Dismissing almost entirely the idea, or rather the feeling, that urged him a moment ago, Bai Zemin stared at the small blue flame floating on the two joined palms of his hands and soon the information from the records of this small entity flashed in his retina.

--------------------------------

[Endless Blue Lotus Flame (Epic Grade Treasure): A flame with sensibility and a will of its own. In the past, it was tremendously powerful and its fire represented the infinity. It is said that once an attack with Endless Blue Lotus Flame was launched, the flames would spread to the ends of the universe limitlessly and sweep away everything in its path. Its current power has been greatly weakened and the sensibility that turned this natural treasure into an intelligent entity is in deep sleep. To awaken the sensibility and enrich the will of Endless Blue Lotus Flame, the master of the flame needs to feed it with Soul Stones; the more Soul Stones and the better the quality, the clearer the effects and the faster the recovery process.]

[Soul Pact Effect -]

[Passively increases by +40 all the user's stats as natural points / Passively increases the user's Fire Resistance by +20% / Passively increases the power of fire-type physical and magical attacks by +10%.]

--------------------------------

Bai Zemin sighed as he looked at the terrifying number of stats he had received after forming a Soul Pact with the Endless Blue Lotus Flame. Increasing all stats by +40 points and to top it off in natural points was simply insane from his point of view.

Forty points in each stat added up to a total of 240 stat points!

However, another thing that Bai Zemin also liked a lot was receiving fire-type elemental resistance. With this type of resistance, his adaptability to hot environments would be a lot higher and the damage that fire-type attacks would inflict on him from here on out would be reduced by quite a considerable margin.

But what terrified Bai Zemin was the +10% increase in his physical attacks with fire power and his magic spells. This might be the smallest percentage among all he was getting from the Endless Blue Lotus Flame, however, to Bai Zemin, that 10% was the most scary.

This was because he, a fighter who aimed to completely overwhelm and finish off his enemies as quickly as possible, an increase of 10% in his most powerful attack to date was simply immense!

Just imagining a Crimson Blood Judgment powered by Gravity Manipulation, plus the activation of the Mystic Earring's Magic Blast skill, plus the newly acquired 10% extra damage to fire-type attacks, and adding the power of the Endless Blue Lotus Flame on top of that... Bai Zemin gasped for air as he imagined the result in his head.

He definitely couldn't use that skill so casually or he would definitely end up killing his allies.

"My skills... Don't they seem to be too well inter-connected with each other?" Bai Zemin finally realized something that he had previously not been paying much attention to.

While he had been very careful and selective with the active skills he learned for obvious reasons, even he himself was surprised as everything seemed to come out too perfect. Fortunately and this wasn't a novel or else there was sure to be a reader who would jump up shouting excitedly, "Plot armor! Plot armor!"

Bai Zemin laughed at his own thoughts and then put the Endless Blue Lotus Flame back inside his body. 

He could feel how the little deep blue flame was practically exhausted beyond words. Next, he would feed it some Soul Stones to strengthen it.

Talking about Soul Stones, Bai Zemin was really excited to know the way he could increase the power of the Endless Blue Lotus Flame. At the very least, he was aware that Soul Stones were the way to go and he wasn't lost having to find the right path like a headless fly.

Approximately ten minutes later, Bai Zemin had finished counting the number of Soul Stones and skill scrolls obtained after his goblin hunt.

Of course, the Soul Stones that Bai Zemin counted were only a tiny fraction as far as Unclassified Soul Stones were concerned. It was simply impossible for him to waste his time counting how many there were as there were definitely several thousand. He had only brought a few with him as it never hurt to have some on his body just in case.

In the end, inside his bag were 154 Unclassified Soul Stones, 32 First Order Soul Stones, and 1 Second Order Soul Stone. Although it was a pity that three of the Second Order goblins he had killed did not have a Soul Stone inside their heads, in a sense Bai Zemin already expected something like that to happen and was even prepared not to receive any Second Order Soul Stone.

As for skill scrolls, there were a few dozen of those. None of the skills caught his attention too much except for a few that made him curious but nothing more.

In the end, Bai Zemin kept a few scrolls for his family such as First Order active skill Earth Shield, active skill Mortal Vines, First Order active skill Feather Walk, active skill Fireball, active skill Lightning Bolt, and several other active and passive ones.

As for him, he finally got a passive skill he didn't count on until now.

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[Speed Boost (Unclassified passive skill) Level 3: After learning this skill, increase Agility by +20 points permanently.]

-------------------------------------

Surprisingly and despite being only Unranked skills, the passive skills that permanently improved stats were quite difficult to obtain. As for this level 3 Unranked passive skill called Speed Boost, in Bai Zemin's faction, very few people possessed it, and while he as a leader might have appropriated the scrolls, it would not look good for him to act that way in front of his subordinates. 

Besides, it wasn't as if Bai Zemin lacked Agility at this stage of the apocalypse either so even though he was interested in the skill, he just tolerated it. Now, he could finally learn his own without leaving room for bad emotions to take root in the hearts of his subordinates.

