secret dice.

Chapter 806 What's wrong with your blue bar?

With the plan finalized, everyone immediately selected participants and prepared the strategy. Other S-rank mercenary groups were willing to provide elite warriors to participate, and even their leaders offered to join in person. After all, there were rewards for participation, so everyone was very enthusiastic.

Only the "cerebral thrombosis commando team" showed little interest; no one wanted to participate.

Emberty spoke with the Ice Queen, expressing his hope that she could help with the strategy, but she refused, citing that the current team members were too young and their levels were too low to be easily suppressed. However, the Ice Queen offered to provide assistance from outside, and would do her best to help stop the rampaging monsters when the challenge was interrupted.

Considering the limited space inside the main hall, after registration and selection, a total of more than 200 people participated in the final challenge.

Half of them are S-rank mercenaries, including Emberty and the leaders of other S-rank mercenary groups. From the perspective of the Eye of Insight, these people all have at least six-figure health and mana. Although this is the result of various skills, abilities and equipment, according to the Ice Queen's estimate, under the rules of the [Game] world, these people have power close to or even comparable to Ascension.

The remaining members were all A-rank mercenaries, and the best of the best among them. They were only missing battle records and points to reach S-rank. The team of over two hundred people had an average level of over eighty, making them quite formidable.

After reorganizing, the team, under the cover of the others, entered the palace and began their assault on the lord's room, while the others provided support outside.

Meanwhile, in the distant Gobi Desert, Luo Jun began to collect the materials according to the list given by the old master and returned to the mage tower.

"Here's what you wanted. Now you can teach me Grandmaster-level earth magic, right?" Luo Jun opened his backpack and traded the materials he had collected to the old Grandmaster.

"Not bad, very fast." The old master checked the goods and nodded. "With your skill level, you should have a better future as a warrior. Why are you so obsessed with learning master magic?"

"Everyone has their own ambitions," Luo Jun said with a smile. "Don't worry about that, just hurry up and teach me."

"Don't rush." ​​The old master smiled slightly. "This is only the first step of the mission. Next, you will need to fuse the essence of these materials into the soil to create your own stone giant."

"Stone giants?" Luo Jun was taken aback. "Just like those bodyguards you had outside earlier?"

"You don't think those are just ordinary summons, do you?" The old master chuckled. "Stone giants are living elemental creatures. The Earth Heart, condensed from the essence of these materials, is the soul of the stone giant. Even if their bodies are destroyed, these giants can still be resurrected at any time by relying on the Earth Heart, perfectly inheriting their previous memories and experiences, and can continuously evolve and become stronger."

As he spoke, he raised his hand, and several balls of earth-yellow flame flew out of the window and merged into the earth. Before long, the ground rose up and changed shape, and one after another, huge stone giants were reborn.

As soon as these guys appeared, they pounced on Luo Jun with bared teeth and claws, their rough faces clearly showing anger, obviously still remembering the grudge of being smashed to pieces just now.

However, with a wave of his hand, the giants obediently retreated, but their eyes still held resentment as they looked at Luo Jun.

Luo Jun was also a little puzzled. How could these guys' rough, stone-like eyes express such subtle emotions?

"As you can see, these stone giants have real souls," the old master said with a smile. "However, to create the Heart of the Earth and withstand the consumption of the stone giants, one needs a very profound mastery of earth magic. Therefore, being able to create real stone giants is the mark of an earth magic master."

"I will now teach you how to make it, but whether you succeed or not depends not only on your skills, but also on a bit of luck." The old master wrote another note and flew it to Luo Jun: "If you succeed, you will be awarded the title of master, but if you fail, even if only a small step goes wrong, all these materials will be destroyed."

As he spoke, the old master stroked his beard: "Of course, failure is inevitable for a novice trying for the first time. Generally speaking, most people need to try five to ten times. Those with talent, comprehension, and good luck can succeed within five tries, but there are also many who try more than ten times without success... There's nothing we can do about it, it's just the tricks of fate..."

"Success!"

"What did you say?" The old master thought he had misheard.

