Chapter 44: Please Take the Initiative! Be Even More Proactive!

[Name: Heavenly Dog Swallows the Moon Art (Bound)]
[Quality: Foundation]
[Type: Cultivation Manual]
[Description: A supreme cultivation manual casually created by a legendary canine mighty figure based on the act of the celestial dog devouring the moon. When used in coordination with its master, it can unleash all sorts of incredible powers.]
[Note: Can only be learned by the bound pet [Maomao].]

Such a bizarre description...
Could that so-called canine mighty figure possibly be the Celestial Hound?
Lu Wenwu expressed strong suspicion.
Apart from it, which dog that attained Dao and became an immortal would have nothing better to do than research how to coordinate in battle with its master...
Other divine beasts are only responsible for serving as mounts for immortals or performing their own basic duties...

After glancing at the introduction of the Heavenly Dog Swallows the Moon Art, Lu Wenwu directly chose to let Maomao learn it, and incidentally used three tenfold cultivation acceleration cards for it.
Maomao, which already possessed human intelligence, did not find learning it too difficult.
Three days of tenfold acceleration, combined with the blessings of the Emperor's Fluid and the Huohou bloodline, were enough for it to cultivate to the first layer.

Lu Wenwu left Maomao in the blessed land to cultivate, returned home, and contacted Liu Ming.
Those four advanced-level skills he had acquired needed to be sold off as soon as possible and converted into resources that could be used for enhancement.
Lu Wenwu's requirements were not high; trading them for a heritage-grade movement technique suitable for him would suffice.
If it were a higher-tier supreme-grade technique, that would naturally be even better, and he could make up the difference with spiritual coins.
By the way, he also needed to speak with the Rising Dragon Army through Liu Ming.
Just in case they really ran into each other in a dungeon, tell them not to make a fuss!

Soon, Liu Ming arrived with a bewildered expression and left questioning his own life.
He had no idea how much Lu Wenwu had harvested in this dungeon or what rating he had received.
However, judging purely from these four advanced-level skills...
It was already heaven-defying enough.

Little did Liu Ming know that this was actually Lu Wenwu's least valuable harvest, excluding the spiritual coins.
One must admit that Liu Ming's efficiency was truly fast.
He took the skills away in the morning and returned in the afternoon with several different heritage-grade skill books.
Supreme-grade techniques were too precious; no one was willing to trade them for advanced-level skills.
After reading the descriptions, Lu Wenwu selected one that looked unpretentious yet possessed a high upper limit.

[Name: Explosive Step]
[Quality: Heritage]
[Type: Skill]

[Description: Brute force creates miracles! The greater the strength, the greater the miracle! Compress the body's strength into a single point and erupt violently, transforming oneself into a cannonball shot forth!]

Delighted by this find, Lu Wenwu immediately paid the one-hundred-thousand-spiritual-coin difference, pocketed this top-tier heritage-grade manual, and chose to learn it directly after Liu Ming left.

[ID]: Invincible Tyrant Dragon God of War
[Level]: lv16 (C)
[Auxiliary Profession]: Spirit Chef
[Constitution]: 312.34
[HP]: 31234
[Talents]: Flesh Regeneration, Evil Nemesis, Eye of Insight, True Men Do Not Die Naked
[Cultivation Manual]: Ruling by Virtue Body-Refining Art
[Divine Power]: Devour the Heavens and Earth
[Skills]: Egg Pancake Cooking [Master of All Arts], Military Dao Killing Fist [Hand in Glove], Military Combat Technique [Hand in Glove], Shadow Step [Hand in Glove], Firearm Mastery [Superficial Understanding], Tyrant Fist [Superficial Understanding], Explosive Step [Superficial Understanding]
[Equipment]: Combat Armor [Rare], Heavy Artillery Gauntlets [Epic], Wings of the Firmament [Epic], Guardian Armor·Chaotic Neutral [Epic]
[Free Attribute Points]: 162.2
[Spiritual Coins]: 1041136
...

