176: Chapter 175 Fusion Begins
[Pan Jingjing: The bad news is we've almost sold out of all the equipment in the shop! The inventory is hitting rock bottom!]
[Pan Jingjing: Boss, when are you coming back to restock? If customers come tomorrow, we'll have to sell the shelves!]
[Pan Jingjing: I'm not joking, today we were already selling the non-sale items on the display racks—the ones you put in the counter for decoration before you left!]
[Pan Jingjing: And they got bought too! A customer asked, "Is this display piece for sale?" I said no, he said, "I'll pay double," I said forget it, and he just slapped triple the price on the counter!]
[Li Xiaoyu: Yeah, yeah! Half the shelves are empty, it looks so pathetic! A regular customer came three times and couldn't find the right gear each time; the look in his eyes when he left the last time was so pitiful!]
[Li Xiaoyu: I almost wanted to take off the gear I'm wearing and sell it to him!]
[Li Xiaoyu: Boss, when can we restock? If this continues, we'll be selling air! We can't actually sell the shelves, right? The shelves are rented!]
Lin Feng chuckled and typed a few words on the screen.
[Lin Feng: Soon. I'm already back in Donghai, I'll send a batch of equipment over tomorrow.]
[Pan Jingjing: Really?! Tomorrow?! That's great!!! I'm going to check the almanac right now, tomorrow must be an auspicious day!]
[Li Xiaoyu: Boss, I'll be waiting for you!!! I want to be the first to see the new stock!!! No one snatch it from me!!!]
[Li Xiaoyu: No! I'm the first!!! I said it first!!! Xiaoyu, you're not allowed to cut in line!!!]
[Pan Jingjing: Alright, alright, you two stop arguing. The boss isn't even back yet and you're fighting here, making him laugh at us!]
[Li Xiaoyu: Blehh, I'm first anyway!]
[Li Xiaoyu: In your dreams!]
[Lin Feng: Alright, alright, it's getting late, you guys should rest early.]
[Pan Jingjing: You rest early too, Boss! See you tomorrow!]
[Li Xiaoyu: Goodnight Boss! Have sweet dreams! Dream of me!]
[Li Xiaoyu: No! Dream of me! Goodnight Boss!]
Lin Feng put his phone down, leaned against the headboard, and let out a long sigh.
The three girls were still chirping in the group chat about what the new stock would be like, the notification bell dinging incessantly.
But he didn't look again, placing the phone face down on the nightstand with a faint smile still on his lips.
Xiao Guang lay next to the phone, watching the bubbles jumping on the screen, his golden eyebrows knit into a knot.
"Um... Lin Feng, who were you talking to just now? Why did their words appear on this little square? Are they far away? How does this thing transmit their words?"
"Store clerks."
Lin Feng replied with his eyes closed.
"Phones can send messages far away through signals. Don't ask, you wouldn't understand even if I explained."
"What's a signal? Is it a type of energy too? Is it related to electricity? Is it floating in the air like Spiritual Qi? Why can't I see it?"
"Go to sleep."
"But—"
"I said sleep."
Xiao Guang closed his mouth aggrievedly, his golden eyes full of frustration.
He had ten thousand questions to ask, but Lin Feng wouldn't let him.
This feeling was like having a peerless Secret Manual placed in front of him but not being allowed to open it—it was agonizing.
He sat on the pillow, hugging his knees, staring blankly at the fluorescent light on the ceiling.
His mind was still pondering what exactly "electricity" was, why it could make the light shine, and why it could make that square called a "phone" glow.
Lin Feng lay for a few minutes, then opened his eyes and sat up from the bed.
Although his body was tired, sleeping now felt like a bit of a waste.
He began taking things out of the wanxiang ring.
First was the pile of Taotie scales, stacked piece by piece on the desk, the desk legs letting out an overburdened creak.
Then came a pile of various colored Spirit Stone fragments, beast bones, poison glands, snake fangs, and sandmen bone spurs—collected previously in the Secret Realm and from the Explorers of small nations.