"I said, the Heart of the Earth, I've successfully created it!" Luo Jun smiled. The old master turned his head and saw that the kid was holding his note in one hand, and in the palm of his other hand, a pure Heart of the Earth was floating!
"You succeeded on your first try?" The old master's eyes widened. "How did you do that?"

Luo Jun chuckled, sighed, shook his head, and mimicked the old master's tone, saying, "This is probably a blessing from fate..."

While saying this aloud, Luo Jun chuckled to himself: So-called talent and skill are nothing more than QTEs in the game world. As for the favor of fate, it's just the randomness inherent in QTEs, sometimes even requiring blind selection. But for Luo Jun, all of this is simply a matter of rolling a die.

Having obtained the Heart of the Earth, Luo Jun threw it into the rocky wasteland of the Gobi Desert. Before long, a brand new stone giant, belonging to him, stood up.

However, compared to the three lifelike figures of the old master, Luo Jun's figure looked somewhat dull, with a unique clarity shining through its bloodshot eyes.

"You still have room for improvement." The old master snorted coldly. "Come on, I'll teach you master-level earth magic. The tuition is three thousand gold coins!"

"So expensive!" Luo Jun couldn't help but exclaim. Not only was the price six times higher than that of a master-level skill, but it also required completing a task that was quite difficult. No wonder there were so few masters of various magical skills.

After paying the fee, the Grandmaster mark finally appeared next to Earth Magic in Luo Jun's skill interface, and he finally met the learning requirements for Meteor Shower!

Luo Jun couldn't wait to take out his treasured magic book and immediately chose to learn it. He then saw the golden magic appear in the skill interface.

"Give it a try!" Luo Jun smiled, waved his hand, and launched a meteor shower towards an open space in the distance. Magical fluctuations spread out, and soon huge rocks burning with flames and wrapped in lightning fell from the sky, crashing to the ground with a loud rumbling sound!

"Done! That was awesome!" Luo Jun excitedly raised his fist. "It's a pity this move can only be used once a day, the cooldown is a bit long..."

"A meteorite falling from the sky?" The old master's voice echoed from the mage tower: "So that's why you wanted to learn this move?"

"How about it? Pretty cool, right?" Luo Jun turned around and smiled.

"It really is cool." The old master nodded. "After all, it's a spell I invented..."

"You... invented this?" Luo Jun was taken aback. "That's right." The old master smiled, "Back then, I researched fusion magic with a few old friends, and eventually came up with this thing. Theoretically, as long as there's enough magic power, you can summon an infinite number of meteorites, and the power of this move has no upper limit. But unfortunately, the magic power consumption kept increasing over time, so there's still a hidden limit. In the end, in the competition, this move still lost to the fusion magic of the fire master..."

"I happen to have plenty of magic power," Luo Jun laughed. "Perhaps this move can be greatly enhanced in my hands?"

"Heh, quite the boast." The old master chuckled, then took out another magic book: "Since you have such good taste, I'll give you another magic book!"

"Is this for real?" Luo Jun's eyes lit up. He took the book and saw that it was also a master-level magic book called "Turning Stone into Gold"!

At first, Luo Jun thought it was a spell that could turn stones into gold, but after examining it, he found that it was even more powerful than he had imagined.

This spell can concentrate, refine, and transform earth-elemental materials such as rocks and gravel into indestructible earth ingots. This jet-black material, while inheriting the high hardness of minerals, also possesses the elasticity and ductility of metals, making it arguably the perfect material for weapon crafting. Weapons forged from this material are known as earth weapons, among the highest quality weapons in the game world!

"So Earth weapons are made from this kind of material?" Luo Jun exclaimed in surprise. He had browsed the weapon stalls in the Imperial Capital Market and at the foot of the Tower of Babel, and had seen Earth weapons there. They were often priced at thousands or even tens of thousands of gold coins, and these were just ordinary Earth weapons without any enchantment. He had originally thought it was some kind of rare material, but he never expected it to be artificially produced?
"That's right. However, to create an Earth Rock Ingot, a large amount of raw materials are needed to solidify even a small piece. If the raw materials contain rare minerals, the properties of the Earth Rock Ingot can be changed to a certain extent. However, because it consumes a lot of magic power, and because this thing is hard and heat-resistant, it is very difficult to forge, so it is difficult to mass-produce, which makes Earth Weapons very rare."

