Chapter 61: The Ending

Although a single skill would have sufficed, Fu Chen intentionally lingered for more than twenty minutes.

Afterwards, he informed Qing Lan, Yaosi Qingmeng, Chong Tong, Yu Meiren, and Lingdian that all the three-star purple equipment was ready.

Half an hour later, the five of them found Fu Chen and retrieved their respective pieces of gear.

Upon examining the equipment attributes, each of them was exceedingly pleased, their joy evident in their expressions. Everyone except Qing Lan expressed their sincere gratitude to Fu Chen.

At this moment, Purely for Fun and With All My Heart were sighing and lamenting in the party channel about the results of refining their equipment.

Both of them had completely exhausted the one thousand Mirage Stones they had each purchased, yet barely half of their gear had successfully reached a refinement level of plus three.

"Refining consumes way too many Mirage Stones. Over ten thousand stones were gone in just an hour."

"The real kicker is that there is no rhyme or reason to this stuff. Just as you finally manage to hit plus four, a single failure wipes everything out. It is so infuriating."

The two of them complained one after another, completely broken in spirit by the sheer difficulty of refining.

Qin Yumoke had not yet tried refining herself, and hearing this, she refused to believe the hype.

"Dust used only two hundred stones to refine his weapon all the way to plus nine. How did they burn through over a thousand and not even reach plus four? I must try it myself."

Chong Tong was instantly intrigued upon hearing this and smiled, "Is that so? Then I would like to try and see just how difficult it really is."

It had to be said that the thinking of this brother and sister duo was quite similar, arriving at the exact same idea by coincidence.

Soon after, everyone began purchasing Mirage Stones to try refining and strengthening their own gear, with the sole exception of Qing Lan.

Qing Lan handed her equipment back to Fu Chen without a shred of hesitation, feeling no awkwardness whatsoever in having her son help her refine it.

Prompted by the warnings of Purely for Fun and With All My Heart, this group of wealthy individuals directly purchased an entire batch of Mirage Stones each, exactly ten thousand stones apiece.

Although Yaosi Qingmeng came from a reasonably well-off background, she was not extravagant enough to drop one hundred thousand on materials on a whim, so she simply bought two hundred stones to test the waters.

Afterward, the group gathered at the Elder of Sword Immortal City to refine their equipment.

A quarter of an hour later, Yaosi Qingmeng ended her refining session with a look of frustration, her final result stalling stubbornly at plus two.

Qin Yumoke tried refining time and time again, undaunted by repeated failures, until she had unconsciously consumed nearly four thousand stones.

Yet the end result was that not a single piece of equipment had been successfully reinforced to plus four.

Unlike Purely for Fun and With All My Heart, she had Fu Chen's successful refining as a reference in her mind, believing that once she found the right feel, reaching plus nine refinement should be quite easy.

However, the reality was that the moment she finally hit plus three, she would unhesitatingly push for plus four. Fortunately, when the plus four succeeded, she would immediately chase after plus five.

The ultimate outcome was that everything she had painstakingly built up ended up vanishing into thin air. Without even managing to secure a single plus four, she had already burned through nearly forty percent of her materials.

Nearby, Chong Tong's situation was largely similar, though he had heeded his brother's advice to some extent.

Every time, he would reinforce everything to plus three first, then attempt plus four, and only try for plus five once he hit plus four.

Consequently, even though most of his enhancements dropped back down in the end, he at least managed to retain a single piece at plus five.

Inspired by this, Chong Tong began trying for plus five one by one. Unfortunately, the probability was simply too low, and the so-called short-term patterns were completely devoid of any logic.

By the time he had burned through half of his ten thousand Mirage Stones, he was left with only one piece of equipment at plus five.

Yu Meiren's situation was similar, while Lingdian went about it in a completely chaotic manner, giving no thought to strategy and simply switching items back and forth endlessly.

The two of them refined for less than half a minute before finishing one after the other, almost simultaneously.