Multicolor, large and small, they piled up on the room's floor like a miniature mountain of Materials.
Xiao Guang's eyes lit up again at the sight of these Materials, temporarily forgetting the previous rejection.
"Are you going to perform Fusion?"
"Nonsense."
Lin Feng sat cross-legged on the floor, hands held slightly apart, looking at the pile of Materials.
"Stay back, don't get fused in again."
Xiao Guang shivered at the memory of being fused last time.
He quickly jumped off the bed and ran to hide in the farthest corner of the room.
He crouched in the corner, showing only half his head, hands gripping the edge of the wall, golden eyes staring unblinkingly at Lin Feng.
"I... I'm hidden. Don't mess up."
Lin Feng took a deep breath, hands facing the pile of Materials, palms down.
"Talent—Activate."
A pale golden light surged from his palms, enveloping the pile of Materials.
Scales, beast bones, Spirit Stone fragments, poison glands, and snake fangs all floated up, rotating in mid-air.
They melted in the golden light, turning into liquids of various colors, then collided, interlaced, and fused.
Blue and purple mixed to become red.
Red and gold mixed to become a deeper gold.
Impurities were removed, essence was retained, and the liquid continuously shrank, compressed, and solidified as it spun.
The entire room was illuminated in a warm yellow by the golden light, and the tiny cracks on the walls flickered in the glow.
Xiao Guang, crouching in the corner, was wide-eyed, even his breathing becoming light.
The golden light lasted for about ten minutes before slowly dimming.
A dozen pieces of equipment fell from mid-air, lining up neatly on the desk with heavy thuds.
[Void Scale Armor (Purple) ×3], Defense 280, Physique +20, Void Resistance +30%, Description: A half-body armor fused from Void Beast scales, light and sturdy.
[Shadow Bracer (Purple) ×5], Defense 120, Agility +15, Attack Speed +10%, Description: Bracers fused from shadow Materials, the wearer's arms will become faster.
[Flame Boots (Purple) ×4], Defense 160, Movement Speed +25%, Fire Resistance +20%, Description: Boots fused from fire-attribute Materials, wearing them is like walking on the wind.
[Frost Leggings (Purple) ×3], Defense 200, Physique +15, Ice Resistance +25%, Description: Leggings fused from ice-attribute Materials, biting cold.
[Thunderlight Ring (Purple) ×2], spirit +30, Thunder Attribute Skill Effect +15%, Supplemental Skill "Thunder Flash"—Instantly teleport to any location within thirty meters, cooldown one minute.
Lin Feng picked up the equipment, checking the attributes one by one, and nodded in satisfaction.
The quality of this batch was much higher than the previous one; the defense and attribute bonuses had all stepped up a level, and they even came with skills.
Once placed in the shop, they would surely be snatched up like crazy.
He stored the equipment in the wanxiang ring and took out another pile of Materials to continue Fusion.
This time, it was weapons.
[Shadow Dagger (Purple) ×4], Attack 320-420, Agility +25, 30% chance to trigger "Shadow Rend" on attack, dealing an extra 150% damage.
[Flame Greatsword (Purple) ×3], Attack 450-550, Strength +20, Fire Damage +40%, chance to apply "Burn" effect on attack.
[Frost Shortblade (Purple) ×3], Attack 380-480, Agility +18, Ice Damage +35%, chance to apply "Freeze" effect on attack.
Then came some accessories—necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and waist pendants.
Accessories were the hardest to make; they had high material requirements and low Fusion success rates.
Lin Feng spent a lot of mana and failed several times before producing a few decent pieces.
During one failure, the golden light suddenly exploded, and a burnt smell filled the air, scaring Xiao Guang into retracting his head back into the corner.
"It's fine, normal occurrence."
Without looking back, Lin Feng rummaged through the material pile for new pieces.
[Guardian Necklace (Purple) ×2], Physique +10, Max Health +5000, automatically triggers "Guardian Shield" when attacked, absorbing 5000 damage, cooldown three minutes.
