Chapter 243: Game Pool

Finally, at the insistence of Mu Sicheng, the matter of the badge was passed on to Bai Liu to handle on their own.

The highlight of this year's event was the weapons renovation.

Charles introduced them to an eccentric-looking weapons-modifier, with unkempt, half-long hair that had been unkemptly condensed into locks of some kind of dark machine oil, which hung casually around his dishevelled beard, and a face that was too dirty to tell how old he was.

The walls are covered in knives, cross-hairs, saw blades and other oddly shaped tools and semi-finished products, and the air is filled with the unpleasant smell of smoke and petrol.

On the ground is a huge furnace, a bubbling lava inside. The reformer pulls down the welder's mask over his head and dips a long hook into the lava, holding a weapon that has burned so much that its original shape cannot be seen.

"Zip-la-la," the lava rose in a long, black smoke.

Two seconds later, the reformer pulls out the long hook, the weapon on it empty - obviously melted into the lava.

"Tch." The reformer grunted in displeasure, "Who sent in a skill weapon with such a low melting point, it's gone with a dip!"

The apprentice next to him looked at the pot of lava with tears in his eyes and jumped up and down in anxiety: "...... Master, you could have at least measured the melting point of the weapon before you put it in the pot! How are we going to get our weapons out of the pot now?"

"If you can't get it out, forget it." The reformer tossed the hook aside and snarled, "If it can't even withstand the stone slurry boiled by my Samadhi fire, this weapon is worthless! It's useless!"

Muke's eyes couldn't help but fall on the bubbling pot of lava, gulping and gripping their weapons.

The reformer, dressed in an 80s and 90s worker's suit and thick felt apron, lifted his greasy hair to the back of his head, set a glowing welding gun against the wall and glanced back at Bai Liu: "So you're the ones who want to reform?"

Charles restrained himself from the urge to leave immediately and nodded haughtily, "It's them."

" Bai Liu, this is the best weapon modifier in the game - General Hua Gan."

Hua Gan hid a pair of iron hook eyes between his dirty hair and face, swept them around sternly, raised his arm and hooked the gloves from Bai Liu's hand into his own before anyone could react.

"This is your weapon of skill, isn't it?" Although Hua Ganjun was asking Bai Liu's words, he didn't give Bai Liu a single look, instead he skillfully grabbed a pen-style spotlight magnifying glass from the drawer and put it on his left eye, while holding a sharp-edged knife in his other hand, and without hesitation, he slashed it on the surface of his glove!

A hole was poked in the glove moments later.

Mu Sicheng couldn't resist shouting at him, "Hey! Don't just move around!"

Hua Gan will be deaf to this, and his knife is getting faster and faster, removing Bai Liu's glove in a few strokes, then twisting a needle with thread out of the messy hair, licking it twice and swishing it on.

After a few strokes, the wallet became quite shrunken, and Hua would toss it to Bai Liu and wipe his own hands with a towel, "Try again."

Bai Liu took the purse, put it on his hand and raised his eyebrows, "It fits a lot better than it just did."

The leather is rolled inwards and constricted at the knuckles, and a cut is derived from the end of the glove to wrap the wrist nicely - it is much more comfortable to wear than the simple modification Charles gave him.

"Worthy of being the best remodeller." Bai Liu exclaims from the bottom of his heart.

Charles took off his hat and curtsied, smiling as he stepped back, "Then I will trouble Mr. Wagandan."

General Hua waved his hand in a perfunctory manner.

Once Charles had gone and talked about weapon modifications, the big, burly modifier came on strong again: "My skill is this flavour of furnace fire, called Samadhi."

The apprentice next to him corrected in a small whisper, "- call it dissolving forging paste, Master."

Hua Ganzhong smacked him on the back of the head, "You're the only one with a mouth that pushes, if I say it's called Samadhi, it's called Samadhi! I like Samadhi, don't I?"

Apprentice: "...... line."

"Quite well, in my case the skill transformation is in two parts, the first part is simply shaping, the look I just made is shaping, after shaping you are satisfied, go down to the furnace fire to set it and forge it."

General Hua Gan said with a serious look, "Only skill weapons that do not disintegrate after being fixed can continue in this particular form as your skill weapons for you to use in the tournament."

"But set it between forges and you can add a lot of rare props to it to pull up the attributes of your own weapon - like attack attributes and such."

General Hua Gan glanced at the gloves on Bai Liu's hands, "These gloves, for example, can be shaped with a layer of metallic satin on the top and a layer of green goat's sheepskin embedded inside, adding around 2700 to the defence value."

"But accordingly, the weight of these gloves will become 120kg, which is equivalent to you having to lift a two hundred pound man at all times."

Bai Liu: "...... that or not."

General Hua continued, "So the forging process is going to be a matter for you to take as you see fit, whether to add or not, what exactly to add - your forging fees are Charles paid, and I have the materials here for you to take as you wish."

