Chapter 56: Slaying the Trickster

“You successfully hit the Trickster Mage, triggering [Pandora’s Box]. The Trickster Mage is afflicted with Burn.”

“You successfully hit the Trickster Mage, triggering [Pandora’s Box]. The Trickster Mage is afflicted with Slow.”

“You successfully hit the Trickster Mage, triggering [Pandora’s Box] and [Dual Casting]. The Trickster Mage is afflicted with double Bleed.”

Within the Battle Space, Saber lights and sword shadows filled the air as Jiang Yan chased the Bowler Hat that was darting wildly through the space.

The Bowler Hat flew through the sky, occasionally unleashing meteor showers, fiery floods, and lightning from within.

Jiang Yan dodged when he could, endured when he couldn’t dodge, and died when he couldn’t endure.

As an Orange Trait, [Pandora’s Box] had a 100% trigger rate. Every attack inflicted a negative buff on the Trickster Mage, making its life miserable.

Coupled with the 30% probability of [Dual Casting], this relentless assault successfully allowed Jiang Yan to gain the upper hand.

Unable to withstand Jiang Yan’s onslaught, the Trickster Mage retreated into the Bowler Hat to evade.

Jiang Yan pursued relentlessly.

Currently, the Trickster Mage was known to possess two abilities.

First: Direct confrontation. However, it was quite weak. Even when Jiang Yan was at the Innate Middle Stage, he could overpower it.

Second: Retreating into the hat. This ability was utterly absurd. Once inside the hat, the Trickster Mage’s speed reached an unbelievable level. Jiang Yan had to chase for quite a while just to land a single Saber strike.

Moreover, the Bowler Hat was extremely tough. Saber strikes couldn’t penetrate its defense at all. Only by relying on [Heaven Rewards Diligence]’s guaranteed damage could Jiang Yan slightly injure the hat, though the effect was minimal.

Meanwhile, the Trickster Mage hidden inside the hat could unleash attacks indiscriminately. Its Talent “Miracle” was practically unstoppable, capable of releasing irregular attacks such as lightning, fire, water, Sabers, spears, swords, halberds, meteors, and shooting stars, making it impossible to defend against.

Afflicted with the “Slow” buff, the Bowler Hat’s speed decreased slightly. Jiang Yan quickly caught up and delivered a few more Saber strikes.

“You hit the Trickster Mage, triggering [Pandora’s Box] and [Dual Casting]. The Trickster Mage is afflicted with an 18-second Silence.”

Thud!

The Trickster Mage, who had been hiding inside the hat, suddenly fell from the sky.

The mysterious Bowler Hat lay limp on the ground. A flicker of confusion crossed the Trickster Mage’s perpetually expressionless face.

Silence: Prohibits the use of any form of skill, including but not limited to Martial Skills, Talents, etc.

Originally, Silence lasted only nine seconds, but under the effect of Dual Casting, it doubled to 18 seconds.

18 seconds was enough time for a Martial Artist to accomplish many things.

Jiang Yan smirked sinisterly, his gaze gleaming green as he looked at the Trickster Mage.

“Yan Thunder Destruction Slash!”

Strike while the enemy is weak!

The thunderous Saber roared forth.

Having lost all its abilities, the Trickster Mage could no longer activate its Miracle Talent and was completely powerless to resist Jiang Yan’s strike.

The once-unpredictable Talent became useless under the effect of Silence.

In the past, even if the Trickster Mage’s head was cut off, it could reattach it on its own. But now, things were different.

Boom!

The Trickster Mage was completely engulfed in Saber Qi.

System Log updated:

“You have successfully killed the Trickster Mage.”

“Congratulations, you have obtained the Orange Trait [Four-Leaf Clover].”

Four-Leaf Clover: All your non-100% triggered Traits gain a 10% increase in trigger probability.

“Congratulations, you have triggered the [Heaven Rewards Diligence] guaranteed mechanism. You have obtained the Blue Trait [Eagle Eye].”

Eagle Eye: Your field of vision increases by 50%.

