Chapter 15: Purchasing Skills
Stepping into the [Attribute Strengthening Hall], Roland felt his vision blur the moment he entered the door.
By the time he regained his senses, he was already in a steel cubicle a few square meters in size.
"Click, clack~."
Mechanical sounds echoed around him, and a glowing screen appeared before Roland.
[Welcome to the Attribute Enhancement Chamber. Please pay the activation fee. Activation fee: 50 paradise coins.]
[Special permission enabled. Your usage fee for paradise facilities has been reduced by 50%.]
It seemed the game developers were lazy and omitted the internal modeling of the Attribute Strengthening Hall. Everyone who enters the Attribute Strengthening Hall is randomly teleported into an enhancement chamber after a cutscene, and then they need to pay to use the chamber.
After paying 50 paradise coins, a prompt appeared on the screen before him.
Strength: 10
Agility: 10
Stamina: 12 (Basic Passive: Cloud Bat +2)
Intelligence: 10
Charm: 10
[Hunter can freely allocate attribute points. Current attribute points: 7]
[Beep, detected that the Hunter's affinity attributes are Strength, Agility, Stamina, Intelligence, and Charm. Hunter, please prioritize enhancing these five attributes.]
Roland had already decided on his attribute point allocation on the way here: 2 points for Strength and 5 points for Agility.
[Enhancement begins. As enhancement will be accompanied by immense pain, would you like to use the anesthesia function? This function is free.]
"Do not activate."
Roland answered decisively. Using the anesthesia function might affect the enhancement effect. Anyway, he had lowered the pain sensory feedback in the simulated sensory settings, so he thought... "Aaaah!!! Who touched my default settings!! Damn!!!"
...Ten minutes later, Roland, drenched in sweat, walked out of the Attribute Strengthening Hall.
Although the attribute enhancement was incredibly painful, as long as he endured the initial agony, the subsequent feeling of gradually growing stronger was also quite good.
Although Roland knew this was just neurosensory feedback simulated by the AI, he still liked the feeling very much.
"Next, I'll go acquire the skills I've already planned for."
Roland's goal was clear. Instead of aimlessly searching in the Trading Plaza, he went directly to a merchant guild's sales point, following his original memory.
To avoid being overly squeezed out of the market by large merchant guilds, some smaller merchant guilds would specialize in collecting and selling specific types of equipment and items, ensuring they could at least occupy sales channels in mid-to-low-end transactions.
For example, the Jinluo Bay Merchant Guild's sales point that Roland sought out primarily dealt in sword-type equipment and skills.
As soon as he entered the sales point, Roland received a warm welcome from the receptionist.
"Welcome to Jīnluówān! How may I help you, esteemed Contractor!"
The staff member, dressed as a cat girl, bowed with a gentle smile, her angle just right for his gaze to fall upon that large expanse of white.
"Ahem! I want a 'Water Breathing' gift package. Do you have it in stock?"
Roland lightly coughed, averted his gaze, and said in a muffled voice.
He was still live-streaming, after all, so he had to be mindful of his image.
The receptionist's eyes lit up upon hearing his request, and she said in an even more delicate tone:
"Yes, we do! We happen to have one Water Breathing gift package left. Please have a seat for a moment, and I'll fetch it for you right away!"
The so-called 'Water Breathing' gift package contains a blue-quality Water Breathing skill scroll and related sword-form technique scrolls, a green-quality nichirin blade, and one piece each of green-quality top, pants, and haori, which can form a set.
The Breathing Techniques from demon slayer: kimetsu no yaiba are also among the most cost-effective and powerful early-game skills in Wheel of Reincarnation Paradise.
Although these skills have the drawback of requiring time to stack Breathing Technique layers in combat, the sheer power of the stats once the layers are stacked is truly appealing.
Most importantly, because Breathing Techniques are essentially a shallow application of life energy, they hardly conflict with any other energy and can be perfectly integrated into any system for use.
Even mages can use Breathing Techniques to compensate for their early-game close-combat weaknesses. Combined with proficient use of spell-type skills, the two can unleash astonishing combat power in actual combat.
And speaking of Breathing Techniques, one must mention an interesting anecdote related to them.
In the previous few seasons, due to the extremely high cost-effectiveness of Breathing Techniques, early on, any Wheel of Reincarnation Paradise player who had the conditions would go to the demon slayer: kimetsu no yaiba world to farm a set.
However, there were two ways to obtain them: joining the Demon Slayer Corps to learn required time, but the mission cycle of Wheel of Reincarnation Paradise was very short. Unless there were special items providing time to stay in the derivative world, it was difficult to obtain Breathing Technique skills through learning.
Relying solely on drops from kills, the drop rate for complete Breathing Techniques was very low, forcing players to repeatedly enter the demon slayer: kimetsu no yaiba world to farm, while also having to pay attention to suppressing their Brand Level, which was very cumbersome.
This led players who had experienced 'farming Breathing Techniques until they vomited' to deeply detest the demon slayer: kimetsu no yaiba world. Some even said: they didn't want to see it again.
Roland was once one of those who 'farmed Breathing Techniques until they vomited,' so this time, he wouldn't think about getting them from the demon slayer: kimetsu no yaiba world again. He would honestly spend paradise coins to buy them from the merchant guild!
The cat girl receptionist quickly returned, jogging, with the specified gift package.
"You're really lucky! We just happen to have this one 'Water Breathing' gift package left. If you had come a few minutes later, it might have been bought by someone else, and you would have had to wait a while to get it.
Oh, right! Our merchant guild is currently running an event. If you buy this gift package and add 300 paradise coins, you can get a Kasugai Crow that can help you with reconnaissance activities.
And if you add another 2400 paradise coins, you can also get a set of 'Soryu Martial Arts' skill books. What do you think...?"
"No, no."
Roland waved his hand, rejecting her sales pitch. He picked up the 'Water Breathing' skill scroll from the gift box, glanced at it, and couldn't help but frown:
"I remember this gift package was supposed to include Tomioka Giyuu's unique 'Eleventh Form: Dead Calm,' wasn't it? Why are there only ten sword forms here?"
The cat girl's smile instantly froze on her face. After a second or two, she reacted, laughed awkwardly, and said:
"This... this must be an oversight by our staff! We're terribly sorry, we'll replace it for you immediately."
Roland shot her a side glance, looking as if he had seen through their trick, and waved the scroll back to her.
The cat girl bowed repeatedly as she took the scroll, then hurried to the sales point's back warehouse. Four or five minutes later, she rushed out with a new scroll and a pack of injections.
"We are truly sorry, esteemed Contractor! Our staff's oversight has caused you inconvenience!
As an apology, here are nine healing agents produced by the Butterfly Mansion as our compensation to you. Do you find this acceptable?"
Roland nodded, took the scroll and agents, and after confirming everything was correct, he didn't argue further with them. He promptly paid 27,888 paradise coins and left.