As if he had expected Su Mo to display such an expression, Chen Shen could no longer hold back his amusement and burst out laughing.
“Brother Su, heaven took pity on us. Right after I confiscated this item, everyone had the same expression.
“But take a look at its attributes. Once we have enough points in the future, this will be an invincible divine item.
“I wonder how these people from Zeus Shelter got lucky enough to possess something like this!”
“Oh?”
When Su Mo saw Chen Shen extolling the virtues of the black pot in front of him and actually giving it such a good review, he stepped forward doubtfully, grasped the handle of the iron pot, and picked it up.
The pot was not heavy. Su Mo, who had strengthened his hand muscles several times already by now, estimated that the pot’s weight was within five to eight catties.
However, if one were to consider that the pot only had a diameter of 38cm, compared to an equivalent pot from Earth which would weigh around three to four catties, this black one was way heavier.
If one ignored the orange-yellow glow that radiated from the entire pot, the color of the pot itself was extremely classy.
The entire thing appeared to be pure black, and it was hard to tell if there were any impurities in the color just by looking at it with the naked eye.
“Even if this pot were just a normal one instead of an epic-quality object, it’s still pretty high quality.
“This wooden handle in particular—it feels like I’m holding a piece of jade. And it doesn’t slip either, so it will be really good for cooking.”
After he flipped the pot upside down with credible skill and brushed his fingers over the complicated patterns inside it, Su Mo gave the item a very high evaluation.
The lifelong dream of a chef was to possess a handy iron pot.
As a foodie, Su Mo liked this pot very much indeed.
After repeatedly toying with it for a while, Su Mo focused his mind. Since someone had already used some points to appraise it, the black pot’s attribute panel gradually appeared.
“Huh, using it to cook will give one a bonus. Sounds good; it can even make epic-quality dishes…”
Su Mo scrolled down the attributes of the iron pot one by one. After he noticed that spending different amounts of points meant that he could cook food of different grades—the highest level not exceeding epic-quality—he was rather delighted.
No wonder Chen Shen had said this was something good. If he truly had the points to make epic-quality dishes, that would be amazing!
However, amid his excitement, Su Mo’s gaze fell on the next attribute which had a locked word on it. He felt his heart beginning to beat very fast.
“Wait, what’s this?”
The appearance of this locked word was nothing like Oreo’s attribute panel, which had not been completely leveled up and was sealed.
Instead, there was a black mist floating on top of the word that seemed to have been imposed over it for concealment. Furthermore, a vague sense of familiarity kept circling in Su Mo’s mind.
“Black mist?
“The two blueprints that I brought back from the unknown space-time previously had black mist on them too!”
This suddenly dawned on Su Mo, but before he could continue ruminating on the epiphany, the system in his body that had hitherto been silent suddenly began to become uncontrollably restless.
Simultaneously, an ear-piercing buzzing noise suddenly exploded in Su Mo’s ears.
Su Mo was familiar with this noise.
The first time he heard it was in the mysterious SYQ organization’s rift. When the two blueprints were delivered to him, the system’s alarm began ringing.
In the end, only after he used magical energy to cleanse them of the black mist could the blueprints be used normally.
The second time was after the welfare disaster had ended. When the golden light swept over him, the system had also raised the alarm like this.
Although the alarm from the previous two times sounded rapid and urgent, it was not strident. It was only informing Su Mo that the items were dangerous, and he needed to stay away from them or destroy them.
Now, however…
The sound in his ears had become a rumble that sounded like a drumroll on the eve of battle. As he stood there, Su Mo’s entire body began shuddering uncontrollably as if an electric current had shot through him. He could barely control himself.
There was something wrong with the black pot!
Furthermore, it was something very wrong!
The system wanted to come out to battle it!
‘This won’t do… There’s someone in here with me!’
Su Mo shrieked this loudly in his mind, forcibly suppressing the shudders that came from his very core. He gritted his teeth and shouted each and every word!
“Chen Shen, get out now! Close the doors securely and wait for me!
“Guard the entrance up there, no one is allowed to come in without my orders!”
These two explosive yells were like a sudden awakening, and the intense blaring of the alarm snapped Chen Shen back to reality—he had been standing to one side, transfixed by Su Mo’s attitude.
