Chương 21: Fire Seeds Gone Mad

At the stone platform in the secret chamber, Ryan stared blankly, disbelief flickering across his face. Under his gaze, the flame's dancing rhythm had become steady and regular—which made working the bellows to refine a Fire Seed vastly easier. This— A flicker of excitement crossed his eyes. Hands working in concert, he refined with full focus. In a single minute, he successfully produced one Bronze Fire Seed. Before this, each one had taken him a full ten minutes.

But now, his refining speed had multiplied tenfold. Wait… tenfold? His gaze sank. Could this speed bonus be— [Correct. The host can refine Fire Seeds faster because of the System's acceleration function.] The System chimed in, confirming his suspicion.

"What a function—I never imagined casting acceleration could speed up Fire Seed refining too!" Ryan was a little shaken, but for him this was unalloyed good news. Reviving Sunward Town needed one million energy points; at one Bronze Fire Seed a minute, the one-month limit suddenly looked very doable. Using Bronze Fire Seeds alone, he'd need ten thousand—which, at his current speed and working without rest, would take a full week.

The workload was still terrifying, but next to the two-months-and-counting pace from before, it was a world better. With a direction in hand, his somewhat gloomy mood lightened considerably. He bent to the work, and two hours slipped by unnoticed—leaving him with over a hundred Bronze Fire Seeds. [Bronze Fire Seed: Can be used to forge Bronze-grade gear and items, and can serve as a means of attack, dealing true damage. Attributes: deals 2, 000 true damage to enemies in range at once, then attaches 100 burn damage per second to enemies within the fire zone for 30 seconds.] As he refined more, the seed's full stats came clear. In theory, a single one's maximum damage was 5, 000—on the harsh condition that the enemy stayed in the sea of fire for the full 30 seconds; step out of range, and the burn ended at once.

The reason he'd one-shot the Source of Chaos earlier was mostly the terrifying damage from the Chaos Aura explosion, not the flame alone. Two hours of refining had left him a touch mentally fatigued—the work demanded intense concentration, not a moment's slack—so after two hours he decisively set it down.

"Lad, looks like you've all but mastered the technique." Victor Fane glanced over and spoke up. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"More or less. Though I can only manage about two hours before my mind starts to flag."

"Easily solved. Just mind raising your Spirit attribute in the future, and these troubles sort themselves out." The Spirit attribute? Ryan paused, then nodded in understanding. He'd nearly forgotten there was such a thing as Spirit. In the game, players had five base attributes: Strength, Constitution, Agility, Intelligence, and Spirit. The most mysterious of them was Spirit. Even Ryan, reborn, had only a hazy grasp of it—because the attribute touched on every aspect of performance.

One simple example: it raised mental resilience, reducing the hold of control skills, even granting outright immunity to crowd control. And that was just one of its uses; it held many more, unknown and waiting to be uncovered. Ryan left the chamber again and went to Sunward Tavern.

"I've gotten word—Nameless Slayer has already put people on digging up information about you in the real world." Violet frowned.

"If you need it… I can help hide your identity." Ryan frowned and nodded slowly.

"So Slaughter the World's apology was only skin-deep. In that case, I'd best make some preparations of my own."

"Then if it's convenient tonight, come to the Violet Club in Duskcloud City. We'll talk in person—and bring your ID."

"Is there food?"

"There has to be!" Violet snorted a laugh. Her identity was being investigated, yet she saw not a trace of panic on Ryan. She'd never met anyone like him. They'd traded transfers before, so she knew his real-world identity well: orphaned, leaning on his lone sister to survive, hauling bricks on a construction site for money before entering Heaven's Descent—nothing remarkable about him at all.

And yet, whether it was just her imagination, Violet always felt that this boy who looked no more than eighteen or nineteen carried a peculiar charisma, something she couldn't quite name.

"Done—I'll log off and head over now!" Without dawdling, Ryan logged off on the spot, without so much as a goodbye.

"This…" Violet was a little taken aback. The Violet Club was a high-end venue for the upper crust; without standing, you weren't allowed inside. But before she could send Ryan the electronic invitation, he'd already logged off in a hurry, leaving a wry smile tugging at her lips.

"Such an impatient sort…" She shook her head and logged off too. After exiting the game, Ryan came out to the living room, caught the burnt smell wafting from the kitchen, and frowned.

"Are you cooking up a culinary disaster in here?" He stood in the kitchen doorway, the corner of his mouth twitching at the harried figure flailing about in the smoke-choked kitchen.

"I… I only wanted to make everyone a lavish dinner. I didn't expect…" Rosalind hung her head, a smudge of black on her dainty nose, her small hands clutching the hem of her clothes—a sight too endearing not to laugh at.

"All right, no rush. You can't grow fat on one bite—there'll be plenty of time to study the art later," Ryan said.

"As for tonight's dinner, I've already got a place. Go call everyone down, and let's tidy up and head out."

"Head out where?"

"The Violet Club."

"What?! You… you're serious?" Rosalind started, brows knitting.

"But the studio's funds—""Don't worry, it's on me." Ryan smiled.

"It's the studio's first group dinner. We can't go cheap." Looking at the sunny warmth in his smile, Rosalind found herself, for a moment, lost in it.