68: Crazy fusion, attribute explosion

Repairing the crypt seal?

Thinking about the red moon eye...

Ye Xiao let out a long breath.

This was the mission of the Crimson Moon Summoner.

However, according to the red moon eye, this was not a mandatory mission, nor did it have a time limit.

It wasn't that the Red Moon had forgotten this point; rather, when the plan was designed, the Red Moon's energy was already insufficient to establish punishments.

It was barely a fatal flaw.

After all, if Ye Xiao was unwilling, these Red Moon carriers had no means to force him to comply.

But Ye Xiao was very satisfied with such a flaw.

The benefits of not being responsible felt less like a hot potato.

According to the red moon eye's introduction, there were a total of seven carriers that the Red Moon had split into at that time.

Each piece contained unique abilities.

Just like the red moon eye, its abilities, in addition to recording various Red Moon data, also included a Restriction Barrier.

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[Restriction Barrier: Designate a location, consume 5000 Mana, set up a barrier immune to all damage. Duration: 60 minutes. Cooldown: 60 minutes.]

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Looking at the description of the Restriction Barrier,

Ye Xiao was somewhat pleased; this thing could be used to save his life at critical moments.

It was just that the cooldown was a bit long.

However, this did not prevent Ye Xiao from becoming interested in these carriers.

Leaving aside the Red Moon's other functions, the mere effect of being able to enhance his Talent was enough to motivate Ye Xiao to collect them.

And to collect other Red Moon carriers, he would need to use the ability of the crimson moon token.

According to the red moon eye's introduction, his crimson moon token had only one ability: to sense other carriers that were also from the Red Moon.

However, this sensing range would depend on his level.

Currently, Ye Xiao was only level 90, so the sensing range was only about 1000 meters in radius.

Another point was that after a thousand years, the Red Moon carriers had most likely already found their Crimson Moon Summoner.

As for why both the crimson moon token and the red moon eye were obtained by killing Mixed-bloods,

the reason given by the red moon eye was very simple.

The Meiya People, or NPCs, and the Red Moon's energy repelled each other, leading to nearly a thousand years where

no NPC was able to successfully merge with the Red Moon's power.

Although humans arrived later, due to the Mixed-bloods born not long after, who combined the characteristics of both humans and Meiya People,

the Red Moon carriers determined them to be more suitable as Summoners.

Therefore, Mixed-bloods had a greater chance of obtaining Red Moon carriers.

However, neither the previous Snow Phoenix nor the Mixed-blood killed by Jiang Wei had truly obtained the abilities granted by the Red Moon.

Ye Xiao had his own understanding of this point.

The status of Mixed-bloods in the Eternal World was almost no different from that of slaves.

Ye Xiao's Mixed-blood characteristics gave them considerable potential.

But their growth and development period was too, too long.

So much so that they were simply unable to qualify for class-change missions.

Therefore, there was a high probability that the holders of these Red Moon carriers were still very weak.

However, the Eternal World was vast and boundless, and for a while, Ye Xiao had no clue.

Shaking his head, Ye Xiao withdrew his thoughts.

Collecting Red Moon carriers was a long process, so there was no need to rush too much.

He glanced at the time; there were still about 10 minutes until the end of the first phase of the Path of Exile.

Seeing this, Ye Xiao opened his skill bar.

Then he selected Fireball and Whirlwind Slash from it.

Immediately after, a stream of light flashed across Ye Xiao's eyes.

"Skill Fusion!"

As Ye Xiao cast his skill,

the mark representing Fireball and the mark representing Whirlwind Slash seemed to come alive, transforming into two rays of light that poured into the Fusion Mage's unique fusion skill bar.

The moment the two rays of light touched, Ye Xiao felt a strange energy emerge from the depths of his soul.

The two energies quickly merged into one mass.

In an instant, a brand new, unique mark appeared in the fusion skill bar.

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[Ding! Congratulations on fusing Fireball and Whirlwind Slash! A magical change has occurred between the two...]

[Ding! Congratulations on obtaining a new Fusion Skill — Flame Whirlwind!]

[Flame Whirlwind (Fusion): Consumes 1000 Mana, releases a flame storm, dealing 1000 + 1.4 * (Intelligence) fire-wind damage to all targets within a five-meter radius, and simultaneously applies a knock-back effect to targets. Cooldown: 2 seconds.]

---

Looking at the newly appeared skill, Ye Xiao couldn't help but gasp.

Although the new skill's mana cost was 100 times higher than Fireball, for Ye Xiao, who now had over 50,000 Mana, he could sustain such a cost.

