The Ultimate Evolution

[ ‘Peerless’ (Rare property, has a very small probability of appearing on official General-rank defensive-type Blood Equipment.) ]

[ The condition to activate the ‘Peerless’ effect is satisfied when the equipment holder is attacked by an enemy. ]

[ Activating the ‘Peerless’ effect will cost 50,000 utility points. The effect will last for five minutes and has a cooldown period of 24 hours afterwards. ]

[ When ‘Peerless’ is in effect, any damage done by an enemy on the holder will be forcibly reduced by 20%, and any damage done by a contestant will be forcibly reduced by 30%. ]

[ When ‘Peerless’ is in effect, the holder’s mind will be in a state of hyperactivity and high concentration. The holder will be immune to all abnormal conditions and will ignore all pain. Hardness will also increase by 200 points, so any pushing force against the holder and any rebounding force will be almost completely negligible. ]

[ When ‘Peerless’ is in effect, the holder’s movement speed will increase by 20% and attack speed will increase by 50%. ]

[ When ‘Peerless’ is in effect, each time the holder’s attack hits the enemy, there will be a 20% chance of instantly triggering an additional attack. This additional attack cannot be evaded, blocked or parried. In addition, this additional attack has a 5% bonus in explosive strike rate. ]

[ The precedence of all effects related to ‘Peerless’ is equal to the precedence level of any one of the holder’s equipment and abilities. ] (For example, if Sheyan had an ability of domain precedence, all effects related to ‘Peerless’ would have domain precedence too. But if Sheyan’s abilities and equipment were all garbage, there might be no precedence at all.)

[ Warning: If the holder uses an item or ability to forcibly return to the Nightmare Realm, the ‘Peerless’ effect will disappear. ]

***

An explanation of hardness is in order. Whenever someone was attacked, they may also be subject to the corresponding effect of the force. For example, when one’s chin was hit, their head would fling back and they may be stunned. When one was kicked in the chest, they may stagger back. The higher one’s hardness, the less one would be affected by these negative effects.

A 200-point bonus to hardness meant that even if Sheyan’s chin was was hit by an enemy whose Strength was high enough to have a crushing effect against him, aside from receiving the damage, his chin would only lift up by two or three centimeters. He would also not stagger backwards when he was kicked in the chest. When a grenade blew up in front of him, if his hardness was low, he would be sent flying, but if his hardness was high, he could remain within the explosion radius!

Sheyan’s eyes when he saw the ‘Peerless’ effect were just like his eyes when he saw ‘+13 West’ for the first time. He could already imagine the scene of him running rampant like a tank in the midst of the enemies, with no one able to stop him!

The current Sheyan still had to be wary of being surrounded. Once surrounded and assaulted by a large number of intense attacks from all sides, he would be like a lone tree in the midst of a storm. All the stacked negative effects would be enough to make him fall to the ground and torture him to death. But with ‘Peerless’, he would be like a giant reef in the midst of a storm. Those intense attacks could do nothing to him!

Obviously, the ‘Peerless’ ability was a must, even if it had to occupy the space of two properties. For Sheyan, it was an excellent ability for both rescue and murder.

Especially after experiencing the intense fights in a Bloody World, he could really appreciate the importance of an ability like ‘Peerless’ in large-scale battles!

Sheyan’s heart was in turmoil, but his face remained perfectly calm. In fact, a frown and a hint of disdain had even crept onto his face, as if he was quite dissatisfied with what he saw. It was like the expression of a rich man who was approached by a beggar.

Lieutenant General Mungo soon returned. When he saw Sheyan, he had a helpless look on his face. However, before he could speak, Sheyan had acted first. Sheyan slammed the desk angrily and yelled, “I’m really starting to doubt your sincerity in making this deal, General Mungo! To hell with the high-rank Blood Equipment! I just heard the properties of Ronnie’s custom-tailored Blood Weapon straight from his mouth, and it’s not inferior at all to any of the equipment you showed me! It’s actually even better than some of them!”

Sheyan’s words were definitely lies, but there was no way for Lieutenant General Mungo to verify that. The most shameless thing about Sheyan was that when he lied, it was always in conditions that was impossible for others to disprove.

More importantly, he was comparing the properties of a weapon with that of a defensive equipment. Of course the properties of a weapon were inherently superior. Sometimes, a direct comparison could not even be made. The property of “explosive strike rate +1%” would be better than “evasion +1%” for those who liked to attack, but maybe an MT would prefer the latter. Who’s to say which one was “better”?

