"Hum hum~ hum hum hum~"

Chai Cuiqiao, dressed in a pink down jacket, carried shopping bags in her left hand and held a mango-flavored sundae ice cream in her right hand. She walked joyfully and briskly on the Yin City Commercial Pedestrian Street, occasionally licking her ice cream.

Beside her was Li Ang,

who wore sunglasses, kept his hands in his pockets, and wore an indifferent expression while Spiritual Energy surged in his mind.

Currently, it has been nearly half a month since the end of the Yin City mutation,

and the city center ruins, being the battle zone, had been repaired by the full efforts of the construction teams,

while other city areas also regained their prosperous tranquility. Due to the accelerated progress of the city skyscraper project, the surrounding population surged in, making the commercial pedestrian street busier than ever.

Chaichai paused by a roadside stall on the pedestrian street, glanced at the crystal-clear sugar-coated haws displayed in the stall’s glass box, bought two skewers, and turned to Li Ang, "Do you want some?"

Li Ang shook his head flatly, and Chaichai didn’t feel disappointed, first gulping down the sundae ice cream and then, like a hamster, quickly chewing several sugar-coated haws in one go.

Li Ang glanced at her and couldn’t help but ask, "Can you even taste anything eating like that? Eating ice cream first and then sugar-coated haws, aren’t you afraid of getting sick of sweetness?"

Chaichai’s cheeks puffed up like a ball, and she mumbled indistinctly, "I think it’s fine, quite sweet..."

Since the last time Su Ni Sheng repaired her soul and Qinge Armor, Chaichai underwent a profound change,

becoming more sensitive to the external world, with the simulated breathing and heartbeat of the Qinge Armor becoming more realistic.

In her own words, it’s "more like a person" and "more like the feeling of being alive".

The greatest changes from these transformations can be summarized in two points,

firstly, Chaichai’s practice of the Yin God scripture "Jidou Yanchi of Nine Underworld" became twice as effective with half the effort, progressing much faster than before,

and secondly, Chaichai became much more... lazy.

The repaired soul inexplicably developed a need for "sleep to replenish energy", turning Chaichai’s daily activities into [eating, drinking, playing, sleeping, occasionally training], needing eight hours of sleep a day,

no more, no less—less sleep left her groggy, while more sleep made her feel she was wasting time that could be spent playing.

Whenever Li Ang tried to supervise or advise Chaichai to play less and diligently train in "Jidou Yanchi of Nine Underworld",

Chaichai would pull out the argument that "Jidou Yanchi of Nine Underworld" is a long-term, consistent process,

with daily training progress first rising and then stabilizing,

demonstrating diminishing marginal returns,

meaning that excessive training cannot achieve the imagined high return on investment.

To prove this point, Chaichai even commissioned the Special Affairs Bureau to prepare a professional report filled with numbers and calculation formulas,

making it look almost like a finance study,

and thus Li Ang had no choice but to let it be.

This shopping trip was mainly because Chaichai had, with the resources provided by the Special Affairs Bureau, already completed the third stage of "Jidou Yanchi of Nine Underworld" and was now training in the fourth stage.

The third stage of "Jidou Yanchi of Nine Underworld" required Yin Souls to manipulate blood vitality creatures to create illusions to intimidate them, absorbing the fear emotions generated by creatures in desperate situations.

Anyway, it’s just intimidation, not killing or eliminating.

The Special Affairs Bureau found a few bounty hunter volunteers, temporarily wiped their memories and brought in a construction team to simulate a haunted house environment. Chaichai stayed in the haunted house, creating illusions to continuously terrify them,

and successfully leveled up in a day’s time.

The fourth stage of "Jidou Yanchi of Nine Underworld" requires the absorption of a sufficient amount of worldly allure and atmosphere.

The original population of Yin City and its surrounding areas was over twenty million, and now with the city skyscraper project, the total population was set to increase even more. Just strolling around can meet the conditions.

And the reason Li Ang decided to accompany her is straightforward; being in crowded places, listening to the bustling, diverse heartwaves, is greatly beneficial for spiritual power training.

Recently, Li Ang had indeed been quite busy,

on one hand keeping an eye on Wang Congshan’s situation,

on the other hand overseeing the Portal World’s insect nest expansion situation,

and also supervising the Gene Thieves of the real world to ensure their assimilation progress on each continent;

organizing the gains from the last scenario task;

crafting new equipment and items with the Forging Furnace;

renovating and expanding the Immaculate Furnace Shop, launching new surgical projects;

dealing with the Special Affairs Bureau and other organizations;

gathering mysticism materials related to Divine Power and Spiritual Energy;

essentially not having much rest.

Luckily, the mule who formally joined Liu Wu Dai’s Ark Plan brought Li Ang a bit of good news—a seller was willing to privately trade a Perfect Level melee weapon. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

After the completion of the last Yin City mutation, the Tyrant Halberd, which had accompanied Li Ang through the Portal War and the Long Night Approaches script task, finally couldn’t take it anymore and succumbed.

Its name was now marked with the [Broken] attribute,

with the Special Effect [Pushing Through], providing a short-term overlord body effect and accelerating sprint, becoming completely unusable.

Tyrant—Halberd—of—The—Cross!

Amid his sadness, Li Ang found himself in the awkward position of having no melee weapon available.

If he were to unleash his full Demigod Divine Power, transforming into the Deadwood Titan state, his combat power would indeed be strong, even capable of swatting away individuals like Zhongli Mieming, who had been ranked ninth in personal combat power rankings.

However, if the Divine Power was insufficient, and large moves couldn’t be executed,

he would be at a disadvantage—the sixth-level Psychic Enchantment System abilities were more adept at large area control or point-to-point interference,

while strong attack methods like the Colt Revolver and Fingers Dissociation Technique had bullet limits, requiring cooldown and buffers after usage.

The epic-level Shining Dice of Destiny,

posed a risk of not rolling out a good power system,

and could only be used every 24 hours, requiring energy infusion before use.

In high-level battles, Li Ang was left with only two sustainable attack methods: basic slash, and powerful basic slash.

Compared to other players of the same level, he was still too simplistic.

To enhance the power of his basic slashes, the best way was to get reliable equipment,

but rare or excellent grade equipment tended to break with usage,

while Perfect Level equipment was extremely rare in the market, exceedingly expensive, and mostly monopolized by organizations and institutions, with very few making it to the auction houses,

even if they did, they often came with numerous restrictions or limitations in usage scenarios—like the [Pumpkin Head of the Headless Horseman], which could summon spoon ghosts.

Although the Special Affairs Bureau warehouse had Perfect Level weapons, Li Ang didn’t want to owe them favors,

and the weapons they had didn’t suit Li Ang’s combat style.

At this thought, Li Ang couldn’t help but look at his inventory, where lay the eyebrow-length stick, with golden hoops attached on each end, its middle made of black iron.