Lin Yi opened his system panel
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Host: Lin Yi
Class: Laborer
Rank: E
Level: 120
EXP: 456,789 / 13,500,000
[Attributes]
Strength: 812
Agility: 596
Constitution: 742
Spirit: 318
Free Attribute Points: 0
[Class Skills]
Titan Grip – Enhances grip strength and weapon stability, allowing the user to control heavier weapons and amplify close combat force.
[Acquired Skills]
Phantom Void Step – A spatial movent technique that distorts space for instantaneous repositioning. Now capable of chained usage with reduced delay.
Eternal Spirit Core – Passive spiritual regeneration and internal stabilization. Efficiency increased; energy recovery now scales with combat intensity.
Celestial Sword Qi – Releases compressed celestial energy in a ranged arc, capable of wide-area annihilation. Output scaling significantly increased.
[Equipnt]
Celestial Lord Blade
Quality: Mythical
Attack Power: 405
Effect: Amplifies energy output and enhances all blade-based techniques. Scales with user attributes.
Grand Defense Ring
Quality: Legendary
Physical Defense: 311
Magical Defense: 302
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He closed the panel.
Strength 812. Constitution 742. Numbers that crossed the boundary of what was possible for a student. The restricted dungeon circuit had done exactly what Shen Rou’s projection had suggested it would do, and the three weeks of it clearance had compounded through his system’s amplification into a level profile that was beyond imaginable.
Level 120. The maximum in the records was 250. He was less than halfway to whatever the ceiling ant in practice, and he was already above every student in the academy by a margin that made comparison aningless.
He looked out across the expanse.
Thousands of hunters distributed across thousands of floating islands, each one operating in their own calculation of what this place required and what it offered. So were already moving, using flight-type skills or traversal abilities to cross between islands, scouting, mapping, trying to understand the environnt before committing to action. Others remained stationary, their auras extended as they sensed the energy flows that filled the space, reading the currents the way hunters learned to read terrain.
None of them had moved toward the thunder dragon.
He was looking at the larger population distribution across the visible islands when sothing in his peripheral awareness registered a specific presence. Not the qilin, which had moved to a more distant island. Not any of the hunters in the imdiate vicinity.
He then turned.
Long Tianyu
He was standing on a fragnt of stone approximately forty ters away, arms folded, looking at the thunder dragon’s distant path with the unhurried attention of soone who had encountered dangerous things before and had developed the patience to assess them properly before moving.
His golden dragon-scale armor was present, the ancient runes along its surface slightly more active than they had been during their encounter in the wilderness outside Jianghe, responding to the density of energy in this environnt.
Level 189. Dragon God Tar. National Guardian of Jianghe City. The man who had stood at the edge of a Nightmare Dungeon and extended Lin Yi an invitation that Lin Yi had answered with a question about what happened when he beca stronger than everyone in the guild.
Lin Yi walked toward him.
Long Tianyu noticed the approach before Lin Yi had covered half the distance. He turned with the fluid awareness of soone whose combat reflexes were permanently active at low threshold, and his expression moved through recognition into sothing that combined genuine surprise with the specific quality of a man revising a calculation he had been confident in.
"Lin Yi," he said.
"Senior Long," Lin Yi said.
Long Tianyu looked at him for a mont. "You’ve grown," he said.
"Yes," Lin Yi said.
"Considerably," Long Tianyu said. "When I saw you outside Jianghe, I told my guild team afterward that I had encountered sothing unusual. That you had potential that didn’t fit the standard progression model." He paused. "I did not anticipate this specific rate of developnt."
"I had good conditions," Lin Yi said.
Long Tianyu looked at him with the expression that statent deserved. "Good conditions," he said. He let it sit for a mont. "You entered Heavenly Phoenix Academy."
"Yes."
"And the regional examination result. First place, four hundred and fifty points, Dragon God Tower record." He said each item as a fact being confird rather than impressive information being delivered. "That was you."
"Yes."
"I heard about it when the results ca out," Long Tianyu said. "Half of Celestial City’s senior hunter community heard about it. A Laborer class first-year from a frontier city." He paused. "I told my guild that I had t that student. They did not entirely believe that I had described him accurately the first ti."
"What did you tell them?" Lin Yi said.
"That you had potential," Long Tianyu said, with a faint expression that was close to amusent. "I may have understated it." He looked out at the expanse around them. "What level are you currently?"
"Above the event threshold," Lin Yi said.
Long Tianyu looked at him. "The threshold is 100."
"Yes," Lin Yi said.
The Dragon Knight was quiet for a mont. He did a calculation that was visible as a brief pause, the kind that happens when a very high-level hunter uses their passive perception to sense what’s in front of them and needs a mont to reconcile the result with their expectations.
"Above 100," he said, with a particular flatness that ant he had sensed more specifically than that and was choosing his words carefully. "You’re a first-year academy student."
"Who is above level 100," Long Tianyu said.
"Yes," Lin Yi said.
Long Tianyu exhaled slowly. "The invitation to Heavenfall Guild remains open," he said. "It will continue to remain open for as long as you remain in Celestial City and I remain a National Guardian."
"I know," Lin Yi said. "Thank you."
"Don’t thank ," Long Tianyu said. "Just survive whatever this place has." He looked at the floating islands spreading across the visible horizon. "I’ve been here for fifteen minutes and I haven’t decided if this environnt is dangerous or simply overwhelming. The thunder dragon hasn’t engaged any hunters directly. The qilin appears to be environntal rather than hostile." He paused. "But sothing this old and this large doesn’t exist without things inside it that match the scale."
"No," Lin Yi agreed.
"Your plan?" Long Tianyu said.
"Observe first," Lin Yi said. "Understand the structure before moving."
Long Tianyu nodded, "Good approach indeed."
Then, they stood together in the companionable silence of two hunters who had assessed each other and arrived at mutual respect without needing to perform it. Around them, the expanse continued its vast and unhurried operation. The astral rivers flowed. The floating islands drifted. The distant sound of the layered lody was present beneath everything, the sa eternal quality it had carried from the mont Lin Yi entered.
Then the sky changed.
It didn’t change gradually. One mont the constellation-filled firmant was as it had been since Lin Yi arrived. The next mont, every astral river in the visible sky stopped flowing. The stars paused in their slow drift. The thunder dragon, wherever it was in the distant upper sky, went silent.
And a system interface appeared.
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