Chapter 94: The Power of Bloodline?
Teresa paused her report and slowly knelt down.
"Move aside." She snatched the "prey" from Daphne's hands, causing Daphne to look displeased.
Sterl continued to enjoy himself with eyes closed. He then grabbed Teresa's head and started thrusting aggressively.
"Mmm~~"
With Teresa struggling like she was drowning, Sterl finally released with a sense of satisfaction.
Daphne, with a seductive smile, moved forward and opened her mouth to clean up Sterl.
After his pleasure, Sterl ruthlessly got dressed and took over the best room in the villa.
"I'm going into seclusion. The Divine Mountain Empire will send someone to pick me up in a while. Unless it's something crucial, do not disturb me."
His approach was to enjoy and then leave.
"Yes."
"Understood." Teresa and Daphne responded obediently.
In the following days, Sterl finally had the peace to go into seclusion and allocate his points.
He had quite a few resources at his disposal that he hadn't had the chance to enhance yet.
If he had, the earlier encounter with Constantine wouldn't have dragged on. He wouldn't have had to wait for the cooldown to finish before he could activate a golden-tier skill to counterattack.
"The situation in the consciousness space was a bit risky." Sterl frowned. If he hadn't leveled up Star Point Finger through adding points, he would have been in serious trouble.
Sterl could use divine descent to resurrect. Theoretically, if he died in the consciousness space, under the effect of the Rain of the Netherworld, the [Transcendence]system would determine that his "physical body" in the external world had also died, and then Sterl would be resurrected in the temple.
So, while others might die, Sterl actually faced little risk. But using up his resurrection ability meant he wouldn't take any more risks until the cooldown was over, which could waste a lot of time.
Sterl sat cross-legged in the room. He didn't rush to start his training or allocate points. Instead, he first opened the Divine Mountain Empire's Reputation Shop.
This time, he had a whopping 74,500 contribution points.
These weren't just from completing tasks but also from killing Constantine and numerous soldiers and generals of the Atlantic Empire.
Opening the reputation shop, he found that many new items were available due to his revered reputation.
After a brief look, he found something very interesting.
The standard armor he had previously exchanged for in the Divine Mountain Empire now had an upgraded version.
[Mountain Robe (Platinum Grade)]
[Category: Upper Body]
[Description: Armor secretly forged by the Divine Mountain Empire, offered as tribute to the royal family. Only friends of the empire can obtain it.]
[Effect: +50 to all attributes, +40 to strength and agility. Grants the special ability [Grand Morale+: When activated, this ability releases a morale boost to all nearby units, increasing all attributes by 20% and providing 40% resistance to abnormal statuses.]
[Requirement: Divine Mountain Empire reputation must be Revered or higher.]
[Exchange Price: 10,000 contribution points]
Sterl took a few glances and immediately recognized that this was an upper-body equipment equivalent to a second-tier platinum level. The requirements to equip it were quite simple as well; one only needed to reach Revered reputation with the Divine Mountain Empire, with no level restrictions.
Since Sterl had previously exchanged for a lower version of the Divine Mountain Empire's standard armor, he could directly spend 5000 contribution points to upgrade it to the Robe of the Mountain.
To Sterl's delight, besides the Mountain Robe, there were several other reputation-based items available with a revered reputation.
[Mountain Landscape (Platinum Grade)]
[Category: Cloak]
[Description: A cloak depicting the vast territories of the Divine Mountain Empire. It has high collectible value.]
[Effect: Increases all attributes by 30 points, and constitution and spirit by 20 points. Grants the special ability [Refraction: Passive ability, you have a 13% chance to negate an attack when hit by an opponent.]
[Requirement: Divine Mountain Empire reputation must be Revered or higher.]
[Exchange Price: 10,000 contribution points]
...
[Mountain Heart (Platinum Grade)]
[Category: Necklace]
[Description: A treasure infused with the power of the mountains, owned exclusively by esteemed guests of the Divine Mountain Empire.]
[Effect: Increases all attributes by 30 points. Grants the special ability [Protection: Passive ability, reduces damage received by 15% and increases damage dealt by 15%]
[Requirement: Divine Mountain Empire reputation must be Revered or higher.]
[Exchange Price: 10,000 contribution points]
...
With the upper body armor, cloak, and necklace, there were a total of three second-tier Platinum-grade pieces of equipment!
