Chapter 66: The Devil's Wind Chime

The Devil’s Wind Chime could only be used once per day. Chen Mo found himself helpless—he still couldn’t tell if this equipment was a useless trinket or a divine artifact.

He could only rely on himself to clear the stage.

Blessing of the Wind!

Chen Mo didn’t even need to study; with practiced ease, he raised the bamboo flute to his lips and played a gentle tune. Instantly, a beautiful melody rang out on its own.

The air currents around him seemed to dance to the lovely music, and Chen Mo felt his body grow lighter.

Blessing of the Wind buff applied, speed increased by 50%.

Vampire Cloak equipped!

Universal for all character types, Chen Mo swapped out the Bard’s ordinary cloak for the Vampire Cloak. Combined with his role and equipment, his agility reached an impressive 110!

Thanks to the Bard’s unique traits, his sky-high stats, and powerful gear, Chen Mo finally broke past 7,000 meters, reaching 7,100 meters for the first time—and his record continued to climb: 7,200 meters! 7,300 meters!

Being pursued by the Hellhound, Chen Mo gradually found his rhythm—gracefully turning to draw his bow, nocking an arrow, and aiming for the Hellhound’s eye!

Powerful Arrow!

Whoosh—

The air swirled as the arrow shot straight for the Hellhound’s eye!

The Hellhound utterly ignored Chen Mo’s powerful arrow—bang! The arrow struck its eye, dealing -2HP.

Roaring, the Hellhound was finally enraged. Its central head opened wide and unleashed a ten-meter-wide blast of searing flames!

The speed was astonishing—at least three times the speed of sound.

Boom!

Chen Mo’s body was instantly vaporized, not even given a chance to switch characters!

Terrifying, utterly terrifying!

Chen Mo was now certain—this Hellhound was definitely one of the ultimate bosses!

If the Hellhound he could summon had such power, there would be no one on earth who could stand against him.

What followed was Chen Mo’s parade of deaths.

No matter how he dodged, accelerated, or double-jumped in midair at sharp angles, he couldn’t escape the Hellhound’s fiery shockwave.

Chen Mo suddenly realized that perhaps this hell-difficulty challenge wasn’t meant to be cleared at the novice stage. Most likely, after higher-level dungeons appeared and he’d gained greater power, he could return and attempt this hellish trial again.

Rather than waste challenge attempts, he might as well farm points!

Switching to the Kunlong ID, Chen Mo started at 0 meters and ran up to 29,900 meters before dying—each run netting at least 30,000 points.

Apparently, the system had a special mechanism to prevent powerful players like Chen Mo from intentionally not clearing the dungeon just to farm points. During his runs, Chen Mo couldn’t trigger any hidden stages or earn extra gold or equipment.

When he was done with his remaining nearly ten challenge attempts, he’d farmed 300,000 points.

He then switched to the Little Prince ID, made a token improvement of 500 meters, and logged a dungeon record of 9,000 meters.

Once all challenge attempts were used up, Chen Mo felt completely at ease.

The elven girl, Meimei, appeared and said sweetly, “Master, you’ve used all your challenge attempts. Would you like me to teleport you back to the dungeon hall?”

Gazing at Meimei’s perfect figure and delicate features, Chen Mo couldn’t help but praise her, “Meimei, you’re truly beautiful. How about keeping your master company for a little chat?”

Huh?!

The elf girl felt a trace of joy at Chen Mo’s compliment. Though this emotion was originally just a bit of program code, it caused Meimei to behave in a way not quite as her programming intended—she shyly lowered her head.

But almost immediately, this touch of humanity vanished; the elf was forced back to her preset behavior, and her voice turned into a cold electronic monotone: “Dungeon challenge complete. Transferring to hall in three seconds. 3, 2, 1!”

A white light enveloped him, and Chen Mo was forcibly teleported back to the dungeon hall.

The atmosphere in the hall was still tense. Instructor Moon Fox was conducting one-on-one data checks with the students of Class A.

Each student had granted Moon Fox access to all their data, allowing her to view their equipment, skills, inventory, special talents—everything!

Moon Fox began by checking the school’s top-ranked student, Ning Xuan.

When she saw that Ning Xuan possessed a B-rank piece of equipment, the Eye of Frost, she was mildly surprised. Even as an instructor, she didn’t have any B-rank gear—showing just how rare and precious such equipment was.

Chen Mo suddenly realized that Moon Fox might not just be looking for A-rank equipment. She was also using this as a pretext to size up every student’s abilities!

Did she suspect something because of what happened at the abandoned factory?

With some time before Moon Fox would make her way from Class A to Class F, Chen Mo switched to the Dark Overlord ID and opened the Hell Difficulty Shop.

That afternoon was the class promotion and demotion tournament. Chen Mo could only compete using the Little Prince ID, which meant his attribute points would need to stay within the normal range for a mage. Otherwise, he’d knock someone out with a single punch—and that wouldn’t be mage-like at all.

At present, the Little Prince only had Fireball. Chen Mo wasn’t arrogant enough to think a single Fireball could destroy the world. As things stood, he’d be hard-pressed to beat even Class D, let alone challenge Class A.

So Chen Mo decided to spend the Dark Overlord’s remaining 1.2 million points on skill scrolls. The more skills he had, the better his chances!

Switching back to the Little Prince ID, he found that both points and the shop were still available. The Zhi-Brain allowed him to share resources between identities—its greatest advantage. It functioned like a platform, letting all identities operate seamlessly.

[Skill Book]

[10% chance to acquire a basic skill for your class. Each person can buy up to ten. Cost: 100,000 points.]

Chen Mo touched the skill book.

[Confirm purchase of skill book. Cost: 100,000 points.]

[Confirm.]

Click! Click! Click! Frenzied clicking!

[Confirm][Confirm]

He burned through a million points in one go.

[Purchase unavailable. Each person may only buy ten skill books.]

With 200,000 points left, it was clear he couldn’t buy any more skill books.

Not wanting to waste anything, Chen Mo spent 100,000 points to promote his mage apprentice to full mage! His base stats increased, and he awakened the basic spell [Explosive Flame].

[Fireball combo: Cast after Fireball to detonate it, causing an area explosion. Cooldown: 10 seconds. Mana cost: 150.]

Not bad—combo skills were usually powerful, like the Shadowy Three Strikes. There might even be more combos down the line.

With the remaining 100,000 points, he bought 10 attribute points for the Little Prince ID. This way, he wouldn’t have to use the Dark Overlord’s attribute points, making it seem more natural and less suspicious.

With all his points spent, it was time for the most exciting moment—opening the skill books!

Last time, as a regular person, he got Golden Egg Fried Rice from a skill book, nearly driving him mad. Now, as a mage apprentice, what would he get?