In order to gather enough dungeon materials as quickly as possible to push the Poison Set to its limit, for every dungeon monster she killed, Ning Xi would consume 10 reputation points to activate the SSS-tier talent "Nine-Five Supreme" reward amplification effect.
After all, she currently had over 400,000 reputation.
After deducting the 280,000 needed to amplify the A-rank hidden quest "Eradicate the Darkness," and setting aside some more for amplifying the Tier 5 boss "Dark Ruler," there was still plenty of reputation left for her to spend freely.
Not to mention, when they kill the Dark Ruler later, the Tier 5 boss reputation reward, combined with Ning Xi's hundredfold reputation bonus from her talent, would recover quite a bit for her.
With a 100% material drop rate from perfect dungeon completion, plus a tenfold drop rate boost, combined with the overwhelming strength of Lin Mo and Ning Xi, the two top-ranked players on the leaderboard, their speed of obtaining dungeon materials had already reached hundreds, even thousands of times that of ordinary players.
Under such extreme efficiency, by repeatedly farming the Poison Swamp and collecting large amounts of poison gas bottles, Lin Mo leveled up to 45, and raised the Poison Set from level 35 to level 45.
On top of that, thanks to the huge advantage of only needing 20% experience to level up, Black Gold · Strong-Maned Pig's level shot up straight to 40.
The Poison Set on him also surged from level 20 to level 40.
As for Ning Xi, her full Poison Set rose to level 35.
After the two of them and the pig had their overall strength comprehensively boosted, they returned and easily secured a perfect completion rating for the level 48 dungeon, Scorpion Empire.
They continued farming crystal cores.
Strong-Maned Pig and Ning Xi's Poison Set skills also upgraded from [Immune to All Poisons] to [Immune to Ten Thousand Poisons].
"The enhancement of the Poison Set has basically reached its limit," Ning Xi said to Lin Mo, "Brother Lin Mo, should we go complete the quest now?"
Ning Xi was a bit anxious.
After all, the A-rank hidden quest "Eradicate the Darkness" had now been transferred to her by Lin Mo.
And there was only one day left for the quest.
She didn't want it to fail and cause all the effort Lin Mo had put in during this time to go to waste.
Just as Ning Xi said, the Poison Set had already reached a stage where there was basically nothing more to improve.
The only room left for improvement was level.
But Lin Mo had only just reached level 45. He would need to reach level 50 first before he could use poison gas bottles to further upgrade the Poison Set from level 45 to 50.
Even with Lin Mo's leveling speed, it would still take at least several days to reach level 50. Clearly, the quest couldn't wait that long.
And besides, just five levels of improvement wouldn't make much of a difference anyway.
So Lin Mo nodded and said, "It's getting late. Let's log off and get some sleep first. We'll head for the Shadow Holy Hall tomorrow morning."
As soon as he finished speaking, Ning Xi beside him suddenly flushed red.
Lin Mo also subconsciously recalled last night's ambiguous scene with Ning Xi, and couldn't help feeling his throat go dry.
It was approaching three in the morning.
The air was quiet.
The two of them understood each other without speaking. Each silently crushed a return scroll, disappearing from the Scorpion Empire dungeon and returning to Blazing Fire City to log off.
———
[Offline]
Lin Mo took off his helmet, feeling restless.
Because he had missed a huge opportunity to push down the Empress.
Before, things had just flowed naturally in the heat of the moment.
But after this period of "cooling down."
"If I barge into her room now… damn, no way! That'd be way too deliberate, way too pervy! I can't do it!"
At the same time, Ning Xi, separated from Lin Mo by only a wall, quietly leaned against it, listening carefully for any movement next door.
Hearing nothing at all, she felt an inexplicable sense of disappointment.
After all, she had been the one to take the initiative before.
Worried that being too proactive would make her seem cheap.
Ning Xi didn't dare let her thoughts wander any further.
