GAMMT - Chapter 34
Chapter 34: Growth
And if they failed?
After wrapping the bandages, Fu Chuan’s gaze fell upon the bloodstains on the clothes beside her, and she froze. Though she had deliberately tried to forget, she still remembered the man she had killed directly to warn the others.
It wasn't a huge psychological burden, but it just felt strange.
How long had it been? She seemed to be changing so quickly.
But Fu Chuan looked away, put on her undergarments, and her eyes naturally met her own reflection in the mirror. She suddenly felt that this teenage version of Fu Chuan’s face was somewhat different from her own.
She herself had grown up in a stable family and social environment. To put it bluntly, she had never been mistreated or beaten down. Even during her entrepreneurial period, when she stepped beyond her family's sphere of influence and lost their support, making her rise a difficult one, she still had a solid foundation and people watching her back. Therefore, her own appearance and temperament had been calm and composed since her teenage years. But this girl was different.
Gloomy, dull, and with a hint of despair.
Since arriving in this world, Fu Chuan had been busy trying to change her circumstances and hadn't had time to pay attention to other details. She knew this body had injuries, but she had never looked closely. Now, upon inspection, she saw the scars on it were a mix of old and new. The new ones had faded due to the recent Gene Tree transformations, but the old ones remained.
“Though this was the past Fu Chuan, it serves as a reminder: if I'm too weak, this will be my fate.”
With that single thought, the complex emotions Fu Chuan had just felt vanished completely. She cleaned up the traces, burned the clothes she had changed out of to ash, and washed them away with water before finally going out to take stock of her gains from the night.
The loot was in two parts. The first was from the backpacks of the dozen or so people, which was practically like ransacking their homes. Fu Chuan took inventory and found no key resources like the S1 Gene Key. Most of it consisted of spare skill books and equipment they didn't plan to learn or use, as well as medicine, materials, and some money.
Fu Chuan sorted through it and found that, aside from some special skills like Stun, she had found five copies of Azure Radiance Feather, and she could level up both Flame Blast and Forest Thorns to level 9.
“The native Arcanists really have accumulated a lot of resources. It just so happens that the Arcane arts I’m learning are the ones with more abundant local resources, making them easier to level up.”
If it were something like the corrosive black mist of that person from the Xie Clan, she would probably have to buy it at a high price from an auction house or the black market. It wasn't something that would necessarily drop from a regular dungeon run.
Fu Chuan equipped all the skill books, then sorted through the equipment. She found that she couldn't assemble a full green-tier set; it was still a half-set of green and bronze pieces.
“Their green-tier gear was probably on their bodies.”
Although the skill books were a match, the combined resources and wealth of the group brought Fu Chuan a profit of over fifty million copper coins. But just as she was feeling a bit disappointed, she casually looked through the items dropped by the BOSS. With just one glance, she was stunned.
The items weren't many, just a scattered pile, but it was like a field of green light.
Three S1 Gene Keys, one standard universal energy core, four pieces of green equipment, a blood-red, egg-sized bead (unidentified), a special green-tier scroll (Meditation Insight Secret Realm Scroll), three skill books, and a dozen basic tri-attribute gems.
The other items were one thing, but after a quick scan, Fu Chuan felt that the unidentified bead and the special scroll were the most intriguing. She began to carefully process her gains.
She first organized the green equipment. Three of the four pieces were exactly what she needed to complete her set. After putting them on, she had a full green-tier set.
“Scorpion-Tail Locust Green Set complete. All set attributes increased by +1500 (compared to before), and the Green Set's overall Defensive Chain Armor is activated. When taking damage that exceeds this set's defense by 30% or more, the Chain Armor effect will activate, reducing damage by 25% and boosting agility by 20%.”
“You can choose to hide or display the set's glow. Hide?”
This green set was truly amazing. Fu Chuan remembered the first time she unlocked a green set when she was playing the game. Back then, her studio was just starting out, having initially made its fortune by selling equipment. A single green set could sell for several hundred RMB, but she had chosen to unlock a set for herself first rather than sell it to others, because she herself was the advertisement.
How did it feel? Even without considering the future money, the moment she put on that set, she became one of the few people in that server zone to own a green set.
It was as if she had fought her way out from the masses, selected to become one of the elite.
Power, superiority, and honor washed over her.
After so many years, with countless resources at her disposal and money flowing like water, that initial feeling had become distant.
Fu Chuan touched the leather armor, which was emitting the faint green glow of a set bonus, feeling a bit emotional. But she quickly socketed the dozen or so gems into it, boosting the stats once more, and finally chose to hide the effect, concealing the equipment under her ordinary clothes.
She didn't even look at the increased stats. There were only three S1 Gene Keys, so lighting up the fourth branch was a pipe dream. On average, the fourth branch required twenty S1s to light up, and she didn't have much faith in her luck. There was no need to waste them now.
Fewer skill books dropped than she expected, but two of them were for Stun, which was enough to raise it to level 2. The other one was more special. It was a drab gray color and had no name. Fu Chuan opened it to find that it was a very unique skill book, as special as the corrosive mist skill of that Xie Clan member.
