Duck-Transforming Cane

Treasure Chest Monsters could eat people, sure, but more often than not, they were treasure chests themselves. Killing them gave a slightly higher chance of getting good loot.

There was also an important rule in Chosen Space: players could not simply take a monster's possessions and use them directly.

Even if a monster held a rare item with incredible stats, as long as it was not a Drop Item, it became a Whiteboard with no additional attributes in a player's hands—at most, a durable-as-hell Whiteboard that could not be taken out of the instance.

At that moment, the glow clinging to the Gentleman's Cane meant it had become a legitimate "instance Drop Item," a reward for the player.

With the reward right in front of him, Cheng Tian, who had killed the Vampire Magician, still did not relax. The surrounding zombies had not been completely cleared out yet.

He bent down, snatched up the Gentleman's Cane, and its interface immediately appeared before his eyes as a translucent projection.

Incidentally, the phone, humanity's external organ, had been stuffed into the middle of his crotch before the battle began. Its screen was now glowing as the projection medium... Damn it, his giant underpants had pockets!

[Blood Clan's Gentleman's Cane: Green, Excellent/Lv1. Cane, one-handed weapon, Magic Weapon. Equipment Requirement: Spirit 12. Weapon Damage 1-2. Durability 24/24. Can be taken out of the instance.

Spirit +2. Physical damage against undead units +50% (universal trait of wooden blunt weapons).

Equipment-bound "Polymorph (Duck)" effect. Those who meet the equipment requirements may cast "Polymorph (Duck)."

Polymorph: Fires a magical projectile formed from a hexagram at the target. Upon hitting, it transforms the target into a duck incapable of attacking. Polymorph lasts 5 seconds. Casting the Polymorph projectile requires 1 second of channeling, consumes 20 MP, and has a 10-minute cooldown.]

[Additional Note: When the target unit possesses the suffixes "Boss," "Elite," "Champion," or "Leader," the spell's effect will suffer progressively greater reduction.]

The equipment effect made Cheng Tian's eyes light up, and he immediately came up with two possibilities.

One was that the Vampire Magician had relied on this cane to cast Polymorph.

The other was that Polymorph had been a spell ability the magician possessed, but after death, it had attached itself to the Gentleman's Cane and become an equipment trait.

The cooldown was a little long, but as a control spell requiring only one second, Cheng Tian could absolutely use it as a close-range trump card.

Also, perhaps because this was his first time obtaining Magic Equipment, it thoughtfully included an additional note. That note also revealed part of Chosen Space's monster settings.

Normal, Boss, Elite, Champion, Leader—those should be the five types of monster templates.

In plain terms, Polymorph could keep an ordinary scrub transformed for the full five seconds, but against a Leader, it probably would not even last one second.

Cheng Tian's mindset did not change much after reaching that conclusion. As a World of Warcraft veteran player, he had seen far too many BOSS Units immune to control from start to finish. He was long used to it.

"Elite, huh..."

As Cheng Tian muttered under his breath, he thought of the Side Quest displayed on the tombstone screen: "Kill an Elite Demonic Unit."

The battle continued, already entering its final stage.

With the cane in his left hand and the whip in his right, Cheng Tian awkwardly experimented with a cane-and-whip dual-wielding style.

Because the two weapon types were completely different, if he combined Vampire Killer with the Gentleman's Cane through Template Armament, the additional Holy Damage would inevitably suffer a massive reduction.

Fortunately, both counted as one-handed weapons, and a Chosen Player's Equipment Slots were divided into main hand and off-hand. As long as the equipment requirements were met, both could be used at once.

Helmet, chest armor, gloves, belt, pants, shoes, necklace, two rings, main hand, off-hand—those were all the standard equippable positions in a Chosen Player's Equipment Slots. Other than certain Special Equipment, only items placed in the Equipment Slots could truly take effect.

Even if he wore rings on every finger and hung dozens of chains around his neck, only two rings and one necklace would work.