Yu Meiren was driven to anger, feeling that the refinement system was simply toying with people, and she refused to subject herself to any more abuse.

As for Lingdian, she was simply feeling lazy. After so many rounds of refining, her mood had ridden a roller coaster only to end up in a futile waste of effort, making her feel that lying flat was a better option.

At the exact same time, Fu Chen waited for his skill, [Seize Heaven], to become available again before beginning his own refining process.

Arranging all fifty of the purchased Mirage Stones neatly in front of him, he began the sequential reinforcement of Qing Lan's set of magic armor.

Starting with the robe, he cast [Seize Heaven] while simultaneously initiating the refinement.

Fu Chen merely counted silently in his heart: "One, two, three... nine, next piece! One, two... nine, next piece..."

By the time the skill's effect ended, five pieces at plus nine and one piece at plus five—all six pieces of defensive gear—had completed their refinement.

When Qing Lan received her equipment, she was completely dumbfounded. Overcome with excitement, she threw her arms around her son and planted two kisses on his cheek.

Exuberantly, she cried, "Baby, how did it add so much health? This is incredible!"

The others were stunned upon seeing this. Why was Qing Lan so worked up? Besides, no matter how excited she was, she shouldn't be kissing him like that—Dust's girlfriend was standing right next to them!

Watching Fu Chen's helpless expression, Qin Yumoke found the scene amusing and covered her mouth with a soft giggle.

Curious, she asked, "Sister Qing Lan, is the equipment refinement done? What level are they?"

"One at plus five, and five at plus nine," Qing Lan replied with a beaming smile.

Purely for Fun, With All My Heart, and Chong Tong spoke in unison, disbelief written all over their faces: "What the hell? Five at plus nine?"

Yu Meiren and Lingdian were equally shocked. After recovering from her astonishment, Lingdian impatiently blurted out:

"Big Boss Dust, please help me refine my equipment too! I'll provide the materials! If there are any extras, you can keep them; if we fall short, I'll make up the difference."

"Me too, me too! I'll supply the materials, Boss, please help me refine my gear!" Yu Meiren chimed in hastily.

Fu Chen smiled wryly and shook his head. "Helping you all refine is fine, but I can't guarantee 100% success, nor can I promise how many Mirage Stones it will take."

Having tried it herself, Qin Yumoke now fully understood just how formidable Fu Chen's abilities truly were on the Perfect World continent.

Nodding in agreement, she said, "Dust, please help me refine my equipment as well. I still have over six thousand Mirage Stones left here; once those are gone, I'll go buy more."

Aside from Chong Tong and the other two close friends, everyone else handed their materials and equipment over to Fu Chen for assistance.

Fu Chen performed one refinement session every hour, yet deliberately acted as though he had failed.

It wasn't until the following day that he successively handed the successfully refined, fully enhanced plus-nine gear back to their respective owners.

Chong Tong and his two friends finally lost their composure as well, eagerly begging Fu Chen to help them with the refinement.

In short: no matter how many Mirage Stones it took, they would keep the supplies flowing, and whatever was left over would belong to Fu Chen.

Thus, Fu Chen spent yet another night refining the entire team's weapons and armor all the way to plus nine.

The overall combat strength of the party—whether in terms of attack output, defense, or health pools—was now terrifyingly powerful across every single metric.

Fu Chen knew that with the team's current gear and strength, as long as no one among them grew greedy and attempted to push their refinement levels further on their own, this equipment would easily last them for a very long time.

No matter what happened hereafter, relying entirely on a full set of plus-nine gear would undoubtedly guarantee them a firm foothold among the ranks of the strong.

Moreover, Fu Chen still possessed two other equally heaven-defying innate skills. His path as a powerhouse on the Perfect World continent in this lifetime was destined to be completely free of obstacles.

Fu Chen only needed to bide his time step by step, waiting for the Perfect World continent to fully descend, slay Yang Siyao to exact his revenge, and ascend to the pinnacle of power.

(The End)