Both time-traveled characters ended up as villainous henchmen.

On He Nian's data panel, a message popped up indicating that he had been upgraded.

Clearly, an ordinary blank skeleton cannot provide the experience points needed to level up from level 37 to 38. What truly propelled him to level up so easily was the power shared from the Black Mist Space.

More precisely, these powers shared from the Black Mist Space, after being digitized by the Digital World, have become a kind of hidden experience value for his current leveling up.

Upgrading something out of thin air could cause system bugs, and might even prompt the game developers to remove it from their system.

By upgrading the game's existing mechanics, the impact of this abruptness can be eliminated as much as possible.

Furthermore, and most importantly, the power of the Digital World, after being transformed by the world's rules, did not suffer much loss in him.

He Nian even had a hunch that if he wanted to, he could even achieve ultimate evolution in Aincrad!

This is a victory for electronic life forms!

However, he cannot be too high-profile until he finds an effective way to counter Kayaba Akihiko.

After all, the other party is the developer of the game Sword Art Online, and there are too many ways to easily restrain him in the real world.

Even if you're incredibly powerful in a game, it's all fake.jpg

Therefore, He Nian's next goal is clear: to upgrade and strengthen himself until he can fully bear the power shared by the Black Mist Space, and finally, with the help of the power characteristics of the Digital World, break free from the constraints of the game world and enter the real world.

Thinking of this, He Nian was filled with energy.

Using his familiarity with the Corpse Forest, he cleared out the smaller monsters along the way and headed towards the Bloodskull Castle in the center.

Although there are often players active in Bloodskull Castle, there are even more elite monsters in the castle, which can provide more data templates.

He Nian absorbed not only experience points from the monsters he killed, but also the data templates corresponding to those monsters.

By accumulating these data templates, he can more easily parse Aincrad's data code, thereby gaining more privileges for himself.

For example, the simplest example is the permission to leave the 37th floor.

Two hours later, He Nian, dressed in fine armor and wielding a sharp, enchanted greatsword, arrived at the outskirts of Bloodskull Castle.

His publicly revealed name has also been upgraded from the original "Ordinary Armored Skeleton Soldier" to the current "Elite Skeleton General LV46".

The Rusted Longsword in his hand has also been upgraded to an Enchanted Bone Greatsword +3.

He also gained a minor privilege: [not to drop items upon death].

In short, even if he's unlucky enough to encounter a high-level player who's bringing girls down to the lower levels, and he's unfortunately killed, his stats won't be completely reset by the system, and he can still revive from his spawn point with full health.

Of course, the player who killed him will not receive any reward, and will be marked by He Nian, to be taught a lesson later.

However, He Nian has not encountered any players along the way, and he has not even seen any players outside the Bloodskull Castle.

It's estimated that the main force has already moved to a higher-level area, and the value that this lower-level area can provide has been almost completely squeezed out, so there aren't many people coming anymore.

"That's good, it saves us from having to be careful to avoid high-level players."

He Nian quickly activated a detection skill to confirm that there were no players nearby before stepping into the crimson, skull-shaped castle.

Aside from the basic skeletons, the monsters within Bloodskull Castle include a blood-red skull made of spirits and a filthy monster made of foul-smelling blood.

At his current level, he doesn't need to hide from these monsters at all; he can just charge in with his greatsword.

After a period of tedious and monotonous chopping and slicing, He Nian's level rose from 46 to 65.

The name has also been upgraded from "Elite Skeleton General" to "Normal Skeleton Lord". On paper, its stats are good enough to make it a boss guarding the level around level 50.

However, just as He Nian was preparing to search all the treasure chest locations in Bloodskull Castle to try and collect some remaining data of treasures from the treasure chest remnants, he discovered a group of players trapped by traps outside a hidden treasure chest room using detection magic.

There were three players in total, two men and one woman. Judging from their levels and skill levels, they were basically casual players. They probably didn't check the strategy guide carefully, which is why they got trapped by the trap.

He Nian didn't want to provoke the players, but now that these three casual players were trapped, he had a safe opportunity to collect player template data.

Without hesitation, He Nian carried the Greatsword of White Bones and entered the treasure room.

His hollow eyes, glowing with eerie blue light, looked down at the three casual players trapped in the iron cage.

They also casually added some impressive background music for the boss's entrance.

As the background music set the mood, He Nian, bathed in the dim, blood-red light of the treasure room, walked slowly step by step toward the three casual players who were already terrified, amidst the clanging of armor against the skeletons.

boom!

He Nian held the greatsword in one hand and slammed the hilt against the iron cage that held the three players.

The violent knocking sound, accompanied by rising eerie blue flames, quickly spread around the treasure room.

The three casual players in the iron cage wanted to scream, but were horrified to find that they couldn't make a sound at all.

It's very simple. He Nian used the mute skill he obtained from the monster to temporarily silence the three of them.

He's about to start his performance, and the noisy audience is really affecting his performance.

"Living beings who roam the land of blood and skulls, I have a great task to entrust to you."

As soon as He Nian finished speaking, a message popped up on the message panels of the three trapped players, indicating that they were forced to accept a hidden quest.

[Mandatory Quest, The Skeleton Lord's Last Wish (Note: This is a mandatory quest and cannot be refused)]

The three casual players nearly fainted upon seeing the quest prompt, but thankfully they breathed a sigh of relief after reading the details of the quest.

The task is simple: help the Skeleton Lord collect rare materials from other floors.

Of course, these rare materials are not related to combat power enhancement, but rather to life skills gameplay in the game.

In this way, apart from taking some time, it is not difficult to complete, especially since the task is not time-limited.

After explaining the mission, He Nian readily released the three casual players.

Meanwhile, the player template data he wanted had just been collected. It was slightly different from collecting monster templates, except that instead of cutting and pasting, he used copy and paste.

As for the mandatory task he issued, his main reason was that he valued the rarity of those materials.

Since the 37th floor had been successfully conquered some time ago, the rare materials in the maze had been almost completely exhausted. He had just finished clearing it out, but hadn't gotten a single data item with rare attributes.

Now is the perfect time to have these three collect rare items for him while he's analyzing player template data.

Since it was their first time receiving such a hidden mandatory quest, the three casual players were very motivated. In less than five days, they collected all the rare materials and returned to Bloodskull Castle to submit the quest to He Nian.

Congratulations! You have completed the mandatory quest: The Skeleton Lord's Last Wish.

You have received the reward: The Skeleton Lord's Friendship

After distributing the rewards, He Nian turned into a handful of ashes in front of the three casual players, and scattered with the wind.

Three casual players were left standing there, bewildered and disoriented in the wind.