100: Chapter 100 Shopping
The young priest was behind the counter again today. Without any small talk, he listed the names of the eight skills previously purchased one by one.
Holy Light, Holy Light Link, Holy Light Barrier, Pure Spirit, Purification, Mental Resilience, Holy Light Infusion, and Spirit Perception.
One copy of each. After transferring one million four hundred thousand credits, the eight Skill Scrolls were in hand.
He took the Soul Casket scroll out of his backpack. Not wanting to use it in the hall, he turned and left the side hall, found an empty Training Room at the end of the corridor, locked the door, and applied the scrolls to himself one by one.
White lights flashed in succession as seven skills simultaneously jumped to the Mastery level. Holy Light also gained some experience.
He then applied the Soul Casket to himself. A tiny wisp of soul energy trembled deep within his consciousness, as if something had branded itself into the depths of his mind, and then it fell silent.
He opened his personal panel, waiting to see the attribute changes.
His Mental Power attribute jumped three times, going from thirty-two to thirty-five.
Then it stopped. He stared at the panel for several seconds. Based on his previous experience, upgrading seven skills to the Mastery level should have added at least two points of Mental Power per skill, totaling at least fourteen points, yet it only increased by three.
He passed through the portal back to the Main Star Plaza and, standing on the white stone, immediately summoned Xiao Guang.
"Why did my Mental Power attribute only increase by three points? Seven skills just promoted to the Mastery level."
Xiao Guang's light body flickered.
"Your Mental Power attribute has reached the threshold for your current rank, which is twenty-nine points. Your current Mental Power attribute is thirty-six points, D-rank. Attributes gained from Mastery level skills and below no longer contribute to attributes once the threshold is reached. Breaking through the threshold requires attribute bonuses from Expert level skills. The six points of Mental Power you have already gained beyond the threshold came from the extra attributes of the previous Expert level Programming and Virtual Intrusion and Defense."
He pondered for a moment. The threshold was twenty-nine; no matter how many skills below Mastery level he stacked, it wouldn't help. If he wanted to continue improving his Mental Power, he had to invest in Expert level skills.
This time, he didn't go directly to the Holy See's exclusive portal. If he bought too many skills in the same amount of time at the Holy See, he was afraid they would think he was reselling them.
He had no choice but to check the Trading Plaza.
He also had some things he needed to strengthen tonight.
First was Psychokinesis; it was too useful, convenient, and versatile.
Next was the Mechanic's virtual aspect; he had to complete the foundation so he could turn passive into active, and no one would be able to fool him anymore.
The third point was to supplement other attributes; with such good conditions, he couldn't afford to have any weaknesses.
His shopping list was clear. First, he would sweep through the advanced skills related to Psychokinesis. Going to the east side of District 8, he searched stall by stall.
He first found what he needed most: Basic Psychokinesis Skill Scrolls. He bought six of them immediately.
Two copies were used to push his Mastery level Psychokinesis to the Expert level, and the remaining four were used to bring it to the Perfection level.
Above that was the Ultimate level. Xiao Guang said the Skill Scrolls couldn't be stacked. He could only use more and rely on proficiency to level up.
He continued searching and found two supplementary skills for the Psychokinesis system.
Psychokinesis Shaping could allow psychokinesis to condense into more stable and complex forms. Previously, when he used a water blade to cut people in the hotel, if he had the Shaping buff, the stability and cutting precision of the water blade could have been improved by another level.
Strength Amplification directly increased the range and power cap of his Psychokinesis. His current effective range was about a few dozen meters, and it would decay beyond that. Amplification could pull the overall effective range and attack power up by a notch.
He bought four of each skill; he couldn't upgrade them for now, so he would keep them to level up slowly.
Next, he came across a skill called Strengthened Will.
Skill Description: Strengthens the stability of Mental Power itself, improving the stable execution of all skills that rely on Mental Power. Whether it was Psychokinesis control or light-based Healing spells, they were all within the scope of Strengthened Will.
The additional effect was that it could effectively block external emotional interference and improve focus when using Psychokinesis.
