Dismantling Equipment, Infinite Attribute Growth!

Early the next morning, Jiang Chuan touched the special mark that had appeared on his arm.

His consciousness sank into the Source Realm.

When he opened his eyes again,

he was already standing in the central square of Tianyuan City.

This main city was far larger than he had imagined. As far as the eye could see, towering buildings and dense crowds filled the landscape.

Players riding flying mounts also swept through the sky.

Leaving trails of light behind them.

Jiang Chuan turned a full three hundred and sixty degrees where he stood. Other than "Wow," he could not squeeze out another word.

Before he came, his father had given him some coordinates and said the place was near [Azure Bamboo Alley] in the eastern part of the city.

Jiang Chuan spent twenty minutes asking for directions, then another ten minutes taking the wrong route. At last, he found the place at the end of a quiet alley.

It was a three-story building with a flag hanging outside, embroidered with a blazing flame.

The emblem of the Blazing Fire Battle Group.

A young girl in leather armor stood at the entrance. She looked no older than sixteen or seventeen, holding a long saber as she wiped down its blade.

She glanced up at Jiang Chuan and asked expressionlessly, "Who are you looking for?"

"Uh, I'm here to report in." Jiang Chuan said, "I'm looking for Su Yao."

"You're Jiang Chuan?"

"Yes."

The girl looked him over from head to toe, comprehension flashing through her eyes. Then she stepped aside. "Come in. The captain is on the second floor."

Jiang Chuan went upstairs, turned into a small meeting room, and immediately spotted someone sitting by the window.

She was quite a beautiful girl.

Fair-skinned and delicate-featured, she wore dark red light armor. Her long hair was tied in a high ponytail, and she looked clean and capable.

A cup of tea sat before her. She was looking down at something, only raising her head when she heard his footsteps.

Su Yao.

A B-rank mage, and the daughter of Su Lie, leader of the Blazing Fire Battle Group.

Jiang Chuan put on what he believed was a friendly smile. "Hello, I'm Jiang Chuan. My father is Jiang Mingyuan. He said—"

"I know who you are."

Su Yao cut him off, her tone neither warm nor cold.

She set the stack of papers in her hand on the table, looked at Jiang Chuan in silence for two seconds, then said bluntly, "Your father and mine share a life-and-death friendship. Our family has to repay that debt, so since you're here, I won't drive you away."

Jiang Chuan's smile froze for a fraction of a second, but quickly returned to normal.

Su Yao continued, "But I need to make a few things clear first. I didn't form this team to play house. Everyone in the team has to be useful. I can't waste everyone else's time and opportunities because of you."

Her words were very straightforward.

Even a little harsh.

Yet Jiang Chuan could not bring himself to get angry, because everything she said was true.

An F-rank dismantler in a team led by an A-rank awakened one really was nothing but dead weight.

"I understand." Jiang Chuan nodded. "I'll work hard."

Su Yao glanced at him, seemingly trying to find some hypocrisy or resentment in his expression. But after searching, she found nothing.

She gave a slight nod and stood up. "Fine, that's settled. Stay with the team for now. If there's anything you don't understand, ask the veteran members."

After saying that, she started to leave. But when she reached the door, she stopped again, as if recalling something.

"Oh, right."

She took several items from the storage pouch at her waist and casually tossed them onto the table, where they landed with a series of clatters.

Jiang Chuan looked down and saw a pile of equipment.

More precisely,

they were white-quality items that did not even qualify as Black Iron.

A damaged longsword, cracked leather gloves, warped bracers—more than a dozen pieces in total, all the sort of trash no one would pick up even if it were lying on the ground.

"These are leftovers from our training."

Su Yao said, "They're practice materials for dismantlers. You can't dismantle anything too good yet, so use these to practice first."

Jiang Chuan was taken aback.

Honestly, he had expected Su Yao to leave him off to the side and ignore him. He had not expected her to prepare practice materials for him.

Though they were the lowest-grade kind, she had at least put some thought into it.

"Thanks."

Jiang Chuan said sincerely.

Su Yao said nothing more and turned to leave.

Her footsteps gradually faded down the corridor. Only then did Jiang Chuan slowly withdraw his gaze and look down at the pile of junk on the table.

White-quality equipment.

Strictly speaking, it did not even have a grade.

Outside, each piece was worth only a few dozen dollars, and might not even sell. But to him, it was a tremendous help!

Jiang Chuan picked up the damaged longsword from the table.

Information appeared before his eyes:

[Iron Longsword: White Quality, Dismantlable, Estimated Recovery: Iron Ingot ×2, Leather Scrap ×1, Strength +0.1]

The first two recovered materials were fairly normal.

But when he saw the third line, Jiang Chuan's heart skipped a beat.

"Should I try it?"

He warily glanced toward the door. There was no one there. Taking a deep breath, he silently recited, Dismantle.

His palm grew warm.

A faint golden flash streaked past, so fast it was nearly invisible.

The longsword on the table vanished, replaced by two pitch-black iron ingots and a small piece of scrap leather, neatly arranged on the tabletop.

At the same time,

a surge of warmth flowed from his arm into his body.

[Notification: Strength +0.1!]

Jiang Chuan's eyes widened.

It... worked?

He opened his status panel.

What appeared before him was an attribute interface so bare-bones it was painful to look at.

[Jiang Chuan]

[Level: 1]

[Combat Class: None]

[Life Class: Dismantler (Basic, Proficiency: 0.0001%)]

[Health: 10]

[Mana: 10]

[Constitution: 0.4]

[Intelligence: 0.5]

[Strength: 0.3]

[Agility: 0.2]

[Note: The standard base attributes for an F-rank combat class are 1.0]

His base attributes could only be described as abysmal. His highest attribute, Intelligence, was only 0.5, barely half that of an F-rank combat class.

The rest of his attributes had not even reached half.

But.

Everything was about to change.

Dismantling one white-quality item could permanently increase Strength by 0.1. With only ten items, he could reach the standard for an F-rank combat class!!

What about a hundred items,

a thousand items,

or even higher-grade Black Iron equipment!?

There was something else! Jiang Chuan looked at the materials on the table. For an ordinary dismantler, being able to guarantee a 50% material recovery rate was enough to earn a position in some large battle groups.

Take note,

this referred to the overall recovery rate after successful dismantling.

For a newly awakened F-rank dismantler, first of all, dismantling materials only had a 35% success rate, while the minimum recovery rate was merely 27%.

Out of ten pieces of equipment, an overall material recovery rate of 10% was already considered decent!

An overall recovery rate of 50% required at least an advanced dismantler!

But his recovery efficiency was...

one hundred percent!

That meant

every piece of trash equipment would yield its full value in his hands!!

Take this longsword, for example. As damaged white-quality equipment, it could sell for fifty dollars at most, and its only buyers were basically dismantlers who needed practice materials.

But now, it had become two refined iron ingots and a piece of scrap leather.

They could sell for at least one hundred and fifty dollars!

Its value had tripled!

Jiang Chuan picked up the cracked leather glove, silently recited Dismantle, and with a flash of golden light, the glove vanished, turning into several scraps of leather and a strip of ox tendon.

[Notification: Constitution +0.1!]

Then the bracers.

Then another item...

In less than a minute, the pile of junk on the table had all turned into materials.

His attribute panel became:

[Constitution: 0.8]

[Intelligence: 0.5]

[Strength: 0.6]

[Agility: 0.4]

They had increased by a full factor of two!

And as Jiang Chuan looked at the small mountain of iron ingots, leather scraps, and metal fragments before him, he was completely consumed by overwhelming excitement.