Not only were the equipment and various materials abundant, but the skill books were also overflowing, to the point where Sterl's small world was nearly at capacity.
Sterl made every effort to have Sosia and Sonis sell off the excess.
After sending the items, he quickly received a response.
"Master... where did you get so many resources?"
"I heard there's an event in the [Principality of Florence] aimed at exploring hell, and it seems you've gathered all the resources for yourself."
The private messages from Sosia and Sonis were filled with astonishment.
Sterl had anticipated their reaction and couldn't help but smile, feeling a sense of emotional satisfaction before responding coolly.
"It's nothing, just casually grinding some monsters."
"Also, could you help me look for items similar to the [Emergency Escape Device], as well as some high-quality recovery potions? Once you've purchased them, send them to my mailbox."
Sterl was feeling quite wealthy.
With the resources he had sent to Sosia and Sonis, he could buy anything on the market at a premium; he had no fear of running out!
In addition to the supplies sent to his trusted companions,
due to the sheer volume of drops, Sterl also picked out a few useful items.
Among the items was—
[Core of Flame]
[Description: This item has a chance to drop from demons who possess chaotic memories and abilities related to burning and extinguishing flames upon their death. It can enhance your understanding of Flame-related Laws.]
[Effect: Enhances comprehension of weak Flame Laws.]
This was a flicker of flame that could extinguish at any moment. In reality, despite its promising description, it was somewhat lackluster because it required a vast number of Flame cores to make any significant progress in understanding the Law.
However, due to his excessive grinding, Sterl had accumulated over sixty of them. After using them all at once, he successfully birthed a seed for the Flame Law.
He spent a bit of blood force and successfully comprehended another Law: Flame.
The abilities of this Law were primarily divided into three aspects.
Sterl could transform into Flame, avoiding damage, and could absorb various flames to restore his life force and energy.
He gained unconditional enhancements for all flame abilities.
By actively invoking the Law, he could deal substantial flame damage.
As the most common Law, Flame still provided a significant boost to Sterl.
His output increased, and he gained a terrifying resistance to fire.
There were similar items as well.
After consuming both the Core of Frost and the Core of Lightning, and spending an additional two points of blood force, he happily acquired two more Laws.
The effects of these two Laws were essentially identical to that of the Flame Law: they absorbed their respective elements, increased the damage of those elements, and allowed for an explosive output when actively invoked.
Sterl decided to find a skill that combined these three basic elemental Laws.
[Effect: Removes all control effects and puts you in a 0.1-second invulnerable state. You can randomly select a coordinate to teleport within a thousand miles. This item activates automatically when you are severely injured.]
...
These items ranged from those that dealt damage to those that provided control removal or life-saving effects.
Many of these were hidden treasures hoarded by legendary demigod players.
With the blessing of [One Sword Opens the Sky], Sterl had caused many enemies to be unable to use anything and simply perish, compounded by the increased drop rates from the faction wars.
Now that these hidden treasures were in Sterl's hands, they were no longer treasures but rather overflowing stock...
Sterl didn't mind the hassle. He meticulously sifted through thousands of resources, choosing to keep many life-saving items on him. In simple terms, for every 10% drop in his health, Sterl would trigger 4 to 5 life-saving items, granting him several seconds of invulnerability and restoring up to 400% of his life force, along with an additional 30% boost to all attributes.
When his health fell below 50%, these effects essentially doubled, granting him a multitude of enhancements such as increased damage, boosted defense, and additional damage reduction effects—over a dozen in total. He would also gain up to 7 seconds of invulnerability and more than ten instances of teleportation, which could not be blocked by normal abilities.
In summary...
Sterl had no idea how he could possibly die!
Of course, various one-time-use offensive items also ensured he could deal damage equivalent to that of Shattered Void level without consuming any energy.
This was further enhanced by having eliminated several Supreme beings, whose hidden trump cards had now fallen into Sterl's hands.
Aside from these conventional items, Sterl also acquired at least dozens of hidden instance unlocking items and some that pertain to regional main storylines.
Several extremely valuable affinity items, when given to NPCs, could unlock personal shops or hidden quests. He was overwhelmed by the choices; Sterl felt that the rewards should be quite substantial since these were all main quests and instances at the demigod level.
Thus, he decided to keep everything for himself, planning to tackle them when he had the chance, and if he found the rewards from these instance tasks unsatisfactory, he would pass them on to Sosia and Sonis for handling.
Beyond the items and equipment, Sterl was particularly selective. He ended up with several platinum skills. Previously, he had to work hard on quests to accumulate Valor Contribution Points just to afford these platinum skills, but now he was completely free!
He found it hard to even consider skills of lower quality.
In the end, Sterl learned three Platinum Skills.
[Dark King (Platinum)]
[Description: A special skill developed by a deity for their favored follower, combining the powers of shadow and spatial laws to create abilities of concealment and traversal.]
[Effects: Depending on your mastery of various law powers, the following effects can be formed—
- Shadow Cloak (understanding of shadow law or spatial law)
- Shadow Traversal (mastery of both laws, with at least one reaching perfection)
- ??? (both laws reaching perfection)]
[Activation Requirements: Must master either shadow law or spatial law.]
Without a doubt, this was an upgraded version of his Shadow Stealth ability.
Of course, the base version of this ability only provided an invisibility effect, along with a damage bonus for breaking stealth and an additional increase in recovery while in stealth. However, its stats were far superior to those of Shadow Stealth, boasting additional corrosive damage from shadow power and a healing prohibition effect.
To traverse into the shadow world like with Shadow Stealth, however, he would still need to master shadow law. Nevertheless, once the Platinum Skill was activated, Sterl could enter the shadow world for as long as he wished, although the energy consumed would increase over time.
While in the shadow world, Sterl's attributes would gradually increase, and all his life force and energy values would rapidly recover. Furthermore, upon exiting the shadow world, he could unleash various attack effects, summon shadow creatures, and strike his foes, or directly convert shadow creatures into additional damage.
The skills enhanced by the Dark King would additionally deal a percentage of the opponent's life force as damage.