At the same time, Flame Whirlwind's cooldown was twice that of Fireball; even with equipment cooldown reduction, it could only be activated once per second.

It seemed to be significantly weaker than Fireball.

But in reality, Ye Xiao's current single Fireball damage was only 13,465 points.

And a single Flame Whirlwind's damage, benefiting from both fire and wind damage bonuses, had already reached 20,792 points per cast.

The key point was that Flame Whirlwind was area damage.

If Ye Xiao's Talent mechanism was not accounted for,

the damage of this Flame Whirlwind was dozens of times that of Fireball.

How could Ye Xiao not be shocked by such terrifying damage?

Another point that surprised Ye Xiao even more was that

with the appearance of Flame Whirlwind, Ye Xiao's Intelligence actually increased by an additional 3 points.

In other words, fusion skills could also benefit from his Talent effect.

The only regrettable thing was that although the original skills that had been fused were still retained, they could no longer serve as embryo skills.

This left Ye Xiao quite disappointed.

However, according to the fusion skill description, if more than two skills were fused, the new skill's mana cost would double.

The recently fused Flame Whirlwind required 1000 Mana to activate.

If another skill was added, it would require 2000; adding another would make it 4000... Ye Xiao calculated that if ten skills were fused simultaneously, the Mana required to cast the new skill would reach a terrifying 250,000 or more.

Based on Ye Xiao's current Mana of over 50,000, he could probably only support fusing seven skills at once.

But this would make Ye Xiao's sustainability a huge problem.

It was not a wise choice.

Furthermore, Ye Xiao's current damage was completely overflowing, and he didn't need to go to such extremes.

Therefore, to maximize his Intelligence increase,

pairing skills for fusion was undoubtedly the best choice.

After a moment of thought, Ye Xiao made a decision.

He directly fused the remaining 14 Whirlwind Slashes and 14 Fireballs in one go.

Suddenly, his fusion skill bar, which was originally empty, gained 15 fusion skills.

And his Intelligence also increased by 45 points as a result.

But this was not the end.

Next, Ye Xiao fused the remaining 35 Fireballs and 35 Dark Night Soul Erosions.

Thus, his fusion skill bar gained another 35 new skills — Netherflame Embrace.

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[Netherflame Embrace: Consumes 2000 Mana, releases aHellfire (Netherflame) filled with evil aura at a single target. Targets afflicted by Netherflame Embrace take 15% increased damage from all sources for a certain period, and have their movement speed and attack speed reduced by 10%. Additionally, they take 50 + 0.3 * (Intelligence) continuous damage per second. Duration: 10 seconds. Maximum stacks: 100. Cooldown: 10 seconds.]

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The effect of Netherflame Embrace changed from direct damage to continuous damage similar to Venomous Assault, but it inherited the special effects of Dark Night Soul Erosion on this basis.

It was a slight enhancement.

However, the mana cost was actually twice as high as Flame Whirlwind.

Thus, it seemed that the mana consumption was not constant but varied depending on the combination of different skills.

Due to the smaller number of Fireballs, Ye Xiao could only stack Netherflame Embrace up to 35 layers at most.

Although it was sufficient,

in terms of crowd control, it was actually not as good as a pure Dark Night Soul Erosion.

After all, Ye Xiao's Super Divine Talent determined that the strength of his skill effects only depended on the number of skills with the same name.

Of course, Ye Xiao wasn't too disappointed.

After all, these 35 skills brought Ye Xiao a total of 105 Intelligence points and 7000 maximum health points.

It was just like grinding for attribute points.

Finally, Ye Xiao also didn't forget to fuse the two defensive skills, Mana Shield and Star Shield.

These two skills were attribute-less skills, so they could naturally be fused.

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[Star Guardian: Blocks 10% of all damage, additionally absorbs 20% of physical damage. Cost: 1000 Mana. Duration: 3 minutes.]

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Ye Xiao could only say that this effect was simple and brutal, directly stacking the effects of the two original skills.

But this way, he could cast three shields simultaneously.

Stacked, they could block 20% of all damage and 40% of physical damage.

This defensive capability directly doubled.

Looking at his 51 new skills, and the greatly increased Intelligence and health points,

Ye Xiao was naturally extremely happy.

Unfortunately, there were no longer enough original skills to fuse.

This left Ye Xiao feeling somewhat unfulfilled.

However, just at this moment,

a bell suddenly rang.

Ye Xiao looked up.

He immediately understood that the first phase of the Path of Exile had ended.

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