Chapter 23: A Meeting Gift
Clouds flew past on both sides. Su Xiao sat cross-legged on the back of the Storm Flame Dragon, overlooking the scenery below. The lake stretched as far as the eye could see. On the water surface, which had just been rained on, mist was rising. A flock of waterfowl, frightened by the dragon's passage through the sky, dove underwater to take refuge.
"This pastry is really delicious. Where did you buy it in the Alliance? I want to take back two servings, no, ten servings, to let my friends try."
As the Goddess of Fortune spoke, she took a bite of the cream-filled cake. It was a very ordinary pastry, yet she felt as if she had bitten into a cloud—soft yet with a certain firmness. Just as this wonderful texture appeared, the specially prepared cream filling flowed out, making one subconsciously continue chewing. But before fully savoring the delight in her mouth, she found herself swallowing involuntarily, and her hand, as if out of control, picked up another piece.
"One more serving."
"Woof."
Bubu Wang barked, meaning that this time Beini had ordered only a limited amount of pastries in Xia Na. If Beini came to take some from the team storage space and found they were gone, she would most likely scratch him.
"You just said, your friend? Also a deity, in charge of luck?"
Baha spoke. Upon hearing this, the Goddess of Fortune, who was eating the pastry, replied with a mouthful: "No, my friend is in charge of the Fate Divine Position. Before, when you caught me, I hid at her place for a while. She really welcomed me and often told me that knowing me was the greatest adventure of her life."
"That doesn't sound like a compliment."
"Impossible, our relationship is great. Sometimes when I offend people, I go hide at her place. For my sake, she moved several times. Twice, I almost couldn't find her."
"Are you sure she wasn't hiding from you?"
"Definitely not. I secretly set a luck tracker on her. How could she possibly hide from me?"
Saying this, the Goddess of Fortune's smile gradually became uncontrollable. Seeing this, Baha sighed, "As expected of you."
Su Xiao, who had been meditating, opened his eyes and took a long breath of the cool high-altitude air. Riding the Storm Flame Dragon to the Saint Lan Kingdom, if it flew at full speed, it would take at most two hours to reach the capital of the Saint Lan Kingdom from Kus City. But there was no need to rush now; the Fate Dominator still needed a few more hours to complete its upgrade.
Moreover, Su Xiao didn't need to rush to the capital. He only needed to arrive within the territory of the Saint Lan Kingdom. Once there, he could find a way to directly enter the divine domain where the Radiant God resided.
Su Xiao pressed his hand against the dark blue dragon scales beneath him. He could sense that after absorbing a portion of [Storm Dragon Blood], the Storm Flame Dragon's strength had increased, reaching the early to middle stage of a ninth-rank Overlord creature. He checked the Storm Flame Dragon's information:
Name: Storm Flame Dragon · Dis
Category: Overlord Creature
Health: 100%
Storm Force: 75000/75000 points (Boosted by Storm Core).
Strength: 281 (True Attribute).
Agility: 293 (True Attribute).
Stamina: 260 (True Attribute).
Intelligence: 249 (True Attribute).
Charm: 2 points.
Skill 1, Overlord Dragon Clan (Passive, LV.82): Health +58000 points, Wind attribute abilities moderately increased, Flame attribute abilities moderately increased.
Skill 2, Dragon Clan Blood (Passive, Lv.81): Health +27000 points, Physical Defense +187 points.
Skill 3, Sky Overlord (Passive, Lv.75): Base flight speed increased by 42%, Wing Defense greatly increased.
Skill 4, Sky-Skimming Wings (Active, Lv.78): After activating this ability, consumes 1000 points of Storm Force per minute, flight speed immediately increases by 560% to 870%, with explosive increases during sustained flight.
Skill 5, Wings of Death (Active, Lv.80): After activating the [Sky-Skimming Wings] ability, when the Storm Flame Dragon · Dis's flight speed reaches its maximum of 870%, it can lock onto a target and perform an assassination strike, dealing damage equal to True Agility Attribute × 7.5 + Enemy-User True Agility Attribute Difference × 30.9 + 17% of the target's maximum Health.
Tip: If there are no friendly units within 50 meters of the enemy, this attack will trigger the [Predation] effect, and the damage dealt by this attack will be full True Damage.
