Chapter 2713

Nearly three meters long, about as thick as a finger, the transparent tendril snapped and fell to the ground. Looking at the writhing semi-transparent tendril on the ground, Su Xiao furrowed his brow. He could feel that this thing was of high rank, but it was not something beneficial to him.

【Wriggling Tendril】

Origin: Gaps in the Void.

Type: Newly born anomalous entity · Fallen Apostle's partial body.

Note: This unit was transformed into an anomalous entity 376 years ago, a weak individual among anomalous entities, currently in the drifting phase.

Effect:???

Introduction: All detrimental effects of this item have been stripped away; this is a precious material.

……

Anomalous entities in the void are not all friendly; for example, this anomalous entity named Fallen Apostle harbors no goodwill—it directly used a part of its body to exchange for the Treeborn Leaf.

Doing so was essentially an act of positioning, but due to not understanding this 'exchange,' the anomalous entity Fallen Apostle failed in its positioning and even sacrificed part of its body.

Fallen Apostle differs from those ancient anomalous entities; for instance, the anomalous entity that traded with Su Xiao using the Alchemy Canon, though ill-intentioned, also chose what Su Xiao needed to achieve a fair trade with him.

This anomalous entity called Fallen Apostle now bears a newly born 'title' and should still be in the stage of full malice, utterly incomparable to those ancient anomalous entities. For the sake of 'bidding,' it sacrificed part of its body.

For such a spiteful creature, Su Xiao naturally would not be polite. In his view, this 【Wriggling Tendril】 is quite good—no, very good.

As a newly born anomalous entity, if it is a regenerative body part, it likely cannot be exchanged for the Treeborn Page; whereas a non-regenerative body part, its value is self-evident.

Su Xiao can analyze this thing's structure, or through it, cultivate a one-time combat creature—both are possible, after all, his alchemy level is already quite high.

"Boss, this is a provocation; we have to deal with it."

Bahamut stared at the writhing tendril on the ground, his eyes somewhat angry, when suddenly an interloper appeared during the exchange.

Just as Su Xiao was pondering how to utilize this segment of 【Wriggling Tendril】, whether to find an opportunity to send it to the Extinction Star, letting this newly born anomalous entity go chat with the Death God, the Reincarnation Paradise's prompt appeared.

【Prompt: Detected 'Newborn Anomalous Entity · Fallen Apostle' attempting to locate Reincarnation Paradise, locking on……】

【Locking completed.】

【Forcibly executed 'Newborn Anomalous Entity · Fallen Apostle'.】

【Execution completed.】

【As the hunter is the main participant in this incidental ** incident, you obtain 'World Key x1'.】

……

"Eh~"

Bahamut was speechless; he hadn't even figured out how to retaliate when the newborn anomalous entity Fallen Apostle was already done for, forcibly executed by Reincarnation Paradise.

Su Xiao grabbed the key floating in midair; the 【World Key】 is not used to open worlds, but to open world-class treasure chests. However, he now has the key but no world-class treasure chest.

Regarding this exchange of the Book of Doors, Su Xiao is fairly satisfied—the newborn anomalous entity Fallen Apostle using part of its body to exchange for the Treeborn Page already indicates one thing: those ancient anomalous entities have begun to observe the exchange of the Book of Doors.

Su Xiao exchanges once every few worlds, but in the perception of those ancient anomalous entities, this time interval is merely a brief moment.

Overly 'frequent' exchanges have led to a significant discount in the price of the Book of Doors—this is unavoidable. Now, with one anomalous entity executed, it may serve as a warning to other anomalous entities, more or less. Although Reincarnation Paradise will not warn them, in their view, this is a warning.

Su Xiao placed the 【Wriggling Tendril】 into a glass column filled with solution, sealing it for storage.

With this little incident, next time he uses the Book of Doors for exchange, Su Xiao prepares to go all out—producing three Treeborn Pages at once. He doesn't believe he cannot exchange them for good things.

Entering the alchemy laboratory, he placed the glass column containing the 【Wriggling Tendril】 to one side, and Su Xiao began preparing potions.

