Casually dumping all his free attribute points into Strength, raising it to 38, Qin Ming completed his allocation without hesitation.
He wasn't in a rush to break through to the second stage of attributes—mostly because a top-tier adventurer had kindly warned him against doing so.
You couldn't recklessly push through attribute limits. Going too extreme would create serious imbalances, potentially leading to power running wild and spiraling out of control within your body.
If you wanted to strengthen multiple S-rank skills, then you had to ensure your attributes were completely balanced! That was the only way to increase the success rate of fusion.
Anyone who made it to top-tier adventurer status was, without exception, a six-form warrior.
Sure, they all looked like a bunch of terminal patients now, completely run down...
But your average high-level adventurer? They didn't even qualify to join that group during their breakthroughs.
If you had a single weak attribute, your body would literally explode on the spot!
Given that kind of warning, there was no way Qin Ming would knowingly walk into a trap.
Fine, balanced growth it is. It's not like he was even a high-level adventurer yet—no need to rush a second-stage breakthrough anyway.
After finishing his point allocation, Qin Ming turned his attention to his titles.
He let out a long sigh as he looked at how he was just two Silver Titles short of combining everything to upgrade into Gold—possibly even evolving it into the radiant, enhanced Gold-grade "Tiger-Subduing General" title on the spot. Reluctantly, he put the titles away again.
As his level increased, titles and equipment were only getting harder and harder to upgrade.
Equipment was still manageable—he was making bank by selling off items and wasn't short on points. Upgrading gear parts? Just throw money at it.
But titles? Titles couldn't be bought. You had to earn them—bit by bit, on your own.
After organizing everything, Qin Ming finally looked at the treasure chests he had obtained from this mission.
He had earned a total of four Epic-grade chests, plus a Completion Chest, along with a mountain of lower-tier ones.
This was the most he'd ever gotten from a single mission!
If only Dark World creatures dropped loot when killed, he might've walked away with even more.
Without delay, he opened the chests one by one, frowning as he examined his haul.
Of the four epic chests, he had already opened the one from the Vampire Count earlier.
The remaining three? Each one had dropped a full-blown Epic-grade item.
One sword. One bloodline. One cloak.
[Name: Demon Sword]
[Category: Weapon (Dim Epic Grade)]
[Equip Requirement: None]
[Effect 1: Demon Sword Possession (+20 to all attributes)]
[Effect 2: Corrode the Mind (The wielder's soul will gradually be devoured and fused by the Demon Sword until it becomes the sword's new spirit)
[Effect 3: Upon becoming the new spirit, the user will abandon their physical body and exist solely as the sword's true form]
[Description: Are you wielding the sword… or is the sword wielding you?]
[Name: Mummy Pharaoh Bloodline]
[Grade: S-Class]
[Effect: Upon fusion, grants the power to control sand and transform your body into sand]
[Description: The desert… is my domain!]
[Name: Reaper's Cloak]
[Category: Special Equipment (Dim Epic Grade)]
[Equip Requirement: Possess a Dark-type bloodline]
[Effect 1: Merge with Darkness (While wearing the cloak, you become invisible in darkness)]
[Effect 2: Resist the Light (Fuse the cloak with the world to forcibly create a field of darkness, usable once per world instance)]
[Description: Death… is only the beginning!]
Each of the three items was more powerful than the last, with effects that were more terrifying the deeper you looked.
The Demon Sword in particular had a truly frightening effect—it could absorb the user's soul and turn them into its spirit.
And Qin Ming knew firsthand just how powerful this sword was—he'd already tested its might for himself.
It could possess corpses and draw upon their strength from when they were alive.
As long as the corpses weren't exhausted, the sword could keep coming back indefinitely.
If paired with an adventurer's storage space—stocked in advance with the corpses of powerful enemies—its combat potential would be downright ridiculous.
This item could completely bypass the Nightmare Space's attribute restrictions, creating its own unique power system!
Granted, at the lower levels, it did seem extremely powerful—at least to the average mid-tier adventurer, it would definitely be considered an unrivaled treasure.
