"Mr. Bai-Bai-Bai-Bai-Bai, what are you trying to do to my potion shop?! Please, I beg you, don't blow this place up!"
Guinelia nearly jumped out of her skin.
Standing at the doorway, she trembled as she spoke, terrified that the blazing fireball above Bai Qiu's staff would shoot into the ceiling and blow up her entire shop.
"Don't worry, I mean no harm. I'm just figuring out how to revert this condensed mana back to its original form. Please give me a moment," Bai Qiu said calmly.
Though his tone was steady, his thoughts were racing like a high-speed train.
While he could maintain composure, the energy condensed through the staff was incredibly complex—it wasn't easy to reverse it back to its original state.
Ten minutes passed.
The fireball atop the staff had grown from the size of a soccer ball to that of a basketball, and then kept swelling until its diameter nearly reached a full meter—only then did it begin to shrink back down…
Guinelia collapsed onto the floor, tears streaming down her cheeks in sheer relief.
Her pitiful, trembling appearance made Bai Qiu feel rather guilty—after all, he had only been experimenting, yet had scared her half to death.
To make things worse, this really wasn't the right place for such experiments; even he couldn't be entirely sure nothing would go wrong.
Taking advantage of his still-heightened mental clarity, Bai Qiu walked over and gently held Guinelia's hand, apologetically saying,
"I'm sorry for frightening you. Here—take this as compensation."
Sanctum Coins -200
With that, Bai Qiu slipped out of the storeroom and quietly left the black tower, heading toward the outer edges of the safe zone.
He had just thought of a perfect testing site.
He arrived at the rooftop of a tall building—the same fifty-story structure where he had once slain the Dragonfang General.
Now, he returned not to fight, but to experiment.
It was midday, so there weren't many Dragonfang Soldiers around.
Plus, most players nearby were busy farming monsters, which made things easier for him.
Without interference, he easily reached the top of the building.
The height offered another advantage: Dragonfang Soldiers couldn't fly this high, nor would they appear over time to disturb him.
If it hadn't been for the Dragonfang General's summoning skill last time, Bai Qiu could have fought up here endlessly without being discovered.
Sitting cross-legged atop the roof, he drew out another staff and began testing…
Back in the safe zone, the Magic Merchant seemed to sense something and turned his gaze toward the rooftop of the tower in the distance.
Still, most players were too busy queuing to buy goods from him to notice.
None of them realized that, atop that distant building, lightning occasionally flashed, vines lashed through the air, rain poured in torrents, and hailstones pelted down one after another…
Two hours later, the effect of the Spirit Fruit had completely worn off.
Bai Qiu had finally figured out how to use all six staves.
In terms of difficulty and destructive power, they ranked as follows: Blazing, Thunder, Frost, Stone, Thorn, Tidal.
The first five were manageable—capable of killing regular or elite monsters with ease.
But the Tidal Staff left Bai Qiu puzzled.
Just how much control would it take to make water powerful enough to kill a monster?
He checked his current stats:
Bai Qiu — Level 15
Strength: C-
Magic: C-
Endurance: C-
Agility: C-
Spirit: D-
Luck: F-
Seeing these base attributes, he frowned slightly.
He could feel it clearly—his current stats were more than enough to wield any of the staves.
In fact, these D-rank weapons might even break from how much mana he was channeling into them—just like what happened to his Blacksteel Longbow.
But if that were truly the case, wouldn't it mean the quest was completely unsolvable?
If the Water-element staff couldn't kill enemies, then there was no possible way to complete it!
But would the Magic Merchant really issue a task that was fundamentally impossible to finish?
Bai Qiu asked himself this question, feeling his thoughts spiral into a cycle of anxious overthinking.
Ironically, his growing mental strength only made things worse—his heightened reasoning let him simulate countless outcomes, and every single one led to the same conclusion: he would eventually fail at the Tidal Staff portion of the quest.
Unable to think of a solution, Bai Qiu simply decided to stop worrying and start taking action—he'd complete as much of the quest as he could.
Now that he possessed the Spirit attribute, his thoughts were far clearer.
He mapped out a new route—one that would take him through areas dense with monsters.
Along the way, he would need to kill 500 regular Dragonfang Soldiers and 4 Dragonfang Generals, before eventually reaching Safe Zone No. 2240, roughly 176 kilometers away.
It was currently around 4:30 p.m.
At a travel speed of about 25 kilometers per hour, he'd arrive roughly seven hours later—just before midnight.
Once there, he planned to unlock the teleportation coordinate and rent a place to rest for the night.
Bai Qiu moved swiftly.
Equipping his full Dragonslayer Set, he sprinted straight toward his destination.
In his hand gleamed a blazing staff; as he ran, he conjured searing fireballs that blasted into Dragonfang Soldiers with explosive force.
Each sphere of flame—roughly the size of a soccer ball—was enough to instantly kill a level 9 Dragonfang Soldier.
Blazing Staff Progress:
Normal Enemies: 3 / 100
Elite Enemies: 0 / 1
......
"Quick! Tank, use your Taunt! You're losing aggro—fast!"
On a nearby highway, a five-player team was struggling to handle a swarm of more than a dozen Dragonfang Soldiers.
They were clearly overwhelmed—the formation scattered and regrouped over and over, their armored tank's iron plating already covered in dents and gashes, nearly falling apart!
"Phew—!"
Suddenly, a blazing fireball the size of a basketball streaked into the battlefield and exploded, instantly killing two Dragonfang Soldiers and severely injuring three others.
Then, out of nowhere, a figure wrapped head-to-toe in silver armor appeared— and in his hands was… a staff?
He raised it and pointed forward.
In an instant, a torrent of flame burst forth from the staff's tip, engulfing the monsters.
Within seconds, most of the Dragonfang Soldiers were writhing in fire, collapsing into smoldering heaps.
"The rest are yours! Good luck, kids!"
The silver-clad man waved his staff and dashed away—the sheer speed left everyone dumbfounded.
Bai Qiu's intervention hadn't been pure charity—he'd done it for testing purposes.
He wanted to know if killing monsters that others had already damaged would count toward his staff's kill requirement.
The answer disappointed him: it didn't count at all.
After fifteen minutes of field testing, he drew several conclusions:
A valid kill must be entirely caused by the staff's mana damage.
Injuring, crippling, or weakening the target beforehand didn't count.
Only kills done solely through continuous staff attacks—from full health to death—would be recorded.
Any external assistance invalidates the kill.
If another player contributed even the slightest damage, it wouldn't count—clearly a safeguard against exploiting the system.
Environmental or indirect damage doesn't count either.
This one was particularly frustrating.
In one test, Bai Qiu intentionally missed a fatal blow, then struck again to finish the enemy—this counted as a valid kill.
However, if the enemy took any secondary damage before the final blow—say, getting slammed into a wall by the blast and taking impact damage—then the system counted that as "outside interference," and the kill would not be registered.
Through dozens of such controlled experiments, Bai Qiu confirmed these harsh rules—even a monster bouncing off a wall and taking collision damage mid-battle would invalidate the progress bar.