My skills have mutated again!

Chapter 370 Before the Preliminaries, Attribute Limits, The Curtain Rises.
After leaving the Demon Emperor's laboratory, Donald was still waiting below.

The two left the Demon Emperor's mansion together and returned to the Dream Time Tower, where Xia Lin finally revealed his true intentions.

"I'd like to borrow your life-or-death duel technique..."

Xia Lin spoke these words at the right time and in a relatively tactful tone, but Donald laughed.

"Sure, but it's unnecessary, brother."

"Your life-or-death battle has a 10% chance, mine has a 20% chance... but in the Ash Zone, this difference is actually insignificant."

Why it was irrelevant, Donald didn't elaborate, only saying that once Xia Lin became strong enough, she would naturally know.

Seeing this, Xia Lin temporarily put aside his doubts and stopped coveting more.

"However, the existing life-or-death battle (inferior) is sufficient."

Inside the Dream Time Tower, Xia Lin looked at the attributes of the Life and Death Battle (Inferior) and said this.

……

After the dual-class balance was completed, Xia Lin's three systems also underwent significant changes.

Let's talk about the development system first: the overpowered brush system.

The fundamentals haven't changed; the life-or-death battle is still the same life-or-death battle.

The key supporting item remains unchanged—the Spirit Realm Book itself is an item, and its effects are not affected by dual-class conflicts.

The changes only exist in a branch of the overpowered farming system—a negative skill system designed to reduce one's own strength.

The Human-Earth-Heaven Divine Transformation is one of the components of this branch system, but this one skill alone is far from enough. It also requires the negative skills in the original Shadow skill bar to further compress Xia Lin's own attributes, thereby reducing the consumption.

"The first step is to try to retrieve the twin fusion."

With a thought, Xia Lin activated the recipe book, spent 1 evolution point, bought back Twin Fusion from the recipe book, and placed it in the regular skill slot 6.

The notification sound for the Ashes area is playing.

[Due to a conflict between your two classes, your skills have been sealed after being merged into one.]

This seal has the same negative impact as the Miracle Mechanism; both are the kind of negative impacts that can be mitigated by Twin Shadows, but each use incurs a strong negative consequence.

Without needing the Demon Emperor's prompting, Xia Lin had already grasped the essence of the matter.

“The Shadow of Calamity has become a vessel for conflict. If I were to merge with the Shadow of Calamity through Twin Fusion, it would be tantamount to actively exacerbating the conflict. This would be detrimental to me in the present moment.”

"So twin fusion is no longer useful."

Xia Lin decided to simply abandon the twin fusion, changing his approach.

"The skills in the Shadow skill bar cannot be used directly, but now the restrictions on the Shadow skill bar have been lifted, which means I can freely adjust the skills in the four skill bars: Shadow, Constant, Regular, and Permanent."

"From this perspective, there is indeed no need for twin fusion."

Opening the skill bar and looking at his own skills, Xia Lin made some simple adjustments and moved the three skills, Three Fires Extinguished, Maggot Power, and Five Signs of Decay of Heaven and Man, to the regular skill bar.

The skill's attributes plummeted upon activation, and then the Human-Earth-Heaven Divine Transformation was used to further compress the attributes. With a single Deception attack, the incredible farming combo was successfully activated. After resurrecting, Xia Lin observed for a moment and found that this operation consumed significantly more Deception points than before.

The system's fundamental logic is sound and unaffected by the conflict between dual professions.

"But the issue of consumption can no longer be ignored."

The new system consumes more resources than the old system. The dozens of life-or-death battles also significantly increased Xia Lin's attributes, leading him to "commit suicide" with the life of deception, consuming more and more deception points.

Currently, the productivity of fraudulent points has reached parity with the consumption of the overpowered point-farming system, and the former's growth rate is actually not as fast as the latter's.

"The ten-day cycle is probably no longer sustainable. Relying solely on the Spirit Realm Book, the cycle will likely be extended to around twenty days, and it will continue to grow longer."

