Chapter 9 Rapid Improvement

The northwestern outskirts of the Great Barbarian Mountain Area lie between Guangchuan City and the second-stage city of Qingye City to the northeast, enclosed by the two cities.

In the dense forest, a young man with an elegant appearance, dressed in a blue-and-black school uniform, moved quickly through the trees. The uniform bore the words "Qingye High School" embroidered in gold thread.

Just as he was about to pass by a large tree that required two people to encircle, a green shadow suddenly shot down from the tree!

The young man reacted swiftly. His black-and-red long sword instantly glowed fiery red and slashed like a phantom toward the shadow above his head, cutting it cleanly into two pieces, which fell to the ground.

It turned out to be a camouflaged python skilled in ambush.

The camouflaged python could change its skin color for disguise and conceal its own aura.

The python, though split in two, was not entirely dead yet. Its upper half wriggled and shot up again, lunging to bite the young man.

"An eighth-stage camouflaged python, courting death."

The young man seemed in a foul mood. Seeing the defiant attack of the python, he swiftly swung his long sword again.

In just a few moments, the three-to-four-meter-long eighth-stage camouflaged python was chopped into dozens of pieces scattered around.

"Still no sign of the Flame Crystal Stone, but nuisances like these keep coming one after another!"

"According to the intelligence provided by the Star Card Master Association, the Flame Crystal Stone should be in this area near Guangchuan City, guarded by a Bronze-level Fire Stepping Wolf. I've been here for three days now, and I still haven't seen any trace of that wolf."

The young man suppressed his inner frustration, letting out a soft sigh.

Taking out a square cloth, he wiped the snake blood off his sword, then casually retrieved the Star Core from the camouflaged python's remains. His figure blurred as he continued deeper into the forest.

Time passed. It had been a week since Su Yuan entered the Great Barbarian Mountain Area.

Apart from killing a large number of Star Apprentice-level Star Beasts, Su Yuan had also encountered a genuine Bronze-level Star Beast yesterday—a Wind Running Weasel with incredible speed!

Bronze-level Star Beasts have overall attributes at least twice as strong as ninth-rank Star Apprentices, making them terrifyingly powerful.

Fortunately, due to his system and rapid progress over these few days, Su Yuan's strength now far surpassed what it had been when he first entered the Great Barbarian Mountain Area.

The Steel Flame Finger had been enhanced fifteen times, reaching the Perfect Level. Additionally, Instant Movement had successfully been enhanced once—a single enhancement costing a staggering 200 points of Star Dust!

In other words, the enhancement cost of blue cards was twenty times that of white cards!

But the effects were visibly significant: the casting time for Instant Movement was reduced from one second to approximately 0.7 seconds, and the cooldown interval dropped from seven seconds to five seconds.

As for the maximum teleportation distance, which depended on skill level and Star Power, it had increased from ten meters to twenty meters.

It was clear that this blue skill would only grow stronger in the future.

Regrettably, the cost of enhancing it using Star Dust was too high. From a cost-performance perspective, it was better to hold off for now.

Additionally, Su Yuan had obtained another excellent defense-enhancement skill from an Iron-backed Ape—Hardened Iron Skin.

With Hardened Iron Skin rapidly upgraded to the Great Success Stage, Su Yuan's margin for error in combat had considerably improved.

This came especially in handy against the Wind Running Weasel.

As a speed-specialist Bronze-level Star Beast, the Wind Running Weasel was incredibly quick and had a skill that boosted its movement speed called Wind Walking. Even Su Yuan couldn't match its speed.

Luckily, the Great Success-level Hardened Iron Skin could withstand most of the Weasel's attacks, including its Wind Blades. This allowed Su Yuan to utilize a fierce combo of Instant Movement and Steel Flame Finger to eventually kill the creature through intense grappling and skirmishing!

Ultimately, Su Yuan spent Star Dust to extract the Wind Walking skill and embedded it into his Star Power Vortex as his third skill.

The value of Wind Walking was comparable to Steel Flame Finger. Both were exceptionally versatile and practical skills among white cards. Even at the Entry-level, Wind Walking boosted Su Yuan's speed by another 20%!

"I've been out here for over a week now; my supplies are nearly depleted. It's time to head out to rest and resupply."

Su Yuan looked quite disheveled. His clothes were damaged in several places, mostly torn by the Wind Running Weasel, and were stained with the blood and fluids of numerous Star Beasts, resembling a garment from a dye vat. Even washing in the creek couldn't clean them properly.

As for his injuries, they were minor. His C-grade stamina coupled with medicinal treatments had already allowed most wounds to scab over.

"What a pity I haven't encountered any Star Beasts with healing skills," Su Yuan said with some regret. "Otherwise, I could've learned Healing Skill and become entirely self-sufficient."

Su Yuan examined the state of his Star Power Vortex internally. Everything matched his predictions, and he could still learn two more skills.

When he advanced to the Bronze Level, five new skill slots would open up, so he didn't have to worry as much as others about wasting skill slots.

For most people, Star Card skills were secondary—enough to get by. The real focus lay on Soul Skills, which demanded careful consideration and choice.

Soul Skills were Star Card skills embedded into the Soul Card, typically enjoying additional boosts from innate talents and acquired automatically upon awakening.

Starting from the Bronze Level, one new Soul Skill could be embedded per level, and embedding a Soul Skill was a prerequisite for cultivating to the next realm.

Hence, awakening a Soul Card was the prerequisite for becoming a Star Card Master—not just because a Soul Card boosted the speed of Star Power cultivation, but more critically because the Soul Skill embedded into the card unlocked the doorway to Bronze Level.

The quality, grade, and compatibility of Soul Skills with the Soul Card would heavily influence the strength of its second awakening.

The first skill slot on the Soul Card would open at the Bronze Level. While there was still some time before that, Su Yuan could begin scouting for suitable skills.

There were no fixed standards for compatibility, but for Soul Cards possessing an attribute, the basic rule was that the Star Card skill embedded must share the same attribute as the Soul Card.

Thus, Su Yuan needed high-grade space-related skills.

As for skill levels, he could always improve them using the system, which was not an issue.

The problem was that space, time, and other special attribute Star Beast skills were rare, and their quality was generally higher than that of elemental attributes, making them difficult to find.

"Thinking about it too much is pointless; the future will sort itself out. At worst, I'll wait until I enroll at the Star Power Academy, where the larger platform will offer more clues about space-related skills."

Su Yuan shook his head, slung his now-deflated backpack over his shoulders, and, after consulting his map and compass to confirm his direction, began his journey back.

After walking for nearly half a day, Su Yuan suddenly heard faint rustling noises of rapid movement coming from the dense forest ahead.

His vigilance rose immediately as he turned his head to look.

Soon, he saw a young man dressed in a school uniform fleeing in panic. Behind him, seven or eight grey wolves burning with green flames were in hot pursuit.

Feeling the Star Apprentice ninth-rank aura emanating from the wolves, Su Yuan couldn't help but pause in astonishment. "That guy… Did he stir up a Stepping Flame Grey Wolf den?"

At that moment, the fleeing young man sharply noticed Su Yuan nearby. His eyes lit up instantly, and—just Su Yuan's luck—he changed direction and ran toward him, shouting loudly as he sprinted, "Brother, help me out!"