Universal Power System
Chapter 368: The Military Display: Getting Upgrades

Chapter 368: The Military Display: Getting Upgrades

The dual-wielded short swords beamed with wind aura as Alexi approached and held them in his hands. The power difference between these and his regular short swords was almost night and day.

It felt like Alexi was previously fighting with swords made of stone and had now finally gotten his hands on proper blades.

The vendor gave Alexi a detailed description of the short swords, and he gave them a couple of practice swings.

The short swords were called Sypher Wing Twin Blades and were forged from the crystals of a powerful advanced-tier beast. It greatly boosted the strength and agility of the user by almost 35%, and it was shockingly light despite its appearance.

The blades had no active skill which was disappointing but it made up for that with an insane passive skill.

The passive skill was called "Active Wind" and it literally allowed the user to use the wind ability constantly while using these blades with no added requirement or drawback.

This was quite a shocking thing as normally something like this would have been impossible.

Normally, power weapons and armor are crafted from the crystals of slain beasts. After killing a beast, its crystal almost instantly loses about 90% of its aura and power and this is why it takes multiple crystals to forge a singular item as one alone isn’t potent enough to effectively enrich the material with stat bonuses as well as active and passive skills.

The active and passive skills are considered remnants of the last information still stored within the crystal.

By using the aura of the user as a booster, it is sometimes possible to reignite the lost aura inside the crystal for a short amount of time and cast a skill and this is called an active skill.

A passive skill, on the other hand, is when the crystal is strong enough to retain a skill or attribute that the beast already possessed, and now when a user is holding or wearing that item and using their own aura, it tricks the crystal into thinking that it is still inside the beast and grants the user the skill that it had retained in itself indefinitely.

If the blades had the ability to use the actual ability that the beast possessed outright, it meant that the crystals used to make the swords hadn’t been depleted of their aura at all.

This was quite a rare thing as crystals would usually instantly lose almost all of their aura after the beast had been slain; however, in some extreme conditions where the beast is slain in a single strike with no prior damage and the crystal is extracted before all the life inside the beast has been released, it possible to recover a crystal containing most of the aura.

That crystal; however, is still extremely unstable and would instantly lose all of its power if it isn’t in contact with the beast’s aura for more than a couple of seconds. To remedy that, it needs to be kept in contact with a constant stream of aura to imitate that it is still inside the beast and it has to be kept like this until it is ready to be forged into an item.

Alexi could definitely tell that the beast that the crystal belonged to had a strong wind ability which was equivalent to somewhere in between a level 5 and a level 6 which he was very happy with.

Having another elemental ability under his belt would greatly increase his battle power and versatility.

He asked the vendor about the price of the weapons and to nobody’s surprise, it wasn’t cheap at all.

The Sypher Wing Twin Blades cost 500 special tokens!

Just these blades alone cost almost as much as Leon’s complete armor set which just goes to show how overpowered and broken they really were.

Despite the price even catching Alexi off-guard, he didn’t hesitate and immediately purchased the blades.

A huge smile appeared on his face as he walked to a couple of other stalls to purchase some other minor things that had caught his eye. He was after all a very aggressive and up close fighter and now he had a weapon that greatly added to his strengths.

He purchased a simple High-tier armor kit for 320 special tokens and spent the remaining 80 tokens on several little items and gadgets that could prove useful.

************************

On the other side of the Military display, Mako and Erin were walking together as they made their personal purchases.

Erin purchased a couple of different pieces of armor, two of which were advanced tier while the rest were high tier. The armor pieces alone weren’t anything mindblowing but were quite decent as Erin had specifically picked out the armor pieces that granted the highest boost to fortitude.

One of Erin’s biggest weaknesses was that she lacked good defense. Sure, she was great at offense and had some deadly moves but if the enemy were to get one good hit in on her, it would greatly tank her chances of winning that fight.

Since Erin had purposefully chosen armor pieces that didn’t have any active or passive skills, the total was quite cheap for her even with her reduced number of special tokens, leaving her with just enough to purchase something that had caught her eye.

It was a beautiful bow that looked like it was carved out of a magnificent tree that had alternating red and green grains running all across its surface.

The bow reminded her of the bow that they got from the recruitment test which later Iris used during their first mission; however, she had left it behind that day in the hotel room as it wasn’t really concealable and was destroyed after the hotel room was sabotaged and rigged to blow.

Since Erin’s abilities weren’t the best in the environment that they were going to, it was best that she had multiple ways to fight as just her simple combat knife wasn’t going to cut it.

The bow would give their group a ranged advantage and this bow in particular was special as it had a passive skill that basically allowed her to change modes.

Similar to how Mako’s Storm Caller Staff could change modes by adjusting the height of the staff for a different effect, the bow had a small switch near the bottom edge, and by turning it left or right, you could switch between the two modes of the bow.

When the switch was turned left, the red grains within the wood that made up the bow would light up and arrows shot while this mode was active would deal massive damage with a 1% chance to gravely poison the target.

Similarly, when the switch was turned to the right, the green grains within the wood would light up and arrows shot while in this mode would instantly heal a small amount of health of the target.

The bow was great for offense and recovery and Erin quickly purchased it along with spending all of her remaining special tokens on lots and lots of arrows.

*********************

Mako was happy that Erin was still able to purchase everything that she wanted with her reduced special tokens but the real reason why he had tagged along with her to purchase the bow was so he could keep an eye on her, but because he also wanted to buy something from the same stall himself.

Similar to Alexi, Mako was very much focused on the close combat aspect of his kit which is why a better weapon was definitely needed.

At the same stall at which Erin’s bow was on display, there was also a beautiful katana on display as well.

Being one of the more popular melee weapons, almost every melee power weapons stall had one on display.

Since Mako had the Analyze skill, he didn’t have to waste time asking the vendors about details about each katana and could directly look up the details himself and determine the best one.

The katana had a beautiful metallic silver sheath that had engravings of ancient and mythical beasts, the craftsmanship alone of the sheath could make the katana cost a fortune in the real world; however, the prices in the military display weren’t based on the item’s demand but rather it’s actual rarity and power level.

[Analyze]

[Advacned Tier Silver Tiger Katana] ⓘ

[A 24-inch long blade forged from the crystal and bones of the Silver Tiger found in (Unknown). A perfect quality blade forged by (Unknown)]

[Strength +50]

[Agility +35]

[Attack: 180]

[Active skill: Devour] ⓘ

[Devour: Primal instincts overtake you as the only thing you want to do is devour and destroy. The Katana empowers the user with the essence of the Silver Tiger for a short duration during which the user’s movement speed, spatial awareness, strength, and swing speed are all doubled. The blade glows with a bright silver light and every swing imitates the jaws of the ferocious Silver Tiger chomping down on its prey.]

This was the most powerful and perfect katana in the whole military display and cost Mako 350 special tokens alone but it was definitely worth it; however, Mako wasn’t done spending his tokens just yet as unlike Alexi who was content with his weapon upgrade, Mako wasn’t stopping here... he was just getting started.