Starting Unlimited Evolution from Grinding

Chapter 350: Is This All the Strength You Have?

"He should be the mastermind behind the demise of those adventurers here!"

"Huh?"

Finnie was innocent and adorable, having grown up under the meticulous care of her parents and elders, with a reliable maid like Sherfilia by her side to assist and protect her. She didn't understand the wickedness of human hearts and didn't have so many convoluted thoughts in her mind.

Therefore, when Sherfilia uttered those words, she was completely stunned, unable to understand for a moment why Mr. Karen, who was clearly a manager of the Adventurers' Association, had instead become the mastermind behind everything.

Fortunately, although she was naive, she wasn't stupid. After learning the answer to the riddle, she quickly figured out what was going on.

"You were lying to us!"

She frowned, glaring at him angrily.

A mocking smile appeared on Karen's face: "Isn't it a bit too late to figure it out now?"

He looked Finnie up and down: "Looks like a young mistress from a good family, even has a maid specially assigned. The gains from this deal shouldn't be low."

His gaze then shifted to Lin Mo, and he immediately frowned, his expression changing: "You..."It turned out that Lin Mo, who had just been locked in a fierce struggle with that Phantom Snow Fox, had somehow already subdued the Phantom Snow Fox under his foot.

This kid really was hiding his strength earlier...

Karen had noticed this before, but he hadn't expected Lin Mo to be hiding so much strength.

The Phantom Snow Fox was no weak magical creature. Although it hadn't reached the Transcendent Level, it was undoubtedly a rather troublesome opponent for professionals below the Transcendent Level. It was one thing that this kid wasn't affected by the Phantom Snow Fox's mental attack earlier, but his speed was also incredibly fast. This abnormal performance made Karen feel a vague sense of unease.

But he quickly suppressed this unease. The confidence of being a Transcendent Level expert once again took the upper hand.

He said calmly: "It seems you knew about this long ago?"

"What's so strange about that?"

Lin Mo spread his hands: "Your actions were too obvious. You don't really think your previous successes were all because of your good disguises, do you?"

Among the scum who killed and looted, there was actually a Transcendent Level professional, and one who held a high-ranking manager position in the Adventurers' Association. For the vast majority of adventurers, this was indeed too difficult to guard against.

"To be honest, I didn't see any obvious problems at first either... But when the captain of that Frost Wolf Squad started slowly approaching me, whether intentionally or not, it was enough to raise suspicion."

"He deliberately brought up the matter and warned us to be careful, all to exploit the inertia of thinking, making people subconsciously reduce their suspicion of them. But in order to leave a tracking mark on us, he ultimately had to perform some actions that might expose them."

"Right now, that so-called Frost Wolf Squad should already be on their way here, right?"

"But..."

Lin Mo paused, looking at Karen before him with a teasing expression.

"What truly confirmed my suspicions was your overly clumsy performance."

From the moment Karen appeared, Lin Mo gradually became certain of his previous suspicions.

"If he really was representing the Adventurers' Association to come find and eliminate these scum, why would he deliberately wear the Adventurers' Association uniform so openly and even wear the badge representing his manager status? Wouldn't the real culprit see his attire and become alert, or pretend to be an ordinary adventurer?"

He wanted to use this to lower Karen and his group's guard, but forgot that such behavior contradicted his own lines, becoming the biggest loophole.

Karen was taken aback for a moment, then laughed: "That's true too. It seems I'm really not good at this sort of thing."

"However, I'm really quite curious..."

He looked at Lin Mo with a puzzled expression: "Since you already knew about these things, why did you continue deeper into the Secret Realm? If you had died inside, it would have been slightly easier for us to fake traces of being killed by magical creatures."

This left Karen utterly perplexed.

"Can't figure it out?"

Lin Mo also laughed: "It's fine, you'll understand very soon."

As his words fell, movement suddenly came from not far away. Karen initially thought the Frost Wolf Squad members had arrived, the smile on his face growing even wider. However, when he turned his head, he saw a truly horrifying scene.

Another Lin Mo appeared in his line of sight, holding the head of the Frost Wolf Squad captain in his hand, casually throwing it to the ground.

