Chapter 43: Chapter 43: Spending Money Like Water
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Watching the Spectral Engine that had been enhanced to its limit, the Spectral Energy Pool barely reached 9,000 points. Song Chi’s mind was made up; he had to get his hands on a high-quality engine component as soon as possible.
Take the “Nuclear Fusion Engine” component as an example—when it was at lv0, the associated Energy Pool had an impressive capacity of 5,000 points.
If it were to be enhanced to lv19, it would probably exceed 30,000 points. There would be no need to face the current situation, with not only inefficient energy supply but also an inadequate capacity of the Energy Pool.
With the current 9,000 points in the Spectral Energy Pool, Song Chi estimated that if the Dark Matter Energy Shield Generator were to be enhanced a few more times, it likely wouldn’t be enough.
However, at present he didn’t have a choice. Yesterday, he accessed the White Tower’s local network and checked the marketplace; there were no engine components of blue quality or higher. There were a few of colorless quality, but with average attributes and high prices, he wasn’t interested. For now, he had to make do with what was available.
Upon completing the enhancement of the Spectral Engine, naturally, the Dark Matter Energy Shield was next. Song Chi had plenty of First Rank Floating Land Origin and Mercury Crystals and didn’t mind using them up. The orange glory quality components were good enough for long-term use. Investing sufficient resources for early enhancement was still very cost-effective.
Dozens of seconds later, he had enhanced the Dark Matter Energy Shield Generator component all the way to lv15, spending a total of 200 threads of First Rank Floating Land Origin and 150 tons of Mercury Crystals.
Looking at its attributes, there indeed was a significant improvement.
Dark Matter Energy Shield Generator lv15
Quality: Orange
Feature: Additional 85% increase in Shield Value
Feature 2: Defense Value of the shield is doubled
Consumption: 60/s (Spectral Energy Points)
Defense: 880
Shield Value: 16,280/16,280
Charge: 20s; Post-overload Buffer: 35 minutes
UpRank Requirement: 70 threads of Floating Land Origin (First Rank), 10,000 Spectral Energy Points, 45 tons of Mercury Crystals
It can be said that the properties of the Dark Matter Energy Shield Generator component, enhanced to lv15, had terrifyingly increased. Especially the defense and shield values, which went from 380→880 and 6,080→16,280, respectively. This was a substantial upgrade.
The size of this increase was naturally linked to the quality of the Dark Matter Energy Shield Generator component. High-quality warship components always come with unique features. These percentage-based features of the Dark Matter Energy Shield Generator meant the higher the enhancement level, the more terrifying the improvements.
Actually, Song Chi wanted to continue enhancing the Dark Matter Energy Shield Generator. He still had 102 threads of First Rank Floating Land Origin and 50 tons of Mercury Crystals, which were more than enough for another enhancement.
Regrettably, he didn’t have enough Spectral Energy Points. Enhancing the Dark Matter Energy Shield Generator from lv15 to lv16 required 10,000 Spectral Energy Points, but he currently had only 9,000 points in the Spectral Energy Pool.
With no other option, Song Chi could only shift his focus to the Fire Peony Soldier Figurine Tree component.
This component, besides the Dark Matter Energy Shield Generator and the Goldrock Ship Armor, was the only one on the Cangqiong that could utilize First Rank Floating Land Origin. He wasn’t planning on enhancing the Goldrock Ship Armor, so he naturally turned his attention to the Fire Peony Soldier Figurine Tree.
In the end, he spent 90 threads of First Rank Floating Land Origin and also enhanced the Fire Peony Soldier Figurine Tree component to lv15.
Fire Peony Soldier Figurine Tree lv15
Quality: Colorless
Consumption: 200 per unit (Spectral Energy Points)
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Effect: Fire Peony Soldier Effigy (Summons ten level lv15 Fire Peony Soldier Figurines; as long as the figurines are not destroyed, they can remain indefinitely, but if they perish, it would take 24 hours before they could be summoned again).
UpRank Requirement: 30 strands of First Rank Floating Land Origin, 4000 Spectral Energy Points.
By now, Song Chi had only the last 12 strands of First Rank Floating Land Origin left in his hand; it was impossible to enhance any other First Rank components in the short term.
After completing the enhancement of the two components with the highest quality on the Cangqiong, Song Chi shifted his focus onto the “White Torch Warship Body” component.
Although this component did not directly increase the Shuttle’s attack or defence, it determined the number of “special component slots” on a Torch Warship and the level cap of the Spectral Energy Cultivation Platform.
Of course, the Spectral Energy Cultivation Platform was of little importance to Song Chi, but the special component slots were something he could never have too many of, even though, apart from the Fire Peony Soldier Effigy Tree, there were no other special components currently on the Cangqiong. Still, who knows what the future could bring? It was good to enhance in advance and keep additional special component slots ready.
The White Torch Warship Body, just like when it was colorless, or rather the amount of enhancement resources required had no relation to the quality of the Seed of Torch.
From lv0→lv1, it only needed 5 strands of Zero Rank Floating Land Origin + 200 Spectral Energy Points.
lv1→lv2, 10 strands of Zero Rank Floating Land Origin + 400 Spectral Energy Points.
lv2→lv3, 15 strands of Zero Rank Floating Land Origin + 600 Spectral Energy Points.
And so on.
In the end, Song Chi spent 225 strands of Zero Rank Floating Land Origin, upgrading the White Torch Warship Body from lv0 to lv9. He could have directly upgraded the Torch Warship Body, that is, the Seed of Torch, to lv10 or above, but after some consideration, he decided not to do so.
Because once the Warship Body was upgraded from lv9 to lv10, the Cangqiong would transition from a Spectral Shuttle to an advanced Spectral Airship. Advancing to a Spectral Airship was not an issue; given Cangqiong’s foundation, there was hardly any chance of failure.
But that wasn’t the key point; advancing the Cangqiong would increase the risk of deployments in the Alien Star Domain correspondingly, which was clearly not what Song Chi, who just wanted to scavenge some ordinary resources peacefully, wanted to see.
Therefore, he decided to stop the enhancement of the White Torch Warship Body at lv9.
However, even without advancing to a Spectral Airship in one go, the Cangqiong upgraded to lv9 had its special component slots increased from the initial two to six.
The Torch Warships of Torch Human Civilization, depending on the quality of their Seed of Torch, would gain a different number of special component slots with every 5 levels the “Torch Warship Body” was upgraded.
Colorless Torch Warship Body, every 5 levels, 2 more slots are added.
White Torch Warship Body, every 5 levels, 4 more slots are added.
Blue Quality Torch Warship Body, every 5 levels, 6 more slots are added.
Purple Torch Warship Body, every 5 levels, 8 more slots are added.
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As a Torch Warship bound to a White Seed of Torch, the Cangqiong would gain 4 extra special slot places with every 5-level upgrade of the Torch Warship Body.
Of course, this was not completely fixed. If Song Chi could further upgrade the quality of his Seed of Torch in the future, the Warship itself would gain additional special slot places corresponding to the level of the Torch Warship Body.
After enhancing the White Torch Warship Body and seeing that he still had a considerable amount of Zero Rank Floating Land Origin left, Song Chi then turned his attention to the “Goldrock Ship Armor” that he had not yet enhanced.
As a component with White Quality “Warship Armor”, the cost-effectiveness of its enhancement was quite substantial, although it hadn’t been on the top of Song Chi’s list of components to enhance first, due to its overlapping functions with the Dark Matter Energy Shield Generator.