Prologue

  After going online in the early morning, Lin Li still followed the usual routine and logged into her Law Master alt account.

  Sunday's Moon Castle is always particularly lively, with a constant stream of players more than double the usual number, and even the expensive private warehouses are packed to the brim.

  "Excuse me, can you help me with..." Lin Li had finally managed to squeeze his way to the front of the crowd and was about to ask the beautiful administrator, Suo Lan, to help him retrieve his parcel.

  Who knew that before he could finish his sentence, someone pushed him from behind.

  "Can't you see the words outside? This is a private warehouse, what are you doing here with your small account?" The speaker was a warrior in his 40s, followed by four or five players, seemingly the leader of some small group.

  The warrior spoke up, and the few players behind him also expressed their dissatisfaction: "Is this little number sick or something? What's it doing running to a private warehouse for no reason?"

  "Who knows, maybe they thought everyone here was rich and wanted to come beg for some money to upgrade their medicine."

  "Why don't you go to the auction house for money? There are all wealthy people there, and if you run into someone in a good mood, they might toss you a few dozen gold coins, and then you won't have to worry about the cost of upgrading your medicine."

  Lin Li just glanced at these flies and then patiently squeezed in front of Suo Lan: "Trouble to help me take out all the items mailed yesterday."

  "Okay, sorry to keep you waiting."

  Then the crowd saw various ingots being taken out of the private warehouse, including common Secret Silver and rare Star Gold, Magic Iron, etc. The unique luster of magic metals flashed dazzlingly inside the private warehouse, dazzling all players' eyes. The murmurs that had just risen and fallen suddenly stopped, and the entire private warehouse only heard the sound of swallowing saliva...

  The crowd's gaze had not yet shifted from the large pile of ingots when the beautiful administrator pulled out another batch of items from the warehouse. It was over a hundred neatly stacked black dragon hides, with fine scales reflecting a mesmerizing glow under the magical metal's luster. These were genuine black dragon hides, a perfect combination of magical and physical defense. Equipment made from them would be at least legendary-grade, each piece a treasure to behold! The hundreds of black dragon hides almost guaranteed the creation of over a hundred pieces of equipment that were at least legendary-grade!

  And that's not all, under hundreds of black dragon skin, there are twenty or so pieces of already refined divine metal.

  Twenty-something pieces of divine metal suddenly appeared, and the entire private warehouse was instantly boiling.

  "Look quickly, that thing seems to be the legendary Metal of God!"

  "What the... That's basically a godly metal, my heavens! A whole twenty or so pieces, did this little mage just rob a dragon?" This guy had guessed half of it right, Lin Li had indeed just cleared out a dragon lair, but at the same time, he had also casually taken down the destructive dragon Azadas.

  Among the people present, there were many professional players who knew the value of Divine Metal all too well.

  Equipment forged from the metal of the gods may not have particularly outstanding attributes at first, but as time passes and the user's level gradually increases, the terrifying growth properties of the metal of the gods will slowly be revealed. On the official forum, many forging experts have predicted that if a player uses equipment forged from the metal of the gods from level one, by the time they reach level 70, this piece of equipment will at least be epic, if not divine!

  And this beast even charges twenty or thirty yuan for it, isn't that making it hard for people to survive?

  Everyone just stared blankly as Lin Li swept the twenty pieces of Divine Metal into his backpack, their eyes seeming to say that they had just seen their own wives enter a hotel with another man...

  When Solan took out another scroll from the warehouse, everyone's gaze had already become somewhat dull. A beast that can casually take out two epic-level equipment, plus over a hundred dragon skins and twenty or so divine metals, what can't it do?

  But when the scroll was handed over to Lin Li, everyone still collapsed immediately.

  "Wish magic! That's a Wish Magic Scroll!" As soon as the scroll changed hands, players who knew their stuff called out.

  "How is this possible! Are you seeing things?"

  "It's true, that really is a Scroll of Wish!"

  The emergence of this scroll has set off a commotion again in the private warehouse that had just been quiet for a few minutes.

  This is no longer describable as being wealthy and arrogant, a wish scroll means that the owner can make a wish to the system's main god, as long as it is within the game rules, any wish can be fulfilled. This wish can be endless wealth, can be some extremely powerful equipment, can also ask the system's main god to help you kill a mythical creature, or even a piece of rich and vast land, allowing you to establish your own kingdom on it.

  At this time, the eyes of the crowd looking at Lin Li were already tinged with a different meaning.