Soon it won't be rare anymore... Luo Jun glanced at his blue bar with three question marks, immediately chose to learn the magic book, and then bowed to the old master to express his gratitude: "Thank you for your generous gift, senior!"

"Go then." The old master waved his hand and sighed, "The world has gained another master of earth magic..."

Before he could finish speaking, he saw Luo Jun fly to a distance and land, squatting on the ground, seemingly busy with something.

Before he could finish speaking, he saw that a section of the ground beneath Luo Jun's feet had suddenly disappeared!
The pit beneath his feet was a full two meters square, with neat edges, as if a cube with sides of two meters had been dug out of the ground.

At the same time, Luo Jun held a black, shiny metal ingot, about the size of a mobile phone and about five centimeters thick.

"So many stones, and you only managed to refine such a small piece of Earth Rock Ingot?" Luo Jun counted the product in his hand, which weighed only about ten pounds, but the stone and soil he had dug under his feet weighed at least twenty tons!
This shipment rate is just too low.

"I was right, wasn't I?" The old master's voice echoed from the magic tower: "Making Earth Rock Ingots is extremely resource-intensive, and the mana consumption is also enormous. Even a master-level Earth Mage cannot..."

He stopped abruptly at this point.

The old master suddenly noticed that the blue bar above Luo Jun's head didn't seem to be moving...

Crafting an Earth Steel Ingot requires 5,000 mana points, how come his mana bar isn't decreasing at all? Just how much mana does this guy have?

The old master rubbed his eyes, wondering if he hadn't seen clearly because of the distance.

But that's right. Under the Eye of Insight, the red and blue bars above Luo Jun's head are exactly the same length and haven't decreased at all.

Could this kid have secretly drunk a magic potion while I wasn't looking? A potion that can instantly restore five thousand points of magic must be of high quality…

Just as the old master was speculating, Luo Jun suddenly put down on all fours and started running across the Gobi Desert!

"What's going on..." The old master hadn't even finished speaking when his eyes widened in surprise.

He noticed that the ground where Luo Jun had run... or rather, the ground where his hands had touched, was disappearing piece by piece, turning into pieces of earth rock!

Moreover, Luo Jun's "running" speed was extremely fast. His hands left afterimages as he dug around the magic tower again and again. In an instant, he dug a "tower-protecting river" that was twenty meters wide and bottomless, with the magic tower as the center and a radius of about a hundred meters. No, there was no water here. It would be more appropriate to call it a tower-protecting ditch!
Finally, Luo Jun floated out of the ditch and came to the mage tower. He clapped his hands and said, "This spell is great in every way, but it can only be activated by touching it with your hand, which is not very convenient... My backpack is full too. Thank you for your guidance, senior. I'll be going now."

"Wait, you..." The old master stretched out his hand, pointing tremblingly at Luo Jun. In his eyes, the blue bar above Luo Jun's head still showed no change.

"Oh, you mean that ditch?" Luo Jun waved his hand. "Repairing this is nothing to a Grandmaster of Earth Magic like you, right? Don't be so stingy..."

"No, I mean..." The old master's trembling hand was still pointing at Luo Jun.

"Oh, you mean this Earth Rock Ingot?" Luo Jun opened his stuffed backpack. "Don't worry, I'll give you half when I get the money from selling it!"

"That's not what I meant!" The old master shook his head. "What's going on with your mana?"

"Mana points?" Luo Jun glanced at his mana bar. "Is there a problem?"

"How come not a drop fell!" the old master roared.

"Oh, you mean this..." Luo Jun chuckled, "It only costs a few thousand magic points per cast, which is easily replenished as you recover..."

"It's leveled up..." The old master almost choked on his breath. Then, seeing Luo Jun about to leave, he suddenly called him back and asked, "How far have you progressed in your fire, storm, and water magic?"

"Flame and Storm are at Master level, but I haven't practiced Flowing Water," Luo Jun honestly replied, "I don't have enough skill points."

"I see... Wait for me a moment!"

The old master took out another piece of paper...

(End of this chapter)