Mungo was shocked. He was simply not prepared for the trouble Sheyan was deliberately raising. He was about to reply when Sheyan once again took the initiative by standing up in anger and yelling, “I do wish to respect the dignity of the royal family, but at the same time, the royal family can’t just rob the wealth of their subject like this! When an emperor regards his subjects as targets of robbery, loyalty would become empty words! The price you offer is simply too low compared to the other party!”

Mungo could feel his temples throbbing with pain. To tell the truth, he had to obtain Sheyan’s Pi elemental ingots at all costs. His situation was just like an employee who had just jumped ship to another company, who would of course try to complete the first assignment handed down by his boss with flying colours. If Mungo screwed this up, the first impression he would leave on his new boss would be terrible….

Seeing that Sheyan was prepared to storm out, Mungo slammed his desk and roared, “Stop f*cking around! I can give you the high-ranking ‘Major General’s Blood Armour’. I’ll also give you the Imperial Purple Moon Medal that can give you a 60% reduction in the achievement points required to promote to the next rank. In addition, you’ll have a choice on ONE future mission. You can choose not to accept a mission that’s too dangerous, and you’ll have priority on missions with high reward-risk ratio!”

“These three conditions are my final offer. I know you must have more than 200 ingots; you have to offer ten more ingots for this price. I’ll have to move everywhere and work like a dog to get these things for you. If you still can’t agree to these conditions, you’ll be our enemy from now on!”

Sheyan was over the moon with Mungo’s offer, but he still pretended to fidget uncomfortably and only reluctantly accepted the deal after a long time. After closing the deal, Sheyan quietly snuck two more Pi element ingots to Mungo under the table as a show of goodwill.

Sheyan had ambitious plans after all. The secrets in the Big Ben Research Institute were beckoning at him. But of course, these kind of things could not be done in a hurry. He could only patiently advance his scheme through Mungo.

When the busty female secretary saw the two men smiling as if they had been good friends for years, she could not help silently thinking that all men were untrustable bastards. The both of them seemed ready to pull a knife on each other a few minutes ago, but the next moment, they were already acting chummy like long lost brothers. Finally, she concluded that she could no longer believe the sweet words of that f*cking baldy (Mungo). The only thing she could trust was the number in her bank account!

***

After handling that matter, Sheyan only had a dozen odd Pi element ingots left. Actually, if he had abandoned the various biological materials and samples he collected from planet Uplos, he could have carried a lot more Pi ingots. But it was never in Sheyan’s character to place all his eggs in one basket.

More importantly, considering the current situation in the Empire, to sell the Pi element ingots to someone was virtually equivalent to taking sides. It would be impossible to benefit from multiple sides.

That was to say, the benefit from selling 210 Pi element ingots to Prince Pombaru may very well be about the same as the benefit of selling 420 ingots, because the price a party could offer was not limitless!

Sheyan suspected that what reward Prince Pombaru’s side could offer to the contestants may have been squeezed dry by him. If Ronnie was to go back on his words now and went to Pombaru’s side to sell his Pi ingots to them instead, they could probably only stare at him helplessly.

After all that was done, Sheyan had nothing to do but wait. The reactors on the Kitty Hawk Advance Base had all broken down after the overloading operation, so all of them moved to the Sydney Advance Base to fly to Alps Base 7, where they could fulfill the deal they agreed upon.

Sheyan had already decided that the three main properties on his ‘Major General’s Blood Armour’ would be ‘Peerless’, all attributes +30, and ‘Divine Punishment Aura’. He had also took care to enquire on how to upgrade ‘Divine Punishment Aura’. It turned out that when he gets the ‘Major General Blood Armour’, it would be considered to have been upgraded all the way from a ‘Second Lieutenant Blood Armour’. In total, it would be upgraded six times.

Sheyan could either use these six upgrade chances to strengthen the armour itself, which would enhance the armour’s defence, durability and other basic attributes, or use them on the ‘Divine Punishment Aura’ to push it to LVL 6.

In other words, he could not have his cake and eat it too. He would have to give one up.

Because the ‘Major General Blood Armour’ took up 107% of the Big Ben Research Institute’s contribution quota, Sheyan could not get this armour now because even if the Big Ben Research Institute used all of its quota this season on Sheyan, it was still not enough.

Fortunately, Sheyan’s military rank was also not high enough to wear this armour right now, so he was in no hurry. Since the deal was guaranteed by both the Nightmare Realm and the Empire, he was not afraid of the other side going back on their words either.