Chapter 144 Hope for Full-line Development?

Perhaps it was because he found a method to prove his worth, or perhaps he had become familiar with Xia Xinyan’s personality during this time together, but Ling Mo now didn’t have to second-guess every little thing to avoid annoying her like he did at the beginning.

It could be said that he was finally starting to see Xia Xinyan as his girlfriend.

Without that cautiousness, he became much more natural in dealing with matters related to Xia Xinyan, and naturally, his true nature began to show through.

For example, the earlier operation of trying to trick Xia Xinyan into a kiss during the dungeon—there’s no way he would have done that at the start.

On another note, Ling Mo had always felt he had a romantic gene. Having seen plenty of clumsy male actions, he thought those were ridiculous and felt that his emotional intelligence had reached an average level—he had at least escaped the realm of being a clueless guy.

Well… he did have romantic genes; otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to say those sweet nothings a while ago.

But sometimes… his romantic impulses didn’t always hit the mark.

For instance, just now, even with such an ambiguous atmosphere, the question on his mind was whether the cat that Xia Xinyan turned into was a female.

—He was genuinely curious about that.

After all, the whole turning into a cat thing was outside his area of knowledge, causing his curiosity about it to completely overshadow the earlier moment of intimacy—after all, you could flirt anytime, but turning into a cat isn’t something you encounter every day.

Alright, he admitted he was a bit impulsive just now.

Even if she turned into a cat… Xia Xinyan was still Xia Xinyan. In her black cat form, for a human… it should be the equivalent of her being naked.

Directly checking Xia Xinyan’s was indeed inappropriate.

However, that kick just now…

Lying on the grass, staring at the sky, and feeling a twinge of pain on his face, Ling Mo didn’t feel the slightest bit of anger.

In fact, he almost wanted to laugh.

It was the first time he saw Xia Xinyan so flustered and angry.

Could this be considered a new side of her that he got to witness?

Xia Xinyan sat beside him, looking at this guy lying on the ground laughing foolishly, her expression a bit complicated.

Was that kick too hard?

Didn’t she just knock this guy silly?

“…Mo Mo?” she cautiously confirmed.

Ling Mo shook his head and got up from the ground: “I’m fine… Sorry, my mind was a bit foggy just now.”

Xia Xinyan fell silent for a moment, awkwardly turning her head: “Let’s not talk about that anymore. Zhang Daring mentioned he’d give us some game points; you should go ask him about it.”

She really found it increasingly difficult to understand Ling Mo’s thoughts.

Ling Mo nodded, dropping the previous topic. Their team status hadn’t ended yet; perhaps the others were still tidying up the loot from this dungeon. He sent a message in the team channel to check on everyone’s situation.

Others replied quickly. After a brief chat, Ling Mo learned about their circumstances.

The Fatty had decent luck and completed the quest; this time, his chainsaw finally fulfilled its duty, and although it was a messy victory, it somewhat restored his confidence as an inventor, and he was pretty happy about it.

As for the ability he had acquired… it was a Thunder Hammer.

He could forge a Thunder Chainsaw with the Thunder Hammer, which could unleash lightning damage… yes, it could also explode, with the explosion having a lightning effect.

Pretty ridiculous.

Also, the dimensional pants didn’t make it over.

Bai Yu and Cheng Guang didn’t complete the mission either, which was a bit unfortunate. Bai Yu’s abilities leaned more towards support and only really shined within a team; in solo combat, his fighting power wasn’t that high. Of course, the game would definitely give him at least one breakthrough method, but unfortunately, he couldn’t figure it out before failing.

Cheng Guang’s combat ability was good, but he had sustained significant damage from the previous explosion. Even though he promptly drank a healing potion, the low-level potion couldn’t restore his injuries immediately—maybe the healing potion Xia Xinyan gave to Ling Mo could do that, but Ling Mo wouldn’t give it to him.

After all, it was a gift from his girlfriend.

Fortunately, not completing the final quest didn’t affect the clearing rewards. In other words, they effectively still passed the dungeon, and all the loot they obtained earlier was taken out, so it wasn’t a loss.

The Fatty was in a good mood and generously gave Ling Mo four thousand game points, then teamed up with Bai Yu to happily head to the mall.

Ling Mo initially wanted to go check out the physical mall in the game with Xia Xinyan, but unfortunately, she used being tired as an excuse to log off early and rest, so he had to give up.

Playing this game… really took a toll on one’s energy, so it’s normal for girls to get tired.

—In fact, Xia Xinyan just wanted to lie down for a bit.

She hadn’t fully recovered from those few seconds of intense pain.

Although her body no longer hurt, the memory carried the pain; looking back, she realized she had truly relaxed a bit.

Well… there was no need to stay tense all the time. She had mentioned earlier that they should cherish the remaining peaceful times, so the occasional laziness wouldn’t make a difference…

After all, as long as Ling Mo was working hard, that was good enough for her.

Ling Mo was indeed working hard.

Right now, he was eager to prove his worth in front of Xia Xinyan, which meant he needed to enhance his strength.

This dungeon had revealed quite a few of his shortcomings. His combat ability might barely be passable, but he wasn’t good with weapons; wielding a weapon in battle would actually become a liability, especially in situations like the previous dungeon.

So, he decided to temporarily slow down on enhancing his physical attributes and focus on training his combat techniques.

With the boost from the zombie mutation ability, his physical attributes had improved significantly, even standing at the forefront of the entire game. It wasn’t necessary to pursue physical enhancements too aggressively now.

Otherwise, it would be like having a top-spec computer but not having any useful software to run; no matter how strong it was, the performance would still be extremely limited.

However, when he was flipping through those combat technique books this time, he suddenly made a very interesting discovery—those high-level combat techniques that had originally been priced in the tens of thousands were now somehow only a few thousand game points.

On sale?

But there were no announcements about any events or anything like that…

After some thought, Ling Mo opened the game help and checked.

Then he learned that all the combat technique books were priced in real-time based on the player’s current state—each technique had an original price, which would be reduced according to the player’s current abilities.

For instance, high-level combat techniques had an original price of several tens of thousands, but if a player already had strong abilities, even exceeding the maximum effectiveness, then the high-level combat techniques would be of no value to them, leading to scenarios where they could be purchased for 0 game points.

Having successfully mastered low-level combat techniques, he already possessed the strength comparable to a mid-level combat master, so purchasing high-level combat techniques naturally came with a hefty discount.

This excited Ling Mo.

With such a setting… his game points seemed more than enough to support him in full-line development…