Chapter 136: Secret Treasure Vault
Ian picked up a gleaming golden crown from the pile of treasure. It was a crown made entirely of pure gold, inlaid with numerous dazzling gemstones. Just by looking at its design, one could tell it was a priceless crown.
However, when Ian requested to recharge with the system, he was actually rejected!
"This system only accepts currency with circulation value for recharging!" the system replied to him.
This immediately irritated Ian. Sometimes the system seemed flexible and adaptable, but other times it appeared so rigid!?
"This is gold! Such a valuable item, and you're telling me it can't be used for recharging!?"
In response to Ian's question, the system answered: "This item only has value-preserving properties, not circulation value. The host can exchange it for circulating currency before recharging!"
Ian was speechless. He finally understood what the system meant.
Berry, as a paper currency, had no intrinsic value in itself, but it gained value precisely because it could circulate. Gold, on the other hand, was different. Was gold valuable? Certainly, but it couldn't circulate like currency. Its value was primarily reflected in wealth preservation.
Yet the system only accepted currency with circulation value for recharging, which was awkward.
By the same logic, it could be inferred that if Ian had the Kuja tribe's exclusive currency "Snake Hair," it could also be used for recharging, though the exchange rate might be lower because "Snake Hair" didn't circulate as widely as Berry, and its value certainly couldn't match Berry's.
Similarly, even if Ian seized the World Government's printing press and printed massive amounts of Berry bills, he probably couldn't recharge with them, because if those bills weren't issued and circulated, they had no value!
Thinking this way, Ian suddenly grew worried. He feared that the Berry bills in the Celestial Dragons' treasure vault might also be unusable for recharging due to hoarding. That would be terrible.
So, he had to set aside the gold and jewels, run over to the pile of Berry bills, place his hand on them, and request a recharge from the system.
Fortunately, this time the system responded to his request: "Current amount is 5,746,200,000 Berry. Proceed with recharging?"
Holy crap! That much!? Ian was stunned. He had originally thought there might be two or three billion here, but it turned out to be more than he imagined.
Indeed, Berry bills had relatively large denominations, so while the quantity might seem small, the actual amount was quite substantial.
Suppressing his excitement, Ian confirmed the command, and all the Berry bills stacked in the corner instantly vanished.
"You have recharged 5,746,200,000, gaining 28,731,000 diamonds. The system grants an additional 10%. You have received a total of 31,604,100 diamonds!"
"You have made a one-time recharge of 5 billion Berry. You have obtained the Premium VIP Privilege!"
Looking at his long string of diamond numbers, Ian felt dizzy. He had never imagined having so many diamonds in one day. With this many diamonds, if it were in a mobile game, he could probably dominate the entire server, right!?
However, he had originally thought that recharging this much money would unlock the Supreme VIP Privilege, but unexpectedly, it only unlocked the Premium VIP Privilege.
Calculating this way, the Supreme VIP probably required a one-time recharge of over 10 billion Berry to achieve?
Forget it! Premium was fine for now. He could now directly refresh the Premium Card Shop to obtain four-star cards.
So the question was, with diamonds in hand, what should he do?
Nonsense! Upgrade the cards, of course! With limited card slots, even if he did a ten-pull and got new cards, he could only swap them with existing ones. It was better to keep refreshing the Premium Card Shop, buy enough fragments, and upgrade the cards to five-star red cards.
Card games were all like this. At a certain stage, the focus was on cultivating cards. Three five-star cards were definitely stronger than three four-star cards!
With over thirty million diamonds in hand, Ian suddenly felt incredibly powerful and overflowing with wealth. He waved his hand and said to the system: "System, can you automatically refresh and purchase specific items in the shop for me?"
"Affirmative," the system said.
"Great! Keep refreshing the shop continuously. Whenever you see Flying Shadow card fragments, Yasuo card fragments, and Iori card fragments, buy them all. I want to upgrade to red cards!"
Among Ian's current three four-star cards, the Flying Shadow card's ultimate skill, Black Dragon Wave, still required one condition—it needed to be upgraded to five stars before it could be used. The Yasuo card could use all its skills, but it also needed upgrading because Yasuo's card had high stat growth. Upgrading it to a five-star red card would bring significant benefits to Ian. The Iori card was similar to the Flying Shadow card, lacking conditions.
[Iori Yagami]
Card Star Rating: Four Stars (20 Strength, 20 Speed, 10 Life, 10 Spirit per level)
Title: Flame of the End
Level: 11
Strength: 300
Speed: 300
Life: 190
Spirit: 210
Skills:
108 Style: Dark Hand: Strikes a stream of fire along the ground, burning the target. (Can be activated with Intermediate Spirit Training.)