If a regular adventurer got their hands on it, they'd easily dominate with its power.
But there was a catch: the sword had a hard upper limit. Its initial power was strong, but its growth potential was capped.
Once you fused with it, dreaming of ever advancing to top-tier adventurer status would be nothing more than a fantasy.
At least, that was the case for ordinary people. Qin Ming, however, had a unique talent that allowed him to upgrade equipment—he might actually be able to break that limit.
Even so, with his current well-rounded and powerful build, he had no use for it.
The Mummy Bloodline was in a similar situation—it was too similar to the Vampire Bloodline, and Qin Ming had no use for that either.
Only the Reaper's Cloak was somewhat useful. Not only did it not take up an equipment slot, its effects were extremely practical.
Casually tossing the cloak over his shoulders, Qin Ming glanced down at the black sword in his hand. A glint flashed through his eyes, and suddenly, the corner of his mouth lifted into a smile.
He had just thought of a rather special way to use this sword.
He might not need it anymore—but that didn't mean no one else could use it.
And as it happened, Kasamoto Eiri's strength was starting to lag behind his own. In that case, why not give her a new body to reside in?
The Demon Sword lacked a spirit. But it had never said that his soul had to be the one to become that spirit!
He raised his hand, pulled Eiri's head from his pistol, and drove the sword straight into it.
As the blade pulsed with light, the Demon Sword's power activated.
Kasamoto Eiri's soul was immediately drawn into the blade and began to merge with it.
The trusty hyena-handgun that had followed Qin Ming all this time had finally been retired.
Its replacement? A new summoned weapon—the Demon Sword!
Swinging it around once and slinging it onto his back, Qin Ming—now clad in his Sound Nest combat suit, draped in the Reaper's Cloak, and bearing the Demon Sword—nodded in satisfaction at his new look.
His gaze then turned toward his final piece of loot: the Completion Chest.
Qin Ming was quite looking forward to whatever was inside.
After all, the gear you got from Completion Chests might not always be high-grade—but the effects were always powerful. Not a single item was ever junk.
Taking a deep breath, Qin Ming solemnly opened the last chest.
With a flash of light, a new item appeared before him.
And its stats… made Qin Ming's eyes go wide with disbelief!
[Name: Invitation for the Chosen][Category: Special Item (No Attribute)][Effect: Upon use, unlocks a trial mission. Completing the mission will officially promote the adventurer to a Chosen of Nightmare Space, granting them a special status.]
A Chosen! This was the very "Invitation for the Chosen" that top-tier adventurers had once spoken of!
The reward from this chest completely exceeded Qin Ming's expectations!
To put it simply, a Chosen was a favored candidate handpicked by the Nightmare Space.
Once you became a Chosen, you didn't just receive numerous perks and privileges—the most important thing was this:
You earned the right to advance to the final stage.
Because advancing beyond high-level adventurer status wasn't something that could be done easily.
To break through that bottleneck, gaining the Space's approval by becoming a Chosen was a mandatory requirement.
If the Nightmare Space didn't recognize you, then you'd spend the rest of your life as a high-level adventurer—forever struggling within the system, grinding missions, and working until you died. There was no such thing as retirement.
Only by becoming a Chosen and completing the final mission issued by the Nightmare Space would you be granted the ultimate choice:
Either take one final step forward, challenging yourself to become a top-tier adventurer—a true shareholder in the system...
Or lay down your burdens and enter retirement, living peacefully as a Transcendent.
The choice would be entirely in your hands—but the right to choose was granted solely by the Nightmare Space.
Of course, with his talent and performance, Qin Ming had always known he'd eventually receive this invitation.
He just hadn't expected it to come this soon. He wasn't even a high-level adventurer yet—and the Nightmare Space was already eager to recruit him.
Then again, the Nightmare Space wasn't short on monsters like him. Qin Ming might've been fast, but he wasn't the fastest.
There was a record: some big-shot had gotten an Invitation for the Chosen the moment they entered the Nightmare Space—just from killing a random mob.
(End of Chapter)