The Sailor Moon Uniform Girl's eyes lit up at those words, clapping her hands in excitement. "That's perfect!"
Truth be told, she wasn't short on End Coins, but she did lack Inheritance Crystals for upgrading her life skills. However, those were always valuable but rarely available, making them hard to acquire.
Plus, since she was a bit of a homebody, she rarely browsed the market for resales, so after arriving in the End Space, Gusion was currently her only customer who could provide her with Inheritance Crystals.
"By the way, aren't you worried I might die in a mission world?"
Gusion asked as he signed the contract with the sailor girl. After all, low-tier explorers had a high mortality rate. If she spent resources on his custom gear, only for him to die in a mission world and not pay the balance, she'd be at a loss.
Because destiny-altering custom gear was unique to each person—his set would be useless to anyone else and absolutely unsellable.
"You? Die? You change every month. Who'd believe you'd die?"
The sailor girl retorted. "Anyone who didn't know better would think you were breaking the rules, earning money so fast."
She double-checked the contract after signing it, then put it away with a satisfied look. Her face grew more serious. "But honestly, don't die, okay? I don't have many customers."
"I think with my current strength, I should be among the top of my tier. I won't die for now," Gusion replied with a smile.
"By the way, when do you have time? I need to check your room for the customization."
She packed up her things—mostly feng shui items that Gusion couldn't make heads or tails of.
"Tonight works. I need to strengthen my equipment this afternoon, then swing by the arena."
Gusion looked forward to it; he couldn't wait to change his fate.
He'd always thought his luck was decent, but if it could be multiplied a few times over, he'd be unstoppable.
"Alright, see you tonight."
The sailor girl started shooing him away, needing to prepare materials for a few pieces of his equipment that afternoon.
…
Enhancement Hall.
["Strengthening successful. Soul Devourer is now +8. Next strengthen costs 3,000 End Coins, success rate: 9.91%. Continue?"]
Gusion chose cancel after hearing the prompt and removed the Soul Devourer ring.
He had a good stone, so reaching +8 was easy, but he didn't want to gamble further, especially with limited funds.
He put the Soul Devourer ring back on and checked its new status.
[Soul Devourer]
Origin: End Space
Quality: Legendary
Type: Accessory
Durability: 200/200
Strengthen Level: +8
Requirement: Pioneer #008 exclusive
Details:
A ring crafted by Supporter █████, mainly from Thunder Spirit Gold and Clearstone, with excellent growth potential.
Skill 1: Devour (Passive)
Soul Devourer can absorb high-quality spiritual energy to grow—including but not limited to natural energy, dark matter energy, etc. The first time it devours a new energy, it gains significant growth; subsequent devourings of the same energy provide diminishing returns.
Current Growth: 11.97%
Skill 2: Spirituality (Passive)
Wearing Soul Devourer greatly increases the pioneer's spell resistance and boosts neural response speed by 50%.
Skill 3: Spiritual Resonance (Passive/Active)
When attacking, deals an additional true damage equal to 5% of max soul value. When actively triggered, Soul Devourer consumes 10% of the pioneer's soul per second, and attacks deal an extra 18% of max soul as true damage.
Strengthen Trait: Ingenuity
When using this item's skills, costs are reduced by 50%.
[Note: This skill can trigger a maximum of 2 times per second.]
Equipment Score: 400+
Evaluation: If I touch you, you might die.
[]
After being upgraded to Legendary, the Soul Devourer ring's effects improved greatly. The passive now dealt 5% true damage, and when activated, attacks did 18% of max soul as true damage.
The only downside: after upgrading quality, the strengthen level reset, and once re-strengthened, the special effect changed from a 50% effect boost to a 50% cost reduction. So overall, the active skill's output only increased from 15% to 18%—but now triggered twice per second, more than doubling damage per second.
The Ingenuity trait let him use Spiritual Resonance much more freely; at only 5% soul drained per second and with his soul-absorbing skills, it was essentially perpetual motion.
At Legendary quality, this gear finally felt normal—even a regular explorer could use it well.
Of course, it was his exclusive gear and would become more tailored to his style as it grew.
For feeding Soul Devourer, he tried using the Raijin fruit's lightning, but since it had already absorbed lots of lightning before, growth was slow, though not zero. He could simply wear it and feed it over time.
With the ring strengthened, Gusion was about to head to the arena to update his mirror.
The arena's mirror system saved his strongest state from his last arena appearance. Currently, with his boosted stats and title, and unable to enter the third-tier arena, he needed to maintain his current title.
