80: 7OD Scheme

"Currently, the cities in S Province with fewer than 100 cases of fish-ization disease include Gaoping City, DT City..."

"Initial symptoms in fish-ization disease patients include: grayish-green scales appearing on the body's surface, a slight reduction in body size, and eyes..."

"The disease is currently spreading primarily among ordinary people; the Card Maker community seems able to effectively avoid infection with this virus.

Currently, the price of spirituality awakening auxiliary potions in S Province has tripled compared to last month..."

In the dormitory, Liu Jianren lay lazily on the sofa, mindlessly clicking the TV remote control as he muttered,

"Holy crap, Brother Po, why is every single channel broadcasting this!"

Wrapped in a bath towel, Sun Po wiped himself dry as he said,

"Of course they are. The Gaokao in S Province has even been suspended. If Card Makers weren't less susceptible to infection, this mess would be even bigger."

Liu Jianren thought for a moment and asked,

"Then what's up with those foreign teachers at the main gate?

How could people of their level get infected?"

"I don't know."

Sun Po thought to himself that he had been busy fighting fish-head monsters in the Duel Secret Realm the entire time—

they weren't even on the same page, so how would he know?

However, Sun Po also noticed something while watching TV:

These infected fish-ization disease patients were still very different from the [Mutated Deep One]s he had killed.

The monsters in the Duel Secret Realm were at least two meters tall, whereas fish-ization disease patients shrank to around 1.3 to 1.5 meters after infection,

not to mention stranger features like antlers.

Sun Po couldn't help but get lost in thought.

"Ring ring ring~"

Suddenly, a phone call came in. Sun Po unlocked his phone and looked at it;

the three characters of Yang Xinyue's name flashed on the screen.

The moment Sun Po answered the call, he heard a roar from the other end:

"Where the hell have you been, kid? I called you eight hundred times! Couldn't you bother to call back?"

Sun Po moved the phone a bit further from his ear before replying,

"I've been busy with matches these past few days and didn't check my phone much. How are things on your end, Sister Xinyue?"

Yang Xinyue went silent for a moment before replying,

"Same as usual. The fish-ization disease isn't too severe in Gaoping City, but I heard it's really bad in Jinyang.

Make sure you..."

The next half hour was spent with her checking up on him and telling him not to push himself too hard.

Ever since Sun Po arrived in this world, he had been without parents.

He rarely even dared to think about the concept of home,

yet right now, Yang Xinyue gave him a fleeting warmth of home.

Just as he was about to put down the phone, suddenly,

*Bang! Bang! Bang!*

There was a knock on the door. Liu Jianren opened it to see Li Tiance standing there.

Although Sun Po really wanted to ask if he brought the demon pill, he felt a bit embarrassed to bring it up.

Li Tiance, however, walked in without standing on ceremony:

"Tomorrow, I plan to enter the abyss to conduct a search and rescue for classmate Bai Yu. I heard Brother Po is also planning to explore it?"

Sun Po nodded and said,

"I'm somewhat interested, but I hope Brother Tiance can share some information regarding this abyss with me.

After all, this is a secret realm belonging to a university under the Li family's name, so I trust you know more about it than an outsider like me?"

Hearing this, Li Tiance laughed and said,

"I have some information, but it's all things I've heard from elders in my family.

They say this abyss is a secret realm connected to the bottom of the Grand Canal,

though others say it connects to a domain in the Netherworld,

and still others say it links to an ocean eye deep within the East Sea.

However, the abyss only seems to appear under specific conditions;

on ordinary days, it's just a regular hill."

Sun Po felt a bit disappointed that Li Tiance hadn't provided much useful information, but still unwilling to give up, he asked,

"Then has Brother Tiance ever heard of a monster called the Mad Dragon?"

Li Tiance shook his head and replied, "Never heard of it."

The two exchanged a few more pleasantries before finally agreeing to enter the abyss together tomorrow for exploration.

Liu Jianren wanted to go along as well, but Sun Po refused, saying:

"This is purely my personal business, and I have a feeling that this trip might be extremely perilous."

Liu Jianren argued that Bai Yu had fallen in taking the rap for him in the first place.

Liu Jianren was well aware of his [Mandate Dragon and Snake]'s ability;

perhaps in that instant, his good luck had somehow turned into someone else's misfortune.

Since things had been said to this extent, Sun Po couldn't dissuade him further.

He still had many things to do. First and foremost was converting his gains from this outing into new strength.

Sun Po knew full well that his ability to achieve something like "a high school senior slaying a god alone without using cards" yesterday

was perhaps only thirty percent due to his own strength, twenty percent because [Dagon] was severely injured, and at least fifty percent due to that nearly endless disaster qi.

Sun Po began analyzing the materials he had obtained one by one.

"[Card Creation Material Analysis]

[Small Crystal of Divine Substance]

Quality: [Gold 1-Star]

Description: [The essence of a divine creature condensed by the Great Old One [Dagon]]

MOD [wild god] compatibility with [Changyou]: 57%

MOD [wild god] loading success rate: 21.03%"

...

Divine substance! This was not the first time Sun Po had heard this term.

Back when he wanted to create the [Red Dragon] MOD for Liu Jianren, he had heard the [mod loading system] mention this term.

This made him suspect all along that this stuff was probably a necessity for making divine MODs.

However, the [wild god] below sounded rather average.

He continued inspecting the remaining materials:

"[Card Creation Material Analysis]

[Authority of Dagon]

Quality: [Gold 1-Star]

Description: [The authority possessed by the Great Old One [Dagon] is Ocean Control, Father of Deep Ones]

MOD [Great Old One] compatibility with [Changyou]: 5.1%

MOD [Great Old One] loading success rate: 0.1112%"

Regrettably, Sun Po felt this was also useless, but looking at this light-blue orb-like material,

Sun Po felt it would be a waste to dismantle it. After all, things like authority and ocean control sounded far from simple.

The quality of the following materials dropped.

"[Card Creation Material Analysis]

[Orb from Dagon's Brain]

Quality: [Orange 1-Star]

Description: [A mysterious orb birthed inside the brain of the Great Old One [Dagon]]

This material cannot be crafted into a MOD"

The rest were average.

[Skin of Dagon]

Quality: [Purple 8-Star]

...

Useless. Dismantle.

[Eye of Dagon]

...

Dismantle.

[Dagon...]

...

In the end, all 13 remaining materials were Purple-rank body materials from [Dagon].

Deeming them useless, Sun Po dismantled them all.

The spiritual energy points in his possession reached an all-time peak—550,000 spiritual energy points.

However, holding a huge amount of spiritual energy points, who should be loaded with a MOD? What MOD should be loaded?

These two questions gave Sun Po a headache.

First, he eliminated two wrong answers:

"Loading [Changyou] with something like [wild god] or [Great Old One] is definitely out of the question."

After all, [Changyou] had the potential to become the [Six-Eared Macaque] now;

skill-based MODs were fine to add since [Changyou] learned a bit of everything,

but if something went wrong with its core essence, that would be harming his own cub.

That left only one option—custom-made MODs.

As for custom MODs, Sun Po felt there wasn't a suitable opportunity for [Changyou].

Originally, seeing its proficiency with polearms, he had wanted to make a good staff for it,

but now [Changyou] had shrunk to the size of a palm, rendering its physical combat skills essentially useless.

Wielding spears and staves was off the table in the short term, so it could only sit in the sky casting divine abilities to maintain its combat power.

That left choosing between [Black Rhino Armor] and [Tianhe Budu].

However, after only a moment's thought, Sun Po had his answer.

...