100 Style: Oniyaki: Swings and spins flames to attack and defend against aerial targets. (Can be activated with Intermediate Spirit Training.)
Forbidden 1211 Style: Eight Maidens: Dives toward the target, dealing consecutive attacks. (Can be activated with Advanced Physical Combat and Advanced Spirit Training.)
True 108 Style: Eight Sake Cups: Strikes a more powerful stream of fire forward along the ground. (Can be activated with Expert Spirit Training. Equipping the exclusive treasure Yata no Kagami can add a freezing effect.)
Ultimate:
True 336 Style: Flower of the Beast: Erupts a powerful wave of fire from the ground to attack the target. (Can be activated with Expert Spirit Training and card advancement to five-star red card.)
Bonds:
Obtain Kyo Kusanagi: Strength +32%
Obtain Chizuru Kagura: Spirit +28%
Obtain Goenitz: Spirit +24%
Obtain Orochi: Life +37%
This was the Iori Yagami card's stats. Yasuo's single Last Breath could already damage Kuma's steel body, so the moves from Flying Shadow and Iori, which required advancing to five-star cards to use, could definitely become Ian's trump cards.
Ian initially thought he could have the system automatically refresh the shop for him, buy fragments for these three cards, and then do a large number of ten-pulls to get enough evolution stones to advance them to five-star cards.
However, the system replied to him: "Not recommended. It is suggested to focus on purchasing fragments for one card first."
"Why?" Ian asked, somewhat puzzled.
"Because the diamond count may be insufficient," the system answered concisely.
Pfft! Ian nearly spat out! Over thirty million diamonds, and you're telling me it might not be enough!?
"Yes. Advancing a four-star card to five stars requires ten evolutions, needing twelve identical cards, which is 960 identical fragments. Each four-star fragment costs 4,000 diamonds to purchase, totaling 3.84 million diamonds. Additionally, due to refresh probability issues, a large number of diamonds will be consumed on refreshes. Therefore, if you wish to upgrade to a five-star card, it's best to do it one at a time."
Ian had just been overflowing with nouveau riche arrogance, but after hearing the system's words, he immediately deflated.
He had underestimated the system's money-grabbing nature. Yes, although the VIP level had increased, allowing him to refresh the Premium Card Shop, it seemed the refresh cost had also gone up.
Ian checked and found it was indeed the case. It was now 2,000 diamonds per refresh!
He counted on his fingers and roughly calculated: assuming the probability of refreshing a fragment for the same card was one in ten... no, let's say one in twenty. That meant refreshing twenty times to get one fragment. To collect 960 fragments, he would need to refresh 19,200 times! That was another three million diamonds gone!
Even if he gathered all the fragments, he would still need a large number of ten-pulls to get evolution stones. This...
Ian felt a long-lost sense of being screwed over rising from the depths of his heart!
After a long while, Ian said weakly: "Alright, let's focus on refreshing and buying Flying Shadow card fragments first..."
Once you enter the mobile game pit, money becomes a passerby! Ian finally felt the true meaning of this saying...
After receiving Ian's permission, the system began automatically consuming diamonds to refresh the card shop and make purchases. This process might take a while, so Ian could only wait.
Just as Ian finished his exchange with the system and came back to his senses, he suddenly noticed the ground beginning to tremble slightly, and a rumbling sound came from behind him.
Turning around, Ian was shocked to see that not far behind the dead Celestial Dragon's foolish son, a cylindrical object was gradually rising from the flat ground!
This cylindrical object was stained with traces of fresh blood, seemingly activated by the Celestial Dragon's blood.
"Secret treasure vault!?" The thought crossed Ian's mind, and he quickly ran over.
The cylindrical pillar appeared to be made of some hard alloy. Its upper half was hollow, embedded with a cylindrical glass bubble. Inside that glass bubble was a blue liquid, soaking a small diamond-shaped crystal.
Ian looked at the ground and found that the pillar had risen from where the Celestial Dragon crest was carved into the floor.
In other words, this was something hidden beneath the Celestial Dragon crest. If the Celestial Dragon's blood hadn't flowed into it, it couldn't have been opened.
So, what could this secretly hidden item be? Ian looked up at the diamond-shaped crystal soaked in the liquid.
It was a crystal piece about the size of a palm. In the center was carved the Celestial Dragon's Nine-Heavenly Soaring Dragon Hoofprint, but around the edges were engraved numerous strange characters.
"This... this looks like ancient text!" Ian said, somewhat astonished after carefully examining it.
So the question was, what exactly was this crystal piece!?