In a previous stage, Lin Mo's [Shadow Split] skill had once fallen into a very awkward situation. At that time, Lin Mo's highest attribute was Mana, and his main combat method relied on magic. His other attributes were much lower compared to Mana. Since clones couldn't use skills, the Mana attribute was useless, and the other attributes weren't high enough, making the clone's combat power difficult to utilize for Lin Mo.

But now, as the levels of professions like Warrior, Knight, and Assassin Ranger had caught up, Lin Mo's other attributes had also reached levels similar to or even surpassing his Mana.

At this point, the clones created by the [Shadow Split] skill became much more useful.

For example, helping clean up some "trash."

"A clone-type skill?"

Karen's face darkened. Although he didn't care about those Frost Wolf Squad members at all, the fact that Lin Mo mastered a clone-type skill and had wiped out the entire Frost Wolf Squad using only clones meant his strength was even greater than Karen had thought earlier.

Moreover, the Frost Wolf Squad was a group of subordinates he had cultivated for a long time. It would take a very long time to cultivate another batch of such useful people.

Karen turned his head to look at Lin Mo again: "It seems you're very confident in your own strength?"

He now understood why Lin Mo had done this.

So this kid actually thought his strength could match his own?

Karen burst into loud laughter. Such an absurd idea was truly hard for him not to laugh at.

Almost all professionals on this continent knew that when a professional advanced to the Transcendent Level, they would receive a single attribute enhancement far exceeding any previous level-up. Plus, advancing to the Transcendent Level itself was very difficult, requiring a significant gap in base attributes from the previous level. Therefore, the power disparity between Transcendent Level and non-Transcendent Level was quite obvious.

Not to mention he wasn't just newly arrived at the Transcendent Level...

His level was a full 24!

How utterly lacking in common sense must this kid be to think his strength could compare to his?

"I have to say, you're smarter than I thought, and more talented too. That's good..."

After finishing his laughter, Karen spoke in a condescending tone: "This way, when I kill you and deliver the corpse to that lord, I'm sure he'll be very satisfied."

"Hmm?"

Lin Mo suddenly frowned.

He seemed to have figured out why Karen, the General Manager of this Adventurers' Association branch, someone who logically shouldn't lack money, would engage in such activities.

"Are Necromancers causing trouble again?"

Karen's heart skipped a beat: This kid really is sharp. I just casually said one sentence, and he actually guessed it directly.

But what did he mean by "again"?

Karen didn't continue pondering. The chit-chat should end here. He needed to eliminate this squad as soon as possible to avoid complications.

So he snorted coldly, took out a weapon from his Spatial Ring, and charged directly at Lin Mo.

He wanted to test just how much strength this boastful kid really had.

Watching Karen charging toward him, Lin Mo remained completely calm. Unhurriedly, he took out the Frost Dragon Scale Sword from his Portable Space, then, without dodging or evading, actually went straight to meet him.

[Meteor Thrust]!

He used an Exceptional-Grade skill, planning to test the opponent's depth first.

Of course, he wasn't underestimating his enemy either. Long before the fight started, he had already applied all the buffs he could, including every single buff from Finnie's side.

"Seeking death!"

Seeing Lin Mo actually daring to actively come toward him, a flash of joy immediately appeared in Karen's eyes, followed by contempt.

He had seen Lin Mo's speed before; it was indeed much faster than his own. If this kid completely ignored his women, he might actually have a chance to escape from his hands.

Of course, even so, Karen wasn't worried.

So what if he escaped back to the Adventurers' Association?

Say that he, this Adventurers' Association manager, was the mastermind? Say he was colluding with Necromancers?

The reputation he had built over all those years wasn't for nothing. In the hearts of the vast majority of adventurers, his image as an Adventurers' Association manager was incredibly grand and righteous.

No one would believe some young, inexperienced kid.

That said, if he really did escape, there would still be some trouble.

But now, instead of using his speed to skirmish or escape, he was actually choosing to clash head-on with him. Wasn't that just stupid?

