Chapter 18 Insurance

Anyone with eyes could see that the main weakness preventing the team from holding out was Fang Senyan. Against the Blood-Colored Golden-Veined Tongue-Thorn Tower, even with damage reduction from defense calculations, the terrifying attack power exceeding 100 points significantly diminished the effect of his "Resilience" talent, almost to a negligible level! Jiao Shi was much better; his talent ability reduced damage by percentage. With the double reduction, he only suffered about sixty points of damage, and his health, equipment, and skills were far superior to Fang Senyan.

The three fell into an awkward silence, exchanging glances as time rapidly slipped away. Factoring in the time to leave, they theoretically had less than ten minutes left, including the time needed to find the Giant Spore-Fungus Anti-Air Tower's weakness and destroy it!

"Perhaps... there's a way."

Jiao Shi took a deep breath.

He began removing his silver story shield, the Processed Alien Skull, and his black weapon, the Centaurus Plasma Light Saber (practice version), along with his stamina-boosting equipment, and proactively traded them to Fang Senyan.

"Your current problem is still insufficient damage reduction. If we combine resources, we can further reduce the Blood-Colored Golden-Veined Tongue-Thorn Tower's attack power to below 80 points, which would be very significant. Coupled with your talent ability, you can exert a greater effect."

Fang Senyan accepted the equipment traded by Jiao Shi but didn't equip it. After a quick calculation, he shook his head earnestly and said, "It's useless. I haven't learned Shield Mastery, so I can only utilize 80% of the shield's capability. You can bring out 120% of the shield's ability! There's a big difference there. Besides, you have the Belief Armor, a very powerful meat shield ability. So, even if I get your equipment, I'll only last as long as you did! Most importantly, your base stamina attribute without any equipment is 13 points higher than mine! The difference is so great that there's no need to say more."

Speaking, Fang Senyan took a deep breath and said, "So, the correct approach should be for me to trade my equipment to you, concentrating our combined strength on you. I'll provide auxiliary support while attacking! I've calculated that if you add my equipment, you can reach the maximum of 50 points of stamina under the current difficulty! Based on my speculation and the information I've gathered, there's a high probability of additional rewards appearing once a single attribute reaches its limit! Moreover, even without my equipment, I can buy you ten seconds to take medicine and apply bandages. Combined with that instant full recovery meritorious service potion, we can definitely complete this damn task!"

"Of course, if the reward for the 50-point stamina limit isn't enough to support us through this task, we can still retreat and give up; we still have a choice!"

As Fang Senyan spoke, he decisively traded his silver story accessory, the +5 Ogre's Fighting Spirit, and the blue ring, the Rotten Mou Ring (Strength +1, Stamina +1), to Jiao Shi! The Rotten Mou Ring was nothing much, but the Ogre's Fighting Spirit shocked Jiao Shi! He looked at Fang Senyan in disbelief and said, "This... this is a defensive silver story accessory?!!! And you even extracted the accessory's exclusive rare attribute? You're willing to trade this equipment to me? Its value is comparable to any top-grade dark gold or green growth-type equipment!"

Fang Senyan smiled and said very simply, "Since you can trust me, why can't I trust you?"

Jiao Shi didn't say anything more. Time was of the essence, so there was no room for delay. He quickly put on the accessories traded by Fang Senyan but turned around, looked deeply at Fang Senyan, and immediately initiated a trade, revealing a dark-gold shimmering necklace!

