Dark Gold Accessory!

"This is good stuff!"

Bai Xiaowen was pleasantly surprised. The loot from the three draws of this level 7 BOSS Nightmare Alligator was all quite valuable, and it really deserves a thumbs up.

The Skin of Metamorphosis is equivalent to a three-star stealth skill, so its priority is quite high.

Once a skill effect is activated, its overall priority is: Awakener's base priority + skill-added priority. In other words, if Bai Xiaowen uses the Skin of Metamorphosis, the priority of invisibility will be as high as level 7 (4+3), while if Li Shuyi uses it, the priority will be level 6.

Even for bosses with Mental Specialty, it's difficult for their Mental Scan to detect stealth of level 6 or higher, unless they have skills specifically designed to counter stealth, such as Ghost Sight or Illumination Flare.

Take Bai Xiaowen as an example. When using his Mental Scan ability, he can only detect stealth targets with a priority of 4 or lower when scanning a wide area. When he narrows the scanning range and performs a precise scan, he can only detect stealth targets with a priority of 5 or lower, and these targets must be near him.

This A+ grade item, the Skin of Metamorphosis, can also be used as a life-saving item in critical moments. However, compared to its combat value, Bai Xiaowen values its "tactical" role more, such as using it in the Spirit Realm for Stealth, theft, framing, and so on.

For example, the Illusion Talisman, an A+ grade item that Bai Xiaowen obtained in the Jiajing Plane World, is a tactically important item. Without the Illusion Talisman, it would have been virtually impossible for Bai Xiaowen to borrow troops and ships from Hu Zongxian, let alone kill Matsuura Shin Kuro later on.

The last special treasure, the Nightmare Crocodile's Heart, like the Berserker's Heart in Bai Xiaowen's Storage Space, is used to enhance equipment. It not only increases the success rate but also has a chance to add extra effects.

Although Bai Xiaowen didn't know much about this treasure, its value was certainly not low.

The Black Soul Stone has experienced another surge, with its growth rate finally breaking through 1000, reaching 1073/1000 and possessing 958 Soul Essence. This allows the Black Soul Stone to be upgraded to level five, unlocking a new enhancement tree.

Bai Xiaowen hasn't upgraded his Black Soul Stone yet; he has more pressing matters to attend to—after the Nightmare Alligator died, it shed a large amount of blood, and now is the perfect opportunity to use Nightmare Alligator blood to cleanse its Unclean Essence and repair Absolon's Blood Essence Stone.

It should be noted that this is Treasure Ground Space, similar to the Wilderness Zone on Earth. The corpses of monsters can be used, such as their blood, bones, and flesh. Using the blood of Nightmare Alligator to cleanse one's spirit is perfectly acceptable.

However, this cannot be done in the Spirit Realm.

If Bai Xiaowen kills the Nightmare Alligator in the Spirit Realm, the Spirit Realm Rules will determine that the Nightmare Alligator will drop the special item "Nightmare Alligator's Blood" first. This will not affect Bai Xiaowen's ability to cleanse his essence and repair the Blood Essence Stone, but it will consume one of his loot draw attempts.

If the battle difficulty is high enough, the Spirit Realm Rules may list "Nightmare Alligator's Blood" as a special item that is "guaranteed to drop" and not include it in the loot draw list. In that case, it will not count towards the draw count.

The blood flowing from the Nightmare Alligator was dark green and emitted a foul odor. Bai Xiaowen lost his appetite immediately and could only pinch his nose to extract the Unclean Essence and put it into the Nightmare Alligator's blood.

A series of flashes of light appeared, and clumps of Unclean Essence were purified and then "fed" to Absolon's Blood Essence Stone.

After feeding him more than a dozen portions of essence, the "slightly damaged" status behind Absolon's Blood Essence Stone finally disappeared.

The surface of Absolon's Blood Essence Stone shimmered, and it floated slightly into the air. After the light faded, Bai Xiaowen looked at the description of the Blood Essence Stone with a hint of anticipation.

This Blood Essence Stone has been transformed into a piece of equipment!

[Absolon's Blood Essence Stone (Bind on Item)]

[Quality: Lord Tier (Dark Gold Tier)]

[Equipment Slot: Trinkets]

[Equipment Requirement: Exclusive]

[Attribute: None]

[Additional Skill 1: Blood Thirst: When you deal damage, the Blood Essence Stone stores 10% of that damage as bonus Life Value, up to a maximum of 1/3 of your Life Value. You can use this Blood Essence Stone Life Value at any time to restore an equal amount of Life Value. This skill is unaffected by any negative status effects that reduce health regeneration.]

[Additional Skill 2: Mana Thirst: When you cast a spell, the Blood Essence Stone stores 10% of the Divine Might consumed by that spell as additional Divine Might, up to a maximum of 1/3 of your Divine Might. You can use the additional Divine Might from the Blood Essence Stone at any time to restore an equal amount of Divine Might. This skill is unaffected by any negative status effects that reduce mana recovery.]