[Spiritwind Bracelet (Purple) ×3], spirit +15, mana Recovery Speed +30%, Movement Speed +10%.
By the time he finished these, it was already the early hours of the morning.
The shadows of the plane trees outside swayed under the streetlights like a group of giants conversing in low voices.
Occasionally, the commands of patrol soldiers changing shifts drifted in from the distance, the sounds scattered by the night wind, entering the room intermittently.
Lin Feng rubbed his throbbing temples; the mana consumption was too great, making his head feel dizzy.
He glanced at his attribute panel—less than five hundred thousand mana remained, and it would take several hours to recover fully.
He stored the batch of accessories in the wanxiang ring, categorizing them with the previous batch of armor.
Xiao Guang was still crouching in the corner; seeing him finish, he cautiously walked out, his golden feet making tiny "tap-tap" sounds on the floor.
"Lin Feng, your Talent is truly amazing. Turning a pile of junk into treasures—if this were ten thousand years ago, you'd definitely be fought over by all the major Sects."
Lin Feng chuckled, leaned against the bed, closed his eyes, and began to plan his next moves after returning.
The Zhou Family, Zhou Tiannan.
Level 79, S-Rank Talent Flame Control, legendary grade Physique Fire God Physique.
Last time at the Zhou Family gate, he had fought him and almost been killed.
If Shadow Seven hadn't suddenly intervened, he would probably be in a crematorium by now.
That time, he was fighting someone over thirty levels higher; lasting a few minutes was already a miracle, but miracles can't be relied upon.
To truly settle scores with the Zhou Family, miracles alone weren't enough.
He had the Law of Heaven and Earth, which multiplied all attributes by ten, but that thing only lasted a hundred seconds and had a twenty-four-hour cooldown.
If he couldn't kill Zhou Tiannan within a hundred seconds, he'd be left defenseless.
Moreover, at his current level, the Law of Heaven and Earth could at most stack his attributes to over twenty thousand, while Zhou Tiannan's base attributes at level 79 were close to ten thousand.
Even with a tenfold increase, there was still a gap—not just in attack power, but in skills and combat experience.
That old man had cultivated for decades; his combat experience was far richer, and the skill effects of an S-Rank Talent were far beyond what an F-Rank could compare to.
Last time, if it hadn't been for the old man's arrogance and underestimation allowing him to hold out those few minutes, if he had used his ultimate move from the start, Lin Feng wouldn't have had a chance to wait for Shadow Seven's rescue.
In a direct confrontation, the odds weren't good.
He had to think of another way.
Lin Feng kept his eyes closed, his fingers unconsciously tapping his knee.
Master Zhao Ritian was a legendary grade powerhouse with a Solar Saint Body. Although he usually sat in a wheelchair pretending to be a cripple, if he actually fought, Zhou Tiannan would be like a child in front of him.
But he didn't want Master to intervene again—Master was old, and his complexion had clearly looked poor after helping him absorb the essence blood last time.
The General should be able to transfer some experts over; he valued Lin Feng quite highly now.
But most of the military's powerhouses had their own missions, and temporary transfers weren't easy. Besides, this was a personal vendetta, and he didn't want to owe too many favors.
Maybe he could contact Shadow—Shadow Seven had saved him last time and even mentioned recruiting him; perhaps they could make a deal this time.
Shadow's people were efficient, and they didn't care about favors, only transactions.
As he thought, he subconsciously touched his chest.
That taotie heart was still placed in the deepest part of the wanxiang ring.
Colorful quality, +500 to all attributes, +2 million to both health and mana—if he ate it now, his strength would skyrocket.
But he held back.
It wasn't that he didn't want to eat it, but this thing was too precious; swallowing it directly would be too wasteful.
Refining it into a Medicinal Pill would have better effects. The success rate, quality bonuses, and extra effects of the pill all required the coordination of a Pill Furnace and a Pill Formula.
Lin Feng planned to find some more medicinal herbs to combine with it and let his little tower automatically perform Alchemy to see how it turned out!