It took the same amount of time - eight days - to return back to Baqi City via the Demonic Crystal Spaceship. The trip was smooth-sailing. On the third day, Lin Huang managed to upgrade Army Attack Tactics to level three. For the next five days, he trained in his room and accumulated more than 300 card pieces.
On the other hand, Lin Xin had been staying in her room to play Gun Master during the eight days. She was engrossed in the game. The spaceship arrived in Baqi City at three in the afternoon. After they got off the spaceship, they did not stay in the city and left for Wulin Town on the Alexandrian Eagle.
They had been away from home for more than 20 days. Once they got home, Lin Huang convinced Lin Xin to clean the house with him. After spending more than two hours cleaning, it was six o’clock and time for dinner. Again, after dinner, Lin Xin stayed in her room to play Gun Master while Lin Huang watched the news in the living room after he did the dishes.
The news of the parasite incident in Xiaoxia City finally came to an end. It had been more than a week since the incident happened. The truth of what really happened in Xiagong City was never discovered. Nobody knew what exactly happened beneath the Xiagong Ruins. During this period, there was nothing particularly interesting on the news in Division7 aside from the parasite incident in Xiaoxia City.
However, just as he opened the news page, he noticed one of the latest hot topics.
"Jiang You who ranked second on the Gold Hunter Leaderboard had recently leveled-up to transcendent!" The headline read. Lin Huang had heard about Jiang You but he did not know much about him. All he knew was that he had a nickname on the network, which was ‘Eternal No.2’.
There were 1,000 people on the Gold Hunter Leaderboard, most of them were on gold-level rank-3. Basically, everyone who was listed on the leaderboard had high chances of becoming a transcendent, especially those who were within the first 100. Most of them would not stay too long in their level when they reached gold-level rank-3 with most of them staying only one or two years. As it was easy to accumulate Life Power, as long as they found a suitable transcendent monster and killed it, they would be upgraded.
However, Jiang You’s story was slightly different. He had stayed in the second place on the Gold Hunter Leaderboard for seven years. There were four replacements to the champion throughout the years but he remained second. That was how he got his nickname. Many were curious, wondering why he remained at gold-level rank-3. Perhaps, Jiang You was the only one who could answer that question himself. Now that he had finally leveled up seven years later, it was a hot topic in Division7. The media had nothing to write about for the past few days so it was the perfect opportunity for them to cook something up from this topic.
"So I guess this news today had become an issue people would be interested in?" Lin Huang said in his head. After switching off the news page, he suddenly recalled having a Mission Card he had yet to activate. He had planned to activate it once he got back home. Since he had nothing much throughout the coming month, he decided to take out the Mission Card.
There same blonde lady in black maid attire on the card was still there.
"Activate Mission Card." Lin Huang instructed.
The blonde lady stretched her body and looked at Lin Huang.
"So we meet again." The blonde lady winked at Lin Huang. He smiled back.
"Now, let me tell you what your mission is."
"This is your mission! Upgrade Army Attack Tactics to level six within 30 days!"
Mission Completion Reward: Healing Card x1"
"If you fail to complete the mission within the given time, you will lose one functional card as punishment!"
"Mission announcement done. You can read more about the mission at the back of the card."
After the blonde lady finished talking, she winked at Lin Huang again, "All the best!"
"Upgrade Army Attack Tactics to level six within a month…" Lin Huang felt tricked by the Mission Card again. "How is that possible?!"
He had only managed to get to level three. From level three to level four, he will need 800 card pieces. He only had more than 300 card pieces on hand, which meant he would need more than 400 card pieces. That was not the worst news. He would need 1,600 card pieces from level four to level five and 10,000 card pieces from level five to level six! In total, he would need to obtain a grand total of 12,000 card pieces within a month.
Accumulating 12,000 card pieces within a month seem impossible!
"I don’t care, since the mission has been activated, it’s too late to complain now." Lin Huang stood up and walked upstairs. He sent Lin Xin a message, "I'll have to train Army Attack Tactics for quite awhile, we'll be having take-out for a month…"
He then closed his door and started training Army Attack Tactics. He was on level three now and it takes 15 minutes to complete one skill cycle. Training until midnight, he only managed to obtain more than 20 card pieces. The next morning, Lin Huang woke up at six to train and Lin Xin brought him breakfast at eight.
"From today onwards, I will make myself some oats for breakfast. You don’t have to order food for me in the afternoon but please get me take-out for dinner." Lin Huang wanted to focus on training.
"No problem, I can do that for you but... Won’t you be hungry if you skip lunch?" Lin Xin was concerned.
"Don’t worry, I won’t." Lin Huang assured her.
"Alright then…"
After breakfast, Lin Huang returned to his room and trained again all the way to bedtime. He only managed to accumulate 80 card pieces that day. For the next couple of days, Lin Huang repeated the routine of waking up at six with a bowl of oat and fruits before his training. He would spend around 10 minutes for dinner at six in the evening and train until 12 before he went to bed. He spent almost 18 hours on his training each day.
On the fifth afternoon, he finally accumulated 800 card pieces and upgraded Army Attack Tactics to level four.
Since then, the skill rotation became even more complicated. The time he took per rotation slowed down again. Five days passed and he saw the rotation shorten to 10 minutes per cycle instead of 30 minutes. He managed to accumulate more than 100 card pieces every day. As the days passed and time shortened, the amount of card pieces he was able to obtain increased respectively.
Finally, on the 20th day, Lin Huang upgraded Army Attack Tactics to level five."I will use the Epiphany Card as a hail mary during the last 10 days!" Lin Huang had planned this since the beginning.
He took out the Epiphany Card, took a deep breath and squeezed the card, hard. He proceeded with his training.
Indulged in the effects of the Epiphany Car, the first skill rotation took the same amount of time, which was half an hour. However, on the second cycle, it was reduced to 20 minutes while the third cycle took only 10 minutes. On the fourth cycle, it was reduced to three minutes and the fifth cycle was only one minute… The time he needed was reduced with each round. When it came to the 10th round, he managed to complete a rotation within a single second. In less than four hours, he had accumulated 10,000 card pieces and upgraded to level six.
However, the Army Attack Tactics rotation did not stop evolving. The level six skill cycle was a few times more complicated than level five. It took Lin Huang a full three hours to complete one cycle, two hours for the second one…
Seven hours later, he managed to complete a single cycle within one second once more. Eight hours later, he had finally accumulated 30,000 card pieces and upgraded Army Attack Tactics to level seven.
By then, Lin Huang had been training for more than 20 hours but the effects of the Epiphany Card went on…
The skill cycles went on automatically. After 30 hours, he had accumulated 90,000 card pieces and broke through to level eight! The effects of the Epiphany Card finally left Lin Huang.
He had no rest. Feeling satisfied, he got himself a cup of water immediately then went to bed.
When he woke up, he saw Lin Xin sitting by his bedside.
"What happened?" Lin Huang asked curiously.
"Brother, I was so scared!’ Lin Xin told him what happened.
Lin Xin had been knocking on his door to get him to eat his dinner for the past two days but he did not respond at all. On the third day, he did not respond again so Lin Xin went into his room and found out that he was in a deep sleep. She thought there might be something wrong with his body so she called 911.
"Luckily the doctor said everything is normal with your body but you went into hibernation and promised that you would wake up soon." She was teary as she explained.
"Don’t worry, I’m alright. I was just exhausted from my training so I rested." Lin Huang patted her head.
"Some rest? You slept for a week!" Lin Xin stared at him.
"One week? No wonder I’m starving… Xin Er, please order take-out for me, I’ll go wash up now."
"Sure!" Lin Xin walked into the living room to order his meal.