This item perfectly filled the gap in his Psychokinesis system. Psychokinesis was driven by Mental Power; the higher the Mental Power, the stronger the Psychokinesis. However, if the Mental Power itself wasn't stable enough, no matter how great the power was, it could easily go wrong at critical moments.
Without hesitation, he bought four copies.
The Psychokinesis system was now taking shape; shaping precision, amplification range, and reinforced stability were all in place.
Next, he found a passive skill called Rapid Recovery, which accelerated the natural recovery speed of energy. It wasn't Healing after an injury, but a pure replenishment of energy.
Undead Body could transfer physical stamina consumption to Mental Power, but energy consumption itself couldn't be transferred. This skill perfectly filled the gap. Combined with the all-attribute recovery acceleration from Basic Recovery, the two complemented each other, and the speed of energy recovery could be increased by a significant margin.
He bought four copies.
Next was the Mechanic system. He wouldn't use the Mechanic system for combat; it was mainly for the virtual direction. He needed to broaden his capabilities, not push the height.
Electromagnetic Principles, Electronic Repair, Data Analysis, Network Connection, Electromagnetic Interference, and Data Filtering and Sorting—these were mainly to expand his capability directions, and he bought two of each.
But there was one expensive item: Intelligent Programming. There were only two copies in all the stalls, and none in the auction house. If he could create his own intelligent agent, it would be much more convenient, as he could let it keep watch for him on the network.
Next was the growth of other physical attributes.
He quickly found two corresponding passive skills.
Physical Enhancement, a passive specifically for Constitution.
Strength Amplification, a passive specifically for Strength.
Super Speed, a passive specifically for Speed.
Four copies of each—that was everything.
After buying these, he had spent over fifteen million credits.
He still had twelve million credits in hand.
Zhen Lu began to look at Skill Scrolls in the auction house; he needed an ultimate move now.
He quickly spotted one.
Psychic Meteor: Condenses invisible vacuum psychokinetic cores using one's own Psychokinesis and Mental Power, which can be thrown out. It can be detonated using Psychokinesis or Mental Power. With the psychokinetic core explosion as the center point, countless elemental riots erupt and overlap simultaneously, forming a complex, ultra-large-scale destruction domain.
Damage bonus mechanism: All attributes will provide additional bonuses.
This was simply perfect for him; whoever dared to talk trash, he would just blow them up.
It was just a bit expensive, costing ten million.
He had the money, so he bought it.
He put all the scrolls into his backpack, passed through the Main Star Plaza, and went straight into the Holy See's exclusive portal.
He passed through the main hall of the cathedral, turned into the side corridor, found an empty Training Room, and locked the door.
He first upgraded all Psychokinesis and Mechanic related skills to the Mastery level. He couldn't upgrade them any further; he had to take it slow, as he was afraid his body wouldn't be able to handle it if he went too fast.
Physical Enhancement, Strength Amplification, and Super Speed were only learned to the Mastery level. These straightforward skills directly added three points to each attribute.
Next, he put away all the remaining Skill Scrolls, waiting to continue upgrading tomorrow.
Emerging from the Holy See world and returning to the Main Star Plaza, he exited the game directly.
Opening his eyes, he saw the ceiling of his apartment in Central City.
A familiar feeling of hunger surged from deep within his body. He rolled out of bed and ran to the kitchen.
He tore open all the energy bars, chocolate, compressed biscuits, and protein powder stored in the cabinet and shoved them into his mouth, eating for a long while before he was full.
He gulped down a large glass of water, swept the empty packaging into the trash can, pulled open the cabinet, and took a look; the stock was already bottoming out.
In the next few days, he would have attributes to upgrade every day. Each time he upgraded, he had to replenish, and this little reserve was simply not enough.
He planned to go out to the supermarket in Central City tomorrow during the day to sweep up another batch of high-nutrient-density items—energy bars, protein powder, nutrient solution—and hoard as much as he could.
After eating, he didn't go straight to sleep. He logged back on, flipped through the mission list, found a simple Temporary Summoning mission, accepted it, and went offline to sleep after finishing it.