223: Chapter 223 [Starry Sky Covenant] Merit Awarded! How to Overcome the Material Crisis?

He couldn't dodge it!

This was Zhang Jian's first reaction.

The Aura of this sword carried a palpitation-inducing fluctuation.

Zhang Jian couldn't even move his body.

It all happened in the blink of an eye.

The sharp sword's speed was simply too fast; before anyone could even see its form, it had already turned into a stream of light and pierced into Zhang Jian's forehead.

Puchi!

Zhang Jian felt a chill instantly envelop his entire body.

An unimaginable destructive force exploded within his body in an instant.

It looked as though...

It was about to blast him directly into fine dust.

At that moment.

Various lights began to flicker across his body one by one.

Basic defense: ineffective!

Domain amplification: ineffective!

[Sword Intent Block]: ineffective!

Even...

Even with a 28% dodge rate from his Heavenly Dao-grade attributes, it completely failed to trigger.

Zhang Jian could only rely on his physical body to tank it head-on!

Countless messages flickered incessantly before his eyes.

Until one appeared, causing the sword's eruption to stagnate slightly.

"Hidden Class Trait activated: When facing sword-type damage that exceeds defensive capabilities, reduce the effect by 50%."

The scabbard Zhang Jian carried with him lit up with a dazzling radiance.

But even with the damage reduced by half, it was still something he couldn't block.

That tremor and fear, seemingly coming from the depths of his Soul, descended in an instant.

Puchi!

Zhang Jian spat out a large mouthful of blood.

Just then.

A soft sigh seemed to ring in Zhang Jian's ears.

A hexagram composed of countless patterns descended instantly, enveloping Zhang Jian, Wang Fei, and the others together.

Zhang Jian, who had seemed on the verge of death under the sword's attack, miraculously kept a final breath and survived.

This was exactly the team-type Heavenly Dao reward obtained from clearing a Hell-difficulty Dungeon previously.

[Star Vault Covenant] (+9)

When a team member receives fatal damage exceeding their current health value, it automatically activates. Its priority supersedes mythical level (Heavenly Dao-grade) skills/traits/talents.

The target receiving damage retains 999 health points. 10% of the remaining damage is converted into [Stellar Erosion Energy] and transferred to other team members in order of their health values.

With each transfer, the total damage decays by 90%, neutralized by the rules of the Heavenly Dao.

Can only be activated once every 7 days; requires team members to be within the same map range.

Now, as more and more Hell difficulties were cleared...

Under the accumulation of several Heavenly Dao rewards, it had already been upgraded to the level of +9.

The effect was incomparably powerful.

For some unknown reason, its priority, which was already above the mythical level, had also been temporarily raised above the Heavenly Dao-grade.

It took effect against the sword's attack.

Blocking it.

With the effect activated, the damage Zhang Jian failed to withstand was converted into a mass of turbid energy carrying starlight.

Carrying extreme destructive power, it was transferred to the others.

Wang Fei bore the brunt of it first.

His body was also instantly ravaged.

His health plummeted to the bottom in an instant, and he collapsed to the ground, his eyes filled with terror.

Yan Han.

Wei Donglai.

One teammate after another had the damage transferred to them in sequence.

The sword's energy seemed to be weakening continuously, yet it still persisted.

Until it had attacked almost every single teammate.

When it reached the last person, Xiao Yun.

He took a sharp breath, his gaze resolute.

He directly burned a hundred years of his lifespan to max out the priority of a skill, triggering its strongest trait.

Puchi!

Puchi!

Puchi!

The three extra lives granted by the skill were consumed one by one.

Finally.

His remaining Original Life was also under attack by the sword's energy mass, which had been ground down until it was almost invisible.

He was teetering on the edge.

However.

Xiao Yun burst into loud laughter.

When that last sliver of energy heavily damaged his Original Life, leaving him with only 9,527 health points...

Finally, it vanished!

The other teammates, who were collapsed on the ground and gasping for breath from their heavy injuries, saw this.

Ignoring their own weak Auras, they laughed in unison.

They had blocked it!

Only then did Xuan Jizi rush over to support Zhang Jian, his expression full of guilt.

"I wanted to make a move just now, but for some reason, my body wouldn't move. Luckily you're okay."

Hai Mengen and the others were also still shaken.

"Yes, I also wanted to help you block it, but that Aura was too terrifying; it made even my thinking stop."

Relying on his powerful health recovery speed, Zhang Jian's face instantly turned from deathly pale to ruddy.

He waved it off nonchalantly.

"It was the same for everyone. This attack came too suddenly and its Rank was too high. No matter who it was, they wouldn't have been able to move."

"Besides."

He looked at Xuan Jizi with lingering fear.