Skill 6, Predation (Core · Passive, X): Provides adaptive enhancement effects for attack-type abilities.
Skill 7, Storm Dragon Flame (Core · Passive, X): Possesses Solar Dragon Flame enhanced by Wind characteristics.
Skill 8, Wind King (Passive, Lv.72): Storm Dragon Flame carries a healing suppression effect. After being burned by Storm Dragon Flame, all healing effects are reduced by 80% for the following 48 hours.
Skill 9, Soul Brand (Passive, X): Storm Dragon Flame simultaneously carries three attack characteristics: Storm, Solar Flame, and Soul.
Skill 10, Burning Defense (Passive, X): After being burned by Storm Dragon Flame, while the enemy takes extremely high damage, they will also continuously undergo judgments of Storm Resistance, Solar Resistance, and Soul Resistance. If one of the three judgments fails, subsequent Dragon Flame burns will reduce all of the enemy's defenses by 20%. If two judgments fail, Dragon Flame will reduce all of the enemy's defenses by 50%. If all three judgments fail, Dragon Flame will reduce all of the enemy's defenses by 90%.
Tip: If the enemy fails all three judgments, there is a 10% chance to trigger the [Predation] effect of this ability, triggering instant death, immediately burning them to ashes.
Skill 11, Dragon Clan's Wrath · Extreme Flame (Ultimate Ability, Passive, X): Dragon Flame damage rank +3.
Skill 12, Dragon Clan's Wrath · World Incineration (Arcane Ability, Passive): This ability is not yet activated. It requires the Storm Flame Dragon to evolve to the middle stage of the Overlord rank to fully master this ability.
...
At first glance, the Storm Flame Dragon has many abilities, but its core abilities are only two: ultra-high-speed flight and Dragon Flame. All other abilities are derivatives or enhancements based on these two.
The Storm Flame Dragon's base attributes are very high, which is not surprising. After all, it is a ninth-rank Overlord creature. If it were a top-tier ninth-rank Overlord creature, its main attributes would definitely exceed 300 points. However, such Overlord creatures are rare.
For the upcoming deathmatch with the Radiant God, Su Xiao did not plan to fight in Dragon Knight mode, to avoid the Storm Flame Dragon's luck being insufficient, causing the World Thunder to strike unstably.
This trip to the Saint Lan Kingdom was just the beginning. Dealing with the Radiant God was only the start. Afterwards, he would have to clash with the Black Rose and the royal family supporting her. Under such circumstances, it was necessary to let the conflict among the Devourers play a role in this plan.
Su Xiao activated his mark authority and chose material delivery. The delivered material was five bottles of [Concentrated Vitality Potion]. This was an extremely rare secret treasure for the Devourers and their hosts. Simply put, it was a multi-use comprehensive enhancement potion.
Every 12 hours, at a random location in the capital, a bottle of [Concentrated Vitality Potion] would be delivered. Apart from the Sun Apostle, the other four Devourers would choose to compete for such resources.
At this stage, the Black Rose was in the capital. If someone suddenly appeared in the capital to compete for something, it would definitely attract her or her subordinates' attention. They would subconsciously think that this was someone sent by Su Xiao.
Would the Black Rose make a move against the Devourers? Of course not. Black A had obtained the body and identity of the Dark Saint. Killing Black A would mean offending the Dark God Cult and provoking the Abyss Leader · Sirvis.
As for Boiling Red and her host Alisa, if the Black Rose killed them, she would simultaneously offend the Hunter Leader · Tessa and the Alliance family behind Tessa and Alisa. The Black Rose could afford to offend them, but it wasn't worth it; it would be too much of a loss.
As for Dark Sun, although this simpleton wasn't very bright, it had the strongest combat talent among all Devourers. Moreover, Dark Sun had an exceptionally powerful ability. While it couldn't become stronger during a fight, as long as it wasn't killed in that battle, it would become a bit stronger during its recovery. This also meant that Dark Sun was either fighting or on its way to fight someone.
As for the Northern Princess (Crystal Ji), as long as the Black Rose hadn't lost her mind, she wouldn't kill the Northern Princess.
