Chapter 981
Chapter 981 - 967: Mass Production of Relics
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7 min read
[Sun Yi’s Third Gold Coin (Lower Gold Rank Cursed Object), Quality: Inferior (52%)]
Lu Ping’an fiddled with the gold coin, which looked very beautiful from the outside.
The golden coin didn’t have any essential difference from the previous ones, with Sun Yi’s profile featuring a calm smile. The faint rainbow light that radiated around it was hard to say if it was "his" trait or simply a common feature of high-spec "gold coins."
Based on appearance alone, this gold coin indeed looked more upscale than the one from Dao Zhong.
However, the assessment from Life Bank wouldn’t lie; its "quality" wasn’t even up to standard.
"... It seems the way it was obtained is problematic. He didn’t even know who I was, so perhaps it didn’t meet the ’conquest’ criteria..."
Dao Zhong died in frustration, but clearly, Sun Yi, who ’got dragged into this,’ had an even more tragic end.
Until the moment of his death, he never knew who had plotted against him or realized how he had step by step fallen to this point.
In the end, he died fixing his gaze on Zhao Yan, in a sense, because that was the only person he could resent.
Under these circumstances, although his death was full of frustration, it couldn’t be considered a "conquest." There wasn’t a sufficient "cause and effect" relationship established with Lu Ping’an, so the resulting gold coin was below the passing line.
"... With this level of quality, it’s not very good even for creating ’Taboo Relics,’ let alone using them as Spirit Ghosts..."
The "Life Coins" are currently the most important main project of Lu Ping’an’s Life Bank, with several uses already developed.
Mere insertion into the Life Encyclopedia and cultivating new Spirit Ghosts can substantively increase Lu Ping’an’s combat power.
And a financial system doesn’t operate just to harvest profits... well, at least not for Lu Ping’an, although he has become a bit "financial" now. With his experience from two lifetimes, he still leans towards industrial practice.
In his concept, "finance" is meant to facilitate smoother societal operation and provide better support for enterprises, not as a "goal."
Facilities like gardens, zoos, factories, and others produce tangible "materials" and "value" rather than just being a pure numbers game.
His "Life Bank" and "Coin System" naturally also have a corresponding production system, with special paths to transform gold coins into "industry."
"Scholar’s Advancement, Craftsman..."
The Craftsperson’s path, much like altering the world’s path, has long since become an independent industry and even an academic domain.
Becoming a Second-class Craftsman presents no difficulty whatsoever for Lu Ping’an now, so much so that it’s not worth mentioning.
With this "Craftsman rule" in place, he naturally established the rule building "Workshop."
This was actually within his expectations, albeit positioned later in his plan.
Why hadn’t he done it before? Well, it’s simple, lack of coins and lack of points... Now, with Life Bank having its own extra "earning methods," the thousand life-points for the public account weren’t paid by Lu Ping’an himself, so he easily constructed it.
With this "Workshop," it becomes possible to mass-produce quality Taboo items using "gold coins" as the core material and Taboo or near-contaminated items as "vessels."
"Relics, huh..."
Among all Taboo items, "Relics" cannot even be classified as a single category; they are more like a special case, a tag attached to some special Taboo items.
"Liu Zibei’s cards, the Sophist’s Life Encyclopedia, uh, it seems I have some fate with ’Taboo Relics’..."
These so-called Taboo Relics often used to be ordinary supernatural items, but due to the concentrated resentful spirits of their original owners at the time of death... Their un-dissipated souls, contamination, occupational traits, all found a new "contaminant aggregate," thus forming what is known as a Relic.
In general, relics are far stronger than the original taboo items, often embodying some of the original owner’s traits, and even frequently possess a "growth function" but they also tend to come with troublesome, powerful side effects.
Mass-producing "relics" is unrealistic, because you simply can’t keep sacrificing high-order professionals to the heavens just to enhance already useful taboo items.
But Lu Ping’an’s "Gold Coin Relics" are different...
"The gold coin itself condensed that poor fellow’s entire life along with most of his Life, so, as long as it is ’uncompressed’ within a suitable vessel, one can easily create a highly restorative ’powerful relic’."
"...The higher the quality, the easier it is to make successfully and the better the effect?"
The third gold coin, already a taboo item in its own right, had achieved a "cursed item rank," and the ratings with numbers that followed were actually a measure of "completeness"... indicating the percentage of "complete Life" obtained.
A rating of 60% is considered passable, barely qualifying as material for a taboo item, though the failure rate is also quite high.
An evaluation above 80% is excellent, qualifying as material equivalent to a complete body Spirit Ghost, and is already seen as a high-quality material fit for use.
Above 90% is considered "top grade," and over 95% is perfect...When it surpasses 100%, one can only say that the finished product even exceeds its original form, allowing it to "achieve a breakthrough after death."
In a sense, the gold coin itself is a kind of "Taboo Relic," so the more frustrating the death... ahem, the more thorough the conquest, the higher naturally the rating and completeness.
Sun Yi didn’t even know who Lu Ping’an was, and even though they had established a "killer" and "killed" relationship, he was still unable to harvest a high-quality third gold coin.
"...This grade is too low, isn’t it?"
Old-time Rule-level "Rainbow Light" Sun Yi had never even seen Lu Ping’an’s face, died too frustratingly, and even though a gold coin burst forth, Lu Ping’an still found its quality too low to use.
[Would you like to sell it to the Life Courtyard, which will grant special rule building ’Blood Spring’ construction permissions, it can serve as a supplement to Life rules, and provide certain Path functions to a degree.]
Hearing this, Lu Ping’an paused, but then thought that since "gold coins" were considered Rule-level taboo items, the Courtyard was naturally able to accept them... These gems containing complete Professional Paths, especially those of the Way of Life, might be just the kind of nutrition the Courtyard needs right now.
"...How much is the acquisition price?"
Well, it seems it even falls short of the Rule-level standard of 1000 points.
However, considering Lu Ping’an’s recent "expenses" were quite high (the Accountant’s bad debts and losses), selling them to the Courtyard to reclaim some Life was not a bad idea.
Close to 900 Rule-level points was indeed a poor deal, but...
"Sell these together, how much..."
Lu Ping’an casually spread out a pile of "third gold coins," which were the misfortuned souls from Blood Feast ranging from Brass-level to Silver-tier, with ratings as low as 30% and as high as 65%... obviously, most people had no idea who had deceived them to death.
But this time, with quantity piling up, Lu Ping’an earned quite a bit.
Those below the passing line, using them for mass production of relics seemed like a waste of "embryos," the higher graded ones were temporarily kept, saved for his use.
"Don’t you want to keep some more?"
"Not necessary, for abilities on the same Path, keeping the strongest one is enough...This final high-quality ’material,’ cannot be wasted like Sun Yi."
Perhaps at this moment, the one most hoping Zhao Yan would have an intellectual breakthrough and double his IQ to discover the truth, is none other than the behind-the-scenes Black Hand himself, Lu.
"Keep it up, Zhao Yan, my man. Strive to become a better person!"
— End of Chapter 981 —