Chapter 157: A Massive Loot Drop Earned with Fists

"Although we aren't pressed for time this round, we should still clear through quickly. There are still plenty of areas ahead," said Huang Yunshuo.

"Mm, it's almost time for us to log off," replied Ye Piaoxue. Although she had slept for two hours before 4:00 AM, and despite gaining a lot in the game over the past few hours, she was exhausted and felt her concentration starting to slip.

"Are you two living together?" asked Sound of the Sea in a soft, timid voice.

"Just sharing a bunk in a vessel's collective dormitory... Let's move, Piaoxue, pull the monsters."

"I'll pick up the drops in the back then. Healing pressure isn't high anyway."

The three of them ducked into the first floor of the Glazed Pagoda, pressing forward rapidly toward the stairwell.

Fragile mobs like crows offered very little challenge. The real annoyance was that they were scattered all over the first floor, their visibility obscured by thick smoke, flames, and various other debris. It was nearly impossible to wipe them out in one go, leaving them with no choice but to fight as they advanced.

Ye Piaoxue pulled monsters without holding back her HP, and her efficiency was quite impressive. From time to time, she would fall back to let Sound of the Sea cast a heal, while Huang Yunshuo blasted the gathered groups of monsters to pieces in one go.

Sound of the Sea then excitedly lagged behind, picking up the loot dropped by the crows, which Huang Yunshuo had slain with his ridiculously high drop rate.

"We're heading up! We'll pull together on this floor—you take the left, I'll take the right. Try not to deal any damage if you can help it," Huang Yunshuo instructed.

After all, the venom crows on the second floor dealt significantly higher damage. Unlike the casual approach on the first floor, he wanted Ye Piaoxue to minimize her damage output for fear of lowering the drop rate. The crow servants had a chance to drop green reinforcement stones, and on extremely lucky occasions, even pieces of the Venom Crow gear set.

"Got it."

Ye Piaoxue assumed the aggro for the venom crows in the 120° to 180° arc on the right, while Huang Yunshuo took full responsibility for the left 120° sector. Pulling and blasting at the same time, the venom crows were practically dead by the time they reached close quarters, and Huang Yunshuo casually polished off the ones Ye Piaoxue had brought over.

Sound of the Sea had to look after both of them, primarily focusing her heals on Ye Piaoxue. Midway through the fight, she found herself scrambling frantically, unable to keep up with picking up the loot left in their wake.

"You two take your time cleaning up back there, I'm going to go wild on my own!"

Relying on his high defense and thick health pool, Huang Yunshuo left the two excited girls behind to scramble for loot while he plunged straight into the depths of the thick smoke. Using his rocket launcher like a fire poker, he knocked aside any obstructing wooden beams and fired a shell the moment he spotted any venom crows lurking about.

The smoke was thick with fire and fumes, and since venom crows frequently lunged at Huang Yunshuo from close range out of the fires—plus the fact that close-range bombardment also dealt self-damage—Huang Yunshuo's red health bar was depleting at a steady pace, even with his massive 555 HP pool.

By the time the two girls finished collecting the loot and hurried to catch up, Huang Yunshuo was left with only about 150 health points.

Ye Piaoxue rushed forward to grab the aggro of a few venom crows and pulled them back, while Sound of the Sea raised a hand to cast Holy Word followed by Spring Rain. Almost immediately, another Holy Word landed, triggering a critical heal that practically restored his health bar to full.

"Is the mana cost for your Life Projection high, or is its cooldown just long?" Huang Yunshuo asked.

Honestly, after experiencing the explosive healing effect of Life Projection twice, it felt utterly amazing, and he was starting to get a bit addicted to it.

"Both the mana cost and the cooldown are high! Holy Word has a 10-second cooldown, Rejuvenation is 15 seconds, but Life Projection is a staggering 1,800 seconds," Sound of the Sea answered in agony.

"Crap, that long?!"

Holy Word and Rejuvenation fell within the normal range; every Priest seemed to have roughly the same cooldowns for those two skills, which would only get shorter as their class advanced.