Normally, Sterl would need to be around level 80 to equip these. His thought process was clear: He was leveling up quickly by completing hidden tasks, his next venture was into an otherworldly realm, which posed significant risks. Equipping these three pieces would greatly enhance his strength.
Spending contribution points was definitely worth it!
Sterl quickly spent 25,000 contribution points to acquire all three pieces of equipment.
Even though using contribution points to exchange for purple-quality skills unlocked at Revered reputation or a few Diamond-grade pieces of equipment would be more profitable, Sterl didn't lack purple skills, and the Diamond equipment required levels 90 or even 100. If he exchanged for them, they would just sit in his inventory gathering dust...
After purchasing the equipment, Sterl continued to browse the reputation shop.
He soon found another valuable item:
[Mastery: Mobile Casting]
[Description: Through mastering this ability, you will learn how to cast spells while moving, enhancing the stability, efficiency, and slight power of your skill releases.]
[Effect: After practicing this mastery and reaching proficiency, you will gain the following skill: [Mobile Casting: Passive ability, you can cast skills under any conditions, including but not limited to high-speed movement, mid-air, etc.]
[No proficiency levels for passive skills]
[Learning Requirement: Must have learned any two purple-quality spell skills.]
[Training Difficulty: Difficult]
[Price: 15,000 contribution points]
This was an incredibly useful Mastery. Unlike the previous Proficiency in Multiple Martial Arts, which was purely designed for individuals like Sterl who leveled up too quickly and whose strength increased at an overwhelming pace, making it difficult for them to control their own power.
The ability to cast while moving was incredibly precious! For any magic-based damage-dealing class, it held immense value. Imagine during a battle, once a magic-based class was engaged in close combat, their combat effectiveness was significantly reduced because they found it difficult to cast spells while dodging enemy attacks.
But with the Mobile Casting technique, mages could maintain their ability to counterattack while evading.
Their combat effectiveness would increase significantly.
For Sterl, acquiring this Mastery was a no-brainer.
After some consideration, with over 30,000 contribution points remaining, he also exchanged for an amulet worth 5,000 contribution points.
[Universal Love]
[Type: Amulet]
[Effect: When carrying this amulet, each time you use a different skill, the effect of the next skill increases by 10%, stacking up to 8 times.]
For Sterl, fully utilizing this amulet's effect was challenging because his skills were so overwhelmingly powerful that he could often one-shot opponents several levels higher, leaving little opportunity to use eight different skills.
But as always, when he saw a valuable amulet, Sterl had to have it!
With over 20,000 contribution points remaining, Sterl decided to save them for now. Having already achieved a Revered reputation with the Divine Mountain Empire, he planned to continue grinding, especially with his upcoming otherworldly expedition. If he could acquire an A-rank arcane skill and trade it with the empire, he might even reach the highest level of reputation—Worship.
At that point, all items in the reputation shop would be unlocked, and Sterl could spend his contribution points for the highest return.
After completing his exchanges, Sterl decided not to wear the newly acquired gear right away. Instead, he packed the Mountain series cloak, upper body armor, and necklace into his backpack.
At that moment, something in the [Transcendence] system's inventory caught his eye.
The four types of blood he had previously deemed useless—
Hero's Blood, King's Blood, Priest's Blood, Warrior's Blood—were now glowing.
"Hidden quest and main quest rewards? I knew they couldn't be completely useless!"
Sterl's eyes lit up as he took out the four types of blood. They immediately floated in the air, swirling and resonating with each other.
Finally, with a blinding flash of light, the four types of blood slowly merged into one, transforming into a single drop of liquid interwoven with golden threads, which then landed in Sterl's palm.
"What is this..." Sterl was a bit puzzled. He could clearly see a blood droplet rolling in his palm. It was incredibly resilient, like crystal in texture, yet it also had the fluid characteristics of liquid, able to change shape freely.
After a moment of observation, a notification popped up before his eyes—
[Congratulations! You have collected four hidden items.]
[The four types of blood have now assembled. You have obtained the bloodline item—Primordial Human.]
Bloodline item? What is that?
Sterl was utterly confused.
Unfortunately, without Felicia, his external brain, Sterl was left to figure it out on his own.
He opened the description of the bloodline item.
Instantly, a look of disbelief crossed Sterl's face.
Holy crap, isn't this a bit too exaggerated?