"I'm not eating anymore, I'm really not eating anymore..."
Ten minutes later, Huai Shi looked at the 80 kilograms on the scale, silently shed two lines of tears, and sat on the ground, wailing.
Getting this fat is just too much!
Raven looked at him with cold eyes. "Three bottles of 'Happy Water' every day, a pound of hot-dry noodles in the morning, two fried chickens for lunch, cakes and milk tea for afternoon tea, a huge amount of meat in the evening, and Mexican corn chips for a late-night snack... Have you been a bit too relaxed recently? Even Sublimators who burn calories at an unusual rate can't eat like this, right?"
Huai Shi was dumbfounded. "Is it really that much?"
"Otherwise, why do you think you've gained so much weight?" Raven replied. "Even though Sublimators transformed by Stigma already have a lot of metal and mutations in their bodies and can't be measured by normal weight standards, the transformation by Stigmata·Yin Ghost is obviously aimed at lighter weight, right? The standard weight should be two-thirds of a normal person's. So how did you manage to eat yourself into a heavyweight?"
"It happened without my realizing it..."
"That's because Old Fang spoils you too much."
Raven shook her head and tossed over a densely packed list. Huai Shi glanced at it and felt dizzy. "What's this?"
"Your weight loss plan," Raven calmly stated, "along with a subsequent strengthening plan. You're still lacking in strength."
"Me?" Huai Shi pointed to himself in disbelief. Lacking in strength?
I, Huahai Road Little Peiqi, managed to beat a Third Stage even before reaching First Stage! Where am I lacking in strength?
"You don't think that just because you've beaten a couple of second-rate fighters, everyone in the world is just like that, do you?" Raven asked back. "For example, that Li Jian Amber—can you beat her?"
"..." Huai Shi was suddenly speechless.
Indeed, Raven was right. After all, they had a history of 'fighting side by side,' even if they were both deliberately holding each other back. But he had to admit: purely in terms of martial skills, he indeed found it very difficult to best her.
"But isn't this different?" Huai Shi argued. "That's a wealthy lady armed to the teeth, a top-level 'Heart's Delight' player with 100,000 personal service reps. How am I, a non-paying player, supposed to compete?"
"Are you sure?"
Raven glanced at him. "Buddy, if we're talking money, you've already spent over 30 million. Just the cost of creating Stigmata·Yin Ghost is over 25 million, and that's just a straightforward quote. Customized tuning-type Stigmas that can only be made by a Master are priceless; you couldn't buy them even with money if you don't have the connections."
That expensive? Huai Shi was shocked, suddenly filled with the urge to sell his body...
"So rest assured, in terms of spending, you have nothing to fear from anyone at the same level."
Raven said, "Purely in terms of heritage, you're not inferior to any same-level Sublimator. In terms of skills, the techniques you've gained from the Book of Fate are enough to easily give you a significant advantage over those Sublimators who only got passing grades. But have you gotten any improvements from the Red Gloves' records recently?"
Huai Shi shook his head.
Currently, his skills were clearly listed—Dagger Combat LV8, Theravada Dual Sword Technique LV6.
And in the process of grinding The Purified People, he managed to acquire a new skill called 'Insights of Disorderly Combat', mainly focused on group battles. Unfortunately, it could only reach as high as LV4; any further improvement would be impossible.
Being able to reach this level with such fragmented and unsystematic knowledge was already the limit.
"After all, they are all rapidly produced skills. That they could help you build a strong foundation is already valuable, but to truly reach the pinnacle with just those skills alone is difficult."
Raven sighed with some frustration. "You still need to find a good teacher, but people in this field are hard to find, and those who are trustworthy are even harder—there are always those who like to hold back tricks."
There's no helping it. Without the simulations of the Book of Fate, everyone's techniques are honed from years of accumulated experience and trials of blood and death.
Buying such experience with money is difficult.
And Huai Shi obviously couldn't be expected to roam the streets with a gun, backstabbing every person he saw to get new records.
Moreover, there's a hard limit here. He's only at First Stage; getting this far is already a miracle. Expecting more is unrealistic.
"However, the silver lining is that while you might have hit a bottleneck in terms of skill improvement, you haven't even started enhancing your Stigma yet."
As she spoke, Raven took away the familiar-looking bronze box from the table, hiding it somewhere, then poured out several still-warm pieces of Liberator from the Crucible and tossed them to Huai Shi.
"One piece. Using it for daily training at this level should be enough."
Huai Shi pulled open his collar, looked down at the big hole in his chest, and couldn't help but smile bitterly. "Having to spend money before every fight makes me feel really strange."
"It's not strange. Normally you wouldn't need to spend money at all."
Raven calmly revealed something significant. "A First Stage Stigma has limits; too bulky a structure can't react nimbly, and too delicate a structure can't bear too much power. If you want to enhance one aspect, you'll inevitably weaken another."
She said, "That's the trade-off, Huai Shi."
"Wait!" Huai Shi stared, dumbfounded. "What trade-off did you make?"
"Emmm..." Raven said, "I weighed it up a bit and thought the power system wasn't really needed, so I switched it to an external module for you. Look at that hole in your chest, how imposing it looks."
Huai Shi's eyes bulged. "So you're the one who did this?"
No wonder he always felt something was off!
"You should look on the bright side."
Raven said, "I've woven all the spare parts into simulated nerves and reflex circuits for you. Now, you have more than double the speed of a Sublimator of the same level for output! How does that make you feel? Happy? Joyful?"
Happy, my ass!
Who the hell cuts their blue bars to increase DPS!
So, my own Stigma really is like a car. At the slightest disagreement, you slap an external tank on it and then shove a nitrous oxide engine into it...
Huai Shi almost spat blood. "Do you know it's illegal to drive modified cars on the road!"
"It's called 'illegal' when others do modifications. When I do it, it's called 'fan-made re-creation,' you get me?"
Raven glanced at him sideways. "Chill out, it's been years since the split of Utopia. Do you think those degenerates who fell into Hell and became the Element of Destructive·Golden Dawn would come asking you for copyright fees?"