Chapter 5: Title Chest (★★★★★)
Use Effect: Upon opening, obtain one designated one-star title (this is a full-potential title).
Stock Quantity: 8 (no limit on exchange quantity).
Exchange Price: 500,000 Hunter Gold Coins.
...
The power of a full-potential title, as Su Xiao had experienced through the effects of the [Masterpiece] title, made it clear that saving up 500,000 to buy one was obviously unwise. His current title reforging had a safety net, though it was unreliable at times. Still, with 130,000 chances, as long as one succeeded, it would be worth it.
Currently, his [Combat Title] and [Potion Brewing Enhancement] title were at full potential. He still needed the following full-potential titles: [Sealcraft Enhancement Title], [Meditation Title], [Quest Reward Enhancement Title], and [Reverse Devouring Potential Granting Title].
The first two were easy to understand, and the [Quest Reward Enhancement Title] was self-explanatory. As for what a [Reverse Devouring Title] was, this type of title devoured the main title currently held, then added its star rating to the main title. The [Reverse Devouring Potential Granting Title], on the other hand, didn't boost the star rating but instead added its title potential to the main title.
Su Xiao planned to forge the [Old Hunter] title, which had a title potential of 70.2%, into a powerful title with 100% potential. Speaking of which, every Hunter's [Old Hunter] title potential was actually random. With his luck that stood above the rest, having 70.2% title potential was already a rare blessing from the heavens—he couldn't expect more.
As the saying goes, when luck falls short, strength makes up for it. The [Reverse Devouring Potential Granting Title] was a means to defy fate and change one's destiny. The problem was that this type of title didn't have a 100% success rate for granting potential. Even a 50% success rate was quite good. When it came to title forging, he couldn't let Kaisa help; Kaisa wasn't skilled in this area.
Among the four types of titles, the [Sealcraft Enhancement Title] was the most important. [Original Sin Scholar] was quite good, but with only 70.1% title potential, it was destined to never let Sealcraft break through Lv.95.
However, Su Xiao really liked one characteristic of [Original Sin Scholar]:
"Title Effect 3: Original Sin Scholar (Passive). For each peak original sin object you hold/seal, all effects of 'Absolute Focus' increase by 20%.
Current number of sealed original sin objects: 6.
Current 'Absolute Focus' effect bonus: 120%."
Thinking about it this way, he could get some [Reverse Devouring Potential Granting Titles] and first use them on [Original Sin Scholar]. If this [Extreme Refinement·1 Time] title could really be promoted to full potential through this, then he could safely use the [Reverse Devouring Potential Granting Title] on the [Old Hunter·Extreme Refinement·3 Times] title.
After pondering for a moment, confident in his luck, Su Xiao exchanged 130,000 Hunter Gold Coins for [Title Chest (★)]. Upon opening, he selected the devouring type and potential granting branch. One by one, these one-star titles appeared in his title list.
He activated the [Title Reforging] permission, set up automatic reforging, and preset all 130,000 one-star devouring titles as selectable targets. He closed the title refinement list, but the next second—
[Title reforging successful.]
[You have obtained the devouring title: Spreading Hotbed.]
[Spreading Hotbed]
Origin: Void Tree
Quality: ★
Category: Title
Title Effect: Potential Nurturing (Active). Devour one main title for nurturing. This nurturing process has a 33.33% probability of nurturing the ultimate potential of that title to the devoured main title.
Selling Price: Untradeable.
...
The fact that the title reforging succeeded on the first try surprised Su Xiao. He took out this title and [Original Sin Hunter], using it to wrap [Original Sin Hunter] for title potential granting. If it succeeded, he would have effectively used just one Hunter Gold Coin to complete this forging worth 500,000 Hunter Gold Coins.
The title potential granting process was very fast, but correspondingly, the failure was also very fast. [Spreading Hotbed] exploded with a bang, and one of its fragments bounced into Su Xiao's collar. He reached in, pulled it out, and tossed it aside.
For some reason, not succeeding this time actually made him feel more at ease. It both confirmed that the Law Destruction faction's luck wasn't malfunctioning and that no one was secretly scheming against him. However, his expression then turned somewhat uncertain. He had always been self-assured that it wasn't his bad luck, just a coincidence. After doing some mental self-construction, he once again successfully shifted the blame for his bad luck to coincidence.
