Chapter 38: Pale Red Warning
Pale green specks of light drifted around Su Xiao, occasionally sinking into his body, rapidly healing his injuries.
[Healing complete. A total of 86,520 Paradise Coins consumed.]
Su Xiao slowly descended. The sharp pain and suffocating pressure in his chest vanished, giving him a sense of being reborn. This was no exaggeration; when the battle with the Moon God ended, Su Xiao had believed he would die from his severe wounds during the teleportation.
Bubu Wang and Baha's injuries were also healed. Baha flopped directly onto the ground, unwilling to move an inch.
"How is the core doing?"
Su Xiao asked. Hearing his 'voice of nightmares,' Baha shuddered.
"Very good."
Baha's tone was resolute, but his words confirmed to Su Xiao that the core's condition was likely not good.
Grabbing Baha, Su Xiao headed toward the Alchemy Laboratory. At this moment, Baha no longer had any of its previous ferocity.
Two hours later, Su Xiao emerged from the Alchemy Laboratory. Baha, having lain on the repair table... operating table for a while, finally came to its senses. It realized one thing: Su Xiao's repairs were 'more terrifying' than fighting the Moon God.
Fully recovered, Baha took Amu out to have some fun, to soothe Amu's miserable mood from swimming across an entire world.
Bubu Wang and Beini were staring each other down, looking ready to start a cat-and-dog fight at any moment. Their conflict today was nearly irreconcilable—it was about the taste of tofu pudding.
Su Xiao left his Exclusive Room and headed straight for the Attribute Enhancement Hall. Not only were physical attributes the foundation of all abilities, but the prerequisite for 'Soul Threads' also made it urgent for Su Xiao to enhance his various capabilities.
Su Xiao had used a soul-type binding ability once before. When fighting the Black King, he used a disposable item called [Soul Shackles].
The strength of [Soul Shackles] surprised Su Xiao. The Black King was completely unable to break free from the soul chains, allowing him to take an Apollo at point-blank range.
As for Soul Threads, they were definitely tougher than [Soul Shackles]. A control effect lasting 10 to 600 seconds was practically despair-inducing.
Unfortunately, Su Xiao was still a long way from mastering Soul Threads.
[Welcome to the High-Grade Enhancement Pod. Your unarmored True Attributes are as follows...]
Su Xiao closed the information and directly allocated 13 True Attribute Points. Although he needed to raise Intelligence to 150 points, the Shadow of Law Destruction had a main attribute restriction: the unarmored main attributes could not differ by more than 3 points. Therefore, Su Xiao continued with balanced development.
In the end, his allocation was: Strength +1, Agility +4, Stamina +4, Intelligence +4. His True Attribute Points were completely consumed. These were hard to obtain but easy to spend.
The Attribute Enhancement Pod began operating. Compared to the massive increase last time, this enhancement was much smaller.
Half an hour later, Su Xiao wiped the sweat from his face. He was adapting faster and faster to his rapidly strengthening body.
Su Xiao checked his unarmored attribute information, not to see how much his four main attributes had increased, but to check on his Charm attribute.
True Strength: 124 points
True Agility: 124 points
True Stamina: 124 points
True Intelligence: 124 points
True Charm: 1 point
...
Seeing that the 1 point of Charm was still there, Su Xiao felt relieved. This 1 point of Charm was mysteriously resilient. Or perhaps, unless affected by an enemy's ability, attributes couldn't go negative?
Su Xiao quickly dismissed this thought, because that 1 point of Charm had turned into a pale red font.
Due to his Charm attribute frequently decreasing, Su Xiao had extremely rich experience in this area. Attribute reduction was not a sudden event; there were many subtle hints, the most obvious being the color of the attribute.
Pale red indicated it had started to slip. Normal red meant it was about to drop—be careful. Dark red meant it could drop at any moment. As for blood red, give up struggling; it would definitely decrease by 1 point in the near future.
It was now pale red, which was relatively safe. After all, Su Xiao hadn't killed many people in the Insect World or the Moon God World, or rather, he hadn't personally killed many enemies.