When he finished, General Hua reached out to Bai Liu: "Bring the gloves, it's time to cross the lava."

Bai Liu took it off as good as it got and asked, "What if it doesn't pass and dissolves in the lava like it just did?"

"Skillful weapons are derivatives of desire, and the purer the desire, the higher the potential of the weapon derived, and the more powerful it will be when quenched through fire."

Hua Gan will pin the gloves on the long hook and said without looking back, "And only skill weapons of low grade will dissolve like that, in my case, that is all consequential."

Bai Liu whispers, "If I give you my purse, will you give all you have, even your soul, to help me forge a weapon of skill?"

"You are my customer, and as long as your weapon holds up, I will naturally build it to your satisfaction."

Bai Liu's lips curl imperceptibly.

With that, General Hua did not hesitate to sink a pair of Bai Liu's worn and frayed gloves into the burning, glistening lava.

"Tzitzit-"

A long, loud burning sound emerged from the lava and a few notes in the wallet could be clearly seen vaguely burning.

Muke, Mu Sicheng, Liu Jiayi, Tang Erda slyly shifted her gaze to Bai Liu: "......"

Liu Jiayi calmly reminded, "Did you just forget to take something out?"

Bai Liu then pretended to remember in due course and apologised with a guilt-free smile, "Sorry, I just forgot to take your notes out."

This one definitely did it on purpose!!!

Mu Sicheng gritted his teeth and was about to go after Bai Liu when Tang Erda stopped him, Liu Jiayi covered his face and Muke stared blankly at the red cauldron of lava.

Bai Liu's dark, shapeless pupils reflected quietly the red pot that had devoured his wallet, the light smoke from the extinguished money steaming up from its surface as if it were a scent of a soul scorched by desire.

His soul note is also in it.

There is something strangely evaporative about being quenched, the excess emotion in the body leaching out like water and then being infused with a more vibrant, rolling, pounding, frenzied desire.

In the twisting heat and tumbling lava, his soul is blazed away by the flames to remove excess impurities and transform into a more pure body of human desire.

Hua Ganjun pressed his wrist to raise the hook and at the sight of the glove on the end of the hook, he jerked his head to look at Bai Liu, who was sitting on the end of the hook, with a look of shock on his face that he could not hide.

The apprentice next to him even looked at it with his eyes straightened and couldn't stop the stupidity on his face, "...... Master, Master, this glove, how did it ...... turn out like this?"

Where the gloves had been torn and puckered, they were now as good as new, with tight, smooth black leather encasing every inch of the inner gloves, a faintly shiny ring of metal wristbands at the base of the wrist, and a huge hexagonal werewolf-eye patterned groove at the back of the hand, holding a lustrous flow of blood-like lava.

And the moment the gloves were lifted, less than a third of the lava in the pot remained.

The apprentice had followed General Hua for so long, but it was the first time he had seen a forging process that could swallow lava inside his skill weapon, and his words stuttered: "Master, isn't lava, lava your skill weapon? Why can it be swallowed?"

Hua Gan will stop the apprentice behind him, hook dislike to Bai Liu's face and sternly said, "What have you done?!"

He had sensed that something was wrong.

He was not too defensive of Bai Liu's team as he was not allowed to use attacking skills in the lobby, plus Hua Ganjun's own skills were extremely dominant.

But I never thought that Bai Liu would be so desperate as to set him up for a critical skill weapon modification!

Bai Liu rose unsteadily to his feet, removed his gloves from the hook and placed them on his own hands - the gloves, freshly removed from the lava, were slightly warm, but not at all hot and showed no sign of dissolving.

It was as if the hot lava was powerless against the weapons derived from Bai Liu's desire.

"A soul note is also a coin." Bai Liu pulls a brand new soul note from the from the inner layer of his glove and holds it between his index and middle fingers.

The note is surmounted by the angry face of General Hua Gan.

Bai Liu smiled, "Just now Mr. Hua Ganjun had completed his deal with me the moment he took my wallet."

General Hua Gan's chest rose and fell violently as he gritted his teeth in anger and pooh-poohed Bai Liu, "I've never seen such a greedy skill weapon, sooner or later you'll be consumed by your own desire!"

"Maybe there will be that day." Bai Liu didn't deny it as he smiled and continued to move closer, holding Hua's hooks away from him with his gloves and forcefully holding him down in his chair as he attached himself to look down at him.

"But before that, Mr. Wagan General, can you tell me - what kind of task did Mr. President of the Deer Hunter, give you that he was willing to make the high and mighty, weapon modifier who was only willing to serve those within the guild actually grovel to please me and give me a weapon modification? "

Bai Liu lifted his eyes to look at the young apprentice, shivering as Mu Sicheng took control by the clawed chokehold of his throat, "You may lie, but I believe a good master would not like to see his apprentice suffer the consequences of lying for himself, don't you think?"

General Hua Gan's pupils snapped shut.

In an instant, the position between the deer hunter and the hunted deer is reversed.