  But Lin Li didn't put them in his heart, stretched out two fingers, lightly pinched the Wish Technique scroll into his backpack, and swaggered out of the private warehouse.

  Lin Li walked along the canal towards the trade district, but behind him were dozens of tails with ulterior motives.

  "Looks like you really did follow...” Lin Li turned his head to take a glance, and couldn't help but laugh. Murderers who don't even look at the people they're following, you'd best keep up, once I'm done with my current business, I won't hesitate to switch to Hunter mode and have a good chat with you all.

  In fact, Lin Li's Hunter, was currently parked inside the Moon City auction house. He was a super hunter who held the legendary weapon Star Fury. The mage was just an alt account for storage purposes only. It was unclear whether it was due to Lin Li's good luck that his initially intended storage-only mage alt had miraculously received the perfect attributes of full intelligence and spirit, which later left Lin Li in a dilemma as he wondered what to do with such a perfect alt...

  Finally, thinking that such a top-notch account shouldn't be wasted, Lin Li decided to have the account practice various life professions. This guy was also ruthless, not practicing at all if he didn't want to, but once he started, he went all out. As long as it was a life skill that could be learned, he wouldn't fall behind in any way. Now, with just a level one account, he had already raised blacksmithing, alchemy, potion-making, enchanting, and inscription to high levels. Even miscellaneous skills like pharmacology, mineralogy, cooking, and scroll-making were all upgraded to high levels or above.

  He walked slowly and steadily into the trading district, stopping in front of a blacksmith's shop.

  Over a hundred pieces of Secret Silver were poured into the furnace, Lin Li stood beside it for two minutes, not caring whether the Secret Silver had melted or not. He took out a piece and placed it on the anvil, hammering at it fiercely. The dozens of players behind him only saw a burst of sparks flying everywhere, as the Secret Silver worth hundreds of gold coins was instantly hammered into a useless piece of scrap metal.

  A master blacksmith would naturally forge the secret silver into scrap iron, but whether it was forged into scrap iron or not didn't make much of a difference to Lin Li. He wasn't short on those few hundred gold coins, nor was he lacking in those few pieces of secret silver. In fact, in places like the Glittering Plains and the Thousand Needle Stone Forest, he owned his own private mines, it's just that nobody knew about them...

  It doesn't matter if you waste a few pieces of secret silver, as long as your skill points increase.

  Among the ironworkers' bloody expressions, Lin Li was busy again, one piece after another, and it took almost half an hour to completely scrap hundreds of pieces of secret silver, and his forging skills naturally soared.

  Mithril is followed by Star Silver, Star Silver is followed by Magic Iron, Magic Iron is followed by Fine Gold...

  When the ore worth tens of millions was hammered into scrap iron, the pleasant system prompt tone finally came: "Congratulations, you have been promoted to a forging master!"

  He rubbed his sore arm, Lin Li turned back to glance at the dull-faced onlookers, then picked up his tools and headed in the direction of the pharmacy.

  Again, tens of millions of gold coins were spent on herbs, and pharmacology was smoothly upgraded to the master level.

  Then comes alchemy...

  Next is enchanting...

  Finally, the inscription...

  When Lin Li had upgraded all five skills to master level, it was almost noon. A group of players who followed him were stunned, watching him waste materials. At first, they would sympathize with him a little, but by the end, they were completely numb. The onlookers even began to speculate that he might be some rich young master who had suffered some stimulation in reality and came to the game to vent his emotions.

  Smoothly upgrading the five skills to master level, Lin Li finally stopped and took a breath. Just when everyone thought he was going to stop, Lin Li took out the Wish Spell Scroll from his backpack.

  "What is this guy going to do?" The power of the Wish Scroll was really too terrifying, and Lin Li had just taken it out when several players behind him were already on high alert, after all, this guy didn't look like a normal person, and he was holding something as twisted as the Wish Scroll. What if he suddenly went crazy and wished for the system's main god to come and slaughter everyone? Wouldn't they be asking for death by standing there?

  "You really think highly of yourselves..." Lin Li glanced at those players who were acting as if they had a strong enemy, thinking to himself that he must be bored out of his mind to use the Scroll of Promise on them. Are you guys even worth this much?

  As the Wish Scroll was gently unfolded, a rainbow suddenly appeared in the sky above Moon City. The colorful light spilled down softly, making the entire city look as if it were shrouded in a dream. In the midst of solemn and sacred chanting, a majestic voice echoed, seemingly from afar yet also seemingly right beside them.

