Zhang Yanhang had every reason to believe that the four-point increase in Score was entirely due to the material value of the Crimson Iron.
So, if the Chopper was previously just a run-of-the-mill junk weapon, it was now a sham junk weapon. Although it had a higher Score, its Attack Power couldn’t match the Score, thus making it a sham weapon.
"Well, let’s test the limit on the number of Crimson Iron balls that can be set into this Chopper next," Zhang Yanhang had actually wanted to investigate this matter before, but there just wasn’t any time.
But now, he had more than an hour of free time, so he immediately started the experiment without any hesitation.
Zhang Yanhang took out a whole bunch of Crimson Iron balls from his Waist Bag. He then used Alchemy to drill a long row of holes into both the hilt and the blade of the Chopper, and under the effect of the Alchemy Array, a large number of Crimson Iron balls were embedded into the Chopper’s new holes.
Although he was testing the limit, adding the balls one by one seemed too bothersome for Zhang Yanhang, so he decided to convert addition into subtraction, embedding a large number of Crimson Iron balls at once to see if the Chopper could still maintain its transportable property after such heavy embedding.
There were only two possible outcomes. The first was that the White quality Chopper, after being embedded with so many Crimson Iron balls, would still retain its transportable Attribute. If that were the case, Zhang Yanhang’s next step would be to embed even more Crimson Iron balls into the Chopper, to test its embedding limit.
The second outcome was that embedding so many Crimson Iron balls had reached the Chopper’s embedding limit, transforming the Chopper into a weapon that couldn’t be taken out due to assimilation by the Crimson Iron balls. Fresh chapters posted on n0velfire.net
If it came to that, Zhang Yanhang would then have to remove the Crimson Iron balls from the Chopper one by one to see how many needed to be removed for the transportability-impeding property of the assimilated Chopper to disappear.
At the same time, with the disappearance of the non-transportable property, Zhang Yanhang would naturally understand the limit of Crimson Iron balls that could be embedded in the Chopper and, accordingly, extrapolate the underlying rule, which he would then apply to other Items to see if the same rule could be employed.
If he could succeed, it meant that Zhang Yanhang had completely mastered this rule and could freely use it in the future to bring non-transportable Items out of the Ashen World.
As expected, after embedding eighteen Crimson Iron balls all at once, the Chopper’s Attribute was assimilated to be non-transportable. Then, Zhang Yanhang gradually decreased the number of Crimson Iron balls on the Chopper. When the number was reduced to thirteen, the non-transportable property disappeared, and the Chopper reverted to a normal weapon.
Although the current Chopper didn’t look ordinary at all, resembling a weapon that a drunken Forge, in a fit of whimsy (or delirious fantasies), banged out.
At this moment, the Chopper’s blade was riddled with numerous useless holes and densely packed with over a dozen crimson red spheres, making anyone who saw it involuntarily lament it as junk.
But even if the Chopper’s appearance was indeed so extraordinary, its Attribute list still appeared rather ordinary.
[Chopper (Unnamed) +4]
[Origin: Ashen World, Crimson Iron Ore Vein, Small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dala Gu, Outer Zone, Zhang Yanhang.]
[Attack Power: 13 (+5)]
[Usage requirements: None.]
[Score: 26 (Green quality item scores range from 11 to 30.)]
[Description: Originally the weapon of a Big Saber Goblin, it was broken into two pieces. Then it was used by the novice alchemist Zhang Yanhang as a practice subject, and as expected, he only managed to forge a piece of junk. Unwilling to give up, the novice alchemist Zhang Yanhang attempted to reforge it, but even after the reforging process, it remained a piece of junk.
Unexpectedly, the novice alchemist Zhang Yanhang still did not give up on this junk weapon, perhaps out of some special sentiment. He embedded a ruby that had no actual enhancement effect but served purely as decoration.
Following the previous ruby embedding, novice alchemist Zhang Yanhang, for some inexplicable reasons, remembered this junk weapon once again. This time he embedded a complete piece of Crimson Iron, yet this piece of Crimson Iron still failed to elevate the weapon to green quality.
Perhaps the last experience left novice alchemist Zhang Yanhang feeling somewhat dissatisfied. This time, he used a large amount of Crimson Iron for embedding into the junk weapon, and because there was so much of it, the weapon eventually was upgraded to green quality, but its combat capabilities hardly improved at all.]
"I never thought the day would come when this chopper could be raised to green quality, even if it was purely through the material value of Crimson Iron.
Speaking of which, Crimson Iron is indeed potent. After embedding a total of fourteen Crimson Iron balls, the chopper’s white quality score impressively rose from six points to twenty-six points, a full increase of twenty points.
It managed to pull a score, which is even junk within the white quality range, up to twenty-six, which is nearly reaching the full score of green quality status."
Zhang Yanhang even suspected that if he replaced some of the Crimson Iron balls with Refined Crimson Iron, it was entirely possible for the chopper to leap past green quality and advance to blue quality. And even if it didn’t reach blue quality, a full scored green quality weapon was definitely within reach.
"But the most amazing part is that the chopper’s Attack Power actually increased, by a full five points. Where did these five points even come from?" In addition to Attack Power, Zhang Yanhang also noticed that the durability of the chopper had improved, gaining eight points.
Zhang Yanhang initially even thought that given the chopper’s fragile structure, it might simply shatter upon striking. But unexpectedly, despite being so fragile, the chopper’s Attack Power and Durability not only didn’t decrease but actually increased substantially, which was quite miraculous.
After testing the chopper’s rough embedding limit, Zhang Yanhang began a more detailed study to discover its exact limit. For example, adding one more Crimson Iron ball might cause it to assimilate, but what about half of one? If half did not work, then what about a quarter?
Such experiments should be conducted with a rigorous attitude.