Chapter 083: Enhancement and Advancement

“You are the wind, I am the sand, together we drift across the ends of the earth...”

Early on a weekend morning, Su Cheng was jolted awake by a burst of singing. He pulled off his sleep mask, and a shaft of brilliant sunlight streamed in from the window. The clock was frozen at 9:59. In the room, Xiao Bai sat engrossed in a drama on her tablet. Lately, she had become obsessed with Qiong Yao dramas, even watching the Japanese dubbed versions.

Watching Ziwei and Erkang dramatically exchange grievances in Japanese on her screen, Su Cheng felt like he was being force-fed a dog food breakfast. He couldn’t help but wince.

Su Cheng had used most of the soul crystals he’d earned in dungeons to strengthen Xiao Bai, after keeping some for himself. Over time, Xiao Bai’s spirit form had grown much more solid and her spiritual power was now several times stronger than before. No longer as fragile as she once was, she could do far more than disrupt enemies with illusions.

In truth, a spirit ghost’s role wasn’t limited to assisting in battle; it could also provide its master with abundant spiritual energy during a fight—like carrying a portable power bank, convenient and practical.

After getting up, he made a simple breakfast of boiled eggs in the kitchen, eating while scrolling through news on his phone.

“As reported by the Asahi News, there have been eight recent incidents of pets injuring people in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district. Witnesses describe the attackers as pet huskies. Residents are urged to contact the police immediately if they spot any frenzied huskies on the streets.”

Reading this, Su Cheng’s eye twitched. He hadn’t expected the recent werewolf incidents to be reported as pet attacks.

The police, likely in an effort to maintain public order, had withheld the truth, making the huskies take the blame for nothing.

Thanks to the recent efforts of the Supernatural Crime Investigation Division, most of the werewolves in Shinjuku had been eliminated, leaving only a few stragglers. After this lesson, the remaining werewolves probably wouldn’t dare hunt so openly again.

Logging into the horror game, Su Cheng listed two rare items he had looted from the Kato gang on the trade channel for sale, while dumping the useless common items to the system for recycling.

The attributes of these two rare items were as follows:

[Thunderforged War Axe]
Type: Polearm
Quality: Rare
Attack Power: Strong
Attack Speed: Slow
Attribute: Slightly increases strength
Equipment Requirement: D-rank Polearm Mastery
Skill: Thunder Strike—unleashes lightning on the target, with a 20% chance to inflict Shocked and Vulnerable status.

[Staff of the Necromancer]
Type: Staff
Quality: Rare
Attack Power: Weak
Attribute: Slightly increases spiritual strength, adds 5% to spirit value
Equipment Requirement: D-rank Spirit Mastery, Necromancer only
Skill: Summon Shadow Demon—the number and strength of summoned demons is based on the summoner’s spiritual power.

Both items were top-tier among rare grades, though the Staff of the Necromancer had demanding requirements—not only D-rank Spirit Mastery but also restricted to necromancers.

Su Cheng pondered for a moment, then priced the items at 8,800 and 6,000 game points respectively.

Generally, weapons fetched higher prices than ordinary items. Rare-grade weapons typically went for around 5,000 game points. For a weapon like the Thunderforged War Axe, which also had a skill, 8,800 game points was not overpriced.

He had barely posted the items when a dozen private messages from players arrived. Almost all were after the Thunderforged War Axe. While the Staff of the Necromancer was excellent, few players met its requirements.

Su Cheng opened the messages one by one; most were just haggling over the price. That was no surprise—8,800 points was about the full reward for clearing a 3-star dungeon. For bronze-level players, it was a stretch to spend so much on a single item.

But Su Cheng had no interest in bargaining, so he simply added a note: “No negotiations!”

Seeing that Su Cheng gave them no chance to bargain, some players who didn’t have enough points started cursing him out in private messages.

The result? They enjoyed a VIP spot on his blacklist.

“Friend, I want to buy the Thunderforged War Axe,” messaged a player with the ID ‘Invincible Under Heaven.’

The name oozed with adolescent bravado, Su Cheng thought.

“Contract trade or consignment?” he replied.

A minute passed before Invincible Under Heaven answered, “Can we trade offline? I’ll add 10% more points.”

Offline trade?

