Lord of the Myriad Worlds

Chapter 348: Delivering Gifts Through Rain and Storm

Three seconds later, a gold card and a purple card arrived in Li Wei's hands. Like something out of a dream.

Yes — genuinely like a dream.

Li Wei knew Thomas had become formidable. After activating the Dulling Bloodline and transforming into a Level 4 Rock Giant, he could maintain the form for a full nine minutes. Short of armor-piercing explosive rounds, Zhao Xuanxuan's warhammer, or a Level 5 Rock Giant, most opponents couldn't do much against him.

But that still didn't explain how he had killed a Five-Star Cross-Border Neanderthal scout.

Were these Neanderthals equally gifted in both intelligence and combat?

Unless... the Neanderthal scout had crawled deep into the mine shaft and been trapped by Thomas?

The thought was absurd — but it was also the most plausible explanation. Because Thomas's Dulling Bloodline was a natural counter to Perception-based fighters. Not that it killed them on contact — it simply made them unable to sense him.

Normally, if Li Wei encountered something that could threaten him, his Perception would trigger a warning automatically. But Thomas — before he activated the Dulling Bloodline and became a stone man — looked like a perfectly ordinary miner. Indistinguishable from anyone else. No Perception warning would fire. That was the most dangerous thing about him.

In open terrain, Li Wei would only need to say a quick goodbye and leave. Wait for the Dulling Bloodline's cooldown to expire, then kill him in one strike. But in a mine shaft hundreds of meters underground, once you were blocked in and Thomas started swinging and triggering collapses...

Li Wei didn't want to think about it. This had to be taken as a serious lesson.After reflecting on this, he finally turned to the spoils.

Not bad at all.

So — what to do with the Five-Star Universal Gold Card?

Li Wei thought for three seconds, then chose to continue upgrading the Riverside Knights. Over the past forty-plus days, whether it was Javier, Seth, Paul, and Jocelyn on this side, or Benjamin, Santiago, and Grant on the eastern side — all seven Riverside Knights had made significant improvements in overall strength: Destiny Grids, tactics, core fundamentals. They could now carry more.

There was another reason too: the Two-Star Temple and Temple Priest had granted ten resurrection slots. If not now, when?

The moment he confirmed the upgrade, the Riverside Knights' maximum membership reached eight. The special title bonuses became: Life +80, Stamina +80, Strength +8, Agility +8, Defense +8. No Spiritual Power or Perception bonuses — but in every other respect, it now surpassed even Li Wei's Flame Baron title.

And these were permanent increases. The result was that all seven Riverside Knights now had attributes approaching full Level 2 Awakening across the board. An enormous advantage.

Without hesitation, Li Wei invested Xavier as the eighth Riverside Knight.

From the ten horses received from the Mad Baron Mark, two had been kept for breeding and eight gelded. Four had stayed at Riverside Fortress. The other four had gone to the main base — one each for Benjamin, Santiago, Grant, and Xavier.

Xavier was a special case. He had no Cavalry Card and wasn't a Riverside Knight — he had simply pushed through on sheer grit. By any measure, public or private, the eighth slot belonged to him.

Going forward, all of them had a chance to eventually grind out a Cavalry Card — just as Li Wei had once ground out a Rare Scout Card. Uninterrupted training, uninterrupted mounted combat. It was achievable. That was the path to a Rare Profession Card.

Li Wei and Liang Yuzhi had both walked it.

But the timeline would likely be measured in years.

The most grinding, most difficult stretch of the journey.

If any of them fell in battle during that period, everything would be wasted.

But as long as they could be resurrected, everything remained possible.

Li Wei then opened the Two-Star Temple interface and registered all eight names on the resurrection list — but didn't tell them. Sometimes, things obtained too easily weren't properly valued.

These eight Riverside Knights would be the territory's backbone.

Their average age was thirty-five. Javier was the oldest at sixty — but with Profession Card bonuses and Level 2 Life Awakening, reaching 120 was trivial.

Right now, Li Wei, Liang Yuzhi, Li Yue, Thomas, and Zhao Xuanxuan — all five of them — could still focus on the territory. This was the conquest phase. They were the pillars. Which made it the best possible window for the Freemen to grow.

Two years from now, the Magic Shield would be established, the Radiation Storm would no longer come, and occasional mutant incursions wouldn't pose serious threats. By then, these eight would be able to handle the vast majority of crises on their own.

Li Wei and the others could leave without worry — to pursue their own missions, or to gather for Cross-Border work.

He thought for a moment, then assigned the remaining two resurrection slots to Zhao Xuanxuan and Thomas.