Besides the identities of each Devourer or their hosts, there was an even more subtle point: they had no direct relationship with Su Xiao. No matter how the Black Rose investigated, it would be difficult to determine Su Xiao's relationship with Black A, Alisa, Dark Sun, and the Northern Princess. Furthermore, since Su Xiao himself would also be arriving in the capital, the Black Rose wouldn't have the extra energy to pay too much attention to Black A and the others.
"Kaisa, there's a deal. I don't know if you're interested."
"I'm interested. I'm very interested in your deals."
Having cooperated for so long, Kaisa naturally knew Su Xiao's trading style.
Seeing Kaisa's prompt reply, Su Xiao took out the [Golden Jar]. The Divine Source Blood inside had all been extracted. Keeping this thing was useless now; it was better to sell it to the Golden God Cult.
He had been busy lately and hadn't had time to handle this matter. So he decided that if he won the confrontation with the Black Rose and successfully dealt with her, he would entrust Kaisa to take the [Golden Jar] to trade with the Golden God Cult.
After Su Xiao explained this, Kaisa rubbed his chin, deliberately squinting one eye in thought, his treacherous aura almost overflowing.
"My dear friend, you know me. Business is business. If I handle this for you, I'll take a ten percent cut of the transaction proceeds..."
"Thirty percent."
Su Xiao interrupted Kaisa, raising the share for Kaisa to thirty percent. This stunned the Goddess of Fortune behind him. She had never seen such a strange way of trading. Who actively raises the price?
"Well, hmm, thirty percent it is."
Kaisa smiled and rubbed his hands together, his mind racing as he considered how to bleed the Golden God Cult dry. The [Golden Jar] was a supreme treasure on their side; they had to show enough sincerity.
Kaisa wanted ten percent of the transaction amount, but Su Xiao raised it to thirty percent. It seemed Su Xiao was losing out, but that wasn't the case.
Suppose Kaisa got ten percent of the profit. The [Golden Jar] would probably sell for the price of 100 units of resources. But if Kaisa got thirty percent of the profit, this scoundrel would find every possible way to sell the [Golden Jar] for the price of 500 units of resources. This way, not only would there be no loss, but the profit would be several times greater.
If it were a fifty-fifty split... No, they couldn't do a fifty-fifty split. They would have to return to the Alliance later, and they couldn't completely offend the Golden God Cult.
After Kaisa took the [Golden Jar], he pulled out an old POS machine and pressed the buttons rapidly with his thumb. Seeing this, Baha broke out in a cold sweat for the Golden God Cult.
Time passed quickly during meditation. When the setting sun on the horizon was as red as blood, Su Xiao noticed that below was an endless expanse of great forest. The Saint Lan Kingdom was semi-encircled by the [Baal Great Forest]. This meant that as soon as they saw a village or town, they would be within the territory of the Saint Lan Kingdom.
Half an hour later, wisps of cooking smoke drifted out from a village. This village had about a few dozen households. Such a small village had wooden defensive walls several meters high built around it, showing how rampant the Beast Clan was in this area. The wooden walls were covered with scratch marks and patches of mottled bloodstains.
Continuing to fly, it wasn't long before the first major city of the Saint Lan Kingdom came into Su Xiao's view. This large city was surrounded by walls dozens of meters high. The walls were scarred and battered. In some places, nearly 10-centimeter-long claws were half-embedded, with withered flesh and nerves still attached to their ends.
Moving away from this large city, Su Xiao had the Storm Flame Dragon land at an ancient ruin of considerable age. This was a pre-selected location.
Walking down from the dragon's wing, Su Xiao looked around. Everything in sight was ruins and rubble. Clusters of weeds sprouted from the cracks in the stone slabs on the ground.
Following the path of the ancient ruins, Su Xiao walked into the deepest main hall. Seeing that the place was drafty from all sides, Baha took out a gray sphere and smashed it against the wall of the main hall. Immediately, the stone structure of the main hall began to "grow," filling in the empty windows and the broken ceiling, nearly sealing the place shut.
Bubu Wang began setting up lighting and ventilation devices, as well as leveling the floor of the main hall. When everything was ready, it was Kaisa's turn. This scoundrel had somehow already put on a feathered crown, but no matter how you looked at it, it seemed to be a shoddy imitation made of chicken feathers.
