Fu Chuan truly felt her luck was good to have run into a mini-BOSS. In the early stages of Arcane Throne, monsters weren’t necessarily more numerous than people, but an elite mini-BOSS—even a rabbit king—could cause a chaotic scramble among a whole group of players.

For low-level monsters, gems only started dropping from the small elites onward. The Eagle Eye Gem Fu Chuan had bought earlier, for example, was typically dropped by small elites among level-five monsters. This type of gem was a tier higher than basic gems for agility, strength, and constitution, making it more expensive and with a lower drop rate. However, for small elite BOSSes, even a level-one mini-BOSS, a basic gem drop was guaranteed.

Though pleased, Fu Chuan didn’t get carried away. She first surveyed the surrounding terrain, noticing a sugarcane field next to the cornfield, both offering tall cover. After a quick glance, she descended.

The airship was parked a little farther away to prevent it from being damaged by these small monsters; it was worth a million copper coins, after all.

She didn’t disembark immediately. Instead, she piloted the airship in the sky, using its speed to kite the locusts. The mini-BOSS, like all leaders, had control over its minions. It had already spotted Fu Chuan and was commanding the swarms to surround her, summoning more and more until their numbers approached a thousand.

Fu Chuan pretended to be pursued, but in reality, she had opened the cabin door and was secretly releasing spider silk, weaving it into a net in the air. Then, she sent the airship into a dive, and the locusts, along with their mini-BOSS, followed.

Fu Chuan activated the airship’s auto-pilot landing mode and then leaped from the cabin. From a height of five meters, she landed nimbly, her boots crunching on the corn leaves. A sudden heat flared behind her, and she spun around to dodge.

Bang! A fireball shot from the mini-BOSS’s mouth, narrowly missing her back. After dodging, Fu Chuan saw it hiding among its minions, spitting fireballs from three meters in the air, while the rest of the locust swarm, no longer fooled by the airship, buzzed as they closed in.

Fu Chuan ran for a dozen meters, diving into the cornfield with the locust swarm in hot pursuit. When she reached the right spot, she yanked on the spider silk.

The entire net, which had been suspended in the air, came crashing down.

The thousand-strong swarm of locusts was completely covered. They struggled to break free, but their attack power was limited. The spider silk net was like a fishing net, with holes designed according to their size, perfectly trapping them.

Fu Chuan had tested this before. Although she already knew the details of the resource, this was a real world, and she had to be sure. Before burning the silk previously, she knew that the level-two Flame Blast from her level-three Arcanist self couldn’t damage the green-tier material. By the same logic, these small locusts couldn’t break it either.

The only one that could break it was…

When the calf-sized mini-BOSS spat a fireball, the flames melted the silk with a sizzling sound. The damage was clearly higher than her own attacks. Even though Fu Chuan couldn’t discern its level, she was fairly certain it was at least a level-four elite mini-BOSS.

This was going to be tough.

Before it could burn through the silk and free the other locusts, Fu Chuan chanted an incantation, and a storm of fire and thorns swept over them, burning chaotically.

The locusts’ strength lay in their numbers, and their danger to people came from swarming and biting. But now, with Fu Chuan outside and them trapped in a tangled mass by the net, the fire was devastating. It broke through their armor and slaughtered them, and a wave of locusts was quickly wiped out, causing her experience bar to shoot up.

“Screee…” The mini-BOSS shrieked and suddenly burst through the spider silk net.

Its level was higher, and its carapace was clearly thicker, allowing it to withstand the fire with only a slight reddening. As it broke free, a small number of locust minions followed, but the rest were almost all dead. But the BOSS was still there.

It spat a fireball at Fu Chuan. It was fast, but thankfully her agility was ridiculously high, and she dodged it. She then created distance, continuously firing Arcane Missiles to kite and attack it.

The fire from the battle began to spread through the cornfield. Fortunately, the corn had already been harvested, or it would have been a shame to see it burn.

The difficulty was that Fu Chuan was human, with two legs, while it could fly. She could only keep pulling away, running through the cornfield to avoid the flames while attacking it from the ground.

This wasn’t sustainable. Her mental power would be depleted, and a monster’s ability to summon elements and recover was always far superior to a player of a similar level.

In a battle of attrition, she was sure to lose.

