The Ultimate Evolution

Although the mission had been displayed to Sheyan, he was not in a hurry to accept it. Instead, he said after a moment of careful consideration, “I have a few questions.”

The Nightmare Realm’s reply was the same as before.

“Your questions will be answered free of charge if they are within your level of clearance. You will be notified if you need to pay for the answer.”

Sheyan thought it over carefully before he asked, “Is this an individual mission or a party mission?”

“An individual mission. If it was a party mission, it would be equivalent to declaring war on Noah Realm F which Awakener ZB419 currently belongs to,” the Realm quickly replied.

Sheyan then asked, “Does the mission overlap with the next time I enter a Nightmare World? So doesn’t that mean I can’t enter the next world with my party members?”

The Nightmare Realm answered after ten seconds, “Not if you can coordinate with the Imperial army.”

“Why’s that?” asked Sheyan.

“Awakener ZB419 is carrying out the Dark Templar’s inheritance trial, so he should have entered the world of Starship Troopers. According to the information I received, the Starship Troopers world, like the Predator world, has begun to erode into the primary plane where the Empire is located. So, you can try to take a spacecraft from the Empire and reach the Starship Troopers world by passing through the dimensional barrier at a spot where it’s weak. That way, like your previous emergency mission, it won’t occupy the chance for your next world.”

“I see,” Sheyan nodded, but he suddenly asked again, “Why did you agree to take Ronnie in? Is he really that strong? He doesn’t feel that strong to me.”

The Realm’s reply was concise. “Because he’s a Candidate and has good potential.”

(TL note: By potential: Normal contestants < Seeded Contestants < Candidates < Chosens < Apostles )

Sheyan suddenly narrowed his eyes and asked cunningly, “How is Judas’ Dinar obtained?”

An imposing feeling suddenly descended. Sheyan found that he was completely unable to resist this force, but he had no intention of resisting anyway. The Realm said in a chilling tone, “Unknown. Contestant No. 1018, any attempt to betray the Realm is very shameful behaviour!”

Sheyan smiled. He spread his arms and stated helplessly, “You misunderstood me. I’m just asking out of curiosity. ”

“Do you accept the mission to rescue Awakener ZB419? If you refuse, the mission will be issued to other capable contestants,” the Realm repeated the question.

“There must be contestants even stronger than Temperers in the Realm, right? Why don’t you ask them to carry out the mission? Wouldn’t the chances of success be higher then?” Sheyan asked.

“Because of the problem of power barrier. If a high-level contestant is sent to perform a low-level mission which does not match their strength level, the damage to the dimensional barrier will become even greater, so the cons outweigh the pros. High-level contestants might even die because their strength will be suppressed by the power barrier. To cite an example, the best way to catch a rat wandering around the house is to let a cat inside, rather than hire construction workers to tear down the house to prevent rat infestation.”

Now that he understood these things, Sheyan accepted the mission without hesitation. When he told the rest of the party about it, they did not voice any objection. Zi, after pondering for a moment, had a discussion with Sanzi. They put together five pieces of Pi element ingots that Sheyan gave them before, which they had yet to sell.

These things were hard currency in the Empire. Sheyan would have to go through a lot of trouble if he wished to get some of these in the Empire. Now that he had a few in his hands, he could seize the initiative in any negotiations and would have a much easier time.

***

Although rescuing a person was an urgent matter, Sheyan had no intention of leaving in a hurry without making adequate preparations first. The first thing he did was to strengthen himself first so that he would not end up being the one needing to be rescued instead.

Ronnie was being hunted down by a large number of enemies, so they would obviously be outnumbered. It was also the Starship Troopers world, and the whole world was like one giant battlefield. Therefore, survival must be the first priority. More importantly, the last time Sheyan experienced the Starship Troopers world, he fought against the Zerg race, but based on Ronnie’s words, Sheyan might be going up against the most mysterious race in the universe, the Protoss!

Atypical Pneumonia and SARS might not work against them. Do Protoss and Zerg units even have lungs?

Sheyan felt like the diseases he currently had were probably enough. He only needed them to slow down the enemies. Therefore, Sheyan planned to upgrade his military rank first. The ‘Peerless’ ability on the Major General’s Blood Armour was extremely useful for both pursuit and retreat! In addition, he would have dealings with people from the Empire, and those people were racist bastards, so the higher his military rank, the more advantageous it would be for him.

But just as Sheyan was about to go promote his rank, Old Charlie told him respectfully, “Based on my observation, Master, if you perform a title synthesis now, the probability of success should be relatively high.”

“The synthesis time makes a difference?” asked Sheyan in surprise.

