Chapter 97: Unexpected
Inside the exclusive room, Su Xiao was deep in thought, holding a scroll and a medal in his hands. He had already gathered the conditions to advance his Blade Dao to the Grandmaster level, but there was one more thing: after promoting Blade Dao to the Grandmaster rank, how exorbitant would the upgrade cost be?
Based on his previous trial challenge, Su Xiao realized that Blade Master and Blade Grandmaster were abilities on entirely different levels. Su Xiao had suppressed the trial projection, Silcia, in all attributes, let alone his various other skills.
Even so, during their first exchange, Silcia had beaten Su Xiao so badly he couldn't fight back. If it weren't for using various abilities to fill the gaps, coupled with getting used to Silcia's attack patterns after multiple battles, he would never have been able to defeat her.
If it had been a life-or-death battle, Su Xiao would already be dead, killed by Silcia, who only possessed a single Grandmaster-level ability.
From this, it was clear just how massive the gap between Master-level and Grandmaster-level abilities was. More importantly, Grandmaster-level abilities had a high baseline even at the initial stage. Silcia's Melee Combat Grandmaster completely crushed Su Xiao's Blade Master, highlighting the difference.
Su Xiao tossed the medal in his hand, and the [Proof of Honor] flying through the air suddenly shattered.
[Proof of Honor consumed.]
[Grandmaster Force (Completed) consumed.]
[Blade Master rank increasing...]
Su Xiao's pupils gradually dilated as a flood of fragmented knowledge poured into his mind—all about blade techniques, insights, secret arts, and more.
After an unknown amount of time, Su Xiao's eyes regained their clarity. He stood up and walked toward the adjacent room.
This was Su Xiao's dedicated blade practice room. On one side of the room stood 20 pillars as thick as water barrels. Some pillars were made of metal, others of crystal, and the hardest few were crafted from some kind of ore and alloy.
The pillars were numbered from 1 to 20. Pillars 1 through 6 had already been severed.
These pillars were rare materials Su Xiao had exchanged for a large sum of Paradise Coins. The exchange cost was only 10% of the original price, but don't think that was cheap. These rare materials had two common traits: 1. They were extremely hard, and 2. They couldn't be taken out of the exclusive room, which was why they were so inexpensive.
The reason for spending a fortune on these pillars was simple: to test cutting power. Now, Pillar 7 was covered in dense slash marks, indicating that Su Xiao still couldn't cut through this material called "Moro Composite Metal."
Su Xiao stood before the "Moro Composite Metal Pillar." He had tested it before—Blade Master was absolutely incapable of cutting through this thing.
Su Xiao took a deep breath, his right hand slowly gripping the sword hilt. The long blade slid from its sheath. With a *shiiing* sound, a blue thread-like line swept across. The Moro Composite Metal Pillar remained standing there, but Su Xiao knew he had cut through it—cleanly, without any hesitation, unlike before when he'd hack at it for ages, only leaving a mess of slash marks on the surface.
Su Xiao didn't know exactly how he managed this. In his perception, he simply could do it, as naturally as raising his arm or blinking.
With a deafening *clang*, the 34-ton Moro Composite Metal Pillar crashed to the ground. The density of this material was terrifying, so its weight was naturally immense.
"Clearly getting stronger."
Su Xiao smiled, sheathing Dragon-Slaying Flash. He walked out of the practice room while checking his Blade Dao ability.
[Blade Grandmaster: Lv.1 (Passive Skill)]
Skill Effect: Increases blade-type weapon attack power by 240%, neural reflex speed +3%, immune to mental-type control, immune to psychic-type seduction, inducement, etc.
Initial Additional Ability: Universal Rhythm Blade Aura—Blade Aura flight speed +150%, Edge Value +30, Armor Pierce +25. Blade Aura is an energy-based entity.
...
After successfully advancing Blade Dao to the Grandmaster level, the attack power bonus for blade-type weapons had actually decreased rather than increased. This was normal because the Blade Grandmaster level was only Lv.1.
Compared to the reduction in blade weapon attack power, Su Xiao was very satisfied with the new 3% neural reflex speed bonus. A 3% bonus seemed small, but in reality, this was an enhancable bonus.
That meant that every time Su Xiao increased his Blade Grandmaster level by 1 in the future, his neural reflex speed would improve. Accumulated over time, this would become a terrifying bonus amount.
As a melee fighter who used blades, what Su Xiao feared most were mental or psychic controls. Although the two were very similar, they couldn't be lumped together.
Mental-type control was an ability derived from Intelligence attributes, while psychic-type control stemmed from Charm attributes. The difference between them could be vividly compared as:
Mental-type control was like an old witch holding a staff, forcibly interfering with your judgment. The experience was extremely unpleasant and hard on the eyes.
Psychic-type control, on the other hand, was much easier on the eyes—it was like a completely naked girl flaunting herself in front of you. While equally deadly, the experience was clearly much better.
For a melee fighter like Su Xiao, neither the old witch nor the naked girl was a good thing. Once controlled, it was "a song of chilliness" for himself.
Su Xiao had developed his Blade Dao to this level, so of course, it could compensate for this weakness. Otherwise, this ability wouldn't have been worth investing so many resources. Although his previous Blade Dao could also resist mental-type control, the scope was limited—it could resist determinable mental-type control and some control that bypassed judgment.
For mental-type control abilities that bypassed judgment and took effect directly, Su Xiao's previous Blade Dao had a certain chance of failing to resist them.
Blade Grandmaster was different. This ability completely nullified both mental-type and psychic-type control.
Contractors skilled in blade techniques being immune to mental and psychic control was common knowledge in Reincarnation Paradise, just like most tanks being immune to blunt damage and knockback, or most mages having astonishing elemental resistance. These were all basic facts.
Blade Dao cultivated the mind, body, and technique. The mind came first. If you couldn't even resist mental and psychic control, what was the point of cultivating the mind? "Cultivating immortality" would clearly be more reliable.
Advancing Blade Dao was a process of tempering willpower, body, and technique. That was precisely why Su Xiao treated it as his core ability.
Su Xiao sat cross-legged on the bed. The Black Maple Tree, planted in a large flowerpot, was placed on the bedside table. He was meditating.
This meditation was vastly different from previous ones. Su Xiao sensed that the Black Maple Tree, only about 30 centimeters tall, acted like a signal amplifier. Through this tree, he could more intuitively perceive his surroundings, or rather, perceive this world.
Unfortunately, the Black Maple Tree could only be placed in the exclusive room for now. At the very least, he would have to wait until it grew to 50 centimeters tall and developed some resistance to the outside world before attempting to take it out of the exclusive room.
Meditating in a natural environment, using the Black Maple Tree as a medium, would yield the best results.
After meditating for several hours, Su Xiao gained a preliminary understanding of the changes in his Blade Dao. Of course, there was something he cared about even more: the cost of upgrading Blade Grandmaster Lv.1. He tried to upgrade it, and a prompt appeared.
[Yes/No to upgrade Blade Grandmaster Lv.1. Upgrading this ability requires Soul Crystal (Large) × 1 + 50,000 Paradise Coins.]
Su Xiao blinked, confirming he hadn't misread. The upgrade cost was different from what he had expected—not only was it not exorbitantly expensive, but it was actually quite cheap. One Soul Crystal (Large) plus 50,000 Paradise Coins was practically a bargain for a core ability.
Su Xiao suddenly realized that his hard times might be over. The investment in Blade Master hadn't been wasted. Judging by the initial upgrade cost of Blade Grandmaster, this was a case of accumulating strength over time. For a while to come, his combat power would increase rapidly.