In the covert chamber upon the stone platform, Guan Ren stood with a look of disbelief flitting across his face.
Under his watch, the rhythm of the dancing flames became incredibly regular and stable, which greatly facilitated his task of refining the tinders!
This…
A surge of excitement flickered through Guan Ren's eyes as his hands worked in harmony, his focus entirely on refining the tinders.
In just one minute, he managed to refine a Bronze Tinder!
Before this, it took him a whole ten minutes to refine a single Bronze Tinder!
But now, his speed of refining tinders had increased tenfold!
Wait... tenfold?
Guan Ren's gaze darkened as he speculated if this speed was due to…
[Indeed, the host's accelerated tinder refining is thanks to the system's acceleration feature.]
The system responded at this moment, confirming Guan Ren's suspicions.
"What a powerful feature; I never thought skill acceleration could also speed up my tinder refining!"
A shock went through Guan Ren, but this was undoubtedly good news for him!
Reviving Sunward Town required a million energy units. If he could refine a Bronze Tinder per minute, there was a great chance to complete the month-long task!
If he used only Bronze Tinders to complete the task, he'd need ten thousand.
With his current speed, without rest, he would need an entire week.
The workload was still daunting but compared to the insurmountably long two months, it was now much more manageable.
With a clear direction, Guan Ren’s once heavy heart felt considerably lighter.
As time ticked away while he focused on refining tinders, two hours passed by, and he amassed over a hundred Bronze Tinders.
[Bronze Tinder: Can be used to craft Bronze-quality equipment and tools or as a weapon to inflict real damage on enemies. Attributes: Inflicts a one-time true damage of 2000 points to enemies within range, then affixes a burning damage of 100 points per second to enemies within the flame area, lasting 30 seconds.]
As Guan Ren continued to refine Bronze Tinders, its attributes became wholly apparent. Theoretically, relying solely on the full potential damage of a Bronze Tinder should equate to 5000 points. Of course, a stringent condition must be met—keeping the enemy engulfed in flames for the full duration of 30 seconds; otherwise, the moment the enemy steps out of the flame's radius, the burning damage ceases.
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The ability to eliminate The Essence of Chaos so swiftly was mostly due to the horrifying damage caused by the catastrophic blast rather than the flames alone.
After two hours of intense tinder refining, Guan Ren felt mentally exhausted. Focusing required tremendous concentration without the slightest lapse, so he decisively ceased his efforts.
"Young man, it seems you’ve almost mastered the technique of refining tinders," Fang commented, sparing a glance at Guan Ren and speaking out.
"Not bad, but I can only maintain for two hours tops before my mental state begins to falter."
"That's easy to address. Just work on improving your mental attributes and these problems will naturally resolve themselves."
Mental attributes?
Guan Ren blinked, suddenly understanding.
He’d nearly forgotten about that attribute.
In the game, there were five basic attributes: strength, constitution, agility, intelligence, and spirit.
Of these, the most enigmatic was spirit.
Even for Guan Ren, who had lived through this world twice, spirit remained an ambiguous attribute.
After all, spirit encompassed a variety of functionalities; for instance, improving mental tenacity could reduce the influence of control skills or even render oneself immune to control effects.
But that's just one aspect of the spirit attribute; there were many other unknown effects left to discover.
Exiting the chamber, Guan Ren entered Sunward Tavern.
"I've received word that the Slaughterworld Syndicate has started probing into your identity in the real world."
Violet frowned before speaking, "If needed... I can help obscure your personal information."
Guan Ren furrowed his brows at this and nodded slowly, "It seems the Slaughterworld Syndicate's apology was merely perfunctory. Since that's the case, I need to make some preparatory measures."
"If you're available tonight, come to the Violet Pavilion in Muyun City. We can discuss the details there. Don’t forget to bring your ID."
"Will dinner be covered?"
"Absolutely!"
Violet chuckled upon hearing his response. Despite the investigation into his identity, she didn’t detect the slightest hint of panic in Guan Ren.
This was the first time she encountered such a person.
After all, there had been financial transactions between them before. She was quite aware of Guan Ren's real-world identity.
Orphaned, with only a sister to call family, and working on construction sites to earn their living before entering Heaven's Arrival, there was nothing noteworthy aside from that.
Yet somehow, Violet always sensed a peculiar charm about the young man before her, a feeling that was indescribable.
"Alright, I'm logging off to get ready!"
Without another word, Guan Ren immediately logged off.
"This..."
Violet was left somewhat flustered. The Violet Pavilion was a venue for high society mingling, with strict requirements for entry.
She’d yet to send an electronic invitation to Guan Ren before he hurriedly logged off, prompting a wry smile to spread across her lips.
"What an impatient one..."
Shaking her head, she logged off as well.
After exiting the game, Guan Ren entered the living room, his nose wrinkling at the burnt aroma coming from the kitchen.
"Are you concocting some sort of dark cuisine?"
Standing at the kitchen doorway, Guan Ren's lips twitched as he watched a clumsy silhouette amidst the smoke-filled kitchen scramble about.
"I...I just wanted to make a feast for everyone, I didn't expect..."
Lin Ruo Xue bowed her head, a smudge of black across her petite nose, her small hands tightly clutching the corner of her clothes, presenting an irresistibly amusing sight.
"It's okay, no rush. After all, Rome wasn't built in a day. There's plenty of time to slowly learn."
Guan Ren said, "As for dinner tonight, we've already got a place in mind. Can you quickly gather everyone? Let's get ready and head out."
"Where are we going?"
"The Violet Pavilion."