This time, Lady Luck still stood on Jiang Yan’s side—one orange and one blue, both quite decent Traits.

Take Four-Leaf Clover, for instance.

Four-Leaf Clover increases the probability of non-100%-trigger Traits by 10%. Jiang Yan carefully reviewed his Traits and found several that could form synergies with it.

Truth of Desperation (Blue): When facing a lethal threat, nerves operate at peak efficiency, with a chance to evade the incoming attack.

After repeated calculations and statistics, Jiang Yan estimated the trigger probability of Truth of Desperation to be roughly 30%.

With the 10% boost from Four-Leaf Clover, this trigger probability would reach an astonishing 40%!

Then there was the other Orange Trait: Life and Death Moment.

The trigger probability of Life and Death Moment was around 25%. With Four-Leaf Clover’s enhancement, it would become 35%—meaning Jiang Yan had a 35% chance to trigger a Cooldown-free “Saber” effect.

And then there was the Self-Selected Trait, Multiple Casting. Its probability increased from the original 30% to 40%. As long as his attack frequency was high enough, such a high chance meant it could trigger multiple times in a short period. Combined with the negative buffs applied by Pandora’s Box, Jiang Yan’s strength would reach a new Peak. Anyone facing him would suffer under the torment of these two overpowered Traits.

If he was lucky enough to trigger double Silence again, like the Trickster Mage had, then Martial Skills and Talents would all become unusable—except for Jiang Yan’s. That would truly make him invincible.

As he accumulated more Traits, Jiang Yan gradually discovered the synergies between them. If utilized well, they could far exceed their original value, achieving an effect where one plus one was greater than two.

“Continue the challenge?”

Jiang Yan: “No.”

Given the Battle Space’s tendencies, the next challenge would likely spawn another Heaven-Defying monstrosity. Jiang Yan wasn’t in a hurry to go in and get beaten up just yet.

So, he exited the Divine Martial Space.

Walking through the Wilderness, Jiang Yan wondered whether he should venture deeper.

“These Spirit Gathering Liquids work incredibly well, greatly speeding up my Qi absorption.”

“But they’re consumed way too quickly. A full fifteen bottles were gone in less than a week. I need to find a way to restock soon~”

Three days ago, Jiang Yan returned to the Martial Artist Tower in Linjiang City. Using his Martial Artist privilege upgrade card, he upgraded his permissions and discovered that Spirit Gathering Liquid couldn’t be purchased with Star Coins at all—it required something called Martial Artist Points.

How to earn Martial Artist Points?

One: Complete bounty missions issued by the Martial Artist Tower.

Two: Achieve breakthroughs in certain technologies.

Three: Complete government-wanted missions.

Four: Exchange credits from certain universities. The exchange rates vary, with more prestigious universities offering higher rates.

Divine Capital University’s exchange rate is 1:7.8.

One credit can be exchanged for 7.8 Martial Artist Points.

One hundred Martial Artist Points can be exchanged for one bottle of Spirit Gathering Liquid.

Back then, Demon Capital University promised 1,000 points per month, which would be 78 bottles of Spirit Gathering Liquid.

Five: Enlist in the military and exchange military merits.

Six: …

Seven: …

…

“So, I should take on bounties to earn Martial Artist Points and exchange them for Spirit Gathering Liquid?”

“Screw that. I’ll just go to Divine Capital University and milk them dry.”

Jiang Yan changed his mind and headed straight back to Linjiang City.

“I’ll go to Divine Capital tomorrow. They promised to cover all my cultivation resources throughout university. Why would I bother earning them myself when I can just take advantage?”

Once he made up his mind, Jiang Yan lost any desire to continue training in the Wilderness.

Now that the Spirit Gathering Liquid has been used up, it’s time to ask Divine Capital Martial University for some supplies.

Jiang Yan dressed up a bit before returning to Linjiang City. There was no other choice—he was simply too famous in Linjiang City now. As soon as he appeared on the streets, he would be recognized and surrounded by crowds.

At first, it felt quite impressive, but after a while, it became tiresome.

This damn charm just can’t be hidden, can it?