Back in the car, Shen Ye began taking stock of his gains from the trip to Snake Village.
The food and water went without saying. He had brought the half-person-high Hiking Backpack out intact, packed to the brim with enough supplies to last him at least a week, even if he used them freely.
What pleased him most, naturally, was the killing points.
Before he knew it, his total had reached 2,064.
Most of those had come from the Green-Scaled Snake Demons.
He had slashed his way through them while escaping. Though he hadn't counted, at least a dozen Tier One Snake Demons had died beneath his blade.
The biggest haul came from that Tier Two Snake Demon-a full 234 points.
Song Lei came next, contributing another 86.
This also confirmed something for him: killing points could be obtained from an extremely broad range of targets. Ordinary people, Eldritch beings, or Sequence Awakened-all yielded points when killed.
The stronger the target, the more points it gave.
Of course, slaughtering Snake Demons in daylight required sufficient intelligence. It wasn't something he could repeat every time.
As for hunting Sequence Awakened...
He had no plans to do that for now.
Humans were social creatures. Having everyone die would do him no good. During his escape, Shen Ye had never found an opportunity to try the two skills granted by the Asura Sequence.
Now that he had finally found some peace, he sensed the two thousand-plus killing points in his mind and immediately ruled out testing the Asura Treasury.
If it was called a treasury, everything inside had to be valuable.
But it was certainly expensive, too.
The cheapest item was the Blood-Red Crystal, and even that required a sacrifice of 5,000 killing points.
The Mask and the pair of eyeballs cost 10,000 and 50,000 points respectively.
That left only the second skill to test-Blood Refinement.
His gaze shifted to Ghost Head, lying on the passenger seat.
Taking the blade in hand, Shen Ye closed his eyes and willed the skill to activate.
Blood Refinement.
The next second, a message appeared in his mind:
Spend 1,000 killing points to perform Blood Refinement on "Ghost Head"?
Shen Ye stared at the prompt in silence for several seconds.
Killing points were hard-earned, but if he wanted to survive in this apocalypse overrun with Eldritch beings, he had to race against time to grow stronger.
As he silently thought, Confirm, a burning sensation spread from his heart.
Then his hands turned crimson at a visible speed. Countless threads of blood emerged from his fingertips, writhing wildly like living things as they wrapped Ghost Head in layer after layer.
The blade trembled violently and let out a shrill hum.
Shen Ye felt as though the flesh of his palms was being torn apart. Agony shot up his arms and along his nerves.
He gritted his teeth, fine beads of sweat constantly forming at his temples.
The blood threads tightened, gradually forming a churning blood cocoon.
Seconds and minutes ticked by.
After about ten minutes, the blood cocoon began to shrink and dry out, finally crumbling into ash that dispersed into the air.
Ghost Head, now tempered through Blood Refinement, dropped back into his hand.
Shen Ye looked down. Ghost Head's blade seemed to have grown several centimeters longer, and a faint dark-red sheen covered it. It also felt considerably heavier.
Weird Object: Ghost Head Type: Eldritch Weapon Number: 8763 Traits: Hard Edge: When activated, doubles the blade's sharpness and hardness. Attacks that damage a Weird Object's weak point have a chance to trigger "Instant Death." Instant Death: Kills the target immediately upon activation. Ineffective against incorporeal targets; against targets stronger than the wielder, the probability approaches zero. Bloodlust: After each use of "Hard Edge," the wielder must kill at least one target within one calendar day. Otherwise, Ghost Head will sever one of the wielder's arms as payment. Intangible: When activated, Ghost Head enters an intangible state and cannot be sensed or detected by enemies. Damage dealt is somewhat reduced. Description: An offensive Weird Object brimming with murderous intent. After being tempered by a powerful force, it gained an eerie, unpredictable ability.
After reading the effects of the new trait, Intangible, Shen Ye couldn't help feeling delighted.
Those thousand killing points had been more than worth it.
And that number wasn't random after all. It could even be understood as a ranking that changed along with the Weird Object's abilities.
In Shen Ye's eyes, Ghost Head was already an outrageously powerful Eldritch Weapon.
Just how strong were the Weird Objects ranked above it?
It seemed his understanding of the changes brought about by this apocalypse was still rather shallow.
Still, the surprise Blood Refinement had given him was enormous.
If one refinement could add another special effect, could he perform a second? A third?
At that thought, Shen Ye didn't hesitate. He activated Blood Refinement on Ghost Head again, but the smile on his lips soon froze.
Just as he had imagined, the same item could indeed undergo Blood Refinement multiple times. However, the required killing points increased by multiples as well.
Ghost Head, for instance, already required 10,000 killing points for its second refinement.
With only a little over a thousand killing points remaining, he was powerless to proceed.
Then, seemingly remembering something, he reached into his trouser pocket and took out the green scale dropped by the Tier Two Green-Scaled Snake Demon he had killed yesterday.
The scale was about the size of his palm, smooth and warm like jade to the touch. It gleamed emerald green in the sunlight.
Weird Object material: green-scaled king snake scale Description: A Green-Scaled King Snake's lifesaving scale. Extremely hard, it can be used to craft Weird Objects.
After reading its information, Shen Ye couldn't help feeling disappointed.
He had initially thought it was some treasure, but it turned out to be nothing more than a material for crafting Weird Objects. It was of little use to him right now.
Perhaps he could trade it for something if he encountered another convoy later.
Just then, someone knocked on the car window.
Shen Ye turned his head and found Song Shiya looking at him through the glass with her beautiful eyes.
"Is something wrong?"
Shen Ye rolled down the window and met her gaze.
"Are you sure you don't need me to heal you?" Song Shiya pointed at his left arm.
His sleeve had several tears in it and was stained blackish red with dried blood. Even the exposed skin had a faint purplish tinge.
He had been clawed there during yesterday's fight with the Snake Demon. The wound wasn't too deep, though, and with all the running, Shen Ye hadn't paid much attention to it.
At most, he had planned to find some anti-inflammatory medicine at a pharmacy or hospital later and simply bandage it.
But Song Shiya approaching him on her own to offer treatment surprised him.
"Since when are you so helpful?" Shen Ye asked.
He could hardly be blamed for thinking that way.
In a world like this, human nature could easily become twisted, and most people's selfish side would be magnified without limit.
"It's just one Light of Holy Healing. That's nothing to me."
"Besides, you saved me back at Limin Supermarket."
That was true.
When Song Lei had rushed forward to hold off the Tier Two Eldritch being, Shen Ye could have broken through and escaped on his own. There had been no need for him to risk ambushing that Tier Two Snake Demon.
If he had done that, Song Shiya would already have become one of the many ghastly skeletons in the supermarket.
But Shen Ye hadn't thought that much about it. At the time, he had only wanted to seize the opportunity to earn more killing points.
With that, white light shone in Song Shiya's hand, and she gently pressed it against the wound on Shen Ye's left arm.
Wrapped in the light, the searing pain slowly faded.
The ghastly wound healed at a visible speed until his arm was back to normal.
The entire process took less than five minutes.
Once she finished, beads of sweat covered Song Shiya's fair, pretty face. Clearly, it had taken a considerable toll on her.
"Thank you."
Song Shiya feigned surprise. "I didn't think you knew how to say that."
Shen Ye's lips twitched, but he didn't argue.
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