Looking out the window of the grain warehouse at the bright weather, his mood also cleared up. He took out his terminal and turned it on—it was time to see if Chairman Xiketo had stepped into the open scheme.
Speaking of which, Xiketo was once a powerful enemy opposing Tuanzhang, but definitely not Tuanzhang's archenemy. At best, Xiketo was a key opponent on Tuanzhang's path to becoming the strongest. Using Su Xiao's experience as an analogy, it was roughly like him defeating Huishenshi, except he had defeated Huishenshi relatively early and, very dishonorably, refused to open that Scarlet Card no matter what.
Su Xiao was now determined that no matter how the situation changed, he would seal this Scarlet Card in layers of seals and place it at the innermost part of his storage space. Even if he died at the hands of a powerful enemy someday, he would banish this Scarlet Card to the endless star sea. The already dead powerful enemy would never be able to attack him again.
If Huishenshi knew Su Xiao's plan, even with his depth of scheming, his expression would be uncertain for a good while.
The current Xiketo was far from his former self. Not to mention that the world's combat power cap was at the Absolute Strength level, so many years of Undead erosion had reduced his intelligence from 300 to around 160. 300 was the level of a super old yinbi like Shenfu.
Under such circumstances, it was definitely necessary to scheme against Xiketo. Of course, his current combat power should be on par with Su Xiao's, as he was at a very high level of Supreme rank, suppressed by the world's limit to the peak of Absolute Strength.
The image on the terminal showed the scene after Xiketo faced the Sun Holy Sword head-on. Su Xiao really didn't intend to use the current version of the [Sun Holy Sword] to blow up Xiketo—that would be too disrespectful. The reason he gave him this attack was for his trump card treasure, the [Sun Holy Tree].
The Evil Heart had predicted that the [Sun Holy Tree] was located in the Eternal Life Society's underground ancient altar. However, Su Xiao had soloed the Eternal Life Society headquarters and still couldn't find the underground ancient altar. He estimated that unless he knew the exact location, he would miss out on this item.
This situation made him decide to use violent probing. It was certain that the [Sun Holy Tree] was most likely at the Eternal Life Society headquarters. If this place was violently attacked, it might even affect the [Sun Holy Tree] located in the hidden underground ancient altar. Would Xiketo worry that the defensive barrier here would be blown through, causing the [Sun Holy Tree] inside to be burned?
Then, after the explosion subsided, while the Sun Flame hadn't dissipated and others dared not enter the headquarters to investigate, going to the underground ancient altar to check was obviously a safe choice. If the underground ancient altar was really blown through and the Sun Flame burned inside, due to the characteristics of the [Sun Holy Tree], it wouldn't be burned down immediately. Hurrying to extinguish the flames could minimize losses.
Su Xiao looked at the image on the terminal. To be precise, this wasn't feedback from a monitoring device. It was a heat-sensitive capture substance invented by Bubu Wang. When the Sun Holy Sword exploded, this substance was distributed within the Sun Flame. Through the overall force field of this substance, an image was formed and projected onto the terminal.
More specifically, it was the image obtained by a reverse sound wave device half a kilometer west of the explosion point. So the image on the terminal only showed a humanoid figure moving within a semi-transparent building framework. Although the projection effect was poor, it minimized the possibility of the enemy detecting it.
Xiketo walked in the Sun Flame. An hour had passed since the explosion, but the seal was still stable. This seemed to make Xiketo make a certain decision. He arrived at the elevator shaft, jumped down, stopped halfway during free fall, adjusted the mechanism lock plate of this secret room, completed the adjustment, and jumped down again. Xiketo descended in the shaft and suddenly disappeared at the bottom.
Su Xiao enlarged the image and observed the spatial fluctuation pattern at the bottom. He felt this was an upward spatial transmission. He had Bubu Wang gather the induction devices around the Eternal Life Society headquarters, then used these devices as signal coordinates to emit secondary spatial pulses downward from a medium-small satellite directly above.
Soon, a chart full of black vertical lines was printed out. Su Xiao opened a blue light device and shone it on the chart. On the vertical lines, an egg-sized circle gradually appeared.
This Xiketo really knew how to hide things. He had moved an underground space area of the Eternal Life Society headquarters to an alternate space above. This way, the alternate space wrapped around the material space area, located directly above the Eternal Life Society.
