27: Crazy buying, defense improvement

However, after Ye Xiao opened the exchange and browsed for a while, he also discovered that with the previous guys' frantic sweeping of low-priced Skill Stone, the overall market was affected.

The trash Skill Stone that originally only cost one or two hundred eternal coins now sold for nearly 1,000 eternal coins as soon as they were listed.

The price had increased tenfold.

Although Ye Xiao had now acquired an unexpected fortune, and at the same time had a gold-farming group like Golden Phoenix under him, an endless stream of eternal coins would flow into his pocket in the future.

But for Ye Xiao, who had always advocated frugality, it was still a bit painful.

Muttering a few curses, he could only accept reality in the end.

After all, even if those people hadn't made a move, a price increase was only a matter of time.

Then, Ye Xiao began to search.

With the advancement to First Transition, the experience points required to level up now were several, or even more than ten, times what they used to be.

This made Ye Xiao, who was already accustomed to rapid leveling, somewhat unable to adapt.

At the same time, to complete the Fusion Mage's class change mission as soon as possible, increasing his level was also very important.

Therefore, the first thing he needed to look for was experience-boosting items.

Because ordinary experience-boosting skills had already been bought out in the previous round of sweeping, Ye Xiao could only consider advanced Skill Stone.

However, the price of advanced Skill Stone was generally dozens of times that of ordinary Skill Stone of the same type.

If calculated according to the previous market price, they would probably be between two thousand and five thousand eternal coins.

But Ye Xiao glanced at them and found that the cheapest advanced experience-boosting Skill Stone cost five thousand eternal coins.

Ye Xiao cursed the merchants under his breath.

Then he directly spent 50,000 eternal coins to buy ten experience-boosting Skill Stone.

After calculating, these ten Skill Stone combined could provide Ye Xiao with an additional 400% experience boost.

Including the previous ones, Ye Xiao's experience gain was now eight times that of ordinary people.

It was enough.

Then he found 8 more Skill Stone related to drop rate, spending a total of 40,000 eternal coins.

The drop rate increased by another 180%, bringing the cumulative additional drop rate to 400%, which was five times that of normal people.

Here, one point must be mentioned.

Although advanced Skill Stone were much more expensive than ordinary Skill Stone, their effects were also not comparable to ordinary Skill Stone.

Functional improvements were complete.

Next was Fireball.

Ye Xiao's luck was pretty good; in less than a day, five more Fireball Skill Stone appeared on the exchange.

Perhaps someone had revealed that Ye Xiao had previously bought a large number of Fireball Skill Stone, causing the price of Fireball to rise to an absurd 10,000 eternal coins.

However, Ye Xiao still spent 50,000 eternal coins without hesitation to buy all five Fireball Skill Stone.

Although this would cause the price of Fireball to continue to soar, Ye Xiao could only choose to accept it, as Fireball Skill Stone were a rare commodity in the market.

However, these 50,000 eternal coins brought Ye Xiao a huge improvement.

Now, Ye Xiao's single Fireball reached 30 projectiles.

The damage per projectile, with the level and intelligence bonus provided by the Skill Stone, also reached 1218 points.

The total damage reached 36554 points.

This was nearly 10,000 more damage than before he advanced to First Transition.

After learning Fireball, Ye Xiao also tried searching for the Venomous Assault skill.

As he expected, the skill was not available.

It seemed that this item could only be dropped in the Miasma Hidden Forest.

However, opening the Miasma Hidden Forest secret realm once consumed a large amount of resources.

Compared to the small amount of damage increase, it was really not worth it.

Ye Xiao had no choice but to give up.

Anyway, at the current stage, the damage of Venomous Assault was enough.

Looking at the remaining 250,000 eternal coins, Ye Xiao recalled his battle with Snow Phoenix, which made him realize his lack of defense.

So, he began to search for defensive Skill Stone.

Soon, a row of defensive Skill Stone appeared in his sight.

---

[Iron Wall Body (Advanced): Increases 30 physical defense, Price: 4000 eternal coins]

[Unyielding Will (Advanced): Increases 33 physical defense, Price: 3500 eternal coins]

...[Magic Barrier (Advanced): All elemental resistances increase by 10 points, Price: 3500 eternal coins]

---

In the Eternal World, defensive attributes such as physical defense and magic resistance are not displayed on a Professional's panel; they are hidden attributes.

However, based on humanity's research and calculations over the past century, the defensive capabilities of Professionals at various stages have been roughly estimated.

For example, at Ye Xiao's current level, most people's physical defense is around 300 points.

So, even though it is an advanced passive defense skill, the effect is indeed outstanding.

I can only treat it as trash.

Of course, Ye Xiao also took a quick glance.

There were some rare and epic-level defensive skills on the exchange that he could learn at his current level.

One Skill Stone could increase defense by several hundred points.

Among them, the most expensive epic-level defensive Skill Stone could increase physical defense by over a thousand points per stone.

This was more than four or five times the increase.

But the price was also quite expensive, with one stone costing millions or even several millions.

It seemed ridiculously expensive, but Professionals would still choose to buy them.

After all, in the Eternal World, there seemed to be many powerful forces, but among the tens of billions of Professionals, they were really nothing.

Most Professionals came from very ordinary backgrounds, and without resource support, their leveling speed was very slow.

Even without sufficient equipment, many people would get stuck at a certain stage for months or even years, which was normal.

To break through, powerful equipment and high-tier Skill Stone were the only two options.

Compared to equipment, Skill Stone that provided equivalent improvement were clearly more cost-effective.

