The Highest Bounty

Chapter 166 Gu Ding’s New Ability

Lilliath slowly opened her eyes and saw Gu Ding smiling at her. “I knew you’d be alright.”

Then she saw the old man next to Gu Ding. “Is he… our new member?”

Gu Ding had always liked recruiting strange people. Even if he did, Lilliath would not be surprised, so she asked the question the moment she saw him.

“My name is Caesar.” Caesar smiled faintly. Lilliath looked exactly like Tini.

“Are you… Grandpa?!” Although Liliath had never seen Caesar, she often heard her mother mentioning the name. He was her father and a demi-powerhouse.

“Tini told me about you. We’ve actually been in touch, but we haven’t met each other. Within a year of her marriage, she sent me a message that she had a daughter and sent me a picture of you…” Caesar said and projected the picture. It was a little baby wrapped tightly in a blanket. Her skin was pink, and she looked adorable.

“Then your father was expelled from the family and his spaceship crashed on the way out. I thought you… I didn’t expect God would offer me the blessing of meeting you again.” Caesar had always thought that Lilliath died in the disaster with her parents.

“When my mother saw the interceptors, she knew something was going to happen. She immediately put me into an invisible escape pod. I was the only one who escaped.” Lilliath explained. I saw the Dreadnought burst aflame with my own eyes… Shortly after, my escape pod landed on a nearby administrative planet, so I changed my name to Lilliath and began to drift around to make myself stronger. That’s when I met Gu Ding…”

Meanwhile, Gu Ding had reached the door and called out to the others, “Lili’s awake, everyone come in!”.

Even Caesar, who always preferred the peace and quiet did not object.

Biggie and the rest barged their way in.

Lilliath was visibly startled at the sight of Elsa. Her eyes glossed over Elsa’s chest which was matured for her age. There was a flash of envy in her eyes, but she held out her hand anyway. “Hello, my name is Lilliath, are you the new member?”

“My name is Elsa. Nice to meet you!” Elsa held out her hand too.

“Sister Elsa, what do you like to eat?” Suspecting that the size of her breasts might have something to do with her diet, Liliath decided to ask Elsa for advice.

“Hehe, Elsa eats twice as much as I do, and she’s not fussy at all.” Biggie chimed in on the subject of food.

Lilliath ignored Biggie. She looked expectantly at Elsa.

“Biggie’s right. We Vikings eat a lot. My father eats a hundred times as much as I do. We eat everything, but meat and fish are our favorites…” When it came to food, Elsa instantly felt like they had something in common.

“Vikings?” Lilliath had read about the race. “Can your people really tame dragons?”

“Most people tame vipers when they grow up. So far only my father and two other warriors have tamed real dragons. Out of the three dragons, father’s Acoot is the strongest, even though he’s not fully mature yet.”

After hearing what Elsa said, Lilliath deduced that Elsa’s father should at least be a demigod. This was because dragons had powers like a god after reaching adulthood. Their powers were comparable to a demigod even in infancy. In that case, Elsa should not be weak.

Gu Ding and his crew left the wooden hut, leaving Elsa and Lilliath to talk.

“Gu Ding, you really need to get stronger.” After leaving the wooden hut, Neptune’s voice reached Gu Ding. “I’ve just scanned Liliath’s body. She’s jumped to Peak Rank-6 Gene Body from Rank-4 Gene Body. The double spiral gene chain in her body has become a triple spiral. Your bounty is comparable to that of a Peak Rank-9 martial arts practitioner, which is seriously disproportionate to your actual combat effectiveness.”

“It has been nearly a month since the last Energy Crystal was implanted. I think it’s about time. After this promotion, Neptune, you can teach me how to cultivate primary power, right?” Gu Ding also knew that Neptune was just telling the truth. His combat effectiveness was nowhere near the top in Dragon Soar Cosmic Nation. In Border River, it was the law of the jungle, there were more powerhouses. Even with strong members like Elsa in the mix, Gu Ding was not looking to rely on his partners to protect him. Besides, Elsa’s “you look really weak” statement when she challenged Biggie before joining the crew made Gu Ding realized the extent of his weakness.

“There’s only one Rank-6 crystal left but there are quite a few Rank-7s here. You hunted them down during space-time backtracking. There are ten. Lili’s having a good chat with Elsa right now, maybe later.” Neptune counted the Energy Crystals.

“This time I’ll ask Robert to implant it for me.” Gu Ding felt that Robert was better suited for the job than Lilliath.

Taking Robert aside, Gu Ding asked him for the crystal implantation, and Robert readily agreed. The last thing he wanted was to have nothing to do. He, too, had been looking after the crew and did not have much time to spend in his laboratory. He was glad to hear Gu Ding ask him for help.

