Absolute Death Game

Chapter 159 - 141: Curse Sword Unity

He read over the two options several times and looked again at what that person had said before. Xiao Buli suddenly spotted a verbal error in his words, "Those who knew the answer all ended up dead." Xiao Buli thought to himself that every person has their day of death, so does that mean if you don’t know the answer, you won’t die? This sentence was clearly meant to confuse and deceive.

With this in mind, Xiao Buli couldn’t help but smile slightly and chose option 1, "Yes, I want to know the answer."

????: "Ha, you actually want to know the answer, aren’t you afraid of me?"

"I’m not afraid of you," Xiao Buli typed.

????: ".........."

????: "You should be afraid of me."

As soon as that line was said, a burst of flames suddenly sprang up on Xiao Buli’s screen, so red and hot it seemed tangible. His character on the screen screamed, immediately engulfed by the raging inferno.

"What the hell is going on!?" Xiao Buli exclaimed instinctively, but the flames were still not extinguished. Suddenly, they spouted forth from the screen, enveloping him completely. Yet, these flames were not hot; instead, they felt chillingly cold. He was so frightened that he leaned back, not knowing what he hit, and suddenly woke up from his sleep......

Xiao Buli opened his eyes, terrified. There were no flames or burning sensations before him, only the quiet and coolness of the room as the air conditioner hummed, making him feel a chill. Xiao Buli suddenly realized he was leaning backwards, with only two legs of the chair on the ground, and before he could regain his balance, he fell to the floor with a thud.

Scrambling up from the ground, when he turned to look at the screen, he saw his character still sitting cross-legged on a round stool in that room, maintaining a meditation posture. He flipped through the chat history, but there was no dialogue; it seemed that everything had just been a dream.

Then he looked at the top right corner of the screen, and the Ancient God Mark had disappeared at some point.

What’s going on here? Xiao Buli wondered in astonishment. For a few seconds, he even doubted whether he was still dreaming until a dull pain in his buttocks made him dare to confirm he was indeed in reality. Clearly, what had happened was just a dream.

He picked up his chair, sat down again, and let out a long sigh of relief.

Xiao Buli canceled the meditation, but then a system prompt suddenly popped up on the screen.

System prompt: Player Xiao Buli has comprehended the Arcane Heart, and your Taoist Heart has been upgraded to LV3.

Success! Xiao Buli was both surprised and delighted by the system prompt on the screen. What in the world was going on, was it because of that mysterious person? Or was it for some other reasons? Was that dream just a dream, or was it actually an exchange on a spiritual level with the deities in the game?

He stared blankly for a good while, then his gaze fell back onto the newly comprehended Taoist Heart.

Arcane Heart—It seemed to subtly hint at something, but no matter what, this was definitely something to rejoice about. With Taoist Heart at LV3, he could learn even more powerful spells. Although Taoist Heart could reach up to LV10, in reality, the highest level of magic that Xuanxu Zi would exchange was only LV5, which shows that level 3 spells were already quite formidable.

Of course, the most important thing was that he could now finally advance. Although the advancement wasn’t the Cursed Swordsman profession he had hoped for most, there wasn’t time to be choosy under the pressing circumstances.

As Xiao Buli pondered, he lifted his spirits and glanced at the clock on the wall which had just passed three o’clock. There was still some time before dawn. He hesitated whether to log off and go back to sleep or to strike while the iron was hot and head straight for the Mystic Hollow Palace for advancement. Then a message from Xuanxu Zi appeared on the screen using Thousand-mile Sound Transmission.

Xuanxu Zi whispers to you, "Disciple, a moment ago, your master had an intuition and seemed to sense that your Taoist Heart has been enhanced. Well done."

Xiao Buli thought to himself that this was just like dreaming of a pillow when feeling sleepy and hurriedly messaged back, "Thank you for the praise, Master. I’m just about to go back for profession advancement."

Xuanxu Zi whispers to you, "There’s no need for that, I can help you advance remotely. Do you want to advance now?"

System prompt: You have gained the opportunity to advance to the ’Cursed Swordsman’ profession. Do you wish to begin the advancement, Yes/No. (Each profession can be advanced only once, please choose carefully.)

Xiao Buli thought to himself, this works too? But of course, it was even better. He clicked Yes.

His entire body was suddenly enveloped in a golden light. With a loud shout, two streams of energy burst forth from within him, one blue and one white. The two pillars of light twined around each other, gradually merging into one before returning to his body.

System prompt: After extensive study of Swordsmanship and Taoist magic, your mastery of both skills has reached an impressive height, and you have gradually learnt how to fuse these two distinct abilities into one cohesive force. Advancement to Cursed Swordsman is successful. You have gained the professional core skill—’Curse Sword Unity.’ You can view this skill in your skill bar.

Xiao Buli opened the skill bar and indeed found a new skill named ’Curse Sword Unity (Core Skill),’ but this skill was dark gold in color, obviously different from ordinary skills. He clicked on the skill icon, and a pop-up displayed something resembling an Alchemy Furnace.