Thomas had just killed a Five-Star Cross-Border Neanderthal expert. Zhao Xuanxuan had had countless standout moments over the past month. But in Li Wei's assessment, they were still mid-tier elite specialists — not yet at the level where they could handle everything.

Not only were they at risk of falling in battle over the next two years, but once they entered Cross-Border Missions, the risk would be even higher.

As players, even as territory advisors, they could still resurrect at the main base — but that came at enormous cost, as Li Yue and Liang Yuzhi could attest.

With the resurrection point placed inside the territory, the cost was manageable. And as long as their bodies were recovered in time, the loss would be limited to one Profession Card.

Of course, as the team's true core, Li Wei himself had to be strong enough — hard enough — to turn the tide when it mattered. If he fell, the others almost certainly wouldn't have the strength to save him.

With that thought, he casually opened the purple drop card. Not expecting much — he wasn't sure if his Wolf's Thousand-Mile March title would apply here.

The next second, purple light surged. Several streaks of gold shot up like fireworks. Drop notifications came flooding in.

[You have obtained one Five-Star Cavalry Card with Destiny Grid 45.]

[You have obtained one Five-Star Mountaineer Card with Destiny Grid 50.]

[You have obtained one Five-Star Woodcutter Card with Destiny Grid 50.]

[You have obtained a special magical tool crafted by the Frost Duke using ancient magic. It functions as a friend-or-foe identifier. Carrying this item allows free passage into and out of the Frost Duke's territory.]

[You have obtained one Four-Star Enchanted Poison-Coated Dagger.]

[You have obtained one Four-Star Pet Card containing one Four-Star Warhorse.]

[You have obtained one Four-Star Pet Card containing one Four-Star Crow.]

[You have obtained one Three-Star Resource Card containing 99 Two-Star Traps.]

[You have obtained one Three-Star Resource Card containing 50 doses of Three-Star Venom.]

[You have obtained one Five-Star Item Card — Concealing the Sky with One Hand Card.]

[You have obtained 20,000 Barbarian gold coins.]

—

Incredible. A massive haul.

No Rare Cards like a Ranger Card — but the drop rate was genuinely generous.

Especially that magical tool. A free pass into the Frost Duke's territory. That was practically a gift delivered to his door.

He collected the spoils one by one, then let his thoughts move quickly.

A top-tier scout — at minimum Five-Star level — had crept into his mining operation in the middle of the night. This had clearly been intended as a devastating surprise.

If not for carelessness, if not for stumbling into Thomas, if the scout had succeeded — or had actually killed Thomas — the consequences would have been nearly as severe as severing a main artery.

Li Wei was himself a scout. An experienced one, battle-tested. He could read the enemy's intent at a glance and reconstruct the surveillance they must have conducted beforehand.

This operation had been nearly flawless. Target precise. Execution decisive.

Textbook-level work.

Because Base 349 had genuinely yielded Three-Star iron ore deposits. Thomas wasn't just grinding for the sake of it — the territory genuinely needed him to extract enough Three-Star iron ore every day. It was the high-quality steel stockpile for Zhao Xuanxuan to forge enchanted weapons in the autumn and winter.

A craftsman must first sharpen his tools.

To win the final war against the Frost Duke, without sufficient high-quality enchanted weapons, there was simply no chance.

Thomas's role was that critical.

If that chain had been broken — Li Wei would have effectively lost a leg. That serious.

"My guess: he conducted comprehensive surveillance for at least a month. He even trekked north, bypassed Adai's patrol zones, entered the deep mountains, and obtained this first-hand intelligence."

"As a top-tier scout — top even at the Five-Star level — his movements should have left no trace or presence. But over the past few days, not only did I sense a watching feeling, Aunt Liang wrote to say she sensed it too."

"That wasn't a mistake on his part. It was a provocation. A challenge. He knew I was a scout, and he wanted to draw me out — to fight on a scout's battlefield. A war between scouts. He's quite confident."

"But I'm probably not his match. Especially now that he has the initiative. He's certainly memorized the terrain for hundreds of kilometers in every direction. Meanwhile, I've been holed up at Riverside Fortress for months. Winter to spring — the landscape has changed enormously. That's my disadvantage."

"In a duel between experts, even a small disadvantage is a lethal opening."

"If Thomas had been killed tonight, I would have had no choice but to step out — leave the safety of Riverside Fortress and face this man in the wilderness, on a scout's terms."

"But a scout of this caliber spending over a month plotting against me specifically — even at the cost of cooperating with the Frost Duke — is a bit reckless. Especially given the partnership."

"So is there something more going on here?"