"Of course, there's no need to worry about consumption in the Dream Time Tower... In this respect, the Dream Time Tower is truly a perfect fit for the life-or-death battle system, even more so than my Spirit World Book."

With this in mind, Xia Lin, despite her weakened state, went to find Donald again.

This time, he asked to live permanently in the Dream Time Tower, and Donald agreed without hesitation.

……

One day outside is equivalent to ten days inside the tower.

When Xia Lin broke free from her weakened state, and the Life and Death Battle (Inferior) buff took effect, Xia Lin no longer used her Deception Points reserve. Instead, she summoned Donald's phantom to feed him attacks.

The result was the same as before; they still couldn't beat them.

But after being brought back from the dead, Xia Lin also gained a lot.

"The Eternal Inscription Random Replacement System is ineffective against these dummies... Pseudo-random replacement cannot acquire skills from dummies because these dummies are ultimately fake, and therefore do not possess any skills."

That's a bit of a shame.

Xia Lin was still thinking, if Donald won't let me copy the Life and Death Battle, then I'll just steal it from your dummy.

However, the Dream Time Tower did not have this bug, so Xia Lin could not find any loopholes to exploit.

"By this reasoning, the idea of ​​eternally inscribing and replicating an unintentional system also falls apart."

Xia Lin couldn't understand how the Dream Time Tower worked, but that was just how the tower was, and Xia Lin had no choice but to accept reality.

"The changes in the form of the Black Origin Martial God are quite remarkable."

The three major systems, including the overpowered farming system, are actually weakened by the conflict between the two classes, due to the increased resource consumption.

The Eternal Inscription random permutation system has undoubtedly been enhanced.

However, due to the special nature of the dummy, Xia Lin could not accurately predict how much it would enhance, and could only look forward to future real-world testing.

The final enhancement of the Black Source Martial God system is quite obvious!
Under the new system, Xia Lin can not only merge with the county magistrate and the Guiyi Realm Core, but also merge with all sorts of miscellaneous items, rare ores, etc., to increase his attributes and add all sorts of strange and wonderful characteristics to himself.

Their combat capabilities are far, far greater than before!

Previously, when Xia Lin fought against Donald's dummy in his Black Origin Martial God form, the only possible outcome was that he was instantly killed.

Now, fighting again in his Black Origin Martial God form, he finally saw Donald's second move—an uppercut.

A day later, after the period of weakness had passed, Xia Lin summoned the heartless dummy again.

After the experiment, the facts were found to be consistent with the assumptions.

Eternal inscription cannot record skills on a dummy, and witnessing talents cannot be applied to a dummy.

They had no choice but to completely abandon these petty schemes and focus on unbelievable combos.

Seven days later, Xia Lin's attributes arrived:

[Race value: 22527]

[Basic Attributes: 419.7y]

The fifth qualifying round for the Elite Zone has begun.

……

Welcome to Audition Zone 5: Doomsday Rampage (Rank F).

[Note: This is a real Ember Zone.]

[The Ash Zone will be open for one month.]

[Note: This single-player mission card is active. Only you, a Crescent Walker, will be present in this Crescent Zone. Other Crescent Walkers will not be able to enter this Crescent Zone.]

[Note: The mission delay card is now in effect. The opening period for the Ember Zone has been extended from one month to five years!]

The main quest has been released.

Main Quest: Survive!

[Survival: Survive in this ember zone until the time limit for the ember zone ends.]

[Penalty for mission failure: None. 】

[Reward for successful mission: 100 Ranked Battle Points.]

The mission to complete the level has not been triggered.

The side quest has not been triggered.

Promotion quest triggered.

[Promotion Quest: Cleaner]

[Cleaner: In this Ash Zone, defeat a total of 100 mutated creatures of any species and strength.]

[Quest Success Reward: Your Pillars of Eternity class level increases from 2 to 3.]

