Keep attacking girls and try not to be killed by them

At the same time, the Shadow Mage deliberately exposed a flaw behind him to the boy. He didn't believe that the boy could resist the opportunity to chop off his head directly!

Sure enough, the boy took the bait. The Shadow Mage knew just by looking at the shadow on the ground that the boy had jumped over and was about to chop off the back of his neck.

Then, at the moment when the Shadow Mage was about to be separated from his head and body, the second skill of the divine weapon "Book of Bone Shadows" engraved on his soul was automatically activated!

·

The "Book of Bone Shadows" with a skull on the cover instantly moved to the back of the neck of the Shadow Mage, blocking the fatal sword with its absolute hardness!

In addition, a purple-black light shot out from the "Book of Bone Shadows" at the same time. After hitting the Shadow Mage's body, it immediately constructed a magic barrier around its body to help it block all attacks with a lethality below "5000 points".

Then, dozens of "shadow waves" came, and the violent explosion produced a large amount of smoke, making the Shadow Mage unable to see anything clearly for a while... But it knew that the young man must have been caught in the explosion because of his greed for the sword. With that guy's physique, he must have died!

——(It wasn’t easy! I finally won!)

—(I'm going to memorize this "shoot at me" tactic. I'll use it against fast enemies from now on...)

The Shadow Mage was making a post-war summary in his mind, but he didn't expect that when the smoke dispersed, he could clearly see the human boy standing not far ahead unharmed.

·

The Shadow Mage was dumbfounded. He couldn't understand how the boy escaped from this 360-degree attack.

After much thought, the only possibility it could come up with was that its tactical strategy had been seen through by the opponent during its execution.

Now, at this point in the battle, the Shadow Mage has become desperate. He looks at the haggard young man in front of him and can't think of any way to defeat him.

Then, during the two or three seconds that the Shadow Mage was stunned, something hit his cervical vertebra from behind, and then he fell into endless darkness, and could only wait for the next "trial" to call him.

[img=675,1200]https://rss.sfacg.com/web/novel/images/UploadPic/2023/04/6ee13eec-3fd1-437d-aa0a-b8d321a248f4.jpg[/img]

8.149 - Harvest Time

Victory.

And it was a complete victory without any injuries.

Although he only had less than 500 points of vitality left, Jiang Ran won without any thrilling at all. It could even be said that this was the easiest trial he had ever passed.

Jiang Ran attributed this easy victory to the Super-Dimensional Divine Eye and his own combat profession.

If someone without identification ability were to challenge the "Skeleton Shadow Master", facing a vast number of real and fake clones that could not be distinguished, they would really be tortured to death by the special rules of this trial space.

As the white light emitted by the dark magic circle fell on Jiang Ran, he instantly recovered to full condition. The wound on his chest no longer hurt, and his legs and feet no longer felt sore. Only the indelible scars still recorded the arduous and life-and-death battles he had fought.

Then, in Jiang Ran's field of vision, those familiar text prompts appeared:

——『Successfully pass the "Fifth Difficulty: Purple Trial" and automatically advance the "Third Class: Shadow Trickster" to the "Fourth Class: Shadow Disciple"』

——『The number of skill slots has been expanded to 4』

——『Automatically acquired the fourth-level skill: "Shadow Prison Space"』

——『If the upgrade conditions are met, "Shadow Trickster - Lv90" will automatically upgrade to "Shadow Disciple - Lv91"』

·

Jiang Ran had grown accustomed to the changes after advancing, and the attribute improvements were within his expectations. However, he wondered if his original career path as a "Junior Assassin" had gone astray. Why was it becoming less and less relevant to assassins?

After advancing all the way to now, the word "Secret Assassin" is now just "Secret Assassin"?

Now, the matter is done, and Jiang Ran doesn't know whether his strange career path is a good thing or a bad thing. However, judging from his newly acquired skill "Shadow Prison Space", it should be considered a good result.

[img=700,852]https://rss.sfacg.com/web/novel/images/UploadPic/2023/04/a9bdbadf-2e6e-4ae6-a132-fe52e03c5a00.jpg[/img]

[Note: Please note that there is a 400-word illustration of the new skills here.]

·

Jiang Ran's newly acquired skill "Shadow Prison Space" combines ranged explosive damage and weak control effects, which makes up for his lack of firepower when relying solely on combat professional skills.

With his current stats, the skill "Shadow Prison Space" can easily deal over 10,000 damage in a large area (before taking into account damage reduction), and the three-minute cooldown is not particularly long. If the rhythm is well controlled, it is not impossible to use "Shadow Prison Space" twice in a battle.

After confirming the new skills, Jiang Ran looked at the three white light balls not far away. However, he did not go to collect the three rewards immediately. Instead, he walked to the corpse of the "Skeleton Shadow Mage" first - Jiang Ran did not forget the three pieces of equipment he had been thinking about before.

After paying his respects to the Skeleton Shadow Mage, Jiang Ran accepted his pair of "Magic Amplification Bracelets" and "Black Jade Necklace".

