Chapter 693: Delightful Surprise

Of course, one had to admit that, to a large extent, the reason for the incredibly great damage was the amazingly powerful Psionic Energy Bonus Property—Destroy!

Under the effects of the Psionic Energy Bonus Property—Destroy, Feng Luo’s Deflagration Armor-piercing Bullet did not weaken even a little bit when it was going through the five-meter-thick body of the gigantic Sand Whale!

As such, when the Deflagration Armor-piercing Bullet reached the Sand Whale’s brain, the explosion caused a devastating effect!

And that was why the bonus of the shot was still so high, even when the level gap between Feng Luo and the Sand Whale was as high as 16 levels.

One could not deny the fact that the Psionic Energy Bonus Property—Destroy was a perfect match for a Sniper. It also combined perfectly with the new Fatal Talent.

If it were another Sniper player, even if the Sniper were equipped with a Legendary-grade Sniper rifle, it would be unlikely for the player to hit the vital spot of a gargantuan monster like the Sand Whale who was covered in thick layers of skin and flesh in one shot!

In cases like those, no matter how powerful the Fatal Talent was, its effect could never be felt, and it would be as if the player did not have any talent at all!

******

However, for the other players at the scene, they were not interested in how the shot managed to deal such high damage.

The only thing they cared about was that Feng Luo’s damage in that one shot had exceeded 50,000!

50,000! There was no doubt that it was one of the highest damage dealt by a player in War at that moment.

Even if a common player were incredibly lucky and activated the critical hit that almost never appeared and could potentially increase one’s damage by, at most, ten times, a 50,000 HP damage was still an incredible number!

“Oh my G.o.d!”

“You can become that strong after awakening the Force? That’s crazy! What’s gonna happen to us poor Machine Gunners?”

In particular, after hearing Chairman Jiao speak, Dai, the black woman, widened her eyes, while a very exaggerated self-loathing expression hung on her face.

As a Machine Gunner, she achieved a Kill Contribution of 15 percent, second to only Feng Luo.

However, even though she ranked second, the difference was too big.

One should know that she was a Machine Gunner. Since there weren’t any manipulators attacking the monster just now, in theory, Machine Gunners were supposed to be the ones to top the damage output ranking!

“This…This strength is too debilitating!”

“That’s why you guys should quickly find ways to activate your Force and quickly awaken it!”

Feng Luo shook his head and laughed.

He picked up Wings of Death and jumped off the roof of the energy SUV that he rode in and was now parked beside the corpse of the Sand Whale.

Although they were all acquaintances, the Psionic Energy Bonus Property – Destroy was a trump card that Feng Luo was not yet comfortable to disclose.

As such, Feng Luo did not explain in detail. Instead, he kept quiet and went with the flow, acknowledging that the high damage was due to the awakened Force.

However, he had mentioned to the others before about the new effect of the Fatal Talent after the awakening. So even though the others were surprised by the shot earlier, it was still within an acceptable range for a person who had awakened the Force!

They also knew that awakening the Force would also “awaken the Talent,” and that the talent would become so insanely powerful!

On this, it made the others in the group so much more excited about awakening their Force!

After the system update, awakening the Force in the game had become a lot easier. The reason was that the game system had added a stat that was similar to the Force Guidance Chip.

As such, by undertaking various self-damaging experiments, many players had already found ways to help them awaken the Force.

On the first night after the update, one player even announced that he had succeeded in awakening a Force called Explosion.

And up until that point in time, the number of players who had awakened the Force and had revealed that fact on the forum in the entire game had exceeded 15.

Each of them gained a certain amount of fame and popularity!

However, the fastest person who succeeded in awakening the Force on the first night since the update did not manage to get the t.i.tle of being the third person to awaken the Force in the game as he had hoped.

The reason was that just before he announced that he had awakened the Force, Phoenix—after the previous mission ended—had finally gone online.

She had already, in a very high-profile manner, announced that she had awakened the Force during the Ruin Exploration Mission back then and had claimed the seat as being “number three.”

Moreover, since Phoenix also admitted to awakening the Force, people have suddenly begun to notice that among the five Special Agent players, two of them had actually claimed two spots among the top three in awakening the Force.

This led to the reignition of the debate and popularity of the already hotly discussed profession, the Special Agent. A lot of information and details concerning the profession were also dug out!

And for the ten players who managed to get into the top 15 and, as such, were automatically eligible to take part in the second Special Agent selection examination, they received multiple invites from various major guilds and financial conglomerates, along with all kinds of benefits!

As for the reason for all those? Naturally, it was self-explanatory.

The game officials announced that War could help a player’s body in the real world “evolve,” and the impact on the in-game environment was not as calm as the high-level map area that Feng Luo and the others were currently located in!

After realizing that War had a much more important position than first realized, many financial groups and conglomerates that had taken the stance of an onlooker before had all announced their decisions to enter the game.

In a short time, a lot of capital flowed into the game. The price of equipment and gears being sold at the Exchange doubled instantly, and some were even still climbing.

It was not only the value of items and equipment that were experiencing a surge; superstar players, as well as top-cla.s.s players, were also experiencing a rise in their value!

At the moment, the popularity of superstar players in War had undoubtedly and completely surpa.s.sed the popularity of superstars in the real world.

The players seated at the top of the popularity ranking, along with the players who possessed incredible skills and strength, had also become the target of the newly injected capital of these various groups.

Using Feng Luo, who was still among the hottest search term at the moment, as an example, he had already received invitations from over a hundred financial groups and major guilds over the past three days.