[Penalty for mission failure: None. 】

As the light and shadow flickered, Xia Lin appeared in the Ash Zone.

Then he stretched.

"Comfortable."

Xia Lin's operating procedure can be seen from the opening prompts.

—Activate the Deception of Fate in advance, and then use luck to time your return to the Blue Star and enter the Ash Zone at the right time to avoid the pursuers.

The results are as expected.

—Single-player missions allow for extended time limits, giving yourself ample time to develop.

Moreover, the chosen Ember Zone is only F-rank, meaning that the difficulty of this Ember Zone is so low that it is completely a beginner's Ember Zone!

The sensation spread, instantly enveloping the entire ash-covered area.

The entire Ash Zone is only the size of a single planet, and it holds no secrets in Xia Lin's eyes.

[Worldview successfully deciphered!]

[The mission to clear the level has been triggered!]

[Mission: Rebuilding Order: Unravel the secrets of the biohazard disaster, resolve its source, and rebuild civilization.]

Xia Lin: Heh, get lost!
Xia Lin's goal was not to clear the Ashes Zone at all.

He didn't care about any reward at all.

He came here to boost his stats!

No contact with the indigenous people, no extra operations, no involvement in foreign affairs, just mind your own business!
A single combo from Dongfeng kills 100 nearby mutated creatures, thus completing the promotion quest. The Pillar of Eternity's level increases from 2 to 3, unlocking the third skill slot.

Xia Lin was another fraudster. He went down the path of self-destruction and began his journey of leveling up his attributes.

……

Five years after the Ashes, Xia Lin returned to Shining Blue Star. Using the items Donald had given her, she was teleported from the entrance of the Ashes into the Demon Temple and stepped back into the Dream Time Tower.

One month later, the Ash District will be recruited.

It's the same process and the same operation as last time.

They made it through safely and then returned.

Then another month later...

Inside the Luo Tian Sect's mountain gate, Luo Zhidao, clutching the Forced Hunting Card, stared blankly at the Fate-Breaking Star Chart behind him.

He used the horoscope to predict his future fate with Xia Lin, and the horoscope provided the answer.

—Pure blackness, a death sentence!

But things shouldn't have been like this.

However, during the gap in the fifth preliminary selection in the Ash Zone, Luo Zhidao was unable to hunt down Xia Lin and missed the opportunity. As a result, the Fate Star Chart went crazy, from a 50/50 chance of winning to 80/20 chance of dying, to 90/10 chance of dying, and now to 100/10 chance of dying!

Luo Zhidao didn't understand what had happened to Xia Lin, but he realized that Xia Lin's growth rate had far surpassed his own, resulting in a reversal of power.

A gentle voice suddenly sounded behind me.

"Your resolve is unstable."

The sound made Luo Zhidao turn his head and look behind him.

Then, a graceful young man dressed in white appeared behind Luo Zhidao, smiling as he spoke to him.

The sound caused Luo Zhidao to slowly lower his head, finally letting out a soft sigh.

"really."

"Is it that Xia Lin?"

Luo Zhidao nodded slowly: "Exactly."

The young man in white smiled slightly: "Brother, don't worry, I'll take care of everything."

He spoke these words with certainty and confidence.

It was only because he was the first in the human race, the first in the myriad races, and the closed-door disciple of the Creator of Heaven, that he was Wuxin!

As soon as he finished speaking, Wuxin smiled and scratched his head: "Master said that my foundation was not stable and forbade me to go out and do things during the preliminary selection stage. But when the preliminary stage came, Master no longer restricted me from taking action."

“Xia Lin ruined Master’s plans. He must die no matter what. Since you no longer have the courage to face him, then leave this matter to me.”

As he spoke, he turned to leave without a thought, but Luo Zhidao's voice rang out behind him again.

"This person is very difficult to deal with, so don't underestimate him."

Without thinking, he turned his head and smiled at Luo Zhidao, but what he said caused Luo Zhidao's expression to change drastically.

"Don't worry, I'm not like you..."

