Luke felt a little helpless at that. Fortunately, he had already prepared himself mentally. "Fine. I’ll try one of your purple-quality beds this time, but you’d better put real care into making my equipment."
The sailor-uniform girl’s eyes practically turned into Endspace Coin symbols. She jumped excitedly. "Great! That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. Don’t worry, you’re a returning customer. I’ll give you a two-percent discount on the equipment and put everything I’ve got into it."
Luke’s mouth twitched. What was a two-percent discount supposed to be?
"I want an accessory that can further boost my damage output. It has to be a ring."
Luke had given this considerable thought. As far as defense went, he had Pure Black Nightmare. Though it was purple equipment, he felt it would remain adequate for some time.
Under Endspace’s equipment system, only three accessories could be equipped and take effect: one pendant and two rings. He already had the Heart’s Desire Pendant and Slaughterer, so a ring was his only option.
As for wearable equipment for other parts of his body, Luke did not think there was any need to commission it. He could browse the trade market when he had time and make do with anything suitable he found.
Among all equipment besides a main weapon, accessories were the most functional and offered the greatest potential for massively increasing damage. Luke liked pursuing sheer violence to the very end.
If he could kill something with one slash, he would rather not use two.
"A ring won’t be difficult. But be more specific. Do you need mixed damage, or a boost to pure physical damage?"
The moment forging came up, the sailor-uniform girl became thoroughly professional and carefully questioned Luke about his requirements.
Luke pondered for a moment. "Can it grant true damage?"
The sailor-uniform girl nearly spat blood. "You—"
She stopped midway, turned around, patted her small chest, and muttered under her breath, "Customer. He’s paying. He’s paying..."
Only after she seemed to have calmed down did she turn back to Luke with a strained smile. "What you’re asking for is beyond Legendary equipment."
"Oh. I thought you could make it, since I think you’re pretty amazing."
Luke was not disappointed. True damage was something one could only hope to stumble upon. At present, only his Demon Slayer title and Prison Demon’s enhancement trait could deal true damage under specific conditions.
"Of course I’m amazing! Uh, no—just because you praise me like that..."
The sailor-uniform girl clearly enjoyed the compliment, but she also sensed that something was off. Her instincts warned her not to fall for Luke’s tricks.
"What a pity. My main weapon can deal true damage, so I thought Legendary quality would be enough. Looks like I was mistaken. Maybe only a very small number of Legendary items can have that effect."
Luke spoke as if merely musing aloud.
The sailor-uniform girl immediately bristled. Her gaze flicked repeatedly between Luke’s face and the sword at his waist. "Seriously?"
Luke held Prison Demon out and showed her its attributes.
"Holy crap, isn’t this a Zanpakuto? It can grow into something like this?"
After reading it, the sailor-uniform girl wore a strange expression. "You don’t secretly have a really dark heart, do you?"
Luke’s expression darkened. "What are you talking about? You’ve seen the sword. Let’s continue discussing the details."
The sailor-uniform girl looked away. After pondering for several seconds, she said, "It can be done. But let’s be clear first—it’ll be expensive."
"How much?"
Luke’s eyes brightened. He had not expected her to actually be capable of it.
"One hundred and eight thousand, bed included. No bargaining."
The sailor-uniform girl directly quoted the ceiling price for Legendary equipment.
Of course, her bed was worth over ten thousand on its own. She absolutely would not admit it was a free bonus.
"One hundred and eight thousand..."
Luke was not surprised by the price. A max-rated Legendary item generally cost eighty to one hundred thousand, so this price was reasonable for an exceptional accessory. Besides, it was custom-made, and he would also receive a good purple-quality bed.
"Can I use Lesser Inheritance Crystals to cover part of it? Count each one as five thousand Endspace Coins."
Luke still had quite a few Lesser Inheritance Crystals. He did not plan on using too many of them to enhance skills personally, so using them as currency here was not a bad idea.
"Five thousand... That’s a little high. How many are you planning to give me?"
The sailor-uniform girl hesitated.
"Ten."
Luke answered.
The sailor-uniform girl’s eyes lit up, and her little head bobbed like a rattledrum. "Sure, sure! Ten Lesser Inheritance Crystals plus fifty-eight thousand. You can pick any purple-quality bed from the shelves outside."
She might have hesitated if Luke had offered only a few, but opportunities to receive so many Inheritance Crystals at once were rare.
Some things in Endspace ran counter to intuition. Inheritance Crystals did not become cheaper when bought in bulk. On the contrary, the more one wanted at once, the more expensive they became, because they were difficult to acquire.
When buying a single crystal, one might get lucky and find one for a little over three thousand. But if someone wanted ten at once, even five thousand per crystal might not be enough to secure them.
Of course, it largely depended on demand, and the sailor-uniform girl happened to be desperately short on Inheritance Crystals.
"Then let’s sign the contract."
Luke initiated a contract. In Endspace, making one was easy. There was no need to buy a blank contract scroll; everything could be completed directly under Endspace’s arbitration.
Afraid Luke might change his mind, the sailor-uniform girl hurriedly negotiated and finalized the contract with him.
The contract required her to finish Luke’s Legendary ring within eighteen Endspace natural days. The ring had to provide a true-damage bonus and increase Luke’s combat output as much as possible.
For this, Luke would first pay ten Lesser Inheritance Crystals as a deposit. The remaining payment would only be transferred to the sailor-uniform girl after he confirmed the delivered item was correct.
If the sailor-uniform girl failed to deliver on time, the deposit would be fully refunded. If the completed ring had obvious flaws or defects, or failed to meet the required quality, Luke had the right to unilaterally terminate the contract.
