It was unexpected, yet entirely within reason.
This time, Chu Fu did not improve by much.
A system notification appeared, but it only awarded Chu Fu a small portion of the rewards.
Or rather, the divine power plundered from a Level 20 Origin-level dungeon simply could not provide enough benefits for Chu Fu, who was already Level 31.
Not to mention that the divine power had previously been divided among 20,000 people, whereas this time it was split among 120,000. A smaller share was only natural.
【You have completed a glorious battle and made an enormous contribution!
【Your SS-rank talent, Poisonous Being, has absorbed divine power and become the SSS-rank Poisonous Being!】
【SSS-rank talent—Poisonous Being:
Trait 1: Poison Mutation: You can activate any plant and transform it through poison-based mutation, turning it into a deadly poisonous object.
Trait 2: Poison-Devouring Saint Body: Consuming a poisonous substance increases your Poison Attack by 1 point and Poison Defense by 1 point.
For every 100 points of Poison Attack gained, Mentality increases by 1 point.
For every 100 points of Poison Defense gained, Constitution increases by 1 point.
Trait 3: Poison damage increased by 100%.
Trait 4: Wound-Borne Poison: When you suffer bleeding, grievous wounds, or similar injuries, poison will seep from your wounds and splash onto nearby enemies. The stronger your Poison Attack, the greater the poison damage inflicted by the splash.
Trait 5: Poison Corpse Feign Death: After receiving a fatal blow, your body will be controlled by poison, entering a state of feigned death. During this period, you are immune to all damage, ignore pain, and gain a massive increase to movement speed and damage. The effect lasts for one hour.】
Traits 4 and 5 were both defensive abilities.
Although Chu Fu felt that, with her current strength, she had yet to encounter an enemy capable of injuring her, having an ability that could save her life was still extremely important.
Chu Fu accepted it gladly.
【Affected by divine power, all your class skills have received a basic enhancement of +1.】
Chu Fu looked at her row of skills, all marked +11, and immediately felt that she had made a huge profit.
Once a skill was enhanced to Level 10, further enhancements required not one Skill Enhancement Stone, but ten.
This single wave had saved Chu Fu a tremendous number of Skill Enhancement Stones.
As for the rest of the team—
Shen Chi’s Metal Manipulation had reached SS rank. The two newly acquired traits allowed him to elementalize his body and transform into a metal man.
Shen Chi’s first talent, Trait 5: Mechanical Ascension, had finally become useful.
After transforming into a metal man, he could add various technological items to his body. Once he canceled the elementalization, those technological items would remain embedded within his metal form without altering his flesh-and-blood body.
This allowed him to gain a massive increase in attributes without having to worry about becoming a monster.
Furthermore, if he upgraded his SS-rank Metal Manipulation to SSS rank, then during the version involving the Mechanical Invasion, Shen Chi might even be able to counter the Mechanical Race.
Everyone else had also made tremendous progress. The higher they advanced, the smaller each individual improvement became, but their accumulated attributes and skill enhancements had allowed the players in Chu Fu’s team to pull far ahead of the other players.
Next came the battlefield cleanup.
“Take everything that can be taken, even bricks, soil, and stones.”
“Remove every ornament that can be detached. Those bones may have been dropped by high-level magical beasts, and don’t forget the cores.”
“Those aren’t useless decorative items. They’re real beast cores!”
They stripped the place bare, leaving not even a feather behind.
However, there was a time limit on the town-defense assault. According to the system’s rules, the ninth and tenth waves lasted two hours, and they could remain here for no more than that.
Otherwise, the passage formed by the Spatial Stone would no longer have enough energy to stay open.
So they spent an hour looting the area.
Looking out across the landscape, it was as if the Goblin City had vanished from the map entirely. Even two meters of the surrounding earth had been scraped away.
Not a single player was missing when they returned. After all, the city itself had disappeared, making it easy to see that everyone had come back.
When they returned to Guguan Town, they heard the system’s pleasant voice.
