49. Level Ten Attributes, Enhanced Skills
Inside Wolf King Valley, Su Yu was also keeping an eye on the ranking leaderboard.
“Thousand Cups Without Drunkenness, Iced Black Tea, Well of the Azure Mountain... I didn’t expect these masters to reveal themselves so early,” Su Yu mused.
Well of the Azure Mountain was a renowned hardcore player in the Heaven-Slaying Guild, a connoisseur of game storylines with an acute instinct for hidden quests.
Iced Black Tea was a lone wolf, the top assassin in his previous life, with an unshakable reputation in the martial world.
As for Thousand Cups Without Drunkenness, this guy was truly fascinating.
He was also a lone wolf and the most legendary figure in the early game.
In the real world, he was born into a martial arts family, with skills that were undisputedly the best throughout the entire Chinese martial arts community.
Moreover, his skills were no flashy, performative moves but genuine, practical martial arts!
After entering the game, no minor monster could even touch him once, effectively granting him a built-in 100% evasion, which made his leveling speed incredibly fast.
However, he disliked the assassin class, considering its sneaky nature unsuitable for his personality, so he didn’t take the game seriously in the early stages.
When the third expansion, “Empire of the Pandaren,” launched, introducing four new classes—Martial Artist, Monk, Taoist, and Fangshi—Thousand Cups Without Drunkenness switched to the Martial Artist class through a hidden quest. Then, relying on his superb skills and extraordinary luck, he rose at lightning speed, becoming a figure in the third expansion comparable to the Snow Leopard.
These three were undoubtedly among the absolute elite in the game.
...
Su Yu casually sent friend requests to Thousand Cups Without Drunkenness and Iced Black Tea.
After a while, no response came.
Perhaps both of them were overwhelmed with friend requests from other players.
Su Yu shook his head and opened his character status panel.
Upon reaching level 10, his attributes were as follows:
Character: Nemesis
Level: 10
Class: Mage
Bloodline: Star Bloodline (Legendary)
Attributes:
Strength: 14, Agility: 14, Intelligence: 46, Constitution: 14, Luck: 10
Spell Power: 66
Health: 170
Mana: 1280
Defense: 81
Spell Crit Rate: 0
Movement Speed: —
Experience: 3/12000
Wealth: 7,378,758,150 Spirit Coins
Equipment: Village Chief’s Staff Lv5 (Golden Rare), Hillside Goat Leather Hood Lv4 (Rare)... Goddess’s Tear (Epic)
Skills: Magic Missile (Rare), Star Piercer (Legendary)... Lightning Shield (Rare).
...
Upon reaching level 10, Su Yu’s equipment and skills could be upgraded again, advancing to epic quality.
“Ding, would you like to spend 10,000 Spirit Coins to enhance [Magic Missile (Rare)]?”
“Confirm!”
“Ding, please select the enhancement path for [Magic Missile]: 1. Elemental Explosion: Upon hitting an enemy, deals 30% damage to all enemies within 4 meters; 2. Magic Manipulation: Allows small-range guidance after casting.”
“Note: Enhancement path can be changed later for 10,000 Spirit Coins.”
Being able to choose an enhancement path when upgrading to epic quality? That was unexpected.
“I’ll choose... option 2,” Su Yu picked randomly, since he rarely used this spell anyway.
“Congratulations! [Magic Missile (Rare)] has been upgraded to [Magic Missile (Epic)].”
A splendid golden light enveloped the Magic Missile skill icon before bursting spectacularly.
The skill icon’s color shifted to a pleasing purple.
Without pause, Su Yu proceeded to upgrade more skills.
“Ding, please select the enhancement path for [Lightning Arrow]: 1. Hundred Thousand Volts: The chance to inflict paralysis on the target is increased to 100%; 2. Forked Lightning: 50% chance to hit one additional target.”
“Option 1.”
“Ding, please select the enhancement path for [Ice Arrow]: 1. Bone-Chilling Cold: Adds a 15% chance to freeze enemies; 2. Ice Bloodline: Every third cast of this spell is free of mana cost.”
“Option 1.”
“Ding, please select the enhancement path for [Ice Shield]: 1. Physical Barrier: Immune to the first instance of physical damage received; 2. Magical Barrier: Immune to the first instance of magical damage received. (Note: Immune damage cannot exceed ten times the maximum shield value.)”
“Option 1.”
“Ding, please select the enhancement path for [Chain Lightning]: 1. Elemental Echo: 20% chance to release an additional cast of this spell; 2. Multiple Bounces: Increases the number of damage bounces to 5.”
“Option 2.”
“Ding, please select the enhancement path for [Blink]: 1. Flash: This spell gains two charges; 2. Leap: Teleport distance increases by 10 meters.”
“Option 1.”
“Ding, please select the enhancement path for [Invisibility]: 1. The Hidden One: Cooldown time reduced by 10 seconds; 2. Break Invisibility Strike: The first spell or attack released while invisible deals 30% increased damage.”
“Option 1.”
...
Su Yu enhanced all his skills.
Epic skill upgrades no longer merely boosted stats but added new special traits.
Some traits weren’t very useful for Su Yu, such as the mana cost reduction for Ice Arrow.
But others were quite powerful!
For instance, the Physical Barrier trait of Ice Shield.
Su Yu roughly calculated that by maintaining Ice Shield, he could currently negate the first attack from level 30 warriors or archers—easily enough to stop a real-world handgun bullet.
Moreover, this trait would grow stronger as his level increased!
At higher tiers, it might even allow him to withstand a missile explosion unscathed.
...
Besides skills, his equipment could also be enhanced.
After checking, only the Village Chief’s Staff needed upgrading; other cloth armor pieces didn’t require it yet.
At this stage, his damage output was sufficient, and wearing gear with double movement speed was better for faster leveling and questing.
If he later encountered bosses he couldn’t defeat or if leveling slowed down, he could gradually switch to higher-level cloth armor.
Therefore, Su Yu only upgraded the Village Chief’s Staff.
“Ding, please select the enhancement path for [Village Chief’s Staff]: 1. Add Skill: [Blink]; 2. Spell Power +10.”
“Add skill?” Su Yu’s eyes lit up.
Without hesitation, he chose option 1.
Additional skills were usually reserved for legendary equipment. He hadn’t expected the Village Chief’s Staff to gain this option after enhancement!
Adding [Blink] to the Village Chief’s Staff meant that even if Su Yu didn’t know the skill himself, he could cast Blink using the staff.
Moreover, the Blink on the staff shared no cooldown with his own Blink skill.
In other words, after upgrading Blink, Su Yu could cast it three times in quick succession, greatly enhancing his survival capability!