“There aren't many skill books used for interrupting skills and states, but low-level ones are very rare. This is known as one of the three great interrupt skill books for beginners…”
Fu Chuan had always known that whether in reality or in a game, the definition of strength was: “What others have, you have, and you are stronger. What others don't have, you still have, leaving them defenseless.”
So, Arcane Missile, Forest Thorns, and many other complex Arcane skills were common resources that everyone could obtain by running dungeons or spending money.
What truly created an advantage were the things that others didn't have.
For example, her newly awakened Scorpion-Tail Locust insectoid talent, or someone else's corrosive mist, or…
“The rarest skills fall into just a few categories: the four systems of buffs, debuffs, purges, and interrupts. Among the interrupt skills for the novice stage, the three books are Interrupt, Block, and Disable.”
What Fu Chuan had just obtained was Interrupt. It wasn't as rare or powerful as the other two, but it was still very strong and a pleasant surprise.
Fu Chuan learned it immediately, then picked up the bead.
“A rare treasure, surrounded by a mysterious power. Identifying it requires consuming mental power. Do you wish to identify it?”
Fu Chuan naturally agreed, and then… her mental power was drained.
Only 1 point remained.
Fu Chuan: “…”
What kind of thing had such a huge appetite?
After being identified, the crimson, egg-like bead in her palm emitted a shimmering red glow, like a beating crystal heart, yet the inside seemed to be a flowing liquid.
Fu Chuan took a closer look.
“Killed during a critical stage of evolution, the process failed. The Gene Blood Core of the mutated Scorpion-Tail Locust sub-BOSS did not transform into the gene tier of a green-tier Scorpion-Tail Locust BOSS. It is currently in an ownerless state and will undergo gene death in 24 hours due to a lack of a living host for sustenance.”
“Can be used to feed a pet to raise its gene tier, or to catalyze a racial gene talent…”
Fu Chuan didn't even need to read the rest of the description to know its use. She held it between her fingers for a moment, her expression unreadable as if she were calculating something. But she soon put it down and calmly picked up the energy core.
The energy core could be used on the Tri-Body Core to increase its effectiveness, but it wasn't needed at the moment.
However, the Tri-Body Core was related to meditation, and meditation… this scroll had come at the perfect time.
Fu Chuan picked up the scroll. Without even checking the description, she knew it was a special meditation scroll. Once torn, it would transport a person into a dedicated meditation environment. It couldn't enhance her meditation aptitude or efficiency; its only function was to provide an excellent meditation space where the elemental concentration was twenty times that of the outside world.
“If I add the Tri-Body Core, I estimate it could reach thirty times the effect of my previous meditation on the airship.”
Fu Chuan’s plan was set. She walked to the window and observed the distance. In the scattered firelight near the fields and river in the distance, she knew that the person from the Xie Clan was definitely there.
“Tonight's events will surely have a butterfly effect, but as long as I can hold out for two or three days, it will be fine.”
Fu Chuan retracted her gaze, opened the scroll, and entered.
At this moment, her stats were temporarily fixed.
Level: 10.
Main Attributes.
Mental Power: 2070 (Initial Mental Power 1+99)
Strength: 8030 (Initial Strength 1+18)
Constitution: 7400 (Initial Constitution 3+15)
Agility: 12230 (Initial Agility 2+25)
Skill Points: Arcane Missile LV9, Flame Blast LV9, Forest Thorns LV9, Azure Radiance Feather LV5, Locust's Stun LV2, Interrupt LV1.
Looking at it this way, Fu Chuan's current stats were basically two to three times stronger than those of Arcanists in their teens, but her mental power was pitifully weak.
And mental power was the most important attribute. If not for the incredible survivability of the spider silk ring, she wouldn't have been able to escape alive if she had encountered any three of tonight's Arcanists alone.
“If I had run into the one who uses corrosive mist… I probably would have died. It’s the same even now.”
Inside the narrow, illusory meditation space, which could barely accommodate one person, countless heavy elements floated in the air. Fu Chuan felt her pores both open up and become clogged. She took a deep breath, sat down, activated the Tri-Body Core, and entered a state of high-efficiency meditation. At the same time, she took out the Gene Blood Core again, decisively shattered it like cracking an egg, poured the blood-red liquid inside into a basin, and soaked her hands in it.
Her mind was in meditation, her hands were being nourished, and she was completely focused.
In the darkness, Xie Guangyu and his group had finished their investigation. There was no direct evidence pointing to anyone, but Xie Guangyu no longer needed it.
“Their main force should be at their base… It’s not suitable to go over now. We’ve expended too much tonight.”
After being held up by the locust swarm, their consumption was equivalent to being weakened. They might not be a match for their opponents, especially since the enemy had people specifically arranged here to deal with them, meaning they were not lacking in talent.
Xie Guangyu didn't dare to underestimate his opponent. After some thought, he ordered everyone to retreat to the farm.
“We need to group up. Prepare for a three-party talk. If this continues, we really might die in this dungeon… We'll wait for them to come to us.”
Xie Guangyu snapped a dry branch he had picked up from the ground with a crack, then threw the broken pieces onto the ground.
Back at the base, the group that Fu Chuan feared the most was indeed in the core of the lair. Suddenly, the sound of the BOSS’s wail echoed from within.
Yes, it was about to be killed.
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