Bai Zemin crouched next to Dai Yun's headless corpse without caring about the blood, brain matter, bone fragments, nor did he care about the steam and smell of hot blood.
Right there, a skill scroll lay silently.
He picked it up curiously and when the information on the skill scroll flickered across his retina, a surprised expression appeared on his face.
[Perception (First Order active skill) Level 1: Consumes 30 Mana points to activate and has no cooldown time. When you learn this skill, you gain the ability to perceive possible future scenes 0.1 seconds in advance. Perception may fail depending on the power difference between the user and the enemy as a consequence of the impossibility to see the full capacity of the counterpart. The higher the user's Magic, the lower the probability of failure.]
"Ugh..." A complicated expression appeared on Bai Zemin's face as he read the description of the skill Perception.
Perception was a strong skill, but from Bai Zemin's point of view, this skill was more of a double-edged sword.
Perceiving something did not mean being able to see the future. It was more like the probability of seeing one of the possible futures. In short, this skill could become a hindrance from time to time.
Moreover, it was only an advanced perception of 0.1 seconds in anticipation; such an extent was insignificant if a person's body and brain could not react at the same time. The user of this skill could know what might happen 0.1 seconds in the future, but if their body could not react at the same time as their brain then nothing was meaningful.
Another thing was the consumption of Mana... Thirty points of Mana for one activation...
"Isn't this a bit much?" he muttered to himself as he held on to the scroll.
After some thought, Bai Zemin decided not to learn the skill. There was simply no point in doing so.
He was only able to learn 1 more active skill through scrolls and from his point of view, Perception was not worthy of occupying that space. Bai Zemin was confident that with all his defensive methods, if someone or something wanted his life, it probably wouldn't be that easy.
Forget about the Broken Bronze Bell that automatically activated when his life was in danger and forget about the Rejection Ring that repelled all solid objects; with the passive skill Danger Sense, Bai Zemin was confident that with his reflexes, Agility, and reaction speed, he could evade death.
If he died then the enemy was much more powerful than him, and in that case Perception would not activate properly; he would just end up consuming Mana for nothing.
Just as Bai Zemin was about to start rummaging through Dai Yun's body in search of treasures, a breeze of fresh air came from behind him. Even without turning around, the scent similar to a snow lotus flower was already extremely familiar to him so he easily knew who the other person was.
"I will do it."
"What do you mean?" Bai Zemin asked as he slightly turned around.
There, Shangguan Bing Xue was looking at him indifferently. Standing under the sun's rays in her sky blue armor and her silver hair gently dancing to the rhythm of the wind, she truly looked like an immortal fairy.
"I will check this woman's body." She furrowed her eyebrows slightly and said as if it was obvious.
The corner of Bai Zemin's mouth twitched a couple of times. He stood up and looked at her as if he was looking at a ghost, "You... Do you really think I will do improper things with a corpse?"
What happened next was a big surprise to him.
"Who knows..." Shangguan Bing Xue smiled as she looked at him with a hint of amusement. Her smile was as if she was teasing him but not in a bad way. "You might have strange tastes? There are all kinds of people in this world..."
"..." Bai Zemin looked at her dumbfounded. This woman... Did she have a fever or something?
In the end, he sighed heavily and shook his head while raising his hands, "Forget it. I won't argue with you. You check this woman's body then. I'll take care of the other guy."
Shangguan Bing Xue smiled slightly and nodded, "Em. Let's do it that way."
Since she had her back to the rest, no one saw the expression on her face. Bai Zemin didn't know if she was proving something or if she just did it on purpose but in the end, he said nothing and simply walked over to Wang Zedong's corpse while Shangguan Bing Xue began to inspect Dai Yun's corpse.
[Scaled Lizard Transformation (First Order active skill) level 2: Consumes 10 Mana points to activate and 2 Stamina points per minute. Learning this skill grants you the ability to acquire various characteristics of a lizard during 15 minutes. It greatly increases the user's Agility, Strength, Stamina, and Health. Defense and jumping capacity is highly increased. You cannot use other skills while transformed.]
This skill must be the lower version of this guy's skill. Bai Zemin thought while holding the scroll.
He also had no plans to learn this skill. Although Wang Zedong looked extremely brave and was undoubtedly powerful when he activated his skill, Lilith had previously told him that skills that gave a large amount of power in early stages usually had a short growth range.
Bai Zemin's Blood Manipulation skill or Shangguan Bing Xue's Ice Maker skill; both were powerful skills but not over the top. The reason why these skills were considered powerful was because the users who controlled them were smart and could put them to different uses depending on the circumstances they were in. But these two skills did not give direct power to the user but forced them to think carefully even in the midst of combat.
At this point, Bai Zemin had to be very careful about which skill he would learn next.
After rummaging through the dried corpse for a few minutes, Bai Zemin found some interesting items.
1 Blazing Ring, 1 Earth Bracelet, 1 pair of Velocity Boots. These four were objects that Bai Zemin already had, so they would be given to someone else.
However, there was one item that caught his attention.
[Arachnid Silk Ring (Magic Grade Treasure): When equipped it, automatically increases Agility by 30 points. Allows the user to launch an extremely tough and resistant spider silk web. The skill has a range of 15 meters and can be used once every ten minutes.]