Frankly, Gusion felt he wasn't that strong last time; it was just that Snow Wind wasn't strong enough, so he won first place. Just in case, he wanted to upload his new version mirror.
Soon, Gusion arrived at the arena and chose ranked mode.
Even as first place, he could still queue for ranked battles, but no one would challenge him directly—he'd only match against other top-ten mirrors.
Entering the battlefield, he saw the mirror of the second place—who wasn't Snow Wind, as she'd already ranked up to third-tier explorer.
Gusion stood still, sent out a bolt of lightning, instantly frying the second-place mirror, and left the arena.
He stretched, thinking about adapting to his new attributes and abilities in the training ground, when suddenly a prompt appeared from End Space.
[Prompt]
["Second-tier World Conquest Battle is about to begin. As per End Space rules, Pioneer #008 will be forcibly drafted into the battlefield. Prepare yourself."]
["The World Conquest Battle will begin in 24 hours. Basic information and battlefield status have been displayed."]
Gusion paused, suddenly realizing his previously boring afternoon now had something to do.
World Conquest Battle?
He'd seen the clause in the pioneer contract but had never been summoned for it since entering End Space, so he had no idea what it entailed.
Walking to the market, Gusion checked the information sent by End Space.
[Target World: Native World #778231]
Type: Low-martial fantasy
End Space participants: 1
Divine Space participants: 168
Pioneer Mission: War
Mission: Defeat the Divine Space explorers in the World Conquest Battle. Achieve the required war points for victory. End Space will win the Native World #778231.
Difficulty: Easy–Normal
Rewards: Pioneer Mark rank up, Gold Pioneer Medal ×1, Gold War Medal ×1
Failure Penalty: Erasure
[]
Gusion pondered his mission. It looked simple, which explained the harsh punishment: erasure—if you can't even do this, you deserve to die.
But the participant numbers showed End Space's arrogance and mockery.
Not even concealed—he was the only one notified and tasked, meaning he was the sole fighter. End Space would send no other support.
Divine Space fielded a corps of 168 explorers. On paper, overwhelming numbers, but as long as they were second-tier, could they really be stronger than that Body Killer?
Even if Body Killer returned, he could finish him with a single attack now—in fact, he didn't even need to attack.
So, with End Space telling him to prepare, what was he supposed to do? Go on a shopping spree in the market? He paused—maybe there was no need. He could just go in and kill them.
…
…
Meanwhile, in Divine Space—
Upon receiving the World Conquest Battle notice, the explorers instinctively went to the market to prepare supplies, but seeing the battle info, they were all baffled.
"The hell, is End Space stupid? Why only send one person?"
"Maybe it's a misclick? Can the system even misclick?"
"What's going on? Just one guy on the other side? Easy win, right?"
"Hey, don't jinx it, you're making us sound like cannon fodder villains."
"Haha, this war's gonna be chill, no need for meds, just mob the guy and it's over!"
…
The explorers gathered in the market, joking and confused, but few felt nervous.
After all, only one opponent—seemed like victory was assured.
But half an hour later, as they shopped and laughed, all those who'd received the war mission got a new prompt.
[Prompt]
["Divine Space has conceded. This World Conquest Battle defaults to End Space victory."]
A brief silence, then the market filled with curses and angry howls.
"The hell, we lost before fighting? Divine Space, are you brain-dead?"
"The other side screwed up, 168 vs 1 is easy, but we just surrender? Am I crazy, or is Divine Space crazy?"
"Damn, with Divine Space giving in, our war mission counts as failed, and we lose a stat point! This sucks!"
…
The explorers cursed, mainly because their own missions counted as failed, costing them a stat point.
However, some sharp explorers frowned, sensing something off.
Their war mission was labeled Nightmare–Certain Death, a rarity even among the world battles with the highest death rates.
Plus, their penalty for failure was light: just lose a stat point of choice—many simply chose to lose charisma, which didn't matter much.
This light penalty, combined with Divine Space's surrender and End Space's one-man strategy, made some realize: End Space… must have spawned a real monster!
Someone so strong that End Space was confident sending only one would guarantee victory, and Divine Space knew they couldn't win, so to avoid mass deaths, they surrendered directly.
…
Meanwhile, Gusion was also stunned by the prompt.
["Divine Space has conceded. End Space wins. Pioneer mission complete."]
Gusion thought: What the hell? I didn't even fight and it's over?