Chapter 3: Energy-Type Damage Tier
Notification: The Hunter must choose one of three damage tier characteristics. After making a choice, the Deep Blue Shadow title will undergo permanent adaptation and stabilization. Therefore, this selection cannot be changed and requires careful consideration.
Notification: The practical combat effect brought by increasing the damage tier is that when facing enemies with strong defenses, the lethality caused by weapons will greatly exceed the practical effects brought by characteristics such as defense reduction or defense weakening.
Title Effect 2: Undying (Passive), increases the wearer's total health by 30% (this bonus has priority and is a 30% increase based on the sum of all the Hunter's health-related bonuses).
Title Effect 3: Deep Blue (Core · Passive), this title contains Deep Blue energy that will resonate with your physical body. After equipping this title, your body speed will increase by 25%. This is a constant effect. During combat, each time you are attacked, this power will be further stimulated, granting an additional 5% increase in body speed, lasting for 6 minutes.
Notification: This effect can stack up to three times, and each stack also extends the duration. When the body speed increase from this title reaches 40%, the Deep Blue energy within the title will stabilize, allowing this bonus to persist until the end of the current battle.
Notification: Deep Blue energy can recover on its own. However, if a battle lasts too long, causing the Deep Blue energy within the title to be exhausted, the Hunter must substitute with soul energy or temporarily lose this speed bonus.
Notification: If the Deep Blue energy within this title naturally recovers to full, based on the Hunter's current combat intensity, it can support you for 12 to 17 natural days in a single battle.
Notification: Deep Blue energy is a rare beneficial characteristic energy. If your body absorbs, contacts, or resonates with this energy for a long time, your speed-oriented potential will undergo permanent growth enhancement (this potential increase is substantial but requires a longer period).
Introduction: This is the wrathful shadow within the deep blue.
Selling Price: Cannot be sold.
...
The Deep Blue Shadow has quite a few attributes, but simply put, it boils down to three basic aspects: attack, survival, and speed.
The more basic and simple the bonuses, the more overwhelmingly powerful they become at high levels, completely outclassing all flashy effects.
Regarding the first effect of the [Deep Blue Shadow] title, "Adaptive Power (Passive)," Su Xiao hesitated only briefly before choosing blade-type weapons from the three damage tier enhancements: blade-type weapons, soul, and energy. The attribute of Title Effect 1 immediately changed:
"Title Effect 1: Adaptive Power (Passive), damage tier of blade-type weapons +1."
The reason for this choice was related to Su Xiao's development path. Admittedly, choosing soul or energy damage tier enhancement would provide a more comprehensive boost to soul damage and Cyan Steel Shadow energy/blood energy damage. However, one must not forget that Su Xiao's physical attribute enhancement was already a comprehensive four-attribute improvement.
If his ability tendencies were also like this, it would be too damn comprehensive. Sometimes, being comprehensive equates to being mediocre—master of everything, expert of nothing.
Therefore, Su Xiao's development direction was to comprehensively develop all four physical attributes as the foundation, and then, on top of that, specifically elevate one aspect of his ability tendencies.
Regarding the damage tier of blade-type weapons: Blade Grandmaster Lv.60 +1, Technique Sublimation maxed out +1, Silver Moon Wolf · Wolf Blood Pendant +1, and now Deep Blue Shadow +1.
With such enhancements, when Su Xiao gripped his long blade, he felt a vague sense that nothing could withstand it. Perhaps it was precisely because the damage tier was stacked so high that he could achieve such effects when fighting the Underworld Emperor earlier. An ordinary Immortal-rank long blade, even at +14, might not necessarily work against an Abyss powerhouse like the Underworld Emperor.
Without the damage tier bonus to support it, he might need an Origin-rank long blade to fight the Underworld Emperor.
After Su Xiao made his choice, the characteristics of the [Deep Blue Shadow] title completely stabilized. He equipped it, and the next second, he felt a slightly cool yet refreshing energy, as clear as the sky, enter his body, increasing his vitality by nearly a third.
Given Su Xiao's current survivability, the 30% increase in health was particularly noticeable, putting him in a good mood. Wasn't the reason he had been frantically leveling up "Basic Passive · Body Soul" and "Basic Passive · Awakening" precisely to enhance survivability from the aspects of physique and perception, in order to deal with the dangers of Dead Silence City?
Now, the massive boost to survivability from "Deep Blue Shadow" gave him even more confidence in exploring Dead Silence City. As the saying goes, if a melee title doesn't even enhance survivability, what kind of melee title is it? It might as well be treated as a secondary title for refinement.