Karen, brimming with confidence, swung his sword down at Lin Mo. Lin Mo similarly didn't avoid it, the tip of his sword precisely meeting the edge of the opponent's blade.

"Clang—!"

Accompanied by a clear, crisp sound, Lin Mo's figure remained completely unmoved, while Karen's expression changed dramatically, staggering backward several steps.

"This... how is this possible?!"

He stared at Lin Mo before him in utter shock.

He was a Transcendent Level expert, a Level 24 Warrior. How could this young man, who clearly hadn't even reached the Transcendent Level, possibly have greater strength than him?

"Tch."

Lin Mo clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction: "In the end, is this all the level you have?"

To be honest, he was a bit disappointed. He had originally thought this Karen could let him properly stretch his limbs, but now it seemed he wasn't even qualified.

This wasn't surprising. Lin Mo's current total Strength attribute itself far exceeded that of ordinary Transcendent Level professionals, only about half a level away from Karen's.

Plus, with the attribute boosts brought by Finnie's and his own Priest profession skills, of course he easily surpassed Karen.

"Really boring..."

Just from this single exchange, Lin Mo lost interest in playing around.

Seeing Lin Mo's obvious look of disdain, Karen immediately flew into a rage. Intense shame and indignation made him roar uncontrollably and charge at Lin Mo once more.

Lin Mo unhurriedly placed the Frost Dragon Scale Sword diagonally at his waist. The next moment, his figure flashed past like a ghost, arriving behind Karen in an instant.

Immediately, a bitingly cold chill suddenly erupted. A brilliant flash of sword light passed by. Karen lowered his head and looked at his own body in disbelief.

The next second, his body directly split apart, the upper half falling to the ground first.

When even his Strength attribute, his area of advantage, wasn't a match for Lin Mo, the power gap between Karen and Lin Mo was simply too vast. Lin Mo only needed to get slightly serious and use his Magic Sword skill to easily crush him.

And in such a one-sided match, his self-created skill [Iaido Flash] was undoubtedly an excellent choice.

After all, this move was truly fast, and truly cool.

The battle ended. Lin Mo then turned to look at Flora beside him.

Flora nodded at him and raised a small, shiny crystal in her hand.

That was a Mana Imaging Crystal. Flora had been staying far away the entire time, even deliberately standing behind Sherfilia and Ellie to conceal her figure, all to do this.

She was recording everything happening before them to avoid troublesome explanations later outside.

Although they had solutions even without the images, that would involve troubling the Doria Kingdom side, or even Finnie's maternal family, the Oxivis Family.

Putting the Phantom Snow Fox along with Karen's corpse into the warehouse of his Portable Space, the warehouse of the Portable Space had now been divided by Lin Mo into many different areas, so there was no need to worry about these corpses dirtying other items in the warehouse.

Thus, the last B-rank mission was also completed. Now they only had two A-rank missions left.

However, the targets of the A-rank missions were still quite a distance from here, and with so much happening today, it was better to simply rest and continue the journey tomorrow.

After confirming there were no other people around, Lin Mo brought everyone back to the villa within his Portable Space.

Everyone returned to their respective rooms to take a bath, then gathered back in the living room, chatting on the sofa.

As the only one who hadn't noticed anything earlier, Finnie naturally couldn't avoid being teased by everyone. For a while, her face flushed red with embarrassment, puffing out her cheeks in a wronged manner. When Lin Mo came out accompanied by Sherfilia, she immediately burrowed into Lin Mo's arms to act spoiled.

"Mr. Lin Mo, they're all bullying me..."

Lin Mo helplessly pinched her cheek. After becoming familiar, Finnie liked to act spoiled more and more.

He could only lean close to the girl's ear and whisper comforting words: "Don't worry too much about these things. It's this innocent, adorable Finnie that I like the most..."

With just this one sentence, Finnie's eyes immediately lit up, instantly feeling that everyone's teasing and jokes had lost their "power."

She giggled foolishly, hugging Lin Mo's arm, proudly puffing out her chest.

See, you're all complicated women. Only someone innocent and adorable like me is Mr. Lin Mo's favorite!

This appearance immediately made everyone laugh again.