Throughout the vast cornfield, the rustling of corn stalks echoed—the sound of her movement…

Fu Chuan drank a mental power potion while trying to maintain distance, until… she stopped drinking potions. The frequency of her Arcane Missiles dwindled, and then she suddenly turned and fled.

This was the moment the mini-BOSS had been waiting for. It flapped its wings furiously and dove, its speed more than doubling. In an instant, it was just over a meter behind her, though still three meters in the air. Its mouth gathered an even larger fireball, which shot out at twice its previous speed.

The fireball exploded, incinerating a large patch of corn stalks. Fu Chuan dove and rolled on the ground. Coming up on one knee, she raised her hand and shot a strand of spider silk at it, which wrapped around its tail. Then, Fu Chuan pulled with all her might!

The strength from lighting up her Gene Tree branches twice, which had soared to 311, came into play. With her full power, she yanked the unsuspecting mini-BOSS down from the sky. Her agility kicked in, and with a swift dash, she leaped onto its back, drew the dagger from her waist, and plunged it into the most vulnerable spot between its body and head carapaces—its neck.

If she pierced it, it would surely die.

But it seemed to anticipate the danger. Just as the dagger was about to pierce through, having already broken the skin and drawn some green fluid, its body was suddenly enveloped in a cyan glow.

Ah, the mini-BOSS was enraged. Gurgle, gurgle… It let out a pained struggle, but its mouth still gathered flames. With immense strength, it flapped its wings, sending both itself and Fu Chuan flying.

Fu Chuan was stunned, but thankfully, one hand still held the spider silk. She was left dangling from its tail, swinging in mid-air. The little thing was incredibly strong. Panicked from the near-death experience, it tried to fly higher. Fu Chuan, hanging below, was about to swing herself up to strike its neck again.

However, at a height of four meters, she happened to glance down at the trampled corn stalks in the field below.

Wait, something’s not right!

Some of the trampled paths were hers, but some were not. Two of them approached from different directions—one from the forest and one from the sugarcane field.

She hadn’t been to either of those places.

Suddenly, a feathered arrow shot through the air…

It was incredibly fast, even faster than the mini-BOSS’s earlier surprise attack, piercing the air in an instant.

Rip! The sound of tearing fabric.

Having made a suspicious judgment just a second before, Fu Chuan twisted her body away at the last moment. With that slight movement, the arrow barely grazed past her chest, but it tore through the sleeve of the arm she couldn’t move in time, ripping a piece of fabric clean off.

Beneath her mask, Fu Chuan’s expression tightened, but she steadied her nerves. In the instant she dodged the arrow, she grabbed the mini-BOSS’s back, lunged forward, and stabbed its neck viciously.

At the same moment, the hunter below, his eyes sharp, fired a second arrow with deadly precision.

The arrow was so fast because he had enhanced it with a speed-boosting support spell from the wind arcane arts.

Clearly, this was an Arcanist who had chosen the hunter profession.

He had been watching, waiting, shocked by the girl’s agility and strength. He had observed the damage and level of her arcane skills, guessing she was only level three or four, but the agility he saw was terrifying—at least a thousand, the stats of a level-ten Arcanist.

Suspicious, he had initially planned to strike directly and steal the BOSS, but out of caution, he chose to lie in wait. Then he witnessed Fu Chuan’s cunning tactics.

First, the spider web for a mass kill, then feigning weakness to lure the mini-BOSS in for a close-quarters ambush. All of this indicated that Fu Chuan’s combat prowess was no less than his own, so he waited for an opportunity.

He had chosen his moment well. He should have killed her with that one arrow.

Unfortunately for him, Fu Chuan… had professional habits.

She was too cautious, accustomed to observing her surroundings. After all, she had run countless dungeons and was used to being ambushed and having her kills stolen. That was why she had suddenly noticed someone was there, narrowly avoided the danger, and predicted that her opponent would rush to kill the BOSS to claim ownership. So…

The dagger and the arrow entered the mini-BOSS’s neck and soft underbelly almost simultaneously.

“Killed Level 5 Little Bronze BOSS Green-Brown Locust Leader, EXP +3800.”

With a gurgling cry, it died in mid-air and began to fall. Fu Chuan, falling with it, was now an exposed target. The hidden hunter, hearing no notification that he had gotten the kill, let a cold glint enter his eyes and quickly locked onto Fu Chuan for a third shot.