From the “signing fee” alone, he would be able to get 10 million to 100 million Star Coins, as long as he agreed to join their guilds.

Some had even made proposals that directly appointed Feng Luo as the guild leader, in addition to supplying him with Legendary-grade equipment as well as the best resources the game had to offer!

In terms of these offers, Feng Luo did not look into them in detail. He simply left them in a corner of the message inbox of his comms device!

Maybe he would join a guild, but it would definitely not be a guild of these financial groups!

In addition, even if the guild or organization really did offer him 100 million Star Coins, would it be enough?

After the game officials announced this, the value of the three chips in Feng Luo’s possession surged at a frightening pace!

If in the past, Feng Luo was still worried that the price of the boss-grade chip sold at an auction would not reach the 10 billion credits offered by Xiao Luo Shui, now he no longer had to worry anymore!

The only thing he needed to consider at the moment was the price of the chip at the end of the auction—just how much it would exceed 10 billion credits!

One should never underestimate the amount of financial capital possessed by the financial conglomerates in this incredibly wealthy Galactic Era!

******

“Ah, a flat tire!” said the Light Armored Warrior, One Pillar Skyward, who went to pick up items beside the Sand Whale’s corpse, in a surprised and delighted tone.

“Although it has not yet been appraised, this should at least be Excellent grade. Considering the level gap between the monster and us, it’s also possible for a Rare grade to drop,” One Pillar Skyward said as he picked up the gunner glove-type equipment and raised it in the air.

The others agreed with him. “Yeah, in this current environment, this thing should be quite valuable!”

Although it was probably a Level-70 gear and, as such, similar to the item dropped by the earlier Elite-grade Lizard, which should not be usable at the current juncture, the grades of the two items were different.

No matter what the situation was, Excellent- and Rare-grade items always had a good-enough market value.

In particular, at that moment, vast amounts of capital were flowing into War, and as such, the price of high-grade gears experienced a more substantial price surge compared to the lower-grade ones.

Some guilds had even preemptively begun collecting these sorts of high-grade gears at that current moment before the price of these items soar so that they could prepare their Elite squads in advance.

That was why there was no need to question the value of this pair of gloves.

That meant that, at the very least, the cost of Feng Luo and Dai’s ammunition for the battle could be recouped.

However, the item was actually not the main priority. The really useful items were the materials dropped by the Sand Whale.

On the ground beside the Sand Whale’s corpse lay a black rock material about the size of a head that was emanating not only an odd stench but also a white glow.

[Ambergris (3,082 g)]

After being ignited, the generated smell will chase away almost all gregarious small-sized creatures living in the Death Desert. Its effect would weaken the creatures at or above the Commander grade, but the effect is useless against boss-type creatures!

Quality: Excellent

The item that was emanating a bad smell actually had a surprisingly “fragrant” name!

And the system’s explanation regarding its uses gave everyone a delightful surprise. There was no doubt that the value of this item was above that of the gunner’s glove and had a higher chance of being a piece of Rare-grade equipment!

In the desert, the largest threat was not actually gargantuan monsters like the Sand Whale; instead, it was the super small, or even microsized, monsters!

In a desert environment where food was scarce, the body size of monsters evolved towards being smaller in size, so large and gigantic monsters like the Sand Whale defied logic and were incredibly rare.

On the contrary, gregarious micro monsters were abundant, for example, ants, scorpions, and snakes.

These gregarious micro monsters would normally not have a high level. Moreover, since they were gregarious, their individual strength would also typically be weaker than a normal monster of the same level.

However, the real threat of these creatures was far higher than a Level-70 Commander-grade Sand Whale. It’s because of their numbers, which were utterly ridiculous!

An example would be the Desert Fire Ants that Feng Luo once encountered in the Withered Desert.

Back then, over 150 players partic.i.p.ated in the raid and consequent battle.

In the end, almost all of them were wiped out, and it was only an intermediate level nest!

The reason the group was wiped out was partly due to a few players who provoked a Commander-grade monster that subsequently evolved into a boss-grade monster because of the mission they were doing. And that was enough to prove that these low-level gregarious monsters were not to be trifled with.

And this time, their target was hidden deep within the more hazardous Death Desert. There was a high enough chance for them to encounter these gregarious monsters.

A simple party of just ten players was clearly not capable of fighting a horde of these gregarious monsters head-on. Even if it were a small-scale nest, they could only avoid it in advance after Mu Zi’s Legendary-grade Recon Meter detected it!

However, even a Legendary-grade Recon Meter could not guarantee a 100 percent success rate.

In War, there were just too many monsters that had the ability to overcome the Recon Meter’s detection ability.

A lot of times, by the time the Recon Meter discovered the monster’s tracks, the players would have already been surrounded.

Therefore, players should not a.s.sume, even for a second, that they could ignore these small insect-type monsters since they have their energy SUV vehicles.

For example, the Desert Fire Ants’ ability to fly so fast is comparable to that of a bullet fired from a gun. Also, when it comes to their incredibly destructive bite, even a Heavy Knight—who possesses armor comparable to that of tanks—would not be able to hold on for a very long time when surrounded by these ants!

However, this supposed huge problem of theirs had seemingly vanished into thin air thanks to this chunk of black material that smelled a little bit like that something!

This Sand Whale definitely contributed greatly!

******

After picking up and clearing the items dropped by the Sand Whale, the group waited for the combat status to end before bringing out two SUVs. Then, they continued driving towards their destination!