Chapter 17

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Gu Qingshan opened his eyes and pulled out two arrows quietly. He nocked them to the arrow, drew back the bow, and released it gently.

The two arrows shot out in a crooked, arched trajectory, pinning a tree leaf onto a branch.

The path of the arrow was arched!

Gu Qingshan’s heart skipped a beat. This was exactly what he had imagined.

That way, his attacks would become unpredictable.

“If I use Spirit Power to guide the arrows…”

Gu Qingshan mumbled this to himself as he tried to use the Double Flying Swallows technique again.

The two arrows went in two different directions, arching high over rows and rows of trees before finally shooting down a sprinting rabbit a few hundred meters away from him.

Even though Gu Qingshan had seen much of the world in his previous life, he was deeply attracted to this archery move.

This was the archery technique of a human army general.

Gu Qingshan walked about for a bit and mumbled to himself. Then, he picked up his bow again.

Activate Rapid Shot!

Activate Double Flying Swallows!

The bow was drawn back, again and again, sending the arrows shooting out in a mess and none of them hit the target.

Gu Qingshan frowned and fell into deep thought.

Double Flying Swallows was a good technique, but why couldn’t it be used in quick succession? Was it necessary to pause in between when using such a powerful technique?

That didn’t make sense.

He tried again but it still didn’t work.

Double Flying Swallows was an amazing archery technique, but once he tried to use it in quick succession, it lost all its accuracy.

No, it shouldn’t be like this.

Gu Qingshan kept trying and trying like he was possessed, and without realizing it, he had even tried to throw in Steadiness too.

After an hour.

Two arrow paths became a grey shadow, like flying snakes that had come to life, cutting through the air in a crooked arc, and finally shooting through the same tree leaf.

The path of the arrows was completely impossible to predict, and with the addition of the frequency of the rapid shots, anyone that was a target of Gu Qingshan’s arrows would have no idea how to dodge this mess of arrows in front of him.

Gu Qingshan nodded slightly and put the bow down.

It was indeed possible. It was just a matter of whether one really thought hard enough about it and to try and improve the technique.

DING!

The sound of the system suddenly rang out and shocked Gu Qingshan.

There was a message above the round halo around the War God Techniques label on the War God Operating Interface.

“Player Gu Qingshan has merged three archery techniques and created a new archery technique: Volley.”

“Volley (Elementary Level): Shoot 5 arrows with an unpredictable arrow trajectory in extremely quick succession at target.”

There was even something like this!

Gu Qingshan’s mouth was open wide as he looked hard at the words “Elementary Level” and didn’t say anything for a long time.

Since there was such a thing as elementary level, that meant that there were higher levels to reach.

He hadn’t expected himself to create a Growing Skill on his own.

He was still in shock when a luminous row of text appeared on the War God Operating Interface.

“Growing Skills are rare to come by. Please continue to improve your techniques so that you can increase the level of each technique as soon as possible.”

That’s right, the amount of power and force of an ordinary technique was based on how much Spirit Power was used. The amount changed according to how much Spirit Power one had.

But Growing Skills were different.

This was a special skill that could keep advancing in power. So as the player gained more insight into the technique, the technique’s basic power would keep increasing until it hit nearly celestial limits.

This was a skill that was hard to come by.

Towards the end of the game, after Growing Skills reached their limit, they were known as Secondary Divine Skills.

People who had Growing Skills were the envy of everyone.

Gu Qingshan took a deep breath and picked up his bow very seriously.

Volley!

BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG! Five resonances in a row sent five fleeting shadows flying out, like a dragon and a serpent were dancing together!

These arrows seemed to be alive as they followed different paths through the air, avoiding all obstacles in between, and landing neatly together on a tree branch about 200 meters away.

Gu Qingshan was stunned. He was completely speechless by this shot.

After a long time, he suddenly thought of something and asked, “System, can I merge other ordinary techniques to continue creating Growing Skills?”

