It should be noted that Luke had continued to improve during the time he remained in the world of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba.
Before leaving that world, he had checked his detailed attributes.
[Pioneer No. 008, your base attributes are as follows (including title bonuses):]
Constitution: 34 (+1)
Strength: 31 (+1)
Agility: 31 (+1)
Spirit: 33 (+1)
Charm: 6
Luck: 1
After several weeks of training, his Strength and Agility had successfully broken through the first-rank threshold of 30. That was why Endspace had said that more than three of his attributes met the standard.
The annoying part was that, precisely because all his attributes had broken past the threshold, he had advanced directly to a second-rank Explorer without going through an advancement mission world. As a result, the first-rank arena title he had obtained earlier had become invalid.
So his attributes had now dropped again. His Strength and Agility were back to 30. He had technically met the requirements, yet somehow not met them at all.
Strictly speaking, his current state did not meet Endspace’s requirements for skipping the advancement mission, since only two of his attributes normally exceeded 30.
But order mattered. He had met the standard before advancing, so there was no issue of exploiting an Endspace loophole. Besides, he had a huge pile of free attribute points on hand. He would soon be transformed completely.
[Pioneer No. 008, you have unclaimed attribute-threshold rewards. Would you like to undergo threshold-reward enhancement first?]
After entering the man-eating flower, Luke received Endspace’s notification. He was in no hurry to spend his attribute points, deciding to claim the threshold rewards first.
[The Pioneer’s Constitution attribute has reached the first-rank threshold. Please select one of the following three enhancement rewards.]
A. Full Vitality: The Pioneer gains an additional 5% increase to maximum Life Source.
B. Everlasting: The Pioneer gains a 5% increase to stamina and natural recovery.
C. Strong Bones and Sinews: The Pioneer gains a 5% increase to physical and magical resistance.
[Reminder: Enhancement-reward traits are drawn at random. Once the Pioneer selects a trait, future enhancements are more likely to offer traits of the same type.]
Luke roughly understood the mechanics behind these threshold rewards. Based on the three options currently available, Constitution enhancements could be divided into three directions: more health, stronger stamina and recovery, or greater resistance to getting hit.
Luke felt that his stamina and natural recovery were already solid. With the Coward’s Pendant, the five-percent bonus from Full Vitality felt somewhat weak. After considering it, he chose C.
He guessed that, because he was still low-rank, these rewards did not look particularly impressive. It was probably a long-term process of steadily accumulating small gains.
In other words, claiming a threshold reward would not immediately cause an Explorer to undergo a qualitative leap. The strength of top first-rank Explorers was not determined by these rewards.
After making his selection, Luke felt some kind of substance remodeling his body. It was gentle at first, but soon turned into agony carved straight into his bones.
Fortunately, the enhancement did not last long and quickly ended.
[The Pioneer’s Strength attribute has reached the first-rank threshold. Please select one of the following three enhancement rewards.]
A. Brute Force: When the Pioneer makes a Strength check, Strength is treated as being +1 higher.
B. Unleashed: When facing control-type skills that restrain the Pioneer’s body, control duration is reduced by 5%.
C. Ferocity: When the Pioneer makes a physical attack, damage is increased by an additional 5%. This bonus is calculated independently.
Luke made his choice for the Strength threshold reward without hesitation. He picked C.
Just stack damage. If he cut the other guy down in one strike, there would be no need to struggle against them or worry about being controlled. Besides, his Brute title already boosted his Strength checks.
[The Pioneer’s Agility attribute has reached the first-rank threshold. Please select one of the following three enhancement rewards.]
A. Alertness: The Pioneer’s dynamic reflex speed increases by 5%.
B. Sprint: The Pioneer’s movement speed increases by 5%.
C. Weak-Point Breakthrough: When attacking an enemy, there is a 5% chance to trigger a weak-point breakthrough effect, granting the attack a 100% damage increase.
Luke considered it. The bonuses from A and B were simple and practical, but his movement speed and dynamic reflexes were already extremely strong. He did not feel short on that tiny bit of extra speed. Weak-Point Breakthrough might produce miraculous results against powerful enemies, so he chose C again.
[The Pioneer’s Spirit attribute has reached the first-rank threshold. Please select one of the following three enhancement rewards.]
A. Meditation: The Pioneer’s natural Soul Source recovery speed increases by 5%.
B. Tenacity: When facing mental control, the Pioneer reduces its control effect by 5%.
C. Frequent Casting: When the Pioneer uses a skill that consumes Soul Source, Soul Source consumption is reduced by 5%.
Luke thought it over. When in doubt, choose C. Reducing consumption was far better than increasing natural recovery speed. Soul Source regenerated so slowly that it was useless in combat anyway; it only mattered after the battle was over.
Once he had claimed all the attribute-threshold rewards, Luke began enhancing his free attributes. He had already decided how to allocate them.
[Reminder: The Pioneer is using a large number of free attribute points in this enhancement. The pain during the process will intensify. Please prepare yourself.]
Luke did not even have time to call it off and say that he could do it in batches. He had already pressed the confirmation button. Endspace was merely giving him a warning, and the enhancement began immediately.
Then pain that reached straight into his soul flooded his entire body. Even with Luke’s tolerance, it hurt badly enough to make his whole body convulse.
After an unknown amount of time, the man-eating flower spat Luke back out. He twitched twice on the ground.
It took him quite a while to recover before he sat up, still shaken. He had learned his lesson: if he had a lot of attribute points in the future, he would definitely enhance them in batches.
Yet once the pain passed, the transformation in his strength put him in an excellent mood. After equipping the Coward’s Pendant, he checked his status.