  "What's your wish?"

  Lin Li gazed at the rainbow in the sky, hesitated for a moment, then took a deep breath: "My wish is to improve all my life skills!"

  At the moment when the wish was made, the rainbow in the sky also transformed into countless lights. The twinkling lights slowly fell from the sky, as if a seven-colored silk ribbon wrapped around Lin Li. Lin Li could clearly feel that with each breath, countless lights merged into his body. When the last light was fully absorbed, an endless stream of knowledge surged out in his mind, including blacksmithing, alchemy, pharmacy, enchantment, and rune crafting, as well as knowledge of medicine, minerals, and other miscellaneous subjects. These pieces of knowledge seemed to have been innate, merging with his original memories as soon as they emerged, allowing Lin Li to use them effortlessly at will.

  Lin Li took a look at his skill status, and indeed the four main skills had reached the Master level, while various miscellaneous skills were mostly above the Grandmaster level. Thinking about it, in the more than a year since the Infinite World opened, not to mention finding a five-system Master, even finding a single-system Grandmaster would be quite difficult.

  Life skills are not comparable to personal levels. As long as you have enough time, keep killing monsters and completing tasks, you can accumulate enough experience to level up. But after life skills reach a high level, it's really difficult to make further progress. Only characters like Lin Li, who is wealthy and open-handed, would think of using high-level materials to upgrade their skills. Just thinking about the five skills I used today, it cost almost 5 million gold coins. Except for Lin Li, who just swept through the dragon cave, who else can afford it?

  But the master level is more like a watershed, when the skill reaches the master level, it's no longer a problem that can be solved with money. Perhaps 10,000 successful forging attempts won't improve your skills even a little bit, while one failed attempt might make your skills soar. No one dares to say that they will definitely reach the grandmaster level one day, even if they are only one step away from it.

  Of course, correspondingly, a grandmaster and a master are as different as heaven and earth.

  Master-level skills can only produce legendary items at most, and even then, it's not guaranteed to succeed once in a thousand attempts. On the other hand, Grandmaster-level skills can freely produce legendary items and easily create epic items, although there is still a certain failure rate, but compared to Master-level, it's simply incomparable.

  As for mythical items, they are already beyond the imagination of ordinary people. Those who can create divine artifacts, regardless of their profession or title, will forever have only one - that is, Divine Craftsman!

  The Wish-Granting Scroll is a good thing, using it to gain a fortune of tens of millions, or killing a mythical creature, even establishing one's own kingdom, this is undoubtedly a good choice, but Lin Li always felt that using it to become a full-time professional master was the wisest choice.

  Lin Li gazed at the dissipating rainbow in the sky, slowly putting away the remaining materials from his skill training into his backpack. After witnessing the divine phenomenon, the dozens of onlookers had long lost their intention to kill and loot him, instead staring blankly as Lin Li packed up his things, with no one daring to make a move.

  Someone who can casually take out countless top-quality materials, and with a few taps of the hammer and shakes of the medicine bottle, can splurge hundreds of millions of gold coins, is not someone they can afford to provoke. To say nothing of other things, just taking out tens of millions of gold coins would be enough to hire people to kill them off one by one... killing people for their goods? They might as well commit suicide themselves...

  Just as Lin Li was about to log off and change his number, intending to have a good chat with the onlookers using his Hunter character, a sharp alarm suddenly sounded.

  "System has encountered an unknown error, all online players please log off immediately!"

  "System failure has occurred, all online players please log off immediately!"

  "System has encountered an unknown error, all online players please log off immediately!"

  The alarm sounded three times in a row, and Lin Li was about to log off when he suddenly found that his character was no longer under his control.

  Before he could even understand what was happening, this uncontrollable feeling had already spread to his physical body in reality. It felt as if his soul and flesh were separating, and although he could see himself clearly, he couldn't feel his own existence. Everything around him seemed to have turned soft and mushy, and no matter how hard Lin Li struggled, he couldn't shake off that desperate feeling of powerlessness.

  Lin Li gradually felt that a thread of his consciousness was floating upwards, and he could even see another himself lying softly on the chair. In shock, Lin Li suddenly lifted his head, and above him was a pitch-black expanse, a true darkness without any impurities mixed in, not even a single ray of light, which would be absorbed into that endless darkness...

  "Who is so despicable, to actually hide a black hole in my own home!" This was the question that suddenly popped into Lin Li's mind before his last bit of consciousness was swallowed up by the darkness.