"Before I start upgrading this skill, let me check if what I saw that day is correct." Bai Zemin got up from the bed and picked up the last item he had yet to inspect.

It was an ancient scroll made from what appeared to be sheepskin.

Another recipe or construction blueprint.

-------------------------------------

[Goblin Magic Cannon (Rank 3): A construction blueprint for a weapon created by a talented blacksmith and artifact builder belonging to the goblin race. The power of the Goblin Magic Cannon is enough to crush Second Order existences and threaten the lives of those of the Third Order. To forge it you need a metal with a minimum Rank of 3, Magical Powder, Third Order Soul Stone. It has a range of 500 meters in a straight line and there must be a lapse of 120 seconds between each shot per barrel to avoid overheating and possible collapse of the armament.]

-------------------------------------

"It really is." Bai Zemin nodded with a rather calm expression as he surveyed the information he had just received.

This Rank 3 Goblin Magic Cannon could potentially be the weapon that mankind would have to rely on in the future. Although it was still impossible to build it, possessing the construction blueprint and knowing the limits of the weapon as well as its operation was of great help in preparing the necessary things for the assembly of the weapon.

Bai Zemin had many ideas in his head and he was sure that if he received the support of other brilliant minds they would definitely improve even more. 

Of the requirements needed to build the Goblin Magic Cannon, Bai Zemin had nothing. However, at least he had the formula to make the Magic Powder. Moreover, while the construction process required a metal of at least Rank 3, Bai Zemin was fairly certain that even metals of Rank 2 would work; of course, the consequence would probably be the collapse of the magic cannon after one or hopefully a few shots.

But even if the cannon ended up collapsing after a few shots, as long as it saved the human base it would be protecting it would be more than enough. The material loss was bearable but the annihilation of the race was not.

Bai Zemin kept the construction blueprint of the Goblin Magic Cannon while in his heart he prayed that no talented blacksmith would appear in that foul goblin race that ran free in the land of his world.

Although rare, it was true that there were some fantasy stories or novels in which goblins were genius artifact builders and even had some blacksmiths almost comparable to the legendary dwarves who loved the forge. 

After putting away the construction blueprint, Bai Zemin went straight to the log of his newly learned skill Speed Boost and looked at the evolution requirements.

-------------------------

[Evolution requirements.]

[Speed Boost Unclassified Level 3 -----------> Level 4.]

[Soul Stone: 2/2

[Do you wish to evolve the skill to the next level?]

-------------------------

Bai Zemin did not hesitate and immediately proceeded with the evolution.

A few seconds later, the evolution was complete and the Speed Boost skill became an Unclassified skill of level 4, now granting him 30 points of Agility passively.

But he did not stop and continued.

-------------------------

[Speed Boost Unclassified Level 4 -----------> Level 5]

[Soul Stone: 6/6]

[Do you wish to evolve the skill to the next level?]

Yes!

...

[Speed Boost Unclassified Level 5 -----------> Next Order]

[Soul Stone: 12/12]

[First Order Soul Stone: 2/2]

[Do you wish to evolve the skill to the next stage?]

Yes!

[The skill Speed Boost has successfully evolved to First Order Enhanced Dexterity level 1.]

...

[First Order Enhanced Dexterity Level 1 -----------> Level 2]

[First Order Soul Stone: 2/2]

[Do you wish to evolve the skill to the next level?]

Yes!

...

[Do you wish to evolve the skill to the next level?]

Yes!

...

[Do you want to evolve the skill to the next level?]

Yes!

...

-------------------------

Bai Zemin did not stop and continued to evolve the skill he had just learned until the skill now called Enhanced Dexterity reached the peak of the First Order. 

The reason he had to stop there was because just like some of his main skills, Enhanced Dexterity required Second Order Soul Stones as an evolution requirement and even though the current Bai Zemin had around 3 Second Order Soul Stones he was definitely not willing to spend them right now. He would only use them if he really had no choice as they were a priceless treasure at this stage of the apocalypse.

It was also precisely for that reason that Bai Zemin's Blood Manipulation skill was still at level 1 of the Second Order. To evolve Blood Manipulation to Second Order level 2 he needed 2 Second Order Soul Stones, something he was naturally unwilling to do. At least not now.

When he starts hunting Second Order existences to complete his breakthrough quest once he heads to another world, only then would Bai Zemin start evolving those demanding skills. In the meantime, all his skills would stay as they were since it wasn't as if he needed to evolve them anyway thanks to the fact that with his current power he could handle almost everything. Even if he had to face a Third Order enemy!

In the end, the skill Enhanced Dexterity reached the maximum of the First Order and now looked like this.

--------------------------------

[Enhanced Dexterity (First Order passive skill) Level 5: Automatically increases the user's Agility by +100 points and reduces Stamina consumption while running out of combat by 5%.]

--------------------------------

The 100 point increase in Agility was certainly eye-catching and great, however, what appealed most to Bai Zemin was the 5% reduction in Stamina when running out of combat. Although this secondary passive effect only worked while out of combat, it was great for traveling long distances and would most likely show wonderful results in the future.

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