novelraw Chapter 172, The Upgrade Altar (1)
Chapter 172, The Upgrade Altar (1)
Two weeks had passed since the binding activated.
Cang Yutian was now at level 246.
Lin Yi had moved through the expanse in the, the volcanic basin on its respawning cycle providing the high-volume clearing events, the mid-atmospheric cluster zones filling the intervals between respawning with the sustained lower-volume accumulation that kept the EXP transfer rate above the threshold consumption rate. Six levels in two weeks. Four remaining. Approximately two weeks left in the event’s duration.
The pace was sufficient if it held.
He was crossing between cluster zones in the upper mid-atmospheric layer when his passive perception registered a cave.
An energy signature that did not match any monster he had faced, and did not match any terrain feature he had encountered in weeks of traversal through the expanse. Unusual in the specific way that things are unusual when they exist in a space that is otherwise well-characterized and they do not fit any established category.
He changed direction.
The cave was set into the face of a larger island formation at a height that placed it above the standard traversal routes, which explained why he had not passed it in the weeks of operation he had accumulated in this zone. The island it occupied was not on any of his habitual crossing paths. He had seen it at distance but never approached because the distance read had not produced anything that warranted closer investigation.
At closer range, the aura was more defined.
Not threatening. Not hostile. The specific quality of something ancient that had been sitting in one place for a very long time and had accumulated a kind of density in the energy it emitted simply through the duration of its existence rather than through active output.
He flew to it.
The cave mouth opened into a passage that widened quickly, the interior larger than the exterior dimensions suggested, the dimensional structure of the Allheaven Expanse applying to cave the same way it applied to everything else in it’s space. The passage opened after twenty meters into a chamber.
Lin Yi stopped at the chamber entrance and looked.
Weapons.
Arranged across every available surface. Not randomly. Not the disorganized accumulation of things that had been dropped or left. Arranged, the specific organization of someone who had placed them deliberately and with attention to their relationships to each other.
Racks of blades along the far wall. Spears and polearms in vertical mounts along the side surfaces. Bows arranged by size along the upper wall. Individual weapons on individual display platforms in the center of the chamber, these clearly the most significant items in the collection, each one on its own surface with space around it that communicated its category.
The quality varied across the chamber. Common weapons near the entrance, their attack output negligible, the kind of things that had clearly been placed here for completeness rather than significance. Moving inward the quality increased, the rare and epic pieces in the middle sections, legendary rank visible in the inner zone with the characteristic energy that legendary-grade items maintained even without a user.
And in the very center of the chamber, on the largest individual platforms, mythical-grade weapons. Six of them, each one producing the ambient output that mythical-grade items produced.
He walked through the chamber.
The ancient aura was stronger in the interior, the cave’s particular density pressing against everything in it with the quality of something that had been holding a charge for a very long time. Not dangerous. Present.
He was looking at the mythical-grade display platforms when the altar registered in his peripheral awareness.
It was set into the back wall of the chamber, behind the weapon displays, partially obscured by the arrangement of the most significant items in the collection.
Stone surface, geometric in its construction, carved with patterns that were different from the rune configurations he had encountered in the Celestial Emperor’s Abode and the Dragon God Tower, older-looking, less formal.
He walked toward it.
The system notification appeared the moment he was within its detection range.
---
[You are in direct sight of an Upgrade Altar]
[Activate?]
[ YES] [NO]
---
He looked at it.
Upgrade Altar.
The designation was self-descriptive in the same way that the Seven Star Immortal Conversion Halo’s name had been self-descriptive, the function expressed in the naming without requiring elaboration. But he had no prior knowledge of such a system.
The academy’s dungeon archive, the Bureau’s records, the research materials available through Heavenly Phoenix’s library, none of it had contained a reference to an Upgrade Altar as a recognized feature of a dungeon environment.
Which meant it was either rare enough to have escaped documentation or specific to this event.
He pressed YES.
---
[Upgrade Altar — Active]
[Inventory currently linked to held storage token]
[Select weapon to upgrade]
---
He looked at the Celestial Lord Blade at his waist.
Mythical rank. Attack power 4,905 from the base weapon combined with the Set Attribute Core’s weapon bonus. The weapon he had been carrying since the Celestial Emperor’s Abode, the drop that had defined his combat capability through the tournament, the regional examination, the Dragon God Tower, Heavenly Phoenix Academy, and the entirety of the Allheaven Expanse.
He selected it.
---
[Celestial Lord Blade — Currently: Mythical Rank]
[Attack Power: 4,905]
[Upgrade Options:]
[Option 1: Mythical → Cataclysmic]
[Required Materials:]
Allheaven Beast Core (Level 160+) ×500
High-Density Spirit Crystal ×300
Phase Core Fragment ×200
Void-Thinned Scale ×400
Mid-Tier Spatial Essence ×150
Suppressive Wing Fragment ×600
Celestial Alloy Fragment ×100
[Checking inventory...]
[All materials available — Requirement Met]
---
He looked at the cataclysmic upgrade requirements. All materials present, the amplified drops from weeks of clearing in the mid and upper atmospheric zones having produced quantities of every listed material that dwarfed the required amounts by several orders of magnitude.
He scrolled to the second option.
---
[Option 2: Mythical → Abyssal]
[Required Materials:]
Allheaven Beast Core (Level 175+) ×2,000
High-Density Spirit Crystal ×1,200
Phase Core Fragment ×800
Void-Thinned Scale ×1,600
Mid-Tier Spatial Essence ×600
Suppressive Wing Fragment ×2,400
Celestial Alloy Fragment ×500
Rare Material Bundle (Grade A) ×300
Void-Eroding Fragment ×50
Apex-Class Energy Core ×20
Celestial Jade Dust ×100
[Checking inventory...]
[All materials available — Requirement Met]
---
He stopped at the last two items on the requirement list.
Void-Eroding Fragment. The Void Eroding Soul King, the apex class natural entity that had emerged from the island substrate and consumed Sun Tian, had produced drops when he defeated it. He had not catalogued them specifically in the aftermath because the engagement had been followed immediately by the first interaction with Cang Yutian and the subsequent events. The Spatial Storage Token had absorbed the drops automatically. He checked the token’s inventory.
[Void-Eroding Fragment ×10,000.]
Amplified. The base drop from the apex-class kill, amplified to 1,000 times at the old amplification rate. The required fifty were present times over.
Apex-Class Energy Core. Same source. He checked. Present in excess.
Celestial Jade Dust. He had accumulated enough jade over the event period that the dust extraction the altar required was a negligible draw against his total holdings.
He looked at both options.
The weapon ranking system that world operated in went from Common at the bottom through Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary, and Mythical. Then, above that, there’s Cataclysmic, which existed above Mythical. Abyssal existed above Cataclysmic. And Abyssal, based on everything, the gap between tiers he had taken to be ceilings, was the peak.
The Celestial Lord Blade was currently Mythical. Attack power 4,905 including the Set Attribute Core bonus.
He selected Option 2.
[Upgrade Initiated: Mythical → Abyssal]
[Materials Deducted from Inventory]
[Processing...]