Chương 16: Chapter 15

"Mei, let's spar," Adam said the moment they returned to their cave home.

"Eh? Now?"

"Yeah. I feel like I might've gained some kind of insight from the boss battle. I wanna test it."

"An insight…?" Mei stared at him suspiciously.

"What are you, some kind of xianxia protagonist? Next thing you'll say is that your cultivation reached a breakthrough."

"Are you going to spar or not?" She nodded immediately.

"Of course!" Adam had to fight to keep himself from laughing as the corners of his lips curled upward. Right now, while she was still debuffed, he actually had a legitimate chance of beating her in a spar for the first time ever. With both of them sitting at E-rank Strength, they were theoretically even. But if he silently buffed himself first... He could practically taste victory already. Mei stepped into a fighting stance, turning her body sideways while keeping one fist raised near her chest.

She bounced lightly on the balls of her feet, shifting forward and backward with practiced rhythm. Adam tightened his grip on his staff and quietly imagined an invisible aura enveloping his body, one that would silently enhance his strength without her noticing.

"You gonna use your staff?" Mei asked.

"Yeah. Figured I should practice with it like a bo staff in case something gets close to me." It wasn't exactly a lie. But the real reason was that he needed to hold the staff to cast and maintain his magic. She nodded approvingly.

"Good idea." Adam moved first, hoping to seize the initiative before she could react. His staff swung downward from overhead in a fast, decisive strike.

"Oh wait!" Mei suddenly called out, throwing both hands up. Adam flinched instinctively and halted the strike midway.

"What?"

"Forgot to tie my hair up," she said sheepishly. She pulled a hair tie from her wrist and quickly gathered her hair into a long ponytail that reached halfway down her back.

"There. Now I'm ready." Before he could even respond, she moved. Her body snapped forward like a venomous snake striking prey. Fast. Silent. Lethal. Her fist slipped around his descending staff and struck his wrist with pinpoint precision. Pain shot through his arm. The staff flew from his hand and clattered against the cave floor, instantly breaking his silent buff.

"You can't trick me," Mei said casually as she stepped into his guard.

"I taught you everything you know." Then her fist buried itself into the pit of his stomach.

"But not everything I know." Adam folded instantly. His body bent like a shrimp as he was launched backward more than four feet, his heels carving two long trenches through the dirt before he collapsed onto the ground. He landed in a pose disturbingly similar to the Yamcha death meme.

"You... cheated..." he groaned weakly.

"Says the guy who tried cheating first," Mei scoffed. She turned away with a dramatic flip of her ponytail, leaving him sprawled on the ground to contemplate his poor life decisions.

"I... would have... won..." Adam whispered to himself before finally passing out. A moment later, Skysandra peeked her head out from deeper inside the cave, glancing between the two of them.

"Did you kill your husband?"

"He isn't my husband. Yet."

"But... he dead or not?"

"Nah, he'll be fine," Mei replied casually.

"This isn't even the first time I've knocked him unconscious. I'm basically a professional at it by now." Skysandra gave her a deeply skeptical look. The expression looked especially strange on her avian face. Just to be safe, she walked over to Adam and checked his breathing. It was perfectly calm and steady, like he was peacefully asleep. After a moment, she nodded solemnly.

"She really is an expert." — — — Mei sat inside their cave with a little crystal-blue box resting on the ground in front of her. A bold question mark was printed on its side. She bowed three times and clasped her hands together as if praying for good luck before a school entrance exam at a temple festival. With an unusually serious expression, she carefully reached forward and lifted the lid. A brilliant beam of multicolored light burst from inside the box, forcing both of them to shield their eyes.

Even Skysandra had to raise a wing to block the blinding glow. Stolen novel; please report.

"Damn, that's bright," Adam cursed, covering his eyes with a hand.

"Rainbow light! Does that mean I pulled a Mythic?!" Mei ignored the light entirely. She peeled the lid off the rest of the way and reached inside the box. The moment she pulled the item free, the light vanished as abruptly as if someone had flipped a switch. Adam blinked his stinging eyes a few times before finally getting a look at the item she had obtained. A pair of black combat boots.

Mei immediately kicked off the worn leather boots she had been wearing, the same pair that had been thoroughly sullied by hobgoblin fluids. Without even checking the item description, she slipped the new boots onto her feet and let out a relieved sigh.

"Ah~ that's better. I was getting some serious heebie-jeebies being forced to wear those other ones." She then grabbed the old pair and hurled them deep into the recesses of the cave.

"Let's see..." she muttered.

