Legendary Son-in-Law: The Man with Poison Talismans

Experience gained: 370

The experience gained from leveling up is reduced.

However, the poison's duration was already very close to four minutes, and Lin Mu already knew that the poison could last for four minutes.

He crouched down to examine the corpse of the Woma warrior, confirmed that it hadn't dropped anything, stood up, and was about to walk forward when he suddenly noticed that the skeleton beside him seemed different from when it had just been summoned.

Walking became much more stable, although it was still wobbly, but its steps were much more solid than before, and the cracking of its joints wasn't as jarring. Lin Mu stared at it for two seconds, and a thought popped into his mind: this skeleton seemed to be slowly growing up.

Now that their abilities have improved, they should be entrusted with important responsibilities!

“From now on, you will be my vanguard.” Lin Mu patted the skull and pointed to the dark passage ahead. “The task of scouting ahead is entrusted to you. Go, my white bone skeleton vanguard.”

The main issue is that I only have 122 health points. What if I encounter several Dark Warriors focusing fire on me? Although the probability is low, it's better to be prepared. Let the skeleton go first; even if it gets attacked, it will be attacked first, and I can just heal it. Even if it gets reduced to bone fragments, I can just use a Skeleton Resurrection spell and summon it again.

Having made up his mind, Lin Mu took out a torch from his Qiankun bag and handed it to the skeleton.

But the skeleton didn't accept it.

Lin Mu shook the torch and pointed to the darkness ahead. The skeleton tilted its head, its two dark eye sockets staring at him, as if to say: What are you doing?

Lin Mu gestured and gave commands for a while, but the skeleton only tilted its head and acted cute. It didn't react at all. It seemed that besides walking and swinging its axe, it couldn't do anything else.

Lin Mu sighed, deciding to find a rope to tie the torch to the skeleton. Just as he bent down to rummage through his storage bag, he suddenly remembered the faint connection that had appeared in his mind when he summoned the skeleton. He closed his eyes, calmed his mind, and carefully tried to sense it.

Lin Mu's breathing gradually slowed, and his consciousness sank into a void. After a long while, finally, a faint point of light appeared in his mind, like a candle flame in the distance, flickering in the darkness.

He conveyed his intention to the point of light to take the item. The point of light flickered, as if it had heard him, or as if it hadn't; in any case, the skull tilted its head but made no other movement.

Lin Mu had no choice but to pass it on patiently and repeatedly. After a while, finally, the skeleton stretched out its empty left hand.

Lin Mu quickly stuffed the torch into its hand and then conveyed through his mind: "Grip it tight." The skeleton's fingers slowly closed, the joints cracking as it gripped the torch. The torchlight shone on its pale bones, and in the warm yellow glow, the pale skeleton suddenly seemed to come alive.

Lin Mu was so excited he almost jumped up. It worked!

He directed the skeletons to walk in front, while he followed behind. The torchlight flickered in the darkness, casting the skeletons' shadows that swayed back and forth at Lin Mu's feet.

After walking for a while, Lin Mu regretted it. The skeleton had only become more stable, but its speed was still very slow. Fortunately, the density of monsters on the second floor was high, and soon they encountered a situation.

It's not a monster. It's a stone spike.

It flew out silently from the darkness, moving at incredible speed, and struck the skeleton with a soft thud.

-18

The skeleton's body shuddered violently, its entire skeletal frame shaking, and its health dropped significantly. The torch fell to the ground and rolled twice.

They are dark warriors hiding in the shadows.

Lin Mu quickly cast a healing spell, and the skull's head began to regenerate health by +1, +1, +1... While the Dark Warrior's aggro was still locked on the skull, he ran over, bent down to pick up the torch, and rushed towards the direction from which the stone spikes had come.

The torchlight illuminated a figure hiding in a corner.

The creature lay prone on all fours, its back arched, its grayish-black skin rough like tree bark, almost blending into the wall. It wasn't large, resembling a thin, brown dog, but it had a ferocious monkey face, its eyes glowing a ghostly green in the darkness. A row of jagged stone spikes grew from its back; one had just been fired, its broken end still oozing a gray liquid that dripped onto the ground, hissing and emitting wisps of smoke. It lowered its body, its tail taut, the stone spikes on its back beginning to tremble, aiming at the skull, preparing to fire a second one.

Lin Mu raised his hand and unleashed a green poison.

A green light emanated from the Dark Warrior, and -29, -29, -29... appeared above its head. Its charged stone spike attack was interrupted by the transfer of aggro, and then it took another step back and jumped into the deeper darkness.

The torchlight followed and revealed two more monsters, a Woma Warrior and a dung maggot, swaying as they emerged from the corner.

