Chapter 88: Bountiful Spoils of War

Back in his own room, Lin Huang took out the two packages from his bedside table.

The package sent by Leng Yuexin was not even the size of a fist, but it was wrapped exquisitely. Once Lin Huang opened it, he found a storage ring inside—it was no longer the one that had originally belonged to Li Yanxing. There was also a small, fragrant note with an eight-digit number written on it, which must have been the unlock code Leng Yuexin left for him.

Pulling up the login page for the storage ring, Lin Huang entered the code from the note. After the password, a further identity verification appeared—very likely a precaution set by Leng Yuexin herself, to prevent theft or the package being lost and claimed by someone else. Lin Huang scanned his Emperor’s Heart Ring for verification, which immediately went through and automatically bound the ring to his identity, making it his personal storage ring.

He quickly checked the ring’s internal space. The ring had an enormous capacity—one hundred thousand cubic units. Expanding his Emperor’s Heart Ring to such a size would have cost a hundred million credits. At the moment, his own ring’s storage space had only been expanded to twenty thousand cubic units.

However, despite the large capacity, the contents were sparse: several hundred complete Life Crystals, over a thousand Life Shards, and a pile of golden-rank Armed Rings—nearly a hundred in total.

What truly made Lin Huang’s breath catch were a few pieces of equipment placed separately.

A black battle blade—Lin Huang had seen Li Yanxing use it before; it was a treasure-grade weapon.

Beside the blade was a suit of silver armor, which Lin Huang guessed was also a treasure-grade item.

In addition to these, there was a pair of black leather boots, likely treasure-grade as well, though their exact function was unclear.

Given Lin Huang’s current strength, he couldn’t activate these three treasure-grade items with his life energy, nor could he absorb them into his body. Still, he could wield the battle blade to slaughter monsters; even without utilizing its full power, the sharpness alone was considerable.

Not far from the treasure items was a golden card. Lin Huang paused, then took it out.

“A credit storage card?” After examining it, he immediately identified what it was.

“A non-bound credit storage card detected. Would you like to bind it?” popped up the Emperor’s Heart Ring.

“Bind it,” Lin Huang replied.

Moments later, the ring emitted a beam of light, enveloping the card.

“Card information scanned. Beginning binding… Binding complete. Would you like to merge it with the host’s personal account? Once merged, your credit account will be upgraded to VIP status, granting discounts on certain items.”

“Might as well,” Lin Huang nodded, trusting anything Leng Yuexin had prepared for him.

“Fusion complete. Host’s account upgraded to VIP. Available credit balance: 38.155 billion.”

“38.155 billion?!” Lin Huang was stunned. He had spent days collecting beast corpses and barely managed to exchange them for less than a billion. Compared to Li Yanxing’s credit balance, his own efforts were insignificant.

On reflection, he realized what a terrifying existence the Leng family must be, for them to so casually disregard hundreds of billions in credits and several treasure-grade items. Clearly, Leng Yuexin’s possession of Li Yanxing’s storage ring was known to her family—they had even negotiated with the Li family to unlock the Emperor’s Heart Ring. That she could gift him the contents of Li Yanxing’s storage space meant the Leng family didn’t care about these items. For the Li family to agree to offer up such wealth as compensation also showed these things weren’t important to them.

“It seems the foundations of these noble families are even more frightening than I imagined,” Lin Huang mused, his brow furrowing.

After merging the golden card with the Emperor’s Heart Ring, it slowly vaporized and disappeared, leaving behind a golden holographic projection card from the ring.

Lin Huang withdrew the projection, slipped the exquisite storage ring onto his left pinky, and then turned to the second package.

The second package came from the Hunter Association. It wasn’t large either—less than thirty centimeters long.

Inside was a black stone about the size of a fist, a thumb-sized chip, and a bronze token about as large as half his palm.

Lin Huang immediately recognized the bronze token—it granted access to the Bronze-tier Hunter privileges. Each token was linked directly to the recipient’s identity information. The association handled this automatically, so no further steps were needed.

With it, Lin Huang knew his status at the Hunter Association had been upgraded to Bronze-tier, meaning he was now a full-fledged hunter, not just a reserve member. He could access all information available to Bronze-tier hunters.

However, increased access didn’t mean he could take on Bronze-tier missions or enjoy their benefits. Even so, it made things much more convenient for him.

Apart from the token, the black stone was probably the training crystal for the “Art of War” technique Yi Zheng had mentioned. Lin Huang wasn’t yet sure of his own life energy attributes, so he didn’t dare practice it rashly.

He then examined the thumb-sized chip. He only knew his Emperor’s Heart Ring could recognize it, but had no idea what it contained.

He scanned the chip with his ring, and a projection appeared in his room.

A burly, middle-aged man demonstrated a set of combat moves within the projection. The techniques, though performed bare-handed, were full of killing intent. Lin Huang noticed that nearly every move was lethal and the style seemed military in nature.

The demonstration took twenty minutes. At the end, the man spoke: “This close-combat technique is called the ‘Art of Slaughter.’ When used in conjunction with the ‘Art of War,’ its offensive effects are maximized, serving one well even into the Gold-tier…”

“This technique is quite impressive,” Lin Huang thought. He didn’t need the explanation to realize it was a rare combat skill. With the instructional projection as a guide, he was confident he could soon gather the skill cards for it. Though his main focus was bladed combat, learning this martial art could only be beneficial.

Having stored everything in his space, Lin Huang headed to Lin Xin’s room on the third floor. “Xin’er, let me borrow the ‘Firearms Master’ ring. I want to test my current proficiency with firearms.”

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Special thanks to Supreme Dragon Moon for the ten thousand credit reward. This week, there were a total of sixty-eight friends who sent gifts, many of whom gave multiple times. Thanks also for the recommendation votes and everyone supporting the story in the review section!