Start from the God of Death and break through the world.

Chapter 946 The Arrogant Red Spider Lily

Lu Li was deeply shocked, because even the lowest-grade gems in the bag were of the Immortal level. He also saw Chaos level gems, and even gems of a quality he had never seen before, known as the Great Dao level.

These invaluable gems were placed in a seemingly ordinary cloth bag. Even if it contained a hidden world, it was still not a high-end storage item, which shows that the owner of these gems did not care about their value.

Without even thinking, Lu Li knew that this bag definitely didn't belong to Xi Sun. Although Xi Sun was stronger than him, he believed that she could collect some Chaos-level gems, but he didn't believe that she could have a bunch of Great Dao-level gems piled up like a small mountain in the gem bag.

Such a huge amount of assets was handed over to someone so casually. Obviously, the owner was not worried that anyone would dare to embezzle his gems, and Xi Sun did not seem to be interested in these gems at all.

Lu Li calmed down and began to search through the gem bag. With such a large number of gems, he could naturally find the inlay he liked. The only problem was that he wasn't sure how the other party would calculate the price.

“Miss Xisun, these gems don’t have prices listed…”

Lu Li inquired, since Xi Sun said he could choose for himself and she hadn't even looked at them, it meant she didn't know the price either.

Moreover, given the owner's immense wealth, they probably wouldn't bother to price each gem individually.

"Oh, Manjusaka said that it will be calculated at 100 million End Coins per coin."

Xi Sun slowly exhaled a puff of smoke and said with a smile.

Lu Li's eyes lit up, and he wished he could bury his head in the bag. "You even calculate Chaos-level and Great Dao-level gems like this?"

Xi Sun shrugged. "You can interpret it that way too, anyway, that's what she said."

Lu Li was filled with turmoil, but he gradually calmed down and shook his head. "I'll just choose the immortal-grade gem I originally wanted."

Choosing top-grade immortal gems already comes at a very attractive price, but he knows there's no such thing as a free lunch. If he takes Chaos and Great Dao level gems, there will definitely be other costs in the future.

Moreover, since the other party had done so much for him, Lu Li felt it would be too unethical of him to just take whatever he wanted.

After browsing for a while, Lu Li took a liking to a few inlaid objects.

【Devil's Edge】

Origin: Native World No. 939

Quality: Immortal

Item type: Gem

Usage: Insert after drilling the hole in the equipment.
Usage requirements: Can only be inlaid on sword-type main weapons.

Details: The blood of a demon will temper everything. After socketing this gem, the main weapon's sharpness attribute will increase by 10%.
Rating: 3500+
Review: A sharp knife, perfect for cutting through anything fancy.

This is an Immortal-grade gem with a perfect score. Its function is simple and straightforward, yet quite brutal.

The above indicates an increase based on a percentage of the attribute. The sharpness of the equipment is calculated on the same principle as the attribute; the higher the sharpness, the greater the difference between each point.

This gem's effect doesn't increase sharpness by a percentage, but rather by a percentage of the attribute. For example, if Lu Li's Prisoner currently has 250 points of sharpness, then a 10% increase would give him 275 points of sharpness.

To put it more directly, a blade with 275 points of sharpness can easily cut through a body with 275 points of constitution and no defense.

All I can say is that this gem provides a huge boost to equipment. Even if Lu Li enhances his equipment to +11 in the enhancement hall, he only gains 11 points of sharpness. This gem, however, can add 25 points of sharpness.

Lu Li had never seen such an incredible immortal-grade gem on the market. He could only say that even among this mountain of gems, this gem's characteristics were top-notch. If it were put on the market, it could easily fetch a price of over 200 million, or even higher depending on the circumstances.

With a large number of gems in front of him, and the other party offering a discount, Lu Li decided not to settle for some of the gems and planned to replace the Blood of the End on the Prison Demon.

He found a gem called Soulbreaker, a perfect upgrade to End Blood, which even increased the kill threshold to 30%.
He planned to embed the next gem into the Soul Eater.

【Eternal Ice Jade】

Origin: Native World No. 568

Quality: Immortal

Item type: Gem

Usage: Insert after drilling the hole in the equipment.
Usage requirement: To be inlaid on jewelry-type equipment.

Details: The Eternal Ice Jade from the Frozen Realm can freeze any creature that triggers it and cool down any overheating. After socketing this gem, you can choose to activate a skill on a piece of equipment. If you choose an active skill, you can reduce its cooldown time to one-tenth of the original.