"Good stuff!" Bai Zemin couldn't help but let his eyes shine as he read the description of the item in his hands.
As the most powerful soul evolver of one of the heads of a large survivor camp, Wang Zedong naturally possessed several treasures on him. But Bai Zemin did not expect to find a valuable magic-grade treasure just like that. One needed to know that he only had two magic-grade treasures if one did not count the one he had just acquired; this alone was enough to show how rare such items were and as time went by, their rarity would only increase more and more.
The Arachnid Silk Ring not only increased the Agility of whoever equipped it by 30 points, which was incredible in itself. It also granted an extremely useful skill for all kinds of situations.
This skill did not grant physical attack power or magical attack power. Nor was it a skill aimed at hurting the enemy; it was more of an adaptive skill.
If it were someone else, they might not find the Arachnid Silk Ring as useful compared to the Broken Bronze Bell or the Rejection Ring. However, from Bai Zemin's point of view, the Arachnid Silk Ring was even more valuable than the previous two depending on the circumstances.
He could use the ring's ability to get closer to his enemies faster, to perform surprise attacks, to propel himself further when in the air, to put distance between himself and an enemy, and so on. The uses were simply too many to list them all.
This ring was the accurate representation of the phrase "The limit is in our mind".
Bai Zemin equipped the Arachnid Silk Ring without hesitation and his Agility increased again. Although his natural stats did not change and the Soul Power into his soul did not increase, his bonus stats received another 30-point boost.
He now had three rings in total. In fact, he would have more if it wasn't for the fact that the Soul Record did not allow equipping two rings of the same type.
Although he had already seen the Frost Ring and it was a treasure he did not possess, after thinking it over at the time, Bai Zemin decided that it was better for Kang Lan to have it. After all, his survival ability was quite good, but Kang Lan was too weak in that regard.
If an enemy managed to get close to her, then the chances of Kang Lan surviving were not very high. But by having the Frost Ring with the attached skill Freezing Binding, her survivability had increased another notch and Bai Zemin could feel more at ease leaving the sole healer of the group alone in some circumstances that required it.
Soon, Shangguan Bing Xue returned with a few things.
"You look at them." She said and gave him three items.
1 Hurricane Necklace, 1 Frost Ring, 1 pair of Velocity Boots.
"You already have them all?" He asked after looking at the treasures.
"Except for the Frost Ring. Although the necklace I wear is different, I already have one and it suits me more." Shangguan Bing Xue replied calmly.
"I see..." Bai Zemin nodded and after thinking for a moment replied, "You keep the Frost Ring first. My Agility allows me to react to any attack, and even if I fail to react I have my ways to avoid death anyway."
If Shangguan Bing Xue ended up joining him, then Bai Zemin would naturally not be stingy with her. Besides, what he said was true. While the Freezing Binding skill was good, it was not imperative for him. On the other hand, it could save her life at a key moment.
Shangguan Bing Xue's eyes glittered unnaturally as she understood what he meant. She looked at his hands and noticed three rings of different colors and appearances: a bronze-colored ring with strange runes engraved on the surface, a crimson-red ring, and finally a silver-colored ring with a vivid drawing of a spider on top.
There was no blue-colored ring on his fingers, so obviously he still didn't have a Frost Ring.
"... Thank you." She nodded towards him with a weak smile on her face.
Although they had their differences like anyone else, at least Shangguan Bing Xue was grateful when she needed to be.
But who knew Bai Zemin was going to look at her in a strange way?
He looked at her inquisitively and said somewhat cautiously, "You... Are you feeling well? You've been acting a little weird lately."
Shangguan Bing Xue felt like freezing him to death and turning him into ice cubes upon hearing him treat her like a crazy person. She rolled her eyes and remarked: "Look who's talking... You just gave me a rare grade treasure like it was nothing while in the past you fought tooth and nail for even a normal treasure. Aren't you acting weird too? Could it be that you have a severe personality disorder?"
The corner of Bai Zemin's mouth twitched a couple of times and he somehow missed the Shangguan Bing Xue who rarely spoke.
Although her words were somewhat strange and made some sense, from Bai Zemin's point of view it was not strange at all what he was doing. He considered her an important and powerful ally, therefore he was helping her so that she would not die and, therefore, he was helping himself.
However, apparently Shangguan Bing Xue could see something else or perhaps saw it differently than he did.
"Anyway." Bai Zemin did not linger on unimportant matters and started walking towards the rest, "Let's go back. We'll soon be on the move north... I'm not a person who likes defense too much. I prefer to attack!"
Shangguan Bing Xue shook her head as she thought that men sometimes really were simple creatures. She followed him silently as she equipped the Frost Ring on one of her flawless white fingers.
The first thing Bai Zemin did was to distribute the treasures he had just obtained among his subordinates. Basically, all those who stood up first in the meeting room got a new treasure which made them extremely satisfied and felt pleased to be chosen by him.
As for those who did not receive a treasure, they promised themselves to work harder to obtain Bai Zemin's full approval; only then could they really feel comfortable in the future.
As for the skill Perception, Bai Zemin gave it to Kang Lan.
Although this skill was not that useful for him, for Kang Lan it was extremely important since as a pure mage she usually attacked from a distance. A skill like Perception would be like giving wings to a tiger; more so when she began to evolve the skill slowly.