[Additional Skill 3: Killing Thirst: Your attacks or spells have a chance to summon a phantom of Absolon, dealing true damage equal to 10% of the target's maximum Life Value. This skill only applies to Awakened Ones and Spirit Realm creatures of the same Tier Rank.]

[Durability: 50/50]

[Note: This Blood Essence Stone embodies the powerful will of Absolon, and cannot be erased even with the infusion of a large amount of essence. Only the one who slays Absolon is qualified to wear it.]

Dark Gold Equipment!

This is the second time Bai Xiaowen has seen Dark Gold Equipment. Unlike the previous Dark Gold Equipment [Warlord's Charge], this one is equippable by Bai Xiaowen!

As expected of Dark Gold Equipment, it has three additional skills.

The first two skills, Blood Thirst and Mana Thirst, can be considered as one skill, essentially a portable health and mana potion, greatly extending Bai Xiaowen's survivability. Importantly, these are equipment skills, so the Life Value restoration effect does not overlap with healing potions or food.

The Blood Thirst skill is almost equivalent to increasing Bai Xiaowen's maximum Life Value by 1/3. Based on his current Life Value 270 points (excluding the 50 points added by the Eclipse Dominator Badge), this would increase his maximum Life Value by 90 points!

When his Blood Thirst skill was fully charged, Bai Xiaowen essentially had 360 Life Value points, a level of stamina typically found only in tank-type Hero Class of the same level, and that didn't even include the Life Sharing from Rageclaw. Bai Xiaowen almost wanted to draw his sword, look around, and shout, "Who can grant me death?"

The third skill, Killing Thirst, is an extremely offensive skill. Its 10% maximum Life Value reduction and true damage speak volumes about its power. The only uncertainty is its trigger rate; if you're unlucky...

However, even without the Killing Thirst skill, the first two skills alone, providing health and mana potions, are enough to justify the hardship Bai Xiaowen endured to obtain this equipment. Including Killing Thirst, this equipment truly deserves the title of Dark Gold Equipment and can be considered a top-tier Dark Gold Tier!

Actually, the third skill would be more suitable for Li Shuyi, given her extremely fast attack speed, which would definitely trigger Absolon's illusions more frequently. However, this is exclusive equipment, and only Bai Xiaowen, the killer, can equip it, so we have to give up on that option.

Of course, Bai Xiaowen's attack speed was also very fast after activating the Desert Eagle's Rapid-Fire Mode, so it wasn't a complete waste of this Top-grade Dark Gold Equipment.

Without hesitation, Bai Xiaowen removed the "Eclipse Dominator Badge" and replaced it with the "Absolon's Blood Essence Stone". An Awakened One only has two equipment slots. The Black Soul Stone, a Hero Class exclusive equipment, is absolutely essential and cannot be removed.

While the Eclipse Dominator Badge is also quite good, and the added Eclipse is a valuable crowd control removal skill, it is still inferior to the Blood Essence Stone.

More importantly, Bai Xiaowen has the passive skill "Heart of Sincerity," which inherently provides control reduction. She also has food that removes control effects, as well as the Yellow Heaven skill from the Bone Warlock, all of which can remove control skills with a priority of 7 points.

Compared to this, the Eclipse Dominator Badge, which can only remove level 6 control effects, seems rather useless. The main value of this equipment to Bai Xiaowen lies in the 50 points of maximum Life Value, but Absolon's Blood Essence Stone, with just the first "Blood Thirst" skill, is equivalent to 90 points of maximum Life Value, naturally making it far superior to the Eclipse Dominator Badge.

After equipping the Blood Essence Stone, Bai Xiaowen admired its mesmerizing Dark Gold Tier luster one last time before closing his personal equipment inventory with satisfaction and choosing to upgrade the Black Soul Stone.

"The Black Soul Stone has been upgraded to level 5, with a current growth rate of 73/2000 and 958 points of Soul Essence."

"The fifth layer of the Black Soul Stone Enhancement Blueprint has been unlocked."

Bai Xiaowen looked at the more than 900 points of Soul Essence with a smile. This was mainly due to the fact that Kitz had attracted a large number of Elite Ghost by dancing on the grave earlier.

Long before he obtained the Black Soul Stone and unlocked the second layer of the Enhancement Blueprint, Bai Xiaowen secretly resolved to kill more Elite Tier and Boss Tier to accumulate more Soul Essence. Once he had enough, he would unlock all the enhancement options, and use the extra Soul Essence to reward the Banshee Delifa —a single call of "Master" would earn him a reward...

However, his Soul Essence had always been insufficient to cover his expenses, so this idea remained buried deep in his heart. Now, with nearly a thousand Soul Essence points, Bai Xiaowen finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel when all the enhancement options were lit up.

