Evolution Begins with Elemental Domination

The forest south of Dongfu City was primarily hilly terrain.

Rolling, low mountain ridges were crisscrossed by river valleys. One of these treacherous valleys was shaped like a sharp beak, earning it the name Eagle’s Beak Valley.

”It’s here.”

Su Chen had also found a valuable map on the corpse of a combat division member, and he immediately located their starting point.

Judging by the distance, it wasn’t too far.

Usually, the deployment location of a Teleportation Gate depended on areas a person had previously visited. For safety, one could even place a Teleportation Gate right on their doorstep in Dongfu City.

’Yesterday’s intel showed that Oran City has currently unlocked 36 teleportation points. With the world mission triggering today, they probably haven’t started a large-scale deployment yet. If they rebuild and redeploy, there’s a 24-hour cooldown, so theoretically, the real action might start tomorrow.’

Su Chen organized his thoughts.

Before setting out, he had also looted a set of dropped Runes from the Golden Armor Warrior: three Lv6 Gold Element Runes, which were Golden Armor Skill, Golden Light Escape, and a Gold Element Shield.

’My build’s Rune Map clearly isn’t up to par. I’m missing a good High-Level Vajra Body Rune.’

This type of Rune, which instantly strengthened one’s sinews and bones, undoubtedly belonged to the physical enhancement category and typically manifested as an activation of the body’s latent potential.

Besides Jingzhe and Frenzy, there was also the publicly known Water Element ’Manifold,’ which allowed the body to withstand extreme stretching and impacts. It lubricated and enhanced muscles and joints, enabling one to both disperse force and move at astonishing speeds.

The Wood Element ’Evergreen’ activated cellular telomere activity and initiated a superhuman metabolism. In addition to providing abundant physical energy, it also rapidly increased Rune Energy recovery speed, making it a short-term, weaker version of Vitality Burst.

The Wind Element ’Flowing Cloud’ was somewhat similar to Jingzhe in effect, but it focused more on explosive movement speed, weakening the shackles of gravity on the body and significantly boosting neural reflex speed.

As for the Light, Dark, and even Spirit Elements that he was interested in, their potential remained to be explored.

The reason Su Chen was interested was that he was considering whether to strengthen his future Rune build with these types of related Runes, weaving them into composite Techniques.

Judging from his own ever-increasing physical attributes, his compatibility with them would naturally improve over time.

However, the higher his base physical attributes became, the more terrifying the leap in combat power after being amplified by more than double by a Rune. This also exacerbated injuries like nerve overload and muscle fiber tears.

Of course, Su Chen’s physical foundation was so excellent—not to mention his innate Vitality Burst trait—that these injuries were reduced to an acceptable level.

The only real pain point was a slight inconvenience in prolonged, sustained combat, but he could evade threats using methods like Elementalization, Aurora Flash, and Water Mirror Deflection.

All things considered, these related Runes were indeed a good option.

But for now, with incomplete intel and his personal Rune system still needing upgrades, he wasn’t in a rush.

Moreover, the two High-Level Vajra Body Runes he had acquired were far less useful than his Steel Bones and Iron Flesh trait.

Besides, using high and low-tier Runes with good compatibility together didn’t necessarily guarantee a 1+1>2 effect.

Due to diminishing marginal returns, combining the two would sometimes only yield a meager 1.1 or 1.2 times the benefit.

This was also why the Rune Knowledge radio channel emphasized that for specialized damage reduction or piercing Runes, like Critical Strike, you only needed one. Absorbing more was a waste.

The reason the Damage Attachment Stream was viable was simply due to the effects of class traits like Harmony and Weaving. A single attack could trigger multiple, independent damage calculations without conflict, resulting in a naturally high return.

’I’ll have to wait and see.’

It was worth noting that just as he was setting out, he experienced a feedback conversion, gaining only ’+7 Physique’ and ’+1 Agility’.

After absorbing another gold foil crystal, the only Heavenly and Earthly Treasure left from his personal haul was a small Lingzhi that seemed to be of limited age.

’Now I have to find more.’

Ever since Su Chen had experienced the feedback benefits from these kinds of Heavenly and Earthly Treasures, he naturally looked down on devouring and absorbing ordinary ore-crystal Runes.

Nether Sand Ore Crystals, which involved the Intelligence and Perception Attributes, were still somewhat useful.

They would be difficult to replace in the short term.

If worse came to worst, he was wealthy enough that he could just feed Lv6 or higher Runes directly to his family’s Jade Pendant.

’I can’t afford to feed it Spiritual Materials, though.’

Su Chen had considered trying, but killing those two people had only netted him two Spirit Marrow Crystals and three portions of Spiritual Dust Sand. It wasn’t nearly enough for his Rune Map.

As he mulled over these things, the pair’s flight speed didn’t slow in the slightest.

Yan Ruoruo held a short staff in her hand. It was enchanted with and integrated both of their Invisibility and Optical Camouflage Skills. Under the dual Lv6 effects, their figures had vanished completely, allowing them to shuttle rapidly through the real world, fully concealed.

It was as if it came with a one-touch mute button; even the sound of the wind stirred up by their passage was completely nullified.

Along the way, they saw quite a few figures of Westerners flying in the opposite direction above the canopy.

Considering the mission objective was to destroy the Teleportation Gate, they didn’t alert the enemy prematurely.

They even ignored a heated battle that had broken out in a mountain valley in the distance.

”...Destroying the Teleportation Gate gives Contribution Value. Also, killing opposing personnel naturally gives Contribution Value too. You get a contribution bonus based on the opponent’s class Star Level and overall Rune Level system,” Yan Ruoruo said. She had gleaned a lot of useful information from the official walkie-talkie channel.

As for how to check one’s own Contribution Value and ranking, the general information would be displayed upon establishing a mental link with the mission hall building.

The worst part was undoubtedly the lack of real-time mission tracking feedback, making it impossible to know if they were even in the top ten thousand on the leaderboards.