Duck-Transforming Cane

Chest mimics did eat people, sure, but they also counted as treasure chests themselves most of the time. Killing them gave a slightly higher chance of good drops.

There was another important rule in Chosen Evolution Space: players could not simply take a monster's belongings and use them directly.

Even if a monster held a rare item with incredible attributes, as long as it was not a drop, it became a blank item with no extra attributes in a player's hands. At best, it was an extremely durable blank item that could not be taken out of the instance.

The glow now clinging to the Gentleman's Cane meant it had become a legitimate "instance drop," a reward for the player.

With the reward right before him, Cheng Tian, who had killed the Vampire Magician, still did not relax. The zombies around them had yet to be completely cleared out.

He bent down and snatched the Gentleman's Cane into his hand. Its item panel immediately projected itself before his eyes in a translucent display.

As an aside, the phone, humanity's external organ, had been tucked into the center of his crotch before the battle began. Its screen was now glowing as the projection medium... Damn it, these boxer shorts had pockets!

Bloodline 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 dealt to undead units +50% (universal trait of wooden blunt weapons).

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

*Polymorph*: Fires a magical missile 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* missile requires 1 second of channeling, consumes 20 MP, and has a cooldown of 10 minutes.

Additional note: When the target unit possesses the suffix "Boss," "Elite," "Champion," or "Leader," the spell's effect will suffer increasing degrees of reduction.

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

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

The other was that Polymorph had been an ability the magician possessed himself, but after his 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 that required only one second, Cheng Tian could absolutely use it as a close-range trump card.

Also, perhaps because this was his first time obtaining magical equipment, it thoughtfully included an additional explanation. That explanation revealed part of Chosen Evolution Space's monster settings.

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

In plain terms, Polymorph could last the full five seconds on ordinary cannon fodder, but against a Leader, it might not even hold for one second.

Cheng Tian's mindset did not change much after reaching that conclusion. As a longtime World of Warcraft player, he had seen far too many boss units immune to control throughout an entire fight. He was used to it.

"An Elite, huh~"

Cheng Tian murmured under his breath as he recalled the side quest displayed on the tombstone screen: "Kill an elite demon unit."

The battle continued and had entered its final stage.

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

Because the weapon types were completely different, if he combined Vampire Slayer with the Gentleman's Cane through template armament, the bonus holy damage would inevitably be greatly reduced.

Fortunately, both were one-handed weapons, and Chosen Players had separate main-hand and off-hand equipment slots. As long as they met the equipment requirements, they could use both at once.

Helmet, chest armor, gloves, belt, pants, shoes, necklace, two rings, main hand, off hand—those were all the standard equipment slots available to a Chosen Player. Aside from certain special equipment, only items that could be placed in equipment slots could truly take effect.

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

These equipment slots really had a Diablo feel to them.

When the last zombie fell to the ground, One-Ear stood there in a daze for a while before collapsing onto the ground, gasping desperately despite the terrifying strain on his heart and lungs.

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

His mental reference for using a cane and whip together was actually the Threaded Cane from Bloodborne.

The whip was for offense, and the cane was for defense.

As an aside, Phone Guy, the idiot who had recklessly run off, 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 the reckless guy was fairly quick-witted. He knew that running in circles out in the open could attract even more zombies, so he fled back to the low hill and exploited a safe spot using the nearly ninety-degree vertical ladder there, leaving the zombies unable to reach him.

The blood covering him had actually come from the Red-Eyed Ravens. His back, chest, and upper arms bore several severe peck wounds, and his status bar even displayed the "Bleeding" buff. Adrenaline had temporarily dulled the pain, but now that it was wearing off, he was starting to feel awful.

But those Red-Eyed Ravens really were smart. Having already tasted fresh meat, they dearly wanted to continue pecking at the guy. Yet when they saw Cheng Tian approaching with a grin, they immediately flapped away without the slightest hesitation and landed far off on the branches of a dead tree without a single leaf. They watched Cheng, who was smacking his lips, with wary, hateful eyes.

After such intense exertion, hunger and thirst followed.

The Red-Eyed Ravens were hungry and wanted to eat people. Cheng Tian was hungry and wanted to eat ravens. It was that simple.

Vampire Slayer was indeed excellent at killing evil monsters, but because it was too excellent, the residual holy power almost always burned corpses into ash. It burned zombies without exception, so what chance did a few little ravens have?

But now that he had the Gentleman's Cane, Cheng Tian was rather curious: if he killed a target while Polymorph was active, would it remain a duck or revert to its original form?

This first show of force from Chosen Evolution Space was over, but Cheng Tian's work was not.

As everyone knew, for many online game players, gathering monsters and killing them was nothing unusual. But after the monsters were dead, another irritating mechanical task awaited them: the battlefield cleanup commonly known as "looting corpses."

However, Cheng Tian was still far from being worn down by mechanical labor.

With his chest out and head held high, Cheng Tian strolled through the ash-covered graveyard. The many Innocent Souls purified by the effect of Soul Salvation were drawn into his body like thumbtacks to 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, they really had encountered a zombie horde of a hundred. Without Cheng Tian's Vampire Slayer template, capable of one-shotting monsters, a party wipe could have happened in an instant.

But as he walked, Cheng Tian suddenly stopped in front of a gleaming skeleton still wearing strawberry-patterned underwear, with not a shred of flesh remaining on it.

This was Arthur's skeleton.

Under the interference of Chosen Evolution Space, this Arthur had become the one among countless parallel worlds who died before ever accomplishing his mission.

Facing the hero's almost crystalline remains, Cheng Tian stared for a moment before suddenly crouching down. As he ran a hand over the smooth skull, his eyes met Arthur's empty black eye sockets.

"Buddy, I can't promise we'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 skeletal hand, which had seemed to be gripping something, suddenly loosened. A scroll-like object fell out and rolled to Cheng Tian's feet.

Cheng's attention was drawn to it, but he failed to notice that numerous pink strawberry patterns were gradually emerging across his white boxer shorts...