Chapter 152 Equipment

The winter break of the Spring Festival passed quickly. Guan Rongfei, the guy who missed the train because he was so engrossed in making equipment, simply didn't go home in the end. He spent the New Year with Chen Guo, Ye Xiu, and Su Mucheng. Thanks to this guy's presence, Chen Guo didn't experience much of a festive atmosphere at the New Year's Eve dinner.

Guan Rongfei just ate with his head down without saying a word, and when he did open his mouth, three sentences out of three were about his work, all about equipment creation. Don't think that Happy has put together a set of priest equipment, but in terms of overall silver equipment development, Happy is undoubtedly relatively behind given its foundation. This topic was really a bit heavy. Especially when Guan Rongfei ran directly to his technical department, took a stack of information, and showed Ye Xiu some material resources that were currently lacking, the New Year's Eve dinner suddenly became extremely heavy.

With the accumulation that Ye Xiu had earned in online games over the past year and a half, coupled with Guan Rongfei's rich experience, Happy had avoided many detours in silver equipment development. Apart from the Thousand Chance Umbrella's upgrade, the material consumption for developing other equipment was extremely low. Otherwise, with the foundation of a new team like Happy, it would have been impossible to independently develop so much silver equipment.

But after this half season, the accumulation was almost exhausted. Some low-end materials were okay. The guild department led by Wu Chen had now completely gotten on the right track. Each branch, and even the Heavenly Domain, could continuously accumulate materials. The production of dungeon materials was quite stable.

But the rare materials produced in the wild, facing the competition between the major guilds, were not so easy to obtain. Wu Chen obviously didn't have Ye Xiu's ability to stir up a bloody storm and profit from the chaos. Besides, Happy now had a foundation, and it was no longer like when Ye Xiu was alone, barefoot and unafraid of those wearing shoes, messing around recklessly. Balance, this was something Happy had to pay attention to now.

What was more advantageous for Happy now was that the enthusiasm on the guild side was very high.

As a new team, with newly gathered fans, after achieving such outstanding results, the fans voluntarily served the guild, and the enthusiasm for strengthening the team was unprecedentedly high. This kind of effort, where everyone did their best, allowed Happy to maintain relatively strong competitiveness.

However, the rare materials produced in the wild were, after all, different from those produced in dungeons. There were only so many each week, and on top of that, there was the question of whether or not they could be snatched, and whether or not the snatched materials would be the ones needed. In the end, it still seemed insufficient.

Happy was, after all, a new team, and its demand for materials was much greater than that of other teams.

Looking at the materials that Guan Rongfei handed over, Ye Xiu also knew that it was impossible to fully equip every character in Happy like Little Cold Hands in this one season. Next, they had to plan and prioritize which characters to focus on.

And among them, the Thousand Chance Umbrella was really a big burden. First, the materials it needed were already fierce, and second, it was a research product, and the material consumption was quite alarming. After seeing the consumption during Guan Rongfei's research on the Thousand Chance Umbrella, Ye Xiu's heart raced. If it weren't for needing to make the Thousand Chance Umbrella, how many more pieces of silver equipment could these materials have helped Happy make?

"Thousand Chance Umbrella…" Ye Xiu hesitated a bit. Because Guan Rongfei wanted to directly upgrade the Thousand Chance Umbrella to level 80, it added more variables to the research of this equipment. Variables meant loss, and more importantly, the loss would continue.

"Should we give up temporarily…" Ye Xiu couldn't help but have such a thought, but… if they gave up now, the previous losses would be wasted. The research on the Thousand Chance Umbrella had reached a point of no return. But even so, they couldn't just grit their teeth and rush forward. If they had to bite the bullet and cut off some flesh, they had to do it!

Ye Xiu took a deep breath, allowing himself to make a clear and rational decision on this issue. Guan Rongfei seemed to have never thought so much. Seeing Ye Xiu scanning the materials for the Thousand Chance Umbrella, he became a little elated: "It's almost done. Now there's only one part left. As long as we get this material right, I believe there won't be any problems."

"Can this part be adjusted individually?" Ye Xiu's heart beat again. Whether or not it could be adjusted individually made a big difference. If it couldn't, then this situation would be very disgusting. In a situation where one move affected the whole body, if the material for one part was wrong, the entire equipment wouldn't be successful, and all the materials would be scrapped, forcing them to start over. But if they could adjust it individually and only replace that part, the material loss would obviously be controlled much more.

"No…" As a result, Guan Rongfei gave a disappointing answer.

Ye Xiu sighed deeply. This next step for the Thousand Chance Umbrella was to be made entirely of level 75 rare materials. Happy couldn't afford the loss of all of them being scrapped. Using these materials on other equipment would greatly improve Happy's overall strength. Looking at the materials for other types of equipment, Ye Xiu had made up his mind. Thousand Chance Umbrella, let's just leave it at that for now!

