Upgrade Succesful

Equipment Grade: Mid Heaven

Elemental Affinity: Wind, Darkness

Upgrade Level: +10

Attack: 4400

Additional Attack: 2000

Soul Compatibility: 25%

Equipment Effect 1: 30% Increase in attack speed.

Equipment Effect 2: 30% Decrease in presence. 20% Chance to evade being scanned.

+10 Additional Effect: Apply a mark on the target’s body upon the first strike.

Apply a second mark when the same place is struck. Deal double the damage.

Apply a third mark when the same place is struck. Deal triple the damage.

No more than triple the damage can be dealt.

A fourth mark will erase the first mark.

Any mark applied will last for either 5 minutes or until the fourth mark is applied.

Cooldown of 3 seconds between marks.

Upgrade Requirement: 230 Soulpoints

There had been some failed attempts in the process, but what was a few soulforce in the name of progress? With time and effort, Bai Yunfei was finally able to upgrade the dagger to +10.

The additional attack was within his expectations, but the +10 additional effect was the real shocker for him.

“Attacking the same spot will deal even more damage? That’s huge. The amount of damage the dagger will inflict if it succeeds is mind-boggling. The enemy will be easily killed if they don’t know about it and allow this to happen...” The additional effect of the dagger was exceedingly powerful to Bai Yunfei.

“It also suits Jing Mingfeng with his speed and fighting style. The dagger will definitely be used right in his hands. Double the damage with the second strike and triple with the third, that’s well over ten thousand points of damage. Even the fully upgraded Soul Sentinel Scarf wouldn’t be able to defend against that. Jing Mingfeng will probably be able to kill most of his opponents in two or three blows...”

Needless to say, Bai Yunfei was exceedingly pleased with the dagger. It was perhaps his best-crafted soul armament to date, not just because of its grade, but also because of how well it suited his expectations.

It was so good that Bai Yunfei was loathed to give the soul armament away. Still, he was a man of his words. This dagger would go to Jing Mingfeng.

......

He stored the dagger away to focus on other matters. His right hand was placed on top of his chest for a moment before Bai Yunfei expelled the fireseed from his body.

“So...what’s going on here?”

There was something about his fireseed that Bai Yunfei was bewildered to see. A faint hazy light was surrounding the fireseed with such minimal light that it’d be imperceptible to anyone but him, the master.

He hadn’t even noticed it himself until he had the fireseed go back into his body. The light (or perhaps it was better to say ‘energy’) was like a shell that was wrapping up the fireseed. Whenever the flames from the fireseed leaped just high enough to touch the energy, there’d be a strange tremor. The tremor was weak and didn’t quite seem to affect the fireseed somehow, but it was there still. The usage of any elemental fire from his fireseed seemed to have just one more useless step in the process now.

Bai Yunfei wasn’t quite comfortable with something like that left unknown to him.

“What in the world is this...”

He felt unwell about the situation. Humans naturally feared the unknown, and this topic was a very much unknown deal to him.

Cautiously, he lifted a finger to touch the energy around the fireseed. When the finger was about to make contact...

“Bzzz!!”

A thunderous tremor ran through Bai Yunfei’s mindspace. It was loud but localized in his mind so that only he could hear it. All the hairs on his body stood up at once as if his body was immediately going on alert.

He didn’t know the reason behind this, but he did know one thing.

If his finger had gone even a millimeter closer and disrupted the barrier of energy, he would’ve died!!

The thought felt outlandish but also completely capable of happening. His drenched back was proof of that. Bai Yunfei brought his finger back at once.

“What’s wrong, Yunfei?”

Tang Xinyun had been watching Bai Yunfei interact with his fireseed in amazement up until this point.

“Xinyun, did...did you feel anything? Like a change of some kind?” Sweat was pooling on Bai Yunfei’s forehead as he asked.

“Change? What kind of change?” Tang Xinyun was clueless.

“Isn’t this your fireseed? Is there something strange about it?”

