Chapter 3: Exploration Level: High (You have reached Ada Ancient Capital, Ring Tree City, Hot Jungle, Sun Wetlands, Soul Arena, Elven Capital Pandalan (Bay City), Great Ruins, Cold Cemetery, White Swamp, Black Forest, Underground Tree Hollow, Dark Domain, Abundant Waters.)
Settlement complete, beginning reward tally.
Rewards obtained: 40 True Attribute Points (Treeborn World settlement cap), Refined Immortal Stones ×15 (Treeborn World settlement cap).
True Power: Plunder ability activated, you will gain 1 to 3 Golden Skill Points.
Tip: You have gained 3 Golden Skill Points (determined by overall evaluation).
Settlement complete, Hunter's current brand level is Lv.79, brand level +5 (based on Primordial World rank × number of completed tasks + overall evaluation - task completion time).
Tip: Treeborn World settlement, brand level can be increased by a maximum of Lv.7 in a single instance. Hunter's brand level has been raised to Lv.80 (cannot exceed this level before rank promotion).
Tip: Detected that within the Hunter's Honor Shop, there are brand-level-related items not yet redeemed. You may proceed with this exchange or actively apply for the rank promotion assessment.
Tip: Additional authority +Lv.4.
Settlement complete, rewards have been deposited into the Hunter's brand.
……
Su Xiao closed the settlement list. He hadn't forgotten that in his Honor Shop, there was an item very suitable for him to exchange now. That item was:
[Beginning of Nightmare]
Category: Eighth Rank Buff/Debuff Authority.
Effect: After exchanging this authority, the Hunter's brand level will decrease by Lv.4. In the next world progress, you will definitely enter an Eighth Rank high-risk world. Within this world, the quality of obtained chests increases by 16%, and the amount of obtained World Source increases by 27%.
Tip: After exchanging this authority, the main missions the Hunter accepts within the high-risk Eighth Rank world will also be extremely dangerous.
Price: 1 Diamond Honor Medal
Stock: 1 (This item will remain in the Honor Shop for 6 world progresses).
……
[Tip: SSS-level Adventure Group shared ability has been triggered. Each world settlement, based on the overall evaluation obtained by the Adventure Group leader, corresponding team skill points will be awarded.]
[You have gained 20 Team Skill Points.]
[Team skill activated, Hunt Group (Passive Lv.2): During world settlement, you can increase 1 point of your own body attribute (one of the four attributes: Stamina, Charm, Luck, Willpower, randomly increased).]
[This skill benefits: Hunter himself, Bubuteni, Amu, Baha, Beini.]
……
With the appearance of the final tip, Bubu Wang, Amu, Baha, and Beini all gathered around. It was time to start the 'lottery drawing.'
[Tip: Your Luck attribute has increased by 1 point.]
Seeing this tip, Su Xiao was quite surprised. This time, it wasn't the Charm attribute that increased, but the crucial Luck attribute.
Su Xiao's current Luck attribute was 52 points. To obtain the attribute reward for reaching 50 points in Luck, Su Xiao was not yet prepared to claim it. Among the 52 Luck points, 8 were increased through Fate Dominator, meaning equipment bonuses.
His current naked Luck attribute was 44 points. When his naked Luck attribute reached 50 points, he would go to the Attribute Enhancement Pod to obtain the characteristic ability derived from 50 points of Luck. The returns would be several times higher.
The total Team Skill Points were 21. Su Xiao spent 1 point to upgrade the 'Hunt Group' ability and 18 points to upgrade the team survival ability 'Vitality Awakening,' successfully raising it by 6 levels.
There were quite a few abilities to upgrade this time, but Su Xiao noticed a problem. The focus of the Blood Spear Grandmaster ability wasn't using the blood spear for attacks; the blood spear was just an accessory. The greatest effect of Blood Spear Grandmaster was to completely clarify one of Su Xiao's sword techniques' schools: the Blood Qi system.
Among the sword techniques Su Xiao developed, there were two schools: the 'Shadow System' derived from Cyan Steel Shadow Energy, and the 'Blood Qi System' derived from Blood Qi.
'Shadow System' sword techniques included: Ring Break, Azure Demon, Absolute Nether, Time, Extreme, Flow, Absolute Shadow Flash.
'Blood Qi System' sword techniques included: Blood Blade, Blood Shadow, Slay.
Holding only one sword made the mind more focused when fighting a powerful enemy. However, as a Blade Grandmaster, when truly outmatched, pulling out the Dead Silence Extinction with his left hand and firing a few shots at the enemy was also understandable.