If it is a passive skill with a limited number of uses, then the limit on the number of times it can be triggered will be lifted.

Rating: 3500+
Evaluation: High frequency, never overloaded!
At first glance, this gem doesn't seem that overpowered, but in reality, many powerful skills on equipment have very long cooldowns. If the cooldowns could be reduced to one-tenth, it would be incredibly overpowered.

Moreover, if some of the restrictions on the number of triggers can be lifted, Lu Li's Soul Eater will reach a new realm.

Originally, the Soul Eater encountered some bottlenecks in its growth. Even with overclocking, Lu Li could only trigger the Soul Eater passive a maximum of 14 times per second.

The Soul Eater's Psionic Surge can deal additional true damage equal to 16% of his maximum Soul Source value when he attacks. If this skill is actively activated, the Soul Eater will consume 20% of the Pioneer's Soul Source per second and deal additional true damage equal to 45% of his maximum Soul Source value when he attacks.

The numerical description of this effect did not change after it was promoted to Immortal level; it simply became perfectly effective on high-strength beings as well.

While 14 times per second seems impressive, Lu Li believes its practicality is somewhat limited in the eighth-tier realm.

He used to rely heavily on the Soul Eater, and with the help of lightning and the like, a single high-frequency electric shock could take down an enemy.

That's because a second used to seem like a very short time at that stage, but now that he's in the mid-to-late stages of the eighth rank, he can't even count how many times Lu Li can slash in a second.

Moreover, in this field, the Demonic Healing Prohibition ability that Lu Li found very useful in the early days is not very effective. Almost every explorer has the skill to remove the negative status of healing prohibition, and most lone wolves also have high recovery skills.

The Soul Eater can trigger 14 times per second, and the enemy might be able to recover hundreds of times. Therefore, in many battles now, Lu Li will strike with full force after finding the enemy's weakness, maximizing the attack multiplier to instantly kill the opponent.

Trying to kill an opponent with the Soul Eater's 'slow' trigger frequency of true damage is a bit difficult.

Because Lu Li doesn't inflict Soul Eater damage with every strike, if he lands 14 strikes in 0.001 seconds, then the 15th strike won't inflict Soul Eater damage.

However, if this gem is inlaid, the limitations of the Soul Eater will be lifted, and it will once again become one of the most overpowered and abnormal pieces of equipment. Every attack it makes in battle will be accompanied by true damage equal to 45% of its maximum Soul Source value. Furthermore, it possesses the Seed of Immortal Spirit, and the true damage added to each strike is so violent that it can severely injure the opponent. If the opponent has not specifically strengthened their own Life Source, a single trigger of the Soul Eater's damage could be fatal.

Of course, when Lu Li makes hypothetical enemies, he never sets the weak as his enemies. His hypothetical enemies are all overpowered beings of the same level, or beings whose attributes far exceed his.

In battles between opponents of the same level, the Soul Eater's abilities can, in most cases, allow him to easily kill his opponent.

After selecting three gems, Lu Li found another gem that perfectly suited his starry sky.

【Primordial Bloodstone】

Origin: HarmonyOS

Quality: Immortal

Item type: Gem

Usage: Insert after drilling the hole in the equipment.
Usage requirement: To be inlaid on jewelry-type equipment.

Details: A specialty of the Hongmeng Space, containing the power of innate qi and blood vitality. After being inlaid, due to its desire to replenish its own energy, the equipment will gain the power to absorb life essence.

The specific absorption rate is determined by the percentage increase in Life Points that the equipment can bring to the Pioneer, and the value is 30% of that percentage.

[Note: If inlaid in the Pioneer's ring accessory 'Starry Sky', it will grant a 30% increase in Life Source Absorption.]

When the Pioneer performs a contact attack (non-ranged attack), the properties of the Primordial Bloodstone will be triggered, restoring 30% of the damage dealt to the Pioneer's Life Essence. If the Pioneer's Life Essence is full, this energy will gently replenish the Pioneer's stamina, invigorating the Pioneer's body and spirit.

Rating: 3500+
Review: I suck blood!

This gem isn't very effective when socketed into regular equipment, and it's actually quite demanding to make it work, because even if regular equipment increases the explorer's maximum life points, the calculation is additive.