After waiting a moment, Su Xiao found that Xiketo had returned to the Eternal Life Society headquarters. Not only that, but he took out a scroll-shaped item and used it. The bombed Eternal Life Society headquarters began to revert at a visible rate. Half an hour later, the Eternal Life Society headquarters was restored to its original state, and the external sealing barrier gradually collapsed. It seemed that apart from losing over 200 members, the Eternal Life Society was still the world's strongest overlord.
Su Xiao took out paper and pen and began calculating spatial coordinates. This time, he needed to be precise to the millimeter level. Time passed minute by minute. A few hours later, the spatial coordinate calculation was only two-thirds complete.
At this moment, in the 80th-floor meeting hall of the Eternal Life Society headquarters, Xiketo sat in the main seat. Huanyu, Baiyang, Nuniu, Kuangshi, and Tanxie took their seats on both sides in succession. That's right, Baiyang hadn't completely died. Actually, Baiyang had died by half—she had one soul with two bodies. But the permanent soul damage from facing Su Xiao directly made her face pale.
The soul healer Xiketo had hired at a high price sighed and shook his head. Triple [Soul Slash] damage made this soul healer's scalp tingle.
Bang!
Kuangshi, with his lion-like mane, slammed the meeting table and angrily said, "Too arrogant! Attacking our lair while I'm away!"
Hearing this, the obese Tanxie sneered, "While you're away? If you were here, you'd have been sent off together with Jinxie."
"You!"
Kuangshi had always been at odds with Tanxie and Nuniu. In the past, Baiyang would smooth things over, but now she was mentally dazed from the soul slash, looking pitiful enough to be described as "I see and pity."
"Yuewu, you fought with that guy named Bai Ye. Assess it—who's stronger, me or him?"
Kuangshi's words surprised Yuewu slightly, but she seriously pondered for a moment before saying, "If it's a direct confrontation, you have a better chance."
"You have some discernment."
"Direct confrontation, he can't last ten minutes against you."
"Mm."
Kuangshi nodded with a serious expression.
The Violator Hai'e present heard this and glanced at Yuewu, thinking to himself, "How vicious are you? The guy's already simple-minded from Undead erosion, and you're tricking him into walking to his death."
"Boss, leave this to me."
Kuangshi, getting more carried away, had completely let loose, swimming in the setting of "I'm invincible under heaven."
Xiketo glanced at Kuangshi, who was lost in his own delusions. Kuangshi shivered, his gaze gradually returning to normal. He muttered, "Lost composure," and fell silent.
"Everyone, this loss isn't necessarily a bad thing for us."
Xiketo spoke. Huanyu, Baiyang, Nuniu, Kuangshi, and Tanxie all looked at the chairman with suspicion.
"Since things have come to this, I won't hide it from you. We've been able to live as immortals until now because of the life essence provided by a [Sun Holy Tree], and also by trading with the Golden City of Lord Continent. This barely sustains over 300 members with the pure life essence needed annually. Now, there's a problem on Lord Continent. That [Sun Holy Tree] can probably sustain about a hundred people."
At this point, Xiketo didn't continue. When it came to matters affecting their own interests, the Eternal Life Society members suppressed their anger and decided to take the long view.
"Chairman, this might be a bit presumptuous, but is that [Sun Holy Tree] safe?"
Huanyu spoke. Her voice made everyone present feel like ants crawling and cats scratching in their hearts. However, knowing her uninhibited nature, the few high-ranking members avoided looking at her directly. Kuangshi had been targeted by Huanyu for a while, and the 1,200-pound Kuangshi had slimmed down to 800 pounds, with his cheekbones somewhat protruding.
"That [Sun Holy Tree] is very safe. We—"
Dong!
A loud noise interrupted Xiketo's words. Everyone thought it was an enemy air raid, except Shenfu, who looked through the window at the distant [Space Blocking Tower] and saw it shattering like scattered flowers.
"Chairman, if I'm not mistaken, your [Sun Holy Tree] is no longer safe."
Shenfu's words made Xiketo frown slightly. He followed Shenfu's gaze and saw the shattered [Space Blocking Tower]. He asked, "Space weapon?"
"In my opinion, no. It might be some kind of teleportation array used to transport living beings."
