Chapter 1532 - 55: Upgraded Apollo

Chapter 1532: Chapter 55: Upgraded Apollo

In an abandoned hospital, dirty syringes were scattered everywhere, with a wooden placard hanging from the corridor chandelier, conspicuously displaying... 17 minutes and 56 seconds.

Su Xiao was not in any Derivative World, but in an arena simulated timed scene. This time, the opponent was peculiar. The match had been going on for 13 minutes, yet Su Xiao hadn’t found where the opponent was.

With a bang, Su Xiao kicked through a wooden door, the shattered boards splintering everywhere, and he finally found his opponent for this match.

"Sorry to keep you waiting."

A man wearing sunglasses spoke up in the ward, the floor beneath him covered with twisted patterns.

"Silence."

The man with sunglasses snapped his fingers, plunging the world around Su Xiao into a deathly silence. He lunged forward to the man with sunglasses, his long knife slicing downward.

"Fallen Light."

The man with sunglasses snapped his fingers again, and Su Xiao’s vision immediately blacked out. Just before his sight was sealed, Su Xiao judged from the feel of the slice that he had successfully struck the enemy, severing a few ribs at the opponent’s torso.

The man with sunglasses grunted, stepping back several paces. The eyes beneath his sunglasses dull and without light, he was unexpectedly a blind man. It’s known that blind Contractors are extremely rare, and only one kind of situation would cause permanent blindness, which is a profession trait.

A large spray of blood splattered, the man with sunglasses retreating further. Su Xiao stood still, his hearing and vision sealed, or rather, not that the opponent affected his senses, but changed the surrounding environment.

Having fought in the arena for over six hours, Su Xiao climbed from rank 9570 to 128. The numerous high-ranking victories led him to match with opponents ranked within the top hundred.

Complete darkness enveloped, a deathly silence around him, with both vision and hearing sealed, significantly reducing his Perception Force.

Su Xiao placed his long knife horizontally in front, closing his eyes. Even with vision and hearing sealed, he could still fight.

In the ward, the man with sunglasses casually picked up a medical record and tossed it towards Su Xiao.

Clang.

The blade swept through, and when the medical record got within five meters of Su Xiao, it was sliced into countless shreds of paper.

Bang, bang, bang...

Several gunshots rang out, sparks flying as all 15 bullets were deflected by Su Xiao. Dozens of hexagonal counter shields hovered around him.

"At least Grandmaster Level in Sword Technique, unlucky."

The man with sunglasses gave a slightly helpless smile. As a Spiritual Control type, he understood the immunity to control ability of a Sword Grandmaster; thus, most of his core abilities had little effect on Su Xiao. Moreover, maintaining the surrounding barrier consumed a large amount of Mana Value.

"I suppose this is just my bad luck."

The man with sunglasses snapped his fingers, and the surrounding darkness and sound barrier receded; he chose to forfeit.

Su Xiao returned to the resting room and checked the match records.

[Arena Competitor: Su Xiao.]

[Status: Fatigued.]

[Rank: 116 (Fourth Tier).]

[Consecutive Wins: 77.]

[Top Five Reward: Not Obtained.]

...

Approaching the top hundred of the arena, Su Xiao didn’t continue matching opponents. The long period of high-intensity combat inevitably led to mental fatigue, besides, he had other matters to handle.

Leaving the arena, Su Xiao headed straight to the exclusive room. Upon returning, he found that Bubu Wang, A Mu, and Bennie were out gallivanting somewhere. The three together could easily play poker, and with Su Xiao, they could play mahjong.

But Su Xiao never gambled with A Mu, not to protect A Mu’s ’pure’ mind, but to avoid unnecessarily losing Paradise coins.

Once, Su Xiao, Bubu Wang, and A Mu, having nothing to do in a Derivative World, entertained themselves by playing poker. It took two days to teach A Mu the game rules.

In those two days, the man, the dog, and the bull only managed to play three rounds. The reason was simple: in all three rounds, the combined hands of Su Xiao and Bubu Wang didn’t exceed a Jack, and their cards were even more astonishingly scattered.

When A Mu played four Queens and four Kings one after another, Su Xiao and Bubu Wang were astounded to find out they couldn’t counter and the same thing happened in consecutive games, leaving Bubu Wang in utter silence, ending his life as a gambling god.

Su Xiao still had 507,800 Paradise coins left. These were to be used for resupplying materials and crafting a new model of Apollo.

Su Xiao had spent considerable time researching conventional Alchemy Bombs in the Bleach World, with little progress. However, he made notable advancements concerning Apollo.

Entering the Alchemy Lab, Su Xiao first made the [Ancient Potion]. The previously made potions had been depleted, mostly used by A Mu, who had conflicts with Contractors in the real world more than once; Su Xiao also used some while dealing with Death Omen.

This time, Su Xiao planned to make at least ten bottles, preparing to enter a world he knew nothing about. Based on Su Xiao’s speculation, it was either an Original world or a world located within the Void.

While making the [Ancient Potion], Su Xiao called Bubu Wang back, needing the Ice and Snow Goddess’ Aura to restore his Mana Value.

Time flew by. After Su Xiao successfully produced ten bottles of [Ancient Potion], Bubu Wang had gone out again.

At the workstation, Su Xiao placed a small piece of Fire Gold into a test tube, observing the reaction within. After waiting for an hour, he poured the contents into the waste pool, writing off 8000 Paradise coins just like that.

The power of Apollo’s explosion was indeed fierce, but it also required Su Xiao to spend equivalent resources and time.

Su Xiao was gradually improving Apollo, or more precisely, finding ways to shorten the detonation time. Thirty seconds was too long. Previously, he detonated Apollo in the wooden building at the First Squad’s headquarters, only managing to kill a few Soul Reapers. Even though that time he detonated Apollo to buy time for the Spiritual Pulse.

With a delay of 30 seconds, the strength of Su Xiao’s current enemies allowed them to escape Apollo’s blast range, unless the environment was special.

Su Xiao took out a Soul Crystal (Medium), then exchanged for 200,000 Paradise coins worth of Fire Gold and Sun Remains, beginning the attempt to create a new model of Apollo, or the upgraded version.

When one immerses in something, time flies quickly. A dozen hours later, Bubu Wang, A Mu, and Bennie returned to the exclusive room together. Upon hearing sounds from the lab, Bubu Wang softly opened the lab door to avoid disturbing Su Xiao making Alchemy Items.

A fireball, five meters in diameter, came into Bubu Wang’s view, causing its fur to stand on end. It urgently closed the lab door.

The fireball hovered before Su Xiao, who pressed it between his hands, compressing it gradually with spiritual power until it became a spherical object the size of an apple.

Su Xiao held the upgraded version of Apollo in hand; visually it appeared unchanged, but it cost him 300,000 points of Paradise coins. Of course, prototyping was different from regular production, and the true cost of this Apollo was 100,000 Paradise coins + Soul Crystal (Medium) × 1 + 1000 points of Mana Value.

[Sun God Apollo]

Quality: Gold

Type: Consumable

Effect: Can consume 1 Mana to activate at any time (detonation range two kilometers, widened to four kilometers for the creator), causing an immediate 8000 points of true burn damage within 2000 meters upon explosion (range increased by 1000 meters, true burn damage increased by 2000 points), with an additional 6000 points of fire burn damage following (fire burn damage increased by 4000 points).

Note: Detonating the Sun God Apollo requires 25 seconds.

Rating: 400 points

Introduction: The majesty of the Sun, not to be challenged!