Creating an orange Skill Book required a full 27 white Skill Books. Chen Mo then used eighteen Skeleton summon books to synthesize two more Undead Horde books.
Once prepared, Chen Mo immediately tossed three blue Skill Books into the material slot. This time, the content within the semi-transparent floating window before him changed!
...You have placed [Blue Undead Corpses]*3!
[Detecting recipe...]
[Detected three identical materials. Your talent has activated! This synthesis does not require a recipe!]
[Commencing synthesis quality check...]
[The quality for this synthesis is medium. Requires additional special material: Dark Crystal·Rare]
...
An orange Skill Book belongs to the mid-rank tier. Synthesizing it is indeed not that simple. However, a rare-grade Dark Crystal... most Elite Beasts can drop those, and they should be available for purchase on High Street.
Thinking this, Chen Mo headed out to High Street again.
After looking around for a while, he found a stall selling various synthesis materials.
"Young man, what materials are you looking for? Come take a look," the stall owner asked enthusiastically when he saw Chen Mo browsing.
"I'm looking for Rare-grade Dark Crystals. Do you sell them here?"
"I have a pretty complete selection of Rare-grade materials. Look over there; those are all Rare-grade. That black stone should be the Dark Crystal." Following the stall owner's pointing finger, Chen Mo finally spotted the Dark Crystal amidst the dazzling array of materials.
At the same time, Chen Mo subconsciously glanced at a nearby section of materials and saw an even purer black gemstone. They even have Precious-grade Dark Origin Stones! Excellent!
Synthesizing a rank-four orange Skill Book requires a rank-four Rare Dark Crystal. Synthesizing a rank-five yellow Skill Book will likely require a rank-five Precious Dark Origin Stone. Since I'm already out, I might as well get everything I need.
Chen Mo calculated his requirements. The remaining Skeleton summon Skill Books he had were enough to synthesize up to a rank-five yellow Skill Book. Therefore, he needed to prepare three Rare-grade Dark Crystals to synthesize three rank-four orange Skill Books, and additionally one rank-five Precious-grade Dark Origin Stone.
That's the amount for Skill synthesis. I also have the Dark Wand to synthesize. Since they are of the same origin, the material requirements are probably similar. Buying double the quantity should be enough...
"Sir, I'd like two Precious-grade Dark Origin Stones and six Rare-grade Dark Crystals. How much is that in total?"
"Precious-grade materials have a standard market price of five thousand each, and Rare-grade materials are one thousand each. That'll be sixteen thousand in total."
"That's too expensive. How about eight thousand?"
"Wow, young man, you're cutting me to the quick with that offer! Who haggles by cutting the price in half?"
"I'll add a bit more then. Nine thousand."
"To be honest, I can't go any lower than thirteen thousand."
"Ten thousand!"
"Twelve thousand!"
"Eleven thousand. If that's not enough, I'll leave. That's all the money I have in my bank account." Chen Mo said this and prepared to turn and leave.
"You're something else, kid. Alright, I'll take a loss this time and sell them to you, just to get acquainted. If you get any good stuff in the future, remember to sell it through me."
"Naturally."
Despite his words, Chen Mo was a bit speechless. Who would actually sell things at a loss? The shopkeeper made it sound tragic, but Chen Mo knew that prices for such materials fluctuated significantly.
Materials weren't like equipment; their production output could vary greatly. If supply exceeded demand, the price would drop somewhat. If demand exceeded supply, the price would rise.
Although the two types of materials Chen Mo bought were high-grade, their output was actually quite high, so their prices weren't actually that high.
Moreover, fewer people used Dark-element materials. With high output and low demand, the prices were naturally even lower.
On the other hand, some materials, despite being low-rank, were in high demand and could only be obtained from specific monsters—those were the truly expensive ones.
Seeing the shopkeeper agree so readily, Chen Mo felt he might have overpaid by at least another thousand.
He picked up three Superior Dark Stones from the stall and said, "Sir, these three low-grade Superior Dark Stones, could you throw them in for free? As a little extra. I'm really out of money."
"I'm really impressed by you. Alright, three it is. I can give them to you."
"Thank you."
Chen Mo handed over his bank card with a smile.
He had previously spent 57,000 on Skill Books and equipment, and 30,000 on the backpack. At this point, he had only about 11,000 left on his card.
Once this 11,000 was deducted, his bank account, which originally held nearly 100,000, would likely plummet to a balance of less than three digits.
As Chen Mo clicked to confirm payment, he simultaneously received a notification message. Sure enough, his bank card balance was now less than one hundred.
Although it was the most money he had ever spent in a single day in his life, Chen Mo was greatly comforted by the returns.
It was just that the synthesized items were bound; otherwise, he could have easily resold them for a profit and wouldn't be agonizing over this sum of money.
After loading the materials into his expanded backpack, Chen Mo returned home again.
Liu Yiyi was still sleeping soundly. Chen Mo didn't disturb her, tiptoeing back to his room, moving quickly yet quietly.
With the materials acquired, Chen Mo immediately began synthesizing!
He first attempted to synthesize the materials themselves.
If low-grade materials could be synthesized into high-grade ones, it would save a huge amount of money in the future.
When he placed three Superior Dark Stones into the synthesis interface, the synthesis result appeared immediately.
[Congratulations, synthesis successful!]
"What is this?"
[Better Superior Dark Stone]: Has better effects than Superior Dark Stone. When used, it can substitute for Superior Dark Stone. One is more potent than three combined.
What is this crap? The materials don't even rank up! It's only more potent than three, not necessarily more potent than four. Is that any different from not synthesizing them at all?
Chen Mo glanced at his talent's description. Indeed, it didn't state that synthesis would definitely result in a rank-up, only that he would obtain 'better materials.' Upgrading in rank counted as better, and this outcome also counted as better. There was nothing wrong with that!
Speechless, Chen Mo tossed it back into his backpack. He had already lost hope in the path of getting rich by synthesizing materials.
He proceeded with Skill synthesis.
When the prompt to add special materials appeared, Chen Mo immediately placed a Dark Crystal into the slot.
[Initiating success rate detection...]
[The success rate for this synthesis is 100%!]
Phew, the success rate hasn't changed. That's great.
Chen Mo had thought the success rate would decrease as the rank of the synthesized item increased. Fortunately, that wasn't the case for now.
[Congratulations, synthesis successful!]
[Please select one of the following three synthesis options as the final result!]
[One]: Toxic Corpse Squad·Orange (Bound)
[Two]: Sacred Corpse Squad·Orange (Bound)
[Three]: Bloodthirsty Corpse Squad·Orange (Bound)
This corpse poison effect is really persistent. It shows up every time there's a choice of three! I'd almost feel bad not picking it.
Still, as a matter of routine, he examined the effects of the other two options.
Dark-attribute creatures like Skeleton Monsters and Zombies are inherently weak against holy-type damage.
For instance, Healing Technique, a holy-type Skill typically used for health recovery, will actually convert to an equivalent amount of damage when used against Dark-attribute creatures like Skeleton Monsters.
Healing-type Skills often have higher scaling coefficients than damage-type Skills, so holy-type professions can easily inflict massive damage on Dark-attribute creatures.
The special effect of the second option would allow all Dark-attribute creatures summoned by Chen Mo to convert to holy-type attributes, so they would no longer be countered by holy-type attacks.
Although it seemed like a mere elemental attribute conversion for the summoned creatures without any other direct enhancements, this change itself was a huge improvement.
Chen Mo was somewhat tempted by this option. However, he wasn't in a hurry to get this attribute at the current stage, so he turned his attention to the third option.