Chapter 173 Alchemy Knee Pad

“After doing a long scenario, I end up with this thing…” Feng Bujue was still muttering as he walked to the second glass pillar, “What’s with the 'ps' in the notes… is that the programmer’s self-deprecating humor? Frankly, this is just a set of data that should have been deleted.”

[Please select your additional reward: 1. Randomly draw a piece of equipment corresponding to your level; 2. 50,000 Game Coins; 3. 116,000 Experience Points]

The familiar window popped up in front of Feng Bujue, but this time he didn't immediately make a choice.

“My current experience value is 134,300,290,000. If I add 116,000, that’s…” Feng Bujue quickly calculated in his mind, “134,300,250,300… that's nearly 40,000 experience points away from level thirty.” He pondered, “Even if I take the experience now, it's not enough to level up. I still have to do another scenario. Might as well draw a piece of equipment…”

Since he was somewhat disappointed by the skill card reward for clearing the scenario, Feng Bujue developed a gambler's mentality, hoping to get something good from the long-awaited extra reward equipment draw.

So, he once again bet on his luck and chose the random equipment reward.

After a white light converged, a bowl-sized, curved metal piece appeared in the glass pillar.

When Feng Bujue first saw the equipment, he instinctively looked down at his chest: “Hiss… no way…” He frowned and said, “Even if it really is that, there should be two…”

Obviously… he was thinking dirty.

[Name: Implantable Alchemical Augmentation Device]

[Type: Armor]

[Quality: Fine]

[Defense: Weak]

[Attribute: None]

[Effect: Slightly increases the effects of Summoning skills]

[Equipment Requirement: Summoning Specialization F]

[Note: This item can be equipped on either knee. It cannot be equipped or removed during a scenario, and the wearer's Survival Value maximum will be reduced by 10%.]

“Oh… a knee pad. I thought it was something else.” Feng Bujue muttered to himself as he picked up the item and pressed it against his right knee.

The metal piece suddenly heated up like a branding iron when it touched his knee. After a rather intense burning sensation, the equipment was "branded" onto Feng Bujue's knee in an adsorptive manner.

He looked down and saw an alchemical array emitting a bloody red light on the surface of the knee pad. Of course, he had no idea what the array represented…

“Tsk… If only I could have understood Advanced Alchemy back then…” Feng Bujue still felt a little regretful that he hadn't been able to understand that book in the scenario before last.

He immediately hid the equipment, changing the display to show only his clothing.

“The problem is… I don’t have any summoning skills right now.” Feng Bujue put on the equipment, then opened the game menu and said, “Should I just put this in the storage room for now?”

Thinking of this, Feng Bujue felt uneasy. The character task [Use a summoning skill and successfully summon a summon fifty times] being stuck at 14/50 was already a thorn in his side. And now he had drawn equipment related to Summoning Specialization. It felt… like it would be a waste not to use summoning skills a few times in a scenario.

“All the summoning skills in the auction house are ridiculously expensive, and skills like that… the ones being sold are mostly useless, otherwise people would have learned them themselves.” He glanced at [Stinky Chicken "Bomb"] in the skill bar. “Spending more than 100,000 to buy a skill like that is obviously not worth it.”

“Hmm…” Feng Bujue pondered for a while. “Right, the Thriller Box!”

He suddenly thought that there was another way for him to directly buy summoning skills, and that was the Thriller Box.

In addition to equipment, the Thriller Box also sells skill cards. However, the number of skill cards lost in scenarios is very small compared to equipment. Therefore, in the first week of open beta, the Thriller Box did not have a skill card search list at all. A week later, all the previously accumulated skill cards appeared in the Thriller Box along with the equipment, starting a seven-day countdown to destruction.

Now Feng Bujue's Technique Value is 17,980 points. Looking at the entire server, even players with higher levels than him may not have obtained this much Technique Value in total.

So, Jue-Ge still had some capital to squander.

Feng Bujue returned to the login space. After the elevator doors closed, he pressed the [Thriller Box] button and once again entered that small room with a floor like a chessboard, walls made of funhouse mirrors, and a huge gift box in the middle.

Opening the menu, he specifically selected the Skill category and then selected the “Summoning” sub-option. Even with such a targeted search condition, there were still eight pages of results (one hundred items displayed per page).