Leaving the Attribute Enhancement Hall, Su Xiao habitually walked toward the Trade Market to adapt to his strengthened body.
The bustling scene in the Trade Market continued almost all day. Su Xiao made a round and only found one Legendary-grade helmet that was decent, but he couldn't wear it. It would affect his senses. Those skilled in using long blades almost never wore headgear. The blade art was about the body, the heart, nature, and enlightenment.
In the early stages, the blade art was a common ability that almost anyone could practice. But when cultivated to the later stages, the blade art became a supernatural ability, and one of the most lethal types.
In fact, the requirements of the blade art were more stringent than other supernatural abilities. Each transformation would weed out batches of blade art practitioners, leaving behind only blade masters with explosive frontal attack power.
After wandering around the Trade Market a few more times, Su Xiao saw many good items. A pair of Epic-grade foot armor sold by a lone wolf caught his interest, but unfortunately, he didn't have enough Paradise Coins, and the price was inflated.
Returning to his Exclusive Room, Bubu Wang and Beini had already made up. They didn't solve the root problem; instead, they decided to switch to sour cabbage fish for this meal.
Clearly, this was a bad idea from Bubu Wang. Beini liked fish but was afraid of spiciness. Now, she was sniffling from the heat, but the delicious food cooked by Xia made it impossible for her to stop.
"Hoo~"
Beini lay flat on the carpet, belly up. Bubu Wang poked its head over. Having just eaten spicy food, its nose was dripping, forming a string of snot that hung precariously over Beini's face, about to drop. Beini had her eyes closed, a look of blissful fullness on her face.
Su Xiao didn't look at them. Instead, he sat cross-legged on the bed, preparing to open two treasure chests. One was an Epic-grade chest, obtained after killing Eagle Marquis's guard. The other was a random chest from a hidden quest, which could yield White to ??? quality items, equipment, skill scrolls, etc.
After applying his lucky state, Su Xiao opened the first Epic-grade chest. Golden light burst forth—a flash! And it lasted for several seconds.
[You have opened an Epic Treasure Chest (40%).]
[You have obtained: Deformed Love (Epic-grade Weapon).]
[You have obtained: Handwritten Notes (No Grade).]
[You have obtained: Shelter Memorial Bead (Contract Relic).]
...
[Deformed Love]
Origin: Moon God World
Quality: Epic-grade
Category: Long Whip (3.76 meters)
Material: Wyvern Leather, Chrome Metal Fiber, Dark Feather...
Durability: 37/37
Attack Power: 210～273
Equipment Requirements: True Strength 95 points, True Agility 95 points, Soft Weapon Basic Skill Lv.40 or above.
Equipment Effect 1: Fragile (Passive), Compared to weapons of the same rank, Deformed Love has extremely low durability, but its base attack intensity is increased by 20%.
Equipment Effect 2: Nerve Stimulation (Passive), When hitting an enemy with Deformed Love, the enemy's pain-sensing nerves will be overloaded, increasing pain sensation by 5 times for 10 seconds (This ability has no cooldown and cannot stack). When whipping an enemy, there is a 10% chance of causing partial limb nervous system paralysis, and a 5% chance of amplifying all negative senses by 7 to 10 times.
Equipment Effect 3: Whip Mark (Active), Unleash a full-force whip, dealing Strength x 1.7, Agility x 2.8 damage to all enemies within a 15-meter fan-shaped area in front, with a 13% chance of causing the 'Deformed Love' Charm-type control effect.
Tip: Deformed Love (Passive), Stuns the target for 0.7 to 1.2 seconds.
Tip: This ability consumes 430 Mana Points, cooldown 6 hours.
Rating: 689 points (Epic-grade equipment rating is 530～700)
Introduction: I love you. Watching you cry when whipped makes me want to protect you more. Only I can hurt you. But... darling, why aren't you moving? You've even stopped breathing—Marcus Fran.
Price: 387,000 Paradise Coins
...