Unholy Player

Chapter 449: Upgrading Treasures

Adyr had bought these Sparks after long consideration, and aside from their low cost, the most intriguing part was that their skills were not passive boosts like his 3 Cragfin Sentinels, which together increased his defense by 30%, or his 3 Emberdart Minnows, which increased his speed by 30%. Instead, they possessed entirely active skills, such as Sonic Burst or Burst Leap.

Naturally, Adyr had a specific reason for spending his hard-earned energy crystals on 7 Sparks with the same type of skill, since these skills were now the foundation of his new trump-card combo attack.

Their names came from their defining skill: Sacrifice Bee.

These Astra-path creatures were extremely dangerous. When they felt threatened or enraged, by using their Sacrifice skill to detonate their entire bodies, even a single one of them could cause one of the most powerful explosions any Rank 3 Spark could produce.

Of course, their low price had two clear reasons. First, raising them inside a Sanctuary was dangerous. If anything went wrong, they could blow themselves up and damage the Practitioner’s land.

Second, the Sacrifice skill required the Practitioner’s own body to detonate as well, which made it nearly impossible to use without dying.

Adyr was fine with the first drawback. As long as they were not disturbed, the Sacrifice Bees simply lived peacefully around their flowers, and Cannibal, being a careful and attentive farmer, managed them without issue.

The second drawback, however, was actually an advantage for Adyr because of his innate ability, Time Devour.

If he activated all 7 Sparks’ skills at once, the explosion would be powerful enough to completely erase his body in an instant. However, because Time Devour allowed him to rewind his body to 3 seconds earlier, he could unleash this destructive force without suffering any damage.

And this skill wasn’t the only component of the combo attack he designed.

On the other side of the island, inside a small habitat he built as a fire zone, lived another creature different from the lizard-like Emberdart Minnows.

Adyr had previously owned a Rank 3 monkey that ran around the area, but since he didn’t need it, he sold it and bought something else instead: a rock-like Spark that looked like a burning coal but was, in truth, another living Ignis path being.

This Spark’s name was Amplirock. It was one of the more expensive Rank 3 types, but feeding it was extremely easy, since it only consumed active fire. Its skill, however, was extremely useful.

The skill Amplification was a type of buff that allowed the user to tenfold the effect of any explosion while also adding an igniting property to it.

With this Spark, Adyr’s combo was no longer just suicidal in nature but capable of turning him into a living bomb that, at full capacity, could create destruction close to a nuclear-level impact.

Aside from these bees, the rock, and his 6 buff-type Sparks, Adyr sold all his remaining Sparks, keeping only the Ant one with the size manipulation skill for the Tower of Worth, since he believed it might be useful later.

He also replaced his movement skill, Burst Hop, with a Rank 3 spark called Ghostly Crane.

It was a creature with a white, ghost-like body that now flew among the clouds above his Sanctuary. Its skill, Ghost Step, was a buff that allowed the user to make their body up to 5 times faster.

Even though it had "Ghost" in both its name and its skill, it was a purely buff-type Ignis-path Spark with no connection to spirituality, and its slightly transparent body was only because it was formed from dense gases.

Filling 18 out of 20 slots with these Sparks, he planned to replace them with better ones once he reached the Midlands. For now, these were the best Sparks he could acquire in the Outer Region market.

"Defense, movement, and attack come from my Spark skills. Grace for healing, Malice for debuff and attack boost. I am also good at tracking and surveillance thanks to my Gaze and Presence combo. I now have everything I need to be versatile," Adyr’s energy body murmured quietly as it descended toward the Mother Tree.

Approaching its massive form, he placed his hand against the thick dark-brown trunk and waited.

Since he had no means of actively using Nihil’s Absence ability like his other bloodline talents, he simply waited, hoping the treasure could sense and absorb the genesis energy on its own.

Cannibal, also noticing this, stopped collecting bird poops and watched, curious about what madness Adyr was attempting this time.

Only a few seconds passed before the enormous tree began to tremble and grow even larger.

"Can’t you give me a heads up first?" Cannibal yelled as the shaking rolled across the entire island, grabbing his shovel and the bucket full of bird shit before sprinting away from the roots that were ripping through the ground.

It wasn’t just the tree that was growing; the twin islands were expanding as well.

Adyr ignored Cannibal, who was cursing and fleeing in panic, but returned his attention to the bees with concern.

If the 7 bees felt threatened by the small earthquake and decided to detonate, the damage to the island would be devastating.

Thankfully, they seemed unaffected. Even so, to be safe, Adyr used his Grace ability on them, making sure they felt secure and unthreatened so they would not enter an aggressive state.

Once the changes stopped and all growth came to an end, he drifted back into the sky to check the new size of his islands.

The islands were already large, so the change was not dramatic. Both islands had increased from 9000 by 9000 to 9500 by 9500, a growth of just a little more than 5 percent.

However, the real gain came from the Mother Tree. Its daily fruit production, which previously granted 5 stat points, had now become 6, and its fertilizer requirement, which used to be 50 crystals, had increased to 60, rising proportionally.

[Name] Mother Tree

[Rank] 1

Description:

An ancient seed, as old as the known gods themselves, once rooted at the edge of the void and became a pillar for many races across generations.

Nourished by the pure energy of existence, a special fruit grows daily on its branches. Eating this fruit grants +6 free stat points.

To grow the seed into a tree, it must be buried in soil together with crystals totaling 1000 energy. Afterward, it requires daily fertilization with crystals totaling 60 energy to remain active and bear fruit.

"It’s still Rank 1. I wonder if it will rank up after some time," Adyr murmured with curiosity, then shifted his attention to the Tower of Worth, letting it absorb the new genesis energy as well.

It was still in its small staff form, looking like an ordinary stone staff, though the tiny details on its surface—small window shapes, a door design, and engravings reminiscent of Roman architecture—hinted that it was actually a tower.

As it began absorbing energy, nothing major changed on the surface. The stone simply looked more polished and more durable to the eye.

Once the upgrade was completed, Adyr checked its description to see what had actually changed.