As mentioned earlier, in the Thriller Box's search list, you can only see the item's name, type, and price. You need to click on it to see the detailed information.

But now that Feng Bujue had specified a search for summoning skills, the Type column could basically be ignored. And with skills, just looking at the name is far from enough.

So, Jue-Ge, who couldn't find a single book he liked in the Reasoning Club, decided to indulge himself in the Thriller Box…

Nearly eight hundred skills, not too many, not too few. Although some were beyond Feng Bujue's purchasing power, he didn't plan to let any of them go.

Anyway, this was sleep mode, one to ten time ratio, there was no rush to do anything.

Three and a half hours passed in the blink of an eye…

With his morbid patience and focus, as well as a consistent and efficient browsing speed, Feng Bujue read through all of these skill cards…

After clicking on the last skill on the last page, he stood up (he had taken out the folding stool from his knapsack and sat down after watching for three minutes), put away the folding stool, and began to pace back and forth.

What makes him so terrifying is not only that he can read so much information, but the key is that he can still remember it after reading it. And while he remembers it, he can also cross-compare this information in his mind…

Another fifteen minutes passed, Feng Bujue stopped walking, reopened the Thriller Box interface, flipped through a few pages, and selected a skill card.

[Name: Summoning Art - Musashi Koganei]

[Skill Card Attribute: Active Skill, Permanently Learned]

[Skill Category: Summoning]

[Effect: Summons Musashi Koganei to become your companion (cooldown time 80 minutes, duration 20 minutes, maximum of 1 Musashi Koganei can exist at the same time)]

[Consumption: Perform a bizarre action]

[Learning Condition: Summoning Specialization F]

[Note: He is a third-grade elementary school student who became a pervert because he believes that "great people were called freaks when they were young." His body can rotate at high speed and move on any plane; he often makes unintelligible languages and strange noises such as "hiss hiss hiss." He has extremely high intelligence, can develop many strange inventions, and his family seems to be very rich.]

“Okay, you're the one.” Feng Bujue spent 480 Technique Value to get this skill, which was 20 points cheaper than buying [Casey Jones's Mask] back then.

At first glance, this is a summon that is almost useless in combat. And in fact, he is indeed useless…

But then again, F-rank summons aren't of much use to begin with. A skill like [Summoning Art - Sailor] is already considered very powerful among F-rank summoning skills, so it consumes a specific item to summon – spinach. Other F-rank summons, like bats, lame zombies, flying hockey sticks, etc… are basically just cannon fodder, mainly for delaying and scouting.

Feng Bujue filtered through the descriptions of a pile of F-rank trash monsters in his mind for a long time and discovered… that only Musashi Koganei, this perverted brat, is a high-intelligence summon.

So, from a perspective other than combat, Koganei is definitely more useful than other creatures of the same level.

Of course, Feng Bujue also hesitated whether to buy another summoning skill: [Summoning Art - Toilet Paper]. This skill is completely useless and requires no consumption. Its only advantage is that the cooldown time is only ten minutes. But the cost of this skill is as high as 1400 Technique Value. Obviously, the original intention of designing this skill was for players who need to repeatedly use summoning skills to grind for skill usage count…

And buying both of these skills is not impossible, but since he has already obtained the means to complete the character task, he should save the 1400 if he can.

“Hmm… I’ll just do a scenario later and summon him to chat.” Feng Bujue muttered to himself after learning the skill.

As a writer who often doesn't do his job properly… oh no, goes out to gather materials, he has naturally seen all kinds of material. *Sunny Pig* is an animation that he likes very much. And among them, the character he is most interested in is Musashi Koganei. The reason… may be some kind of resonance between weirdos.

…………

After buying the skill card, Feng Bujue finally returned to the login space.

He had been wandering in the Thriller Box for nearly four hours. Apart from those professional players who need it for work, it would be difficult to find any casual players who would stay outside of scenarios for so long.

“Hmm… I have to practice until level thirty tonight before logging off…” Feng Bujue muttered.

At this moment, he had a crooked idea: The cooldown time for summoning Musashi Koganei is 80 minutes, but if he enters a scenario and summons him, and then dies soon after, he can do another scenario and summon him again…

With this plan in mind, Feng Bujue resolutely chose Nightmare difficulty single-player survival mode. Even if he doesn't clear it, it doesn't matter. He'll just treat it as experimenting with the skill.