Heartbeating Drum

Soon, Lu Chen arrived at the border.

He turned around and looked at the nervous barbarians at the back and grew even more certain about his decision.

I don't want to be like them, waiting to die in despair.

Evils, here I come. Show me what you've got. Let's see who's the hunter today!

With this thought in his mind, Lu Chen soon arrived at the border.

However, he didn't go out right away. Instead, he stopped in the totem pillar's protection and observed the surroundings carefully. He only left when he saw another human-head fireball hopping around the border. 

There's only this human-head fireball around here. On top of that, it's only lurking outside of the border and doesn't dare to come in. This means that it's about the same strength as the one before. I can handle it.

His intelligence was what differentiated him from the rest of the barbarians. As a youth from 21st century Earth, Lu Chen was able to gather information and assess the situations first before taking the next step.

Puff—

Accompanied by the sound of metal splitting through the air, the human-head fireball was crushed into bits by Lu Chen. In the process, many of the fire sparks were vaporized by the blood on his sword.

But more of them soon gathered around Lu Chen as the human-head fireball tried to enter his body and rekindle inside of him.

Unfortunately for it, Lu Chen had the Barbarian King's Bloodline. His strongest attribute wasn't Strength nor the Swordsman's Agility, but his +44 Constitution.

His powerufl Constitution empowered him with immense Vigor. Before the fire sparks could reach Lu Chen's skin, they were already vaporized by his Vigor.

[System Message: Host has killed a Broken Soul and has earned 75 Mastery Points.]

[Mastery Points: 187]

Lu Chen smiled happily after he killed the human-head fireball and heard the system message ringing in his ears.

This is the third one. I have close to 200 Mastery Points now. Very good. 200 Mastery Points are enough to raise my Swordsman by one level. I sure was right, I have the qualities of a Son of Slaughter.

Son of Slaughter referred to those who had the divinity of killing in the western culture. They were people who gained powers from constantly killing others.

Whereas in Lu Chen's case, what he gained from killing was the Mastery Points. In a way or two, he could be seen as a variant of the Son of Slaughter.

Lu Chen was clearly in a good mood to be able to think of all that nonsense.

As the saying went, "A barbarian is most fearsome not when he is being a jerk but when he is educated."

Beyond Lu Chen's constitution of a Barbarian, he had the intelligence and soul of a 21st century modern youth. His education made him extremely cautious in making every decision. He would always observe and assess the situation before going out for hunting.

Thanks to his cautiousness, Lu Chen was able to kill three Broken Souls without suffering any injuries.

Thinking that he would be able to raise a level after killing one more human-head fireball, Lu Chen couldn't help but feel happy.

However, even so, I still need to take a rest. Continuously fighting has taken a toll on my body.

Even with his +44 Constitution, Lu Chen's body was beginning to feel the strain from the battles. This proved just how horrifying the Evils were.

Even when it was just Broken Souls and ordinary Evils, Lu Chen still had to consume a lot of Vigor to kill them.

Sigh, I have to crush them three or four times to actually kill them out here. But if we were in the totem pillar's protection, I can conserve so much more of my Vigor.

Lu Chen walked back to the border while thinking to himself. Inside of the border, the two barbarians were also walking toward Lu Chen in admiration.

While the others were only patrolling inside the border, Lu Chen's decision to hunt outside was much more daring and braver.

However, although Lu Chen had been playing it safe since the start, danger would still find its way to him.

As the old saying goes, "If you play with fire, you'll eventually get burned.". 

Lu Chen has been extremely cautious, only going out of the border when there was just a human-head fireball in his vicinity. 

But if all Evils in this world were like human-head fireballs, they would have gone extinct a long time ago already.

After all, be it the Central Plains or Wilderness, there were many strong and powerful experts. But even these experts could only help the humans preserve their existing living grounds instead of going out and annihilating the Evils. 

If the Evils could suppress the humans to this stage, how could they all possibly be as weak as the human-head fireballs?

Lu Chen was moving back to the border while the other two were moving toward. Just when all three of them arrived at the border, a drum could be heard in the silent night.

The drum wasn't loud but prolonged.

The sudden noise immediately turned Lu Chen vigilant, he quickly looked around to inspect his surroundings.

However, he didn't notice anything at all. There was only the sound the drum that kept making noises in the dark.

At the same time, the drumming didn't cause any discomfort at all.

Even though it didn't bring any harm, Lu Chen fastened his pace to walk back into the border. But after he took two steps, Lu Chen could feel his heart beating faster than normal.

The condition forced Lu Chen to stop and he tried to regain control over his body.

But Lu Chen's face turned dark as he realized he wasn't able to control his heartbeat.

Moreover, his heart started to beat in sync with the pace of the drumming.

The drumming was increasingly getting faster and so was Lu Chen's heartbeat. 

The fastening heartbeat caused Lu Chen's blood to flow more vigorously in his veins. At the same time, the increased flow of blood filled Lu Chen's body with strength.

But that didn't make Lu Chen happy at all, instead, his face turned dark and gloomy.

Damn it, I've let my guard down. Even though I inspected around carefully, I only can assess the surroundings visually with my own eyes, I didn't have any skills to detect the hidden Evils. Evils are named so because most of the time, they are wicked and peculiar!

It was at this moment that Lu Chen realized that Evils that could be seen visually were mostly weaklings. The stronger Evils were often hidden in the dark and secretly waiting for their chance to prey on the humans. 

God knew how many more dangers there were hidden in the darkness.

Lu Chen felt awful for his oversight, but now wasn't the time to reflect.

On one hand, he was trying his best to slow down the flow of his blood to prevent his heart from exploding from the vigorous activity while on the other, Lu Chen was moving quickly toward the totem pillar's protection for safety.

However, as he was rushing back, the drumming turned even faster by a new level, making Lu Chen feel like his end was coming at him.

He didn't dare to continue anymore and quickly stopped to walk slowly.

When Lu Chen was feeling uncomfortable, the other two barbarians were trying to get to his side in a hurry.

Lu Chen was shocked to see them and he asked.

"You are alright? Your heartbeats didn't follow the drummings? How did you do that?"

Seeing that the two barbarians were fine, Lu Chen was shocked.

If even he who was stronger was in trouble, he didn't think they would be alright. 

Could it be because of the totem pillar? But that's not possible. I'm also in the totem pillar's protection now. But the drumming isn't stopping.

The barbarians were even more puzzled than Lu Chen was.

"What heartbeat? You mean the irritating drumming?"

"Leave, quickly. The drumming is definitely dangerous."

Well, these two simple-minded barbarians were clueless about the situation, they only thought the drumming was dangerous.

But when Lu Chen recalled they were barbarians, he realized it was quite a dream to expect them to be intelligent.

Thankfully, Lu Chen wasn't like the rest of the barbarians. He still had some modern knowledge from his education on Earth. Soon, an idea crossed Lu Chen's mind.