blogombal Chapter 14: You Can Get Stronger by Spending Money
Chapter 14: You Can Get Stronger by Spending Money
"Da da da..."
Heavy, dense tapping sounds echoed through the long, dark corridors of the underground palace and ancient castle.
Thanks to the massive body derived from the giant armored spider, the efficiency of scanning with [Heat Vision lv.1] is incomparable to that when only the bone hand was used.
After escaping the giant centipede from the other side of the cave, Luo Lan spent less than two days exploring almost the entire underground palace castle.
Behind several broken, rusty iron doors, Luo Lan discovered two more stitched-together corpses whose outlines were completely rotten and unrecognizable.
Around the two rotting corpses, several lone young spiderlings huddled together. By a twist of fate, their foraging outside had allowed them to escape Luo Lan's previous massacre.
After devouring both corpses, Luo Lan gained another [Chaos Source Essence +31].
However, Luo Lan did not choose to kill the larvae that were terrified and huddled in the corner.
Using his arthropods to sweep up a pile of heavy rubble, Luo Lan built a closed stone circle in a corner of a hall in the underground palace, imprisoning the terrified little insects inside.
He had other plans for these harmless little insects.
Having explored this level, Luo Lan faced another choice.
Two paths...
First, we should dismantle the intact iron gate in the underground palace corridor and examine the various stitched corpses behind it.
Secondly, return to the cave to deal with the giant centipede that digs holes and releases waves, or find an opportunity to slip out of the cave exit while it is chasing you.
After thinking it over, Luo Lan decided to deal with the stitched-up corpses first.
Regardless of which of the two places has monsters that are easier to deal with.
What lies beyond the cave's exit remains unknown; however, Luo Lan has already squeezed through the area behind the intact iron gate and explored part of it.
More importantly, with the [Condensation] ability, Luo Lan can easily fight multiple monsters and grow stronger with each battle, like a snowball rolling downhill.
The single eye, derived from a stitched corpse, is a very useful monster part. Luo Lan is looking forward to digging out even more powerful supernatural organ parts from different types of stitched corpses.
Without hesitation, Luo Lan climbed towards the nearest intact iron gate.
The gaps in the iron fence were too narrow; with Luo Lan's current enormous size, it was impossible for him to squeeze through as he had before.
Therefore, its two thick, segmented limbs rose high, carrying a fierce gust of wind, and suddenly slashed down.
"bite--"
A crisp, piercing metallic crack rang out, and dark red sparks flew off the fence.
A finger-deep scratch appeared on the iron gate, while Luo Lan's own two [rusted iron spear tips] also developed several extremely fine cracks due to the force of the impact.
[Tsk, no good. Same materials, can't break through the defense.]
Spears and shields made of the same rusted iron material, when clashed head-on, neither could gain the upper hand.
Luo Lan estimated that if they really relied on brute force to smash the iron gate, it wasn't impossible to break it open, but the arthropods that served as weapons would also break off.
[Oh right, I remember there was a treasure room on this floor...]
As his one eye swung around, Luo Lan recalled looking in a mirror in a treasure room when he was still just a bare bone hand. The room was filled with rusty old swords and shields and gold coins.
[Since it's a sword and shield meant to be collected, the quality of the materials should be higher than that of an ordinary iron gate, right?]
During the first two days of exploration, Luo Lan skipped over it because [Thermal Vision] did not find any heat source inside.
But now that materials were scarce, Luo Lan quickly returned to the treasure room by following the route he remembered.
The door to the treasure room was ajar, and Luo Lan squeezed in sideways.
The inside looked much like I remembered: hundreds or thousands of gold coins were piled up in a cracked wooden crate, covered with a layer of dark gray.
Seven or eight rusted swords and shields were scattered around the pile of gold coins. Some were half-buried in the coins, while others leaned against the box wall. The swords and shields were covered with mottled rust.
Luo Lan glanced around and saw that the vertical mirror in the corner was still there. Curious, she crawled over and saw that the mirror only reflected a dark edge of the carapace and the shadows of eight segments.
In just about half a month, Luo Lan has grown to more than ten times his original size, and the vertical mirror can no longer capture his entire size.