After wearing these three pieces of equipment, the cooldown time and mana consumption of Jiang Ran's four combat professional skills were all reduced by 10%. This change may seem small, but in Jiang Ran's various life-and-death battles where the difference was a hair's breadth, this tiny difference could often determine victory or defeat.

Afterwards, Jiang Ran took out the fourth-level magic crystal of the Skeleton Shadow Mage. Except for the magical "Book of Bone Shadow" that was bound to his soul, he did not miss any of the rewards he could get.

After finishing all these, Jiang Ran calmly began to collect the three light ball rewards from the trial space.

The first light ball reward was, as usual, the "Universal Stone". Jiang Ran had just used his ability to foresee future death scenes not long ago, so he was not in a hurry to exchange the Universal Stone for energy points of the Super-Dimensional Divine Eye.

The second light ball reward is 600 points for all attributes, which is 200 points more than the reward when upgrading from level to level . It seems that the pattern should be an arithmetic progression.

With this seemingly unfortunate windfall of 600 points in all attributes, Jiang Ran could now equip the "Catastrophe War Horn: Goblin Soul"! However, to be able to use the horn's ultimate skill, "War Force," Jiang Ran still needed to fill a gap of nearly magic points.

[Note: "War Force" requires 50,000 magic points]

In addition, Jiang Ran still has a certain gap in the agility and wisdom attributes required by "True Soul Blade Katana: Soul Severance".

Therefore, Jiang Ran still has a long way to go.

·

(In less than 20 days, I can still increase my intelligence by another 3000 points?)

Jiang Ran now admires his future self a little. At least he can't think of any way to achieve such a huge improvement.

However, after receiving the third reward, Jiang Ran felt as if he could see a glimmer of hope.

The third reward that the trial space gave to Jiang Ran was called "The Blessing of the God of Diligence, Indus", and the corresponding inherent ability was "Building a Tower from Accumulating Sand".

The effect of "Accumulating Sand into a Tower" is that after Jiang Ran wakes up, as long as he does not fall asleep, he will gain a layer of "Practice Blessing" every hour.

The benefit of the "Practice Blessing" is that during the existence of the "Practice Blessing", each time Jiang Ran gains skill proficiency, the value will be superimposed on the number of layers of the "Practice Blessing".

This inherent ability may seem a bit complicated, but it becomes clear as soon as we use an example.

Assuming that Jiang Ran has been awake for three hours and one second, he would have three layers of "cultivation blessing" on him at this time. Then, Jiang Ran used the "shadow stealing technique" at this time.

Originally, each use of the Shadow Stealing Technique only increased proficiency by 5 points, but now there are three levels of "Practice Blessing" bonus, so it can increase proficiency by 8 points with one use.

And if Jiang Ran can persist in not sleeping for 24 hours, or even longer... then his efficiency in improving his skill proficiency will be improved unprecedentedly!

·

The "Inherent Ability: Building a Tower out of Sand" is very strong, extremely strong, so strong that Jiang Ran immediately used all four combat professional skills and experienced the feeling of opening a modifier.

For a moment, Jiang Ran felt that after obtaining this inherent ability, he seemed to see hope of changing the "future of death".

However, this is only "as if", because "Jiang Ran in the future of death" is likely to have obtained the same ability.

What could change Jiang Ran's fate of death was not the "Inherent Ability: Accumulating Sand into a Tower".

Now, there is still one hour left on the countdown on the portal to the outside world. It is time for Jiang Ran to think carefully about the "future death scene".

·

It is not difficult for Jiang Ran to change his fate of death in the future. He just needs to not save Ice Star Shirley.

With his current strength and growth rate, as long as he is not targeted by a monster of the level of the Werewolf Ancestor, he will be able to escape even if he cannot defeat it.

However, Jiang Ran couldn't convince himself not to save Shirley.

Six years ago, Jiang Ran did not allow those playboys to bully the little girl he did not know;

Six years later, Jiang Ran still couldn't do anything that would make his "future self" look down on his "present self".

[img=700,416]https://rss.sfacg.com/web/novel/images/UploadPic/2023/04/8cc2faef-170d-46d3-b0cb-70f715bbd069.jpg[/img]

[Note: The screenshot above is from Chapter 4.4 - Jiang Ran's Past (Part )]

8.150 - Changing Course (Part )

Since Ice Star Shirley must be rescued, Jiang Ran has no choice but to find a way to survive from the hands of the four werewolf ancestors.

Up to this moment, Jiang Ran believed that the difference between his "future self" and his "present self" was mainly that he knew that the four werewolf ancestors would kill him, but his "future self" did not know.

If he had not seen the future death scene, Jiang Ran believed that he would have started heading towards the Farnas Empire after a short rest.

In the cognition of "Future Jiang Ran", in order to rescue Shirley, the enemies that need to be dealt with, besides Kenroshi Okami and his troops, are probably the Wolf King Chief.

