Chapter 140: Chapter 130: Eerie (Monthly Ticket Bonus 1)

Li Zheng barely had time to comfort Xiaoying as the scenery changed before his eyes, leading him to the second room of the day.

A cold wind howled, moaning like the wails of a vengeful spirit.

“Ying ying!”

Hearing this sound, Xiaoying squeezed her eyes shut in fear, clinging tightly to Li Zheng’s neck, trembling all over.

Li Zheng: “???”

The last time they encountered the ghost-like Thick Smoke Monster, the little one wasn’t this scared–what’s going on this time?

Puzzled, Li Zheng put away his Identity Card, raised his hand to pat Xiaoying’s back, trying to calm her.

Meanwhile, his eyes scanned the surroundings.

“Another cave room?”

Li Zheng frowned slightly, noting that the rooms he had entered these days largely consisted of such cave or cavern environments, aside from the metallic ones.

This cavern was somewhat different from what he was used to.

Besides being extraordinarily vast and tall with very low visibility, the ground was jagged with strange rocks encircling a dark altar.

“Another altar? Do all rooms with wild Treasure Chests come with these altar structures?”

Squinting ahead, Li Zheng almost overlooked it–had it not been for the altar towering in the dim environment, its silhouette barely visible, plus his improved vision since entering the Matrix on the first day.

[Abyssal Altar]

Old Pu provided a simple information prompt.

“Abyssal Altar?”

Li Zheng looked at the name and thought to himself, “Based on my experience reading novels, these things are usually used to summon common abyssal creatures, right?

If that’s the case, this setting is really old and cliche.”

Criticizing in his heart, Li Zheng subtly tightened his grip on the Cutting Blade.

Suddenly, with lightning speed, he thrust his sword at a nearby strange rock.

“Ah! Ka da xa xa!”

The rock screamed in agony after being struck by the blade, then cursed in an oddly syllabic language.

It retreated quickly and decisively, disappearing among the surrounding strange rocks in an instant.

“An intelligent creature?”

Li Zheng didn’t immediately pursue, instead glancing at the bloodstain on the Cutting Blade.

A dark, eerie shade of purple with a sharp metallic odor.

“Hmph, if it weren’t for Old Pu’s hint, anyone else might have been successfully ambushed.”

Li Zheng chuckled coldly, stepping into the forest of strange rocks.

Just then, the Matrix System suddenly popped up a prompt:

[Under mysterious influence, players may suffer unknown ability erosion before leaving this room.]

“Hmm?”

The foot he had just lifted paused in midair as Li Zheng froze for a moment–he hadn’t felt anything abnormal; how was he being affected?

A thought crossed his mind as he turned to look at the trembling Xiaoying in his arms, and to his horror, found the little creature covered in a deathly gray hue, her face contorted as if resisting something.

“Old Pu, what’s going on?”

Li Zheng frowned, trying to understand the situation.

[I don’t know.

Old Pu’s extracted information is very complex and requires some time to decode.

About… three hours.

Ugh!

Forget waiting for decryption–better find that damned creature and slash it to death. The influence will naturally dissipate.]

“Are you sure it can be resolved?”

Li Zheng asked to confirm, finally receiving Old Pu’s confident answer.

[Absolutely!

The information related to the little one’s affliction is connected to that creature; eliminate it to cut the info transfer.]

“Alright!”

Li Zheng’s eyes turned sharp and resolute. As he focused his thoughts, the Cutting Blade in his hand transformed into a long staff.

“Xiaoying, hold on tight–I might not be able to look after you soon.”

Clasping the staff with both hands, Li Zheng advised Xiaoying; flames enveloped the long staff.

“Ying…”

Xiaoying weakly responded, hugging tighter with her small paws.

“Old Pu, lock onto that bastard’s position for me!”

Li Zheng swept the long staff horizontally, flames roaring, shattering a cluster of odd rocks, clearing a small area around him.

[Left, front, ten meters.]

“Charge!”

Li Zheng bent slightly forward, pressing his foot to the ground, darting out like a tiger unleashed.

The flaming staff swung back and forth, smashing through one cluster of strange rocks after another.

An old saying goes: the spear selects a line, the stick sweeps a swath.

The spear’s lethality lies more in its point striking the enemy, while stick weapons are much more direct–regardless of the method used, as long as you swing with all your might, hitting the target is enough.

