221: Advance to [Jade 7]

Chapter 221: Advancing to Emerald 7

From the intelligence, Shi Li learned that fused characters would undergo significant changes.

First, the fused character's Characteristic would be added to the original, but this might lead to undesirable results due to conflicts or imbalances between the two Characteristics.

Second, related Equipment Cards and Action Cards would be added to subsequent rewards.

Finally, the same card would have different feedback when acting as the main character versus the fused character, with the main character taking precedence.

Therefore, using Withering Dragon as the main body was something Shi Li had decided from the start.

Because the thing he valued most was the infinite refresh of HP.

He had also verified this in the preceding time; this was basically the strongest Characteristic of all his characters in the ladder.

As long as Withering Dragon was equipped with enough survival capability, even if its HP was only about a hundred points in the late game, far less than those BOSSes with thousands of HP, almost no BOSS could instantly kill it.

Instead, it could slowly wear down others through layers of Wither.

Regarding the fused character, Shi Li had considered several targets.

The first was The Diner; its Characteristic of infinitely growing HP cap was definitely what Withering Dragon needed most.

However, on the other hand, he was a bit worried about these two Characteristics conflicting.

After all, Withering Dragon's Characteristic was “HP cap is fixed at X points.”

From the literal description and intuition, Shi Li felt that Withering Dragon's Characteristic would devour The Diner's Characteristic.

Of course, there was also a chance it wouldn't.

If it produced a “gain +HP cap for every X HP lost, reset HP every turn,” wouldn't that be invincible?

But since Shi Li was playing the Full Moon Ladder for the first time, he didn't dare to gamble.

Once eliminated or defeated in this mode, the opportunity for that month would be completely lost.

Next, Shi Li considered Jumping Dragon Guard.

If it had segmented HP, plus a reset every turn, it would be even more invincible than Withering Dragon + The Diner.

“You can only take one bar of my HP per turn, I will definitely not die.”

“Then I can also reset, and the lost HP bar will be fully restored next turn.”

This mechanism sounded even more terrifying than Withering Dragon + The Diner, and he didn't think such a fusion could be achieved.

So, he didn't dare to gamble on either of the above.

Then there were Breaker and Exploding Zombie.

The former could turn Withering Dragon's attacks into percentage damage, but if the target's HP wasn't high, it might not be worth it.

Especially when facing other competitors in PVP.

After all, Breaker converted 10 damage to 5%, so if the target's HP didn't exceed 200 points, it would be a loss in output.

What's more, Withering Dragon already had Wither, so from a tactical style perspective, it didn't lack output.

Exploding Zombie was similar; the Charge converted from lost HP only allowed Withering Dragon to unleash more Wither faster.

So Shi Li had to analyze Withering Dragon's shortcomings.

First, Withering Dragon was afraid of Purification.

Once the opponent had Purification, Wither would be meaningless.

Without Wither, Withering Dragon's output method would only be normal attacks, which was quite scarce.

With severely insufficient output, the opponent only needed a little Recovery, and it wouldn't be able to kill them.

If neither could kill the other, it would become a meaningless draw.

What's more, he believed that as it continued to develop, he would very likely encounter opponents like Moonlight Wizard.

Those who could instantly kill Withering Dragon if they gathered a set of burst hand cards.

So in the end, it might not truly be a draw; rather, he would be helpless against others, while others could deal with him by hoarding cards.

Second, Withering Dragon was afraid of negative effects.

For example, Isolation, which prevents him from gaining Shields.

When climbing the ladder with Withering Dragon, the most prioritized related item to collect was Shield.

Without Shield, Withering Dragon's survival ability would definitely decrease significantly.

For example, Armor Break, which can increase damage.

If it was a stackable Armor Break, it could also achieve an instant kill on a full-HP Withering Dragon after stacking to a certain number of layers.

The BOSSes in the ladder were random, and although BOSSes that could stack Armor Break were extremely rare, Shi Li had encountered them.

It just wasn't Withering Dragon that encountered that BOSS.

In summary, Shi Li's chosen fused character was—Demon-Defeating Dark Hunter.

After entering his choice, he saw his character change.

“Roar!!!”