The melee blood spear was abandoned; it rarely performed well in actual combat. The reason was the lack of matching combat techniques. Last time, when Su Xiao fought the old knight and recklessly swung the blood spear, he was almost killed by the opponent's Overlord Slash.
The blood spear was better suited for ultra-long-range sniping. For example, during the contractor melee on Ser Star, Su Xiao used a tall Blood Qi phantom to draw a bow and shoot blood spears, one blood spear able to blow up several enemy contractors.
Su Xiao's current plan was, aside from the three abilities that urgently needed long-term improvement—Blade Grandmaster, Melee Grandmaster, and Blood Spear Grandmaster—other abilities, such as Dragon Shadow Flash, Spirit Shadow Constitution, Slaughter Shadow, and the basic passive Revive, would all be raised to X using Golden Skill Points.
Each ability raised to X would be moved to the bottom of the skill list, indicating that these abilities would never need resource investment again, having reached their limit. The more abilities reached X, the cleaner Su Xiao's skill list looked, and the stronger he became.
Su Xiao checked his own abilities and quickly selected three to push to X level. They were:
[Dragon Shadow Flash, X+++++++]
[Slaughter Shadow, X+++++]
[Spirit Shadow Constitution, X++++++]
……
Su Xiao took out [Sacred Oak], activated its effect, and chose to sacrifice 5 points of Charm attribute in exchange for 1 Golden Skill Point.
But after waiting for a while, Su Xiao didn't feel anything obvious. It seemed some existence intended to extract something from his body, but after struggling for a long time on the other side, nothing was extracted.
[Tip: Your Charm attribute has slightly declined.]
[Your current Charm attribute is: -12 points.]
[Notary: Void Tree has absorbed the special energy within [Sacred Oak] as the equivalent for this transaction.]
[You have gained 1 Golden Skill Point (this reward comes from the Void Tree).]
[Ancient God: Sacred Oak attempts to reclaim the [Sacred Oak] in your possession.]
[Tip: This item was obtained by the Hunter through notarized channels and is the Hunter's property. Ancient God: Sacred Oak has no right to reclaim it.]
[Tip: A warning has been issued to Ancient God: Sacred Oak.]
[Tip: Ancient God: Sacred Oak has offered a sincere apology to the Hunter and will no longer attempt to reclaim [Sacred Oak].]
……
Several consecutive tips appeared, and Su Xiao understood what was happening. First, using [Sacred Oak] to exchange for Golden Skill Points actually involved using one's own source energy for the transaction.
On the other side of the transaction was the Ancient God: Sacred Oak, which could not produce Golden Skill Points. These were unique resources of the Paradise faction and the Void Tree. Therefore, during the transaction, the Void Tree acted as the resource intermediary.
Su Xiao really didn't know before that [Sacred Oak] had another party. He originally thought it was just a special piece of equipment. Unexpectedly, there was another party called Ancient God: Sacred Oak.
Simply put, during Su Xiao's process of obtaining Golden Skill Points, the third-party seller somehow got involved and tried to profit from Su Xiao.
Su Xiao estimated that Ancient God: Sacred Oak had an extremely close connection with [Sacred Oak], allowing it to do this.
Su Xiao wasn't freeloading this time. He bought [Sacred Oak] for 230 Kill Merits. He had already spent the money to buy it, so it was his property. Of course, he would find a way to avoid its negative effects. If there was no way to avoid its negative effects, who would be crazy enough to spend 230 Kill Merits to buy it?
Now it seemed that Ancient God: Sacred Oak was trying to eat twice. First, it ate when someone spent Kill Merits to buy [Sacred Oak], obtaining its profit. Second, it ate the source energy sacrificed by the user.
The current situation was that, due to Su Xiao's advantage in the Charm attribute, he wouldn't have his source energy taken.
When someone avoided Ancient God: Sacred Oak's second bite, it bit into nothing and immediately became furious, trying to reclaim the [Sacred Oak] that Su Xiao bought for 230 Kill Merits. This was typical of someone who couldn't handle losing—profiting was taken for granted, but losing immediately led to reneging.
Su Xiao's eyes showed contemplation. This Ancient God: Sacred Oak seemed very wealthy. He had a plan in mind. If it succeeded later, there might be considerable gains.
Su Xiao wasn't angry at all about being fished. Not to mention that the other party didn't succeed; this time, he had actually met a 'benefactor' and should be happy instead.
It could be said that Ancient God: Sacred Oak was quite courageous. It was the first divine system existence daring to fish a Law Destroyer. Even evil gods and ancient gods had never done this.