Many stick techniques, in summary, boil down to one word: smash!

The most straightforward example is the ‘Mad Demon Staff Technique,’ which almost discards all flashy moves, focusing solely on strength and speed.

This kind of stick technique forms quickly, but has a low ceiling, making it difficult to fight above one’s level.

Because it’s easy to get started, there’s a saying among the people: a year for the knife, a month for the staff, a lifetime for the spear.

It means, whether you’ve practiced martial arts or have a martial arts background or not.

As long as you study diligently, even if you practice blindly, you can touch the edge of Staff Mastery in a month.

It’s a bit exaggerated, but it also indirectly shows…

Staff technique is really dirt cheap.

Unless you’re practicing Sun Wukong’s staff technique from when he caused havoc in the Heavenly Palace.

At this moment, as Li Zheng swung the long staff, he unknowingly grasped the true essence of this type of staff technique. With every swing, the system would prompt “Staff Mastery gained 0.01%”.

Ten meters distance was covered in the blink of an eye. During this time, Li Zheng tried various techniques like swinging, smashing, and stabbing. By combining with the techniques provided by Spear Mastery, he found that the first two techniques always increased the mastery gain progress by 0.01%.

“Found you!”

Li Zheng looked at the figure revealed after the strange rock shattered, draped in gray-white tattered sackcloth, and smirked coldly, raising the staff to smash down!

Thud!

Debris flew everywhere, and it turned out to be a bizarre rock identical to the exterior of Abyssal Walking!

“Damn! Lao Pu?”

[Forward, three meters!]

Three meters, just two steps away.

Li Zheng locked in the direction, just stepping out, the long staff hadn’t swung up yet, when he noticed a shadow flash past the myriad rocks.

[It ran away.]

“Fuck your nonsense, lock onto it for me!”

Li Zheng cursed loudly, smashing a nearby strange rock with the staff.

[Right front, fifteen meters!

No! Left front, twenty meters!

No, straight ahead, ten meters!

Damn it, this guy is playing with me!]

“Seems like it figured out you can lock onto it!”

Li Zheng squinted: “In that case…”

He turned to glance at Xiao Ying, with black gem-like eyes flashing with specks of phosphorescence.

“This is…”

The spirit in the eyes from the Abyss Walking Atlas!

“Possession?”

[To be precise, this is called Will Transfer.

Act quickly, the little guy can’t hold on for long!

I don’t have time to break this transfer, you’ll have to rely on yourself!]

“Give me all your effort to crack its weakness, leave the rest to me.”

Li Zheng withdrew the Thick-Backed Black Knife from his capsule accommodation, attaching the Ice Element.

The long staff was also transformed into a Tachi, attaching the Fire Element.

One ice, one fire, two weapons held separately in each hand.

“You can hide, can’t you?”

Li Zheng crossed his hands in front of him, blue cold air and red flames merging in front, “I’ll plow through the strange rock forest you’re hiding in, let’s see where else you can hide!”

The next second, Li Zheng activated the Flying Device behind him, hovering off the ground, boosting his speed to the limit he could bear, as the two weapons wildly danced around him.

Crack crack crack…

Thud thud thud…

One by one bizarre rocks were smashed, within the cave the size of two entire sports fields, the star-like rocky formations were plowed through by this rampant destruction.

When Li Zheng stopped the Flying Device and landed, the entire cave had no intact strange rock left except the tall black altar that remained unscathed.

This only took eight minutes.

[Found it!

Its weakness…

Is on the altar!]

Li Zheng turned to look at the altar, seeing the conspicuous Abyssal Walking revealing itself on top.

Its appearance was roughly similar to the atlas, except the tattered sackcloth on it was pure black.

“Found you!”

Li Zheng displayed a hideous grin and decisively drove the Flying Device behind him, charging straight to the top of the altar.

…

“Hmm?”

Li Zheng suddenly opened his eyes, feeling a sense of surreal dislocation.

“Ying.”

Xiao Ying stood on his shoulder, looking at him curiously.

“What’s going on?”

Li Zheng only remembered that in the last moment, he was still flying towards the top of the altar, but suddenly the next second he was back to where he initially entered the room?

And… judging by Xiao Ying’s condition, there was no sign of erosion.

“Lao Pu, what’s going on?”

…