In the following period of time, Dan Feng threw himself wholeheartedly into completing requests.
He quickly rose from F-rank adventurer to E-rank.
As his rank increased, the number of requests he could accept also grew, to the point where he sometimes felt overwhelmed.
Dan Feng: I never thought I'd experience the feeling of working a part-time job even in another world!
Compared to F-rank requests, E-rank ones were indeed noticeably more difficult.
For example, previous F-rank requests might have been simple tasks like watering flowers or doing laundry, while current E-rank requests more often involved routine pest control, such as clearing out rats and the like.
These tasks were genuinely a bit harder for Dan Feng than the ones before.
On this particular day, Dan Feng accepted a request to clear creatures from a basement.
This request wasn't simple at all—because the reward the requester offered was as high as 5 Millis large copper coins! That was quite a generous sum!
Without a second thought, Dan Feng readily accepted the request.
After all, he had been diligently saving money, wanting to forge a long spear of his own.
Moreover, he was close to reaching D-rank adventurer status, so having a proper weapon in hand was crucial for him.
He arrived at the requester's home and asked where the creatures that needed dealing with were.
"In the basement! Every day it makes noises. I didn't dare go check what kind of creature it is, but it definitely isn't a monster!" The requester said anxiously. He must have been very afraid of whatever was down there, since he lacked the courage to investigate the unknown.
"I understand. Do you have any weapons?" Dan Feng asked the requester.
"Yes, yes, I'll go get one for you right away." The requester hurriedly ran into a room and came back with a shovel.
Dan Feng took the shovel and looked at the requester with an expression of disbelief.
"That's all we have. The weapons my old man took with him when he died."
"Fine then." Dan Feng picked up the shovel and headed toward the basement door.
Then, with one decisive push, he opened the door leading to the mysterious basement.
Creak.
A wave of decayed, dust-laden air hit him head-on, causing Dan Feng to frown.
"Oil lamp."
"Here!"
Dan Feng held the oil lamp in his left hand and the shovel in his right, descending the stairs step by step.
The tap-tap-tap of his footsteps echoed in the narrow space, adding an unusual atmosphere to the quiet surroundings.
When Dan Feng reached the basement, he was stunned by the sight before him.
Deep in the darkness was a circular magic circle emitting white light.
Dan Feng slowly set the oil lamp down, gripped the shovel tightly with both hands, and approached the white magic circle.
"What is this? A magic circle?" Dan Feng looked at the white magic circle in confusion, then tentatively prodded it with the shovel.
In the next second, the magic circle exerted a powerful suction force. Dan Feng immediately pulled back and successfully retrieved the shovel.
"That was close—I almost got sucked in." Dan Feng stared at the magic circle. "Those strange noises must have been caused by this magic circle too. Better destroy it."
The instant this thought crossed Dan Feng's mind, the magic circle flashed with white light, and a humanoid figure emerged from it.
It was a human skeleton. Green flames flickered in its eye sockets, and it tightly gripped a rust-covered iron sword whose blade had been eroded beyond recognition by time.
"Holy shit, a skeleton!" Dan Feng exclaimed, his voice echoing in the empty space.
His body instinctively retreated, putting distance between himself and the skeleton.
However, the skeleton seemed to have heard Dan Feng's shout. Its movements suddenly became agile, as if life had been granted to it, and it began slowly advancing toward Dan Feng.
With every step, its bones made creaking, grinding sounds that rang especially harshly in the silence, sending chills down the spine.
In his previous life, this was the kind of thing only found in horror movies.
Dan Feng's heart raced, a thin layer of sweat breaking out on his forehead.
He forced himself to calm down, reminding himself that this was just a monster. As long as he used the Cloud Rider spear technique properly, he could definitely defeat it.
After all, this wasn't his first encounter with a monster, but claiming he wasn't nervous would be a lie.
Dan Feng took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and quickly recalled the moves of the basic Cloud Rider spear technique in his mind.
His body moved almost on muscle memory, naturally beginning to swing the shovel in his hands.
He gripped the shovel handle tightly with both hands, adjusted his stance, and prepared to meet the skeleton's attack.
When the skeleton drew close enough, Dan Feng thrust the shovel forward without hesitation.
This was the most basic thrust from spear technique. His movement was swift and decisive—the tip of the shovel shot forward like lightning, straight toward the skeleton's head.
With a crisp "crack," the shovel's edge easily shattered the skeleton's skull, and the green flames in its eyes were extinguished.
Immediately after, the skeleton's entire body of bones seemed to lose all support, collapsing like a pile of building blocks, scattering across the ground with a series of clear clattering sounds as every bone fell apart.
"Just like that?!" Dan Feng stared in disbelief at the scene before him. Without wasting time thinking further, he swept the shovel across the floor, carving a gash through the white magic circle. Its color immediately dimmed.
A blue virtual screen instantly appeared before his eyes, showing that Dan Feng's progress bar had increased by one percent.
"Could it be that killing monsters is what increases the Imbibitor Lunae template progress bar?" Dan Feng wondered. Then he felt a wave of comfort wash over his entire body, his racing heartbeat gradually slowing.
This was due to an increase in his mana and physical constitution.
"Hm? Increasing the progress bar also boosts stamina?" Dan Feng clearly felt that the fatigue from earlier had been completely swept away.
"Alright, since the request is complete, time to go up and report." Dan Feng picked up the oil lamp and slowly climbed the stairs.
When he returned to the surface, the requester was staring intently at him.
Dan Feng cleared his throat lightly, then slowly said: "Your request needs extra pay. What was down there was a monster."
"What! It was actually a monster!" Hearing the word "monster," the requester let out an even more frightened sound, his body trembling uncontrollably.
"Don't worry, I've already taken care of it." Seeing how terrified he was, Dan Feng quickly reassured him.
Finally, the requester's body stopped shaking. He hurriedly pulled out one Millis silver coin and handed it to Dan Feng.
"Here, this is the reward. Thank you for your trouble."
"Since I accepted the request, it's my responsibility." Dan Feng happily accepted it. Now he had saved enough money to forge a weapon.
"But the monster's corpse is still down..." Before Dan Feng could finish, the requester, upon hearing "corpse," hurriedly took out several large copper coins and handed them to Dan Feng.
Dan Feng accepted them again, then resolutely went back down to the basement and gathered up the pile of scattered bones.
"Here, take this iron sword." Dan Feng offered the skeleton's dropped iron sword to the requester, but the requester seemed to have a monster phobia—he said anything touched by a monster carried a curse and could only be used after purification with holy magic.
Seeing that he absolutely refused, Dan Feng took the bones to the requester's backyard and used matches to burn them all.
After all, bones weren't worth anything—better to just burn them.
In the end, the resulting ashes were casually put into a box, and when he went out, he simply tossed them somewhere.