Chapter 266 – Equipment Upgrade
The Mutated Fire Kite wanted to take this chance and seize the crystal, but how would the other two let things go as it wished? With a loud cry from Luo Kun, a blade light as thin and smooth as fine silk whizzed out. As for the humanoid, it thrust its hands forth, and a ball that lacked presence soundlessly shot at the bird.
“Screech!!”
The blade light swept past, and a third of the wing of the fire kite was sliced off. Enduring the pain, the bird grabbed the crystal in its claw and was about to fly off, when the ball arrived.
Boom!
This ball wasn’t a fire element attack. When it struck the bird, a cold breath burst out. Along with a string of creaking sounds, the bird was encased by thick ice.
The fiery red crystal fell from the kite’s claw to the ground, making a small sound.
Whoosh whoos.h.!.+ Luo Kun and the humanoid rushed towards it.
“Screeech!”
With a sharp shriek, the Mutated Fire Kite suddenly inflated. Its body burst with an intense flame that forcefully melted the ice. Craning its neck, the bird pecked at the crystal and directly swallowed it.
However, after this, the beast’s injury got even worse as its health dropped to less than 10%.
After swallowing the crystal, the Mutated Fire Kite shrank to its miniature size for the second time. It ordered the other monsters to block the two opponents while it took off and flew away.
“Stop right there! Star River Overtakes the Moon!” The humanoid erupted. Like a shooting star, it suddenly rocketed towards the firebird, a long streak of fire trailing behind it.
Unable to catch up, Luo Kun could only gawk as the two monsters flew off.
Boom!
In the distance, the humanoid meteor violently rammed into the firebird. The latter whimpered and fell.
The humanoid stopped and watched the struggling firebird with a cold snort. Just as it was about to cut open the other’s stomach to retrieve the crystal…
Fwis.h.!.+
A cold light came screaming through the air. The humanoid frantically dodged, only to discover that this light wasn’t meant for it, but the Mutated Fire Kite.
Pff!
Blood splattered as the light struck the bird’s neck. In its own plaintive whimper, the already weakened bird suddenly flared and exploded.
Zoom! Like a streak of lightning, a figure s.n.a.t.c.hed the fiery red crystal left at the spot where the Mutated Fire Kite had just exploded, then ran towards Iron Chain Town without even turning his head.
“Ahhh! d.a.m.n you d.a.m.n you!” The humanoid fumed with rage. It swung its hand and a bunch of Thunderfire Power Bombs shot out at the figure.
Boom!
Seven to eight Thunderfire Power Bombs. .h.i.t the figure all at once and exploded. After the blast, there wasn’t a single trace left at the spot where the figure used to be.
“Hmm? Nothing remained?” Chasing to the location, the humanoid found that there wasn’t even a single fragment of bone left of the figure.
“Heheh, once Lord Fatty acts, he never fails!”
Just now, the instant the humanoid went to the place of the blast, Fatty Earthwalked back to pick up the drops and toss Harvest on the burnt bird, gaining himself a fire inner core.
Winding back: The instant Fatty used Earthwalk and barely caught up with the two monsters in the sky, he saw the humanoid meteor ram into the Mutated Fire Kite. Without a second thought, Fatty took out the Plenilune Ballista and shot the firebird to qualify for a share of the experience. Then, when the bird self-exploded, he took the crystal and used Illusion to create a figure to lure the humanoid away, while he went back to the kite’s corpse for the drops.
“b.a.s.t.a.r.d!” The humanoid unintentionally turned its head and discovered someone picking up the loot there. It instantly understood what had just happened.
“Buh-bye.” After cleaning the ground, Fatty Earthwalked back to town.
“Ahhh! Hand over the Inferno Crystal, or I’ll ma.s.sacre everyone in that town!” the humanoid shouted towards Iron Chain Town.
“Ma.s.sacre our town? Humph! Some confidence you have!” Luo Kun’s expression turned icy. Dragging his saber, the general strode out from the town alone. “Come, come, come! Let’s fight ‘til one of us gives out. If you win, I’ll return the Inferno Crystal to you.”
The humanoid hesitated. It was well aware of Luo Kun’s strength. If they really fought, the odds were against it winning.
“General, the Teleportation Portal has been fixed!” Suddenly, a s.p.a.ce mage called out.
“Humph!” The humanoid cast Fatty a resentful glance before turning into a streak of fire and left. It knew that if it didn’t leave now, it would be impossible when reinforcements from the Imperial Capital arrived.
“It’s gone?” Fatty patted his b.u.t.t as he popped out from somewhere.
Luckily, his Elemental Movement Arts were practically equal to teleportation, otherwise, only in his dreams would he be able to compete for the benefits earlier.
As the monsters dispersed, Iron Chain Town burst into cheers. While it was routine for them to clash with monsters, this kind of grand fight was still the first ever, especially when the enemy had ruined their Teleportation Portal.
“These are the inner cores I promised.” Luo Kun handed a bunch of inner cores to Fatty.