There were countless people who sacrificed precious skill slots to buy such Skill Stone that could bring the greatest improvement at the current stage, just to break through.

This was the gap between ordinary people and those forces.

Seeing the exorbitant prices of the Skill Stone, Ye Xiao couldn't help but feel lucky again.

It was a good thing he awakened the Infinite Skill Bar, a god-tier Talent.

Otherwise, with his orphan background, even if he awakened other powerful Talents, it would be extremely difficult to become strong without resource support.

Recalling his thoughts, Ye Xiao directly bought 67 defensive Skill Stone in one go.

After buying them, the eternal coins in his pocket were once again depleted.

Seeing this, Ye Xiao could only sigh helplessly.

"This money really doesn't last long; it's still best to find a way to sell the godforged stone as soon as possible."

After speaking, Ye Xiao crushed the 67 Skill Stone one by one.

Then he looked at the panel statistics.

---

Current Skill Bonus Effects:

Gain an additional 120 experience points for each monster killed.

Experience gained increased by an additional 700%

Drop rate increased by 400%

Spell penetration increased by 18%

Mana regeneration increased by an average of 11 points/second

Poison resistance increased by 3745

Poison resistance increased by 40%

Skill attack range increased by 200 yards

Physical defense increased by 1085 points

All elemental resistances increased by 332 points.

---

Looking at his skill bonuses, Ye Xiao was quite satisfied.

Especially the physical defense, which increased by 1085 points.

This was already more outstanding than the bonus from a single epic-level Skill Stone.

However, the price was less than one-tenth of an epic-level Skill Stone with the same effect.

The same was true for elemental resistance.

As of this moment, Ye Xiao had learned a total of 596 skills, one after another.

In addition to the effects provided above, these 596 skills, with the enhancement of his Talent, also brought him a total of 1192 points of additional intelligence.

This was several times more than his own original intelligence.

At the same time, his maximum health also soared again, reaching 120890 points.

He made a rough estimate.

If he were to face Snow Phoenix again in his current state, he wouldn't have to worry about his life being threatened at all.

However, Ye Xiao was satisfied.

But the next moment, he noticed that his shopping spree had once again attracted countless people's attention in just a moment.

At this time, the chat channel was constantly flooded with countless discussions about Ye Xiao buying Skill Stone.

"Latest news, Night Shadow, the big shot, is buying Skill Stone like crazy again! Just now, the three advanced experience-type Skill Stone that my friend and I put on the exchange were all bought by Night Shadow, the big shot."

"It's not just experience-type ones; I also had a few advanced drop rate-increasing Skill Stone, and they were also bought by Night Shadow, the big shot."

"Really? If he bought those low-priced trash Skill Stone before, it could be explained by synthesis, but now buying so many advanced Skill Stone, what's the use?"

"Nonsense, of course it's to synthesize even higher-level fine Skill Stone, does that even need thinking?"

"Hiss! This is too extravagant. Synthesizing an advanced Skill Stone costs about 10,000 eternal coins, and the probability of synthesizing a higher-level fine Skill Stone is less than one-tenth. No matter how you calculate it, it's not worth it."

"Who knows? But when I was resting just now, I saw someone analyzing Night Shadow, the big shot's Talent in the Professional forum, and it doesn't seem to be about increasing the synthesis probability."

"I'm really curious, what kind of Talent can make Night Shadow, the big shot, so awesome?"

"It's useless for you to be curious. If I had such a heaven-defying Talent, I wouldn't reveal it to anyone even if you killed me."

"That's true, but speaking of which, Night Shadow, the big shot, doesn't seem to be from a certain force; he seems to be a commoner Professional like us. Where did he get so much money to buy these advanced Skill Stone?"

"Because he has been recruited by a big force?"

"Hiss! Which force? They're so fast."

...In the chat channel, various discussions and speculations were flying around.

However, at this moment, in Cuiwei City, which belonged to the Zhao family, Zhao Mo, the Third Elder stationed there, seemed a bit silent after seeing the discussions about Night Shadow in the chat channel.

And Zhao Changlin, the Dragon Abyss Legion Commander next to him, also saw these messages.

After a brief moment of contemplation, Zhao Changlin finally spoke: "Elder, Night Shadow's growth seems to have exceeded our expectations."

Zhao Mo nodded upon hearing this.

Compared to others, as a core member of the Zhao family, Zhao Mo naturally knew that now, let alone recruiting, none of their forces had even managed to contact Night Shadow.

Therefore, the fact that Night Shadow could take out so many eternal coins to buy Skill Stone indirectly indicated that his growth speed was extremely fast.

Zhao Mo even faintly felt that Night Shadow's growth speed had already surpassed Zhao Hao within the clan.

If it were just this, Zhao Mo wouldn't feel too much.

But the other party was very likely to already know about the Miasma Hidden Forest.

This made Zhao Mo somewhat restless.

After thinking for a moment, Zhao Mo asked: "Have the people sent out gotten any news?"

Zhao Changlin nodded, then said bitterly: "Just received news that the group of people who went there can no longer enter the Miasma Hidden Forest secret realm through special means."

Zhao Mo frowned.

"No matter what, the most urgent task is to find this Night Shadow first."

Zhao Changlin: "I understand, Elder."

As he spoke, he was about to leave.

However, just then, it was still the same subordinate who had reported earlier.

"Third Elder, Commander, something bad has happened! Something happened in Black Sand City; Snow Phoenix, the Golden Phoenix Legion Commander, was killed by an expert."

This time, not only Zhao Changlin, but even Zhao Mo stood up abruptly.