Chapter Nineteen: The Black Sails Pirate King

Chu Cheng was suddenly struck by inspiration, his gaze flickering as he looked around.

“Exploiting terrain glitches—that could work too,” he thought. If he could find a spot where the boss couldn’t reach, he could surround himself with a group of lesser monsters; the damage would only bounce back to the boss. As long as—

“No, that won’t do,” he immediately corrected himself. If the boss keeps getting attacked but can’t hit back, it will avoid the situation. It wouldn’t just stand there and let him kill it—unless the boss was also trapped and couldn’t escape. But if he could manage that, he wouldn’t need his talent at all; he could just kite the boss from a distance.

“It’s still no good,” he sighed. Ultimately, he was simply too weak. He’d just reached level ten and changed classes, his skills and equipment were incomplete, and there were many maneuvers he just couldn’t pull off.

“Best to stick to attending the big lectures for now,” he said, exhaling softly and turning to Zhang Chunlei. “Let’s deal with this group of pirates first.”

“Head-on?” Zhang Chunlei asked.

“Head-on.”

“Alright.”

Having agreed, the two of them jumped down from the rooftop to regroup with Wang Weilong. They shared their plan with the rest of the team, and all three readily agreed.

There were no fancy tricks—just an honest approach, following the army into battle.

Chu Cheng charged in at the front, shouldering his way into the ranks of the pirates, and soon found himself battered by familiar scimitar blows.

But this time, instead of letting the damage rebound at random, he controlled the rebound to target the pirates behind the ones around him, prioritizing pirate squad leaders or pirate lieutenants mixed within the mob.

The pirates immediately around him, not being harmed by the rebounded attacks, had no reason to panic or flee. Instead, they focused solely on hacking away at him.

“That’s the feeling!” he thought with satisfaction.

Under his deliberate control, all the pirate captains and lieutenants within a thirty-meter radius of him suffered a terrible fate. Countless invisible spatial blades sliced through them, as if they were being subjected to a thousand cuts—grisly and unbearable to watch.

In less than two minutes, chaos began to ripple through the pirates around him—their commanders and lieutenants had all perished, leaving them momentarily leaderless.

Now, with no leadership, the regular pirates were next to fall.

It seemed as if an unseen monster was slaughtering through the crowd; every few seconds, a cluster of pirates would suddenly collapse as if mown down by a scythe.

A few such cycles, and dozens were dead. An unexpected vacuum appeared in the middle of the street.

This scene did not go unnoticed by the teachers observing from the castle rooftop. They couldn’t help but click their tongues in amazement.

“What a bizarre talent!”

“Truly extraordinary.”

“If there were no boss, he alone could hold off and even kill a thousand regular pirates.”

He Xiao, the homeroom teacher of Class One, glanced at Duan Yuqin and smiled. “This student is impressive—he has the potential to get into a top-tier academy.”

But Duan Yuqin countered, “Only a top-tier academy?”

He Xiao chuckled. “Top-tier is the baseline—he might even make it to the elite. But that’s only potential. Whether he actually gets in depends on his own development and whether he has enough resources. As far as I know, he’s switched to dual-blade warrior, which is only a mid-tier class, not even advanced. His foundational advantages are lacking.”

“Also, from what I’ve gathered, while his background is decent, he’s not valued within his family and hasn’t received much in the way of support or resources.”

“All things considered, aside from his impressive talent, he doesn’t have much else going for him. With the bonus from that talent, getting into a top-tier academy shouldn’t be a problem, but making it into the elite academies will be much harder.”

Duan Yuqin pressed her lips together and fell silent.

He Xiao continued, “Class Five is at the bottom of the school rankings. You have limited resources to distribute, and only these five students in your class are worth investing in. It will be hard to allocate your resources evenly. Maybe it’s time to consider a different approach. I have a suggestion—would you like to hear it?”

Without even looking at him, as if she already knew what he was going to say, Duan Yuqin shook her head. “There’s no need.”

He Xiao asked earnestly, “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

He shrugged. “Alright, as you wish. But let me remind you—your resources aren’t enough to support all of them, especially if you want to groom one for an elite academy. If your students find out your intentions, they probably won’t be happy. If they decide to transfer to another class, don’t regret it later.”

“I know what I’m doing.”

He Xiao spread his hands, saying nothing further.

Meanwhile, the tide of battle on the main street had shifted dramatically. Many pirates had been quietly killed by Chu Cheng’s talent without even knowing what was happening. The front lines were beginning to crumble.

He could kill about ten pirates every ten seconds—fifty or sixty a minute. In ten minutes… While five or six hundred might be a stretch, two or three hundred was no problem. His efficiency was astounding.

There were only five or six hundred pirates on the central street to begin with. In just over ten minutes, nearly half had fallen for no apparent reason, and the situation reversed—from offense to defense, the pirates retreated step by step.

The chief pirate in command, Mac, immediately pulled out a signal flare and set it off. A ball of flame burst in the sky, forming a blood-red skull that hung ominously above the battlefield.

A deafening bell rang out from the direction of the castle. Everyone knew: the Pirate King and his main force had landed—the final battle was about to begin.

At that moment, Chu Cheng and Wang Weilong received a message from their homeroom teacher, ordering them to fall back immediately.

Chu Cheng was also curious to see the Pirate King’s strength and what challenges lay ahead, so he obediently retreated with the team, hiding in a small building facing the street.

When they climbed up, they were surprised to find that many students from other classes were also gathered on the rooftops of neighboring buildings, having finished off the pirates on other routes and regrouped here.

The pirates had retreated, and the defenders had also fallen back to reorganize, leaving the two sides facing off across the main street, separated by a hundred meters of tense silence.

It wasn’t long before Chu Cheng saw a group of pirates approaching from the rear. His gaze landed on one pirate who looked like a mere foot soldier, and information immediately appeared:

Elite Black Sail Pirate (Normal): Level 20, 800 HP.

Their health was lower than a pirate lieutenant’s, and their strength wasn’t much better, but they outnumbered the lieutenants by far. Of the three hundred or so pirates surging in, sixty or seventy were elite Black Sail Pirates.

But Chu Cheng’s attention wasn’t drawn to these elites. Instead, it was fixed on the tiny, frail old man at the center of the mob.

The old man’s clothes were exquisitely tailored, resembling both a formal suit and a mage’s robe. In his hand, he held an equally ornate black staff adorned with several enormous gemstones.

Black Sail Pirate King (Terrifying): King of the Black Sail Pirates, Level 39, 4,000 HP.

A terrifying template, yet his health was lower than that of some lower-ranked bosses. He didn’t look like a Pirate King at all—but no one present dared to underestimate him, for the Black Sail Pirate King was a mage.

Low health was normal for mages. The higher their rank, the less health—and the more fearsome they became.

At this point, any thoughts Chu Cheng had of taking action were extinguished. He kept quietly to the rear, content to watch the unfolding spectacle.