First, five bottles of 【Ocean Primordial Liquid】, each yielding a net profit of 25 Soul Coins, perfect grade netting 50 Soul Coins; then fifteen bottles of 【Life Property · 01】, each yielding approximately 10–25 Soul Coins.

After preparing these two, Su Xiao glanced at his remaining mana. Earlier, when he raised his blade technique, he entered a meditative state; that meditative state allowed his mana to nearly recover to full. Now he still has around 17,000 mana points, sufficient to prepare the recovery potion 【Vitality Primordial Liquid】.

With his self-prepared recovery potion, Su Xiao gains recovery ability in battle. 【Vitality Primordial Liquid】 can be used however he wishes—even absorbed through the skin—though the recovery amount will be reduced accordingly.

One and a half hours later, ten bottles of 【Vitality Primordial Liquid】 were placed on the table, five of them perfect grade. Still not proficient enough; after gaining proficiency in preparing a certain potion, Su Xiao will be able to produce perfect-grade batches at over eighty percent.

Storing the 【Vitality Primordial Liquid】 on the table into his storage space, totaling thirteen bottles—six perfect grade, seven ordinary grade. With this recovery supply, no matter which seventh-tier world it is, he dares to enter.

Leaving the private room and heading toward the trial grounds, Su Xiao hesitated whether to go challenge the Treeborn Arena. With his current strength, plus his 'unranked' standing in the Treeborn Arena matching his opponents, going now would be no different than walking into devilry.

Checking the remaining time, Su Xiao decided to wait until later. If he doesn't die in the next world, upon returning to Reincarnation Paradise next time, he will attempt to clear the Treeborn Arena. Having accumulated this long, he might as well go all in—wait until he grows stronger by one world, then go challenge it.

Arriving at the arena, Su Xiao directly entered the Five-Layer Realm of All Beings.

Snowflakes drifted in the sky; Su Xiao's Soul Coins are now ample. He wishes to continue perfecting the 'Blade Dao Knife · Flow' and attempt to break through the limit of 'Blade Dao Knife · Blue Ghost.' Blue Ghost is very practical—when he first clashed with enemies, he often slashed out Blue Ghost to 'greet' them.

In arduous training, time passed quickly. Though fatigued to the point of full-body soreness, when his stay time reached the limit, Su Xiao still felt somewhat reluctant to leave.

【Prompt: The hunter is about to return to the real world.】

【Transfer begins.】

Second floor of the accessory shop; Su Xiao recovered from the transfer, pulled open the curtains—it was evening, the dim yellow sunset shone in, giving a drowsy feeling.

Coming downstairs, after opening the shop for business, Su Xiao began tackling the puzzle game, which had already reached its final stage, on the verge of completion.

Earlier, when Su Xiao contacted Pifang, Pifang was somewhat flustered; he had initially claimed that no one could successfully complete this revelation game.

Pifang promised that if Su Xiao completes this puzzle game, he will send a free game—said to be connected to a real-existing world. It is not that Su Xiao himself enters that world, but rather he controls monster battles through his tablet.

That game is named Death Duel; the world it connects to has unknown coordinates to this day. The rules of the 'Death Duel' game are quite simple: a person, in their lifetime, will have only one account. When creating that account, Su Xiao can model a monster according to his preference.

The monster's weight and height fall within a certain range—height between 2 to 5 meters, weight range unclear—but there is a rule: height and weight determine the monster's speed, strength, etc.

Monsters that are too large can only mutate into blunt weapons, lacking claws and pointed tails, etc.; various balancing mechanisms are nearly perfect.

After Su Xiao completes the monster modeling here, some force in the unknown world will cultivate such a monster, identical to the one he modeled.

Once the monster is successfully cultivated, Su Xiao can immediately control it via his tablet to engage in 1v1 arena combat mode against other monsters.

At that time, in that world, natives will come to the scene to watch the combat—this is real monster combat, not game data; flesh flies, it's life or death, and the spectators' shouts and frenzied roars are also real.

The monsters fighting on both sides are controlled by 'game players' behind the scenes; the scene at that time can be easily imagined.

After winning the monster combat, according to Pifang's meaning, Su Xiao himself can also receive something—the organizer will send the prize to Reincarnation Paradise.

