Chapter 135: The Sky Is Mine

A light as brilliant as the stars appeared in Huang Yunshuo’s backpack.

As the radiance dimmed slightly, Huang Yunshuo picked up an object the size of a fist. The little thing seemed to possess a life of its own, twitching and wriggling in his palm before finally settling down.

"So this is the Low-Grade Artifact Essence. How do I use it?"

Anxious to know, Huang Yunshuo checked the description of the item: "Can be soul-bound to equipment. After binding, equipment attributes are significantly increased, and the bond cannot be removed."

I see! This was meant specifically for his rocket launcher.

Previously, when using a tattered iron sword, his melee damage was far inferior to his rocket launcher's output. However, ever since he equipped "Champion’s Lament," the rocket launcher had ironically become the weaker link. For instance, with Champion’s Lament, his attack power was 78-87, while the rocket launcher was only 73-80—a noticeable gap that felt quite frustrating.

His job-specific three-piece set could not be removed once equipped, so binding the artifact essence to it was perfect. It was a solid choice.

He slammed the artifact essence onto the rocket launcher. The light enveloped the weapon and slowly faded away. Looking at the soul-bound rocket launcher, Huang Yunshuo felt a subtle difference—it seemed lighter. He weighed it in his hand, and his heart leaped with joy. The agility penalty had definitely been reduced!

Rocket Launcher [Frost Cold Eagle] (Green), Level 15
Attack: 35-40
Agility: -5
Skill 1: Rapid Fire—Increases weapon fire rate by 5% or reload speed by 10% for 3 seconds. Cooldown: 15 seconds.
Skill 2: Knockback Cannon—Fires a shell that knocks back targets within a 3x3 area. Cooldown: 25 seconds.
Ultimate Skill: Fire Suppression—Fires 10 rockets within 1 second, bombarding a 3x3 area.
Unique Passive: Targets hit directly are knocked into the air, suffer the [Grievous Wound] effect, and are afflicted with 10 seconds of bleeding and 1 second of stun. Targets caught in the blast radius are knocked back and suffer the [Slow] effect for 3 seconds.

The equipment grade had jumped from White (Rare) to Green. The attack range had increased by 10, bringing it to 83-90—finally surpassing Champion’s Lament. The agility penalty dropped from -10 to -5, effectively granting him 5 bonus agility. Now, with the rocket launcher equipped, his total agility reached 117.

Another change was that the cooldown for the Knockback Cannon had dropped from 30 seconds to 25 seconds! This felt incredibly satisfying. The binding process was quite intuitive; it knew he wanted the cooldown reduced to zero and gave him a generous five-second discount. With the cooldown shortened by a sixth, it was no exaggeration to say his combat effectiveness had surged by over 10%.

After trading the Tempering Pill to Piaoxue, she quickly sent back an excited message. It had added a full 15 points of Constitution and 10 points of Strength, equivalent to the free attributes gained from eight levels as a Knight.

"With the Exhilaration Chainmail, the Rage Gem, and now the boost to health, this Knight is finally ready to take off."

"Da Huang!" Ye Piaoxue messaged him privately. "The loot distribution meeting is still ongoing. What do you want from your share? I'll calculate it for you."

"Convert it all to copper coins. Take half for yourself and give me the rest. Oh, and if there are any Life Gem Shards, save four for me."

Ye Piaoxue’s High-Efficiency Life Recovery Spray was truly impressive. It restored 20 HP per second; if not for that, Huang Yunshuo would have died multiple times while dueling Gege Luo. He had to remember that the artifact quest would fail if he dealt less than 20% of the total damage before the boss died. Therefore, no matter how expensive her path as an Apothecary became, he would support her all the way. Then again, could it possibly be as expensive as his own ridiculous career path? Not even close.

"You're a generous boss!" Ye Piaoxue giggled and disconnected.

Soon, she traded him four Life Gem Shards. Huang Yunshuo immediately traded them to Yeye Liuguang Xiang Jiaojie, fulfilling his promise and feeling a weight lifted off his shoulders.

"Time to log off and rest?"

Finding nothing else to do for the moment, Huang Yunshuo removed his helmet and immediately checked the forums.

"Deep Dive into the Moron of Shitai Town, and the Hidden Class 'Frost Cold Eagle'"
"What kind of courage makes him treat his own name like this? Perhaps this is the true master"
"Racial Talents to be unlocked—The Feathered Race spreads its wings to soar. Even if others are encroaching, the sky belongs to the Feathered Race"

Seeing this, Huang Yunshuo couldn't hold back. That "deep dive" post about him was pure clickbait. The author knew nothing yet blathered on for ages, and a group of idiots in the comments were actually discussing it with great interest. As for the second post questioning his courage to choose the name "Moron"—damn it, did he look like he wanted that name? Wasn't he tricked by that woman, Ming Ziwei? The claim that the name defaults if you don't act within 10 seconds was a lie! It was all a lie!

Of course, these two posts were nothing compared to the third. The Feathered Race? What was that? When he was raining fire on Gege Luo’s face, they were still running on the ground on two legs. Even if they sprouted wings to soar, the sky would still belong to him, the Frost Cold Eagle! The "even if others are encroaching" part—that was clearly about him.

Feeling itchy for a fight, Huang Yunshuo decided to assert his sovereignty over the sky.

"Dreams are your dreams, the sky is my sky. Wings are your wings, but the sky is still my sky!"

The content was simple: "Feathered Race, thumbs down (emoji)."

"Waiting to be flamed."

Huang Yunshuo smiled slightly and continued browsing the trending posts.

"High salary invitation for top masters to assist in defense; you will be well-compensated regardless of the outcome"
"[Singing Anthem] Calling out Master Moron, four million beauties from the Cleric guild are waiting for your rescue"
"Seeking friends or family of Master Moron to appear; help us add him as a friend and receive 500,000 credits as a finder's fee"
"Jingtai Town players have lost an average of 3 levels. We will fight these bastards to the end!"

...

A large number of hot posts were filtered through. Huang Yunshuo was stunned. Were these people looking for help with city defense battles?

Come to think of it, because he had snatched the treasure chest, other towns were attacked early by Sloth Knights and Macaque Knights, which, in hindsight, wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It was better than having the Sloth Knights and Macaque Knights charging in later alongside other massive armies. If a town could seize the opportunity to inflict heavy casualties on the Sloth and Macaque Knights early on, they would have an advantage later. The better they handled the opportunity, the better their chances of winning.

He looked through several posts calling for experts or specifically naming him. He found that most of them included initial compensation offers. There were countless posts calling for him, with over a hundred already trending.

Huang Yunshuo filtered them by number of replies and found that "Singing Anthem," a Cleric legion, offered the highest price: a base reward of 5 million credits, 10% of all loot, and 50% of boss drops, with priority picking rights on the boss loot. Most importantly, as the most famous all-female Cleric mercenary group in Glory of the Glacier, they had a wealth of top-tier Clerics. Back in the day, they had over a dozen members in the top 10,000 of the Glory Heavenly Rankings, which was quite an achievement.