Chapter 88: ‘Flame Dagger’ of the Bracer
Bai Yunfei’s head drooped down in thought. Gradually, there was a light of understanding that flashed through his eyes….
“So that’s the reason. I didn’t understand why the Firetipped Spear and the bracer had been upgraded, but if we follow what big brother Hong Yin says….then it was because of the fireseed essence. Although I’m not from the Crafting School and don’t know the way of crafting….I have the Item Upgrade Technique! I may not know why this is, but if my guess isn’t wrong, when the essence fireseed mixed with the soul item, the Upgrade Technique had also made a special connection to it to have this type of result. But not only was the quality of the item increased, it was upgraded without my control of it. Could this be….the mystery that is the Upgrade Technique?”
“But, my Upgrade Technique didn’t have anything to do with the essence fireseed in the past….maybe after I became a Soul Sprite, the condensed essence fireseed had gained some sort of special property to it that allows for a hundred percent upgrade rate? It’s a shame I can’t experiment on this and find out. After having the essence fireseed fuse with my body, it’s become too different since before I became a Soul Sprite….”
“Yunfei, what are you thinking about?” Hong Yin’s voice entering his ear had caused Bai Yunfei to snap back into awareness.
“It’s nothing….big brother Hong Yin, I think….” Bai Yunfei hesitated. Then as if he had made up his mind, he spoke to Hong Yin, “Big brother Hong Yin, could I see all of your soul items?”
Hong Yin stared blankly, “Eh? What for?”
“That is….” Bai Yunfei didn’t know how to respond. But then he thought of a way, “You know already. I have a few secrets that I cannot let others know about. In truth, the reason why the Glacial School is so dead set on chasing me down is mainly because of this. I know big brother Hong Yin won’t put me in danger, and even if I have no reason to explain in detail, I will tell you. I can….upgrade weaponry. Although I can’t upgrade it to the point of this bracer, I can at least bring up the power by a small amount….”
“What! Is that true?!” Hong Yin’s eyes let out a brilliant ray of light as he stared seriously at Bai Yunfei.
“En. I cannot explain the method, but I can do it.” After speaking, Bai Yunfei didn’t hide anything back and maintained a calm expression.
The light in Hong Yin’s eyes receded as he gave a contemplative look. WIth a shake of his right hand, a white dagger appeared in it. Handing it over to Bai Yunfei, he said, “Even if it’s a weapon like this, what can you do with it?”
In the split moment he saw the dagger, Bai Yunfei immediately felt his heart leap into his throat. A strong bloody smell could be felt from it. And for a moment, Bai Yunfei had felt that there was an illusion placed onto him that made him see a red-eyed wolf growling towards him.
This illusion had been for a moment before vanishing. When Bai Yunfei had regathered his thoughts, there had been nothing out of the ordinary, and the dagger was just an ordinary one. No–calling it ordinary wouldn’t be apt. Because at a closer observation, he had discovered that this dagger would be better off being described as the fang of some sort of beast. It was practically grinded and polished from a fang and fashioned into a crude type of dagger.
The Bloodhowl Fang was rumored to said to belong to the Bloodhowl Wolf King when it reached the eighth level. It would use its own fang to craft a weapon with an unbelievably sharp point and tremendous power. In the world of soul cultivators, it was an extremely well known soul item. Naturally, Bai Yunfei didn’t know that, but he could feel that this weapon had a strange make to it and felt doubtful.
But despite the doubtful look on Bai Yunfei’s face, when he took the weapon into his hands a thunderstrucked look overtook it.
“Equipment quality: Low-grade Artifact.”
“Attack Power: 2257.”
“Upgrade requirements: 113 soulpoints.”
“Low-grade Artifact!! Artifact….” Bai Yunfei was stupefied. His mind was in turmoil, and so he couldn’t help but utter out in shock, “Low-grade heaven-ranked!”
Hong Yin had been studying Bai Yunfei’s expressions. It was at this moment that his eyebrows rose up with an ‘just as expected’ type of look. Smiling, he said, “As I expected, Yunfei, you could tell the quality of it at a single touch? Not bad. This dagger is called the “Bloodhowl Fang”. Although it is barely just at the heaven rank, its power is unbelievable strong.”
“So how about it? Even if its a heaven-ranked soul item, will you be able to increase its strength as you said you could?” Hong Yin stared at the contemplative Bai Yunfei with an expecting look.
After a moment to think, Bai Yunfei braced himself and nodded his head. “En, there won’t be any problems. I just need some time. Tomorrow I will return this back to big brother Hong Yin.”
“Oh, really now?” Hong Yin was overjoyed. Smiling, he said, “En, take your time, there’s no need to rush. Even if you took a few days, it would be fine.”
Bai Yunfei smiled at the sight of an overjoyed Hong Yin, “Haha, big brother Hong Yin, how could you be so carefree? This is a heaven-ranked soul item. Aren’t you afraid I’d run off with it?”
Hong Yin stared blankly for a moment before shooting a baleful eye at him, “You underestimate your old brother. Do you really think you would be able to run away from me? Haha….”
After a brief discussion, Hong Yin had reminded Bai Yunfei of several facts that should be known regarding the original property of his soul and to not try to increase his soulforce for the time being. Bai Yunfei would have to first familiarize himself with the newfound energy he had as well. He was at the middle Soul Sprite stage, but even if his body had adapted to the energy, he still needed to learn how to control it. His level of control was still at the Soul Warrior stage and so he would have to first familiarize himself with the power of the Soul Sprite before he could try to advance again.