The increase in vitality within his body was very intuitive. Even more intuitive was the increase in body speed, especially the charge speed, neural reflex speed, and dynamic vision. These characteristics perfectly complemented Su Xiao's melee combat.
Not only that, but the increase in body speed also reflected in his perception. The "Basic Passive · Awakening" that Su Xiao had previously enhanced made this chain of benefits even more pronounced.
Don't forget, Su Xiao had already mastered Soul Severing Shadow in the previous world. Now, the illusory soul disk formed by the soul energy within his body could switch between four types of soul core states.
"Cyan Steel · Soul Core (Passive Characteristic): Comprehensive intensity of Cyan Steel Shadow ability increased by 20%. This enhancement can exceed the maximum limit of the Cyan Steel Shadow ability (the 20% enhancement includes the true damage caused by burning the enemy's body energy, as well as the Aoge form and Law Annihilation form).
Notification: This is a passive characteristic soul core. After switching the Soul Severing Shadow ability to this soul core, this soul core will continuously take effect passively with no consumption. Only one soul core can be activated at a time.
Rapid · Soul Core (Passive Characteristic): Greatly increases body speed but will highly increase the speed of stamina effect consumption.
Soul Severing · Soul Core (Passive Characteristic): Can "sever" or "cut off" souls, depending on the difference in soul strength. If one's soul strength is higher than the enemy's, while cutting the enemy's physical body, the corresponding part of the soul can also be severed.
Blade Spirit · Soul Core: Can be activated after Blade Grandmaster reaches Lv.70."
Su Xiao commonly used the "Rapid · Soul Core," while a few days ago, he used the "Soul Severing · Soul Core" to cut the Dragon God to the point of near depression.
Calculating the time, the "famous doctor" Kaisa should have almost found the Dragon God Dean. The "treatment" Kaisa was providing for the other's soul damage was a business worth tens of thousands of soul coins. The Dragon God, known as the strongest Eighth Rank contractor in the history of Apocalypse Paradise, was certainly very wealthy.
Finishing the last piece of beef jerky in his hand, Su Xiao looked at Amu. Amu had already lifted the flour-sack-sized bag and was pouring beef jerky crumbs into his mouth.
"Moo."
Amu picked up the prepared sledgehammer and started working on the wall diagonally behind Su Xiao. First, he had to break through this wall, then seal the doors and windows of the adjacent room, leaving only the newly opened wall door, turning this semi-enclosed room into an alchemy laboratory.
Amu was very experienced in this. In previous alchemy laboratories in other worlds, Amu handled the initial decoration, and only when it came to installing equipment like workbenches did Su Xiao take over.
At 5:00 PM that day, the sun, no longer scorching the earth, hung at the edge of the sky. Su Xiao surveyed the newly set up temporary alchemy laboratory and was quite satisfied. Now, he just waited for the materials to arrive.
Although Su Xiao was supposed to find the Sanctuary key within the Wadi Estate, the Wadi Estate itself was a problem for the entire High Wall City. Therefore, it was impossible for Su Xiao to fund this matter alone. It would be too much of a loss for him to provide both the technology and the materials.
What surprised Su Xiao a bit was that among the four material sources—Workshop, Academic Faction, Duke, and Lady Smoke—the Academic Faction was the most straightforward. After Lis went to explain their intentions and bluntly stated that they wanted to blow up the Wadi Estate, the few old sages first acted as if this matter should not be made public, then took Lis to the material warehouse.
Although the Academic Faction and the Treatment Institute were both subordinate departments of the Healing Church, they had never been on good terms. It was a relationship where if the other side suffered, one would secretly rejoice at home. Unexpectedly, this time, when the Treatment Institute suffered a heavy blow, the Academic Faction not only didn't come to kick them while they were down but was the most supportive.
One could only say that, after all, they were both part of the Healing Church. Even if they usually disliked each other and thought the other was an idiot, neither side would do something like kicking the other when they were down. Not lending a hand was already a bitter pill to swallow, as the two sides had differing philosophies but respected each other's ideals, rather than competing for power or resources.
Following the Treatment Institute, the Workshop side also went smoothly. After the procedures were completed, the materials needed to manufacture Apollo arrived.
When Su Xiao manufactured Apollo, he never stuck to a fixed set of materials. He looked at the material characteristics. As long as the compatibility between the "substitute material" and the "required material" reached over 90%, with some post-processing, it was completely usable. Over such a long time, his alchemy had never stopped progressing.