But before he could say this decision, Guan Rongfei continued: "It can only be adjusted locally, with a loss of about three materials."

"…" The determination that Ye Xiu had just made collapsed instantly. The loss of three level 75 rare materials, although it was also quite painful, was completely acceptable compared to the overall loss of the Thousand Chance Umbrella!

"Keep it up!" The mood of giving up on the equipment was immediately put away, and encouragement was given instead.

"When the Thousand Chance Umbrella is finished, should we try to push other equipment to level 80 as well?" Guan Rongfei said ambitiously. His love seemed to have spread from researching the Thousand Chance Umbrella to how to catalyze all equipment to level 80 in the current level environment.

"This… the material burden is too great!" Ye Xiu said.

"I'll sort out the list as soon as possible," Guan Rongfei said.

"Don't rush," Ye Xiu said quickly. "Let's still follow the progress we discussed before, step by step!"

"Isn't it cool to use all level 80 equipment!" Chen Guo shouted at this moment.

"Calm down!" Ye Xiu shouted. He didn't expect someone to interfere at this time. Did she not know what level 80 meant? Did she not know that Happy couldn't afford this kind of high-end development on a large scale at the moment? Guiding Guan Rongfei's enthusiasm in that direction in this situation was too irrational. Ye Xiu paid attention to Chen Guo's wine glass. Was the boss lady drunk?

"The basic attributes of level 70 silver equipment are equivalent to level 75 orange equipment; level 75 silver equipment is level 80 orange equipment; then, conversely, wouldn't level 80 orange equipment be equivalent to level 75 silver equipment? Can we find a way to upgrade the existing level 75 orange equipment and make them equippable at level 80? Wouldn't that be equivalent to level 75 silver equipment? Although it's not level 80 silver equipment, being able to fully equip level 75 silver equipment would be very powerful at this stage!" Chen Guo said.

The room fell silent immediately. Ye Xiu glanced at Guan Rongfei, Guan Rongfei glanced at Ye Xiu, and the two of them began to think with their heads down. Su Mucheng, on the other hand, looked at Chen Guo in surprise. Although she wasn't particularly knowledgeable about equipment creation, she had been influenced by it, and her level was far above Chen Guo's, and she was more clearly aware of the value of her sudden idea than Chen Guo herself.

"This idea, although a bit cheap, might really be the most powerful concept in terms of cost performance," Guan Rongfei said.

"Cheap!" Chen Guo always paid attention to negative words.

"Your idea is just to make some cheap equipment to disguise as high-end, right?" Ye Xiu said.

"Why do you make it sound so… awful?" Chen Guo couldn't find a rebuttal and could only feel depressed.

"Direct modification of orange equipment under the modifier… research in this area has been ongoing, but so far, probably no one has fully figured it out. The equipment modifier can only disassemble the equipment into parts, but there are too many parameters and formulas for the attributes that these parts ultimately constitute that have not been figured out. It's not even clear what raw materials are used to make many of the parts disassembled from orange equipment. To improve the attributes and levels of orange equipment, only the game company's updates can do it for now," Guan Rongfei said.

"Orange equipment is just an example she gave. We're not actually using the system's own orange equipment, but using the equipment editor to make orange equipment," Ye Xiu said.

"Using the equipment editor to make orange equipment…" Guan Rongfei frowned.

"And then upgrade it to level 80," Ye Xiu said.

"This idea is like when taking an exam, everyone else is trying hard to get 100 points, but we easily get 90 points, and then we do an extra question that no one else can do, so we also get 100 points," Su Mucheng made an analogy.

"Of course, in the long run, it's still most stable to get 110 points or a solid 100 points. But in the short term, this is the fastest and most effective way to improve grades," Ye Xiu said.

"Let's give it a try!" Guan Rongfei finally nodded. Ye Xiu was happy because he knew that this guy didn't really care about team results, cost performance, or frugality. What really made him enthusiastic and interested was making equipment itself. So the Thousand Chance Umbrella was a very interesting thing, making level 80 silver equipment was also fun, and making a set of priest equipment with the highest intelligence and highest critical hit was also okay. If there was interest and enthusiasm, then it would be more invested, more efficient, and more outstanding. And at this time, instead of making silver equipment with the equipment editor, they were going to make orange equipment. This novel idea seemed to have moved Guan Rongfei a bit.

Of course, anything that came out of the equipment editor was in silver font, so from that perspective, it was all "silver equipment."

However, if they didn't pursue the highest attributes that silver equipment could achieve, but only pursued attributes equivalent to orange equipment, then the materials used would undoubtedly be of a lower standard. The only awkward thing now was that instead of making silver equipment better, they had to deliberately make it worse. Guan Rongfei probably didn't have any ideas for this.

Holding chopsticks, hovering over the dish, Guan Rongfei had already begun to think…