Lu Ran and Su Ting returned to the Heavenly Alliance headquarters.
With nothing much to do, they took some time to rest.
It wasn’t until evening, after they’d finished dinner, that Lu Ran and Su Ting headed to the office to chat. All four guild leaders were already there.
But aside from the four leaders, there was one other person—someone Lu Ran found vaguely familiar, as if he’d seen him somewhere before.
“Old Yu, you’ve got to tell me—I can’t wait any longer!” Wang Mu said eagerly, staring at Yu Qingcang with wide, impatient eyes.
Su Ting, sensing the conversation was about to get serious, quietly excused herself from the office and left, promising to meet up with Lu Ran tomorrow morning for the next round of matches.
Back in the office.
The four guild leaders, Wang Mu, and Lu Ran—six people total—sat together on the sofas.
Wang Mu felt a little puzzled. He glanced at Lu Ran and also found him somewhat familiar, but right now his mind was completely consumed with thoughts of the mysterious Necromancer, so he couldn’t be bothered to dig through his memories.
Still, since this kid was here, his status definitely wasn’t ordinary. But Wang Mu didn’t care much about that right now.
“Let me introduce everyone. This is Lu Ran—also a Necromancer. Lu Ran, this is Wang Mu—currently the highest-level Necromancer in Longxia, also known as the number one Necromancer in the country. He’s a member of the Heavenly Alliance as well,” Yu Qingcang said by way of introduction.
Oh?
Lu Ran looked at Wang Mu with a hint of surprise.
“Nice to meet you, Uncle Wang,” Lu Ran said politely.
After all, this was the top Necromancer in Longxia. Even though Lu Ran had never met him before, the man’s reputation preceded him—it was practically legendary!
But the moment those words left his mouth—
The others burst out laughing.
“Uncle Wang, hahaha, I love that!”
“We’re all ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ to him, but Wang Mu gets promoted to ‘uncle’—classic!”
“Wang Mu, I remember you used to get all defensive when people said you looked old. What do you have to say now?”
…
They all teased him mercilessly.
Wang Mu’s mouth twitched. He shot Lu Ran a resentful look.
Lu Ran quickly corrected himself, a little embarrassed. “Uh, I mean… Brother Wang.”
Wang Mu waved a hand dismissively. “Forget it, forget it. Call me whatever you want. These clowns have no manners—you’ll get used to it.”
With that said—
He turned back to Yu Qingcang and urged, “Enough with the small talk. Just tell me straight—who’s that mysterious Necromancer, and where can I find him? I want to meet him!”
Uh…
Yu Qingcang gave Wang Mu an odd, knowing look.
Then he asked, “You haven’t been watching the Hundred Cities Tournament these past couple days, have you?”
Wang Mu nodded matter-of-factly.
“Of course not. It’s just a bunch of kids’ matches—what’s there to see?”
Fair enough.
That was also exactly why the four guild leaders never bothered to watch before. Even if some of their guild’s reserve members were competing, they still couldn’t be bothered.
Fights between rookie professionals didn’t result in real deaths anyway, so what was the point?
Calling them “matches,” but in reality, class counters and stat superiority couldn’t be overturned just by skill.
“Exactly. Since you haven’t watched, of course you don’t know how impressive Lu Ran is,” Yu Qingcang said.
“A Necromancer? How impressive can he be? I’m a Necromancer myself. Wait, hold on—this kid is a contestant in the Hundred Cities Tournament? Since when did Necromancers even qualify for that?” Wang Mu suddenly caught on, his eyes widening.
But then something else clicked in his mind. He whipped his head toward Lu Ran, his eyes growing bigger and bigger.
Yu Qingcang gave him a knowing look and nodded.
Seems like Wang Mu had finally figured—
“Wait, I remember now! That day at the Necromancer Union headquarters, that girl Cong Yu from the Cong family brought a Necromancer in to register—that was you!” Wang Mu exclaimed.