Old Charlie nodded. “I found that there’s a special place for synthesising titles in the Realm. I went there to observe, and after a period of time, I managed to make some inferences on the synthesis result through my observation details. Usually, when the synthesis results are ideal, the people who come out from the place will have lighter steps, and they will be visibly more excited. Those who failed in their synthesis are also discernible from the subtle details.”

Hearing this, Sheyan could not help nodding. “Not bad. Go on.”

“Let me just get to the point. The result of my observation and analysis of 137 sample cases shows that the success rate of synthesis is 7% to 13% higher during the period of 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. every day. It happens to be 7:30 p.m. now, so if you’re not in a hurry, I strongly advise you to perform a title synthesis first,” said Old Charlie.

Sheyan had obtained 17 titles so far:

① Alcohol Master

② Pirate Ringleader

③ Bowtruckles Feedback

④ Blood-thirsty 1

⑤ Meat Owner

⑥ Penetrate

⑦ Plunderer

⑧ Headhunter

⑨ Outstanding Worker

⑩ Pirate Captain

⑪ Fearless

⑫ Smuggler

⑬ Invader

⑭ Marsh Cleanser

⑮ Enemy of the Machines

⑯ Sanitary Pad Friend

⑰ The Great Collector

Of these seventeen titles, most of them would certainly be burned as fuel. The synthesis would naturally revolve around the two black-iron titles: Pirate Captain and Alcohol Master. The synthesis process has been mentioned before, so it will not be explained again here, but it was worth mentioning that the title Sanitary Pad Friend had been classified as a special title which could only be used for synthesis and could not be burned. Therefore, it was placed aside first.

( Title classes: Ordinary < Hidden < Black-Iron < Bronze…. )

The final result of the synthesis was a bronze title.

[ Bronze Title: Child of the Sea ]

[ Number of synthesis: 1 ]

[ Effect: All Attributes + 3 ]

[ Effect: All Damage + 8% ]

[ Effect: Drop Rate of High-grade Equipment/Equipment Strengthening Success Rate + 10% ]

[ Effect: Whenever you receive a healing effect of any type, your explosive strike rate will increase by 8% and you will also receive an additional healing of 10% of your maximum HP (this effect will only trigger once every 300 seconds and will not exceed 500 HP). The increase in explosive strike rate lasts for 60 minutes. ]

[ Effect: You gain a whale-like underwater breathing ability, but you have to inhale air at least once every hour. You will also be as nimble in water as on land. ]

[ Effect: The intimidation factor of you and the pirate officers appointed by you on ordinary pirates is increased by 200%. Pressure factor + 3. ]

[ Effect: When there is a river, lake or ocean within a kilometer of you, the attack and defence of all allies within the same range is increased by 25%, and their movement speed is increased by 40%! (This effect only works on storyline characters and does not stack with other special effects.) ]

[ Effect: ‘Letter of Marque’ — When you successfully capture or kill other ships or enemies at sea, you will have a certain probability of checking and acquiring their precious special products, special materials, or special equipment related to naval warfare. ]

( From wikipedia: A letter of marque and reprisal was a government license in the Age of Sail that authorized a private person, known as a privateer or corsair, to attack and capture vessels of a nation at war with the issuer. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_marque )

[ Note: ‘Letter of Marque’ can also increase your discovery probability by 33% and increase the quality of your discoveries by 33%. ]

[ Hint: You can upgrade your ‘Letter of Marque’ to the ‘Royal English Letter of Marque’ by donating money to the Queen of England. ]

[ Hint: After acquiring this title (note: acquiring, not equipping), your burning ambition is now on full display. It would be difficult for you to work under another pirate faction. ]

***

This synthetic title was pretty good, to tell the truth. It was useful on both land and water. Each property was also quite practical. But when Sheyan thought back on how much difficulties he had gone through to collect these titles, he felt that it makes sense.

However, according to Sanzi, some contestant parties made collecting titles their main priority. Their titles should be way stronger than Sheyan’s.

Focusing on titles had some huge advantages. First, loot and equipment obtained by a party invoked the problem of allocation, but obtaining a title was very fair, because everyone would get one! The party would get stronger surely and steadily. Second, it would also raise the completion evaluation.

For example, in the previous world of 2012, a party which focused on titles could just meet the basic requirements of the main mission, and then fully focus on the title missions. There were already 5 ordinary titles to be obtained at the very beginning of the 2012 world, and there was even a bronze title! If a party was to acquire all six titles, the increase in strength was absolutely comparable to everyone in the party obtaining a silver storyline equipment!