“Haha!! A Guaranteed Upgrade Stone!!”

The notifications he received upon touching the item set off a series of laughter from Bai Yunfei!

A Guaranteed Upgrade Stone!!

A +13 Guaranteed Upgrade Stone!!!

Bai Yunfei made sure to check the other stone before he succumbed to his happiness.

Equipment Grade: Low Heaven

Elemental Affinity: None

Equipment Effect 1: Successfully upgrade any equipment +12 and under.

Equipment Effect 2: Increase the grade of an equipment by two when crafting (highest grade being Low Heaven)

Cannot be upgraded.

This one was a +12 Guaranteed Upgrade Stone!

“What? What are you saying, Bai Yunfei?”

The bewildered voice of the Bloodhowl Wolf King cut through Bai Yunfei’s glee. Blinking rapidly, Bai Yunfei realized that he had been too excited...

“Phew...”

Exhaling slowly, Bai Yunfei turned to look at the Bloodhowl Wolf King. “Senior Bloodhowl, these two stones are highly important to me, would it be possible for me to have them?”

“Eh?” The Bloodhowl Wolf King blinked, “Of course you may. My clan would’ve been in trouble if not for you, these spoils are yours to manage.”

He still didn’t understand why Bai Yunfei destroyed that bed, but the Bloodhowl Wolf King could tell that the two stones held more importance to Bai Yunfei than the bed itself did. If he had to guess, then the two stones probably had some kind of special property to them while the rest of the rubble were of no importance. He wasn’t so interested in the bed that he’d fight Bai Yunfei over it, though.

“Thank you very much, senior Bloodhowl!”

Bai Yunfei thanked the wolf king graciously as he put the stones away. Sweeping through the rubble, Bai Yunfei managed to grab hold of a few smaller Guaranteed Upgrade Stones, but none of them exceeded the +10 grade.

“This ‘bed’ had to be from the outside. I wonder where the Wind Ape King got it from...” Bai Yunfei thought to himself. “So Guaranteed Upgrade Stones exist in a form besides from the Nephrite Throne. A +14 stone came from that, I wonder if I’ll ever be able to find a +15 or better...”

Bai Yunfei could feel his heart skip a beat just thinking about the chance of coming across such a high-grade Guaranteed Upgrade Stone.

————————

Together with the Bloodhowl Wolf King, Bai Yunfei scoured the Wind Ape King’s place for several more items. Surprisingly, the Wind Ape King had a high-heaven tier soul armament hanging on his wall, an item probably taken from a soul cultivator he killed in the past, perhaps. Like the other items, Bai Yunfei stored this soul armament into his space ring for later.

Nothing of special notice was left in the Wind Ape King’s cave after the two were done. Left without anything else to do, Bai Yunfei and the Bloodhowl Wolf King teleported back to the wolf clan’s territory.

It was when they returned that the Bloodhowl Wolf King was notified of the Golden Lion King and several others arriving at their cave. Saying goodbye to Bai Yunfei, he left for where the Golden Lion King was to begin their talks.

Bai Yunfei opted to stay in the real world rather than retreat to the Core World. Sitting on the bed he was given, Bai Yunfei took out the two Guaranteed Upgrade Stones he recently got and began to think.

It went without saying that Bai Yunfei would be upgrading the Core Stone with these Guaranteed Upgrade Stones. By doing so he’d be able to awake Xiao Fang from his slumber at long last!

But there was a slight issue...

He had a +12 Guaranteed Upgrade Stone and even a +13. He even had multiple +10 ones. But...he didn’t have any +11 stones!

He could leave the +12 and +13 Guaranteed Upgrade Stones and wait for a +11 one to appear, but who knew how long that’d take?

“I’ll have to ‘split’ them apart this time...”

Bai Yunfei decided. He had to choose such an option once before when he was trying to upgrade the Soul Sentinel Scarf to +13. At that time he was able to further his understanding of the Equipment Upgrade Technique and ride the momentum to upgrade the Critical Glove to +13 as well. And more importantly...he was able to change the outcome from failure to success!

That point in time was the highlight of Bai Yunfei’s understanding of the Equipment Upgrade Technique. It was a moment of enlightenment that Bai Yunfei was never able to repeat again after that. But even then, he was only able to influence and change the result of upgrading an item to +11.

So this time Bai Yunfei decided to use the +13 Guaranteed Upgrade Stone so that it’d become a +11 and +12 stone.

There was a reason behind this. If he split the stone into two +11 Guaranteed Upgrade Stones, then he’d wouldn’t have a second +12 stone to use. And in that case the +13 stone would’ve been useless anyway. And splitting the stone so that it’d become a +11 and +10 stone would be even more useless...

While he was reluctant to use the +13 Guaranteed Upgrade Stone like that, Bai Yunfei knew that it had to be done. If he could upgrade the Core Stone to +11 and then +12, it was possible that Xiao Fang would awaken with an additional effect.

Putting the +12 Guaranteed Upgrade Stone aside, Bai Yunfei took the +13 stone and studied it closely. Gritting his teeth, he split a third of the stone away!

“Crack...”

He checked the stats of the stone almost impatiently the moment it broke apart. To his relief, his plan worked as expected. “Phew...good thing nothing bad happened...”

What he was worried about was accidentally turning the stone into two +11 Guaranteed Upgrade Stones. Luckily, it went as planned and now Bai Yunfei had a +11 and +12 Guaranteed Upgrade Stone.

Steeling his heart, Bai Yunfei took the Core Stone into his hand and held it with a +11 Guaranteed Upgrade Stone.

Breathing in, Bai Yunfei touched the two together.

“Upgrade.”

The Guaranteed Upgrade Stone disintegrated into dust immediately. Surrounding the Core Stone, the dust slowly entered its surface as if being absorbed while Bai Yunfei waited with bated breath.

Equipment Grade: Mid Divine

Elemental Affinity: Space, Earth

Upgrade Level: +11

The notification of a successful upgrade appeared in Bai Yunfei’s mind. Probing the stone, Bai Yunfei was disappointed to see nothing had changed yet.

“Not enough? One more time then!” He thought before grabbing the +12 Guaranteed Upgrade Stone.

“Upgrade!!”

Equipment Grade: Mid Divine

𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Elemental Affinity: Space, Earth

Upgrade Level: +12