Chapter 112: A Great Advancement

"Blood God’s Flesh has reached Level 5. Please select one specialization from the following within 60 seconds, or one will be chosen at random upon timeout."

"Specialization One: Damage Reduction +3%."

"Specialization Two: Health Regeneration +10."

"Specialization Three: Blood God Effect Stack Limit +10 layers."

Chu Cheng remained motionless, quietly watching the countdown on the panel.

After three seconds, as he expected, the panel shifted. The data twisted and reassembled into three new options.

"Blood God’s Flesh has reached Level 5. Please select one specialization within 60 seconds; otherwise, one will be selected at random."

"Specialization One: Damage Reduction +6%."

"Specialization Two: Health Regeneration +30."

"Specialization Three: Blood God Effect Stack Limit +30 layers."

Without hesitation, Chu Cheng said, "I choose Specialization One."

No matter how much health regeneration increased, it couldn’t compare to direct damage reduction.

Without pause, he allocated another 15 skill points into Blade Storm, upgrading it to Level 5.

Blade Storm Level 5 (Advanced): Whirl a destructive storm of blades, dealing physical damage equal to 230% of maximum attack every second to enemies within a 3-meter radius, lasting 7 seconds, with a cooldown of 2 minutes.

Note: During Blade Storm, the caster gains basic super armor, +90 movement speed, and reduces all incoming damage by 30%.

Note: This skill can be dispelled, with authoritative priority.

"Blade Storm has reached Level 5. Please select one specialization within 60 seconds."

Chu Cheng waited expressionlessly for a moment until the specializations refreshed, then immediately chose Specialization One.

Specialization One: Blade Storm’s area of effect +2 meters.

The core function of this skill was not burst damage but damage reduction and clearing minor enemies, so naturally, the larger the range, the better.

With both skills upgraded to Level 5, he had spent 55 skill points. He started with 71, leaving him with 16, which was insufficient for further upgrades.

Closing the panel, Chu Cheng opened the light screen and entered the Starlight Tower’s trading platform.

"Right, I still need to ask the mentor for advice."

After all, his experience was limited, and the teacher was an expert in this area.

He opened a communication channel and sent a message to Su Yingying, one of the mentor’s five assistants, who specialized in skills.

He explained his current situation and asked for guidance on skill configuration.

The response surprised him:

"I recommend you switch all your skills to melee physical types. You currently have three skills; add six more to make nine in total, leaving one skill slot open as a reserve, so you won’t miss out on learning powerful skills in the future."

"Being a jack of all trades is a beautiful trap. Having strong melee and ranged abilities at the same time means neither will reach its full potential."

"Your class is the Transdimensional Traveler, which itself doesn’t differentiate between melee or ranged, physical or magical. But since your talent focuses on damage reduction and your retained skills are melee physical, with attributes allocated accordingly, you must not be half-hearted. You need to specialize and fully develop the talent and potential of your class."

"Attack, defense, penetration, escape, burst, utility — remember these six core points. Configure all your skills around them."

Chu Cheng replied, "Uh... I will seriously consider this."

He closed the communication and rubbed his face, pondering the assistant’s words carefully.

"Attack, defense, penetration, escape, burst, utility."

"It actually makes a lot of sense."

A top-tier academic mentor and assistants must have far more experience than himself and wouldn’t deliberately mislead him.

"Then I’ll follow the teacher’s advice."

With that thought, Chu Cheng abandoned his original plan of a hybrid melee and ranged build.

He reopened the internal trading platform. On the first page was equipment for sale.

"Wow!"

A legendary item glowing with orange light was pinned at the top of the page, dropping his jaw in astonishment.

"Even legendary equipment is for sale? This is so high-end."

But after carefully reading the equipment stats, Chu Cheng understood why it was up for sale.

Soul Eater (Orange / Legendary)

Equipment Type: Dagger

Requirements: Level 50, Dagger Mastery

Base Attack: 460 slashing, 460 piercing

Additional Attributes: +60 Strength

Additional Attributes: +60 Agility

Additional Attributes: +50 Armor Penetration

Special Ability: Soul Devour — Killing a sentient target allows you to consume the target’s soul, gaining one Soul Fragment. Each fragment grants +5 attack and +1 armor penetration, up to 100 fragments.

Skill / Active: Soul Devour Strike — Consumes at least 50 Soul Fragments to deal a 5x critical hit to the target, plus true damage equal to 30 times the number of Soul Fragments consumed.

Note: Each use of Soul Devour Strike triggers a Fortitude and Will saving throw. Failure burns 1-2 random attributes from the user.

Sockets: 6

Evaluation: A weapon that can devour souls — it can consume enemy souls and even the souls of warlords.

This is an ultra-violent assassination weapon with explosive power, but its side effects are severe.

Each time you use the burst skill, you must pass both Fortitude and Will saves; failure means losing attributes, which is outrageous.

No wonder it’s for sale. Few can withstand such repercussions.

Fortitude comes from Constitution, and Will from Spirit. How many people stack both so high?

If you never use Soul Devour Strike, it can still serve as a weapon with extremely high attack and attributes, but the price is outrageously high — 9,999 gold.

Spending that much and only getting half the power isn’t worth it.

Chu Cheng definitely wouldn’t do that.

After a brief reflection, he shifted his gaze to other areas of the trading platform.

Compared to the meager campus network of No. Five Middle School, the Starlight Tower’s internal trading platform was beyond his imagination.

Rare-quality equipment that was extremely scarce on the No. Five platform lined up in rows here, and there were several rows of epic-grade gear he had never seen before.

Adjusting the display, he noticed other orange legendary items besides the Soul Eater for sale.

These top-tier items were openly listed for purchase.

Though the prices were somewhat exaggerated, they were clearly marked.

Besides direct sales, the campus auction house also featured many items unavailable at No. Five.

For example, various cut rare or epic gems, customized equipment socketing.

Various rare handcrafted items, such as food and potions that temporarily boost attributes, advanced first-aid bandages, magical scrolls, precious magical materials, even enchanting runes were for sale.

Moreover, beyond direct sales, the platform accepted various commissions and even servitude contracts. With enough money, you could hire senior student teams to assist in combat or missions.

Many professors, mentors, or advanced specialists required extremely rare magical materials or needed to complete tasks in specific dungeons.

When unable to complete these tasks themselves, they could hire reputable teams for assistance.