With Jiang Ran's current strength, plus 19 days of improvement time, although he is not sure that he can defeat these enemies without risk, for the "rescue operation", as long as he can rescue people, it is a victory, and it is not necessary to defeat the enemy.

Judging from the content of the "future death scene", it is very likely that "Future Jiang Ran" has dealt with the Wolf King Chief and Kenroshi Okami in some form, otherwise the four werewolf ancestors would not have been alarmed.

Therefore, the reason why "Future Jiang Ran" failed was because he made a wrong judgment due to the "information gap".

The incident of "kidnapping Ice Star Shirley" was most likely not the arbitrary act of Kenroshi Okami alone. Behind him, he might have the support of the four werewolf ancestors.

·

After realizing this, Jiang Ran decisively gave up the plan of "going directly to rescue Shirley". If he went like this, he would also die at the hands of the four werewolf ancestors.

When these four ancestors killed the "future Jiang Ran", there was not even a drop of blood on their bodies. This crushing difference in combat power cannot be made up by "roaring" or "being extremely angry".

However, Jiang Ran did not have much time to practice slowly, so he had to find a way to narrow the gap in combat power in a short period of time.

(How can I quickly improve my strength...)

Many concepts flashed through Jiang Ran's mind, such as conquering the maze again, quickly leveling up and advancing again, or going to a big city to build and buy more powerful equipment, etc.

However, after thinking about it, Jiang Ran felt that these were not the best methods. After thinking for a while, he suddenly realized that he had fallen into a thinking error.

(I may not be the only one who can save Shirley...!)

Thinking of this, Jiang Ran suddenly realized that if he could bring in powerful friendly forces, that would be the best solution.

So, where can we find ready-made combat power?

First of all, Jiang Ran ruled out options such as Wei'er, Emilia, Heloise, and Captain Pride.

Objectively speaking, they are too weak and are likely to die in the subsequent rescue operation. They should not be allowed to take this risk;

Then, Jiang Ran thought of the kingdom behind Shirley. As the chief court magician, she was captured by the neighboring country. It was impossible for the Kingdom of West to remain indifferent, right?

However, after careful consideration, Jiang Ran gave up this option for two reasons.

One was due to objective reasons. The capital was too far from Dris Town. If Shirley were to go back and forth, she wouldn't know what had happened to her. There wouldn't be enough time.

The other reason was subjective. Jiang Ran believed that although Shirley was the chief court magician, she was just the chief court magician and had no connection with the royal family.

In this situation, it is really difficult to expect the Kingdom of Wester to take any strong measures - and if the scale of this matter is not properly handled, it may turn into a war between the Kingdom of Wester and the Farnes Empire.

Now that the Demon Prison Empire is at the doorstep, the countries in the Human Alliance will certainly try their best to avoid internal friction. Therefore, in order to avoid war, it is not impossible that Shirley will be sacrificed as a political bargaining chip.

Based on these two reasons, Jiang Ran gave up his hope on the power of the Kingdom of West and began to think about the third possibility, which was Shirley's birthplace, the "Snow Deer Family".

·

Will the Snow Deer family go to rescue Shirley?

The answer to this question seems to be obvious, because Shirley has severed ties with the Snow Deer family for many years and has brought no benefits or value to the Snow Deer family.

However, Jiang Ran believes that there is still a glimmer of hope. The reason for this is that the werewolf clan is now the common enemy of Jiang Ran and the Snow Deer family.

As long as Jiang Ran can make the Snow Deer Lord believe that they must immediately launch an attack on the werewolf clan, the power of the Snow Deer clan will be able to help Jiang Ran.

He didn't need the Snow Deer Clan to have the absolute strength to wipe out the werewolf clan, as long as they could help him hold the four werewolf ancestors back for a while.

However, before considering these things, Jiang Ran still lacked a crucial helper, that is, an intermediary who could allow him to communicate directly with the Snow Deer Lord.

Speaking of this middleman, Jiang Ran immediately thought of Vanessa Snow Deer, who was currently exchanged to live with the Green Lizard family.

About half a month ago, Vanessa rode her Pegasus Shasha to Cuilin City to seek help. Judging by the time, she should have arrived in Cuilin City by now, and might even have been heading towards Dris Town with the help.

However, the werewolf army had already retreated towards the Farnese Empire, so even if Vanessa and the others came, they would only be empty-handed.

What Jiang Ran needs now is to find Vanessa as soon as possible and ask her to take him to the territory of the Snow Deer family to meet the Snow Deer Lord.

·

After making up his mind, Jiang Ran made full use of the last few dozen minutes in the trial space, and appropriately consumed some magic power to brush up his skills.

His current awake time is one and a half hours. Although he only has one layer of "cultivation blessing", it still improves his efficiency a lot.

Afterwards, Jiang Ran cautiously left the trial space and carefully observed the situation outside the cave for a while.

Only after confirming that the blood-sucking snake and the octopus tentacle loli were not nearby did he start his journey.

·