It was the first time anyone had suggested that to Su Cheng, and he was immediately suspicious. There had been incidents where players were robbed during offline trades, stripped of all their equipment—sometimes not even left with their underwear.

There were even stories of so-called “beauty” players luring others into offline trades, only to murder them during the exchange. The punchline: the “beauty” turned out to be a burly, hairy guy in real life.

The world was full of traps and hidden dangers.

“Sorry, no offline trades,” Su Cheng refused without hesitation.

In a game studio in Shibuya, Tokyo, Invincible Under Heaven turned to a burly middle-aged man. “Boss Akatora, he didn’t fall for it. What should we do now?”

The man’s eyes glinted with a chilling murderous intent; he bore a striking resemblance to Kato.

“Hmph, the kid’s cautious. Whatever the case, buy back the Thunderforged War Axe first. We’ll have our revenge later,” Akatora said, not letting rage cloud his judgment. The Thunderforged War Axe had belonged to their guild, and he was determined to get it back.

Five minutes later, Invincible Under Heaven messaged Su Cheng again, agreeing to a consignment trade.

“Sorry, I thought you weren’t interested. The weapon’s already sold,” Su Cheng replied.

Invincible Under Heaven nearly smashed his phone in frustration. He had tried to be clever and missed his chance—who’d have thought it would sell in just a few minutes?

Behind him, Akatora’s face was as dark as a thundercloud.

To Su Cheng’s surprise, the Staff of the Necromancer he’d listed online sold in less than half an hour.

After selling the two items and collecting his dungeon rewards, Su Cheng’s account balance topped 20,000 game points.

In his view, game points were only valuable when turned into power. Hoarding them was foolish; you never knew if you’d survive the next dungeon. Only by constantly strengthening yourself could you hope to survive in the horror game.

Up to now, most of Su Cheng’s strength was invested in Blade Mastery, but advancing beyond C-rank was extremely difficult—experience books no longer granted proficiency at that level.

Since he couldn’t improve his Blade Mastery for now, he converted his game points into soul crystals, then placed the Shadow of the Gale into the enhancement device.

“Ding! Shadow of the Gale (+4) enhancement successful!”
“Ding! Shadow of the Gale (+5) enhancement successful!”
“Ding! Shadow of the Gale (+6) enhancement successful!”

Su Cheng spent nearly 5,000 points and dozens of soul crystals, successfully raising Shadow of the Gale to +6, with a significant boost in attributes.

Next, he used his remaining points at the shop to buy a basic Spirit Mastery experience book, pushing his Spirit Mastery to D-rank immediately.

“Congratulations, player Su Cheng, for raising Spirit Mastery to D-rank. Please choose an additional skill.”

Upon reaching D-rank Spirit Mastery, a skill selection screen appeared.

1. Spirit Bullet: Condense spiritual energy at your fingertip, then fire it like a bullet. Its power increases with your spiritual strength.
2. Abundant Spirit: Passively increases spirit value by 10%.
3. Spirit Amplification: Imbue weapons with spiritual energy to enhance their power; potency increases with spiritual strength.

Su Cheng hesitated. Spirit Bullet was powerful, but for a close-combat sword user like him, it wasn’t very practical—he’d rather use his 98K sniper rifle for ranged combat.

As for Abundant Spirit, since he had Xiao Bai the spirit ghost as his ever-ready “power bank,” he didn’t really need it.

In the end, he chose the third skill. Spirit Amplification had broad uses: it could boost his slashing power, and even allow him to imbue bullets with spiritual energy.

After all the upgrades, Su Cheng’s character attributes were as follows:

Name: Su Cheng
Level: Bronze, Tier 3
Class: Spirit Blade Warrior (First Rank)
Title: Strategy Expert (Gain 5% extra points for unraveling storylines)
Skill Specialization: C-rank Blade Mastery, D-rank Spirit Mastery, E-rank Shooting Mastery
Items: [Magic Card: Nightmare Clown], [Shadow of the Gale] (+6), [Sinful Gaze], [98K Sniper Rifle], [Demonbane Bow], [Spirit Boots]

A pitch-black long blade appeared before Su Cheng. Activating the D-rank Spirit Mastery’s Spirit Amplification skill, the blade began to hum, a ghostly blue aura blooming along its edge.

Shadow of the Gale seemed to come alive.