709: exchange

However, ever since the “invasion,” they gradually understood, and through a hypothesis, what if this belt was a “product” of their world?

This hypothesis was accepted by many people.

Because if this hypothesis was true, the “belt's” autonomous choice seemed to be established.

As for the increase in strength of the Armor Warriors, after obtaining the belt, their physique would be enhanced, and during the process of possessing it, they would gain improvements by exercising their bodies, honing their combat skills, and skillfully utilizing the energy corresponding to the belt.

This could actually be seen as cultivation.

However, comparatively, the strength gained from autonomous cultivation was very slow, and it was more about the improvement of power.

And where did the improvement in power lie? In proficiency! And proficiency had an upper limit!

Moreover, the higher the proficiency, the slower the growth, and after reaching a threshold, there might even be no improvement for several years!

Therefore, “quality” was also divided based on this, which referred to the quality of the belt. In other words, when applied to people, it was talent.

The direct letter grades were adopted: SSS, SS, S, A, B, C, D, E.

Yan Yan and Feng Xiao, among others, all had S-grade belts.

Of course, the grade only represented the “starting point,” “lower limit,” and “upper limit.”

If it was before the point of competing on “talent,” an S-grade might not necessarily be stronger than a C-grade.

To put it simply, if an S-grade belt had a starting point of 100 and an upper limit of 10,000.

And a C-grade had a starting point of 10 and an upper limit of 2,000. If the C-grade developed faster than you before reaching 2,000.

Then the S-grade could not definitively say it could beat the C-grade.

But when it came to competing on talent, for example, both reached 2,000.

It might take a C-grade a month to break through the limit and reach 2,001, while an S-grade could reach 2,100 in a day.

Then the gap in strength would naturally widen.

This was the difference between before and after reaching the point of competing on talent.

So the “upper and lower limits” of the belt were somewhat “rigid.”

If there was a cultivation method with “no upper limit” like the one Maple Leaf mentioned.

Then that would naturally be the most useful thing for them!

Plus, with the belt, their lower limit would be greatly increased!

But the problem was stuck here: to obtain this cultivation method, they would at least need to make an equivalent exchange... but the value just did not match up!

Just then, Chen Mu in the Cross-World Group immediately shouted, “Hey, hey, hey! Maple Leaf sis! Maple Leaf sis! Look at me, look at me! I'll buy them a basic cultivation method, can you help me get a belt? I'll leave the exchange to you.”

Although Chen Mu did not have as many source points as other group members, he could even be said to be at the bottom tier of the Cross-World Group.

However, it had been a long time, and the source points in his hand had slowly accumulated. He had tens of millions of source points, which could be considered a snowball effect.

Spending a million source points to buy a basic cultivation method and having Maple Leaf help exchange it for a belt was very worthwhile.

One reason was that the belt's combat power was quite good, and another was that he was indeed very greedy for it!

Armor Warriors, you know!

No matter how useless it was, he would be satisfied just collecting it, since it was only 1 million source points anyway. There was no loss either way.

After all, he felt that as a bottom-tier existence like him, if the sky fell, there would be taller people to hold it up. He could just develop slowly and do whatever made him happy.

Maple Leaf saw Chen Mu's call and @, and responded in the group, “Alright, I'll talk to them. You don't need to pay with source points; consider it my gift to you, since someone in the group wants a belt.”

“Alright! Thank you, Maple Leaf sis! Maple Leaf sis, may you live forever!” Chen Mu immediately cheered. 1 million source points was indeed nothing to Maple Leaf, but nothing did not mean Chen Mu could accept it with a clear conscience.

At least... the emotional value had to be given sufficiently!

“From now on, I'm Maple Leaf sis's dog!” Chen Mu displayed the abstractness of a modern internet fanatic from Lanxing: “Woof woof woof! From now on, Maple Leaf sis, you are my God!”

“Alright, alright,” Maple Leaf said with a speechless expression.

Then she looked at Yan Yan: “You are quite lucky. Someone in the Cross-World Group said they are quite interested in your belts. If possible, a belt for a cultivation method.”

“A belt for a cultivation method!” Yan Yan and the others exchanged glances: “Please wait a moment, we cannot make the decision. We need to wait for the higher-ups' approval.”

“Alright,” Maple Leaf nodded.

Neither side said it, but both understood.

Meanwhile, the higher-ups urgently began discussing the matter of the belts.

There were also ownerless belts, as these items would “choose their masters.”

So every year, many people would be allowed to try if they could be recognized as a master. Secondly, “Armor Warriors” in the wild would be recruited.

Even if they were not recruited, they had to be registered.

“Um, the belts will recognize their masters on their own... it might not be useful for that person to take it...” Yan Yan reminded Maple Leaf, to avoid problems later and for the other side to have complaints, which would not be a good thing for either party.

“Mm, it's fine, we know that,” Maple Leaf nodded slightly and said, “You don't need to worry about these things. It's a very simple transaction, each taking what they need, and you don't need to bother with the follow-up.”

“Mm, okay, understood,” Yan Yan nodded slightly.

The higher-ups quickly finished their discussion.

“There is an ownerless S-grade belt. Is this level acceptable? Currently, this is the only highest-grade ownerless one. What do you think?” Yan Yan saw the higher-ups bring out this S-grade belt, which truly showed they were putting in a lot of effort.

And he did not lie; currently, the highest-grade ownerless belt was indeed only one S-grade. There were higher-grade belts, but they already had masters. They could not just ask people to “hand them over,” could they?

Moreover, for a recognized belt, unless you kill the owner... such a thing could not be done!

Once it was done, things would escalate greatly.

“Let me ask...” Maple Leaf did not immediately agree but went to the Cross-World Group to ask Chen Mu.

“What do you think? An S-grade belt, although I don't know its attributes,” Maple Leaf said to Chen Mu.

“Yes, yes, I don't have high demands, I just want a belt,” Chen Mu quickly said. They could all cultivate, and a belt, as an “external object,” was ultimately just that. Did he not see that others in the Cross-World Group were not interested at all?

He was also doing it because of his “childhood”!

“If possible, ask if they can give a random low-grade belt... I want to research it, I'm quite curious,” Yi Xin suddenly spoke up.

Although they researched cultivation methods and the like, a peculiar item like a belt would be quite good for research.

Recently, Yi Xin and Lin Zifeng, besides their research in cultivation methods, seemed to have reached a bit of a “dead end.” Of course, that did not mean they had reached the peak, but rather their current “limit” of ability. They could just take on another part-time job and research “artifacts.”

It had to be said that Yi Xin and the others were truly “research fanatics.”