Frostfire Rose

Back home, Li Mu immediately entered the Seedship and eagerly took out the Frostfire Rose.

It was a flintlock pistol with a silver-white body, its surface inlaid with a rose carving pattern woven from red and blue. He summoned Spark Energy to envelop the Frostfire Rose, and the firearm's detailed attributes appeared before him.

[Frostfire Rose: HuoZhong Firearm]

[Quality: Profound Grade Upper]

[Damage: 5–10]

[Spark Energy: 1,000 calories]

[Capacity: 2]

[Skill 1: Frostfire Rapid Fire—Converts Spark Energy into Frostfire Energy Bullets, allowing unlimited rapid fire]

[Skill 2: Frostfire Bullet Crafting—Consumes 1,000 calories of Spark Energy to create one Frostfire Armor-Piercing Bullet]

[Evaluation: Rose Gun Shop welcomes custom orders]

Li Mu ignored the advertisement at the end and focused on the Frostfire Rose's attributes.

Ordinary Frostfire firearms only had the first skill, not the second.

Their damage was also fixed at just four points. Each point of damage corresponded to one point of Physique defense. If a HuoZhong Professional with five points of Physique had no protection, a shot from the Frostfire Rose's energy bullet mode could basically kill them outright.

As for HuoZhong Professionals with more than five points of Physique, each additional point reduced damage by twenty percent.

A HuoZhong Professional with ten points of Physique could basically shrug off Frostfire Rapid Fire.

Of course, that was only the Frostfire Rose's own damage. His Profound Grade Frostfire Gun Fu LV1 also came with a passive effect that increased damage by one point. As his Frostfire Gun Fu level rose, the Frostfire Gunner's damage range would continue to increase.

The Frostfire Rose cost three thousand HuoZhong Coins, and most of its price came from its second skill, Frostfire Bullet Crafting.

The Frostfire Armor-Piercing Bullet only raised the Frostfire Rose's damage to its maximum of ten points, but the armor penetration was what mattered. It could pierce any armor with a defense strength below ten. If it weren't limited to two rounds, the Frostfire Rose would cost far more.

Spark Energy fully seeped into the gun, and the Frostfire Rose vanished from Li Mu's hand as it fused with his First Origin HuoZhong.

His Origin HuoZhong was Earth Grade, so even at Transcendence Level LV1, he could load two Profound Grade HuoZhong at once.

That didn't even count his Heaven Grade Second Origin HuoZhong. Compared with a normal Profound Grade Origin HuoZhong, the number of HuoZhong he could load at LV1 was six times greater. The higher his Transcendence Level rose, the wider the gap would become. Sometimes, talent was simply too hard to catch up with through hard work.

Red and blue light flashed in Li Mu's hand, and the Frostfire Rose appeared there in an instant.

Although the Frostfire Gunner was only a Profound Grade profession, when Transcendents were still low-level, its lethality could rival that of some Earth Grade professions. It was a ranged attacker, which made it more forgiving, and Frostfire Gun Fu didn't reduce its shooting damage in close combat, either.

After he used up a thousand calories of Spark Energy, a Frostfire Armor-Piercing Bullet formed inside the Frostfire Rose.

Li Mu immediately channeled his own Spark Energy into it. A normal Profound Grade Origin HuoZhong held only about two hundred calories of Spark Energy. With each grade doubling the amount, his two Origin HuoZhong let him replenish twelve hundred calories at once.

Once he finished replenishing it, Li Mu began using the Spark Meditation Technique to absorb the ubiquitous Spark Energy and recover what he had spent.

His home was just an ordinary residence, where Spark Energy was very sparse.

Frostfire City had specially built training rooms with dense Spark Energy, but they were expensive, and ordinary HuoZhong Professionals couldn't afford them. Although Spark Energy was much denser in the fog outside the city, practicing the Spark Meditation Technique in the Misty Wilderness was extremely dangerous.

Completely depleting his Spark Energy and then refilling it could raise his Transcendence Level experience by about one point.

It took Li Mu more than half a day to restore all his Spark Energy through the Spark Meditation Technique.

[Li Mu: Human]

[Spirit: 3.9]

[Physique: 3.5]

[Transcendence Level: LV1 (1/100)]

[Tip: Normal humans have around one point each in Spirit and Physique. Normal HuoZhong Awakeners have around two points in each attribute. Each increase in Transcendence Level grants one Free Attribute Point. Training and External Enhancement can raise attributes further.]

[First Origin HuoZhong: Earth Grade]

[Seed Talent: Disguise—Can freely disguise his own HuoZhong fluctuations]

[Second Origin HuoZhong: Heaven Grade]

[Seed Talent: Nirvana]

[Acquired HuoZhong: Frostfire Gunner (Profound Grade)]

[Seedship: Phoenix Seed Destroyer]

[Spark Equipment: Frostfire Rose (Profound Grade)]

"Transcendence Level: LV1 (1/100)..."

Li Mu murmured to himself.

By that calculation, it would take at least three months to reach LV2.

The Spark Meditation Technique could only be practiced to completion once a day. After all, he had only learned the common version, not the secret techniques passed down by families and powerful organizations. It looked like he would have to rely on HuoZhong Source Power if he wanted to raise his Transcendence Level quickly.

It was no wonder that Seedship Captains who could harvest HuoZhong Source Power in other worlds were the strongest professionals in Human Civilization.

Putting away the Frostfire Rose, Li Mu took out the HuoZhong Crystal that stored Spark Energy.

With a full hundred and fifty thousand calories of Spark Energy, the Phoenix's reserves were finally no longer empty.

Li Mu immediately tried to generate a Fantasy Coordinate. The first world couldn't be too powerful, or his rookie Frostfire Gunner wouldn't be able to handle it. It also had to provide enough resources to help him develop. Finally, generating the Fantasy Coordinate had to cost less than fifty thousand calories of Spark Energy.

According to the feedback from his Second Origin HuoZhong, traveling between dimensions with the Seedship required at least a hundred thousand calories of Spark Energy.

In truth, that amount of energy wasn't nearly enough to let a Seedship travel between dimensions.

The Fantasy World itself shouldered most of the cost. The hundred thousand calories consumed by the Phoenix were merely the minimum needed to start the Seedship. He was sure there wasn't another Seedship Captain in the entire Spark World as poor as he was.

After trying again and again, Li Mu soon settled on a Fantasy World [ ]~(￣▽￣)~*.

This world wasn't very powerful, but it was perfect for providing him with the resources he needed to grow in the early stages.

Everything was ready; all he lacked was the right timing. Now he just had to wait for Frostfire City to stop, then leave the city. Although the Seedship could travel between dimensions, time flowed at the same rate on both sides. By the time he returned, Frostfire City would have long since moved somewhere else.

Moreover, the Seedship had to exist in reality while traveling between dimensions.

He had to go in person. He couldn't travel over as a mental projection and turn into a ghost. Besides, the Seedship would travel between dimensions directly within his soul. He was worried it might roast his brain, so no matter what, he had to leave Frostfire City.

He had lived here for over ten years. It would be a lie to say he felt nothing for the place.

Although his Hyperthymesia had made him rather solitary, and he had no close friends at Spark Academy, leaving a place he had known for more than a decade on such short notice still made him reluctant, as if he were running away from home.

After this departure, he didn't know when he'd get the chance to return to Frostfire City.

From then on, the Phoenix would be his home and his haven o(╥﹏╥)o.