Luke picked up the ring and carefully examined its detailed attributes.
[Spirit Devourer]
Origin: Endspace
Quality: Purple
Equipment Type: Accessory
Durability: 100/100
Usage Requirement: 30 Spirit
Details: A ring crafted by Supporter No. █████ using Lightning Spirit Gold and Void-Permeable Stone as its primary materials. It possesses outstanding growth potential.
Equipment Skill 1: [Spirit Devour] (Passive)
Effect: Spirit Devourer can consume high-quality spiritual energy to grow, including but not limited to natural energy and dark-matter energy. When Spirit Devourer consumes a new type of energy for the first time, it gains a substantial amount of growth progress. Thereafter, when consuming energy of the same concentration, the growth effect gradually diminishes.
Current Growth Progress: 0%
Equipment Skill 2: [Spirituality] (Passive)
Effect: While wearing Spirit Devourer, the Pioneer gains a certain increase in spell resistance, and their neural reaction speed increases by 30%.
Equipment Skill 3: [Spiritual Energy Surge] (Passive/Active)
Effect: While wearing Spirit Devourer, the Pioneer’s attacks deal additional true damage equal to 3% of their maximum Soul Source. Upon actively activating this skill, Spirit Devourer consumes 10% of the Pioneer’s Soul Source per second, and attacks deal additional true damage equal to 10% of their maximum Soul Source.
[Notice: This skill can currently trigger at most once per second.]
Equipment Rating: 200+
Evaluation: Enough talk. Light up that blue bar!
Though it was only Purple-grade equipment, its effects were exceptionally powerful, and its underlying mechanics were excellent.
The sailor-uniform girl had indeed crafted the equipment according to his needs. The second skill, [Spirituality], was a standard accessory bonus, and a very solid one at that. It showed how skilled she was at forging.
The third skill, [Spiritual Energy Surge], was downright ridiculous. This was Luke’s first time seeing Purple-grade equipment capable of dealing true damage. More importantly, that true damage was based on his maximum Soul Source. The higher his Spirit attribute, the larger his mana pool—and the more true damage this effect could inflict.
Although Endspace did not fully quantify Explorers’ Soul Source and Life Source, temporary exact figures could still be found in combat logs.
For example, when he slashed an enemy, the support system’s record would show precisely how much damage he had dealt.
Based on Luke’s analysis, if an Explorer’s Spirit and Physique attributes were equal, their Soul Source and Life Source should not differ much when compared numerically.
In other words, with [Spiritual Energy Surge] actively enabled, triggering its true-damage effect ten times alone would be enough to nearly kill an Explorer with attributes equal to Luke’s.
Of course, the skill was not completely outrageous just yet. Once activated, it consumed 10% of his Soul Source every second. In ten seconds, his Soul Source would be completely drained.
And once an Explorer’s Soul Source reached zero, they would fall unconscious or enter a state of severe mental exhaustion. So relying on this effect alone to finish an enemy was not realistic.
But Luke happened to possess a means of restoring Soul Source in battle. His Prison Demon could drain mana. That meant he could keep [Spiritual Energy Surge] active, drain energy while fighting, and effectively become a perpetual-motion machine.
At that point, the additional true damage equal to 10% of his maximum Soul Source became extremely considerable. It could steadily and effectively whittle down an enemy’s Life Source.
Most importantly, Spirit Devourer was only Purple-grade equipment right now. Once it advanced to Legendary quality, all its existing skills would become even stronger. Then [Spiritual Energy Surge] would become far more practical.
In short, this equipment possessed enormous growth potential. Once it reached a certain quality, perhaps even the limit on trigger frequency would be removed.
Seeing that Luke had gone silent after looking at the ring, the sailor-uniform girl cautiously said, "Let’s be clear: you can cancel the order if you want, but can we discuss one thing? Don’t return the bed, okay?"
Luke shook his head. "I’m very satisfied. Let’s settle the remaining payment."
It was not Legendary equipment, but Spirit Devourer was still excellent. Growth equipment was effectively a one-time investment with permanent ownership. Its long-term returns were not something a simple Legendary accessory could match.
The sailor-uniform girl beamed. "That’s great, that’s great! I was worried you wouldn’t recognize quality. Let me tell you, don’t think raising it is a hassle. Growth equipment is the real way to go!"
"In the long run, it can save quite a bit of money—as long as I stay alive."
Luke was not actually sure how valuable growth equipment was. He had never seen any on the trade market, so he had no idea whether this deal had made him money or cost him.
"You’d better live a long life. I’m counting on you to keep spending money here."
The sailor-uniform girl tidied her cluttered workbench. "Besides, this isn’t about saving money or not."
"Then what is it about? Is there some special reason?"
Luke asked curiously.
But the sailor-uniform girl waved him off. "It’s too troublesome to explain. I’m exhausted. I need to catch up on sleep."
Seeing the dark circles beneath her eyes, Luke knew she had most likely spent several straight days rushing to finish Spirit Devourer. He did not press the matter any further.
After leaving the sailor-uniform girl’s shop, he put Spirit Devourer on his hand and used Endspace’s concealment function to hide it away. It left no foreign sensation behind, which was very convenient.
He tried pouring his Soul Source into Spirit Devourer, but its growth progress did not change in the slightest. Apparently, he could not feed it with his own energy—or rather, pure Soul Source would not work, because it had already been classified as his own energy.
After returning to his room, Luke used Thunder Breathing to produce a small amount of crude electricity for Spirit Devourer to absorb. This time, it worked, but its growth progress only increased by 0.01%.