Without any hesitation or wasting time in idle chatter and seeing that there were large beads of sweat rolling down from the top of Su Mo’s head, Chen Shen—who had finally realized how serious the matter was—scrambled to the stairs and hastily ran up.
Clang, clang, clang…
Three heavy clangs came from the iron doors as they were shut, the sounds beginning to resonate endlessly in the storage room.
When Su Mo heard the clangs, he could not hold on any longer and immediately released administrator authority to the system right away.
An instant later, the storage room that was still dark in areas was illuminated completely by only reddish-black rays of light.
Glowing!
From head to foot, indescribable reddish-black rays of light surged out from Su Mo’s body, from the hair on his head all the way to his toes.
The rays of light seeped out from every area they could possibly exude from, bombarding the black pot.
However, once the black pot sensed the threat of the reddish-black light, it no longer remained in its earlier easygoing, ordinary state.
A strange black aura emerged from its surface and carried the pot itself into the air, swaying wildly as it tried to flee.
However, the system was still the system. Once it struck, there was no chance at all for the black pot to escape.
As the first beam of reddish-black light bombarded the black pot, it stopped moving!
The greyish-black color covering the pot began to change slightly.
The black on its surface began gradually sloughing off like a skin, falling to the ground.
However, before the black substance reached the ground, the beams of light melted it right away and dissipated it, making sure none of it was missed out.
As if it was limited by “output power”, it took the light a great deal of effort to bombard each square centimeter of the iron pot’s surface.
It took three to five seconds to slough off an area of the greyish-black substance, exposing the original color of the iron pot.
During this process of bombardment, Su Mo was still standing where he was and leaning on the wall of the storage room. His entire body was like a heated soldering iron, his body temperature rising madly.
Sensing the threat to his life, the Mountain and Sea Painting Scroll card that radiated silver-grey star power had emerged from his storage space, revolving in the air unceasingly and radiating pure light to envelop everything below.
Su Mo forced off the tops of bottle upon bottle of psychic energy water as if they cost nothing, directly pouring the bottles over his head.
Sizzle…
Sizzle…
The contact between the water and the high temperature caused the water to evaporate again and again. The small storage room was already full of white mist.
One minute…
Two minutes…
The stubborn greyish-black skin on the iron pot was still slowly sloughing off, but Su Mo, who was leaning on the wall, was on the verge of total exhaustion.
“Agh…
“Hurry up…
“I can’t take it much longer!”
Every second, the reddish-black light that was ripping his muscles and the tissues of his body apart would clash with the restoration function of the Mountain and Sea Painting scroll.
This tearing sensation was ten times more painful than torture. If it had not been for everything Su Mo had been through in the wasteland, experiencing numerous terrors between life and death—if it were not for the benefits that the Mountain and Sea Painting Scroll card and the psychic energy water had on his body …
Su Mo would have passed out the very first second!
Fortunately, the system seemed to be able to sense Su Mo’s body had reached the verge of collapse.
As an intense burst of light bombarded it, the last bit of coating on the iron pot finally sloughed off. It fell through the air and was utterly melted by the beams of light, then it began to dissipate slowly as it was sucked away.
Clang…
Without the light keeping it aloft, the pot hit the ground with a loud ringing clang.
At this point, however, Su Mo, who was now lying flat on the ground as his body twitched violently, had lost any desire to see if there were any anomalies on the iron pot.
“Huff…”
“Huff…”
Exhaustion!
Extreme exhaustion!
Exhaustion that he could die from!
The bombardment from the system’s beams of light did not take long—it was only around 2.5 minutes—but it was these 2.5 minutes that made Su Mo feel as if he were leaping back and forth from the gates of hell.
If it had not been for the Mountain and Sea Painting Scroll restoring his body, and the upgraded psychic energy water that could replenish his mental state—if either one of these two were missing, there would have been only one outcome…
Death!
“F*ck, it wasn’t the people from Zeus Shelter or the people of Hope Village who had to deal with this. At the end of the day, I still had to handle it.
“Sure enough, empiricism is deadly. Next time I should be extra careful when it comes to graded items. A situation like this must never happen again.
“Otherwise, if the system comes out to do battle once more, I’m not certain whether I’ll be able to pull through or not.”
Panting heavily, Su Mo stared at the ceiling, even though various parts of his body were protesting madly.
