Shadow Strike
Shadow Strike
Although her room was big enough for her to be able to empty the entire 'Heart of the Earth' at once, Evelyn still decided to go at it step by step, just in case.
Looking at the eight huge sacks tied up with drawstrings, Evelyn cautiously opened the first one, and the contents left her blinking in both surprise and disappointment.
"Silver coins? What the heck?"
Although there were probably thousands of coins in the sacks, it was still pretty much worthless.
The pink haired girl tied the string back up and tossed the sack in her inventory before opening the next one, and it turned out to be even worse.
"Copper coins?! Was Craig the Prince of Terrans or the Prince of Paupers?!"
Angrily tossing the thing into her inventory, Evelyn rapidly went through the next five drawstring sacks, and although their contents were better as they had been full of gold coins, it still wasn't enough to assuage her anger.
With only one big drawstring sack left, Evelyn opened it without any expectations.
"Finally! This is chock full of spirit stones!"
Although this was the last of the big drawstring sacks, its value alone was dozens of times greater than all the mortal currency sacks combined.
Evelyn couldn't help but shake her head. "I cannot believe that most of the space in Craig's spatial artifact was occupied by this junk…"
With the biggest bags already tossed into her inventory, Evelyn's target shifted to the only medium-sized sack in the bunch, and much to her relief, it was actually worth something.
"Spirit crystals, huh… I was almost starting to think that the Terrans must have gone broke because of the war, and even their prince was barely able to afford the clothes he wore. Hehe… these should be worth about ten cores, right?"
Although it still wasn't close to the jackpot she had been expecting, at least it didn't make her blood boil. Evelyn re-tightened the drawstring on the spirit crystal bag and put it aside in her inventory as well.
"Let's see what to check next… oh?"
Looking at the small velvet pouch that she had previously overlooked due to the big bags, Evelyn couldn't help but take it out curiously.
"I hope this little baby contains exactly what I think it does…"
A delighted smile lit up her face as she pulled the mouth of the pouch open and glanced at the dozens of spirit cores inside.
With how tiny Bree and Ruru were, most of her bed was empty, so Evelyn poured down all the spherical cores with a smile, and started filling the pouch back up while counting them one by one.
"Ninety-eight… ninety-nine… a hundred…"
As the last of the shiny pearls entered the pouch, the count was already at a hundred and twelve.
Although it was far lower than what she expected, it still more than quadrupled the number of spirit cores in her collection!
"With this, I'm officially richer than Cecilia! Hmph, let's see her use that excuse to pay for me now. I'll definitely pay her back tenfold!"
The thought of finally getting her 'vengeance' put the pink haired girl in a good mood, and she even forgave Craig for filling his inventory with junk.
Clearly, this must be the wealth that he kept with himself to take care of all kinds of situations, and not his life savings. Otherwise, it would have made more sense to get rid of the lower mortal currencies.
"Heh, his life savings were probably called the 'Terran Treasury', and should be located somewhere around the very core of his kingdom, right? I'll just collect it from there when I get the chance."
Although wealth was no longer that crucial to her plan of facing the thrones after realizing that she couldn't use the Lotus Throne's Nirvana for an extended period of time while recharging herself using spirit cores, it could still be a great boost to her and her team's growth!
Not to mention anything else, wouldn't they become much stronger if they each had a grade six or higher artifact?
Of course, Evelyn recognized that these were considered treasures that most could only covet and dream of, but was there anything in the world that couldn't be bought with enough wealth?
"Actually… what I have now should already be good enough to buy some decent stuff. I guess it wouldn't hurt to start looking into where one can get their hands on the highest level artifacts."
Evelyn already had a few guesses in her mind, such as the Port of Nemer where Bree took her to get Ruru, as well as the auction houses in the Eastern Forbidden City, but she couldn't be sure.
Shaking her head to clear the distracting thoughts, Evelyn scanned through the contents of Craig's spatial item again. With all the big sacks gone, the space looked much more empty, and far more organized, with only ornate boxes of various sizes.
Without any idea of their contents, Evelyn could only start taking them out one by one to check.
The first one she took out was a slim box, and instead of opening it immediately, she decided to check the box itself first.
— Treasure Box [No Grade]
- A box made using incised gilt gold mounts and jade.
"Ahh… I guess I expected too much, given that all the boxes seemed so similar."
Shaking her head with a smile, she popped the lid open, and a dark metal dagger with an ornate silver handle revealed itself from within, making her breath hitch in her throat.
"Whoa… compared to the trash I was expecting… this looks quite good. Let's see…"
-[ Shadow Strike: Grade 6 ]
— Greatly enhances the penetrative force of the strike, depending on the amount of spirit power poured into it.
— Deals increased damage to spiritual armor, and heavily disrupts the flow of energy upon coming into contact.
— Pouring spirit power into the dagger results in a lethal poisoning of the next victim, which can only be cured using spirit power based antidotes.
- The spirit power to be poured depends on the total spirit power of the opponent. A minimum of a tenth of the opponent's capacity is required for the poisoning to take effect on them.
- Pouring in greater amounts will deal greater initial damage, but will not enhance the poisoning damage.
- Regardless of the damage caused by the strike itself, the vitality of the opponent will continue deteriorating by one point every ten seconds, until the poisoning is dealt with.
Evelyn's eyes shone with glee as she put the box aside to pick the dagger up, testing it in her hand and marveling at its balance and intricacy. "This feels super cool! An assassination dagger, huh… I knew Craig must have had some good stuff, at least!"
Thinking about the boy's 'Lethal Leap' ability, he might have used this dagger as a trump card in conjunction with that while dealing decisive blows to the worst opponents.
Even if the opponent had a great deal of defensive artifacts, and also heavily protected themselves using spiritual power, it was likely that Craig would be able to get through!
"How terrifying… well, it's good for me now, since I have both of them as well. Hehe…"
Looking through the abilities of the artifact carefully again, the pink haired girl nodded to herself. "Although this would normally be a single, lethal strike for most opponents, rendering all their defenses useless, the other two abilities would only be useful if the opponent survived. A bit strange… but this just means it won't be useless even against much stronger opponents, right?"
According to the second description, the dagger supposedly disrupted the flow of the opponent's energy, and Evelyn guessed that it would either make it harder for them to strike back against her, or make them far more susceptible to consecutive strikes.
As for the third ability…
"So basically, even if the opponent had, say, a thousand spirit power, I would only need to pour in a hundred into this dagger before I attack, and even if they didn't die from my attack, they would continue getting weaker and weaker as long as they don't have a cure, right?"
From her understanding, spiritual based cures could only come from three sources.
The first was, of course, artifacts similar to this one, but with an entirely different focus. But most artifacts were either offensive or defensive in nature, and those that could be used to heal should be few and far between.
The second source was someone who was cultivating using a technique that specialized in healing and support.
And the last and most likely source of this poison's counter would be the natural remedies, such as the fruits of spiritual plants and the like.
"Wait a minute… although Craig probably used this in conjunction with 'Lethal Leap', I don't have to do the same just because I also have it, do I? Won't this work much better with 'that' instead?!"
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