If the monster he controls dies in combat, Su Xiao's account will be scrapped, and he cannot create a new account, nor purchase accounts from others, etc.

Each person has only one chance; when the monster bound to the account dies, Su Xiao will have nothing more to do with that game.

Pifang obtained the qualification for this game at considerable cost; moreover, this game qualification is not something money alone can buy—it also requires a recommendation from someone in this field.

Although Su Xiao didn't interact much with Pi Pang, Pi Pang's willingness to offer this qualification was likely because Su Xiao had cleared and understood the puzzle game, which Pi Pang had developed and poured his heart into.

Although Pi Pang claimed outwardly that no one could clear it, once someone did, Pi Pang was in a good mood—after all, his meticulously developed creation had been conquered, which holds special significance for a game developer.

With a peaceful real life beginning, Su Xiao sat on the sofa, tackling the puzzle game, and he was very interested in the game Pi Pang mentioned, titled 'Death Duel'.

Su Xiao lightly tapped the screen; the character he had always controlled stood on the mountain peak—this character was so thin as to be skin and bones, yet his body stood ramrod straight, his tattered clothes fluttering in the wind, and in the game, each death made the character grow weaker by a fraction.

'You have died 325,472 times, you have solved 15,001 puzzles, you have defeated 12,760 enemies, your final level is 999, your final score is 15,620,000 points (all-time high).'

Just as Su Xiao cleared the game, the leaderboard appeared immediately, his character's name ranked first, accompanied by fireworks visuals.

At that moment, Su Xiao noticed on his tablet screen something resembling bullet comments, which he had always believed impossible since he thought the game was single-player only.

'Holy shit!! Someone actually cleared it—Pi Pang, come out and die.'

'Worship the clearing boss, let's take a commemorative photo.'

'Food puppet, one spear—Pi Pang.'

'This game? Isn't it only the first three levels? The rest are black-and-white films, right? Right? (Weakling in tears, begging for a walkthrough).'

'I remember Pi Pang said that if anyone cleared this game, he would…… (This user has been muted for 300 minutes).'

'The clearing boss, could you write a walkthrough? I'm about to be tortured into mental confusion—this game is toxic, highly addictive, even more so.'

……

Su Xiao suddenly realized that the game actually had a leaderboard and allowed interaction with other players—he only discovered this feature after clearing it; previously, he had just launched the game, started playing, died, respawned, cleared stages, and quit.

Not long after, Pi Pang's private message arrived, stating that the game titled 'Death Duel' could only be received after Su Xiao returned to the Reincarnation Paradise.

Pi Pang meant he wanted to help Su Xiao obtain equipment—professional-grade, made exclusively for this game, shrinkable to handheld size, and at the time, directly connected via shunt-type bioelectricity to his hands, enabling zero-latency monster combat.

The equipment costs 1,200,000 Paradise Coins; Pi Pang promised to provide the game access, and for the equipment, he would pay half, with Su Xiao covering the other half, and afterward they could check the purchase invoice—the game organizers are very professional, and Pi Pang said this to clarify he wasn't trying to profit from Su Xiao's Paradise Coins.

Su Xiao agreed to Pi Pang's proposal, he put away his tablet, and his stay in the real world was nearing its limit.

During the Empty Seat Banquet, after Su Xiao learned that the captain and others had gone to seize the Void Tree fruit, he inquired about its function.

The captain's original words were: that thing holds great allure for him, and even if obtained, it would require Su Xiao's help to process, for the World Tree's fruit cannot be eaten directly—eating it causes death and must be transformed through some formula.

The captain, the Undying Elder, and the White Ox are all willing to risk their lives to seize it, so its value is self-evident; according to them, they intend to use it themselves, and more importantly, the final formulation must be done by Su Xiao's hand.

Among the Starry Sky Seat members, three are going to seize it, and the chances of success are high.

Once seized, Su Xiao will receive the corresponding formula to help that person process the Void Tree fruit, but if Su Xiao also possesses a Void Tree fruit, what then?

This is not Su Xiao's delusion—he knows the whereabouts of a Void Tree fruit and can enter that world.