After the twisting pain was gone, from the very bottom of his heart, Su Mo could feel how “blessed” it was to be free from sickness and pain.
The Mountain and Sea Painting Scroll card was still dutifully revolving in the air, slowly healing the wounds his body had suffered.
Su Mo lay crumpled on the ground all this while. After ten minutes or so, he could feel his body become lighter. Only after the Mountain and Sea Painting Scroll card had ceased its energy output did his breathing slowly stabilize.
“Ouch, it hurts. From the looks of it, I’ve injured my core. I’ll need to take some time to fully recover!”
Although the Mountain and Sea Painting Scroll card could heal flesh wounds, there was no way it could replenish the over-exertion of his cell potency.
He would have to wait until new cells were generated to metabolize the over-extended cells before his body’s vitality could be restored.
Of course, he had not suffered so much pain for nothing.
At the very least, during the process of his muscle fibers being torn apart and forced to recover, their endurance and strength had increased substantially.
He only had to wait until his injuries had recovered, then his constitution would definitely go up significantly. He might well be able to achieve the constitution required for the shelter to upgrade to level five.
Su Mo continued to recuperate for a while. After he called up the game panel and sent Chen Shen a reply saying that he was fine, he held onto the handrail of the storage shelf compartment and slowly sat up.
Once he sat up, the iron pot that had fallen on the floor came into his field of view.
However…
“F*ck… this thing isn’t epic-quality, it’s a???
“One and only item???”
The iron pot that was previously completely black and suffused with an orange-yellow epic-quality glow had now vanished!
In its place was a jade pot with the same body and handle as earlier. It emitted a pale emerald glow.
Even the color of the jade pot had transformed into a unique red.
Red against green—when both colors were combined, it did not look jarring at all. Instead, they mingled together with a sort of classy loveliness.
Without hesitation, Su Mo launched the system appraisal from a safe distance, using it on the jade pot that cost lives instead of money.
This time, the light emitted from the system was no longer reddish-black. Instead, it had turned a green that represented hope and peace.
The green light shone onto the jade pot, resulting in a few seconds’ overlay on top of the green color of the pot itself before slowly receding.
Following that, the usual panel that would appear after checking on the attributes of an item did not immediately emerge.
Under Su Mo’s gaze, swirls of greenish steam started collecting on top of the pot, and an image slowly began to appear.
As the image played, the seldom-heard system voice that sounded like a pitiable woman began speaking.
“In the ??? era of rapid technological development, cosmic humans had left tracks throughout every corner of the three-dimensional universe. In the process of research, they discovered that if they wanted to break through the third dimension and the limitations of the three-dimensional universe so they could enter a civilized four-dimensional world, the essential step was to look for that “path”!
“Which path was that?
“The cosmic humans were not very sure. Dimensional restrictions made it hard for mankind to bypass these limits with their minds, but during the process of studying how to solve this dilemma, the cosmic humans discovered something amazing.
“Rule authority!
“Simply put, the virtual characters in the two-dimensional world, their lifestyles, and the things they do— even their appearances—are controlled by humans in the three-dimensional world.
“Two-dimensional creatures have no authority to decide on the development of the world, and they don’t realize that their lives are being controlled. They’re even more unaware of what’s wrong with the world.
“In the same manner, energy, gravitational forces, molecular collision, dark energy waves, and many other phenomena in the three-dimensional universe don’t happen by chance. These things have their own rules and are controlled by an unknown hand that mankind cannot fathom.
“When they could not break through the mind limits imposed by the fourth dimension, the cosmic humans changed their minds. They chose to start with the rules of the three-dimensional world so they could take control of gravity, energy, the forms taken by individual life, as well as the evolutionary chain within living beings.
“They wanted to restore the great power that the gods possessed in ancient myths.
“In other words, to become the evil dragon, one has to first defeat… the evil dragon!”
The image was too hazy to be able to tell what was being shown. After the image finished playing, even though he had excellent eyesight, Su Mo was still unable to make out what had happened.
However, the system’s voice very clearly conveyed the message behind the image.
Once the voice finished speaking, the familiar panel finally popped up. However, one look at the name of the jade pot sent Su Mo into a stunned stupor!
[The Giant Black Pot (1% Wasteland Modification Authority)]
