The Era of Gods

4 Chapter 4 Fusion 5-star skill card – Salted Fish Charge
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
This time he didn’t choose to decompose, but to refine, extracting the skill from the card.

So, when the Magic Cube turned, what appeared was not the Creation Energy from the previously decomposed three-star resource card, but a small orb of light.

Following that, Lin Xiao refined the last two-star skill card ‘Severe Pain’ into an even smaller light orb.

His idea was simple: to use Piercing attack as the basis and merge it with the other skill, Severe Pain, then use the decomposed three-star resource card as nourishment to enhance the merged skill, thereby obtaining a skill that combined the advantages of both Piercing attack and Severe Pain and was more powerful.

Having constructed the operation in his mind, as Lin Xiao’s thoughts moved, the two skill light orbs slowly approached each other under the control of the Magic Cube’s power, merging quickly like two bubbles into one. Then, the Creation Energy permeating the Magic Cube Space rapidly flowed into the light orb, which began to shine brighter as it absorbed the Creation Energy.

“Hmm? There are two directions for enhancement?”

Lin Xiao raised his eyebrows, pondered for a moment, then chose one of the options.

After ten seconds, all of the Creation Energy had fused into the orb, the Magic Cube stopped spinning, and he reached out to press down on the Magic Cube, which quickly shrank in his palm and eventually disappeared, replaced by an orb of light emitting a dazzling glow. Then, right under his eyelids, it slowly flattened out, transforming into a card that radiated a faint luminescence.

Five-Star Skill Card — Unknown Skill (Epic): Limited to piercing-type weapons, attack targets from a distance of fifty meters at a super-fast speed, dealing damage up to five times the maximum attack, the attack ignores 50% of the defense.

This was the enhancement direction he chose, Pure Burst.

The other enhancement direction dealt only three times the damage but had attacks that ignored 50% of defense and featured Piercing, Armor Breaking, Bleeding, and Ripping—four special effects.

Comparing the two, Lin Xiao ultimately chose the option with five times the burst.

A real man should be tough.

He casually named the newly synthesized skill ‘Salted Fish Charge’ and put it aside for now, then took out two cards he had put away earlier, a four-star Gray Fog Fishman Card and a five-star Breeding Card. These two cards could also be merged.

Using the Gray Fog Fishman Summoning Card as the base, to decompose the Species Reproduction Card, refine the reproduction rules contained within, and then merge them onto the Gray Fog Fishman Card, would yield a card that…

Quickly, he threw the Gray Fog Fishman Card into the Magic Cube for decomposition and refined it into a light orb, then tossed the Species Reproduction Card in for decomposition, extracting the reproduction rule within.

It was a thread of gold light thinner than a hair, exuding an intoxicating allure.

Strictly speaking, if this strand of reproduction rule was strong enough, and with a significant investment of Faith value and Divine Power, it would be possible to refine a true Reproduction Godhood, use it as a foundation to become a Demigod, and with a hefty injection of Divine Power eventually solidify into the Godhood of Reproduction.

Unfortunately, Lin Xiao didn’t have much Faith value right now, and this strand of the reproduction rule was also incomplete, making it too difficult to make whole.

Shaking his head to dismiss the jumbled thoughts, Lin Xiao controlled the strand of Reproduction Divinity to merge into the Gray Fog Fishman Summoning Card, and quickly a new card appeared in his palm.

Five-Star Species Card — Gray Fog Fishman (Epic): Instantly obtain 400 Gray Fog Fish People possessing twice the reproduction rate and twice the survival rate of their juvenile counterparts.

The summoning quantity remained the same, the effect of the Breeding Card was weakened by 50%, but the effect turned from a ten-year BUFF to an innate trait of the species. Just this alone made the direct value of the card ten times higher than the initial two cards combined, and its potential value was easily a hundredfold greater.

Lin Xiao couldn’t help but stretch out his palm to look at the Magic Cube outlined by the strands of light and smacked his lips:

“`

“Too powerful.”

After all, it was of epic quality.

The golden palm grasped the Magic Cube and it merged into his palm as Lin Xiao soared into the sky, appearing high above, with two Cards in front of him. He rubbed his hands together and did not load them immediately, but instead used ten thousand units of faith value to preload the skill first.

Preloading, that is, loading it in advance onto a designated clan member in the Divine Realm, but it can’t be used yet. It has to meet certain conditions to be activated.

The conditions Lin Xiao set were simple: the faith level had to reach True Believer status to activate the preloaded skill.

For a Deity, the ranks of the believers from highest to lowest are—

Saint, Fanatic Believer, Devout Believer, True Believer, Generic Believer, False Believer, Nonbeliever.

It goes without saying that a Saint is extremely hard to come by; even a True God may not have one. Fanatic Believers are the most fervent disciples of weaker Demigods and minor True Gods. Devout Believers are the backbone, typically the Sects’ Priests, while True Believers are the stalwarts among the followers and also the most numerous within the ranks of a Deity’s believers.

Below them, the Generic Believers, also known as Shallow Believers, are basically of little value; ten Generic Believers aren’t worth a single True Believer.

And False Believers, needless to say, are equivalent to those who don’t believe in Deities at all and only clasp their hands and pray when they see others worshipping—Deities do not count them among their faithful.

Normally, for Divine Beings like Lin Xiao, who had just opened their Divine Realm and couldn’t showcase miracles, it’s difficult to increase faith, but these Grey Mist Fish People are the initial clan with bonuses, which is why there are so many high-quality believers. If he went to preach to the natives in the Outlands, it’d be hard to say whether he could make headway even after ten years.

After loading the skill, Lin Xiao also preloaded another Species Card into the Divine Realm, and then, turning into a ray of golden light, he descended into the Divine Realm and directly entered his commonly used Incarnation Body.

The Fishman Leader, who was fishing with his clan, suddenly paused for a moment, and in the next second, a flash of golden light in his pupils restored him to normal. The surrounding Fishmen were swimming around in shallow waters chasing the Sardine Swarm, completely oblivious to their Leader’s change.

The descended Lin Xiao quickly gathered the Fishmen, who had been fishing for most of the day, back to the tribe. At the same time, he activated the preloaded skill, becoming the first to learn the Salted Fish Charge.

On his way through a stretch of rocks, he suddenly let out a strange cry and shouted to the other Fishmen:

“The great Lord of the Grey Mist has just granted me new strength.”

The other Grey Mist Fish People looked at him with weird expressions. Lin Xiao pulled the Bone Knife from his waist, pointed at a two-meter-tall, sea-soaked black stone pillar thirty meters away, and in the next second, the seawater beneath his feet exploded. A Fishman phantom dragged a long trail of wind and smashed through the water hitting the stone pillar.

“Boom!”

The thick stone pillar burst in the middle, scattering countless pieces more than ten meters away.

All of the Grey Mist Fish People watched him, agape and motionless, maintaining their expressions of astonishment. After a while, as Lin Xiao slowly turned around, his broken Bone Knife, now only a half left, was raised high and he let out a thunderous roar. It was then that the many Fishmen reacted, surging with excitement to gather around the shattered pillar, ‘gawking’ and discussing.

Ten minutes later, a group of Grey Mist Fish People escorted Lin Xiao back to the tribe. Amidst the astonished gaze of the other clan members, they rushed to the central altar of the tribe and knelt down, praying fervently in front of it.

Almost instantly, Lin Xiao sensed over ten threads of faith thicken in just this moment, as ten Generic Believers became True Believers.

“`