palm. However, Zhou Jian, who was prepared early on, wouldn't fall in the same place twice. He directly used a spiritual pierce to immobilize the boss. Afterwards, another thief in the team followed up with a blind, and the hunter released a binding trap. The boss was fixed in place for at least ten seconds.

  When the boss woke up, that heavy shield warrior had already returned with a shield, and with a brave strike, successfully attracted the boss's hatred. Then everyone beat him wildly, and the boss who was already in a critical state could not withstand the destruction, and finally turned into a corpse with a loud cry.

  Big Bang!

  In "Shén Mó", the quality of equipment dropped by bosses for each player mainly depends on their personal contribution value. From start to finish, Zhōu Jiàn accidentally got MVP again while mixing experience, no way, in this world, those who eat technical rice always get more money than those who eat hard labor rice, let alone Zhōu Jiàn's exclusive patented technology.

  However, because Zhou Jian had already passed the instance once before, the equipment he obtained this time was much worse. He only got one piece of purple gear, which still required him to be level 30 to use.

  Others, because it was their first time, although they didn't get the MVP, but the equipment they got was better than Zhou Jian's. The happiest one was Susan, who actually managed to get a legendary warrior necklace, which she happened to be missing. After equipping it, her orange set was only missing a pair of rings.

  "Wow, captain, your moral character is too good!"

  "Please come in, please come in."

  "Hehe, okay, tonight at Four Square Building, let's all go together." Susan agreed in one breath. The necklace from the Warrior Legend set was the most valuable, and this time she had made a big profit. Moreover, for these rich young masters, wearing their own equipment felt more accomplished than buying it.

  However, Zhou Jian refused Susan's invitation. Susan's friends obviously didn't want him to go. They weren't people from the same circle, and going would only add awkwardness, with nothing to say.

  After bidding farewell to everyone, Zhou Jian directly went to the Appraisal Center of Nüwa City. To prevent being deceived by the old man from Pangu City, he wanted to try another place.

  But as soon as he entered the door, he was a bit stunned. The appraiser in charge here was also an old man with white beard, and even looked exactly like the one in Pangu City.

  "Old man, how is it you again?" Zhou Jian asked with wide eyes.

  The old man looked at Zhou Jian and smiled: "You're talking about the senior appraiser of Pangu City, he's my cousin."

  Does your younger male cousin look like this? Could it be that your father had an affair with his own sister-in-law and gave birth to him?

  Zhou Jian secretly cursed in his heart and took out the next divine artifact, a necklace. In fact, since he saw the old man, he had already had a bad premonition.

  As expected, the old man stretched out his thumb and index finger, making an "eight" gesture, with actions and expressions identical to those of his cousin.

  Zhou Jian's bad premonition was confirmed, but he still held onto a glimmer of hope and asked: "Eight... eight hundred?"

  The old man smiled and said: "Eight hundred thousand gold coins, I think you've already inquired about the price from my cousin."

  Wipe, Zhou Jian secretly scolded the old fox in his heart, "Will 50,000 be enough?"

  The old man laughed slyly, "Sorry, in order to save time for our customers, we don't haggle prices here."

  It's all a scam! Zhou Jianxin was furious, thinking that he would eventually get caught and lose money anyway. He estimated that even if he took the item to Europe, it would still be worth this price.

  "Alright, I admit it."

  The old man smiled and cast a discerning eye on the falling blood, using only five seconds. "Appraisal complete," he said.

  "Is that it?" Zhou Jian suddenly had the urge to change careers and become an appraiser himself. "I'm telling you, old man, can't you take a few more seconds to appraise it? Give me some psychological comfort! This is only five seconds, 160,000 yuan per second! You appraisers make money too easily!"

  "Haha, what's good about being an appraiser? You've seen so many high-end equipment, but not a single one belongs to you." The old man laughed with a very unconvincing smile, unfortunately, the big gold tooth at the corner of his mouth contradicted his own words.

  Zhou Jian grumbled discontentedly, "No wonder you and your cousin both have gold teeth, this must be the result of earning a fortune!"

  The old man said seriously: "This is a hardened tungsten gold tooth."

  “……”

  Zhou Jian was too lazy to argue with the old man, and the more they argued, the angrier he became. He shifted his attention to his necklace instead.

  Next Divine Artifact - Blood of the Fall.

  Requires level 10.