Shenfu's words made Tanxie sneer and say, "Nonsense. A teleportation array for living beings would shatter the [Space Blocking Tower]?"
"It would."
"Evidence."
"Hmm~, I don't have evidence, but I've experienced it myself. The specific feeling is hard to describe. By the time the teleportation ended, I was already quite evenly distributed on that teleportation array. I guess a few seconds later, there would be another dong sound..."
Dong!!
A spatial dull thud came from above. Huanyu, Baiyang, Nuniu, Kuangshi, and Tanxie looked at each other, still not quite believing that this commotion was from a teleportation array for living beings. The mothership-level space railgun Kuangshi had once operated didn't have this kind of commotion or vibration.
Xiketo stood by the window, looking at the shattered spatial wormhole above and the scattered [Sun Holy Tree] root fragments falling down. His expression was calm. As a former Violator leader, breaking his composure wasn't that simple.
Just then, an Eternal Life Society member quickly entered the meeting hall and whispered something to Xiketo, such as how their bank vault in the south of the city had been robbed by suspicious individuals, reportedly a cunning and lecherous little old man.
"I see."
Xiketo's expression remained calm, but his hands clasped behind his back gradually tightened, showing that this former Violator leader was indeed somewhat losing his composure.
This was the difference between Su Xiao and Tuanzhang. Tuanzhang would bring multiple teammates and a large number of high-ranking Reincarnation Paradise Hunters and Contractors, pressing forward to attack the Dawn Paradise faction head-on, focusing on siege warfare.
Su Xiao, on the other hand, was a lone wolf. If he adopted Tuanzhang's style, he would lose his advantage. His specialty was gradually putting a painful mask on the enemy. When the enemy's anger maxed out and they came to fight him to the death, he could leverage his strong one-on-one combat ability.
At this moment, in the underground first floor of a mansion in the east of the city, after preliminary modifications by Amu, it could serve as an alchemy laboratory. Su Xiao sat at the workbench, in the final mixing stage of [Sun Secret Medicine].
The most precious part of the [Sun Holy Tree] obtained this time was its [Sun Origin Essence]. This was a potent medicine that strongly nourished primordial life force. If consumed directly without being mixed into a potion, not only would the gain be low, but there would also be side effects, causing the user to suffer from Sun Fire Poison and permanently reducing the effectiveness of future recovery potions.
Wearing the [Masterpiece] title, combined with the [Soul Engraving] ability, allowed soul strength to enhance potion mixing. This time, Su Xiao's mixing was smooth and effortless. After completion, he even felt unsatisfied. Lv.95 Alchemy had increased a small bit of proficiency at the limit. Don't underestimate this increase—it meant that Alchemy had hope of advancing to Lv.96.
[You have obtained Sun Secret Medicine.]
[Sun Secret Medicine (Peak)]
Origin: Reincarnation Paradise·Holy Flame Alchemist
Quality: Eternal Rank·Rare
Type: Permanent Enhancement Potion.
Effect: After drinking, permanently increase HP by 6% and permanently exempt 8% fire-type damage.
Peak Grade Bonus: After drinking, permanently increase HP by 5%. While bathed in sunlight, slowly increase Willpower attribute, up to a permanent increase of 20 points.
Warning: This potion can be consumed at most once.
Rating: 3000 points (Eternal Rank quality potion rating is 1500–3000 points).
Introduction: To be determined (you can freely set it).
Price: To be determined (you can freely set it).
Hint: Due to the powerful comprehensive characteristics of this potion, Reincarnation Paradise will include this potion recipe in its resource library. Do you agree to submit this potion recipe? If you choose to submit, you will receive [Contribution Badge] ×1.
[Contribution Badge] Prerequisite: Participate in battles against opposing Paradise factions (you are currently participating and are over halfway through, so after this round begins, you have successfully unlocked the acquisition permission for [Contribution Badge]).
Hint: You can activate permanent usage permissions for special facilities within Reincarnation Paradise by submitting 5 [Contribution Badges]. These include unique Paradise special facilities such as [Meditation Secret Realm], [Death High Tower], and [Trial Heart Mirror]. Since these facilities were not created by Reincarnation Paradise but were found and contributed by high-ranking Contractors and Hunters, they can only be activated using [Contribution Badges].