25: Chapter 25 Upgrade Skill: Withering Domain!

Jiang Wanwan chose "Ice Arrow."

Wen Yiran, on the other hand, picked up "Multi-Shot" without hesitation.

She had always lacked interest in magic, instead feeling a strong longing for things like drawing a bow and shooting arrows, or aiming a gun.

Jiang Wanwan closed her eyes and focused, trying to sense the subtle changes in her body after learning the skill.

Immediately, she raised her hand, and a wisp of icy energy shot out from her fingertips.

With a bang, a patch of frost bloomed on the iron door, but it quickly melted away into the air.

【Iron Door Durability - 2】

As if unconvinced, she tried again.

【Iron Door Durability - 2】

Her mental energy was instantly depleted, causing her to sway; she had to steady herself by holding onto the edge of the table.

She fell into a state of mental exhaustion, and fine beads of sweat had already seeped onto her forehead.

"Ah, it took so much effort, and I only knocked off 4 points of durability in total!" Jiang Wanwan said, feeling a bit discouraged.

"You misunderstood," Lin Xiao laughed. "It's not that your damage is low; it's that most of your damage was spent piercing through the overall defense of this door."

He walked up to the iron door and tapped his finger against the slightly dented spot, producing a dull thud.

"According to the rules, durability is equivalent to defense attributes. Therefore, your damage must first completely negate the target's durability value; only the overflowing portion is the actual health lost!"

"So, your Ice Arrow actually dealt 34 points of damage. Among that, your 6 points of mental attribute provided a 12% damage bonus. In other words, the base damage of this Ice Arrow is 30 points, which is already quite good!"

"I see..." Jiang Wanwan watched the cold mist gradually dissipate from her fingertips, then suddenly turned to look at Lin Xiao, her eyes shimmering. "Lin, I want to go fight Calamity Creaturess with you!"

"I want to, too! I want to, too!" Wen Yiran echoed.

Lin Xiao thought for a moment and nodded. "That's fine, but I can only take one person out at a time. Someone must stay behind to guard the home in case of any unexpected situations."

He took three pieces of equipment with attribute bonuses from his backpack and distributed them to the two women.

They were an Apprentice Cap that added 1 point of mental attribute, and Hard Leather Vests and Musk Deer Leather Boots that each added 1 point of constitution.

"Make do with these for now. After the next Calamity, I'll get you a full set!"

After distributing them, Lin Xiao took out the two "Wither" books, preparing to try merging the skill books.

With a slight movement of his mind, the 【Triple Moonlight】 in his backpack suddenly burst forth with a black light, enveloping the parchment in his hands.

Immediately after, three options appeared in his field of vision:

【Skill Book · Wither Domain: Level 2, releases a ripple of decay, causing targets within a certain range to fall into a [Weakened] state, reducing movement speed by 30% for 15 seconds】

【Skill Book · Decay Curse: Level 2, upon hit, causes the target to enter a [Decayed] state, reducing movement speed by 50% for 30 seconds】

【Skill Book · Wither Mark: Level 2, upon hit, causes the target to enter a [Withered] state, reducing movement speed by 30% and taking 15% additional damage for 15 seconds】

With almost no hesitation, Lin Xiao chose Wither Domain.

Whether it was [Decay] or [Wither], they only targeted a single target.

And in a place as narrow as the train corridor, Calamity Creaturess often appeared in clusters.

An area-of-effect slow, combined with his high-burst double-bladed battle axe, could instantly create a huge window for output while ensuring safe maneuvering space.

If he paired it with an area-of-effect damage skill, wouldn't he be invincible?

The black light quickly receded, turning into a dark purple rune shimmering with a halo in the palm of his hand.

At the same time, the skill information notification updated:

【Skill: Wither Domain】

【Type: Active Skill】

【Level: 2】

【Effect: Releases a ripple of decay energy, causing targets within a certain range to fall into a [Weakened] state, reducing movement speed by 30% for 15 seconds】

【Consumption: Consumes 6 points of mental energy when used】

【All things shall eventually Wither; life and death, the cycle never ends!】

Whoa, the mental energy consumption increased sixfold.

Lin Xiao checked his own panel.

With the equipment bonuses, his mental attribute was exactly 6 points.

