Chương 45: Chapter 43 -- Starfall Barrage

Zhang Fan was sharp. Xiao Chen had a feeling the kid had chosen the right path. Most of the Crimson Guild's members were still inside the city. Normal people couldn't take action in the city -- you had to infiltrate the Star Pact and become an enforcer to get anything done. If he played it right, Zhang Fan might actually manage to keep racking up merits and climb the ranks. Being an enforcer made it hard to stack kill counts, or Xiao Chen would've gladly paid for a position himself.

Everyone grew in their own way, and Xiao Chen could only keep grinding step by step.

"Little Strong, you guys head back to farming under the wall!" They'd been focusing on high-level mobs for a while now, and the kill count had dropped. But with this many hired hands, the EXP gains were still decent. To boost their farming efficiency, Xiao Chen dropped 180, 000 gold on a new Gold-grade weapon for Little Strong -- Level 110, attack speed bonus. With a dozen workers going twenty-four hours a day, they were guaranteed to trigger One in Ten Thousand at least three times.

Xiao Chen had invested heavily in Little Strong. It took time for the returns to show, but once they did... A steady sixty to seventy attribute points every day? Well worth the price.

"Wonder when the kill count will hit a hundred million. Then One in Ten Thousand can level up again." Xiao Chen was now Level 111 and had already learned three Universal Skills: Summon, Blink, True Sight, and Guardian Shield. One new Universal Skill slot every ten levels -- he still had plenty of skills left to learn. Surviving the wilderness solo was too dangerous. He needed more life-saving tools in his arsenal.

"Time to use that Gold-grade class skill book. Please, give me something broken." This skill mattered. Xiao Chen was actually nervous. He steadied his breathing before tapping the skill book. 【Ding! You have awakened Starfall Barrage. 】 【Starfall Barrage: Summons a dense volley of arrows, dealing damage to all enemies in the target area. Note: Summon range scales with the caster's Spirit. Each arrow deals 10% of Attack Power. 】 【Mana cost: 20, 000 per cast. Attack range equivalent to bow range. Cooldown: None.

】"How dense is 'dense'?" There was no hard number. He'd have to test it himself. Xiao Chen checked his mana pool: 86, 352. His base stats were high, and his Intelligence far outpaced other Archers at his level -- his mana was actually ridiculous. Still, he could only cast it four times. The cost was brutal. He had no idea what the actual damage output would look like.

Area damage like this wasn't great against high-defense Bosses -- 10% of his attack power meant roughly ten thousand damage per arrow, nowhere near enough to pierce a Level 100 Boss's defense. But for mobbing? Absolute destruction.

"Finally, a real skill!" It wasn't strong right now, but once his stats scaled up... he'd be wiping out entire fields of enemies at once. If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. There was no way he was going to bed without testing it. Xiao Chen stood on the wall, eyeing the dense pack of monsters in the distance, and got to work.

"Starfall Barrage!" Arrows rained down on the monster horde. Dense didn't even begin to describe it. The arrow density was insane -- a patch the size of a palm would catch two or three arrows. At this density? Pretty solid. Every mob had a decent-sized hitbox. They could easily catch dozens of arrows. Hundreds, even.

"-12, 036""-11, 839" A chain of numbers erupted. One zone of mobs vanished entirely.

"The AoE's roughly a hundred square meters!" 【Kills +98, Gold +2】"Everything about it's great except the mana drain." Xiao Chen burned through all four casts, drained his entire mana pool, and earned four hundred kills. Archers didn't regenerate mana like Mages. Only once his Intelligence scaled up would his mana pool and regen see a real boost.

"Never focused on INT before. Time to patch that weakness." He grabbed a list of Intelligence-boosting items from Chen Zhan and bought everything Gold-grade and below.

"You consumed Purple Spirit Grass. Intelligence +2."

"You consumed Heavenly Heart Orchid. Intelligence +2."

"You consumed Intermediate Intelligence Potion. Intelligence +10." After spending a few dozen gold, his Intelligence shot up by 2, 000 points, adding 20, 000 mana. Total mana pool: 106, 325. In team fights, a wide-area nuke like this was incredibly useful. And with team bonuses, mana regen was much faster.

"Got plenty of Universal Skill slots. Might as well learn a few more." Xiao Chen's mana was limited, so he focused on passive skills. Improving survivability was never the wrong call -- for an Archer, it was a weak point. 【 Retribution Armor: Defense +10%, reflects 20% of melee physical damage. Price: 1. 2 million gold. 】 【Iron Fortress: HP +10%, Defense +10%. Price: 1 million gold. 】 Two passive defensive skills, plus Guardian Shield as his active defensive tool. Xiao Chen felt borderline indecently tanky.

Even standing on the guild wall, he reflexively popped a shield on himself. Safety first.

"Already spent this much. Might as well upgrade my Soul-Bound Weapon too." Upgrading to rank 2 took 100 Enhancement Gems -- 500, 000 gold.

"Rank 3 takes 1, 000 gems. That's actually criminal." 【 Golden Bow -- Enhancement Rank 2: All bonuses increased by 20%. 】 【Xiao Chen: LV 111 (13. 2 million EXP) Total Attributes: 123, 635 Attack Power: 141, 026 HP: 498, 300 / MP: 106, 352 Defense: 46, 132 Attack Range: 320m / Attack Speed: 6. 9 / Movement Speed: 106 Skill 1: Tenfold Shot Skill 2: Armor-Pierce Arrow Lv. 2 (Damage +20%) Skill 3: Power Strike Lv.

2 (20% chance for double damage) Skill 4: Starfall Barrage Universal Skills: Summon, Blink, True Sight, Guardian Shield, Thorns, Iron Fortress 】"Buy ten Random Teleport Talismans and a batch of healing potions." A few quick purchases drained over 3 million gold. Five hundred thousand HP, forty-six thousand defense. He was thick.

"Forty percent melee reflection damage total. You scared yet?" Xiao Chen had range on his side and could tank in melee. That was powerful.

"Brother Fan, what's your total attribute count right now?"

"Just hit a hundred thousand. Why?"

"No reason, just asking." Xiao Chen's total attributes were actually higher than Zhang Fan's -- and Zhang Fan was Level 138. Most A-Rank class users at Level 110 had around 110, 000 total attributes. Without factoring in skill damage, Xiao Chen's stat spread was already pretty insane.

"1. 5 million gold left. Saving it for Soul-Bound Weapon upgrades." Xiao Chen's power at his level was already solid. If he could farm steadily for another decade or so, that'd be ideal. But reality wasn't going to give him that kind of time. He still needed to head into Level 100+ monster zones -- grind kills and levels simultaneously. Hunting Level 100 Bosses was risky, and he still didn't want to tangle with those things. Level 100 mobs had decent drop rates, though.

At volume, that was tens of thousands of gold per day. He wanted to find a safe spot to farm in peace, but some things were beyond his control. 【Planar Broadcast: Blue Star's planar fusion is accelerating. Fusion rate has reached 90%. 】 【Within one year, Blue Star will fully fuse. The Planar Defense War will commence. 】 【Blue Star is assigned Sector 836. Please raise your power level as quickly as possible to meet the new challenge. 】 【The fusion process will make space extremely unstable.

Be alert for new Void Rifts appearing across the world. Eliminate Void Rifts wherever possible -- any left unchecked will fully transform into spatial channels after one year. 】