Pfft—
Yu Qingcang nearly choked on his own spit.
Wasn’t it obvious enough by now?
“Alright, alright, stop guessing. I’ll just tell you straight: the mysterious Necromancer you’ve been asking about—that’s Lu Ran.” Yu Qingcang shrugged casually.
Huh?
Wang Mu whipped his head toward Yu Qingcang, then swiveled back to stare at Lu Ran.
Then he rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right. If you don’t want to tell me, just say so.”
Oh, for crying out loud…
Yu Qingcang was caught between laughter and tears.
“Look, I tell you the truth and you don’t believe me. How about this—let Lu Ran show you some of his skills?”
Skills…
Wang Mu had absolutely no idea what made the mysterious Necromancer so incredibly powerful.
But seeing Yu Qingcang speak with such certainty, and the other three guild leaders looking completely unruffled—
Could it actually be that this Lu Ran really was that mysterious Necromancer?
“A rookie professional? Just over twenty days? And that arena ranking, that Endless Tower leaderboard—what the hell are you guys playing at? How is that even possible?” Wang Mu muttered under his breath.
“I knew you wouldn’t believe it, so I brought you here to see for yourself. So—how do you want to check it out?” Yu Qingcang’s interest was clearly piqued.
He was obviously planning to give Wang Mu a little shock.
So instead of having Lu Ran just share his skill and trait panels directly, they decided to have Lu Ran demonstrate his abilities live—and blow Wang Mu’s mind!
“If it’s a skill demonstration, then let’s head to the training dummies. We’ll see what he’s got,” Wang Mu said, half-convinced, half-doubting.
Training dummies…
Yu Qingcang nodded. “Alright, training dummies it is.”
With that, he took the lead and walked out.
The Heavenly Alliance headquarters had guild-installed training dummies, which members used to practice skills and combat, test damage output, gear combinations, and so on.
“Lu Ran, you might not know this, but the training dummies actually have HP,” Liu Xinxin explained to him.
“Having HP or not—it’s all the same. The dummy is invincible. It’s got 100 million HP base, and its regeneration rate is really fast too,” Wang Mu cut in.
Upon hearing that—
The four guild leaders all exchanged strange glances at Wang Mu.
For them, the training dummies were indeed invincible.
No matter how much damage you dealt, there was no way you could burn through 100 million HP, especially given how quickly the dummy regenerated!
To this day, no one had ever managed to completely deplete a training dummy’s HP.
“Lu Ran, how long have you been charging up?” Liu Xinxin asked.
“About five or six hours,” Lu Ran said, glancing at his status panel.
Using the blood spear and then immediately starting to charge was Lu Ran’s habit.
With his current spell power, after five or six hours of charging, he could dish out about 120 million damage—more than enough to one-shot the dummy.
“Perfect. Let’s give Wang Mu a little surprise then,” Liu Xinxin said with a smile.
Even Liu Xinxin seemed to be in a playful mood right now.
Only Wang Mu stood there looking completely lost. What the heck are they talking about? What surprise?
Wasn’t this just a skill demonstration?
He was a Necromancer too. The skills between Necromancers were all the same. If there was any difference, it could only be that this kid’s damage output was ridiculously high.
But even if it was through the roof, he was still a rookie Professional. There was no way he could live up to the feats of that mysterious Necromancer.
That guy had bulldozed all the way to the 70th floor of the Endless Tower—an absolute top-tier legend!
“There’s the training grounds ahead,” Yu Qingcang said, looking up.
They passed through the front door.
A massive, wide-open space stretched out before them—that was the training grounds.
But hardly anyone ever came here to test things out.
Most people preferred to test in low-level dungeons instead. Gear testing was an occasional visit at best.
So at this moment, the enormous hall stood completely empty—not a single soul in sight.
Not far off, a row of training dummies stood scattered about like wooden mannequins.
Yu Qingcang pointed straight ahead and got straight to the point. “Alright, Lu Ran. Show us what you’ve got.”