…………
That night, Bai Yunfei sat cross-legged on the bed with the Bloodhowl Fang in hand and his mind solely concentrated on upgrading it.
This would be the very first time he was able to upgrade an equipment at the level of Artifact, so Bai Yunfei didn’t dare to be sloppy about it. Who knows whether or not during the upgrade that it would behave in a similar pattern to a Rare or Legacy item.
But it had been smooth sailing for now. The things that Bai Yunfei was worried about had never come to past. Aside from a few wasted soulforce and the lower probability of the upgrade being successful, nothing unexpected had happened, allowing Bai Yunfei to upgrade the item all the way to +10.
“Equipment quality: Low-grade Artifact.”
“Upgrade level: +11.”
“Attack power: 2257.”
“Additional attack power: 1263.”
“+10 additional effect: When attacking, there is a 30% chance of causing “Intimidation”, forcing the opponent’s total attributes to drop 20% for 10 seconds.”
“Upgrade requirements: 113 soulpoints.”
Bai Yunfei wiped at his head with his left hand in exhaustion. “An Artifact tier equipment is not that easy to upgrade. To just upgrade it to +10, I’ve already failed six times and wasted around 2500 soulpoints. I’m almost at my limit, so that must mean the amount of soulpoints I have as a middle Soul Sprite would be around 3000 or so….”
“Any equipment above the Rare tier would have roughly half the original attack power as an additional attack power when it’s +10. Does that mean all soul items are this way? It’s sad that I don’t have much contact with many soul items or any way to test it. Plus, I don’t dare continue to upgrade them! The dangers are too much, and if I fail now, then I wouldn’t even have two sticks to rub together. The Firetipped Spear and bracer were upgrade by luck. It’s too bad there won’t be a second chance of having that happen again….”
Bai Yunfei tilted his head to look at the Bloodhowl Fang with some satisfaction, “It has more than half its original attack power now, I wonder if big brother Hong Yin will be happy with this? The additional effect isn’t bad either. Thirty percent is already pretty high, and dropping the opponent’s overall attributes by twenty percent, does that mean their speed and strength? With big brother Hong Yin having such a superior strength, combined with this effect, then….he’d be able to control victory itself!”
Putting away the Bloodhowl Fang, Bai Yunfei thought for a moment before taking out the crimson bracer.
“The +10 additional effect I’ve already tested when battling Zhang Zhengshan. Its effect was extremely unusual and basically meant that I was able to borrow my opponent’s strength for my own attack. Combining defense and offense together, I was able to flip the tides of battle around unexpectedly! This +12 ‘flame winged dagger’ is something I haven’t tried before. It consumes soulpoints upon activation? Does that mean….”
Bai Yunfei adorned the bracer onto his right arm and then concentrated his soulforce to enter the bracer. The bracer flashed with a crimson light that filled the entire room, but other than that, nothing had changed.
“Eh? What does this mean? Why didn’t the ‘flame winged dagger’ appear….” Just as Bai Yunfei was confused, the words ‘summon flame winged dagger’ had popped up in his mind and….
“Bang!”
With a gentle booming sound that shook the entire room, another crimson burst of light flew out from the bracer along with a ball of fire on top of it. Forming over Bai Yunfei’s arm, a ‘piece’ of fire began to extend outwards from the bracer and elongated and thinned out to form a flaming dagger roughly a third of a meter long.
Bai Yunfei was stupefied for a brief second before immediately shaking himself out of his thoughts. Fixating his eyes onto the ‘flame winged dagger’, his eyes began to sparkle.
“Is this it? This is an extremely small form, I wonder how strong it is….” With a twist of his left hand, a +9 dagger appeared in it. Holding it up to his eye level, he waved his right hand down so as to command the flame dagger down.
“Crack!” With a sharp clattering sound, half the blade had fallen to the floor. Bai Yunfei had held the other half where several drops of molten iron could be seen dripping from the broken edge. From the looks of it, the blade seemed as if it had been smelted and molted off!
“Siiiii….” Bai Yunfei let out a breath of cold air before waving his hand to recollect the broken blade. Looking at the slightly shaking flame dagger above his right arm, he had a gleeful smile. “What a strong flame! This is the smallest form yet, so if I add even more soulforce into it….”
Bai Yunfei urged his soulforce into the bracer, causing the flame dagger to explode and elongate another third of a meter longer. The scorching heat of the blade had skyrocketed as well.
Gazing his eyes onto it, Bai Yunfei cut off the stream of soulforce and watched as the dagger become a spark and disappearing out of sight.
“Good, good!! I didn’t think that this ‘flame winged dagger’ would have such a strong power! Although the soulforce consumption is big, it is completely worth it! Like this, my strength has grown once again!!” Bai Yunfei’s heart was beating with emotions. He looked at the crimson bracer and muttered to himself, “Well then. I’ll call you the ‘Flameblade Bracer then!”
After a moment’s rest, he took out a piece of jewelry from his space ring.
“Then I’ll upgrade some jewelry too and give the best one to Yuhe. When one promises something, they cannot eat their words….”
“Upgrade….”