Chapter 21 Part 2

“Wow.” After a slight dizziness, Xia Xifeng opened his eyes, looked up at the psychedelic sky, and let out an ignorant exclamation.

A sky so colorful it looked poisoned; dense, flourishing but twisted and ferocious vegetation; ground that seemed as if covered in shattered glass… If a cheerful Celtic tune started playing, the flavor would be spot on.

Depicting the Doomsday Era with warm or gorgeous colors and joyful, cheerful music—Fantasy Realms welcomes you!

“Did we really transmigrate into the game?” Xia Xifeng rubbed his arms. “Directly into the Apocalypse?”

As he spoke, he checked the System Panel.

The last time he transmigrated, Xia Xifeng had been flustered and panicked, only discovering the System after Qin Lang pointed it out. Once bitten, twice shy; Xia Xifeng was now a veteran transmigrator with a System.

Xia Xifeng: “The System gave me back all my in-game resources?! Dammit! Why is there still no Combat Class?! How am I supposed to defend myself then?!”

While checking his own panel, Qin Lang took a moment to glance at Xia Xifeng’s panel. “Level 200, max level. Physical stats and resistances are the same as other Legendary Classes. Added a skill that allows you to ‘click a teammate’s icon to directly use items.’ Just think of yourself as a Cleric or Mage who only heals and buffs.”

Xia Xifeng put on the heaviest defensive armor and huffed angrily, “I also have a fighting spirit!”

“No, you don’t. You didn’t before, either.” Qin Lang said disdainfully.

He sorted out his equipment, experiencing in advance the ultimate class state of a max-level dual-class Assassin/Ranger.

Having trained for less than half a month, they still couldn’t use their skills proficiently. He didn’t know if they could complete the quest.

Failing the quest wouldn’t endanger their lives; Qin Lang wanted to use this opportunity to quickly familiarize himself with this body. Training in danger was naturally more efficient than sparring with people on a training ground.

“Where do we go next?” Xia Xifeng jabbed furiously at the System Panel.

The System, as if dead again, had given them no further instructions after transporting them here.

Where were the quest indicators?

Even marking the map with question marks or exclamation marks would be fine! Xia Xifeng would never again complain about certain RPG games covering the map with reskinned fetch quests, making players clear out chamber pots door-to-door.

“Explore first,” Qin Lang said. “Pick a weapon you’re comfortable with.”

Xia Xifeng shook his head. “Did you forget? I can’t use combat skills.”

Qin Lang said, “This is reality. You can still do normal attacks even without combat skills.”

Xia Xifeng suddenly realized. “Oh, right.”

In the game, all actions with a weapon were considered combat skills. But reality was different. Wielding a club to hit someone or a knife to stab someone—who can’t do that?

Xia Xifeng lightly pounded his head. “After we go back, I’ll find a teacher to train me.”

The material supplies the System provided were everything Xia Xifeng had owned in the game, including all his main and alt accounts. Although Xia Xifeng didn’t like fighting, life-skills players had lots of money, plus Qin Lang’s help; he had collected a full set of every piece of Orange (Legendary) Gear.

He took out a large Spiked Club—a Cleric’s staff.

Clerics in Fantasy Realms were very different from the fragile Clerics in Japanese-style fantasy games. Clerics wore chainmail heavy armor and carried spiked maces. Even when holding the Holy Scripture, they’d put the Bible in a hardcover case fitted with ramming spikes.

Xia Xifeng swung the Spiked Club Cleric Staff. “Feels pretty good. Find me a small mob to try it on.”

Players had a built-in “Appraise” function. Mobs lower level than the player would display their level and health bar. If defeated enough times, you could even see their equipment and skills.

This “Appraise” only worked on red-name hostile mobs; green-name friendly and yellow-name neutral entities couldn’t be inspected. The game devs said it was to respect NPC privacy.

The System had forcibly matured the two to max level; all normal red-name mobs’ info was visible at a glance.

Qin Lang led the way. They hadn’t walked long before encountering a common mob—a rabbit with flowers growing from its body.

From afar, the rabbit looked particularly cute. Up close, one could see the flowers were growing out of its flesh. The stems piercing its skin oozed fresh blood, staining the rabbit’s fur. The large red flower that looked as if pinned to the rabbit’s head wasn’t actually near its ear but was growing out of one of its eyes.

Xia Xifeng’s mouth twitched. “Games being too high-definition isn’t always a good thing.” So horrifying!

“Level one hundred and fifty-six. I’ll weaken it first, you try.” With enhanced skills and vastly improved physical stats, Qin Lang’s movements were still a bit clumsy.

Fortunately, this Flower Rabbit was alone and dozens of levels lower than Qin Lang. When Qin Lang occasionally slipped up, its attacks didn’t deal much damage, and the pain levels were low too.

After a few attempts, Qin Lang’s short sword finally pierced the Flower Rabbit’s flower-sprouting eye.

The Flower Rabbit’s HP bar plummeted to a sliver, and status icons for “Maimed” and “Weakened” appeared above its head.

Qin Lang made a grasping motion towards the Flower Rabbit, activating “Mage Hand.”

Although this skill was called “Mage Hand,” it was a common cantrip that all spellcasting classes, including Bards, could learn.

Each class had a limited number of skill slots (spell slots). How to choose skills and execute them was where technical high-level players in Fantasy Realms showcased their skill.

Qin Lang guessed that once he fully integrated the skills into his body’s instincts, he might not need “skill slots” as a crutch anymore and could freely use all skills at will, combining even more interesting strategies.

