Encountering five enemies at once in Aswan was unexpected for Takatsuki, but for the three enemies his side encountered, Takatsuki still found an opportunity to inform the others, to prevent anyone from accidentally spilling the beans and wondering why three people were missing.
As several enemies were continuously defeated, the system's crystal reserve reached 550, enough for a hundred-pull, but Takatsuki chose to ask Kiana to help him with three ten-pulls instead.
Since S-rank character cards couldn't be equipped anyway, Takatsuki's slight OCD made him choose to pull out the guaranteed S-rank card.
The three cards were Caesar from this world, the assassin teacher Kuzuki Souichirou from the Type-Moon World, and an unexpected old friend, Shendu, or rather, the Fire Demon, from Jackie Chan Adventures.
Fire Demon (S)
Skill:
Fire Demon Chi: Corresponding to Li in the Eight Trigrams, it grants the wielder an innate, endless power of scorching heat, allowing them to freely manipulate flames for attack, and making their body immune to pure flame attacks.
Demon Wizard: As the most intelligent demon of ancient times, the Fire Demon is knowledgeable in many spells and potions, but due to the passage of time, most of this knowledge has been forgotten, yet it has become instinct.
Dragon's Body: The powerful demonic and draconic physique grants the Fire Demon near-immortality even without relying on external forces.
Introduction: The sixth-ranked Fire Demon among the Eight Great Demons: Shendu. Shendu's inherent power is not strong, but through his wisdom, he gained power far exceeding that of other demons. After collecting the Twelve Talismans, he can evolve into [Shendu (SS)].
And the Dog Talisman came from a character from the same world, or rather, the Talismans themselves are Shendu's power.
Of course, Takatsuki believes that the Talismans were not Shendu's original power. The Eight Great Demons each possessed demonic energy of a specific attribute, which was a special setting of that world. Shendu was not originally the strongest among the Eight Great Demons, but with the Twelve Talismans, Shendu completely overpowered any of the other Eight Great Demons.
This can be seen from his easy victory over the Demon Little Dragon, who possessed all the demonic energies.
So, it's very strange. If Shendu was inherently that strong, would he still be ranked sixth?
Although the anime didn't elaborate, the Chinese Zodiac is inherently Chinese, and the territory Shendu ruled happened to include this area.
Takatsuki had no doubt that Shendu used his demonic knowledge to steal this power from Chinese history and make it his own, just as he later controlled the power within the Ninja Masks to summon the Ninja Soldiers he controlled. However, after acquiring this power, he stopped researching, which led to him forgetting those powerful spells later on.
Therefore, he completely understood that the S-rank character card given by the system required collecting the Twelve Talismans to become an SS-rank Shendu.
However, for now, these are still too distant for Takatsuki. He can't even equip an S-rank character card, let alone a higher-level SS-rank one.
After resolving the five enemies in Aswan, they didn't encounter any other enemies along the way.
It makes sense; Dio only had so many subordinates. Once they were all killed, there would be no one left, let alone any Stand users worth mentioning.
In front of Stand users, the combat power of ordinary people is not very meaningful, unless large-scale thermal weapons are used. However, although Dio is very rich now, he cannot deploy a large number of thermal weapons in this regard.
Perhaps he could do it in the future, but what Dio lacks most right now is time.
"Finally arrived, Cairo!"
Following Hermit Purple's spirit photography, the group finally arrived in Cairo. Joseph took out a stack of photos from his pocket: "Next, we need to find the house in these photos."
Looking at the house in the photos, Takatsuki said, "Although I don't know the exact location, I remember you once mentioned that it's an ancient building in Cairo, in the southern direction."
"However, back then, it was found by Iggy by chance."
Joseph stroked his chin: "Is that so, Iggy? I originally planned to have the SPW bring it, but after hearing about the future you mentioned, I think it's better not to let it get involved in this mess."
Takatsuki nodded. Now they had more people than before, and their strength was also greater. Even Jotaro had quietly explored the technique of Time Stop, becoming stronger than originally. There was no need to find another dog as an external aid.
After distributing a photo to everyone, Joseph said, "Next, we'll look for this place."
"Although it would be better to search separately, who knows when Dio's assassins will strike, and Cairo is also Dio's territory. It's better for everyone to act together."
The group first followed Takatsuki's suggestion and headed south in Cairo, asking along the way if anyone had seen the house in the photos, but all the answers were negative.
However, they did get the same conclusion from an old man as Takatsuki: the houses in the photos were all old buildings, and the further south in Cairo, the older the buildings were.
Thus, just traversing Cairo took more than a day.
As dusk approached, combined with Dio's vampire characteristics, the group decided to find a place to rest first, as night was the vampires' domain.
Takatsuki also took the opportunity to organize his backpack and system inventory before encountering Dio.
At this time, he had four hundred crystals, enough for an eighty-pull. Although it wasn't enough for a guaranteed pull, with good luck, he might get an S-rank.
He had only drawn one hundred times for item cards before, and Kiana helped him draw three A-rank cards and one guaranteed S-rank card, making a total of thirteen.
Among them, the twelve A-rank items were: Breath of the Grim Reaper, Ox Talisman, Tiger Talisman, Sheep Talisman, Monkey Talisman, Frenzied Flame Mark, Red Stone of Aja, Tree of Plenty, Beauty Skin Hot Spring, Swap Ticket, and the Ebony and Ivory and Moonveil given to Kiana and Mei.
Takatsuki always kept the Dog Talisman and Ox Talisman in his equipment slots. Originally, the last slot usually held dual pistols or Famous Sword Moonveil, but after giving those away, the last equipment slot remained empty.
After all, there was nothing suitable among the items he drew. Although Breath of the Grim Reaper was suitable for his current immortal state, Takatsuki couldn't use a scythe!
A katana was fine, just for cutting, but a scythe required a lot of skill from the user.
And items like the Frenzied Flame Mark had significant side effects. The description stated that once equipped and used, he would be branded with the Frenzied Flame Mark. Takatsuki didn't want to be targeted by this thing, so he could only let it gather dust.
The only suitable equipment left was the Monkey Talisman, but that was rather awkward.
However, the character cards were quite abundant.
Florence Eagle, Kishibe Rohan, Dio, Ghiaccio, Kredo, Chrollo, Dogri, Narciso, Zeppelin, Koby, Rabedo, Tōsaka Tokiomi, Caesar, Kuzuki Souichirou, Nameless Genin, Arad Novice Fighter, Assault Type Demon Soldier, and two S-rank cards: President and Fire Demon.
Josuke and Okuyasu Nijimura's character cards were converted into Stigmata and given to Mei and Kiana.
Compared to item cards, character cards were much more abundant, but not many could be of great use. However, Takatsuki discovered that the greatest use of character cards might not be the small amount of power obtained from others after using them, but rather some special powers that could be learned.
For example, his originally very rusty Hamon. After obtaining Zeppelin's character card, he would often switch to it to experience the feeling of profound Hamon, which greatly increased his proficiency in Hamon.
He had also found some tricks regarding the Nen from the Hunter x Hunter world and the Haki system from the One Piece world.
Compared to Nen, Haki was more inclined towards instinct. Takatsuki decided to prioritize mastering this special power when he had time.
As for the Chakra system brought by the Nameless Genin, Takatsuki found that after canceling the character card, he couldn't use even a trace of Chakra. Remembering the setting of Naruto, it might be because he didn't have the Chakra bestowed by the Sage of Six Paths in his body.
And the magic of the Type-Moon World required magic circuits, which he also didn't have. However, Kuzuki Souichirou's assassination technique, brought him a lot of gains.