Endzone: Simulated Apocalypse

Curious, Cyanide pressed on the Confirm button below the prompt. A new screen popped up—one Cyanide had never seen before. Below the title 'Transmutation Center', a short paragraph of text explained what the Transmutation process was.

[Transmutation allows you to morph the outer form of an armor piece into a different piece. This will let you keep the stats and abilities of your original armor piece but with a different outer form, either for appearance or agility purposes. Note that an Infused armor piece can still be Transmuted.]

It was perfect for what Cyanide wanted to do. Not only could this make his armor less… flashy, it also reduced his hitbox, let him have the agility he previously had, and also make him harder to detect in darkness. What's more, the only materials he needed to make this process work were the Vials of Hydra Blood he'd just obtained from the fight against the Asmodeus Lost Herald.

Slotting in the Thunder God's Armor piece into the first column, the 'Base', and the corresponding Lightweight Cloth Armor piece into the second—the 'Reactant'—Cyanide tapped on the [Transmute] button at the bottom of the screen.

A short animation played, and the process was complete. He retrieved his new item, then repeated the same process three more times for the other armor pieces. Each one took just 1 Vial of Hydra Blood, which meant Cyanide was left with two Vials remaining for future use.

After equipping the new 'Lightweight Thunder God's Cloth Armor', he confirmed that the process did indeed work. Although he still felt like he was wearing his old armor with no exterior changes, he could feel that his overall stats had been buffed by a lot. For instance, his HP was no longer directly proportionate to his level, and neither was any of his combat stats directly tied to his actual stats alone (e.g. ATK to STR and INT).

His combat rating also shot up a whole lot as a result of this, and now looked like so:

[Level: 38]

[HP: 2880/2880]

[SF: 65/65]

[STR: 120]

[AGI: 110]

[VIT: 50]

[INT: 65]

[DEX: 16]

[LUC: 15]

[Available CP: 0][Available SP: 0]

[ATK: 410][DEF: 475][LIFE STEAL: 25%][ARMOR PEN: 0%][Movement Speed: 1100][CRIT RATE: 10%]

[CR (Combat Rating): 996]

Basically, Cyanide had gotten an incredible surge in power with this—but that wasn't even the end. Just as he was about to exit out of the Equipment screen, he noticed a tiny exclamation mark on the top-right corner of the icon displaying his weapon, the Anaconda's Fang. Usually exclamation marks meant one should probably give attention to them, so Cyanide clicked into the weapon and was surprised to see yet another new button he'd never found before. It was probably present, but because he didn't have the materials needed for it, there was no notification like this exclamation mark telling him about it.

In any case, the button had a single word written on it—'Ascend'. Beside it was the same exclamation mark Cyanide had seen on the previous screen, so naturally, he pressed on it to see what it was.

Immediately, a new panel shot up, and on it wrote the following text:

[Would you like to spend 1x Hydra's Fang to Ascend this weapon?]

[Y/N]

The word 'Ascend' was written in blue unlike the rest in white, so Cyanide tapped on it—and as expected, an information screen appeared, briefly explaining what Ascension was.

[Ascension is the process of turning a Epic Weapon into a Legendary one. Every 4-star (Epic) weapon has a 5-star (Legendary) form, and each requires an unique item to Ascend, found everywhere from Lost Heralds to daily scavenging. Ascending, however, provides great benefits—not only will the base stats increase, the unique weapon ability will also be improved, as well as provide a powerful additional effect. Note that weapon Ascension is only available at Enhancement Rank 5.]

And as Cyanide would guess it, the Hydra's Fang item he obtained from killing that Lost Herald was the 'unique item' needed to Ascend his 4-star weapon, the Anaconda's Fang, because he was smart like that.

Well, it's not like he has anything to lose. If each ascension item was unique, then it's not like he has any other use for the Hydra's Fang anyway. Tapping on the 'Yes' button below the confirmation prompt, Cyanide successfully Ascended his weapon.

An animation played in the screen in front of him, and he also saw a shine being emitted from the actual weapon on his belt. The sword became nothing but a white glowing silhouette for a brief moment, but then, as the light faded away, it was revealed that its form had been changed.

Whereas before, it was a simply designed sword made of the color of bone, it now had a gradient chroma in its crossguard. It was still made of bone, yes, but rather than being a dull blade, it now had colors—albeit the blade remained more or less the same, just more sharp.

Just from this appearance, it was clear something had changed. And to find out what… Cyanide opened up his equipment screen once more and took a look at his equipped primary weapon.

[Name: «Hydra's Fang»]

[ATK: 100]

[Type: Sword]

—————————

[Hydra's Venom: This weapon deals bleed poison DMG on top of its base attack. Enemies hit will suffer from 1% max HP bleed damage every second for 9 ticks, ignoring all DEF. In addition, each tick will grant the weapon one stack of 'Asmodeus's Rage'. Can be accumulated from multiple targets at once.]

[Nine-Headed Wrath: Each stack of Asmodeus's Rage grants this weapon ramping ATK, at a rate of 5% ATK per stack. At max stacks (9), grants the ability to charge the blade with one element, dealing elemental DMG rather than physical. Possible elements: Fire, Ice, Earth, Wind, Lightning.]

[Enhancement Rank 5 Perk — Serpent's Bane: ???]

Indeed, this was a huge upgrade from his previous weapon. Although he'd lost some base ATK since the new 5-star weapon was back to Enhancement Rank 1, these new perks, especially the stacking ATK percent, would make up for that.

The only problem now was that he would need a lot more materials to get this weapon to Rank 5—and since the rank-up materials required were «Hydra's Fang» duplicates… well. He only had three Hydra Fangs left after the initial Ascension process - the item, not the weapon. To forge them into the weapon, he needed to use the spare back-up «Anaconda's Fang» he saved up before, and Ascend that into a «Hydra's Fang». Then, he would have enough to bring the weapon to Rank 2 - but no more than that, as he was missing more «Anaconda's Fang» weapons.

Still, one rank up was better than nothing, and Cyanide used it to get the weapon to Enhancement Rank 2, bringing its base ATK up to 150—on par with his previous Rank 5 weapon.