These Equipment Slots really had the feel of Diablo.

After the last zombie collapsed, One-Ear stood there blankly for a while before dropping flat onto the ground, gasping desperately without regard for the terrifying strain on his heart and lungs.

Cheng Tian was also drenched in sweat, but he looked unsatisfied. He felt that he had just found some inspiration for wielding the cane and whip together when all the zombies had already been killed.

His mental reference for wielding a cane and whip at the same time was actually the "Threaded Cane" from Bloodborne.

The whip was for offense, the cane for defense.

Incidentally, Phone Bro, the reckless idiot, was still alive, though not in very good shape. His body had already been dyed red with blood.

First, because most of the zombies had been drawn away by Cheng Tian and the others, only two or three had chased after him.

Then there was the fact that this reckless guy was fairly quick-witted. He knew that running in circles out in the open could easily attract more zombies, so he fled back to the low hill and used the nearly ninety-degree vertical ladder to find a safe spot the zombies could not reach.

The blood all over him had actually come from the Red-Eyed Crows. His back, chest, and upper arms had several severe peck wounds, and his status bar even showed a "Bleeding" BUFF. Adrenaline had temporarily suppressed the pain, but now that it was wearing off, he was beginning to feel seriously unwell.

But those Red-Eyed Crows really were smart. Having already tasted fresh meat, they badly wanted to keep pecking at Phone Bro. Yet when they saw Cheng Tian approaching with a grin, they immediately flapped away without the slightest hesitation, landing far off on the bare branches of a withered tree. They stared warily and hatefully at Cheng Tian as he smacked his lips.

After such intense exertion, hunger and thirst followed.

The Red-Eyed Crows craved human flesh, while Cheng Tian craved crow meat. It was that simple.

Vampire Killer was indeed excellent at slaughtering evil monsters, but it was so excellent that corpses were almost always burned to ash by the residual holy power. It did not spare even zombies, much less tiny little crows.

Now that he had the Gentleman's Cane, Cheng Tian was quite curious: if he killed a target while Polymorph was in effect, would it remain a duck or revert to its original form?

The first show of force from Chosen Space had ended, but Cheng Tian's work was not over yet.

As everyone knew, for many online game players, gathering monsters and killing them was perfectly ordinary. But after the killing ended, another irritating mechanical task awaited them: battlefield cleanup, commonly known as "looting corpses."

At the moment, however, Cheng Tian was still far from being worn down by mechanical labor.

Cheng Tian strode through the ash-covered cemetery with his chest out and head high. Countless Innocent Souls purified by the "Soul Salvation" effect were drawn into his body like thumbtacks pulled toward a magnet, bringing his Innocent Soul points to a full 75.

Not bad. It was pretty satisfying.

Considering that not every monster was guaranteed to drop a soul, Cheng Tian and the others really had encountered a hundred-man corpse tide. Without Cheng Tian's Vampire Killer Template Armament, capable of one-shotting monsters, a team wipe would have happened in an instant.

But as he walked, Cheng Tian suddenly stopped before a gleaming skeleton still wearing Strawberry Pattern Underpants, with not a shred of flesh left on it.

This was Arthur's skeleton.

Under Chosen Space's interference, this Arthur had become the one among countless parallel worlds who died before accomplishing anything.

Facing the Hero Skeleton, crystalline enough to seem almost translucent, Cheng Tian stared for a while before suddenly crouching down. As he reached out to rub the smooth skull, his eyes met Arthur's empty black eye sockets.

"Buddy, I can't promise I'll save Princess, but if there's a chance, I'll definitely help you take down the Demon King."

But just as Cheng Tian finished speaking, Arthur's hand bones, which had seemed to be clutching something, suddenly loosened. A scroll-like object fell out and rolled to Cheng Tian's feet.

Cheng Tian's attention was drawn to it, but he failed to notice that countless pink strawberry patterns were gradually appearing across his white giant underpants...