Translator: Lonelytree Editor: Millman97
“After such a long scenario, I got something like this…” Before Feng Bujue came to the second glass tube, he was still grumbling. “And what is the ps in the remark… the self-mockery of the program… To be fair, this should be some data that was meant to be deleted.”
“Please select your additional reward: 1, a random draw of equipment matching your level; 2, 50,000 Game Coins; 3, 116,000 EXP”
The familiar window appeared before Feng Bujue, but this time, he did not make his decision as quickly as usual.
“My current exp is 134,300/290,000. Even with an extra 116,000, that will be…” Feng Bujue calculated it. “250,300, right? There’s about 40,000 exp to the next level. Even if I get the extra experience now, it’s not enough to level up, and I still need to queue for another scenario. In that case, I might as well go for equipment…”
Due to the disappointment from the skill card, Feng Bujue used a gambler’s psychology and hoped that he would get something good from the extra equipment that he had not selected for a long time. Therefore, he bet on his own luck again and chose the random equipment. The white light gathered, and a curved metallic plate the size of a bowl appeared inside the glass tube. When Feng Bujue first saw the equipment, he instinctually lowered his head to look at his chest.
“Tsk… Not again,” he said with a frown. “Even if it really is that thing, it should come in pairs…”
Obviously… he got it wrong.
———
Name: Embedded alchemical enhancement device
Type: Armor
Quality: Excellent
Defense Point: Slightly Weak
Element: None
Special effect: Slightly raises the effect of summoning skills.
Equip Requirement: Summoning Mastery F
Remark: This equipment can be equipped on either knee. It cannot be removed or put on in the middle of scenario, and your maximum Life Points will be lowered by ten percent.
———
“Oh… a knee guard, and here I thought it was something else,” Feng Bujue grumbled as he picked up this thing and pressed it against his right knee. When the metallic piece touched his knee, its temperature rose like a welding iron. After a jolt of extreme pain, the item was ‘seared’ onto Feng Bujue’s knee by a suction force. He lowered his head to look, and the surface of this knee guard had a red magic circle surfaced on it. Of course, what this magic circle represented, he did not understand…
“Tsk… If I could have understood that Advanced Level of Alchemy…” Feng Bujue was still feeling regret about the fact that he could not read the book from three scenarios back. He chose to hide the appearance of the equipment. “But the problem is… currently, I have no summoning skills.”
After Feng Bujue put on the equipment, he opened the menu.
“Should I put it inside the storage room first?”
But that thought made Feng Bujue feel uncomfortable. The character quest ‘Use summoning skill and successfully summon fifty creatures’ was stuck at 14/50. It was a knot in his heart, and this time, he had drawn another piece of summoning equipment. This felt like… if he did not use more summoning skills in the scenarios, he would have much to lose.
“The summoning skills sold at the auction house are all sky high in price, and this kind of skill card… If they are sold, they will be useless, or else they would have been used.” He glanced at the Rotten Egg Bullet in his skill tab. “Using more than 100,000 Game Coins to buy something like this is definitely not worth it.”
“Hmm…” Feng Bujue thought for a while. “Right, the Thriller Box!”
He suddenly realized that there was another method that could help him directly purchase a summoning skill, and that was the Thriller Box. Other than equipment, the Thriller Box still had skill cards for sale, but the number of skill cards that were lost in each scenario was much lower than equipment. Therefore, during the first week of the open beta, there was no tab to search for skill cards at all in the Thriller Box. One week later, all the skill cards that had been gathered appeared in the Thriller Box alongside the equipment and started the seven-day countdown before destruction.
Feng Bujue already had 17,980 Skill Points. Across the entire server, even players with higher levels than him might not have more Skill Points than him. Therefore, Brother Jue had skill points to waste.
Feng Bujue returned to the log-in lobby. After the elevator closed, he pressed the button for the Thriller Box, and once again, he entered the small room that had a chessboard-like floor, four walls fitted with concave glass, and a large present box placed in the middle of the room.
Opening the menu, he very selectively chose the skill card tab and chose the sub category ‘Summoning’. With this kind of filter, only eight pages appeared, with each page listing one hundred choices.
