Chapter 149: Sword (Despicable) Alone?

"Are you not going to move yet? Once the five minutes are up, you will be teleported out." Karina looked at Ye Chen, who was standing motionless in place, smiling as if she had already concluded that he would be unable to find an outstanding rare skill book of his own class in the archives.

Ye Chen smiled faintly and remained silent, patiently waiting for the search results from 2058.

Twenty seconds, thirty seconds, fifty seconds. After remaining silent for nearly a minute, 2058 quickly spoke in Ye Chen's ear: "Shelf number six, third row from the top, sixth column, rare area-of-effect skill, Abyssal Flame Boiling."

Rare area-of-effect skill! Hearing this, Ye Chen's heart shook instantly, and a look of joy appeared on his face. Area-of-effect—he was finally going to get a proper area-of-effect magic spell! Right then, under Karina's astonished gaze, he hurried towards the shelf location specified by 2058.

[Abyssal Flame Boiling] (Abyssal Magic): Summons a patch of abyssal demonic flames to deal fixed damage to targets within a designated range. The damage value of the primary-level skill is one-fifth of the player's maximum mana.

Looking at the attributes of the skill book, Ye Chen was instantly petrified. The damage value of a primary-level skill was equal to one-fifth of the player's mana! This—this was simply a divine blessing for full-intelligence-build magic-class players. What was even more surprising was that this skill turned out to be a rare fixed-damage magic spell. So-called fixed damage meant that it ignored levels and ignored defense. No matter what kind of target was struck by this magic, they would suffer the exact same amount of damage. Truly worthy of being called Abyssal magic.

However, things like fixed damage were not actually as overpowered as players imagined. Fixed damage could certainly allow one to kill monsters of higher levels, and in PvP, it could ignore whether the opponent was wearing heavy armor or light armor, but fixed damage also meant that the attack power of this magic had nothing to do with the character's own attack power, making it impossible to enhance the skill's might by increasing attack power. Overall, there were both pros and cons. Still, given Ye Chen's current strength, casting this magic was still extremely formidable; over six hundred points of damage was already enough to instantly kill many low-level fragile classes.

"How—how could you find that Abyssal magic book right away? Back then, it took me a full half hour to flip through and find it." Karina was truly shocked. Looking at the dark gold magic book in Ye Chen's hand, her lips parted involuntarily.

"I can learn it right now, right?" Ye Chen naturally wouldn't answer her question. Although she was merely an intelligent NPC, who knew if she would log it and accidentally blurt it out someday?

"Of course you can, but learning Abyssal magic requires one minute for integration. Do you not plan to wait until you leave before learning it?" Karina's expression was somewhat strange. With only five minutes in total, one minute was extremely precious.

Ye Chen smiled mysteriously. Since he could only learn two books, any remaining time would be redundant anyway. It was better to acquire the skill first.

*Slap.* Ye Chen pressed his palm onto the dark gold magic book, and the tome instantly transformed into countless dim points of light that surged toward his body.

"Ding. Beginning to learn the skill Abyssal Flame Boiling. Current progress: 1%, estimated completion time: 60 seconds..."

5%...

One minute passed quickly. As the progress bar filled up, the first area-of-effect skill finally appeared in Ye Chen's skill bar.

"You have less than three minutes remaining. I am looking forward to you giving me another surprise." Karina looked at Ye Chen with sparkling eyes.

"Shelf number nine, second row from the bottom, thirteenth... Oh, this skill book is actually here." A hint of faint surprise laced 2058's voice.

"What skill?" Ye Chen had just lifted his foot to head toward shelf number nine, but upon hearing this, he couldn't help stopping and asking 2058 in a low voice. To be able to surprise even 2058, it certainly wouldn't be anything ordinary.

"A sword demon skill," 2058 said.

Ye Chen raised his voice in the whisper channel. Previously, those sword demon skills used by the Blazing Flame Sword Spirit had made him green with envy. He originally thought it would be pretty good just to get the first stance of the Demonic Sword Nine Consecutive Slashes, but he hadn't expected that there was actually another sword demon skill hidden in these archives.

"Yeah, I almost missed it by accident. But how should I put this skill—it should probably be considered a support skill; it doesn't help much with increasing attack power, whereas the other demonic magic has much stronger lethality. You can make the choice yourself." After offering the explanation, 2058 tossed the ball back to Ye Chen.

Ye Chen was slightly stunned. Seeing time flying by, he hurriedly said, "Then quickly tell me the attributes of both skills. Never mind, forget about the demonic one; lethal magic is just a matter of how high the damage is. Just tell me about the sword demon skill."

"Well, the name of the sword demon skill is Only I Am True Sword, and its effect is..."

"Wait, what did you say the skill is called? Only I Am True Sword?!" Ye Chen suddenly let out a weird shriek. *Damn it, what kind of terrible name is this? If you're fighting someone and suddenly shout out 'Only I Am True Sword', the enemy will surely die—die of laughter! So tacky, tacky to the absolute limit.*

"You'd better hurry up and listen to me explain the effect, or else you won't even have time left," 2058 complained slightly before speaking rapidly: "Only I Am True Sword, a sword demon skill. Its effect is to suppress other classes that use sword-type weapons, reducing the opponent's attack power by 20% in close combat. It belongs to a non-upgradeable passive skill."