But what kind of situation was an 1,800-second cooldown? That meant she could only use it twice an hour!

True to form, the world was fair after all...

Despite how ridiculously overpowered his Frost Cold Eagle was right now, the price behind it was immense. Setting aside the vast amount of copper coins spent, the unknown consequences of his body being bombarded by particle storms were the truly terrifying part.

Even though Sound of the Sea possessed such a monstrous skill, its cooldown was twice as long as Ye Binghan's divine defensive skill, Steadfast.

If any PvP broke out in the future, Sound of the Sea would basically only be able to use that skill once per battle. Moreover, a target with such terrifying healing output would immediately become the primary focus of concentrated fire. Thank goodness it was currently peacetime, otherwise her days might not be so comfortable.

When that time came, their opponents would definitely be shouting: "We can lose the team fight, but the healer must die!"

Then a swarm of assassins, archers, and mages would descend upon Sound of the Sea with a flurry of attacks. Imagining Sound of the Sea panicking in her baby voice and crying for help, Huang Yunshuo unexpectedly felt a warmth in his lower abdomen, unable to stop a ripple of distraction from stirring in his heart.

"Go to hell, you little runts, let me see your true drop rates!"

Huang Yunshuo hurriedly shook his head, instantly flicking a crow servant into the air with a single shot. An upward-thrusting Dragon Soaring strike hit home, keeping the target suspended in mid-air before he followed up with a jab straight into its backside to finish it off.

Another crow servant traded blows with Huang Yunshuo twice before being beaten back by a counterattack combo.

"Let you witness the overpowering might of this old man's 169 strength!"

Putting away his weapon, Huang Yunshuo clenched his boulder-sized fists and slammed them fiercely forward.

The sheer strength suppression from 169 strength carried built-in knockback, heavy impact, and piercing damage. This single punch immediately grounded the crow servant, leaving it unable to get back up.

Bang.

It was a massive loot explosion—at least as far as monsters like crow servants were concerned.

"Huh?"

Huang Yunshuo's heart skipped a beat. He picked up a piece of the Venom Crow gear set and two green reinforcement stones dropped on the ground, his mouth twitching as he was left speechless.

This drop rate was clearly abnormally high. Generally speaking, out of the three crow servants Huang Yunshuo had killed previously, he would have thanked the heavens just to get a single green reinforcement stone. Now two dropped at once, accompanied by a Venom Crow gear set piece—this was getting ridiculous!

"This drop rate..."

The two girls were equally shocked. They constantly felt like playing the game by themselves versus playing alongside Huang Yunshuo were two entirely different games.

"Could it be because I beat them to death with my bare fists?"

Huang Yunshuo's heart fluttered. This method of killing monsters was thrilling, passionate, and practically courting death, yet it filled him with yearning.

"I'll look for a chance to test it out later. It would be best to get them all down to low health, then rush in and unleash an assembly-line style Rising Dragon Fist—send every single one flying. If the ground is going to be littered with green reinforcement stones and Venom Crow gear set pieces like this, I swear I feel like I could ascend to the heavens."

"I'm going to reinforce my gear and take a look, let's take a break," Huang Yunshuo said.

As it happened, clearing the second floor was much more troublesome than the first, and despite rushing, the two girls had still missed picking up some drops. Hearing his suggestion, they readily agreed.

He had taken all the reinforcement stones from the previous dungeon run.

White Primary Reinforcement Stones x313, Green Primary Reinforcement Stones x9.

White reinforcement stones dropped in absolute abundance. Whether it was crows or venom crows, they all dropped this stuff. While it wasn't exaggerated to the point of a 100% drop rate on every kill, it wasn't far off either. Sometimes, if luck was good, a single venom crow would drop two of them outright!

Huang Yunshuo had secretly calculated beforehand that his drop rate—factoring in the quantitative advantage of his monster-kill speed and everything else—was roughly ten times higher than that of an average elite squad!

Simply terrifying.

"I've got to firmly seize this chance to make a fortune!"

A thought flashed through Huang Yunshuo's mind as he conceived an idea for a carry service.