Accompanied by a dragon's roar, the rotten flesh on Withering Dragon's body began to completely fall off.

Then, strange anti-magic runes were thus carved into the stark white bones.

Its panel also changed.

Demon-Defeating Dragon

Wither, 70 / 70, 0 / 60, LV20

Immortal - Characteristic: Demon-Defeating Dragon's HP cap is fixed at 50 points, HP resets every turn.

Demonbane - Characteristic: Demon-Defeating Dragon has Magic Immunity effect.

“Comfortable.”

Seeing this panel, Shi Li felt relieved.

With Magic Immunity, Demon-Defeating Dragon could immune both Isolation and Armor Break.

“If I could fuse like this in a Chess Domain or card game, that would be amazing.”

After fusion, he would also have the opportunity to acquire Equipment Cards and Action Cards exclusive to Demon-Defeating Dark Hunter.

Echo + Quantum Entanglement could greatly supplement Withering Dragon's output capability.

Then, the damage caused could further trigger the Charge of the Wither System, unleashing more Wither.

“I wonder if Demon-Defeating Dark Hunter's Magic Siphon can be used. If so, forming an Energy link directly with the opponent would be even more powerful.”

“Draining the opponent's Energy, even if they have burst skills, they won't be able to use them.”

Shi Li didn't know how this combination could lose.

Now it had survival, and it had output.

It wasn't in vain that he had held back from spending for so long; this wave of returns was directly worth it.

As the sun rose, the moonlight steps in the sky began to disappear.

The Withered Saint Lord, with his hands behind his back, slowly walked down the moonlight steps.

Before him, several Blacklight Group members, including the General Commander, were already waiting on the ground.

These individuals all shared a common Characteristic: they had qualified for this Full Moon.

“Saint Lord, please allow me to report the situation to you.”

The General Commander knelt on one knee, his head bowed.

The Withered Saint Lord did not speak, merely nodded slightly in assent.

“A total of four people from our group entered Full Moon mode this time.”

These four naturally did not include the Withered Saint Lord.

The fact that only four people from the top three mercenary groups in Shi Lei Country were qualified to enter Full Moon mode showed how difficult the entry was.

“Last night, the Full Moon mode had nine stages of progress, and there were a total of 2 PVP competitions.”

“Two of the four people in our group have been eliminated.”

The General Commander's gaze swept towards the two kneeling on one knee to the left.

It should be known that the four individuals who stood out in their Blacklight Group were all masters among masters, and all of them were Fel Energy Chess players.

However, Full Moon mode lasted for three days, and 3/4 of the participants would be eliminated on the first day.

According to this elimination rate, they only had two eliminated, which was already above average.

The Withered Saint Lord still said nothing in response.

“Saint Lord, this subordinate has an important matter to report.”

Just then, one of the eliminated Blacklight masters suddenly requested to speak.

So the Withered Saint Lord's gaze swept over this person.

A mere glance of less than a second made that Blacklight master, whose rank was as high as Emerald 33, tremble with fear, as if bearing immense pressure.

“I was eliminated in the first round.”

He endured the pressure and quickly said, “My opponent was an unknown person, and the character he used was the Wither System's Withering Dragon.”

Although he didn't know the relationship, he always felt that the Wither System or Withering Dragon had some connection with the Withered Saint Lord.

So this Blacklight master believed it was absolutely necessary to report.

“Withering Dragon?”

The Withered Saint Lord, who had been silent, finally spoke.

His gaze then turned to the General Commander.

This time, it was the General Commander's turn to feel immense pressure; his back muscles instantly tensed, and he was soaked in sweat.

“This subordinate will investigate immediately!”

Without the Withered Saint Lord's explicit instruction, the General Commander already understood.

In less than half a day, a detailed report was delivered to the Withered Saint Lord's hands.

“Wang Defa—”

Just seeing the name, the Withered Saint Lord's expression, which had been as placid as an ancient well since he arrived at the Chess Domain, changed for the first time.

There were many people with the same name in the world, but there was only one person who had repeatedly ruined his plans recently.

“Interesting.”

It seemed that next time he ascended the Moonlight Steps, he would have to attach some malicious will.

A will strong enough to kill anyone.

