Chapter 26: When Sleep Beckons, Someone Brings a Pillow
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Good grief, he replied fast. He must have taken me for the landlord’s idiot son.
No matter. Chu Feng had no idea how powerful Ultimate Ascension was, so naturally he would never understand why I was collecting junk.
[Private Message] Chu Feng: “Friend, take the weapons off the market first. There are only five left. If you sell any more, I won’t have enough!”
Hah, this guy was clearly desperate. How could I not help him out?
[Private Message] Lu Ming (Anonymous): “What are you panicking for? The trading house is one thing; private deals are another.”
The implication was obvious: I had plenty more where those came from.
[Private Message] Chu Feng: “Holy crap! You’re amazing, friend!”
Lu Ming: “That’s an honest assessment. I think so too. Get ready to trade.”
He swiftly exchanged purified water for five cleavers, spent one hundred crystals to elevate them into refined-steel straight swords, and then selected Chu Feng for an anonymous trade.
Chu Feng accepted with remarkable decisiveness, placing thirty composite bows and 2,480 arrows into the trade window with astonishing speed.
He acted as though he were afraid that delaying for even a second would make him miss this chance to trade a sparrow gun for a cannon.
Lu Ming greatly admired such brisk efficiency and responded with the hand speed he had cultivated over twenty-five years of bachelorhood, as a gesture of respect.
He promptly placed the five refined-steel straight swords into the trade window and clicked Lock.
The items Chu Feng had put up remained unchanged. Almost simultaneously, he pressed the Lock button as well, completing the transaction.
The goods were still stored in the trading house’s merchandise warehouse by default.
They could be stored for three days, after which they would be cleared out.
The feature was useful in an emergency, but using it as a proper warehouse was out of the question. One careless mistake, and he could lose everything.
…
He arranged the composite bows one by one inside the dormitory, then transferred the arrows into his spatial pack.
The arrows occupied two slots: one slot contained two hundred intact arrows, while another held 2,280 broken and damaged ones.
Seeing that the spatial pack was once again approaching its limit, Lu Ming did not bother testing whether weapons could be stacked.
He found a damaged composite bow and shouted in a low voice, “Ultimate Ascension!”
[Enhancement: Please select the ascension tier.]
“Tier Two.”
[Prompt: Ascending “Damaged Composite Bow” requires fifty Specialized Crystals.]
[Confirm]
[Cancel]
This was precisely the purpose of junk.
When applied to weapons, Ultimate Ascension did not care whether the original material was good or bad. It would elevate either one into a brand-new item of a higher tier.
However, using the same method on expired food produced an entirely different result.
Take, for example, a beverage that had expired and developed toxic compounds. After being elevated by two tiers, it would become “Deadly Poison That Slays Life.”
The direction of the ascension had been completely distorted by the toxins. Or rather, in Ultimate Ascension’s judgment, an expired beverage was no longer the raw material for food and drink, but the raw material for poison.
“Confirm.”
[Prompt: Please select an ascension path.]
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“Precision Hand Crossbow”
“Forged-Steel Heavy Crossbow”
“Eagle-Eyed Composite Bow”
“Skull-Piercing Hunter”
The weapon names suddenly took a sharp turn, becoming much more game-like and even slightly chuunibyou.
He checked the information.
[Precision Hand Crossbow] (Mithril Grade)
Type: Weapon
Description: A single-handed crossbow with a static weight of one kilogram. Compact, lightweight, and foldable, it possesses decent penetration at close range and is suitable for close- to medium-range combat. Its advantages are flexibility and rapid fire. Its drawback is its limited range of only thirty to fifty meters.
Durability: 3,000/3,000
…
Not bad. An excellent weapon for finishing off wounded targets. It would be especially useful for saving his legs when pursuing fleeing prey. It weighed only one kilogram and could fire repeatedly. He would definitely have to get one for personal use later. It was practically a handgun among cold weapons.
[Forged-Steel Heavy Crossbow] (Mithril Grade)
Type: Weapon
Description: A heavy weapon with a net weight of thirty kilograms. Enormous and cumbersome, it possesses an extremely terrifying draw force and is suitable for long-range sniping. Its advantages are extraordinary destructive power and an extremely long effective killing range of up to 1,200 meters. Its drawbacks are its excessive weight, extremely low firing rate, inability to load continuously, prohibitively expensive bolts that were difficult to recover and reuse, and insufficient accuracy.