This meant that at a critical moment, he could—and only could—activate it once.

Control skills, especially crowd control, are truly precious!

It seems he would need to save up some pleasure tokens over the next two days and start looking for Fantasy Potions to increase his attribute points.

While Lin Xiao was merging the skills, hushed exclamations came from beside him from time to time.

It was Wen Yiran.

She watched with her own eyes as the parchment in Lin Xiao's hands was enveloped in a ball of black light, and immediately after, the parchment disappeared, turning into a dark purple rune in his palm.

It was like a magic trick.

Jiang Wanwan was much calmer; she leaned over to Wen Yiran's ear and whispered an explanation.

"Look at the iron door, right, and the new walls, they were all exchanged by Lin," she continued.

Wen Yiran was enlightened at first, then widened her eyes in surprise.

No wonder Lin Xiao was so powerful; it turned out he possessed a special ability.

But soon, her cheeks flushed red at a speed visible to the naked eye, and her eyes wandered.

Jiang Wanwan added softly, "That's why he's so powerful!"

Wen Yiran opened her mouth, struggled to find the words for a long time, and finally managed to squeeze out, "Lin, Brother Lin, you should take better care of your body..."

Hearing this, Lin Xiao couldn't help but chuckle. "You two as well."

After dealing with the harvest from this round of Calamity, the three of them finally felt hunger in their stomachs.

Lin Xiao had been busy all day and had hardly eaten anything.

Jiang Wanwan and Wen Yiran had also each eaten half a piece of compressed biscuit to stave off hunger.

So, Lin Xiao took out the self-heating rice, and he also directly opened the canned beef he hadn't been willing to open before.

After heating, the long-lost aroma of meat filled the compartment.

"It will still be several days until we reach the next station!" Jiang Wanwan looked at the canned food, feeling very pained.

Beside her, Wen Yiran stared straight at the large chunks of beef.

She kept swallowing her saliva, but her mouth kept saying, "I won't eat it, it's too greasy, I need to lose weight..."

Lin Xiao didn't take no for an answer and put a large piece into each of their bowls. "Eat up, there will be food again tomorrow."

"Tomorrow... will the care package still come?" Jiang Wanwan asked, licking her chopsticks in confusion.

Lin Xiao shook his head and told them about his plan to plant coconuts.

"If things go smoothly on Xiao He's side, we will soon have a stable source of food!"

"Even if it doesn't go smoothly," he paused, "the supplies we have on hand are enough to last until the first station."

The first three rounds were killed very quickly; according to the survival rules, the train should arrive at the resource station ahead of schedule.

Thinking of this, Lin Xiao looked at Wen Yiran, who was eating fiercely.

"Ranran, from now on, you are fully responsible for all external trades of our team. If you need any support, just tell me directly!"

Wen Yiran nodded heavily, her eyes burning with fighting spirit.

"No problem, leave it to me!"

She had already proven her value, so the next step was to do even better.

The three of them ate the self-heating rice, and Jiang Wanwan and Wen Yiran began to chat about daily topics.

Lin Xiao looked at the stardust converter on the table.

After 24 hours of conversion, the black viscous substance inside had stabilized, forming a small tube of glowing "source essence."

He carefully took it out.

This 1 point of source essence seemed insignificant, but it was a key raw material for manufacturing Fantasy Potions in the future, and its price was naturally ridiculously expensive.

Let's put it this way: this thing doesn't belong to hard currency, but rather strategic supplies.

Re-inserting 100 stardust, watching the slightly trembling converter, Lin Xiao calculated in his heart:

This small device has a conversion speed that is truly too slow.

If he could improve efficiency, or find more converters, that would be much more comfortable...

At this time, Jiang Wanwan and Wen Yiran had moved from daily topics to popular entertainment topics from the last few months.

"Speaking of which, the drama I was following hasn't finished yet. I really want to know the ending for the leads; it must not be a bad ending!"

"Sigh, I originally wanted to discuss with Lin, to go to the concert in Shanghai in March..."

Soon, they were chatting about celebrity gossip.

Wen Yiran rested her chin in her hands on the small table, her gaze fixed on the pitch-black mountains receding outside the window, and suddenly asked: "In this kind of environment, what would be the situation of those celebrity artists?"