This gem requires a multiplicative attribute that increases life essence to trigger its effect. Coincidentally, his Starry Sky Ring has a very rare multiplicative attribute that independently increases his life essence value cap.

The Immortal-grade Starry Sky Ring has a 100% bonus in this regard, so it can provide a 30% increase in life source absorption.

This ability alone doesn't seem very strong, since Lu Li's own recovery ability is already superhuman, so he doesn't seem to need a life-stealing ability.

However, this gem has a synergy with another gem, and when they work together, it becomes quite absurd.

Bloodbath

Origin: Native World 823
Quality: Immortal

Item type: Gem

Usage: Insert after drilling the hole in the equipment.
Usage requirement: To be inlaid on jewelry-type equipment.

Details: A product of the Blood Pool Wasteland in the Cangmo Continent, it can transform the perpetual blood energy there into killing intent, killing any creature that ventures into the wasteland.

When this gem is socketed into a healing trinket, if the trinket's life recovery effect on the Pioneer exceeds the limit, it will deal magic damage equal to the excess value to the enemy closest to the Pioneer.

[Note: This damage cannot trigger life-absorbing passives repeatedly.]

Rating: 3500+
Review: A favorite of those who are prone to making jinxes (or "poisonous milk").

Lu Li planned to drill another hole in the Starry Sky Ring and set the two gems in it together. This way, the originally defensive Starry Sky Ring would have offensive capabilities based on its own characteristics.

Some explorers might not understand this, because the Blood Kill Gem's attribute is marked as dealing magic damage, which would be reduced by resistance, so it might not actually do much damage to enemies, making it somewhat useless.

Lu Li understood this principle. If he only used 30% of his damage to heal himself through life steal, and then returned the damage as magic damage after going around in circles, the final damage might be pitifully small. Based on the enemy's resistance, it might not even be 1% of the damage he initially dealt.

However, his Starry Sky Ring also has a skill called 'Boundless'. The Immortal-level Starry Sky Ring will make him immune to all healing-blocking effects of Tier 8 and below, and will increase his life essence natural regeneration rate by 10000%. When he receives any life essence recovery effect, he will receive a 10000% recovery bonus.

The key point is the latter function, which includes all life-restoring effects, including absorption and restoration. This requires 'reversing the power meter' (or similar functionality).

Because of his lifesteal effect, it will be multiplied by 100, which is equivalent to 30 times the damage of his previous slash. Using this amount of magic damage to attack enemies, even if the resistance is reduced significantly, the damage will definitely not be inferior to the damage of Lu Li's direct slash.

Simply put, the synergy between these two gems allows Lu Li to recover from near-death to full health with a single strike every time he engages an enemy in close combat, while also inflicting additional, extremely high magic damage.

Lu Li had already selected five gems, but since he had such a good opportunity, he didn't plan to keep much money in his pocket, so he selected two more gems.

Fear Siphon

Origin: Native World 6699
Quality: Immortal

Item type: Gem

Usage: Insert after drilling the hole in the equipment.
Usage requirement: To be socketed into equipment that can activate gem properties.

Details: The left eye of the evil god Metox, which changed with each era, became a fossil over a long period of time, and the resulting product transformed the fear of living beings into the power of a gem.

When a gem is inlaid on equipment, if the equipment has a fear-intimidating ability, the fear siphon effect will be triggered when the ability weakens the enemy.

The weakened resistances and attributes of the enemy will be added to the Pioneer.

[Note: The Fear Siphon effect only affects a single target, and by default, it selects the strongest enemy within the effective range to absorb power.]

Rating: 3500+
Comment: Your fear is my strength!

This gem belongs to an obscure category, and it would probably be difficult to sell on the market. This is because the gem does not require control or suppression skills, and its scope is quite limited. It means that it requires fear and intimidation abilities, which can only be achieved by explorers with low charisma using special equipment skills.

It can be said that this gem is almost exclusive to the Mask of Evil. When his fear aura is activated, it can not only weaken the enemy's dual resistances, but also increase his own dual resistances. When the ultimate fear effect is triggered, the opponent's attribute reduction will also be added to himself.

Without hesitation, Lu Li took it to the trading area and happily continued to look at another gem he planned to embed in the mask of the evil god.

The Heart of the Heavenly Demon is, after all, a Celestial-level gem. Although some of its effects are still effective, it is ultimately inferior to an Immortal-level gem.

(End of this chapter)