However, after Bai Xiaowen saw the fifth layer of the Enhancement Blueprint, his original thoughts of "I am handsome and I am rich" vanished instantly.

Enhancement Option 1: Increases your number of Skeleton Warrior (Skeleton Sword-and-Shield Soldier) by 2, and all attributes by 2. Requires 500 Soul Essence.

Enhancement Option 2: Increases all your Vampire attributes by +4. Requires 400 Soul Essence.

Enhancement Option 3: Adds two new Corpse Demonfolk summoned creatures of the Ghoul Demon race. Ghoul have Standard Template. Requires 500 Soul Essence.

Enhancement Option 4: Add a new Bonefolk summon: Terror Knight *1. The Terror Knight has Elite Template. Requires 450 Soul Essence.

Enhancement Option 5: Adds two new Corpse Demonfolk Zombie Hound creatures. Zombie Hound have Standard Template and require 500 Soul Essence.

These five enhancement options require a minimum of 400 Soul Essence and a maximum of 500. Bai Xiaowen currently has 958 Soul Essence, which is only enough to activate two of them.

"It's not necessary to light up both... we could consider lighting up the enhancement options in the previous layer first."

Bai Xiaowen thought about it for a moment. Although the enhancement options in the fifth layer were all very tempting, in terms of cost-effectiveness, some options might not be as beneficial as those in the fourth layer.

For example, enhancement options 3 and 5 seem to add two Standard Template creatures, but they cost 500 Soul Essence, averaging 250 points per ordinary creature! They are inferior to enhancement options 2 and 3 in the fourth tier.

The second enhancement option on the fourth tier, the new Elite Template Skeleton Champion, only requires 150 Soul Essence, while the third enhancement option, the new Elite Template Vengeful Spirit, only requires 200 Soul Essence.

Of course, Ghoul and Zombie Hound are both considered very powerful undead creatures, stronger than Skeleton Sword-and-Shield Soldier, but the Standard Template is still the Standard Template, and is definitely not as good as the Elite Template.

Bai Xiaowen did a rough calculation and finally chose to activate enhancement options 2 and 3 in the fourth layer, adding a Skeleton Champion and an Elite Tier Vengeful Spirit, which cost 350 points of Soul Essence.

Then, in the fifth layer of options, Bai Xiaowen selected Enhancement Option 1.

The reason for choosing enhancement option 1 is that this option not only adds two ordinary creatures, but also comes with an enhancement of +2 to all attributes. In this way, Bai Xiaowen will have six Skeleton Soldier, each with +2 to all attributes. The benefits are self-evident.

After activating these three enhancement options, Bai Xiaowen had only 108 points of Soul Essence left.

From within the Black Soul Stone came Delifa's sweet voice. "Master, the newly summoned creatures can devour the souls of powerful beings stored within the Black Soul Stone and mutate into even stronger beings. Would you like them to choose a suitable soul to devour now?"

Bai Xiaowen asked, "Wait, what kind of powerful souls can they devour now?"

The Banshee Delifa: "The two newly added Skeleton Warrior can devour the souls of the Heavy-armored Sword-and-Shield Soldier from the Three Kingdoms Plane World, or they can choose to devour the souls of the Elite Orc Infantry from the Kane Plane, or the souls of the Elite Pirate Mowield Soldier from the Jiajing Plane World."

After some thought, Bai Xiaowen ultimately chose the Heavy Armored Sword-and-Shield Soldier Soul.

Because the other two types of powerful souls are more geared towards damage output.

It's not that the output type is bad, but rather that the output needs corresponding attribute support to unleash its power. The Skeleton Warrior's own attributes are too poor, and its growth is also terrible. Although it has undergone two enhancements of +2 to all attributes, it has only narrowed the gap with creatures of the same level and template.

Agility, in particular, is a constant weakness for Skeleton Warrior. Low agility means slow attack speed, making it impossible for a melee fighter to deal damage. They're better off being shield bearers, blocking skills for Bai Xiaowen. Shield Bash and the ability to absorb damage with a shield will be much more useful in combat. As for dealing damage, that's naturally left to Li Shuyi and the other summoned creatures.

Afterwards, Bai Xiaowen looked up the powerful souls that the Skeleton Champion and the Vengeful Spirit could devour.

Unfortunately, these two Elite Tier creatures can currently only devour the souls of Elite Tier powerhouses. The Skeleton Champion can devour the soul of the Elite Tier Bone Champion, while the Vengeful Spirit can devour the souls of Elite Ghost and Elite Tier Vengeful Spirit.

"Can't it devour Leader Tier?" Bai Xiaowen was a little disappointed. Each creature of the Black Soul Stone only has one chance to devour the soul of a powerful being. Once it has completed its mutation after devouring, it is essentially fixed and cannot devour the soul of another powerful being again.

The Banshee Delifa regretfully, "Master, they haven't been strengthened yet, so they can't devour the souls of Leader Tier powerhouses."