It was essentially a standard custom-order contract. Only after it was signed did the sailor-uniform girl look at Luke strangely. "I’m short on Inheritance Crystals, but I still have to remind you: it’s best not to use these things as currency. You’ll regret it when you need them later."
She acknowledged Luke’s strength as an Explorer. After all, they had not seen each other for only one world, yet the changes in Luke’s attributes were obvious even to her. She knew his growth was outrageous and that he was far from an ordinary Explorer.
But she thought Luke did not value Inheritance Crystals nearly enough. To make sure one of her quality customers survived for the long haul, she felt she should warn him.
After all, according to what her ancestors had said, those who only raised their attributes while neglecting their specialization abilities all ended up dead in Endspace.
"Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing."
Luke knew she meant well, but he did not explain further. He walked to the shelves in front and began choosing a bed.
He had not looked closely last time, but this time he was stunned. The beds made by the sailor-uniform girl underwent an almost qualitative transformation from Rare quality onward, especially at purple quality.
Any Explorer who happened upon this shop in the little alley and was willing to stop and inspect the furniture would definitely take this place seriously.
Every bed had a different function, and they could meet nearly every need an Explorer might have while adventuring in mission worlds. They were absolutely not useless luxury items meant purely for comfort.
Some beds increased Soul Source and Life Source recovery speed. Some allowed the user to have specified sweet dreams and maintain an excellent mental state. More impressively, lying on certain beds or meditating on them could accelerate cultivation.
Of course, some functions seemed utterly useless to Luke. For instance, he saw several beds with no special-effect bonuses at all, merely the simple trait of being "sturdy."
What was the point of being sturdy? No one was going to fight with a bed.
In the end, Luke selected the bed he considered most useful for himself.
[Divine Rest]
Origin: Endspace
Quality: Purple
Type: Furniture
Toughness: 38
Durability: 100/100
Usage Requirement: None
Details: A bed crafted by Supporter No. █████ from awakening wood and spirit-sinking incensewood. It features adaptive firmness adjustment. Sleeping on it relaxes both body and mind, greatly improving sleep quality.
Furniture Effect: Spiritual Rest. While resting on Divine Rest, if the Pioneer practices a cultivation method or skill capable of improving the Spirit attribute, this effect activates automatically, increasing cultivation effectiveness by 50% (calculated independently).
Rating: 199
Evaluation: Some people are still grinding while they sleep.
Unlike No Dreams, Divine Rest had only one special effect. It might not have an obvious effect for many Explorers, but for Luke, it was a god-tier ability.
Luke’s self-cultivation already had a noticeable effect on improving his attributes. With this bed on top of that, even while lying down and sleeping, he could improve his attributes through his Spiritual Pressure cultivation method. In the long run, the gains would be enormous.
Though furniture was a niche category, Luke felt the sailor-uniform girl’s purple-quality beds were absolutely worth more than twenty thousand Endspace Coins each.
Luke felt he had likely gotten a bargain this time. As long as she did not screw up while forging his ring, this would be a perfect transaction.
He stored the shrunken bed in his storage space. He did not plan to discard No Dreams, either; depending on the situation, he might still need its recovery effect.
After leaving the sailor-uniform girl’s shop, Luke returned to his room and spent a little over ten Endspace Coins on a lavish meal to reward himself.
His master had once said that life needed seasoning and that one could not view everything through the lens of utility. Therefore, Luke was never stingy when it came to things he could enjoy for only a small amount of Endspace Coins.
After dinner, Luke did not head to the training grounds like some obsessive grinder for physical training. Instead, he sat cross-legged on Divine Rest... and watched television.
Yes, he discovered that resting while seated on it could also trigger Divine Rest’s effect. So he caught up on anime while resting and got his cultivation done at the same time.
Speaking of cultivation, he had received some good news before dinner. After several months of absorption and fusion, his Origin Spirit Seed had finally completed a stage of growth, and its status had updated.
When he opened the Spirit Seed panel, he could now see an adorable emerald-green sprout icon occupying the first slot.
[Spirit Seed: Origin]
Spirit Seed Sequence: 1
Growth Stage: Sprouting
Watering Method: Water it with skills mastered by the Pioneer. The more skills the Pioneer has mastered, and the stronger those skills are, the more pronounced the watering effect.
Spirit Seed Ability: The Pioneer may select one currently mastered active skill and place it in a slot provided by the Origin Spirit Seed, converting it into a no-cost passive skill.
Current Number of Slots: 2
Current Cooldown for Switching Placed Skills: One natural day
That was right. After reaching the Sprouting stage, the Origin Spirit Seed had unlocked one more skill slot!
Luke intended to place a cultivation-type skill or technique into the Spirit Seed slot. That way, he could grow stronger passively even while lying down and sleeping.
Because Luke had already trained his Breathing Technique to the state of Total Concentration Breathing: Constant, it was effectively passive already. He would breathe naturally without thinking, gradually improving his physique, so there was no need to put the Breathing Technique in the slot.
After considering it, Luke placed the Spiritual Pressure training method he had learned in the world of Bleach into the second empty slot. This way, he could continuously grow stronger.
If he encountered a powerful enemy and needed a decisive battle, he could swap the skill in that slot for practical Kidō, allowing him to use high-numbered Kidō without any cost.
However, becoming a spell-machine-gun was impossible. Luke had tested it before by placing Red Flame Cannon into an Origin Spirit Seed slot. Though it became a no-cost passive skill, it also gained a cooldown.
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