"You... you bastard... I'm not admitting defeat..."
The heavily sleeping female Brawler mumbled incoherent words in Li Ke's arms. But as Li Ke held her, watching her mouth twitch slightly as she slept, he knew exactly what she was talking about.
Tangji's body was completely immune and adapted to toxins, giving her normal sensory feedback. But Li Ke's body lacked that immunity, which directly led to a specific outcome.
The Brawler simply couldn't outlast Li Ke's endurance.
Because of this, Li Ke had easily defeated her in their little battle on the bed.
For a Brawler, their entire creed revolved around fighting back whenever they were unsatisfied and never admitting defeat even if they died. That was their professional code.
But when it came to this kind of matter? You couldn't just brute-force it with willpower.
Still, Li Ke was more than satisfied.
The amount of Energy he had gained this time was truly massive.
He had only scored a proper direct hit on the female Brawler once, and any subsequent clashes happened in a completely different area altogether, but...
"My Energy Points actually hit over a thousand."
Staring at the 1,127 Energy Points displayed on his system interface, Li Ke was utterly dazed.
He knew Tangji had developed some feelings for him, but for her to yield this much energy completely shattered his previous assumptions.
After all, Tsunade's emotional outbursts had been far more explosive, and Erina had clearly developed a romantic spark with him. Yet, the female Brawler alone provided an overwhelming amount of energy.
While Tangji simultaneously fit the criteria of being interested in him and experiencing an emotional peak, this massive payoff made Li Ke feel like he was missing a piece of the puzzle.
He felt a bit vexed. He couldn't quite tell if this spike happened because the Brawler had truly fallen head over heels for him, or if there was another underlying mechanic at play.
Even if the odds were small, such an abnormal growth in energy just didn't seem right!
"It's not normal. This is absolutely not normal."
Frowning, Li Ke gently traced the heavily scarred spine of the Brawler, pulling her a little tighter into his chest. This pure display of trust made him feel more and more like she really did love him.
The probability of love at first sight might be low, but it wasn't completely impossible, right?
Besides, the girl had been a virgin.
"After all, that Yellow Rose only gave me five points..."
Li Ke thought back to the result of his passionate encounter with Miss Yellow Rose. He had pumped so much effort into her, yet the system only rewarded him with a measly five points.
"Damn it... Looks like I'll have to run some experiments to find out the truth."
Taking a deep breath, Li Ke realized he needed to verify whether this massive energy surge was strictly due to Tangji falling in love with him. Therefore—
He decided to sleep on it and deal with it tomorrow.
Wrapping his arms securely around Tangji, he closed his eyes.
What he didn't know was that the moment his eyelids shut, Tangji's eyes quietly snapped open in the dark.
When Li Ke woke up the next morning, Tangji was already gone. She had slipped away early, without even giving him a chance to treat her to breakfast. She only left a small slip of paper with her address written on it, stating that if he ever felt the urge again, he could come looking for her.
"Tsunderes went out of style a long time ago, Tangji," Li Ke chuckled to himself.
After washing up, he bumped into Roche, who had come to find him for breakfast. Following a brief language lesson, Li Ke took Roche with him to the commercial district.
Naturally, there were merchant shops that purchased raw ores. Li Ke presented a single iron ingot for appraisal. Once the merchant verified its purity, Li Ke sold off the rest of his supply, pocketing a solid three hundred gold coins.
Flush with cash once again, he purchased some basic gear—including an iron sword and light armor. His next plan was to recruit a small adventurer party.
His motivation was simple: skill books.
Although the Blood-Qi Secret Technique was currently in an awkward, largely impractical state, it was highly apparent that he could acquire all sorts of unique abilities through continuous slaughter. If that was the case, then grinding monsters was going to be an absolute necessity.
"So, want to party up with me, Roche?" Li Ke turned to the young girl. Having nothing better to do, she had been trailing after him through the streets, chiming in with various bits of advice while he shopped.
"Hmm, I actually think you should find a proper guild before jumping into an adventure, Big Brother... Though, with those weapons of yours, you should be fine as long as you're careful," Roche said, looking at him with a hint of uncertainty.
She highly respected the raw destructive power of Li Ke's firearms. Granted, if she activated her magical mana shields, Li Ke wouldn't stand a chance against her even with a gun in hand. But against ordinary Goblins and Lugarus, his firearms were more than enough.
"Yeah, I'd love to spend time properly practicing orthodox swordsmanship, but unfortunately, time isn't on my side," Li Ke shrugged.
Ever since that dead swordsman dropped the Blood-Qi Secret Technique, Li Ke knew he was utterly powerless against the temptation of instant-learning skills.
However, going on a massive killing spree against humans in this world was going to be difficult. This wasn't an actual video game. Aside from the Empyrean and Pandemonium regions, the only human opponents low-level adventurers encountered were rogue mages, or the Dragonoids and Lightwing Segheard up in the Sky Tower.
Oh, and the GBL cultists brainwashed by Lotus, or the reanimated corpses in the Dark Elf Cemetery.
But tackling those required serious power and a mature adventurer squad. Li Ke wanted to form a team right here in the Arad continent to see if he could farm some skills off monsters like Minotaurs.
For instance, muscle-strengthening passives or raw physical stat boosts. Since Minotaurs and Goblins were considered sentient races in this world, they ought to yield similar system drops. Besides, it wouldn't hurt to try.
On top of that, he desperately needed to hone his actual combat instincts.
Fighting the infected back in the 7 Days to Die world didn't even qualify as real combat. Those zombies were practically moving target dummies. As long as you had a gun and plenty of ammo, you were perfectly safe—provided you didn't trigger an overwhelmingly massive horde.
As for the Blood Moon...
That was a test of base fortification and firepower, not personal combat technique.
"Time isn't on your side?" Roche blinked, looking slightly confused, but she chose not to press him. "Well, whatever! As long as you provide the food, Big Brother, I'm all in!"
She flashed him a bright smile and gave him a massive thumbs-up.
Li Ke: "..."
After a brief pause, Li Ke questioned her further, "Do you actually know what kind of preparations an adventurer needs before heading out into Arad?"
The question instantly struck Roche dumb. Her large, expressive eyes darted from Li Ke to herself. Then, she threw her tiny hands up in the air.
"What else do we need to prepare? Don't you just hunt whatever's moving and eat it on the spot?!"
How on earth did you survive back in Pandemonium?! Li Ke desperately wanted to scream.
Ultimately, he could only sigh helplessly and pull out the slip of paper tucked inside his shirt.
"Looks like we're going to have to consult a professional."
Staring at the female Brawler's address, Li Ke decided it was time to seek guidance from a true local.