After Bai Xue finished equipping her gear, the two of them left the area and rushed toward the place that looked like a city.
Thirty minutes later, a shadow suddenly appeared on the distant grassland.
With a splat, something fell to the ground—it was half a human body!
“You damn women! One day, I’ll kill you! I swear I’ll kill you both!”
His body was in tatters, and as he spoke through the half of his remaining mouth, his words dripped with venom.
The scene was extremely eerie.
It was none other than Zhao Gang, who had been beaten half to death by Ye Lian.
Just then, an icefang crocodile, drawn by the scent of prey nearby, approached excitedly.
The moment it spotted Zhao Gang, a human-like expression of joy spread across its face.
This half-dead prey looked delicious~
“You filthy gator, you think you can bully me too? You’re dead meat!”
Zhao Gang’s hair stood on end from rage.
White steam puffed out of one of his nostrils.
The next moment, his remaining half-body softened and transformed into a small octopus covered in eyeballs.
The icefang crocodile looked on in disdain.
A shapeshifting little creature? Hardly worth fearing.
But when the crocodile saw the small octopus suddenly swell up and reveal rows of terrifyingly sharp teeth, its pupils shrank instantly.
Reacting on pure instinct, it turned to flee.
Zhao Gang—now a massive octopus—was not about to let this foolish crocodile escape.
He pounced, trapping it in his tentacles, and began to tear into it viciously.
A horrifying chorus of flesh-ripping and bone-crunching echoed through the air.
***
“Bai Xue, I’ll leave that unihorned rabbit to you.”
While crossing the grasslands, Ye Lian and Bai Xue were ambushed by a pack of fifteen unihorned rabbits.
“Yes, Master!” Bai Xue responded firmly, gripping her dual-colored black and white sword and her round shield.
With a defense stat of 280 and an attack power of 100, she was in complete domination mode against the level 2 unihorned rabbits.
Of course, stats were one thing.
Real combat was another matter entirely.
The moment Bai Xue finished speaking, Ye Lian had already wiped out her side.
So fast—like a gust of wind.
Before anyone could react, the strike had already passed.
All ten rabbits were pierced through the head by lightning-fast attacks and died instantly.
The remaining five showed no fear and charged at Bai Xue in a group assault.
Her eyes narrowed sharply.
She quickly raised her shield and stabbed at the rabbit leading the charge with her sword.
Her speed wasn’t anything remarkable, but the fast-moving rabbit failed to dodge in time.
Its throat was pierced straight through, the tip of the blade jutting out the back.
‘So sharp!’ Bai Xue felt like she was stabbing into tofu.
It was almost too easy.
Back then, a whole team had struggled just to take down one of these rabbits—and some even got injured.
But now, facing one of equal size, she had taken it down in a single strike!
‘Was this the difference that good gear made?’
Bai Xue was shocked, her admiration for Ye Lian growing even deeper.
Suppressing her excitement, she pulled out her sword and moved quickly, slashing down at the second unihorned rabbit.
It was immediately gutted—blood spraying everywhere.
In the past, a scene like this would’ve made her vomit.
But ever since she witnessed her companions die horribly, she’d built up some resistance.
As she killed the second horned rabbit, the third one lunged at her.
Bai Xue raised her small shield and blocked it with ease, stopping the fat creature in its tracks.
To her surprise, she didn’t even feel the impact.
There was no time to dwell on it.
She swung her sword in a clean arc, decapitating the rabbit just as it landed and before it could steady itself.
Even after witnessing the death of their kin, the remaining two horned rabbits showed no fear of death.
They charged ahead with reckless determination.
Bai Xue timed the distance and movement, spun around, and swept her sword in a wide arc, slicing through them in one smooth motion.
A line of blood splattered across the air.
Both horned rabbits collapsed, dead on the spot.
“You’ve trained before?” Ye Lian asked in mild surprise.
Bai Xue’s fighting style wasn’t flashy, but her fundamentals were solid—nothing like someone handling a weapon for the first time.
“I used to practice fencing a bit… before I got into tennis.”
She turned around and looked at the ten horned rabbit corpses on the ground.
The small flicker of pride that had begun to rise in her chest vanished immediately.
“Compared to Master, I’m still way out of my league.”
“You’re being too modest. Your swordsmanship is actually pretty decent,” Ye Lian praised.
The more potential Bai Xue showed, the happier she felt.
She had invested a lot into the girl.
It was only natural to expect some return.
After all, Ye Lian wasn’t running a charity.
“Th-thank you,” Bai Xue replied, her cheeks flushing pink as she smiled.
“There’s no need to be modest. Good is good,” Ye Lian said casually while using her spear to slice open the rabbit carcass.
“Master, please let me handle this kind of grunt work!”
Seeing what she was doing, Bai Xue quickly put away her shield and walked over with her sword.
As a follower, she couldn’t just stand by and let her master do something like this.
Even if she was only a follower in name, she still had to fulfill her duties in-game.
“Alright. These horned rabbits don’t have many useful materials. Just extract the [Crystals] from their bodies.”
As she spoke, Ye Lian picked out a white crystal, about the size of a fingernail, from one of the corpses.
“Got it!” Bai Xue nodded, took a quick look, and immediately began dissecting the bodies to retrieve the crystals.
Ye Lian opened her status panel to check her experience points and felt a bit disappointed.
She still needed quite a lot to reach the next level.
Killing low-level monsters like these wouldn’t cut it.
She had to find a proper place to grind.
Ye Lian opened the leaderboard and checked Mu Ling’s level.
Seeing that she was still at level 15, Ye Lian finally let out a breath of relief.
“Looks like after reaching a certain level in this region, leveling up becomes much harder. If I take my time to catch up, it might still be doable.”
That was what she said, but Ye Lian still wanted to close the gap as quickly as possible.
Only then could she get rid of the anxiety in her chest.
As long as their levels were close, with her monstrous base stats, even a Mu Ling equipped with a divine weapon wouldn’t be able to beat her.
“Master, I’m done!” Bai Xue walked over cheerfully, holding fourteen irregularly shaped white crystals in her hands.
“Good work.” Ye Lian took the crystals and stored them in her backpack before turning to her.
“Go ahead and level up, then assign your stat points.”
“Okay!” Bai Xue quickly opened her panel.
Her level display showed [+2].
She tapped it lightly, and a surge of energy coursed through her body, making her feel slightly stronger.
“Master, how should I allocate my stat points?”
She frowned slightly as she stared at the newly available points.
This game clearly wasn’t like a typical MMO.
She didn’t even know if it had a stat reset feature.
If she added the points wrong, it could really mess things up.
“Let me see.”
Ye Lian walked over and looked at Bai Xue’s panel.
“Your stamina’s already decent. You can go light on that. Your speed is okay too. Focus on strength and spirit, then add a bit to speed and stamina.”
“Understood.” Bai Xue started distributing the points, but paused again.
“Master, should I put points into HP?”
Ye Lian shook her head.
“No need. Your max HP increases automatically when you level up, based on your base stats.”
“Got it.”
Bai Xue finished allocating her two levels’ worth of points, her strength growing noticeably once again.
The change gave her a deep sense of security.
After all, in this world, strength was the only way to survive.
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