Guguan Town—Perfect Town Defense Complete!
……
Flower-Growing Nation Analysis Bureau.
“The report is here!”
“After the Origin-level dungeon in Linjiang City was cleared, twelve A-rank players in the official Soul of the Army Guild reached S rank.
“We don’t know exactly how many senior members of the Thorn Guild improved, but based on the chat logs we collected and the intelligence we gathered, we estimate that around seventy people obtained S-rank talents.
“As for the Fun Guild and the unaffiliated players, only nine players obtained S-rank talents, including that spy, Eighteen Stabs.
“However, all of them rejected the Soul of the Army Guild’s offer and joined the Thorn Guild instead!”
One of the senior officials in the Analysis Bureau frowned.
“The gap is a little too large.”
The analyst hurriedly explained, “That’s actually quite normal. The Thorn Guild’s players were all A rank to begin with.
“There were simply too many participants this time, so the divine power was divided among them. Naturally, those powerful A-rank players advanced to S rank.
“After all, the strongest members of the previous batch had already advanced.
“The Soul of the Army players and the unaffiliated players didn’t have nearly as many A-rank players among them.”
Especially among the 90,000 unaffiliated players. If any of them had been A rank, they would have done everything possible to join the Thorn Guild long ago.
“Yes, I understand. Continue.”
The leader naturally knew these basic facts. He was merely expressing his feelings.
In truth, the most important issue was not how powerful the Thorn Guild was.
It was whether their methods could be replicated.
The analyst continued his report.
“At present, we have completed a thorough assessment of the combat strength of the Origin-level goblins and calculated their values with precision.
“If a group of A-rank players were all equipped with Dark Gold-grade gear, each of them could fight one of these goblins one-on-one.
“If the players were S rank, their killing power would be nearly a thousand times greater.
“B-rank talents could defeat them through sheer numbers.
“Of course, this also depends on whether an individual possesses a special class, hidden class, or other such factors.
“Overall, as long as we can obtain a large number of Dark Gold-grade items and distribute them among the players defending the towns, we can counterattack the Origin-level goblin dungeons. That would allow us to continuously siphon off divine power and snowball our advantage.
“At present, the Analysis Bureau recommends purchasing or mobilizing the Dark Gold-grade equipment held by the Thorn Guild. We can use the teleportation arrays between cities to transport the equipment and distribute it among the players in regions that are about to defend their towns, allowing them to attempt to clear Origin-level dungeons.
“The Soul of the Army Guild obtained 3,000 sets of Dark Gold equipment yesterday.
“But according to our data analysis, that falls far short. A single town needs at least 20,000 sets of Dark Gold equipment to ensure success.
“Moreover, given the nation’s current resources, the purchase price for such a quantity of equipment would be terrifying. And once the equipment was distributed, there would be no guarantee that the citizens would be responsible enough to return it.”
Those were matters the analyst did not need to consider.
His job was to analyze the situation and leave the final decision to his superiors.
The conference room fell silent for a moment. The leader let out a long sigh.
“Send someone to speak with Plantman. Ask whether we can borrow their equipment.”
“Yes!”
“By the way, what about the new-player villages we asked you to investigate earlier? Have you found any teams capable of exploring Origin-level dungeons?”
Since the goblins could open rifts, the beast tide invasions should naturally have Origin-level dungeons as well.
It was just that the players in the newbie villages were far too weak. He wondered whether there might be a team like Plantman’s—one they could send out to explore. At the very least, they could let the others learn more about the dungeon.
Unfortunately, the newbie villages were completely sealed off, so there was no way for them to lend the other side any support.
A hint of excitement crept into the analyst’s voice.
“There is one—and tomorrow, they’ll be able to start the Town Defense Battle.”
“These players are from Zone 0488888. They’ve practically perfectly retraced Plantman’s path, claiming every first kill and racking up exceptionally high attribute points. And their class is like Lu Xing’s—they’re practically the chosen ones.”
“Her ID is: Eighteen Stabs!”
