Current currencies: 19683 Spirit Fragments, 102 Vision Slivers.
As the wooden creature turned into ashes in entirety, the fire in the illusion faded. Wu Xiaoming did a quick calculation and came to the conclusion that this time, the creature was still worth only 600 Spirit Fragments and 1 Vision Sliver - not a lot, but not a negligible amount either. It seemed simply "farming" this creature repeatedly would simply yield the same rewards. He could come back another time to confirm.
He treaded along the path he explored last time, along the feet of the buildings on the side of a boulevard. It did not take him long before he reached the shopping mall. He looked in through the window - the glistening object was still there, only slightly closer to the window this time.
He tried to look up, but could only make out what appeared to be intertwining tubes or wires up above the walkway. The inside of the shops was blurry as well - he would probably need a pair of binoculars if he wanted to see more clearly.
He moved along, just like last time.
After crossing a street, the buildings on his side became tall office buildings. Two of the tallest ones had glass exterior walls, while some of the shorter ones retained more "traditional" designs of bricks, cladding or concrete. In this realm, with the dim lighting and in this almost completely deserted state, all of them were more of presences of disturbance and latent horror than symbols of wealth and status. They loomed over the street and Wu Xiaoming, not casting any shadows on him at all but remained as arcane, unsettling and dangerous places of intrigue and potential resources.
Just as he passed by another building - one that could probably be classified as a skyscraper, an unusual reflection and shine coming from its exterior glass panels caught his attention. He looked up, having realized what was "off" about it when he first laid eyes on it. It was the glass - in this realm, glass was not very common, not as common as it was in the physical realm. A lot of the buildings he visited did not have glass windows at all, not even mirrors. Yet right here, this modern building in this realm still retained all of its glass exterior, not one missing panel.
In his previous life, he had not visited a lot of buildings like this one. He searched through his latent memories, he did not have much either. The revolving glass door was just there, and the lounge itself was spacious, open and bright - relatively speaking.
After only a short moment of hesitation, he went into the lounge. The glass walls were as transparent as they looked from outside.
The first thing he chose to check out was the staircase - the entrance to which was at the very end of the elevator hall. All the elevator shafts were just like the one in the Woodside Hotel - empty, no doors.
Cold air poured out, along with a heavy smell of dust and mold. He almost coughed, and had to back away. The staircase had lights in it - pale white light on the walls. He went in and reached his hand over to the one closest to him - no warmth, just a "light" with room temperature. The light bulb itself was round, made of a solid piece of glass, and was glowing from the center.
He pulled and twisted the light bulb a few times, just to see if it would function like an actual bulb - it did, the light died down the moment it was pulled away. It was a little disappointing, but he wouldn't really put much hope on it.
Circling back to the reception desk - the desk itself was still in its original shape, even the drawers still worked. Though, all of them were empty - all of them, but one: in the second lowest drawer in the left hand column, he found a baton.
The main shaft was made of metal - light, but sturdy and hard. The grip was made of hard rubber, providing a rather comfortable and firm grip. It had the looks of an extendable baton, but something seemed to have broken in its shaft and it could no longer retract, which was no problem for Wu Xiaoming, since he had his inventory slots.
"Tempered Steel Baton: made of high quality steel, it served longer than most expected. Anger, rage and aggression makes it much more effective."
Another weapon - though its use seemed to have overlapped with his morningstars a little - it was also lacking in the ability of dealing puncturing wounds. The only difference was the last sentence: if he understood it correctly, then it meant that his mental state could amplify its damage.
Having looked around to make sure no danger was lurking around, he chose the reception desk drawers as the testing targets.
He pulled out two drawers on the same level, measured their rough length, width and weight to make sure that they were similar enough for his test.
He raised the baton over his head, then swung it down at the drawer on the left, with his mind clear and calm.
"Crack!" The base of the wooden drawer was broken through by the metal tip, and one wall on its side was broken in half. The baton itself was light, and admittedly this reduced the damage it could do to inanimate objects. But its lightweight made it much more agile and flexible to use.
He walked to the next drawer. Before raising the baton, he started ruminating all the things that would make him angry. The unreasonable and pushy product managers, the brown-nosing and petty HRs, the lazy and incompetent colleagues, and the fake, fairweather friends… the last one seemed to be particularly triggering to both him and his latent memories, as his frustration and anger levels were both rising just by the thought of it.
"Fuck YOU!" He yelled, raised his baton and swung it at the drawer.
The metal shaft of the baton glowed in an arcane dark red. Its weight grew slightly as it whipped through the air.
"Boom!" Splinters flew everywhere, the metal rails holding the drawer whined and popped out of place. The entire drawer was pretty much obliterated - its wooden frame was shattered into four or five pieces and its base was essentially gone. He looked around, some of the splinters even had some charred parts - what little difference in his swinging force due to his mood could never explain this kind of heightening in power.
His arm was slightly sore, and his head was a little foggy right after this swing, and it took him around five deep breaths to fully recover. This attack consumed a little bit of everything from him: his stamina, his physical energy, his Qi, his spirit, and his mental energy. All in all, it was not unsustainable, and the power seemed to be quite impressive - enough to replace the morningstars in almost all scenarios.
Then, it seemed like a good candidate for one particular experiment he would like to do: buffing it with the Brick of Resolve. And the reason he had not tried to use it on the morningstars was that it seemed a bit wasteful if the buff was irreversible. And to use it on the Rusted Grim Enchanted Sword was similarly risky because the sword was already near its breaking point.
To summarize his trepidation, the whole idea of constructs of will was still in the design and ideation phase when he was developing the game, there was no telling how it would manifest in this realm.
He took a look at the world outside before pulling out the Brick of Resolve. With his hands trembling in excitement, he put the Tempered Steel Baton and the brick together.
The Brick of Resolve glowed in an orange and red light, its figure turned transparent, then became a ribbon of energy and wrapped around the entire baton.
As the energy settled, the color of the baton changed as well. Its shiny black steel shaft gained a dark red shine, and its handle was no longer gray, but light brown.
"Tempered Steel Baton of Heft and Resolve: made of high quality steel, it served longer than most expected. Anger, rage and aggression makes it much more effective. Infused with the undying, unyielding will of a mortal man. Grants Fortitude. Grants Fury. Grows with evil vanquished."
A weapon infusion/buff that was more than satisfactory. He pulled out another innocent drawer, conjured up his anger and rage once more, then swung his new baton at it.
"Boom!" The baton became noticeably heavier during the last bit of its trajectory. The same dark red glow appeared. The drawer pretty much exploded from the hit, as all of its wooden parts had become splinters, saw dust and even ashes from one hit. The metal rails were bent, and the parts closer to the center of impact changed color slightly.
The same kind of fatigue hit him again, but this time it was lighter and quicker to recover from. Sure he might not have had the same amount of rage as last time, but the improvement was still obvious.
The power of this weapon had put all his doubts to rest. Then onto the next part of the experiment - one that made him think he probably should have waited till he would come back to his father's place.
He tried commanding that the combined weapon be separated - to become a brick and a baton once again.
The weapon did not change, but a rough, unpolished UI panel popped up before him with the symbol of red gems and a number.
Apparently, to separate the weapons, he would need to pay 1500 Spirit Fragments. A bit costly to be honest, but terrific news nonetheless.