Smith's Matrix Chip
Equipment Rarity: Dark Gold
Origin World: The Matrix
Material: Unknown
Attachable Device: None
Equipment Position: Neck
Equipment Type: Necklace
Weight: 0.2kg
Equipment Usage Condition: All base attributes not less than 10 points, or rank of Senior Private or above (including Senior Private)
Equipment: Strength, Agility +6 points
Equipment: Critical Hit Rate, Hit Rate increased
Passive Ability: Update Database (Unachieved activation condition)
Passive Ability: Call Out (dir): Each time you successfully damage an enemy, you will conduct a Call Out (dir) command judgment. A successful judgment will reveal the enemy's weakness, increasing your critical hit chance against that enemy by 3%. This effect can stack up to three times. The dir command judgment's single effect is reduced to 1% for contractors, with a maximum stack of 3%.
Active Ability: Format (format): You perform a format command on yourself, temporarily converting 5 points of stamina into 5 points of strength. Once executed, the format cannot be canceled for at least 20 minutes. During this time, the increased health effect from the converted stamina will remain, but health cannot be restored after being deducted. (Example: If Fang Senyan with 10 points of stamina casts format on himself, his health will remain at 100 points, but his defense will decrease to 2.5 points. Once attacked by an enemy to 30 health points while in the format state, he will only have 50 health points after fully recovering.)
Description: This is an ordinary chip dropped by a Smith clone from The Matrix. Because Smith's clone exists as an antivirus program, he was given extraordinary abilities by the Matrix. In the Matrix, he has the ability to rewrite human character programs, allowing him to constantly borrow other people's bodies. This chip has also absorbed the violence and madness of Smith's clone and possesses immense power! Once someone possesses it, they can be completely reborn!

"What is this?" Fang Senyan asked in astonishment.

Jiao Shi said calmly, "This is insurance in case I die and you lose everything!"

After saying that, Jiao Shi directly cast Belief Armor on himself! His whole body shone with a transparent, tough, ice-like light, and then he resolutely gripped the black light saber and silently rushed forward! It felt like a madman going alone against thousands!

At this moment, everything was interconnected. As soon as Jiao Shi moved, the others charged forward! Because the Tongue-Thorn Tower was built in a very wretched position, it was completely obscured by the large and bloated Giant Spore-Fungus Anti-Air Tower from their perspective! Therefore, to get a shooting angle, they had to move forward twenty meters and shoot from the side.

Jiao Shi's charge was so sudden and decisive that he didn't even have time to "warm up" the Ogre's Fighting Spirit as Fang Senyan had suggested! Two sharp and terrifying golden thorns instantly pierced the ground and struck Jiao Shi's body. The translucent surface of the Belief Armor rippled, and bright red blood spurted out! At this moment, Fang Senyan didn't hesitate to equip the dark gold necklace and immediately activated its "Format" ability!

Immediately, Fang Senyan felt a surge of heat throughout his body, and his strength value soared to 27 points (after drinking the Flesh Bear Potion)! Even so, Fang Senyan still had 330 health points remaining and 18 points of stamina! With these stats combined with the Resilience talent, his survivability was still quite formidable! It was probably no less than the Crowbar from the previous Symbiote. The reason why Fang Senyan dared to do this was because of the high-protein injection gun that Jiao Shi had sent! This thing ensured that Fang Senyan had two lives as long as he wasn't instantly killed. And the reason why Fang Senyan didn't buy this thing before wasn't because he was reluctant to spend honor points but because he lacked universal points.

Because Jiao Shi had only equipped one accessory before, the attributes boosted by the Ogre's Fighting Spirit were completely additional, adding a full 6 points of perception, 2 points of strength, and 5 points of agility in addition to stamina! This meant that Jiao Shi's agility had also reached an incredibly terrifying 18 points! This was a value that even many agile ranged attackers couldn't achieve! Therefore, the mere fifty meters was like a gust of wind for Jiao Shi! Then, he raised the light saber in his hand and slashed down forcefully!

The appearance of this Tongue-Thorn Tower was also blood-red, with golden lines on it, making it particularly ferocious. Although the attack interval of this Tongue-Thorn Tower was slow, the instantaneous activation speed of the attack was quite fast, making it impossible to escape with tactical movements such as rolling and jumping.

After being hit by the black light saber, a scorched mark appeared on it, emitting a foul smell of burnt flesh. As one of the Zerg's most important combat organs, it immediately transformed the pain into combat ability and ruthlessly aimed its sharp tentacles at Jiao Shi again!

Although the Tongue-Thorn Tower shot out two tentacles each time, the shameless thing was that the damage caused by these two tentacles was dealt at once and wouldn't be calculated for damage reduction twice, so the damage was extremely high, to the point that Fang Senyan couldn't withstand a few hits. Jiao Shi had been hit once during the charge, and now it was the second hit! This meant that the Ogre's Fighting Spirit accessory had reached its strongest state, directly increasing 10 points of stamina! This further meant that Jiao Shi's stamina had reached the limit of the current difficulty... the limit of 50 stamina points!!!