“Well...”

Bai Yunfei didn’t know how to describe the situation. His mind wasn’t back to full working order yet.

That was when a voice boomed out in the Core World with the abruptness as if they had just seen a ghost!

“I’ve got it!! I’m definitely right, that’s chaotic energy! Heavens! How is this possible, how is there chaotic energy here!!?”

The owner of the voice was Xiao Fang, and the shock in its voice was noticeable to hear. It was acting like when Bai Yunfei first made contact with one of the Planar Laws.

Hearing that, Bai Yunfei grew excited. He turned to look towards Xiao Fang’s image to his right, “Xiao Fang, what did you find out? Chaotic energy? Where’s the chaotic energy?”

Xiao Fang was quiet for second. Perhaps to best gather its thoughts on how to explain the situation, or to just try and calm itself down.

“It’s chaotic energy that encircling your fireseed essence. And it’s not just a regular shell of chaotic energy, this chaotic energy is as pure as a form as you can get!”

“As pure as I can get?” Bai Yunfei wasn’t quite sure what that meant. He knew what chaotic energy was, but only in passing.

Chaotic energy was the amalgamation of all the world’s energy. It wasn’t any singular type of energy, but rather something entirely different. All the energies were fused together in a way that made separation impossible, but it was something that existed in the most extreme of places, such as the Ninth Heaven and deep underground. Even Soul Kings treated chaotic energy as taboo to make contact with.

Bai Yunfei experienced chaotic energy before, actually. It was when he was two and a half kilometers deep underground in the mines. But that was just a very weak strand of it and wasn’t as strong compared to the ones five kilometers down. And that in turn wasn’t as strong as when one reached the Ninth Serenity deep down, where the chaotic force there was a thousand times stronger than before. The pure chaotic energy located at the Ninth Heaven and the Ninth Serenity held the most potent form of chaotic energy, and even Peak Late-stage Soul King wouldn’t be able to survive upon contact.

So Bai Yunfei was mystified to hear Xiao Fang mention that this was a strand of the purest chaotic energy.

He thought he had heard wrong. He was confused at first, and then he was terrified.

“Does that mean I was really on the verge of death back there? If I had touched the chaotic energy, I would’ve been killed straight away?” He paled.

“Exactly. Don’t underestimate even a single strand of chaotic energy. Even ten of you wouldn’t be enough to handle the use chaotic energy without the proper guidance.” Xiao Fang replied confidently.

Tang Xinyun and Bai Yunfei were both overwhelmed by such knowledge. “What are you two talking about, Yunfei?” She asked, nervous by the sudden severity of the topic. “What’s wrong with your fireseed? Why is there something as dangerous as chaotic energy there?”

Bai Yunfei thought hard about how this situation came to be.

His fireseed had been normal when he first inserted it into the Lightningfire Cauldron earlier. It was only after he was done crafting Jing Mingfeng’s soul armament and took the fireseed out that there was a strand of chaotic energy in it!

“Is it because of me crafting that soul armament? Because of...the darkwind meteorite?!” Bai Yunfei’s eyes flew wide open, “This strand of chaotic energy appeared because of me refining the darkwind meteorite?!”

“Right again.” Xiao Fang stated. “It’s because of the meteorite. That special energy I was talking about earlier was in reference to chaotic energy. I just never thought that the meteorite would have such a pure strand of chaotic energy in it.”

Bai Yunfei was starting to understand now. “So because I used the meteorite while I was crafting, the strand of chaotic energy moved from the meteorite to me? Why did it wrap around my fireseed then?”

“That I don’t know. I’ve never heard of such a case before. If I had to guess though, I’d say it’s because your fireseed was the source of all the refining. Because of that connection between the fireseed and your crafting process, the chaotic energy was drawn to it.”

Clearly less interested in the ‘how’ and more worried about the results, Tang Xinyun piped in, “Then what will happen now? If the chaotic energy is so dangerous, how can we safely remove it?”