Chapter 58 Biological Weapon, Owl King Battle Saber

Returning to the Jintian District.

The skill book disintegrated in Lu Ming's hand, and a purple ball of light slowly coalesced into shape.

As it merged into the space between his brows, Lu Ming felt countless experiences and information regarding forging flood into his mind, as if he were awakening sealed memories.

[Successfully acquired "Master-Level Forging Mastery".]

Opening the character stat panel, Master-Level Forging Mastery proudly sat at the very bottom of the skills list!

[Master-Level Forging Mastery] (Grade A)
Category: Mastery Skill
Description: Grants the technique for forging exotic creature equipment and confers master-level certification. The forging craft is exceptionally refined, capable of creating up to Origin-grade equipment.
Usage: Mentally command to launch the forging function, which opens the equipment forging interface. Inserting exotic creature materials will automatically generate equipment recipes. The system automatically identifies the equipment type based on the primary materials inputted. Forging has a success rate; the higher the mastery level, the higher the success rate.
Trait (Forging Master): Equipment forging success rate increased by an additional 40%.
Trait (Forging Master): Exotic creature skill inheritance probability increased by an additional 10%.
Trait (Forging Master): The probability of a successful equipment forge inheriting two or more exotic creature skills increased by an additional 1%.
……

What the hell?
Equipment forging comes with a success rate?
We're living in an RNG era everywhere we go, is that it?

Glancing at the Tier 3 supply crate in front of him, and then looking back at the Master-Level Forging Mastery.

Suppressing his urge to open the crate right away, Lu Ming mentally commanded, "Launch forging function," preparing to get to the bottom of how equipment forging worked.

A massive interface snapped open.

Lu Ming had originally expected the interface to be a convoluted, messy clusterfuck, given all the talk about success rates, skill inheritance probabilities, and multi-skill probabilities.

To his surprise, the entire interface was minimalist, consisting of only three sections.

On the far left were twenty-five slots, with [Primary Materials] written directly above them.
On the far right were twenty-five slots, with [Auxiliary Materials] written directly above them.
In the center was depicted a sci-fi mechanical forging furnace, housing five slots arranged in a pentagonal formation, with the word "Weapon" inscribed right in the middle.
Surrounding these four were slots exclusively for [Probability Materials].

"..."

Seeing this, Lu Ming felt deeply grateful. Seriously, the kid was already nauseous.
Wasn't this literally just a reskinned enhancement system from some generic mobile game?

Could a feature this flashy get a little more genuine effort? Damn it all!

Complaints and curses aside, he still had to use it.

Pulling the Blade of the Scythe King out of his spatial pouch, Lu Ming tossed it straight into the primary material zone of the forging interface.

Considering the inclusion and containment relationship observed previously, Lu Ming chose to play it safe for his very first weapon without undergoing material sublimation.

A beam of white light resembling a scanner swept across the Blade of the Scythe King, and a system prompt popped up abruptly.

[Prompt: Forging function scan complete. Primary material categorized as "Weapon". Recipe match successful; please select a forging recipe.]

With a rustling sound of turning pages, a list of production recipes cascaded downwards from the left side of the interface.

"Scythe King Battle Blade"
"Scythe King Battle Scythe"

And then...
Nothing.

That's right, you didn't read that wrong. A magnificent sovereign-grade material could only forge two types of equipment.

It was both laughable and exasperating. Fortunately, among the two options happened to be blade weapons, which he excelled at; otherwise, he would have been forced to acquire yet another weapon mastery.

Judging by its name, the Scythe King Battle Blade was bound to be an overwhelmingly domineering existence.
As for the battle scythe, based on past visual impressions, it would likely lean toward a cool and stylish aesthetic.

Long-legged ice-queen older sisters, tragic and beautiful battle maidens—wielding either of those two types boiled down to two words: gorgeous.
What? You ask about lolis?
Lolis obviously use heavy hammers! The kind with pink hair, dragging one-handed across the ground, eyes deep and dark, wearing a "benevolent" smile.