That was a very distant matter. For now, Qin Lang was still just a player limited by “skill slots.”

“Mage Hand,” as the name implied, allowed Qin Lang to manipulate a phantom hand to manipulate objects or monsters. The weight of the manipulated object or the monster’s stamina value had to be less than his Strength stat. This action continuously consumed Mana.

Qin Lang used “Mage Hand” to throw the Flower Rabbit, now on its last sliver of HP, right in front of Xia Xifeng, who had already assumed a baseball-batting stance. Xia Xifeng viciously swung his Spiked Club Staff and smashed it onto the poor Flower Rabbit’s head.

The Flower Rabbit let out a shriek, flew three zhang away, HP -99.

Despite Xia Xifeng’s level being far higher than it, the damage it took didn’t even exceed a hundred!

Qin Lang analyzed, “Without combat skills, all your ‘actions’ only deal the most basic ‘natural collision damage.'”

In the game, “natural collision damage” was damage based on the real physics engine, fixed within a range of “-1 to -100.”

Now that the game had become reality, it likely meant that stats like “Resistances” and “Defense” negated most of the damage from Xia Xifeng’s Spiked Club Staff.

Xia Xifeng hoisted his Spiked Club Staff onto his shoulder. “If there’s damage, it’s fine. I saw the rabbit shrieking quite miserably. Although the damage wasn’t great, it seems the pain is still there. And did I just trigger the inherent knockback effect on my equipment? Let’s test it again!”

Qin Lang grabbed the poor rabbit and tossed it over again. This time, Xia Xifeng only knocked it back half a meter.

He checked his equipment. “Knockback skill is on cooldown. Four minutes left. The difference was obvious; it seems equipment-inherent spells are indeed usable.”

In the game, equipment at the Superior (Blue) quality or higher came with a small inherent spell that required no resource cost, only a cooldown time.

“Test it a few more times.” Qin Lang finished off the poor rabbit.

No experience or material drops.

It seemed farming experience and materials in “quest dungeons” wasn’t possible. He wondered when the System would provide experience and material farming instances.

Since there was no experience or materials, Qin Lang didn’t care about farming efficiency.

He explored the map, clearing the map fog and comparing it with his memory of the game map to determine their “landing” point, while also finding mobs to hone his skills.

Xia Xifeng gradually got used to the feel of “hunting” and tested the innate skills on different pieces of equipment.

The success rate of an equipment’s innate skill was only related to the level difference between him and the target.

To his pleasant surprise, skills on equipment with the same name shared a cooldown, but skills on equipment with different names had independent cooldowns!

This meant that, as long as he was rich enough, he could store a bunch of differently named equipment with innate skills in his backpack and subject monsters to low-damage but highly humiliating torment.

Cough, well, that’s just a meme build.

During actual combat, Xia Xifeng would still need to hide in a safe place. However, if the opponent underestimated him, maybe he could use the equipment’s innate skills to catch them off guard.

“Human adaptability is truly strong.” Xia Xifeng now carried an Octagonal Hammer staff, which had a binding spell attached. “I’m actually not bothered by the sight of blood anymore.”

Qin Lang wiped his short sword and said, “There’s a Safe Zone up ahead. Rest for a while.”

Xia Xifeng asked, “You know where we are now?”

Qin Lang said, “The Secret Realm Forest where the Evil God Inson hid.”

Xia Xifeng’s eyes flickered, and the corners of his mouth twitched. “You can solo it?”

Qin Lang said, “Let’s train a few more days first, then try.”

Xia Xifeng let out a long breath and looked up at the sky. “No wonder I didn’t have a deep impression of this place. The Secret Realm Forest doesn’t have fixed respawning resource points. Just that the materials dropped by the mobs can be bought from you. For this quest of ours, is it considered a success just by soloing the Evil God Inson?”

Qin Lang said, “Don’t know, but we definitely need to clear the boss. If you can’t bear it, you can wait outside the dungeon.”

Xia Xifeng shook his head. “Let’s go together. I’ll heal and buff you, and help Perila find release. Also, if there’s special story content, it’ll definitely require both of us to be there to trigger it. According to the game’s story, the Evil God Inson was constantly hunted by the Sunflower Family. By the time he hid in this secret realm, he was already severely wounded and couldn’t leave his place of recuperation. If we can’t beat him, using a Teleportation Scroll to instantly disengage from combat means no danger. We can try a few more times.”

He lowered the Octagonal Hammer Staff from his shoulder, planted it in front of him, and held the top of the staff handle with both hands. “Let’s go. We’ll set up a simple base in the Safe Zone.”

After walking for another ten or so minutes, Qin Lang and Xia Xifeng arrived at the “Safe Zone.”

Safe Zones had no obvious markers, but players could recognize them at a glance even without looking at the minimap’s indicator—the ground was the color of normal ground, the grass was the color of normal grass, and the water in the little pond was the color of normal water.

In short, this place lacked all the fantastical colors of the outside world, as plain as the most ordinary wilderness near your home.

The scenery of Safe Zones varied. According to NPCs, the scenery of a Safe Zone was what that particular area’s landscape originally looked like before the Doomsday Era descended.

The only unifying landscape feature in all Safe Zones was a patch of spring water—seemingly stagnant, yet incredibly clear, never drying up—and in the center of the spring, a small tree, half-withered and half-thriving.

This small tree was a phantom image of the “World Tree.”

The “World Tree” wasn’t an actual tree, but a symbol of the concept “supporting the world and connecting worlds,” an Innate God.