Looking at his personal panel, Lu Wenwu sighed with emotion: "It would have been wildly thrilling if I had converted all of these into attribute points. What a pity, I still need to reserve quite a few to buy acceleration cards; the few gifted ones are simply not enough."

However, just as he shifted his attention to his skills, a system prompt suddenly popped up before his eyes.

[Prompt: Compatible skills detected. Do you wish to fuse them?]

Fuse?
Lu Wenwu was stunned.
What kind of feature was this?

[Among skills of the same family, you may choose one skill with a proficiency level of at least [Initial Understanding] or above as nourishment to fuse with another skill. This is known as skill fusion.]
[After fusion, the former disappears, while the latter retains a certain degree of proficiency based on the gap in quality and level between the two.]
[If the qualities are identical, the proficiency level is perfectly retained.]
[If the qualities differ by one tier, the proficiency level decreases by one tier accordingly.]
[Note: Skill fusion can only integrate a lower-quality skill into a higher-quality one; you cannot fuse a high-quality skill into a low-quality one.]
[Note: After the nourishment skill disappears through fusion, you can still cast and train it through your own efforts, but its proficiency description and automatic casting will no longer be retained. Please explore this on your own.]

So that was how skill fusion worked?
It seemed absurd yet contained a trace of reason.
After all, other hills' stones can be used to polish jade!
Moreover, after the fusion, the original skill and proficiency did not actually vanish; they simply lost automatic casting and quantified standards.

Lu Wenwu was deep in thought.
The system's move seemed to encourage players to actively master the usage methods of skills on their own, rather than constantly remaining good-for-nothings who relied on intelligent casting.

Lu Wenwu already had a profound understanding of the Military Dao Killing Fist, so fusing it would have zero impact.
As for the Shadow Step, let it go if it's gone.
He didn't care much for using it anyway.

Fuse [Military Dao Killing Fist] into [Tyrant Fist].
Fuse [Shadow Step] into [Explosive Step].
Lu Wenwu made his selection with a thought.

In a flash, [Military Dao Killing Fist] and [Shadow Step] quietly vanished from his personal panel.
Replacing them were [Tyrant Fist] and [Explosive Step] at the [Second Nature] realm.

"Skill fusion complete. Now comes the most thrilling moment," Lu Wenwu rubbed his hands together. "System, allocate points!"

In an instant, his massive reserve of spiritual coins shrank dramatically.
The spiritual coins that had previously amounted to over a million plummeted to just 49,136—reserved specifically for buying acceleration cards.
The remaining 990,200 spiritual coins were entirely converted into 496 free attribute points, which, combined with the 162.2 free attribute points obtained from slaying ominous entities, were all poured into the [Constitution] attribute.

A Constitution attribute soaring up to 970.54!
Nearly one hundred thousand HP!

Now only at C-rank, Lu Wenwu finally understood why that level-20 giant zombie in the initial dungeon could still call itself near death when it had over five thousand HP left.
That really wasn't much different from being on the verge of death.

Feeling the surging blood Qi within his body and the mighty strength akin to a true dragon with every movement, Lu Wenwu even felt that he could instantly kill a C+-rank boss with a single punch.
As for B+-rank players?
Not sure, never fought one.

However, based on his calculations using the manual's amplification, as long as the opponent had not cultivated a [Supreme]-grade manual to the fourth layer, he should still be able to easily defeat them.
If they exceeded that, Lu Wenwu would decisively choose a tactical retreat.
The total attributes provided by a fourth-layer [Supreme]-grade manual already exceeded the four-thousand mark; with a normal manual's biased allocation, they could crush him purely on numerical values.
Not to mention combat experience and various items that hadn't even been factored in yet!

The current Lu Wenwu was more like an upstart with artificially inflated stats, needing time to settle down.
Inflated self-confidence from winning too many overwhelming matches was undesirable.