"Fortunately, I had successive Breakthroughs and my strength increased. Relying on the [Star Vault Covenant], I still had a bit of ability to block it."

"If it were you guys, you might have already..."

He felt embarrassed to continue, but Xuan Jizi and the others all understood his meaning.

They all nodded in agreement.

And when Zhang Jian explained the effects of the [Star Vault Covenant], Xuan Jizi's expression became even more horrified.

First, it was weakened by 50% by a hidden class trait.

Then, after he blocked it himself, only 10% of the damage was converted.

What the others bore was actually only 10% of each instance of damage.

Even so.

It actually left ten powerful Professionals with health exceeding a hundred million unable to block it.

Xiao Yun even had to consume three extra lives to narrowly survive?

Then just how strong was the initial attack?

Probably even a hundred Xuan Jizis wouldn't have been able to stop it, right?

Everyone had an expression of having survived a disaster.

Among them...

Zhang Jian had actually already borne the vast majority of the damage.

If his strength had been even slightly weaker...

Let alone ten teammates helping to share the damage...

Even if there were more, they would have all just been throwing their lives away!

This time, it was truly a stroke of luck!

Amidst the relief, Xuan Jizi was also somewhat curious.

Such terrifying damage was thousands or tens of thousands of times stronger than the power of the planet-level third-tier BOSSes he had seen in Dungeons.

Where on earth did it come from?

While everyone was wondering, Zhang Jian's personal terminal suddenly rang.

He picked it up and saw it was a voice call from President Li Husheng.

"Zhang Jian, are you alright?"

According to President Li Husheng's description, the sphere containing this sharp sword first appeared in Ta City.

And the location was precisely the residual passage from when Zhang Jian killed Ming Kong.

At that time...

When the sphere appeared, the entire Ta City felt a sense of despairing Deterrence.

After the sphere flew in a circle around Ta City, it only paused for a moment before President Li Husheng's eyes, and then flew away without looking back.

President Li Husheng realized this might be because he had the blessing of Heavenly Dao rewards, making his overall strength certainly the strongest in Ta City.

Another possibility was that the Void God Clan members who were killed back then had come to seek revenge in this manner.

And as the main force of damage at that time, Zhang Jian would definitely be the first target.

Zhang Jian expressed his agreement with this guess.

And he instructed him to keep a constant watch near that passage and let him know immediately if anything else happened.

After hanging up the phone, Zhang Jian's expression was grave.

"They've found us!"

Xuan Jizi nodded.

"That should be right. The attack of this sword is completely beyond what any planet-level tier can compare to."

Immediately after, he spoke about the experience of taking people to the Ancestral Dragon Ruins Dungeon.

That Dungeon could only be entered if one's strength reached the planet-level.

The maximum capacity was ten people.

Their group of six wanted to give it a try first.

The Dungeon was an exploration type.

They would continuously encounter increasingly powerful monsters.

Their strength started from Rank 99 and gradually reached the point where planet-level monsters appeared.

Ordinary mobs, Leader-grade, and even elite-grade monsters were all fine.

Relying on their own powerful attributes and various skill combinations, they faced no difficulty.

But when they encountered a BOSS, the true test began.

Even a planet-level first-tier BOSS was completely different from other monsters.

The biggest characteristic was skill immunity.

epic-grade skills, whether crowd control or offensive, were ineffective against them.

Fortunately, the few of them were all top performers of the same Rank, and what they learned was basically primarily mythical level.

But even for mythical level skills, they could only exert 50% of their original effect.

But with Xuan Jizi, a planet-level third-tier, present...

Relying on the effect of tier suppression, he still had quite an advantage over them.

Along the way...

Until they finished killing the planet-level second-tier BOSS, everything went relatively smoothly.

But when they encountered the planet-level third-tier in the next stage, the style suddenly changed.

This fellow was not only immune to epic-grade skills...

Even mythical level skills only had a 30% effect on it.

All at once, everyone's output capability was cut by more than half.

Not only that.

After Yun Haiyao and the other two broke through their Rank caps, they basically only increased by five to eight Ranks each.

Overall, they only had the strength of the planet-level first-tier.

The disadvantage wasn't great when facing the suppression of a second-tier BOSS.

But against a planet-level third-tier, the opponent's full 20% final output bonus made them feel the pressure instantly.

They were even starting to find it hard to withstand, given the weak effects of their own mythical level defensive skills.

As for the two rising stars, Hai Mengen and Yun Haiyi...

Although they had directly raised their Ranks to 114 before entering the Dungeon by relying on the experience gained with Zhang Jian previously—giving them planet-level second-tier strength and meaning they weren't suppressed as harshly as the other three...

Due to their class traits, their basic output and defensive support capabilities were all realized through skills.

Once their skills were discounted, their combat power became negligible.

