Chapter 182: How are all your hunter's equipment alive?
By the time Cheng Tian had cleared all the arcade machines and was ready to officially return to Heaven's Chosen Space, it was already the eve of the next month's monthly trial.
For about three weeks, he had been holed up in the arcade, clearing machines daily. Only in the evenings, when he returned to his apartment, would he spare some time to feed the elephants, play with the dinosaurs, and discuss banana ripeness with the research apes in the Space.
During the period Cheng Tian was obsessed with clearing arcade machines, his old comrades from the previous instance, with whom he had shared life-and-death experiences, also left some messages. Cheng Tian even saw private space entry requests from the female mummy Marian and the golden-haired Tifa Eve.
However, although Cheng Tian had fought alongside them at the Altar of Kukulkan, their relationship was essentially that of acquaintances who barely knew each other, so he directly rejected their requests.
After being rejected, the mummy continuously sent messages complaining about Cheng Mouren, which he promptly blocked. Eve, on the other hand, went silent after being rejected. Instead, her older sister and mother figure, Romi Lin, started messaging Cheng Tian with complaints.
Cheng Tian then blacklisted her too.
Looking at his male companions, even with a clearly closer relationship, they maintained a sense of propriety and distance. Cheng Tian preferred this kind of 'light as water' interaction.
Oh, Eileen is an exception at the moment. She inadvertently plunged headfirst into Cheng Mouren's spatial life, and to him, she's a combination of a senior female, a female buddy, and a female ruffian.
Cheng Tian had, of course, already completed the Soul Equipment quest. Because he had promptly changed the delivery address to his temporarily rented apartment in Jinmen before the opposite side shipped it, receiving the goods didn't delay his arcade machine spree.
Moreover, because he bought six copies in one go, the most expensive one met the condition of being 90% new.
When Cheng Tian was in his temporary apartment, he laid out the two unsealed items and confirmed the start of the unsealing process. A phantom dragon head, identical to the Amphibious Blazefire Dragon in life, suddenly burst from his chest, and then swallowed the game cartridge and arcade board one by one.
Subsequently, the faint glow representing the soul seal on the silver… Dragon Scale Cuirass completely dissipated, and its true attribute effects were displayed before Cheng Tian's eyes.
[Blazefire Dragon Scale Armor: Purple Rare / Lv1, Cuirass, Soul Equipment, Unsealed. Equipment Requirement: Cheng Tian + Soul Bound. Can be worn and effective in the real world. Durability 80/80.
Forged from the Amphibious Blazefire Dragon, which underwent a dual mutation of Spades and Diamonds. With the tough, flexible, and elastic dragon hide as the base, metallurgical scales are stitched together, and the aggrieved dragon soul, which died in frustration, is infused. This ultimately forms this set of dragon scale cuirass that largely retains the dragon soul's abilities from when it was alive.
Spades and Clubs — Retains the deeply mutated bloodline abilities the Blazefire Dragon possessed in life. Fire Resistance +25%, Water Resistance +25%. Grants the wearer "Deep Water Environment Adaptability" and "Lava Environment Adaptability" abilities, allowing them to move relatively freely in deep water and lava environments, ignoring various negative effects brought by deep water and lava zones. Agility +5 in water, Spirit +5 in lava.
However, it should be noted that when environmental adaptability is active, it will continuously consume the durability of the scale armor. For every 5 minutes spent in an extreme environment, 1 additional point of scale armor durability will be consumed.
Metallurgical Scales — The cuirass scales, having absorbed heavy metal components, possess additional HP equivalent to Strength * 10 points. Only after the scales are broken can attacking the corresponding broken armor location deal damage to your true HP bar. You can repair broken armor locations by actively submerging yourself in magma or immersing it in liquid metal. Repair time requires 1 minute, and the repair amount is 50% of the scale HP Upper limit. The repaired scale armor will appear saturated and needs to wait 30 minutes before it can absorb repairs again.
Additionally, if you use superior liquid metal materials when repairing its scales, the metallurgical scales will temporarily gain corresponding additional effects based on the absorbed material's characteristics; if you consistently immerse the scale armor in special metal materials, the scales may gain permanent evolutionary growth.
In an emergency, you can forcibly awaken the Amphibious Blazefire Dragon Soul within the scale armor, allowing it to directly repair the scale armor's durability by devouring metal equipment. The repair value is determined by the overall strength of the devoured equipment, and the dragon soul may inherit a portion of the devoured equipment's special effects. You can only forcibly awaken the dragon soul once every 24 hours.]
[Additional Comment: Dragon beasts will live on hunters in the form of various equipment.]
Cheng Tian almost without hesitation stuffed the Dragon Scale Cuirass into his chest equipment slot.
What tactical vest? He wasn't familiar with it at all!
And the equipment slot, which was originally completely unusable in the real world, also became usable when the scale armor was inserted.
With a thought, the scale armor directly manifested and enveloped Cheng Tian's entire upper body.
Honestly, it had a bit of the feel of the Lavasioth Cuirass from "Monster Hunter: World," but the problem was that only the upper body was covered in scales, while the lower part was still just boxer briefs (Strawberry was in the Space), which made it look a bit clunky and odd.
However, just as he donned the armor, a prompt popped up from the Space.
[You have equipped and used Soul Equipment in the real world.]
[When you are observed by ordinary people while your Soul Equipment is manifested, you will be considered to be in "Combat State." Only after exiting combat can you re-hide the appearance of your Soul Equipment.]
...Is that all?
Cheng Tian, who had expected more restrictive rules, was somewhat surprised.
This meant that Cheng Tian could actually swagger around and use this equipment directly among people in the real world.
Unfortunately, he only had this one piece of scale armor. He still lacked gloves, waist armor, leg armor, and shoes. Otherwise, he would really want to find an opportunity to show off his 'handmade' Monster Hunter-inspired equipment at some comic convention.
Speaking of which, since the scale armor could be used normally and effectively in reality, wouldn't that mean he could wear it to dive into the sea, or even directly into the magma of an active volcano?
Oh, no, wait. It only granted environmental adaptability, but it didn't give Cheng Tian additional breathing ability. Water might be manageable, but with magma, it would probably burn everything except himself and the scale armor on his upper body, right?
When he climbed out of the magma, he would be completely naked... That actually sounds quite interesting!
He could also mock the T-800 for willingly entering molten iron.
"Hmm?"
Just as Cheng Tian contentedly patted his cuirass, he noticed that the head of the Blazefire Dragon Soul, which had devoured the unsealing materials, suddenly emerged from his chest, then spit out two objects with a 'phooey phooey' sound.
Before Cheng Tian could clearly see what was spat out, these two items had already transformed into streaks of light and drilled into Cheng Tian's item slot.
Cheng Tian curiously reopened his item slot and then saw two familiar yet unfamiliar items—
An original "Cadillacs and Dinosaurs" arcade cabinet with a built-in motherboard, the same three-player co-op machine Cheng Tian had seen at the rich guy's store.
An original Famicom console with "Adventure Island 3" inserted, even with the original controller that only had single-fire A and B buttons, without a turbo function.