Suppressing sword-weapon classes! This was a skill specifically targeting swordsmen! Reducing attack power by 20%—wouldn't that make swordsmen absolute pushovers in front of him?!

Wasn't the top player of the Spirit Fox Studio a swordsman? That guy used to be the top player in Lieshan City as well; it seemed his name was Sword Heartless.

Thinking of this, Ye Chen immediately made up his mind. Learn it! When the time came, he would thoroughly torment that guy!

Just as Ye Chen was feeling excited, he almost forgot that time was running out. Fortunately, Karina reminded him in time.

"There's less than a minute left. If you don't hurry, I'm afraid you won't get your second skill book." Karina checked the time and chuckled behind her hand.

Remaining time: 53 seconds. Cold sweat poured down Ye Chen's back, and he mentally cursed himself for being careless—he shouldn't have been overconfident and wasted time learning the skill earlier. But it was too late for regrets now, so he hurriedly whispered to 2058: "Quickly tell me the location! The location of Only I Am True Sword!"

"Shelf number eighteen, fifth row from the bottom, sixteenth column."

Before 2058's voice had even finished falling, the moment Ye Chen heard "shelf number eighteen," he started running like mad. By the time he reached shelf number eighteen, only 20 seconds remained. By the time he found the exact location, the teleportation countdown had already begun.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

Just as Ye Chen grabbed the dark black skill book in his hand, his vision blurred, and he abruptly found himself standing outside the crystal door. That was a close call.

"How is it, young man? Did you come away empty-hand... Wait, you actually found that sword demon skill??" Solans was well aware of the rules of the archives and was planning to mock the Dark Priest who had blown him up into a bird's nest hair-style for a bit. However, when his gaze swept across the Only I Am True Sword skill book in Ye Chen's hand, his eyes widened instantly, and he said incredulously: "I clearly hid that sword demon skill on a bookshelf deep in the back rows. You managed to find it anyway? Your luck is simply too good, kid."

Sword demon skill—the moment Solans uttered those words, Karina on the side also looked at Ye Chen in shock. She had thought Ye Chen merely grabbed a book at random; she had even been thinking that if the skill wasn't something the other party could learn, she would immediately take it back.

A wave of joy also surged within Ye Chen's heart, but his expression remained calm. He placed the Only I Am True Sword skill book into his backpack, casually took out the soft sheepskin parchment, handed it to Karina, and said, "Respected Mentor Karina, I heard that the guild has always been collecting those lost magic spells. Would you mind taking a look to see if some lost magic is recorded on this sheepskin parchment?"

Lost magic!

Karina's brows twitched slightly. Just as she was about to take the sheepskin parchment, Solans abruptly snatched it away first, carefully examining the profound magic symbols inscribed upon it.

"Metal Affinity. This is the Metal Affinity skill of the Dark Arbitrator—it is indeed lost magic. According to the task regulations promulgated by the guild, if you hand this over to the guild, you will be able to learn this skill." Solans's palm became shrouded in a thick layer of colorful light, and he gently stroked the sheepskin parchment. Instantly, countless magic symbols surged into that colorful light. Afterward, Solans waved his hand, and the colorful light, intermingled with countless magic symbols, merged straight into Ye Chen's body.

"Ding. You have learned the skill [Metal Affinity]. Please check your skill bar for specific attributes."

Ye Chen hurriedly opened his skill bar, and sure enough, an armor-styled skill icon had appeared inside.

[Metal Affinity] (Lost Magic): Utilizes the metal elements between heaven and earth to condense tough armor around the body, drastically increasing the caster's defense. (Note: This skill can only be cast on oneself and is invalid on other players.)

Good stuff. This was definitely great stuff for a magic class.

"It actually turned out to be Metal Affinity. I've seen records of this magic's effects in historical materials. It's said that Dark Arbitrators in the ancient era could rely on this magic to engage in close combat with physical classes. Can you cast it for me to see?" Karina said to Ye Chen with expectant light shining in her eyes.

Ye Chen happened to want to see the effect of this magic as well. He immediately raised his Abyssal Staff and softly chanted the incantation for Metal Affinity. The incantation was extremely short and could be completed in a split second.

Almost at the exact moment Ye Chen's voice stopped, his magic robe and even his exposed skin became dyed with a faint metallic luster.

"Ding. Metal Affinity successfully activated. Defense increased by 200 points."

So strong!

Looking at his defense skyrocket from 500 points to 700 points, a look of astonishment also appeared on Ye Chen's face. 200 points of defense! A complete set of silver-grade equipment only provided about 500 points, yet the defense of a single primary-level Metal Affinity was close to half a set of silver-grade equipment. It was definitely worthy of being called freakish.

700 points of defense—even if a magic class's physical defense was calculated as half of their normal defense, his physical defense could still reach a terrifying 350 points now. Probably many heavy armor classes didn't even have such defense! If he were to activate Stone Demon Incarnation on top of that, his magic defense would exceed 1,000, and his physical defense would surpass 500. Such defense was already enough to leave most players helpless and unable to break through his defense!