  Increases agility by 50 points, increases attack by 30 points. Has a 7% chance to deal triple fatal damage in an attack, and each attack steals 3% of the enemy's life value as health.

  Zhou Jian saw this string of glittering introductions and really wanted to hug the old man and kiss him, even his gold teeth seemed adorable.

  This piece of quasi-divine equipment's added attributes are almost equivalent to the total sum of attributes added by that entire set of trash he was wearing, and the attribute of absorbing health during attacks is a divine-level attribute that ordinary equipment simply cannot possess.

  It's indeed world-class equipment!

  The old man was very satisfied with Zhou Jian's expression. He stroked the jade ring on his hand and asked Zhou Jian mysteriously, "Do you want to make a hole?"

  Zhou Jian's excited expression on his face suddenly disappeared, replaced by a vigilant look, "Old man, you want to cheat me out of my money again."

  "How can you say it's a scam? This quasi-divine artifact is expensive, after all. There are only eleven or twelve of them in the entire world. Anyone who owns one is a wealthy tycoon. Who would still care about this little bit of money? How about this: if you make a hole here with me, I'll give you an 80% discount as a favor to an old customer."

  "How much is 20% off?"

  "Two hundred thousand."

  “……”

  Looking at Zhou Jian's unsightly complexion, the old man explained: "Originally it was supposed to be 2.5 million, how about this, make a hole and inlay an un-droppable stone, so that no matter how you die, this divine artifact will not drop."

  Zhou Jian's heart moved, this attribute was indeed practical. He had inadvertently provoked the Flowing Water, and even if he was very careful in the future, it was possible that this guy would find him. Once discovered, with his own strength, it would be a dead end. If the secondary artifact fell into his hands, it would really make him furious. "Can the gemstone still be exchanged after being inlaid?"

  The old man seemed to have expected that Zhou Jian would be moved, and he chuckled: "Of course, you can exchange it, as long as you pay a little labor fee. Later on, when your level is higher, if you exchange some top-grade gems, the properties of this divine artifact will be even more awesome."

  "How much is the labor cost?"

  "The total cost of the inlaid craftsmanship and the non-droppable stone is 300,000 gold coins, with the stone alone being worth 250,000. After removal, it can still be reused. This time, I'll only charge you a friendly price."

  "Alright, I'll do it!"

  Drilled, then inlaid, the old man took ten minutes to finish it off, and 13 million gold coins vanished into thin air. Zhou Jian looked at the dazzling Blood of the Fall in his hand, excited but more painful.

  Before, online game player Zhou Jian had seen players who spent the most money, generally only spending tens of thousands of RMB at most. If this were in "Shen Mo", tens of thousands would be just enough for one piece of equipment.

  It's too exaggerated, the donkey borrowed 200,000 yuan from me and suddenly only 70,000 was left. This is what the upper class is like! Washing a sauna costs 50,000 to 60,000, staying in a presidential suite costs over 100,000, going to a casino is hundreds of millions!

  Zhou Jian stumbled out of the Appraisers' Association, and to this day his hand still feels a bit numb. He spent 13,000 yuan in just ten minutes; how could his hand not be numb?

  Forget it, let's look forward. After splurging this time, I'll also be a member of the upper class. It's just 130,000 RMB, isn't it? If Chu Qingyun's 5 million RMB is in hand, would this still be considered money?

  Spend more, spend vigorously, the more they spend now, the more they will earn in the future.

  Zhou Jian indulged in a bit of fantasy and finally got rid of the feeling of physical pain.

  Ding Ding Shen put the falling blood on his neck, and at this time, Zhou Jian immediately felt that his body was much lighter, as if it were a feather. If he jumped from the fifth floor again, he believed that even if he didn't roll, he wouldn't feel numb legs.

  Zhou Jian couldn't wait to go out and test his new equipment. His experimental subject was the small skull in the Skull Cave. Before, it would take more than a dozen slashes to kill one, but now he could finish it off within ten slashes. If he got lucky with two critical hits, he could even take it down in four or five slashes.

  Moreover, 3% of the blood saved by Jian's Bloodsucking skill has saved him a large amount of gold, previously every time he returned to town his income after deducting the cost of buying medicine and replenishing supplies was almost nothing, now it is stable profit. Of course, nowadays Jian wouldn't care about this small amount of money, although he still... had negative assets.

  At this time, Zhou Jian's Tianxin sent a prompt, "Your friend Wen Ren Huiyin is online."