Reforge

Although he had already made up his mind to experiment with the Golden Finger, Feng Xue still put considerable thought into choosing a target.

Judging from the literal meaning, reforging probably meant recasting an item, Similar To rerolling weapon modifiers in certain games, except this allowed him to specify the desired element.

That made the question of what item to reforge the [Suffocation] element onto worth considering.

First, This Thing definitely could not smelt anything too large. Otherwise, if he created something amazing but could not take it with him, that would be a joke.

Second, it had to be something useless.

After all, he also had to consider the risk of reforging failure. If his short knife, currently the only weapon he could even call a means of self-defense, blew up, he would truly have no ability to defend himself at all—though even with a knife in hand, his Combat Power was approximately zero anyway.

After thinking for a moment, he removed his bracer.

He actually regretted it now. If he had not worn an Ezio-style White Robe just because it looked cool, and had instead chosen Altair's classic outfit, he would have had plenty of little throwing knives On the Body to practice with.

Although the Ezio-style White Robe also had plenty of small accessories, such as belts and single-shoulder capes, Feng Xue felt that using those things to fuse the [Suffocation] element into would very easily get himself killed.

Without question, it had to be smelted into a weapon.

Fortunately, he was not the kind of cosplayer who pursued accuracy in every detail. Or Rather, he cared more about what caught his eye. Thus, when choosing a Sleeve Blade, he had not picked Ezio's classic version, but the "Phantom Blade" from Unity—the version that could be used as a wrist crossbow.

Although its workmanship was rather shoddy, and its PVC material had no lethality whatsoever, it happened to meet the requirements of being both a "weapon" and "useless."

Moreover, if it succeeded, crossbow bolts were undoubtedly a more suitable tool for a novice Compared To a melee weapon with a higher difficulty of use—even if This Thing could only launch that unsharpened plastic blade a few meters.

After some consideration, Feng Xue detached the mechanism from the artificial leather bracer. That way, Even If the smelting failed, the bracer used to store his short knife could still be preserved.

Once he had finished these preparations, Feng Xue turned his gaze toward the "Phantom Blade" again, and the identification function displayed its attributes once more—

Name: Defective Sleeve Blade (False Thing)

Elements: [Assassin], [Projectile]

Yes, This Thing Did Not Even possess an element like [Weapon].

However, Feng Xue, who had already identified everything On the Body, was not surprised. He switched the Golden Finger to the reforge panel, aimed the central crosshair at the "Phantom Blade," and selected the sole [Suffocation] entry.

As the confirmation button lit up again, Feng Xue pressed it with his eyes practically shut. A number input box appeared along with a prompt—

[Please select the amount of [Shi] to invest (optional).]

"Ah, this..." Feng Xue, who had thought things were basically over, wore a troubled expression. He did not know how much would be appropriate, but based on his past experience playing mobile games, investing nothing definitely would not be appropriate. Thinking, Those 84 Ta of [Shi] refined from corpses can't extend my life anyway, he dumped all of it in at once.

As that action was completed, the crosshair at the center of the panel before Feng Xue's eyes turned into a vortex. Vast amounts of Garbled Code-like data, along with the [Suffocation] element, were swept into the vortex, then plunged into the Sleeve Blade like a funnel-shaped tornado.

The process sounded somewhat fantastical, but there were actually no visual effects at all. Under Feng Xue's gaze, within the rapidly spinning vortex, the information streams formed from [Shi] collided continuously. Strings resembling Garbled Code repeatedly recombined, eventually becoming characters that seemed to carry some kind of meaning.

When the final trace of information vanished along with the vortex, what remained before him was a Sleeve Blade that had changed completely.

The crudely made PVC material from before had gained some of metal's weightiness. Cold light gleamed from the blade folded away inside, and even the internal gear structure had undergone enormous changes.

With the help of the identification function, new attributes appeared before Feng Xue's eyes—

Name: Phantom Object: Blade of Suffocation

Elements: [Assassin], [Projectile], [Suffocation], [Weapon]

Description: The personal weapon of a certain assassin. This weapon can apply most abilities possessed by its user, including the effects of other weapons. Enemies injured by it will have difficulty breathing and be unable to engage in strenuous movement.

Note: Remember to pick it back up after using it. Of course, if you find that troublesome, you can also use it in melee combat.

"This entry is so detailed!"

That was Feng Xue's first thought when he saw the huge block of text before him.

Although this panel still looked crude Compared To the equipment descriptions in many games, it was already incredibly detailed compared with the two-line attributes his Golden Finger had displayed before!

"Did the [Shi] I invested earlier form the [Weapon] element? Does that mean that if I invest more [Shi], elements like [Auto Retrieval] or [Guaranteed Hit] might appear too? And this 'Phantom Object' prefix sounds a lot like the terms 'True Thing' and 'False Thing.' Could it be some kind of special proper noun?"

Feng Xue studied those few lines of description, when he suddenly felt a sense of familiarity. After racking his brains for a long time, he finally found the answer in a rather ancient memory—

"Isn't this Phantom Assassin's first skill?"

As an old player who had started playing Dota back when the Aegis of the Immortal still needed to be assembled, Feng Xue had always had a deep impression of the hero Phantom Assassin. In particular, her simple Ultimate Move, which had nothing but critical-hit chance, had fascinated many gambling-addicted players.

However, Compared To her Ultimate Move, this Blade of Suffocation, which had been changed many times, had never had much presence. If he had to describe it, it was merely the standard last-hitting-and-holding tool for heroes of the same type. It only really became noticeable after Dota 2 allowed it to inherit passive and attack effects.

Although the thing In Hand had the same name, it was not a rigid repetition of the skill's effect, but something more grounded in reality.

Still, Even If judged according to the setting, Phantom Assassin's first skill should have been an actual "skill," a method of enchanting daggers. The dagger used itself was not important.

The thing before him, however, felt more like Phantom Assassin's skill had been permanently attached to a piece of equipment.

This seemed to mean that his Golden Finger did not directly pull items from fictional works as the result of smelting.

Then what exactly determined the result of smelting?

The question flashed through Feng Xue's mind only briefly before he suppressed it. There were too few examples at present; to figure it out, he would probably need far more experiments...