"I'm not the kind of useless person who wouldn't use his chance even if you gave him one."

……

[The preliminary rounds for the 12th Ranked Battle have ended in the Ash Zone!]

Please redeem your qualifier pass as soon as possible, the Ranked Battle Points Shop will be closing soon!

Before leaving the settlement space, the last thing Xia Lin heard was these words.

Xia Lin didn't need to do anything else.

In a flash of light, Xia Lin appeared before the entrance to the Ash Zone of the Canberra settlement on Shining Blue Star.

He returned home in a flash, and as he reflected on the past six months, there was nothing that left a deep impression on Xia Lin.

"After all, all you do all day is grind stats, train Outer Worlds, and create Bomb Boys... It's incredibly boring, what's there to talk about?"

This is the case.

The past six months have been nothing more than a different kind of seclusion, which can be summed up in two words: cultivation.

Finished.

Right now, it's time to consolidate our gains and then face new formidable adversaries and new challenges!

Open the attribute list and look at the second profession.

Xia Lin has raised the job level of Pillar of Eternity to level 9, making it the same as Shadow of Uncertainty!
This speed is not surprising, after all, the promotion mission is almost not difficult for Xia Lin.

But he got stuck at level nine. The day he reaches level ten will be the day Xia Lin leaves the newbie village, so there's no rush for now.

Looking at the Permanent Foundation talent—it's still at Rank B.

Even with the witnessing talent accelerating the growth of the Permanent Foundation, the growth rate of this talent is still outrageously slow, and it hasn't leveled up in half a year.

Xia Lin, however, was not in a hurry.

Look at the skill bar for dual professions.

The skills, however, remained unchanged.

With many skill slots empty, Xia Lin wasn't in a hurry to fill them.

There are two reasons why we are not in a hurry.

First, these empty skill slots are all prepared for Wuxin.

Once you have a basic understanding of Wuxin, using deception and targeted gambling skills will definitely be more effective.

Secondly, Xia Lin's attributes have now reached a stage where he can break through all laws with brute force without needing any skills!
[Racial stats: 100y!]

[Basic Attributes: 100 million Y!]

Multiplying the two together breaks through the weighted average of the fourteenth third law!
However, such neat attributes and racial values ​​reveal something in an intangible way.

"Attribute cap... There is an attribute cap in the Ash Zone!"

Xia Lin sighed slightly, recalling the words Donald had said when she asked him for the optimized version of the Life and Death Showdown.

"That's why he thinks I don't need to pursue higher-level life-or-death battles... The Ash District, this newbie village, has capped the attribute ceiling for Ash District travelers."

Donald had previously explained the underlying logic in detail during a casual chat at the Dream Time Tower.

"The Ash Zone System is a Gu poison, created to test you."

"And once the attributes reach this level, the Ember Zone can no longer issue tests to match the strength of Ember Zone Walkers."

"But whether or not to leave the Ash Zone depends entirely on the Ash Zone Traveler's will. The Ash Zone does not force Ash Zone Travelers to leave its protection. Therefore, there is indeed an attribute cap in the Ash Zone... You can continue to increase your attributes after leaving the Ash Zone."

A level 11 Ashwalker of this caliber can kill a regular level 11 character like killing a chicken.

It can even rival the strength of level twelve—Wu Xin and Donald are both in this category.

Therefore, the Ember Zone system, in essence, does not want these Ember Zone travelers to continue staying in the Ember Zone, but rather to leave the starting village and go to the more expansive main universe.

—You've graduated with perfect grades. The Ember Zone can't hold all of you big shots anymore, so get out of here.

On the contrary, Xia Lin had the same doubts.

Because after Xia Lin reached the peak of the Ash Zone attribute, she sparred with Donald's dummy in the Dream Time Tower, but was still no match for him. The attribute difference was determined to be 100 times!
This matter puzzled Xia Lin.

Over the course of nearly six months, Donald and Xia Lin became quite familiar with each other, and Donald directly told Xia Lin the reason for the matter.