Durability: 3,000/3,000
…
Was this… an artillery emplacement?
With an effective killing range of 1,200 meters and a net weight of thirty kilograms, there was no question about its power. Anyone struck by it would certainly die.
But its accuracy was indeed a major problem.
Then again, if someone eventually established a survivor base, this thing would make an excellent defensive cannon and could definitely be sold for an extremely high price.
It would be a valuable commodity in the future. Its prospects were promising.
[Eagle-Eyed Composite Bow] (Mithril Grade)
Type: Weapon
Description: A precise modern composite bow produced with advanced manufacturing techniques, combining beauty and power. It has a static weight of four kilograms and is suitable for sustained medium- to long-range combat. Its advantages are precision, lightness, and considerable destructive power, with an effective killing range of 120 to 160 meters. Even beginners can easily hit targets within its killing range.
Its drawback is that the bow’s components are extremely intricate. Its durability is consumed very quickly, and its parts are prone to damage, causing the weapon to suddenly become unusable.
Durability: 3,000/3,000
…
Even beginners could easily hit targets within its killing range?!
To be honest, that sentence was enormously tempting to Lu Ming.
What did he lack right now?
Precision!
However, the severe durability loss was a major flaw, and the parts were easily damaged.
Fortunately, he had a considerable number of base materials, more than enough to keep up with the consumption.
The last one, the Skull-Piercing Hunter, was an outlier with an exceptionally imposing name and a style overflowing with video-game flair.
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[Skull-Piercing Hunter] (Mithril Grade)
Type: Weapon
Description: An improved light hunting crossbow with a net weight of ten kilograms, suitable for hunting prey at medium to long range. It can fire reverse-claw bolts equipped with tough steel cables and specialized penetrating power. After piercing a target’s body, the hooked barbs on the bolt’s head spring open, firmly seizing the prey. The crossbow’s unique pulley system can then drag prey weighing up to two hundred kilograms directly back to the hunter. It is the most reliable companion a hunter could ask for.
Its advantages are that the bolts can be recovered and reused, and its durability is consumed extremely slowly.
Its drawback is that it can hunt only one target at a time. The prey must be retrieved before a second hunt can begin.
Durability: 3,000/3,000
…
This weapon was truly perfect for the situation at hand.
He had barely finished reading the description when countless ingenious uses sprang to mind.
He could set up the Skull-Piercing Hunter inside the dormitory, eighty meters away, and use it to kill the larvae inside the factory.
Then he could drag their corpses over and harvest them.
He could replenish Specialized Crystals while killing them. The thrill would be even more intense than playing the adulterous neighbor!
What a pity. His archery skills were still a problem. Without hitting the target, everything else was meaningless!
[Prompt: Your “Refined-Steel Longsword” consigned to the trading house has been sold successfully. You have obtained “Woodcutting Proficiency.” Buyer’s message: Hello. I saw that you are looking to purchase an Archery Proficiency skill. I happen to have one, but it is not Basic Archery Proficiency—it is Advanced Archery Proficiency. If you are interested, add me as a friend.]
Holy crap!
This was exactly like someone bringing him a pillow just as he was dozing off! And it was the deluxe, gold-plated version at that!
Add them immediately!
[Prompt: Please select a method for adding this friend: Anonymous/Verified Identity.]
“Anonymous!”
[Prompt: You have successfully added “Anonymous” as a friend.]
All right. The other party was cautious too.
[Private Message] Anonymous: “Refined-steel weapons?”
Lu Ming: “That’s me. What do you need?”
Anonymous: “I need a sword-type weapon, but the refined-steel longsword is too light for me.”
Lu Ming: “No problem. I also have broad-bladed heavy swords, starting at eighty kilograms, with blades one and a half meters long.”
Anonymous: “I’ll take that, but one isn’t enough.”
Lu Ming: “Then two.”
Anonymous: “Do you have anything else?”
Lu Ming’s brows drew together slightly.
This fellow was getting a little demanding. If Lu Ming had not truly been lacking that proficiency manual, he would have given him a piece of his mind.
Lu Ming: “One refined-steel hand crossbow, with fifty bolts included. That’s all.”
Anonymous: “Deal!”
Remember Qianqian in one second:
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