[Pioneer No. 008, your base attributes are as follows (including equipment and title bonuses):]
Constitution: 43 (+8 +1)
Strength: 36 (+6)
Agility: 36 (+6)
Spirit: 37 (+5)
Charm: 5 (-1)
Luck: 1
Luke rose and moved his limbs, feeling the dramatic changes in his body. A smile spread across his face.
He had only just become a second-rank Explorer, but he believed that even among second-rank Explorers, his strength should rank in the upper tier.
And he had not even finished processing this world’s gains. He still had roughly 110,000 Endspace Coins, twenty-five Small Inheritance Crystals, and resources such as the Other Shore Demon Bloodline set.
Other than the Small Inheritance Crystals, he planned to sell off whatever he could, then use the cash to buy equipment and items better suited to him.
After washing up and changing clothes in the locker room, Luke headed directly for the trade market.
Although he had advanced in rank, some of the things he possessed were not especially useful to second-rank Explorers. To first-rank Explorers, though, they were practically divine artifacts. So he first went down to the first-rank trade market.
In Endspace, Explorers who did not want to waste time setting up stalls could choose to trade through consignment.
Beside the trade market stood rows of display stations. They were consignment facilities provided by Endspace. An Explorer only needed to place an item inside, set a price, and leave it in the system’s care.
In the detailed settings, users could also decide whether bargaining was allowed. If it was, buyers could enter their desired offer and send a message to the seller through the mail system.
If the seller agreed, the sale could be completed at the new price. If not, they could refuse. Either way, the same buyer could make no more than three offers, preventing people from maliciously harassing sellers.
Once a transaction through the consignment machine succeeded, Endspace took a three-percent commission. As such, few people used it. Explorers preferred to keep all their profits for themselves.
But Luke was flush with cash now, and he could not be bothered setting up a stall in the first-rank market just to sell one or two items. So he directly listed the Seven Emotions Token in a consignment machine.
The Seven Emotions Token was not a main weapon, but it was a Purple special item with a perfect rating. After surveying the market, Luke decided that it should not be cheap, so he listed it for 30,000 Endspace Coins.
After thinking about it, he did not enable bargaining. He would leave it up for a few days and see whether it sold. If it did not, he could deal with it then.
He felt that for a reasonably large first-rank adventure group, this would be a powerful item. Used well, it could become the core of the team’s strategy.
Next, Luke took out a long, thick black object: the Godslayer Sniper Rifle he had previously opened from a Dead Man’s Chest.
For a first-rank Explorer, this sniper rifle was a powerful ranged main weapon. It would not become obsolete even in the second rank, so he gave it a high price as well—25,000 Endspace Coins.
Last was the Heart of the Giant necklace he had already outgrown. Since it was a divine artifact for main tanks, Luke priced it at 8,000, with no bargaining allowed.
After arranging the sales of those lower-rank items, Luke went to the second-rank Explorer trade market on the upper level. He found an open spot in a less crowded area and set up a stall.
He was not selling much—only two lots—but both were heavy hitters. One was the Legendary Other Shore Demon Bloodline along with two Blood Demon Art Skill Scrolls. The other was an Expert-Level Martial Arts Mastery Scroll.
After going through several mission worlds and meeting plenty of Explorers, Luke had gained a rough understanding of things. The combat specializations of most low-rank Explorers were unimpressive, mainly because combat-specialization scrolls were rare and expensive in Endspace.
Explorers who had just entered Endspace had little money. Many could only buy a Basic Combat Mastery Scroll to make up for the fact that they had once been ordinary people with no idea how to fight. Reaching higher realms was considerably more difficult.
But to survive in Endspace for the long haul, combat specialization—one of the most fundamental basics—had to be improved.
There were currently three ways to raise combat-specialization levels in Endspace. The first was to train and improve naturally, as Luke had done. But for most people, progress through this method was painfully slow. They could go through several worlds without their level budging at all.
The second was to use Inheritance Crystals and have Endspace assist in raising the level. It was fast and produced immediate results. The only problem was that it consumed far too many Inheritance Crystals. After fighting desperately through an entire world, an Explorer might earn enough crystals to raise a specialization by only one or two levels.
The final method was specialization scrolls, widely considered by Endspace Explorers to be the most cost-effective way to improve.
Using a combat-specialization scroll directly granted the corresponding specialization level. This method could even skip over major rank brackets, making its advantages obvious.
For example, if an Explorer only possessed Basic Martial Arts Mastery, using Luke’s Expert-Level Martial Arts Mastery Scroll would directly raise them to the Expert level, regardless of what level their Basic Martial Arts Mastery had previously reached.
After reaching Expert level, their Expert-level specialization might begin at a lower level than their previous Basic-level specialization. But the total bonus would certainly be higher, and it came with a higher ceiling.
Because of this special quality, specialization scrolls were extremely popular in Endspace and were almost always in short supply.
First-rank Explorers were still in the clueless stage of just entering Endspace and struggling to get by. Second-rank Explorers, however, began considering the long term. Luke had no worries about finding a buyer for this scroll.
"Brother, how much for that specialization scroll?"
Sure enough, someone soon came over to ask for the price.
"Forty thousand."
With a single sentence, Luke directly scared off the dark-skinned man asking the price.
"That’s way too expensive, brother. Expert-level specialization scrolls are rare, sure, but yours is for martial arts, not a main weapon. The bonuses you get in a fight aren’t that huge. Can’t you lower it a little?"
The dark-skinned man tried to haggle.
"Then go find a main-weapon one."
Luke replied calmly. He was no fool. Main-weapon specializations had too many restrictions, while martial arts specialization took effect in any kind of battle. It was an extremely versatile combat specialization.
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