As mentioned before, in the search list of the Thriller Box, one could only see the name, type, and price of the item, but for something like skill cards, recognizing them by name only was not enough. Therefore, Brother Jue, who had failed to scratch his reading itch at the Detective Club, decided to make up the difference in the Thriller Box…
Eight hundred skill cards was not that many or that few. Even though some of them were far beyond Feng Bujue’s purchasing power, he still read about them. After all, he was in sleeping mode with a ratio of one to ten hours, so he did not need to hurry. Three and a half hours passed in the blink of an eye.
Feng Bujue relied on his crazy patience and impressive reading speed to scroll through all the skill cards.
After reading for three minutes, he had taken out the stool from his inventory and sat down. When he clicked on the last skill card on the last page, he stood up, put the stool away, and started to pace about. The scariest point about Brother Jue was that he not only managed to finish reading all that information but recalled them with terrifying accuracy after reading them. He could even compare them all in his mind.
Another fifteen minutes passed before Feng Bujue stopped pacing and clicked open the Thriller Box again. Flipping a few pages, he selected one skill card.
———
Name: Summoning—Musashi Koganei
Skill Card Properties: Active Skill, Permanent
Skill Type: Summoning
Effect: Summon Musashi Koganei as your partner. Cooldown: eighty minutes. The creature will be active for twenty minutes, and only one summoned creature is allowed at one time.)
Consumption: Commit to a strange action
Learning Requirement: Summoning Mastery F
Remark: He is a primary student, and his mind became twisted because ‘great people will always be seen as crazy when they were young’. He can spin his body rapidly around and move on any surface. He will keep making strange and nonsensical noises like ‘du du du du’. Highly intelligent and able to create many strange inventions, he appears to come from a wealthy family.
———
“Ok, I’ve settled on you.” Feng Bujue used 480 Skill Points and bought this skill. It was twenty points cheaper than when he purchased Casey Jones’ Mask. On the surface, this looked like a summoned creature that was useless in battle, and in reality, he was indeed useless. But then again, what could you expect from a level F summoned creature? Summoning Skill—Sailor was considered quite powerful among Level F summoning skill, so it required the exhaustion of a specific item during summoning—spinach. Other level F summoned creatures—like bats, limping zombies, and so on—they were all cannon fodder, and they were mainly for sleuthing and playing for time.
Feng Bujue processed the information about the useless level F summoned creatures in his mind for a long time and realized… only Musashi Koganei, this strange kid, had a respectable IQ among all the summoned creatures. Then, aside from battle-wise, Musashi would be more useful than other creatures of the same level.
Of course, Feng Bujue had hesitated about buying another summoning skill, ‘Summoning Skill—Toilet Paper’. This skill was completely useless and required no exhaustion, but it had one advantage. It only had a cooldown of ten minutes, but the cost of this skill was as high as 1,400 skill points. Obviously, the main purpose of this skill was for the players to repeatedly use it to train their summoning skill.
While he could have bought both skills, since he was almost close to completing the character quest, he decided to save the 1,400 skill points.
“Hmm… I’ll queue for another scenario and summon him for a chat.” Feng Bujue talked to himself after learning the skill.
As a person who spent time doing nothing… oh no, a writer who went about finding inspiration, he had seen and read many things before. This anime, Tokyo Pig, was one of his favorite works. And in this anime, the character that interested him the most was Musashi Koganei. Perhaps… they were kindred spirits.
…
After purchasing the skill card, Feng Bujue finally returned to his log-in lobby. He had squandered four hours inside the Thriller Box. Other than the professional players who needed to work, which casual player would dawdle for so long outside of a scenario?
“Hmm… I’ll only log off after levelling up to thirty tonight,” Feng Bujue said.
This time, he had a not-so-good idea. Summoning Musashi Koganei’s cooldown was eighty minutes, but he if summoned the creature right after he entered the scenario and it died soon after, he would be able to summon it again after he queued up for another scenario.
With this plan in mind, Feng Bujue chose Solo Nightmare Survival Mode. It would not matter if he failed; it was just a trial for his skill.