In the end...

It was actually the [Guardian Sword Puppet] brought by Xuan Jizi that stubbornly held off the planet-level third-tier BOSS.

Everyone joined the fray together, grinding it down with basic attacks.

They finally managed to wear it down to death.

But because each entry into the Dungeon had a fixed stay time...

The base was 24 hours.

With their six-person team, they received an extra 40% time bonus.

It was increased to over 30 hours.

But even so, they left with regret after killing the planet-level third-tier BOSS.

The vast majority of that time was consumed in the battle against the final BOSS.

Speaking of this, Xuan Jizi felt some regret.

"If I had known your Sword Puppet was this useful, I should have gotten one for each of them too."

Xiao Yuntian also nodded.

"If there were another defensive-type Sword Puppet, this old man's precious blade could also slash away more wholeheartedly!"

"The attack of that son of a bitch BOSS was truly bizarre; one slip-up could cost a life. It was really an unsatisfying fight!"

Yan Buyu's eyes were shining, "Did you really create this thing, Brother Zhang Jian?"

"When that old fellow Xuan Jizi said it, I still didn't believe him, thinking he'd gotten some treasure from somewhere to trick us."

Yun Haiyao's beautiful eyes flickered as she looked at Zhang Jian curiously.

Being stared at by three big shots at once, Zhang Jian felt a bit embarrassed.

"It was indeed refined by me."

"I'll make one for everyone later."

"Good!"

Yan Buyu lightly shook his folding fan, his gaze full of praise.

The three of them even bowed to Zhang Jian in unison.

"Then we'll have to trouble young friend Zhang Jian!"

Zhang Jian accepted it calmly.

He knew well the power of his Sword Puppets; he could afford to receive this respect!

Now that his Rank had increased to 50, the number of non-self living Sword Puppets he could bind had increased from 16 to 25.

There were 9 brand new slots, which was completely sufficient.

And besides these three, there were also those he'd promised to Director Yun Wenhong and Zhou Quan.

With Wang Fei coming over to tell him about the situation during his Fusion, he also knew that for things to go so smoothly, these two had also played a big role.

Naturally, he also wanted to give them a good reward.

However, just as he was preparing to set things up and refine them properly...

An awkward scene occurred.

In the Materials warehouse, there were no corresponding refining Materials left!

This...

Made Xuan Jizi extremely angry.

"Old Yun, you dog! You even dare to embezzle the academy's things?"

Director Yun Wenhong had a helpless expression.

"Chancellor, how could I dare to do such a thing?"

"The Materials were just used for Professor Zhang Jian's Fusion..."

When he said this, Xuan Jizi then realized and his old face turned red.

But he wouldn't admit defeat verbally.

"I don't care!"

"These three planet-level big shots want Sword Puppets right now. If there are no Materials, aren't you making me lose face?"

"Find a way immediately and get them for me!"

Director Yun Wenhong was a bit distraught.

"Chancellor, even if you kill me, I have no way to get them in a short time."

"These Materials are not commonly seen on the market; even if you want to buy them at a high price, there isn't that much stock."

Zhou Quan came out to mediate.

"What is the reason they're hard to purchase? Is it low production or few Dungeons dropping them?"

Director Yun Wenhong breathed a sigh of relief and hurriedly explained.

"The epic-grade Materials needed for refining these Sword Puppets are all the finest among similar Materials."

"There are actually many types of Dungeons that can drop them. If we grind several Dungeons within our academy dozens of times each, we could gather them all."

"But they only have a chance of dropping at nightmare difficulty, and the quantity isn't much."

"Even counting the extra gains from an S-Rank evaluation or higher, the total quantity that can be harvested from each Dungeon is very limited."

"Even if..."

He had fetched countless batches of Materials for Zhang Jian recently and already knew the material requirements like the back of his hand.

He could also roughly calculate Zhang Jian's success rate for refining Sword Puppets.

So with just a mental calculation, he gave a rough range.

"Even if we can get an SSS-Rank evaluation every time, it would probably take at least 100 Dungeon runs to gather enough Materials for 10 refining attempts."

100 times!

When he said this number, even he felt it was a bit pale and weak.

The Dungeons that could drop these Materials were at least Rank 50 at the lowest and Rank 80 at the highest.

Within this range, there were quite a few Professionals in Galaxy Academy.

But there weren't many who could put together a team that could 100% clear the corresponding nightmare difficulty levels.

To ensure at least a 100% SSS-Rank evaluation, it would have to be a team entirely composed of Prodigy-level members.

Even though Galaxy Academy was full of talent, being able to scrape together three to five such teams was already good.

Even if they could clear it 5 times a day...

It would still take a full 20 days to have a chance to farm the required Materials.

Xuan Jizi furrowed his brows.