"What do these new boots offer?" She pulled up the item description while Adam leaned over her shoulder to read it too. Combat Boots - Unranked (Growth-type item) Gunslingers have trained their bodies to limits beyond human capabilities, becoming one with their firearms, and turning themselves into the ultimate weapon. But it's not just their weapons, even the clothes on their bodies are tools of combat, possessing lethality combined with utmost practicality.

Effect: Increases kicking power, movement speed, and shooting stability by 10% – Effect increases based on steps taken (1% = 100, 000 steps)"One hundred thousand steps?" Adam said, doing the math in his head.

"That's roughly fifty miles. Nine million steps would get you to a one hundred percent increase, which is around one hundred eighty thousand miles total. If we use Earth's circumference as a baseline, about twenty-four thousand miles..." He paused briefly.

"You'd have to walk around the planet nearly eight times to max these out." Mei slowly looked up at him, brow furrowing as she gave him an odd look.

"What?"

"You somehow managed to strip all the mystique out of it."

"Oh. Sorry. Force of habit."

"Whatever," she said, shaking her head.

"It's been a whole day already. Let's go test our new loot!" Without waiting for him to agree, she pulled her pistol from her inventory and slid it into the holster on the vest strapped across her chest. A moment later, her tactical shotgun appeared in her hands as she marched straight out of the cave. As an experienced personal trainer, Adam couldn't help noticing something odd about the way she moved. She was taking noticeably more steps than normal, yet covering roughly the same amount of distance.

Mei had already unconsciously adapted to the movement speed increase from the boots and was deliberately shortening her stride to maximize her step count.

"Monster," he whispered. Her talent was genuinely absurd. — — — Mei and Adam crouched atop a hill overlooking a small goblin encampment in the distance.

"Where'd all these hobgoblins come from?" Adam wondered aloud. The camp was packed with elite hobgoblins, while only a handful of wolf-riding goblins patrolled the perimeter as guards.

"It might be one of the modifiers," Mei suggested.

"Maybe the enemies evolve over time."

"Makes sense." Adam nodded slowly.

"Let's go with that. So, how do you wanna handle this? And please don't say 'rush 'em.'""R, uh..." Mei faltered, visibly caught off guard.

"Well..." He sighed heavily.

"Tell you what. I still don't know the maximum range on my magic, and I'd rather not test my new equipment in the middle of a giant melee. So I'll stay up here and see if I can cast from long distance." He pointed toward the camp.

"You can go ahead and rush them if you want." Her eyes practically sparkled.

"Really?" Adam waved her forward.

"Go." She didn't need to be told twice. Mei immediately exploded into motion, sprinting down the hill with an excited shout that echoed across the battlefield. The goblin guards snapped toward the sound in alarm. Their shrill voices overlapped in chaotic cries as they began shouting warnings, occasionally interrupted by the deeper, rougher tones of the hobgoblins. From Adam's vantage point, Mei initially looked like she was charging recklessly into the middle of the camp.

But after watching her movements for a few seconds, he realized that wasn't true at all. She had already identified the weakest point in their defenses. Every step angled her toward a vulnerable gap in the perimeter, one she could easily punch through before sowing chaos deep inside their ranks. Her tactical shotgun suddenly lit up with a deep crimson glow running along the weapon's frame. The gun's exclusive skill had activated. The following gunshot was accompanied by the roar of a dragon.

Flames erupted from the barrel in a massive sweeping spray that engulfed the front line of enemies. The wolves shrieked in terror while goblins and hobgoblins alike collapsed onto the ground, desperately rolling through the dirt in an attempt to extinguish the flames. None of it mattered before the power of [Dragon's Breath]. The fire clung to them relentlessly. Ten seconds. That was all the skill lasted. Very few survived even that long, and the ones that did were barely hanging onto life.

"[Magic Buff]," Adam called out. He imagined Mei's body being infused with energy that would accelerate her mana recovery. A pale whitish aura immediately sprang to life around her body, exactly as he envisioned. Mei paused for half a second to inspect the effect before raising a thumbs-up toward him overhead. Apparently she approved. She toggled her shotgun into another firing mode. Ten glowing purple projectiles materialized at the muzzle before launching outward with a thunderous blast.

The spread shot tore through the battlefield. Enemies struck by multiple projectiles died instantly. The ones clipped by only a single shot survived by the narrowest margin imaginable. Then Mei calmly toggled firing modes again and began picking off the remaining stragglers one by one. Each pull of the trigger ended another life. Adam stared at the carnage in silence for a moment.

"Seriously," he muttered to himself, "I'm pretty sure she's actually a mage."