Shi Li didn't know that he had been targeted; after coming down from the ladder, he temporarily left the Chess Domain.

Leo's business hadn't been good recently, mainly because the Gold Group had been too smooth and efficient due to his participation.

Basically, all the bosses in Leo's network had been exploited.

The bosses' money didn't just come from nowhere; they needed to recover.

So, since there were no Gold Groups to do, Shi Li refocused his attention on card crafting.

After a few days of Gold Groups, he now had nearly 3 million cubic coins in hand.

“That should be enough to Star Ascension The Diner, and then I can give one more card the first step of the four-star simulation mission.”

“But don't think that far ahead for now, let's Star Ascension The Diner first.”

So he opened the card crafting panel.

However, this time the process was far from as smooth as imagined.

—

Having reached Emerald 6, his Energy was now very high.

Moreover, the refresh for crafting cards was different from the refresh for simulation missions, so it wouldn't lead to Energy depletion.

The main difficulty was the excessive number of refreshes.

It took a full 25 refreshes, costing nearly 2.9 million, to finally complete.

“This is too expensive.”

Looking at the text that popped up, Shi Li showed a bitter smile.

However, both simulation missions and card crafting were like this.

Full of uncertainty.

Obtainable Character Card [The Diner (Four-Star)] x1.

Obtainable Hand Card [Recovery (LV3)] x1, [Healing (LV3)] x1.

Obtainable Item Card [Food is Heaven].

Consume 115,000 cubic coins to reset this mission? (Yes/No)

As the emerald light washed over his entire body, the previous feeling of fatigue was swept away.

Rank: Emerald 6 → Emerald 7

Stamina: 770 / 770 → 800 / 800

Energy: 770 / 770 → 800 / 800

“But the Rage System resonance isn't increasing anymore; it seems it's reached its limit.”

Shi Li looked at the panel; 200% might be the maximum.

In the Rampage Trial, he also collected some related Item Cards.

For example, Gather Rage System success rate increase, harvest rate increase, material drop rate increase when defeating Rage System monsters, etc.

However, there haven't been many opportunities to encounter monsters recently.

“Ascending to four stars, it also added a task for its innate hand card, which is worth anticipating.”

“I just don't know how much more money it will cost. Now, one refresh costs 100,000, which is really too expensive.”

Shi Li showed a bitter smile.

Actually, he wasn't too anxious about this innate hand card mission now.

Relatively speaking, it was better to upgrade other cards to four stars first.

Because Xiu Qingshan had told him some time ago that in some high-end card games, in addition to single-hand card rules, there would even be restrictions on the number of innate hand cards, such as 3 innate cards.

And some exotic domains even naturally had such unwritten rules.

Because innate hand cards were already linked to the card's source power, sometimes some exotic domains with insufficient source power or unstable card table structures could not withstand such a linkage.

It was precisely to adapt to this rule that some high-level card players would slightly restrict the number of innate hand cards used in PVP.

Shi Li didn't know if this was good news or bad news for him.

But he was certain that a card player like Xiu Qingshan probably mastered more than 10 innate hand cards.

He even suspected that his teacher's Platinum 100 meant 100 unique cards.

However, he had asked Xiu Qingshan about this, and the answer he received was noncommittal.

Let's first look at the four-star The Diner panel.

The Diner

Rage, 30 points, Four-Star Attack 30, 100 / 100

Self-Devour - Characteristic: The Diner gains +10 HP cap for every 30 HP lost (T5)

Satiation - Passive: The Diner's attack power is fixed at 0, HP cap +100

Nourish Qi - Passive: For every 100 points The Diner's HP cap reaches, it gains 10 Healing each turn.

Food Injury - 10 HP Cap: The Diner enters Defense state this turn (T1)

Explosive Qi - 50 HP Cap: The Diner deals 30 Fixed Damage to 1 target.

Fated Death - 100 HP Cap: The Diner deals 80 True Damage to 1 target.

The four-star upgrade of this The Diner was not as good as imagined.

It only added an active skill entry, consuming 100 HP cap in exchange for 80 output.

A terrifying number, referring to the consumption.

For other cards, these 100 points could already mean death beyond Revival.

Even this kind of death could not be Revived.