Looking away from the mirror, Luo Lan climbed to the pile of gold coins and used her limbs to pry open a round shield from it.
The shield was badly rusted, but it was surprisingly heavy. The rusted spearhead was raised high above the head and then slammed down.
"Zheng—"
A screeching sound rang out. Only a dent remained on the shield, and a layer of rust was shaken off the edge of the dent, revealing the shiny steel underneath.
Luo Lan looked down at her spider spear. A small crack had appeared on the tip of the spear, extending half a finger's length from the tip back.
[It's definitely much harder now...]
The actual situation verified the conjecture: the equipment that could be stored away was indeed much stronger than the ordinary iron doors in the corridor.
Luo Lan turned the shield over to look at the back, which was engraved with some incomprehensible patterns, probably the emblem of some family or force.
[Perfect timing! We have plenty of source material and resources now, let's do a major overhaul!]
Separate the eight limbs, and each limb stands on a shield or sword.
Some segments rested on rusted round shields, others on broken longswords, and still others on two broadswords with chipped edges...
[Condensation Casting - Melting Casting]
[Consumed Chaos Essence: 56]
[Current Chaotic Essence: 335]
The shield and sword began to change simultaneously. The rusted surface cracked first, and then the entire piece of metal softened into a liquid, changing from a dark rust color to a bright molten steel.
Eight strands of molten metal climbed up the segments of the spider's spear as if they were alive, wrapping the spearhead layer by layer, covering not only the spearhead but the entire appendage of the segment.
The entire process lasted for more than ten seconds. The molten metal slowly solidified, forming a new coating on the surface of the eight spider legs. It was thicker and smoother than before.
[Sold in place: Rusted steel shield and damaged steel sword]
Specialization: Rusty Spear Tip → Rusty Steel Spider Spear
[Rank: Black Iron → Black Iron+]
【Rusty Iron Spear: A sharp spider spear forged from rusted steel, capable of easily piercing the defenses of most mortal objects (below Bronze rank)】
Raising a newly formed segmented limb, Luo Lan made a few feinting thrusts in the air.
"Whoosh—whoosh—"
The sound of the spear cutting through the air was much crisper than before, and the spearhead faced almost no resistance as it sliced through the air, making it much faster than before.
Then it tried stabbing the ground, and the spider spear easily pierced the stone slab, bringing out a small pinch of stone dust when it was pulled out.
[Good, this should be enough to handle the iron gate.]
With weapon upgrades completed and plenty of source material readily available, Luo Lan wasn't ready to stop modifying the weapons.
The sword and shield are gone, but there's still a pile of gold coins left in the treasure room. These precious metals are good materials in Luo Lan's eyes.
Gold has high density, good ductility, and stable chemical properties...
Recalling the basic knowledge of the periodic table of elements on Earth, Luo Lan crawled to the pile of gold coins. His eight limbs stepped into the pile of gold coins, bringing a clattering sound of metal colliding.
[Condensation Casting - Melting Casting]
[Consumed Chaos Essence: 33]
[Current Chaotic Essence: 302]
All the scattered gold coins melted away like ice, turning into pools of liquid gold with a dazzling halo.
The golden liquid climbed up the segments, and Luo Lan guided it to cover the main body of the carapace, outlining a mottled, thick, dark gold outer coating.
[Already melted down: a pile of ancient gold coins]
[Acquired: Unique Gold Shell (Faction)]
[Tier: Iron+]
[Dark Gold Shell: A shell forged from high-density gold, capable of withstanding some physical attacks and possessing high resistance to acidic attacks or corrosive magic (Black Iron rank and below)]
A blinding, dark golden light shimmered in the treasure room, even dazzling Luo Lan's single eye.
After moving around a bit, the carapace felt a little heavier than before, but it was still within an acceptable range.
Climbing back to the vertical mirror, Luo Lan looked at the dark gold markings on his body, then raised his limbs to examine the steel-colored plating on the spearhead.
[Would this count as...spending money on in-game purchases in some sense?]
Luo Lan was very satisfied with his new equipment, experiencing the same thrill of spending money to become stronger as he did when playing online games on Earth.