The arrow was loosed, the bowstring still humming, but the projectile was already flying unerringly toward Fu Chuan’s heart…

Swoosh! Fu Chuan veered off course, and the arrow missed. She had used her spider silk to stick to the corn stalks below, using the leverage to fall in a different direction. After landing, she flattened a patch of stalks and, with her high agility, quickly disappeared into the dense corn. With a tug of her silk, she pulled the heavy, calf-like body of the mini-BOSS into the stalks with her and began to loot it.

She had already received the kill notification. Killing the swarm of locusts had gotten her to level five, and killing the mini-BOSS gave her another large chunk of experience.

Her current level was 5 (4100/10000).

But the advantages of leveling up were minor; what she needed was something else.

Ding!

Looting successful.

Fu Chuan turned and ran, checking the items in her hand. Some monsters, if their bodies were heavily damaged or dismembered, would drop items directly. Others, if their bodies were intact, had to be looted.

She didn’t know if her luck was good or bad. She had been hoping for a piece of green-tier equipment, but there was none. It was quite stingy. All she got was a thin skill book and a stone.

“Killed Level 5 Little Bronze BOSS Green-Brown Locust Leader, dropped items: +Single-target attack skill book 《Azure Radiance Feather》, +Level 1 special equipment inlay gem Invisibility Stone.”

Oh?

Fu Chuan paused, finding it hard to believe her luck was this good. She had gotten two top-tier items at once. She quickly socketed the level-one Invisibility Stone into her Feathered Spider Silk Ring and simultaneously learned 《Azure Radiance Feather》, a skill considered a top-tier single-target wind attack for beginners.

And then… she vanished.

Rustle, rustle. The hunter knew the advantage was his. He had seen that she had exhausted most of her mental power after killing the locust swarm and the mini-BOSS. Even with potions, it would take time to recover. He had to kill her quickly, before she could make use of the treasures dropped by the BOSS.

He gave chase at high speed, soon hearing the rustling of corn stalks ahead.

Just ahead. The hunter formed a seal with one hand and cast an arcane spell on his own legs.

“Walking Speed Boost!”

His boots were enveloped in a cyan light, and his speed surged. Swoosh! The hunter moved like a phantom through the corn, locking onto the area where he had just heard the rustling. He saw a piece of clothing.

Aim, shoot!

The moment the arrow flew, his fully focused mind saw it strike the dark shadow of the clothing.

And then?

Wrong! Not good!

The hunter was sharp and was about to dodge.

A spinning feather of azure light… Thwack! It struck him squarely in the back.

His equipment buzzed, and a green light flared.

Damn it, green-tier equipment!

The defense of green-tier equipment was astonishing. Even though 《Azure Radiance Feather》 had incredible killing power, capable of bypassing defenses to kill level-six or seven Arcanists, with the equipment’s boost, it could only shatter the defense, not inflict a serious wound…

The hunter was merely sent stumbling forward by the force of the impact. He was agile and about to roll and counter-attack when he saw the ground covered in a dense web of spider silk.

His pupils contracted. He had almost forgotten—this damn girl loved to lay down spider silk, like some kind of spider demon.

He tried to dodge, but the silk on the ground, like a spider demon’s trap, instantly wrapped around him. Then, Fu Chuan, whose one-minute invisibility was just about to expire, reappeared. She had already been chanting an incantation. For the final blow, she simply flicked her hand toward his head.

An Azure Radiance Feather, to send you on your way!

The hunter didn’t even have time to move his head. Her agility was terrifying and amplified the skill’s effect. Coupled with the fact that 《Azure Radiance Feather》 was already a rare, top-tier low-level wind spell known for its speed and damage… his unprotected head was struck. Red and white matter splattered, and his eyes went vacant. Before he could even process what had happened, he collapsed to the ground.

At the same time, ding!

“Killed Level 7 Arcanist Hunter Chen Lixing, EXP +6000.”

“Leveled up to Level 6, all stats +30.”

Such a cruel arcane world, where life and death were decided in an instant.

Fu Chuan’s heart was still pounding. She stood beside the hunter’s corpse but didn’t bend down to loot it. Instead, she scanned the quiet cornfield and suddenly spoke.

“Friend, aren’t you tired of hiding for so long? Or are you waiting for me to bend over and pick things up to give you an opportunity?”