Or rather, those alchemists who stubbornly stuck to the materials written in the formula and then desperately searched for them were still in the early to mid-stage. At Su Xiao's current level of alchemy, as long as there were enough materials with various characteristics, he could artificially refine the materials he needed through several different materials.
The materials provided by the Duke and Lady Smoke also arrived. Those two sides had said that if Su Xiao dared to blow up the Wadi Estate, they would immediately fall out. In reality, they provided an exceptionally large amount of explosive materials. Just from Lady Smoke's side alone, the explosive materials provided were more than the combined total from the Workshop and the Academic Faction.
Inside the temporary alchemy laboratory, Su Xiao estimated that manufacturing a "Sun Holy Sword" consisting of 600 Blazing Sun Wrath · Apollo as a single unit was impossible. With these materials, even if he didn't fail once, he could only produce a little over 100 Apollo.
A "Sun Holy Sword" was out of the question, but a "Sun Pillar" with 100 Apollo as a single unit was still possible.
Su Xiao sat in front of the workbench, with Amu assisting. The processing of materials began.
At 11:00 PM, the sky outside was completely dark. Inside the alchemy laboratory, a blazing golden fireball floated in mid-air. Under Su Xiao's mental energy control, the volume of this fireball gradually shrank.
Almost simultaneously, from the dormitory building next to the main building, a series of crisp sounds of glass shattering spread. Old Chaman, Ms. Marina, and Hugh, along with many new members of the Treatment Institute, all broke through the windows and leaped out. Most of them were not properly dressed. Ms. Marina simply wrapped a bedsheet around herself and jumped out.
Without hesitation, everyone scattered and retreated, moving away from the Treatment Institute headquarters. During the manufacturing of Apollo, the fluctuation that could explode at any moment startled the sleeping crowd into a cold sweat.
To use Old Chaman's analogy, it was like suddenly having an ice pick shoved into one's anus while sleeping soundly, waking up to find oneself wrapped in a blanket full of fine needles.
The members of the Treatment Institute were both terrified and angry. Who was so bold as to throw explosives into the Treatment Institute? But after some searching, they found that it was their own vice dean manufacturing explosives. Everyone's expressions were particularly interesting.
This time, all members of the Treatment Institute were sleepless. Over a hundred people sat on the rooftop, gazing at the starry sky, bewildered and contemplating life.
The next morning, Su Xiao walked out of the alchemy laboratory. After a night of manufacturing, he had produced a total of 123 Apollo. Most of the Apollo were made into a "Sun Pillar." This one-meter-tall thick glass pillar was filled with a solution, in which 100 Apollo were immersed.
Who this "Sun Pillar" would primarily be used against had not yet been decided. The explosion at the very center would naturally be more powerful. Whether to throw it at the Pain Daughter, the Celestial Envoy, or the Goat-Headed Demon would be decided later.
Besides this "Sun Pillar," Su Xiao also packaged wooden "Sun Barrels" with 10 Apollo as a single unit. Each "Sun Barrel" not only contained 10 Apollo but was also filled with high-explosive gunpowder in the gaps. This gunpowder was a formula obtained from the planet Ser, possessing supernatural characteristics and very powerful.
The remaining 3 Apollo were prepared to be thrown one by one. Basically, it would start with single Apollo to whet the appetites of the celestial beings in the Wadi Estate, followed by the appetizer "Sun Barrel." After "enjoying" the appetizer, the main course would be the "Sun Pillar." Unfortunately, there was no "Sun Holy Sword" this time.
Or rather, there couldn't be one. Last time, using the "Sun Holy Sword" had blown away the entire central part of the Treeborn World, no, it had simply split the land of the Treeborn World into two pieces from the middle.
If a "Sun Holy Sword" were thrown in the North District, whether High Wall City would still exist afterward was really uncertain.
Su Xiao looked at the "Sun Pillar" beside him. The power of this thing was quite significant. Blowing up the Wadi Estate and the surrounding building complex was fine. Due to this incident, not only people but even stray cats and dogs had fled from that area. However, leveling most of the North District was not acceptable.
Su Xiao left the alchemy laboratory, picked up the phone, and dialed the Healing Church's high-ranking officials, the Duke, and Lady Smoke respectively.
His goal was to have the three major forces in the city mobilize numerous supernatural beings and use the Healing Church's unique Stigma ability to construct a barrier around the Wadi Estate. This way, not only would the entire North District not be leveled, but the power of the "Sun Pillar" would also be enhanced.