Lin Mu figured they were both low-health monsters anyway, so one green poison spell would be enough to take them down. With a couple of quick swipes, the green poison landed squarely on the two monsters, even though they tried to block or dodge.

Then the Dark Warrior shot another stone spike from the darkness.

Lin Mu was already prepared. He raised his hand and held the crescent moon sword in front of him, and the stone spike struck the sword squarely, deflecting it with a clang. However, a -1 point recoil damage still appeared above Lin Mu's head.

He glanced at the Woma Warrior and the dung maggots; the two monsters were closing in on Lin Mu.

Seeing this, Lin Mu put away the Half-Moon Sword and turned to run. As he passed the skeleton, he casually picked it up.

This wasn't about taking the skeleton with him to escape; after all, once the poison took effect, the monsters' aggro would be entirely on him, making the skeleton the safest. He just wanted to tie the torch to its hand. He'd finally managed to teach it how to hold the torch, but the skeletal frame was unsteady; it'd been hit by a stone spike, its body trembled, and it fell off. It was better to just tie it to its hand.

Chapter 73 Flying Flying

After running for a while, Lin Mu heard the roars behind him gradually fading away, so he stopped and put the skeleton back on the ground.

He freed his hand to drink a medium-sized magic potion, letting Lan slowly recover.

The skeleton stood firm as soon as it touched the ground, tilting its head to look at him, the torchlight reflecting in its two dark eye sockets.

After drinking the medicine, Lin Mu squatted down, grasped the skeleton's left hand, and put the torch back between its finger bones. After the mental communication just now, the skeleton seemed to have become much more obedient. Lin Mu only needed to exert a slight thought, and the skeleton's fingers would automatically close and grasp the torch.

Then, Lin Mu took out a roll of thin thread from his Qiankun bag and wrapped it tightly around the torch handle and the skull's hand bones, finally tying a knot.

To check the tightness of the binding, he even tugged on it forcefully, only to find that the torch didn't budge in the skeleton's hand.

"Alright." Lin Mu patted the skeleton's arm and said with satisfaction, "Now it won't fall."

The skeleton raised its left hand, looked at the bound torch, then at Lin Mu, and tilted its head. The torch traced an arc in the darkness with its movement, its light flickering and illuminating its bones.

Then Lin Mu picked up the skull and walked back.

They hadn't gone far when they heard the roars of monsters ahead. Lin Mu slowed his pace, preparing to put the skeleton down, when a prompt suddenly popped up in front of him.

Experience gained: 260

Lin Mu was stunned for a moment, then realized it was the Dark Warrior. It only had 1650 HP, 50 less than the maggot, and it had been poisoned too early to survive.

He continued walking, and before long, the maggot and the Woma Warrior holding the fork upside down came into view. The maggot's fat body lay on the ground, its head still throbbing with -29, -29. After taking a few steps, it froze and turned into a pile of rotten flesh.

Experience gained: 245

Lin Mu looked at the lone Woma Guardian, put the skeleton down, and patted its skull: "Go."

The skeleton, carrying a small axe, walked step by step toward the Woma Warrior. Meanwhile, the Woma Warrior, with -27, -27 nits above its head, swayed and walked toward Lin Mu, completely ignoring the approaching skeleton.

The skeleton raised its axe and chopped at the Woma Warrior's leg.

-4.

The Woma Warrior ignored it and continued walking towards Lin Mu. The skeleton chased after him and swung its axe again.

-3.

Lin Mu stood behind, watching this scene, and couldn't help but smile.

Then circle around the skeleton, making the Skeleton Knight move around.

A short while later.

The Woma Warrior collapsed and couldn't get up.

Experience gained: 350

Lin Mu walked over, picked up the three silver coins from the ground, and let the skeleton continue leading the way, heading deeper into the passage. As for the dark warrior, he didn't drop anything.

The skeleton moved slowly, so Lin Mu would walk and stop, waiting for it to move a certain distance before running over to sit down and rest.

Fortunately, the monster density here is high; on average, you'll encounter groups of three to five monsters every fifty meters.

He only has 102 mana points, enough for just three consecutive poison attacks before he has to use a potion to slowly recover his mana. Therefore, no matter how many he encounters, he can poison a maximum of three at a time, making him efficient and reliable. Even against a Flame Worm with 2300 HP, he can finish it off in five minutes at most by applying a green poison attack in between.

Each encounter with three monsters yields an average of over 900 experience points. Including the time spent searching for monsters, you can earn approximately 7000 experience points per hour.

After fighting for about ten hours, Lin Mu had less than 3 experience points left to level up. But he noticed that the monster density seemed to be increasing.