"Because of my profession."

"My profession is Limit Breaker, and this profession is also the only one that can break the attribute ceiling of the Ember Zone. The degree of limit breaking depends on the level of the basic talent of surpassing the limit, and the foundation level is exactly 100 times."

It is widely rumored that the first person to break through limits in the Ember Zone is Ocres, a first-order giant.

What the world doesn't know is that Donald's profession is also that of a limit breaker!
He should be the number one limit breaker in the Ash Zone!
Xia Lin also suddenly realized...

Xia Lin had previously thought that the profession of Limit Breaker was actually quite ridiculous.

Leaving aside the inherently problematic issues, universal limit-breaking techniques like the Life and Death Showdown directly relegate limit breakers to the ranks of clowns—what about NO.259, what about the second strongest limit breaker in the Ember Zone? In the face of Life and Death Showdown (Inferior), they are no different from trash.

However, this contradicts the Demon Emperor's statement that every profession has depth to explore and every profession has its unique aspects.

At this moment, Xia Lin finally realized where the strength of those who break limits truly lay.

Its strength lies in its concept of pushing the limits!
As for why Donald, as a member of the Demon Emperor, would switch to becoming a Limit Breaker, Xia Lin didn't know and was too embarrassed to ask.

On the contrary, it was at the moment of parting that Donald spoke earnestly.

"Given your situation alone, staying in the Ashes is a better option."

Even if your attributes can't be improved, your skill set can still be optimized and improved. Accumulating more six-pillar level treasures is also paving the way for the future.

“Right now, apart from Wuxin and me, you have no other opponents in the Ember Zone. But if you leave the Ember Zone and appear in the main universe... given your relationship with the Creator of the Heavenly Dao, there are probably so many variables that even the Six Pillars cannot calculate.”

Xia Lin nodded in understanding, then asked in return, "So when do you plan to leave the Ashes Zone?"

As a single-class limit breaker, Donald's attributes have reached their peak, and his skill combinations are probably already perfectly optimized.

Logically, he should have been able to leave the Ashes Zone long ago to pursue higher attributes and greater power, but he has remained there.

Donald shook his head at this.

"That depends on the Demon Emperor's arrangements."

Xia Lin nodded knowingly and didn't ask any more questions.

……

Thoughts brought back to the present.

Xia Lin closed the attribute panel and slowly clenched his fist, feeling the power flowing through his body.

That was pure attribute power, pure violence that was even stronger than that of ordinary limit breakers!

With such attributes, grasping the sun and moon and plucking stars from the sky is as easy as turning one's hand!

Xia Lin was even able to clearly realize that with this attribute, he could easily defeat the former Black Star in a fair fight.

"But Black Star is SMDDX? Wuxin and Donald are the targets I need to catch up with at this stage."

Donald's profession and system were predetermined in the Ashes Zone; his attributes were fixed at being a hundred times higher than Xia Lin's.

Xia Lin still doesn't understand the mechanism behind Wu Xin's actions; all she knows is that Donald's attributes are meaningless in front of this person.

The former is a numerical anomaly.

The latter is a strange mechanism.

The two heroes of the Ash Zone each have their own characteristics, and their features are quite distinct.

"As for me, I am destined to be inferior to Donald in terms of numerical values, so I can only start from the mechanism. This will be the key that I should make up for in my future journey in the Ember Zone."

As the thought drifted, Xia Lin suddenly had this premonition.

I'm afraid I'll be leaving the Ash Zone soon.

He shook his head, ignoring these distracting thoughts.

Because the system notification sound for the Ash Zone had already been heard in my ears.

The preliminary rounds of the Human race ranked battle are about to begin!

[All Ember Walkers holding preliminary qualification certificates are requested to reach the arena by touching the Ember Entrance within three days.]

The selection rules for the preliminary rounds will be announced at that time!

Without much hesitation, Xia Lin got up and set off.

(End of this chapter)