Chapter 64: Having walked in the rain oneself, holding an umbrella for others?

Right now, Jiang Yi has two primary goals—
One is to nurture his "Zhang San" alternative account as well.
The other is to continue accumulating strength and making himself even more powerful!

With his current combat power ranking first, he could definitely crush the second-place Luo Changqing with absolute ease.
However, major guilds have deep foundations.
Luo Changqing will inevitably possess high-end life-saving items.
If he has even used a few special roulette wheels, he might even possess some kind of rule-based instant-kill item!

Furthermore, the upcoming exploration of the Endless Sea and the beast headquarters will also demand much more formidable strength!
While planning his self-improvement, Jiang Yi glanced at his data panel—

[Name: Jiang Yi]
[Level: 10]
[Lifespan: 9,723 years and 128 days]
[Talent: None]
[Profession: None]
[Skills: Brave Heart (C-grade), Poison Resistance (C-grade), Wind's Wing (C-grade), Hurricane Wave (D-grade)]
[Status: Hundred Poisons Immune (3 days)]
[Strength: 5,000]
[Physique: 5,000]
[Speed: 5,000]
[Spirit: 5,000]
[Combat Power: 15 Stars]

Clearly, the attribute cap for level 10 is 5,000!
An absurdly high number!
And the requirement to reach level 10 using a Fate Tablet is merely a lifespan of ≥ 5,000 years and all attributes ≥ 50.
The total attribute requirements needed for leveling up seem to be consistently 100 times lower than the attribute caps of the corresponding levels!

For players below level 10, the first 5 levels and the last 5 levels represent two distinct stages.
The leveling requirements for levels 1-5 are a lifespan of ≥ 100-500 years and all attributes ≥ 1-5.
Meanwhile, the leveling requirements for levels 6-10 suddenly jump to a lifespan of ≥ 1,000-5,000 years and all attributes ≥ 10-50!
The leveling requirements for each tier effectively set a lower limit for a player's strength at that level.
On the other hand, the existence of attribute caps effectively limits the upper limit of strength at the current level.
From this, it is evident that at the same level, the gap in strength between players can be absurdly massive!
Situations of cross-level combat are by no means rare.

The relationship between attributes and combat power is basically a ratio where every 5 points of total attributes equals 100 points of combat power.
Of course, this ratio is not entirely accurate.
With the exact same 5 points across all attributes, some people might only have a combat power of 50, while others could reach as high as 150!
The gap between them seems to be related to factors such as combat awareness, skills, talents, professions, and so on.
The true big shots among players have always focused on combat power rather than level.
In fact, some strong individuals, even when their total attributes are relatively low, can have their potential discovered by major factions due to the ratio between their attributes and combat power!

Jiang Yi's current total attributes are 5,000, so calculated by the conventional ratio, his combat power should be 100,000.
Every 10,000 combat power is counted as 1 star.
Therefore, his 15-star combat power is equivalent to a numerical value of 150,000!
This ratio is quite impressive!

And moreover!
150,000!
Jiang Yi could say without the slightest exaggeration—
His combat power is, in all likelihood, more than ten times that of Luo Changqing!
Without considering any items at all,
crushing Luo Changqing would be an absolute breeze!

Yet...
It is still not enough!

Jiang Yi directly strolled over to the [Public Trading Area] to take a look.
The trading area that he used to find so satisfying now left him somewhat unsatisfied!
Because in the [Public Trading Area], the highest tier available was merely the blue roulette wheel!
There wasn't even a shadow of a purple roulette wheel to be seen!

After pondering for a moment, Jiang Yi decided to boost his assets first to gain eligibility to use the [VIP Trading Area]!
Thus, he immediately used the 20 year-coins he had previously earned from Liao Yuanfeng to purchase a large quantity of white and green roulette wheels in one go.
Naturally, he also bought another blue roulette wheel.
After consuming the Longevity Pill extracted from the blue roulette wheel, his lifespan once again skyrocketed to over fourteen thousand years!

Following that, he also extracted all the purchased white and green roulette wheels.
As for the Longevity Pills and Teleportation Talismans he obtained from the draws, he listed every single one of them for sale in the trading area!
This action was undeniably arrogant to the extreme!
However, as a "cross-regional" heavy hitter, what harm was there in being a tiny bit arrogant?

Jiang Yi ignored the massive sensation his actions would trigger in the trading area.
He went straight to check the forum instead.
It was only then that he discovered...

Sun Hao's extraction of the Longevity Pill formula seemed to have triggered quite a significant butterfly effect?
He read through several posts in a succession before managing to sort out the whole sequence of events—

The initial post came from a core big shot of the Leitian Club, bitterly condemning the Yinshuang Club for bullying the weak, secretly sending people to forcibly "abduct" and "imprison" a Leitian Club player capable of refining Longevity Pills, and forcing them to become a puppet alchemist for the Yinshuang Club!
After this post was published, various other posts suddenly popped up, all of them listing how arrogant, domineering, and oppressive to the weak the Yinshuang Club's actions were.
For a time, the public narrative was steered into a frenzy!
The Yinshuang Club seemed to instantly transform into a dark force, arrogant and domineering, oppressing ordinary players!

Even the Law Enforcement Hall, previously mentioned jointly by the Qingchuan Guild and the Yellow River Guild, was brought up again by people.
A large number of players hoped that the Qingchuan Guild and the Yellow River Guild would step up to uphold justice at this time, wipe out the Yinshuang Club, and rescue the "puppet alchemist" who had lost their freedom!

During this period, Sun Hao had also taken the initiative to post, stating that he had joined the Yinshuang Club voluntarily and had not become a puppet.
However, the manipulated masses of players simply refused to listen, stubbornly insisting that Sun Hao was being threatened by the Yinshuang Club, which was why he posted such a statement...
The sight of players stubbornly clinging to their own biases and talking to themselves reminded Jiang Yi of cyberbullying before the apocalypse.

Moreover, the various denunciations directed at the Yinshuang Club also made him think of the history of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods.
In that era of history, vassal states fought in chaos.
Before going to war with one another, they all loved to find a pretext and wage a "righteous war"!
Imprisoning an alchemist, along with various hard-to-verify "domineering behaviors," seemed to have become the legitimate justification for more powerful factions to eliminate the Yinshuang Club for the public good.

Of course, during this period, the Yinshuang Club was also continuously posting clarifications; even Wei Lingshuang personally waded into several posts.
And right when this "war of words" was at its most intense,
a "firefighting" figure appeared.

Looking at the title of that post, Jiang Yi almost couldn't help laughing!
[Chang Jiaoe: Because I have walked through the rain, I want to hold an umbrella for others!]
The title of this post was entirely the style of Chang Jiaoe!

Chang Jiaoe was indeed very attractive, but she hadn't quite reached the level of an absolute peerless beauty among mortals.
She was never an empty-headed vase.
Even during her university days, her persona was that of an exceptionally driven, inspirational goddess.
Even during the period when she was dating Jiang Yi,
she wasn't like ordinary girls who were obsessed with designer bags, jewelry, or cosmetics.
Most of the time, their dates took place in the library.
Chang Jiaoe was even a Study Account blogger.
Her handwriting was very pretty.
She would often copy down aesthetic and inspirational quotes and post them on Weibo, garnering all sorts of praise.

The content of her post at this moment continued her inspirational goddess style, just as it had always been!