Chapter 113: The ‘Lawlessness’ of Upgrading
When Bai Yunfei had told Jing Mingfeng he wanted a night to think it over, it was actually because he simply didn’t have enough accessories to give to him.
There was naturally no way that he could just tell the other person, “I don’t have any as of right now, give me a night and I’ll have some for you.” That was tantamount to telling everyone else that he had a special power, wouldn’t it?
‘Having treasure’ and ‘being able to turn things into treasure’ are two entirely different concepts. Jing Mingfeng only knew that Bai Yunfei was in possession of several treasures. At most, he would think that Bai Yunfei was lucky enough to stumble on them. There was no telling how he would react if were to learn that these items were made through a special process by Bai Yunfei…
It was extraordinarily hard to understand the human mind. Although Bai Yunfei had no doubts of Jing Mingfeng’s character and how good of a person he might be morally, the relationship between Bai Yunfei and him was not as good as Li Chengfeng or Hong Yin.
Also, Jing Mingfeng only wanted the items that could increase his speed, so Bai Yunfei would focus entirely on that attribute. Before he left Yanlin City, he had managed to buy several accessories. He just hadn’t found the chance to upgrade them just yet. As long as he could, he would be able to ascertain the attribute of the items after a single upgrade. Then by focusing on the attribute, he could upgrade them by using his remaining amount of soulpoints. Through this process, he was able to get thirty or forty accessories that added to agility.
“Equipment quality: Superior.”
“Upgrade level: +10.”
“Additional attribute: +55 Agility.”
“+10 Additional effect: Additional 125 points of agility is added.”
“Upgrade requirement: 29 soulpoints.”
Bai Yunfei looked at the white ring in his hand for a moment before returning it to his space ring. “This is the only +10 accessory I have that offers agility. There’s still three left, I have to upgrade them tonight…”
“Did I bet away my luck or something!” At a loss for words, Bai Yunfei slapped his own forehead. “Is there really no way to improve the chances of a successful upgrade? Is it all ‘luck’? Why can’t you just give me an item that improves ‘luck’ then!”
Grumbling to himself, Bai Yunfei started to pray for even better luck. With another shake of his hand, he began to upgrade again.
……
“Upgrade successful.”
“Equipment quality: Superior.”
“Upgrade level: +10.”
“Additional attribute: +56 Agility.”
“+10 Additional effect: Movement speed is increased by 4%.”
“Upgrade requirement: 30 soulpoints.”
“Phew…” Bai Yunfei let out a sigh in relief. “After exploding five items, I finally have another +10 item!”
“But… there’s only just the ring. That makes two then. I’ll hold off on upgrading the rings for now…” Bai Yunfei put away the ring and took out a dark-amethyst bracelet.
“Equipment quality: Superior.”
“Upgrade level: +9.”
“Additional attribute: +43 Agility.”
“Upgrade requirement: 22 soulpoints.”
This was an accessory he had upgraded from before. Giving it some thought, Bai Yunfei shrugged, “Upgrade.”
“Upgrade successful.”
“Equipment quality: Superior.”
“Upgrade level: +10.”
“Additional Effect: +59 Agility.”
“+10 Additional effect: Increase hand speed by 5%.”
“Upgrade requirement: 30 soulpoints.”
“It finally succeeded!” Bai Yunfei whooped.
He was secretly rejoicing that he did not decide to “slow down a bit” and upgrade a lower level item that could very well fail to succeed.
In the past when he tried to experiment and research the “rule” of the Upgrade technique, he had failed to upgrade several +8 items. After six attempts, he managed to destroy two +8 equipment in the process of upgrading them to +9. And then nine +9 items failed to upgrade to +10 after… in short. He had tried many different “experiments” to decipher the secret of increasing his chances of a successful upgrade.
In the end, there had been one conclusion — there was no goddamn use. If it succeeded, it succeeded. Sometimes, he would have seven or eight successes in a row. Other times, he’d have nothing left. Though, every single time he thought back to that brick of his, he would gnash his teeth and never had the urge to fully upgrade something until it exploded. He would experiment with the more common equipment, and although the amount of explosions would cause him to feel ready to puke blood, he at least never regretted his choices…
“Increase hand speed by 5%?” Bai Yunfei was confused. This was the very first time he came across such an effect, “What does this mean? Hand speed? The ‘slight of hand’, is that it?”
“Let’s try it…” After a period of thought, he simply equipped the amethyst bracelet.
Like before, there was that same strange but familiar energy that entered his body. It was the phenomenon that would arise every time he equipped an upgraded item. Closing his eyes to take in the effects, moments passed before his eyes reopened. Then, with a speed like lightning, his hand lashed out in a blurry shadow in front of his body,
Bai Yunfei halted dead in his tracks after seeing that. Flabbergasted, he muttered, “It’s not too far away from attack speed, but there is a slight difference; it is concentrated into the aspect of the “hand”, so the effects are even better!”
“But the most important thing is…” Bai Yunfei fished out the rings from his space belt with a pleased smile, “I bet Jing Mingfeng will be happy to have these. His skills are associated with his hands. I wonder why he has such a ‘peculiar hobby’… Hm, maybe his secretive skill of pickpocketing someone is also a soul technique?”
Taking out a necklace, Bai Yunfei relaxed a little, “I didn’t think I’d get to my last +10 item so fast, there shouldn’t be any other problems, so I should be able to upgrade the other accessories…”
“Upgrade….”
……
Roughly three hours away from daylight or so.
Bai Yunfei looked at two black rings in his hands with a hesitant look.
“Equipment level: Superior.”
“Upgrade level: +9.”
“Additional attribute: +46 Spirit.”
“Upgrade requirement: 23 soulpoints.”
In his right hand was the very same space ring that Hong Yin had given him. In his left hand, his older space ring could be seen. In comparison, the newer space ring was capable of holding more than the older.
Both rings were originally +8. But for some strange reason, Bai Yunfei had felt that his ‘luck’ was rather good tonight, and decided that exploding one of the rings wouldn’t really matter. Therefore, upgraded them both, but he did not expect them to both succeed their upgrade. Now he was stuck in a conundrum on whether he should continue or not.
One thing worth mentioning was that the space ring Hong Yin had given was the very same ring with the very rare ‘spirit’ attribute. Sprit meaning soulforce of course…
“Spirit, that increases my soulforce… although it’s a rather insignificant amount, it could still save a soul cultivators life in a pinch potentially… With the information I learned yesterday, the additional effects something gains after an upgrade level of +10 corresponds with the attribute of the item. Agility means it’ll have a bonus increase with speed. Strength basically means to have to do with the body as a whole. The spirit attribute is extremely rare; even though it’s not yet +10, I can bet that it’s effects after +10 will benefit soulforce…”
“Forget it, time to gamble! This was an unexpected outcome anyways. Exploding it just means that was it!” After a moment of hesitation, Bai Yunfei decided to throw caution to the wind. His determination grew.
“Upgrade!”