The War God Operating Interface paused for a moment before another row of luminous text popped up:

“Comprehension of others’ techniques is only the foundation. Helping the player to keep creating Growing Skills is the aim of War God Techniques.”

Gu Qingshan sighed and murmured to himself, “So I had gotten it wrong earlier. This is the true value of War God Techniques.”

He looked at the row of black holes at the bottom of the interface. Only War God Techniques was lit up.

But this function alone already shocked him beyond words.

If one day, all the techniques he had could become Growing Skills…

That was simply too shocking.

Gu Qingshan held his bow tightly and was suddenly filled with more confidence than before.

He now had Growing Skills and Soul Power, and these two things were very special.

Using Soul Power to increase his level and techniques was more worth it than using XP.

At least at the moment, he had only needed a few points of Soul Power to grasp cultivation approaches in the Military Qi Refining Instruction book to level up.

Gu Qingshan could now use his Soul Power alone to level up and didn’t need to work so hard to accumulate XP like the other players in his previous life.

Toward the end of the game, the amount of XP needed to level up was always some astronomical figure, and it greatly curtailed the leveling up of the players’ abilities.

Besides that, the War God Operating Interface could help him to create his own Growing Skills.

Gu Qingshan suddenly felt that he could definitely go a much longer way than he had in his previous life.

After he had been surprisingly reborn into this current life, Gu Qingshan had always felt a heavy and pressing feeling on his heart.

This was a depressing time, and it was a time in the game’s history when there were no players.

After his rebirth, many strange things were different from what he remembered from his previous life. Many things were happening quietly which he had never known before.

Even a Faceless Giant—an almost invincible Chaos Species monster—had already appeared.

Gu Qingshan could feel somewhere within him that death was slowly approaching him.

This was an intuition that he was born with, and it had saved him countless times in his previous life.

His plan now was to try his best to become stronger, so that in the near future, he might have a chance to live when death was imminent.

Gu Qingshan exhaled. His eyes scanned the War God Operating Interface and stopped at his skills field.

At the moment, the skills field was already populated with the three skills: Steadiness, Rapid Shot, and Volley (Elementary Level).

Double Flying Swallows had disappeared, having been replaced by Volley.

The difference was that Volley needed much more Spirit Power to control the path of the arrows and was still at Elementary Level.

That was fine, really. The more powerful a skill was, the more Spirit Power it consumed.

His next step was to spend more time improving this particular skill so that he could level up Volley.

Gu Qingshan quickly packed his things and got ready to leave.

There were some demons not too far off that had smelled the stench of the Demonic Python’s blood, and their howls were coming closer and closer.

PFFFT!

Gu Qingshan suddenly spat out a mouthful of black blood without warning.

He opened his eyes wide in surprise, then spat another two mouthfuls of black blood uncontrollably.

Gu Qingshan wiped some of the blood away and sniffed it.

There was a faint stench.

This was poison.

That didn’t make sense. Why was there poison in his body? And how did it get forced out?

Gu Qingshan didn’t dare to be too careless. He moved his Spirit Power to flow through his body and checked himself carefully.

There was nothing unusual happening in his body at all. In fact, it was regenerating quickly thanks to the Demonic Python’s gallbladder.

Even the Spirit Power in his Dantian flowed more naturally and smoothly.

This was the effect of this rare Demonic Python gallbladder.

He was thankful that there wasn’t anything unusual inside him.

So he had been poisoned by the Demonic Python in the battle earlier after all.

Gu Qingshan was really quite speechless this time.

This Demonic Python wasn’t simple at all. It had actually poisoned him without him knowing.

If they had continued fighting, it would have been hard to say which side would die first.

He was glad that he hadn’t dragged the fight on and used the fastest way to kill the python off.

If he hadn’t killed the snake off and eaten the gallbladder immediately, it might have taken a long time for him to discover that he had been poisoned, and it was hard to say what might have happened after that.

These types of rare demons were really creatures with solid predatory powers after all.

Gu Qingshan felt a chill in his heart.