Chapter 39: Tulu, Are Your Hands Black?

  (This is today's first update, the second update may be in the afternoon, please collect and vote for it, thank you)

  As Lin Taiping finished his last piece of butter cake, picked up the napkin and contentedly wiped the corners of his mouth, the battle in the forest had also come to an end.

  As a crippled skeleton soldier stumbled forward, its weak and feeble swing of the curved blade fell, and the bloodshot eyes that had been wounded time and again were finally crushed by this last straw, letting out a mournful roar as it crashed to the ground.

  Until his last breath, this once-feared pirate who had dominated the seas still stared with his one eye wide open and let out a hellish curse: "I won't rest in peace, you damned bastards! I'll keep my eyes wide open in hell, watching as Mr. Jester avenges me, flaying every last one of you!"

  "Clown?" Lin Taiping had heard this name for the second time, but he still blinked his eyes nonchalantly. "So, you pirates are still working part-time in the circus?"

  "Hmm, I think I've heard those pirate captives mention it before." Ye Ge thought for a moment and licked her cherry lips, "That guy called the Clown is said to be the recognized Pirate King of the Horned Whale Sea Domain. It's said that he's about to break through from Bronze Peak to Black Iron... As for just how strong he actually is..."

  "You will experience it, and soon." The bloodshot eyes gleamed with a sinister smile, as if looking at a fool. "It won't be long before the Clown Lord learns of my death, and when that time comes..."

  "Shut up!" Tulou kicked him mercilessly, grinding his foot into the ground a few times. "What's with this clown nonsense? If that guy dares to come out of the hole, I'll chop him up and make soup out of him."

  "You think you can?!" Bloodshot eyes revealed white teeth stained with fresh blood, emitting a piercing cackle. "Foolish guys, just wait and see! Wait for the Clown King's boundless rage! At that time, you will suddenly realize that death is such a blissful thing!"

  With his last strength, he let out a blood-curdling laugh, and with a mouthful of blood, he died. Until the corpse was cold, that single eye remained wide open, staring at the sky shrouded in dark clouds, as if waiting for something.

  "Have a good walk, I won't see you off." Lin Taiping said with a smile, waving goodbye, and then went out for a stroll in a very irresponsible manner, leaving the tasks of cleaning up the battlefield and counting the spoils to the Minotaur and Dark Elf. "So, try to find more good stuff... Turo, are your hands black?"

  It turned out that Tulou's hands were indeed very black, and after searching through several hundred pirate corpses, he only found more than 3,000 gold coins, over a hundred magic crystals, and two barely passable magical tools... Alright, perhaps it was just as Blood Eye said, he had contributed all his assets to Pirate King Joker in exchange for that octopus body modification.

  "Can't this guy even leave some for me?" Looking at the several thousand gold coins and a large pile of scrap metal, Lin Taiping couldn't help but feel resentful. After all, he had spent 500 magic crystals to upgrade his racial transformation talent to level two, and now it seemed like a huge loss.

  Fortunately, there were two magical tools that could make up for the regret, although they were not high-end goods, but both had unexpected special properties. It seemed that Blood Eye and the pirates had robbed a merchant fleet not long ago and obtained these two magical tools that were intended to be auctioned off.

  Among them, the first to be mentioned is a pure black gentleman's cloak, called "Waltz of the Night", which seems to be worn by noble gentlemen when attending banquets. However, it comes with a group-oriented disguise magic that allows the user to change their appearance and hide their aura at will, and is effective on all living beings within thirty meters around them.

  So, after donning the waltz of this night, Lin Taiping only slightly turned his mind and transformed into a pale-faced young blond man. Even the several Minotaur standing beside him changed into ordinary-looking sturdy men, and even the evil aura of the dark creature disappeared without a trace.

  "Great, maybe I can play a lich wizard later?" Lin Taiping was very satisfied with this. The so-called lich wizard is a dark wizard who specializes in studying the summoning technique of the undead. Although it's also quite evil, it's still better than being a skeleton wizard, an undead creature that would be hunted down as soon as it appears.

  What's even more worth mentioning is that the Lich Mage, due to racial restrictions, summons far fewer skulls than the Skull Mage. So when the enemy thinks he's a Lich Mage, they'll subconsciously relax their guard, and then... guess what? When over a hundred skull soldiers rush out at the same time, isn't it lovely?

  "Alright, I'm really looking forward to that scene." Lin Taiping smiled and stroked his chin, then shifted his gaze to another spoil of war -

  It was a grayish-white bony ring, with an eerie and strange shape, called the "Ring of White Bones". Its function can be simply summarized as being able to collect the corpses of various creatures, completely transforming them into white skulls, which are then stored in the ring... Of course, storage space is limited.

  It's clear that this is a piece of magical equipment specially made for Lich or Death Knight, no wonder Blood Eye, as a warrior, never used it after obtaining the ring.

  But for Lin Taiping, this Bone Ring was simply the best thing that could have happened to him. After all, as a Skeleton Mage, he had the racial talent to summon hundreds of skeleton soldiers with just one breath, but his only worry was that he didn't have enough materials. But now that he had this magic ring, everything was completely different.

  "Alright, it seems I'll have to start storing a large amount of bone materials now." Lin Taiping rubbed the Ring of White Bones, thinking about his future plans, and then turned his head with an air of unfinished business, "So, Tuluo, are there only these two magical tools?"

  "Mmm, I've even turned over their...". Toru gnawed on the roasted hind leg of the Terrorclaw, nodding with a mouthful of oil, but after thinking for a moment with his head tilted, he suddenly had an epiphany and let out an "ah" sound. He pulled out a glittering stone covered in blood from under his buttocks and casually tossed it over, "Oh yeah, I also found this one from the Blood Eye Octopus's tentacles."

  A glittering stone that had been thrown over, gently fell into the soft mud, its texture seemed to be close to jade, but on the smooth and hard surface, there were densely packed strange symbols carved, in the dim night, these dense symbols shone with a silver-white light, yet emitted an extremely powerful energy fluctuation...

  "What is this?" Lin Taiping was slightly surprised, bending down to pick up the flashing symbol stone. The strange symbols on it seemed to be naturally formed, yet they emitted an indistinguishable energy fluctuation. What's even more bizarre was that this flashing symbol stone was actually found in Blood Eye's body. That guy had actually embedded a piece of stone into his own... wait!

  In an instant, Lin Taiping suddenly seemed to understand something. The blood eye that was supposed to be human could actually transform into a cephalopod sea monster in a strange and eerie way. This was something that defied all conventional logic, and thinking about the strange properties of this glowing symbol stone, could it be that the strange energy of the symbol stone had caused the blood eye to transform into a sea monster?

  This is obviously the most reasonable explanation, but it also makes people feel more puzzled. What is the origin of this flashing symbol stone and what kind of magical power does it have that can make... hmm?

  A few seconds later, before Lin Taiping could even react, something even more bizarre happened!

  In an instant, the ring of gods on his left hand suddenly vibrated without warning, and a silver-white light shot out from the ring, deeply piercing into the flashing symbol stone. Just a few seconds later, the entire symbol stone actually disintegrated automatically, countless symbols flew out from the surface of the stone and surged into the ring of gods.

  This scene happened in an instant, and by the time Lin Taiping came back to his senses, the ring had already completely absorbed those strange symbols. In less than a moment, the originally pitch-black surface of the ring suddenly transformed into gold for about a quarter of it...

  "Damn it!" Lin Taiping's face suddenly changed, thinking of the worst possibility. Almost without thinking, he launched his consciousness in an instant and directly entered the Temple of Gods.

  "I'll go, but I hope this won't affect..."