After hearing Su Xiao's description, Bishop Anse on the other end of the phone, one of the high-ranking members of the Healing Church, fell silent.
"Bai Ye, we are a lawful faction. We need to be calm in our actions and cannot..."
Just as Bishop Anse was about to begin his gentle persuasion, Su Xiao had already hung up the phone. This was not a request but a notification. When he blew up the Wadi Estate later, the three major forces would definitely send personnel to construct a super-massive barrier.
Things like persuasion or obstruction were just a formality. Given the current situation, no one was really willing to sacrifice their subordinates in the Wadi Estate. Leveling this place was the best choice for everyone.
Everything was ready, only waiting for the scheduled noon to arrive to blow up the Wadi Estate. Just then, a sound of wind breaking came, and Baha flew back.
"Boss, new discovery. That mirror evil spirit has established a connection with the Duke's side."
"Oh?"
A gleam of interest flashed in Su Xiao's eyes. He keenly sensed that this was an opportunity. If he didn't seize it, he would miss out big time.
"Go to Lis's new home."
Su Xiao spoke. In the office, Hugh, who had been on standby for a long time, opened a spatial ghost gate. Lis, who had just arrived not long ago, showed a troubled expression. Going to her home, she didn't know if she should go along.
"Sir... Commander, please, under no circumstances, enter my bedroom."
Lis's expression was exceptionally serious. If her colleagues saw the childish collectibles in her bedroom, she would be so embarrassed she would find a crack in the ground to crawl into.
"..."
Su Xiao didn't speak. He simply stepped into the spatial ghost gate. A spatial fluctuation flickered, and he was already on the second floor of a civilian residence.
A round floor-standing mirror was placed against the wall. Su Xiao walked up to it. The mirror evil spirit appeared inside the mirror, its form being a humanoid black smoke.
"Vice Dean, you're here."
The mirror evil spirit spoke, still using Lis's voice, but with a tone different from Lis's, carrying a hint of sarcasm and eeriness.
"Hand it over."
Su Xiao looked at the mirror evil spirit expressionlessly.
"What?"
The mirror evil spirit was very puzzled, as if it didn't understand what Su Xiao was talking about.
Zheng~
Su Xiao held the hilt of his blade with one hand, slowly drawing the long sword from its sheath. The soul core of Soul Severing Shadow switched to "Soul Severing · Soul Core."
"Vice Dean, you..."
Crack!
Su Xiao's long blade stabbed into the mirror, actually penetrating the pseudo-realm and piercing through the center of the mirror evil spirit's torso.
The long blade twisted. Su Xiao made a motion to cut upward, slicing through the mirror evil spirit's torso and head. The mirror evil spirit almost shrieked, "Give it to you!"
Zheng~
The blade's edge hummed, stopping just below the mirror evil spirit's head. If it had been cut through the head area, the mirror evil spirit would have definitely dissipated on the spot.
With a look as if it had seen a ghost, the mirror evil spirit suddenly produced an object in its hand and extended it out of the mirror.
Sure enough, the mirror evil spirit's previous visit was no coincidence. It was the response of this world after numerous celestial beings invaded it, providing some assistance to one of Su Xiao, the Duke, or Lady Smoke, which would undoubtedly speed up the progress of eliminating those celestial beings.
Su Xiao had previously thought that although the mirror evil spirit could do some things, it wasn't enough to influence the Wadi Estate incident. In this matter, the mirror evil spirit was at most a small fry. Using the process of elimination, the mirror evil spirit must possess some artifact or information that could have a huge impact on this incident.
Fundamentally, the mirror evil spirit was just a malevolent spirit that roamed around doing evil, feeding on the fear of others to strengthen its own spirit body.
Su Xiao looked at the object the mirror evil spirit had extended out of the mirror. It was a structurally precise yet overall simple-looking cube, about the size of a Rubik's Cube. He took it.
[You have triggered the chain side quest: Mirror and Division.]
[You have ignored the first ring of this quest.]
[You have ignored the second ring of this quest.]
[You have ignored the third ring of this quest.]
[You have completed the fourth ring (final stage) of this quest through physical means.]
[Due to your method of completing the quest, you cannot receive the World Source reward for this quest, but you can obtain the fixed reward of this quest.]
[You have obtained: Sacred Divider (World-Class Item).]
[Notification: This item can only be used within this world. When the Hunter leaves this world, this item will be forcibly left behind in this world and teleported to a random location. You will receive a certain amount of "World Force" as compensation.]
P.S. (Recommending a friend's book, titled "The Expert Is Right Beside Me.")