The quality of the items Kaisa brought out could not be judged by their appearance. For example, his three divine artifacts—[Endless Greed (Worn-out POS Machine)], [Foul Foot Cloth], and [Deceiver's Head Wrap]—none of them looked good.
Kaisa began to dance and gesticulate. Sometimes he would take out a powder packet and pour the murky yellow powder on the ground, forming part of an array diagram.
Su Xiao, Bubu Wang, and Baha all took out gas masks and put them on. This drew a look from the Goddess of Fortune, who had come along.
"?"
The Goddess of Fortune hadn't yet understood the situation. Su Xiao didn't say anything, just tossed her a gas mask that could be appraised up to the Legendary rank. The Goddess of Fortune put it on with a puzzled expression.
Three hours later, Kaisa ended the unknown ritual's setup in a small eagle spreading its wings pose. He was drenched in sweat, with beads of sweat visible on his forehead. He casually reached to wipe his forehead with the [Foul Foot Cloth] in his hand, only to be overwhelmed by the stench, rolling his eyes and dry heaving. Seeing this, the Goddess of Fortune, wearing her gas mask, also dry-heaved. The visual pollution had stimulated her stomach.
"My dear friend, it's done. This ventilation setup of Bubu's isn't working well. The smell hasn't been vented out."
Hearing Kaisa's words, Bubu Wang, who was changing the filter next to the ventilation device, barked.
"..."
Su Xiao didn't say anything. He took out the Fate Dominator. An hour ago, the Fate Dominator had completed its upgrade. Originally, the equipment upgrade requirement stated that this equipment should be soaked in blood containing a trace of Luck Divine Nature. Su Xiao didn't do this. Instead, he soaked this equipment in Source Blood composed of Luck Divine Nature.
[Tip: The Fate Dominator has been upgraded to Origin Rank.]
[Fate Dominator]
Origin: Reincarnation Paradise
Quality: Origin Rank
Category: Accessory (Extremely Rare)
Durability: 200/200 points (Increased by 30 points).
Equipment Requirement: Usable only by the Hunter himself.
Basic Effect: When holding this equipment, Luck Attribute +12 points.
Equipment Effect 1: Power of Fortune (Core · Active), consumes one Soul Crystal (Large). The Fate Dominator converts Soul Power into Luck, temporarily increasing the holder's Luck Attribute by 45% and granting the [Absolute Fortune] bonus. Effect lasts 20 minutes.
Tip: The bonus rate of this effect is not affected by the quality or enhancement level of this equipment. For each 'Name of a Strong One' the Hunter engraves on this equipment, the Luck Attribute bonus ratio of this effect will increase based on the fortune weight of that 'Name of a Strong One'.
Tip: The cooldown for this ability is 3 natural days.
Skill Effect 2: Extreme Luck (Passive), when opening chest-type items, there is a 10% chance to obtain an ultra-high-magnitude reward. If this effect is not triggered, the trigger probability of this effect will continuously accumulate based on the quality of the opened chest, up to a maximum of 100%.
Ultra-High-Magnitude Reward: After this effect is triggered, the highest value item will definitely be obtained from the opened chest.
Tip: This ultra-high-magnitude reward probability can be continuously accumulated. After triggering one ultra-high-magnitude reward, this probability will reset to the initial 5%.
Equipment Effect 3: Lucky Divine Blood (Passive), this equipment can absorb Lucky Divine Blood, thereby improving the equipment's quality and increasing the maximum number of 'Names of a Strong One' that can be engraved.
Increased 'Names of a Strong One' Limit: 33.
Equipment Effect 4: Indestructible Fortune (Special · Passive), as a Shadow of Law Destruction, you have held this equipment for a long time and engraved 'Names of a Strong One' on it. This equipment has formed an inseparable resonance with your Law-Destruction Fortune. When holding this equipment, if you are secretly attacked by Fate-type or Cause-and-Effect-type abilities, this equipment will trigger a Fortune Countermeasure effect, enhancing the incoming ability by 5 to 10 times using the Law-Destruction Fortune, and rebounding it onto the caster. The caster will face the following choices.