Ahem, getting off track. Battle scythes were unconventional, though they should fall under polearm weapons.
Pity that he lacked polearm mastery, and he truly had no interest in weaponry that relied on the head of the weapon to crush enemies with heavy impacts.
A battle blade—unrestrained and lethal across its entire surface—was the most suitable choice. The Scythe King Battle Blade was the ideal match.

Clicking on the Scythe King Battle Blade, he confirmed his recipe selection.

[Prompt: Forging the "Scythe King Battle Blade" requires 8x Blade of the Scythe King as primary material, 2x Shell of the Scythe King as auxiliary material, and 500x Specialized Crystals.]

Holy crap, 500 Specialized Crystals was one thing, but it actually required 8 Blades of the Scythe King.
The total number on his person added up to only 12, and that was thanks to Greed triggering double yields.

Fortunately, he hadn't sublimated the materials. Otherwise, once the primary material demand changed, trying to craft it later would require sublimating the lesser scythe-king blades one by one. The consumption rate would be astronomical, not to mention the fear of unexpected mutations.
Therefore, it was best to honestly forge the first one normally.

Resignedly, Lu Ming tossed seven Blades of the Scythe King and two Shells of the Scythe King into the primary and auxiliary material slots.

The mechanical forging furnace in the center suddenly lit up with pulsating energy ripples.

[Prompt: Primary and auxiliary materials and specialized crystals for the Scythe King Battle Blade are sufficient. No amplification materials have been inserted. Do you wish to initiate the forging process in this state? Current forging success rate: 110% (Base 70%, Forging Master additional +40%).]
[Scythe King skill inheritance probability: 15% (Base 5%, Forging Master additional +10%, can be further increased by inserting exotic blood).]
[Probability of inheriting two or more skills: 1.5% (Base 0.5%, Forging Master additional +1%, can be further increased by inserting exotic blood).]

Tsk tsk! Quite unexpected.
The base success rate for a mithril-grade biological weapon could actually reach as high as 70%.
Combined with the master-level mastery traits, it directly broke the scale, soaring to 110%.

Yet wasn't the exotic skill inheritance rate a bit too low, at only 15%?
As for inheriting two or more skills, that was utterly absurd beyond all reason.
A 1.5 percentage point? Who are you trying to fool?

As for exotic blood, he did have some, but he didn't want to waste it on his very first weapon.
This one would serve primarily as a backup, just in case something went wrong with the official weapon when crafting with sublimated materials later. He always needed a fallback plan, after all.

"Confirm!"

Hum—!

The forging furnace whirred into operation, the harsh light shifting gradients. Accompanied by a flash of dazzling golden light, the system prompt left Lu Ming completely dumbfounded.

[Perfect Forge: Congratulations on crafting the "Scythe King Battle Blade" with maximum inheritance rating!]

What the fuck?!

Perfect forge? Maximum inheritance? What is this?

Pulling out the weapon, the bewildered look on Lu Ming's face was instantly replaced by sheer astonishment!

Good lord, wasn't this a little too handsome?!

As someone from Earth, he had long been baptized by the advertising campaigns of the web game *Legend of Mir*.
And the appearance of this brand-new weapon in his hand—aside from the hilt and guard which retained heavy traits of the Scythe King's shell—bore a blade portion that shared a staggering ninety percent similarity to the legendary Dragon-Slaying Saber!

The only two differences were likely the overall length of the blade and the dim, interwoven cracks spreading across the entire edge.

Lu Ming couldn't wait to grip the hilt. A wondrous, mystical sensation poured into his consciousness, making him feel as though this blade was not an inanimate object, but a living, breathing entity!

At the same time, due to his contact, the dim cracks that previously filled the blade erupted with a dazzling cyan-green radiance! As if waking up to consciousness, they began to rhythmically pulse and breathe in sync with Lu Ming's heartbeat.