Moreover, whenever he applied the poison, the monsters would make some meaningless movements. Some were rather foolish, raising their weapons to block the air, while others were slightly smarter, knowing to slash at the scattered powder, as if trying to block the gray mist formed by the powder. But the powder was dispersed in the air, and the air currents from the slashing swords could only cause a slight disturbance, not block it at all.

Lin Mu felt that they had become somewhat more lifelike. They were no longer the rigid monsters that only acted according to fixed procedures. He thought of the orc warriors and orc champions in the Woma Forest; those guys already had basic combat awareness, they could block, change tactics, and use weapons to cover their weaknesses. Although these little monsters in front of him were still far from that, that sense of life was the same.

The number of monsters in the passage was increasing, sometimes he would run into two groups just around a corner. But he didn't mind, more monsters were just as good, they would kill him faster.

Just then, a series of hurried footsteps suddenly came from the passage ahead.

Suddenly, a figure darted out from around the corner, running at breakneck speed. The person wore heavy armor of level twenty or higher and gripped the Hellfire sword. Seven or eight others followed closely behind, their footsteps faltering, their torches flickering in the passageway.

Lin Mu noticed that the same emblem was embroidered on the left breastplate of their armor. It was a golden-edged orange-red phoenix, head held high and wings outstretched, set in a shield-shaped badge, which was particularly eye-catching in the firelight.

They ran so fast that they didn't even glance at Lin Mu as they passed by.

And at every fork in the road, they would turn in and search for a group, even going into the dead end shown on the map. Their actions were swift and decisive.

Lin Mu leaned against the wall and pulled the skeleton behind him. These people were running so fast; he didn't want to block their way and get slashed or rammed into face-to-face with these grown men.

"Quick, quick, quick! His health is low!" someone shouted, their voice echoing through the passage.

Lin Mu wondered, "Is this a hunt in the martial world? Has this guy broken some kind of law?"

Just then, another group of people caught up from behind. The leader stopped, glanced at the fork in the road ahead, and frowned, saying, "We scouted this side earlier, but didn't find it."

The person behind him, panting, said, "It's marked in the guild, and we've searched that dead end too."

The leader hesitated for a moment, then waved his hand: "What if he flies in again? Check again."

Upon hearing this, Lin Mu exclaimed, "Flying again?" How many random teleportation scrolls does this person have?

At this moment, a teammate behind the leader muttered in a low voice: "Fly, fly, fly, do you think he can fly forever just because he has wings?"

The leader turned and glared at him. The man shrank back and didn't dare to speak. Then he followed them and turned into another side road.

And so, three groups of people with the same insignia embroidered on their chests rushed past him, all in a hurry. If they encountered a monster, they would dodge it if possible; if they couldn't avoid it and took a few hits, they would drink some medicine and keep running, without even stopping.

The last group of people rode in on horseback, their hooves echoing through the passage. Suddenly, a Woma warrior darted out from around the corner, startling the horse, which reared up with a neigh, nearly throwing its rider off. The rider quickly patted his pouch, reined in the horse, stumbled a couple of steps upon landing, and continued galloping without looking back.

Chapter 74 The Woma Cult Leader on the Second Floor (Part 1)

Lin Mu watched the group of people disappear at the end of the passage, then stood still, not moving.

The phrase kept repeating in his mind: "You think he can fly forever just because he has wings? Do humans have wings? No. Then what has wings? Flame Worms do, but Flame Worms can only jump, and even if they jump high, they'll crash into the ceiling; they can't fly. The thing that can fly with wings—no, it's teleportation. Teleportation? The Worm Cult Leader!"

Lin Mu's heart skipped a beat. The Woma Cult Leader. That thing can teleport; it's not impossible for it to get tired of the third floor and fly to the second.

As he was thinking, he suddenly heard a cacophony of sounds coming from the other end of the passage. The crackling of lightning, the swift slashing of swords, the cracking of skulls shattering, the exploding of fire talismans, and a unique hissing sound of electricity all blended together.

Lin Mu patted the skull and said in a low voice, "Stay here and don't move." The skull tilted its head and stood still, not following him.

Lin Mu crouched low and crept along the base of the wall. Scattered throughout the passage were the corpses of several monsters, and a few more stood swaying, their bodies all facing the direction from which the sound came. They must have followed the group of people a few steps before stopping after they had gone some distance.

He nimbly dodged around a few small monsters, rounded a bend, and the passage in front of him suddenly opened up.

The first thing you see is two warriors carrying Infernal weapons, who are cutting down a few Woma minions that are getting in the way, along with two skeletons.

A Woma Warrior was hacked and slashed, covered in red poison, its health almost gone. Strangely, a large group of mages and Taoists stood behind them, but not one of them offered any help. They all had their backs to them, facing deeper into the passage, unleashing spell after spell: the white light of lightning, the flames of soul fire, and the gray mist of poison spells flickered in the darkness.