Suppressing the pounding in her chest, like a startled little deer, she lay down on the bed and picked up her phone, sending Lin Mo a WeChat message, [Brother Lin Mo, good night.]
[Good night.]
After replying, Lin Mo lay in bed, tossing and turning, unable to sleep.
In the end, he simply put his helmet back on and logged in again.
He was about to clear the Tier 3 main city soon.
But before that, Lin Mo had to obtain the one and only divine pet in the entire server from the Tier 3 main city Pet House: the White Fox.
Over the past two days, Lin Mo had also been taking time whenever he could to move toward this goal, anonymously purchasing pet exchange vouchers.
Up to now, through exchanging pets at the Pet House, Lin Mo had accumulated 952 affinity points with Pet Ambassador Andrew!
"As long as the affinity reaches 1000 points and hits level 5, I can obtain the White Fox."
Which meant Lin Mo only needed to purchase 48 more pet exchange vouchers.
At this point, Lin Mo no longer needed to worry that buying too many pet exchange vouchers would expose the secret of the White Fox to other players.
Because even if they realized it quickly, there was no way they could reach level 5 affinity with Andrew faster than Lin Mo.
To fulfill this wish as soon as possible, Lin Mo posted the highest-priced anonymous purchase message in history in Blazing Fire City's chat channel, ["Buying pet exchange vouchers for 10,000 each, instant purchase via direct mail."]
As the saying goes, money makes the devil turn the mill.
Before, when he offered two or three thousand, no one paid him any attention.
Now that the price had gone up to ten thousand.
The moment the message was sent, his mailbox started flashing nonstop.
In less than ten minutes, Lin Mo had gathered the remaining 48 pet exchange vouchers.
He took all the vouchers to the Pet House to exchange for pets.
At this moment, the system notification Lin Mo had been waiting for finally sounded—
[Ding~ Congratulations! Pet Ambassador Andrew's affinity level toward you has reached level 5.]
As the system prompt fell, Lin Mo, holding back his excitement, continued the dialogue with Andrew.
"Adventurer, seeing how much you love pets, I happen to have a sealed rare pet here, waiting for a destined person to break her seal."
"As long as her seal is broken, she will permanently submit to you. Take a look, are you interested?"
This was exactly the moment Lin Mo had been waiting for. Suppressing the excitement in his heart, he played dumb and asked, "Oh? What rare pet?"
At that moment, Andrew took out a red crystal gemstone he carried with him.
Looking at the gem in his hand, Andrew's eyes were filled with endless regret, "On the Divine Oracle Continent, all races compete. The strong prey on the weak."
"And because a man is innocent, but the treasure he carries is not."
"Three years ago, the Heavenly Fox Clan possessed the divine artifact Nirvana and was invaded by powerful enemies seeking to seize it. In their moment of crisis, they once asked our human race for help. Although City Lord Roga personally led troops to support them at the first moment, he was still one step too late. The entire Heavenly Fox Clan had already been massacred, leaving nothing behind."
"And the divine artifact Nirvana has been missing ever since."
Little did Andrew know that at this very moment, the divine artifact Nirvana he spoke of was actually on Lin Mo.
So in a way, Lin Mo did have some kind of connection with the Heavenly Fox Clan.
Their clan's supreme treasure had been obtained by Lin Mo through the grand prize of the big roulette.
After a pause, Andrew continued, "However, within the ruins of death, City Lord Roga discovered a wisp of the Heavenly Fox Clan princess Liya's remnant soul. He used this soul gem to seal it and entrusted it to me for safekeeping."
"She is the last surviving member of the Heavenly Fox Clan, and also the only one with the clan's strongest bloodline. But her soul has been sealed for too long. Take a look, do you have any way to break her seal and let her be reborn?"
As he spoke, Andrew handed the gemstone to Lin Mo.
[Ding~ Congratulations! You have obtained A-rank divine artifact · Soul Gem (Limited Time)!]
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