However, the core of this Alchemy Furnace was a Tai Chi Diagram, where the eyes of the Yin Yang Fish were two empty skill slots, and skills could be dragged into them.

There was also a heap of descriptions next to the ’Alchemy Furnace.’

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Skill Furnace: Drag a spell skill into the left side of the Furnace Core and a regular skill into the right side of the Furnace Core, then click the smelting icon to fuse them.

Depending on the compatibility of the skills being smelted, there is a certain chance that they will fuse into an exclusive skill unique to a Cursed Swordsman.

PS: The skills used for fusion will no longer be usable whether the fusion is successful or not, and they cannot be relearned through any means.

The introduction to the skill looked simple, yet it was ambiguous. It was the first time he had encountered such a mechanism, with no experience to refer to. Hesitating for a moment, Xiao Buli placed the Mysterious Ice Talisman in the left side of the Furnace Core and the Gale Sword Skills on the right.

A line of text appeared above the Skill Furnace.

Fusion Success Rate: 37%.

That low? Xiao Buli thought to himself that he couldn’t proceed with the fusion at such a rate. According to the skills’ description, once fused, both skills would essentially be lost, and a 37% chance was too risky.

After pondering for a while, he dragged the Sword Qi Slash to replace the Gale Sword Skills, and this time the fusion success rate shot up to 93%, making the possibility of failure almost nil.

Xiao Buli hesitated for a moment, then clicked to fuse. Find your next read on empire

The Tai Chi Diagram in the Skill Furnace immediately began to spin, faster and faster, and the icons of the two skills gradually converged towards the center. After about ten seconds, the icons of the two skills fully overlapped, and as a golden light emerged, they fused into one.

System Notification: Skill fusion successful. You have obtained the exclusive skill—Mysterious Ice Slash.

Mysterious Ice Slash: Infuse the Power of Mysterious Ice into a weapon and manifest it as Sword Qi to attack enemies at a distance, dealing significant damage and having a chance to freeze the target to some degree, consumes 20 points of internal power value and 10 points of Mana.

Note: The power of this skill is related to the level of internal energy, spiritual power, and weapon strength.

Looking back at the Mysterious Ice Talisman and Sword Qi Slash skills, both had turned gray, and next to them were the words ’Not usable, cannot be forgotten, cannot be learned.’

So that’s how it is, Xiao Buli suddenly realized. The so-called Curse Sword Unity is the fusion of a physical skill and a spell skill, and the new skill obtained will have attributes from both.

This is indeed a peculiar setting, but it seems to have a significant operational space. Although it’s unclear how powerful the Mysterious Ice Slash truly is, it’s certain that it should be stronger than either the Sword Qi Slash or the Mysterious Ice Talisman alone.

He looked at his Skill Bar, filled with a mix of useful and not-so-useful skills. Some he seldom used, while others were very essential. Now it seemed they all could come into play.

He dragged one skill after another into the Skill Furnace but held off on immediate fusion to observe the changes in fusion success rates with different combinations. It didn’t take long for him to gain some insights. Clearly, the more similar the types of skills being fused, the higher the success rate of the fusion.

For example, the Mysterious Ice Talisman and Sword Qi Slash are both long-range single-target attack skills, naturally resulting in high success rates. Similarly, the Fire Blade Skills and Internal Energy Infusion, both used to enhance weapons for extra damage, had a fusion success rate as high as 97%.

Xiao Buli did not immediately fuse these two skills. Instead, he took out a pen and paper, excitedly jotting down the combination before trying out others. Whenever he encountered a combination with a fusion success rate higher than 80%, he recorded it. In no time, the paper was filled with skill combinations.

The several combinations were as follows.

Fire Blade Skills + Internal Energy Infusion: Fusion success rate of 97%

Mirror Image Skills + Emergency Dodge: Fusion success rate of 84%

Flying on Grass + Invisibility Technique: Fusion success rate of 86%

The rest were too low, the highest being just over 60, which was too big a risk. As for whether there were more suitable fusion combinations, he had not discovered any due to the short amount of time.

He decided to fuse these three combinations first. As Xiao Buli was thinking, he dragged these six skills into the shortcut bar, preparing them for fusion. Most of these skills were his regularly used ones, so the thought of using them for fusion was naturally nerve-wracking. After all, once used for fusion, they could no longer be used regardless of success or failure.

A successful fusion would be beneficial, but a failure would be really vexing.

However, he now had no choice but to move forward. The ability of a Cursed Swordsman lies in skill fusion. If he didn’t fuse, then advancing to this profession would have been in vain. With a determined heart, he began a new round of skill fusion.

The first combination he fused was Mirror Image Skills + Emergency Dodge. He dragged them into the Furnace Core and clicked on fuse. Watching the Tai Chi Diagram start to spin faster and faster, Xiao Buli’s heart tensed up as the icons of the two skills gradually overlapped. (To be continued. If you like this work, you’re welcome to cast your recommendation votes and monthly tickets on .

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