Chapter 348: Chapter 348

The grand year-end burst has ended, with ten updates for ten consecutive days, totaling one hundred Chapters. The author has fulfilled his promise, and once again I want to express my gratitude for everyone’s support. Now let’s return to our normal update schedule. Thank you.

Du You, soaring in the sky, quickly found Xi Qianxue following the same path as before. However, she wasn’t alone. She was with a group of white soldiers.

Zhang Yu was also present in the front ranks of the white soldiers.

Apparently, Zhang Yu wasn’t some saint either, leading his troops directly towards the black chief. If he could eliminate the black chieftain, his subsequent contributions would be greater than the others’.

"Du You, you’re here too. That’s great. Let’s speed up. I’ve located the black chief. There are too many sacrifices and warriors there, which can be quite tricky to deal with."

Zhang Yu was quite happy to see Du You’s arrival. Of course, he might not be as thrilled if he could handle the black chief all by himself. Du You quickly landed and allowed Xiaozi to rise into the sky again.

"So this is your pet, the Lightning Purple Eagle. It looks mighty indeed. But you’d better not learn too many summoning skills."

Du You nodded lightly, "Of course not, after all, I’m a spellcaster."

Zhang Yu shook his head and said, "I’ve heard that learning too many skills not related to one’s profession could cause serious problems in the future."

Xi Qianxue commented icily, "When you want to ascend to higher levels later, skills in your profession will provide the power to help you advance. Skills not related to your profession, however, will become a stumbling block. Many people remain at a certain level their whole lives, not because of their insufficient accumulation, nor because they haven’t completed their tasks, but because of the resistance brought about by skills from various professions."

Du You hadn’t expected Xi Qianxue to have such a clear understanding on this. He started to comprehend her explanation a bit.

Thankfully, for his two professions, he didn’t need to learn skills not related to them.

If he didn’t know this, he might one day be tempted to learn some powerful skills from other professions. But now that he knew, Du You wouldn’t make that mistake.

However, is it really okay to blurt out such important information? Du You felt like he owed someone another favour. Not all skills can be converted into professional skills with Crystal Coins. Many special and powerful skills cannot be converted, and it’s even difficult to upgrade their star levels.

"Thank you. If you hadn’t mentioned it, I wouldn’t have known about it," Zhang Yu thanked sincerely.

Although he was a local from the capital, Zhang Yu didn’t come from a prominent family, and ordinary people rarely know such information. Those with high-level professionals in their families may have some knowledge, but most of them don’t even have a clear idea.

True knowledge inheritance is not easily obtained.

Du You also expressed his gratitude, and then the group headed towards the black chief.

At this time, Du You opened his panel. "When did this happen? Why don’t I know about it?"

Successfully hunted a second-tier enemy. Advance or not? Choose to advance, and your star rank will drop by three stars.

Looking at the new prompt on the panel, Du You fell into deep thought. It seemed his current level was already fully at 10. That’s to say, he could break through to the second tier and become a hunter at any moment.

There are two commonly used methods to become a hunter though. One is to take on an advancement mission, but surely, he couldn’t take such a task now because he was currently on a special mission.

Another way is to hunt beings of higher levels. This could also lead to success.

Now, Du You finally understood it, but such hunting isn’t as simple as he had thought. Even though he had hunted the second-tier black people - and many of them at that - the quality issue actually led to a star rank drop.

This was not a minor issue. It was an instant drop of three star ranks. If he submitted the task now, he would directly fall to 7 stars. It wouldn’t be easy to recover in the future.

Having tasted the benefits of a high star rank, how could Du You allow his star rank to drop? It seems that it would be much harder for him to advance compared to ordinary people.

"I wonder what prerequisites are needed for hunting directly to ensure that my star rank doesn’t drop. I certainly hope it doesn’t require hunting a level 14 or higher second-tier entity," Du You thought silently.

These black second-tier beings were only at level 11 or 12 at most. Their levels weren’t high, and their quality was insufficient. The First Elder did reach the level 13, but this wasn’t hunted by Du You alone and due to the lack of skills, its quality wasn’t high either.

Forget it, why think so much about it? As long as it causes a rank drop, Du You would definitely not choose to complete such tasks. In his heart, Du You subtly began planning for rank advancement.

Just then, the pace of the team suddenly slowed. "What’s wrong? What happened?" Du You, brought back to reality, asked the people around him.

Zhang Yu pointed ahead and said, "We’ve arrived. This is the ancestral land of the black people and their most important workplace. Their chief has always lived here."

Du You looked ahead. At the center of the forest, a piece of high ground abruptly rose. It was a very high rock plateau, higher than most of the surrounding trees. It looked very empty, devoid of anything.

There seemed to be some man-made objects in the middle, but they couldn’t get a clear view from their position due to the numerous black people moving around. Underneath the huge stone plateau, there were many black guards patrolling vigilantly. Their large unit was approaching; the black people could not have failed to detect them.

"We’ve been spotted, what are they doing up there?" Du You pointed and asked.

"Being detected is normal. If they couldn’t spot us, black people should have ceased to exist long ago. As for what they’re doing, we can’t tell right now. We should find out soon, " Xi Qianxue said indifferently.

Up on the stone plateau, the black people were busy. A large pot was set up, and a fire was continuously lit underneath it. You would think they were preparing food if it weren’t for the approaching army.

A priest with more decorations than others slowly walked down from the high platform behind to stand right in front of the large pot. With steaming vapours surrounding him, it created a somewhat surreal effect.

Surrounding it, many people gathered, chanting prayers that were incomprehensible.

Suddenly, an aura of mystery started to gather and enveloped the entire stone podium. Unfortunately, they could only sense the existence of this power without knowing its purpose.