Realizing that these methods were far too slow, Luke abandoned the idea of cultivating Spirit Devourer within Endspace. He would find a suitable energy source to level it up once he entered a mission world.
[This cycle’s revenue share from the Kengan Ashura world has been settled. Total: 14,000 Endspace Coins. Please collect it from your mailbox, Pioneer.]
Just as he finished studying the ring, Luke heard Endspace’s notification and realized that more money had arrived.
If Endspace had not reminded him, he would have nearly forgotten that he could collect rent once a month.
After conquering the world of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, he had likewise obtained a World Core. That world had already been incorporated by Endspace. According to Endspace’s evaluation standards, the Demon Slayer world could generate 31,800 Endspace Coins for him every Endspace calendar month—more than twice what the Kengan world produced.
However, he would not receive that income until next month. The world was still in the process of being absorbed and integrated, leaving him with nothing to do but wait.
After collecting his rent, Luke’s finances became considerably more comfortable. He first headed to the Equipment Enhancement Hall and spent more than 5,000 Endspace Coins to enhance Spirit Devourer to +8. Then he went to the training grounds.
Money gave a man confidence. He directly rented a paid mirror arena and continued sparring against Shen Wulong from the Kengan world. With Endspace’s adjustment function, he could tune Shen Wulong’s attributes to match his own.
At present, Luke considered this the most cost-effective way to improve his combat specializations. Roughly three days of sparring would raise each of his combat-specialization skills by one level.
It was not until the day before entering the new world that Luke finally ended his training and reviewed the results.
After adventures across several worlds and all that practice with Shen Wulong as a training dummy, his highest combat-specialization skill had reached Level 37.
Master-Level Swordsmanship Mastery:
Level: Lv. 37/40
Specialization Effect: The Explorer has achieved considerable accomplishment in the art of the blade and may be called a master of their generation. When attacking with a bladed main weapon, they deal an additional 74% damage.
At this pace, Luke felt that after one more world, he might break through into a new realm and reach Grandmaster-Level in his combat specializations.
Over the past month, Luke had not neglected his physical training while refining his combat arts. Combined with the excellent bed No Dreams and the Spiritual Pressure cultivation method in Origin Seed’s passive slot, his attributes had undergone another round of growth.
[Pioneer No. 008, your attributes without equipment are as follows (including equipment and title bonuses):]
Physique: 44 (+1)
Strength: 37 (+1)
Agility: 37 (+1)
Spirit: 40 (+3)
Charm: 5
Luck: 2
His Spirit attribute had seen the greatest increase. The Spiritual Pressure cultivation method, combined with Origin Seed’s passive effect, was simply too powerful. Sleeping on No Dreams further accelerated the process.
His physical attributes, on the other hand, had begun increasing much more slowly. Perhaps because he had become increasingly strong, ordinary training now produced weaker gains.
After his overall improvements, Luke returned to the arena. He spent half a day fighting, then, before the ghostlike stare of his final opponent, Skye, he blew her head apart with the Barbarian King’s Bow.
Every Explorer watching the arena that day had their eyes opened. Within a single day, they witnessed the arena’s first-place holder change twice.
Skye had reached first place that morning. As an Explorer, she had to enter a mission world every two weeks. Since meeting Luke last time, she had already gone through another world and gained a good deal more strength, directly steamrolling the previous first-place holder.
But before her [Unrivaled] title had even had time to settle, she received a notice from Endspace. A new challenger was about to challenge her mirror image, and she was asked whether she wished to personally descend into the arena and defend her position.
Since she was already in Endspace, Skye naturally did not want her mirror image fighting in her place. Besides, she wanted to see who had come to challenge her so soon.
The result was that, the moment she entered the arena, she saw a familiar face.
Inside the arena, everyone naturally used appraisal skills without restraint. When Skye saw that Luke’s overall attributes were still below 40, she paused. For a moment, she even thought Luke possessed some kind of disguise skill that prevented her from seeing through him.
Then Luke’s aura began rising higher and higher. First came his Zanpakuto’s Shikai, then the burst of his Breathing Style, and finally the activation of [Secret Technique: Demon God]. His attributes shot up rapidly, climbing to around 46 or 47.
Even so, Skye remained thoroughly confused. What gave Luke the right to challenge her? She was a second-tier war goddess with all four primary attributes capped at 50. In fact, the top ten in the second-tier arena all had their primary attributes maxed out at 50.
So no matter how she thought about it, she could not understand how Luke had reached his current rank.
Very soon... she understood.
Although Luke was the one at an attribute disadvantage, he fought like a berserker. Yet every move he made contained a profound subtlety she could not comprehend. In every exchange, Luke made the optimal choice, steadily forcing her into a desperate corner.
When she used a skill to flash backward and create some distance, hoping to catch her breath, Luke drew that heavy-looking longbow. In the next instant, she was teleported out of the arena.
After walking out of the waiting room, Skye’s cool face wore an odd expression as she looked at Luke emerging from the other side. Her lips parted, but she could not think of anything to say.
She was a calm woman who did not speak much, but just then, she had genuinely wanted to curse.
She had only held that title for half a day! She had not even used it in a mission world yet!
She would advance in the next world, which meant she had permanently lost the chance to experience the second-tier [Unrivaled] title.
Luke, meanwhile, greeted her amicably. "You let me win."
"We’d better not run into each other in a mission world."
Skye repeated the words she had said before their last parting, though their meaning had changed slightly this time.
Luke smiled and waved goodbye to Skye. On his way back, he received another notification from Endspace.
[The mission world will open in two hours. Please make your preparations, Pioneer.]
[Target World: Derivative World—One Piece]
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