According to their agreement, one magic stone would exchange for two inner cores, so 34 magic stones amounted to 74 inner cores. Fatty bargained so that Luo Kun rounded it up to 80. Water cores were excluded, so Fatty earned 20 cores each of the other four attributes.
After the grand battle, Luo Kun still needed to organize the restoration of Iron Chain Town, so Fatty didn’t continue to follow him and walked into a Smithy.
“Welcome! What do you need, sir? My store has all the weapons you need. There are also strong s.h.i.+elds, solid bows and poisoned daggers,” the owner introduced with a face full of smiles.
“There’s nothing that I need. I only want to borrow your tools a little.”
Some blacksmith tools and a room were required to refine the inner cores into his equipment. After a short negotiation, the Smithy owner straightforwardly rented out his tools to Fatty for three days, at the price of 300 gold coins per day.
Fatty entered a quiet room. Inside, there was a big fire stove burning red hot and an elbow pipe streaming out clear water, it was unknown where the water came from.
However, Fatty didn’t need to care that much. He only needed to embed the inner cores into his gear, that was all.
Fatty unequipped the Elemental set of ten pieces. Each required 5 inner cores, making it 50 in total for all ten.
He started with the helmet. Following the instructions, bit by bit, he drew a magic formation on the helmet. The principle of this thing wasn’t something that a rogue like Fatty was knowledgeable in. However, just slavishly copying was enough.
After he finished with the formation, the next step was inserting the cores according to their order, then, pouring in his meager mana into the formation.
Bzzz! The helmet vibrated. A pentagon of five edges different in color appeared and connected the inner cores.
The five cores also shone; silver-gold for metal, green for wood, cyan for water, red for fire, and dirt-yellow for earth. The five radiances gradually merged into the helmet until they all emerged on the equipment surface. It was as if the helmet was coated with a layer of five-colored light.
The process only took several minutes. After the five inner cores were absorbed, the helmet successfully ranked up to Gold tier.
After the helmet was the breastplate, then the cape, wristbands, greaves, boots, and lastly, the Elemental Sword.
Fatty spent half a day to upgrade all of them to Gold tier. After everything was done, he nodded in satisfaction.
Elemental Set: Includes Elemental Helmet, Elemental Breastplate, Elemental Cloak, Elemental Wristbands, Elemental Greaves, and Elemental Boots.
Gold equipment
Defense: 230
Pa.s.sive: +10% to all four main stats
Pa.s.sive – Elemental Guard: Conjure a protective barrier outside the user’s body, can decrease up to 80% of elemental damage taken. Duration: 10 seconds. Cooldown: 60 seconds.
Elemental Sword
Gold weapon
Attack: 80 – 95
Pa.s.sive – Separate: Can split into five swords of the elements – metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.
In short, Fatty was quite satisfied with this result. They were only Gold-tier, yet could rival some superb Violet equipment he knew of.
Iron Chain Town delayed Fatty from his trip by a day. While he died and lost a level, the benefits far outweighed the price. Not only did he gain eighty inner cores, but there was also a Divine remnant Spatial Tray.
And most important of all, he established a friends.h.i.+p with Luo Kun, the defender of Iron Chain Town.
Before Fatty set out, he bid goodbye to Luo Kun, who pulled his hand in a very reluctant farewell. As for the fiery red crystal that Fatty s.n.a.t.c.hed from under the humanoid’s nose, Luo Kun never mentioned it. Perhaps because the general knew the crystal was of no use to him, while Fatty had risked his life for it, so he pushed the boat along with the current and let Fatty have it.
Leaving Iron Chain Town, Fatty rode the Dark Unicorn to continue forth. The townlet was already the border, so heading out meant leaving the authority of Xuanhuang Ancient Country into an ungoverned region.
According to the map, there were still several thousand kilometers into this region. Fatty kept going at a high speed, hiding from monsters as much as possible, and if he couldn’t hide, he’d just die. Finally, he reached the spot indicated on the map.
The place was in utter ruins, with countless half-buried skeletons in the earth. The land was all brown and the wind screamed. An air of desolation and terror enveloped Fatty.
“This used to be Sky City?” Fatt carefully observed.
Sky City, as its name implied, was a floating city in the sky, so it couldn’t be on the ground. However, when the G.o.d of Light ma.s.sacred its citizens, many things fell from the city and turned this area into something like a battlefield.
“What a pity… Poor things…” Fatty sighed as he walked.
The number of skeletons in this place couldn’t compare to the Ancient Battlefield but wasn’t any lower than in Ma.s.s Graves. The majority of these skeletons were monsters with occasional humans. Apparently, there were humans living in Sky City.
If this much fell on the ground, then what about inside Sky City? Perhaps, the entire city was covered in mountains of bones?
Thinking of this, Fatty couldn’t help but shudder. If so, then the G.o.d of Light had too much blood on his hands. No wonder Wu Junxiao beat him up for no apparent reason.
This place was where that tragic ma.s.sacre occurred. After the G.o.d of Light slaughtered everything, without control, Sky City roamed off to places unknown. According to Lucas’ findings, it must have drifted straight west before vanis.h.i.+ng into a specific area.