The two borrowed Biggie’s portable kitchen and began the implantation.

“First, implant a Rank-6 Energy Crystal and three Rank-7s to see if you can hit Rank-6 in one go.” Gu Ding decided to take a chance.

Neptune did not object because he knew that whatever force entered Gu Ding’s body would be completely absorbed by the strange virus.

Robert was so quick that he made a perfect incision in Gu Ding’s neck with a single swipe of his finger and inserted the four crystals in less than ten seconds.

The neck wound quickly disappeared with the help of Gu Ding’s high-speed regenerative ability.

The virus reappeared and within minutes, it had engulfed all four crystals. Gu Ding’s body began to change drastically. The gene locks in his body broke twice in a row, elevating Gu Ding’s Rank-3 Gene Body to Rank-5. His cell strength and activity were strengthened once again, and his Cell Index increased rapidly.

The gene chain that held the berserker conversion ability finally morphed again and seemed to be strengthened.

The other gene chain had also started to experience its first change, followed closely by a second and a third.

When all the changes had been made, Neptune checked Gu Ding’s body data:

Name: Gu Ding

Gender: Male

Age: 15

Gene Level: Rank-5

Special Ability 1: Level 3 Rage Attack (Evolvable)

Ability Description: A fourfold increase in attack effectiveness, defense, speed, and resilience that lasts ten minutes.

Side Effects: Enter a state of unconsciousness for ten hours, combat effectiveness will be halved.

Special Ability 2: Level 1 high-speed regeneration (Evolvable)

Ability Description: Cells’ regenerative ability to increase by tenfold (Permanent).

Special Ability 3: Level 3 Damage Stacking (Curse Stream ability) (Evolvable)

Ability Description: Cast a curse on the target, the damage can be stacked. Every consecutive hit adds extra damage to all previous hits.

Special Ability 4: Absolute Seal (Level 1 taboo energy) (Evolvable)

Ability Description: It could create an Absolute Seal effect on any living body through touch. This effect involves sealing all their energy, including primary power, special abilities, cell energy, spirit, and any form of energy.

Ability Limit 1: Seal time: 10 hours.

Ability Limit 2: There is a downtime of 30days between each use.

Ability Limit 3: Ineffective against inanimate objects.

Ability Limit 4: Only works on a single target.

Special Ability 5: Level 3 Iron Block (Evolvable) Ability Description: Makes the skin, muscles, internal organs, and bones of the body as solid as iron. Increases defense by fourfold and applies a 4% reverse shock effect to incoming attacks.

Ability Limit: Can only be used for up to half an hour at a time. Defense will be halved when the effect is over.

Cell Index: 3000

Spirit Index: 2950

Battle Prowess: B+

Mental Cognition: A

After projecting the data out, Gu Ding was still not satisfied. He thought he could promote to Rank-6 Gene Body, but he got stuck at Rank-5. “Go ahead and implant the remaining seven crystals.”

Robert nodded and once again made a cut in Gu Ding’s neck before stuffing the remaining seven crystals inside.

After the seven crystals were engulfed by the virus, just as expected by Neptune, they stopped affecting the gene locks. Instead, it accelerated the evolution of Gu Ding’s Iron Block ability.

After the gene chain associated with the Iron Block ability finished morphing, it once again caused changes in the three surrounding gene chains.

When the process was over, only one piece of data in Gu Ding’s body changed-the original Iron Block transformed into Advanced Iron Block.

Special Ability 5: Level 2 Advanced Iron Block (Evolvable)

Ability Description: Makes the skin, muscles, internal organs, and bones of the body as solid as iron. It could also form a layer of energy protection outside the body. Increases defense by twenty times its original value and applies a 20% reverse shock effect to incoming attacks.

Ability Limit: Can only be used for up to an hour at a time. Defense will fall to 1/3 of its original value when the effect wears off. “This ability seems to be able to hold off primary power attacks…” Gu Ding was also a little surprised at the breakdown of the Advanced Iron Block ability. Although it did not meet his expectations, his overall strength seemed to have improved significantly.

With a base combat effectiveness of 3000 points, plus the fourfold increase from rage, the twentyfold increase from the Rank-8 Ultimate Arts, and the twofold increase from Combat Armor, Gu Ding’s combat effectiveness could potentially reach up to four hundred and eighty thousand points. A Rank-9 Gene Body’s combat effectiveness was usually between one hundred thousand and one million points. This way, Gu Ding had reached Rank-9 combat effectiveness. Once he used Advanced Iron Block ability, his defense would experience a twentyfold increase. That was nearly ten million units worth of defense. Only a peak Rank-10 Gene Body powerhouse could hurt him. If anyone wanted to kill Gu Ding, they would have to be stronger than a Rank-11Gene Body powerhouse.