Outside the city.
Lin Yu was exploring the ruins of the old city, a hundred miles south of Jicheng, with a pen and paper in hand, meticulously drawing a map. Suddenly, his wristband emitted a beeping sound.
Who sent the message?
Lin Yu opened his wristband and found it was a message in the class group chat.
"Shi Yifeng from Ergao?"
He knew this person. He came from a poor family and was very low-key before, even often bullied. Since awakening his SS talent, he had transformed.
He avenged his grievances and repaid his grudges.
Furthermore, in a short period, he became the top student at Ergao.
Not only did a large number of students follow him, but even the school teachers treated him with respect.
This made him feel the charm of talent and strength. Instead of becoming arrogant, he relied on his powerful talent and cultivated diligently, frequently breaking through cultivation realms.
The accumulation of several frontal confrontations made his mentality swell.
This time, after breaking through to third-tier combat power, he immediately challenged Lu Huan from Yigao.
Lu Huan was no match for him, which further fueled his arrogance. He then turned his attention to Zhao Ke.
Lin Yu frowned. He knew Zhao Ke was in seclusion and would not be able to accept the challenge.
"However, by the time Zhao Ke comes out of seclusion, this person will no longer be able to cause trouble!" Lin Yu thought to himself.
"This matter doesn't affect me. I should use this time to cultivate properly!"
Closing his wristband, Lin Yu turned his gaze back to the battlefield.
At this moment, twenty clones were divided into four groups, sweeping through monsters.
This old city ruin was actually a modern city before the invasion of the myriad realms. Due to the invasion, countless energies converged, causing plants to grow wildly. Tall buildings became shaky overnight, turning into dangerous structures.
If it were just the plants, they wouldn't have had to migrate. What was even more troublesome were the rats and insects in the sewers.
These animals mutated and evolved wildly, their numbers increasing dozens of times and their strength multiplying by tens or even hundreds of times. In search of food, they began to attack humans.
Their sheer numbers were overwhelming, seemingly endless and inexhaustible.
Under the attack of the monster hordes, humans had no choice but to abandon the area. Some people stayed a hundred miles away and established the nascent form of the current Jicheng.
This was the origin of the old city.
At this time, some clones began to enter the sewers, slaughtering the rat and cockroach swarms.
After mutation, these animals' combat power was comparable to first-tier beings. Their numbers were so vast that Lin Yu killed as he moved.
After fighting for a while, many monsters roared and chased after them. Lin Yu immediately ordered his clones to return to the ground.
Suddenly, a shop appeared ahead. Lin Yu immediately ordered his clones to push the door open and go in.
Inside the shop, it was a mess. The shelves were toppled, and there were no goods left.
Behind them, swarms of rats rushed in.
"Damn it, these rats are so vengeful! But, using the shop as cover, let's kill them!"
Lin Yu's main body hid in the distance and ordered the clones to attack. The twenty clones arrived one after another, brandishing their Tang swords.
Fierce rat monsters, with blood-red eyes, lunged forward.
However, relying on their third-tier combat power, Lin Yu's clones could still cope calmly. It was just that the sheer number of monsters prevented them from breaking through in a short time.
"Kill!"
Slash after slash, rat monsters fell under their blades.
Lin Yu's heart beat faster as system prompts continuously sounded in his ears.
"Ding, killed Red-Eyed Rat Monster, upgrade points +50!"
"Ding, killed Red-Eyed Rat Monster, upgrade points +50!"
"..."
The upgrade points from these Red-Eyed Rat Monsters were surprisingly generous. Lin Yu became more and more excited, commanding his clones to continue the slaughter.
An hour later, the clones had killed a thousand rat monsters, and their upgrade points had reached over fifty thousand.
Three hours later, the surrounding rat monsters were all wiped out, and the upgrade points reached over three hundred thousand.
"The total upgrade points are about five hundred thousand, but I'm still half a million short of leveling up my talent!"
"Should I upgrade my combat power first, or my talent?" Lin Yu fell into a dilemma.
Five hundred thousand upgrade points were enough to elevate him to the late third-tier, but not enough to break through to the fourth-tier. The fourth-tier was a major leap, with a huge barrier in between, requiring ten times the upgrade points.
Lin Yu understood this. After thinking for a moment, he decided to upgrade his talent first.
Improving his talent would increase his cultivation speed and save him a lot of upgrade points.
Having made his decision, Lin Yu looked at the remaining three clones with regret and summoned ten more.
Then, he had these ten clones draw maps. After waiting for a while, he summoned five fire clones and five water clones, ordering the fire clones to hunt rat monsters and the water clones to hunt cockroaches.
With everything allocated, Lin Yu hid himself again.
Soon, system prompts continued to sound in his ears, and his upgrade points steadily increased.
"If only my clones could ignore distance, then I could hunt from home!"
Unfortunately, the effective range of his clones was directly proportional to his mental power. With his current mental strength, clones could only exist within a five-hundred-meter radius. Beyond that range, they would automatically dissipate.
"Currently, the ways to increase mental power, besides the automatic growth during the transformation of combat power and talent, are only the relevant mental power improvement techniques that can be learned in universities."
"It is said that in other realms, there are elixirs that can increase mental power!"
"However, thinking about these things now is a bit too ambitious. I should focus on fighting monsters and leveling up!"
Lin Yu was becoming impatient.
Time flew by. Another three hours passed, and Lin Yu's upgrade points finally reached one million.
"I can finally upgrade my talent. After this, I'll be S-class too!"
"I wonder what treasures S-class schools will reward?"
Lin Yu grinned, his inner joy evident.
"System..."
Before he could finish speaking, one of his clones suddenly lost contact. Lin Yu was shocked and quickly connected to another clone to check.
He saw that at some point, a giant vine had wrapped around the waist of this clone.
The clone struggled desperately, but the vine was very strange. Its barbs pierced the flesh, sucking away the life force. In an instant, it absorbed all the clone's energy, and it dissipated.
"Evil creature, die!"
"All clones, quickly subdue this demon!"
The clones received the order and quickly gathered.
Various clones unleashed their techniques, and beams of energy illuminated the sky.
Most of the attacks had little effect on the vine. Suddenly, a stream of fire from a fire clone burned off a large section of the vine.
Lin Yu was overjoyed at this. He immediately ordered the fire clones to continue attacking. He also recalled the other clones and summoned the clone skill again, but this time, he summoned only fire clones.
Because the fire clone skill consumed a lot of energy, Lin Yu only summoned five fire clones, bringing the total to ten, including the original ones.
"Attack!"
The number of fire clones doubled, and the flames they spewed formed a wall of fire several feet high, enveloping the vine.
Hiss hiss hiss!!!
The vine writhed desperately, like Medusa's snake hair, causing a chill to run down one's spine.
"Roar!"
A dull roar echoed from the depths of the earth.
Boom!
Suddenly, the ground cracked, and a spherical root system with dozens of vines appeared in the air. As soon as the root system appeared, it whipped its vines towards all the clones.
Without Lin Yu's command, the clones had already sensed the danger and retreated to dodge.