Infinity, The Arcade Age

Qin Ming, holding four white treasure chests, immediately began the fusion process. After combining them, he upgraded them into a single blue treasure chest. Without hesitation, he opened all three chests he had in hand, and they generously rewarded him with three pieces of loot.

Item 1: The Butcher's Cozy Shirt

Quality: Blue Shirt (Plot Equipment)

Effect: +5 Strength, +5 Constitution

Description: A shirt meticulously crafted from dinosaur leather. You deserve it.

Item 2: Dinosaur Gene Serum (Constitution)

Quality: Common Silver Consumable

Effect: Permanently increases Constitution by 5 points (Dinosaur serums can only be injected once).

Description: A high-quality serum only available to upper-level poachers. The quality is guaranteed.

Item 3: Inferior Dinosaur Gene Serum (Strength)

Category: Blue Consumable

Effect: Permanently increases Strength by 3 points.

Description: Strange? Due to its poor effectiveness, this substandard gene serum is usually given to elite lackeys as a reward. Why is it blue quality?

Three items—a piece of equipment and two potions—all top-tier items.

Especially the two potions. Although the attribute boosts they provided weren't as high as the increases from equipment, equipment could always be replaced, whereas permanent attribute boosts were, well, permanent and never went away.

This type of consumable, which could increase attributes forever, was worth far more than items of the same level.

Staring at the three items on the table, Qin Ming rubbed his chin and furrowed his brows. After a moment of consideration, he came to a decision.

Between the two potions, he decided to use the silver-quality one that boosted Constitution—not because it had a higher grade but because Constitution was simply more valuable for survival.

As for attack power, Qin Ming already had his trusty revolver. A gun's damage is fixed; it wouldn't increase with higher Strength. At this stage, increasing his Strength wasn't necessary, especially since he already had a title that boosted his Strength by 10 points. Strength wasn't something he lacked.

Given the current situation, raising his Constitution to boost his survivability was a much safer bet.

However, Qin Ming wasn't quite satisfied with the potion's current quality. He wanted to upgrade the silver potion to a higher level, maybe even a radiant silver or perhaps the legendary gold quality!

Items in Nightmare Space were categorized by a fixed hierarchy:

White

Green

Blue

Dull Silver

Common Silver

Radiant Silver

Dull Gold

Common Gold

Radiant Gold

Each equipment type also came in normal and plot equipment versions.

Plot equipment was always superior to items of the same level. For instance, Qin Ming's revolver, dinosaur goggles, and the newly acquired cozy shirt were all plot equipment.

To maximize his benefits, Qin Ming planned to upgrade the one-use-only dinosaur serum.

To upgrade consumables, he needed a lot of other consumables to fuse with it. Unfortunately, this meant Qin Ming had to use up his stash of croissants, which he had bought earlier for emergency use.

After fusing his nine croissants, Qin Ming created a dull silver-quality croissant.

A silver croissant! This was probably something even veteran adventurers had never seen before!

The effects of this upgraded croissant were insane. It could instantly restore 50% of your health and, over time, restore an additional 25%.

As long as you weren't dead, one bite of this croissant could practically bring you back to life! It was absolutely overpowered.

But as great as it was, Qin Ming was only using this croissant as fodder to upgrade other items. The problem was that a dull silver croissant still wasn't enough to upgrade the potion to the next tier—it was one rank too low.

With no other option, Qin Ming left his personal room and headed out, bringing his loot along.

After entering the elevator and selecting his destination, the door closed, and it began its descent. With a ding, the doors opened, revealing a massive plaza.

This was the legendary Adventurers' Trading Hub—specifically, the Low-Level Trading Hub. There were also intermediate, advanced, and top-tier trading hubs for veteran adventurers.

As a rookie, Qin Ming could only browse the lowest-level market.

Noticing the dark fog concealing his identity, Qin Ming smiled with satisfaction. He stepped into the crowd, starting his search for cheap consumables.

Unfortunately, after making a full round through the market, Qin Ming found that nothing was cheap. Even the most basic consumable items, like plain croissants, cost around 1,000 points each.

Lesser, non-combat consumables were somewhat cheaper but still hovered around 700 to 800 points.

With only 8,000 points to his name, Qin Ming realized he couldn't afford enough consumables to create the upgraded item he wanted.

Frustrated, Qin Ming rented a stall for 100 points, setting up his unwanted loot for sale.

His primary item for sale was the blue-quality strength potion.

As soon as he put up the potion, which increased Strength by 3 points permanently, it immediately attracted attention, and adventurers started gathering around his stall.

Seeing the growing crowd, Qin Ming switched to auction mode, allowing the surrounding adventurers to bid for the item. He set a starting price of 8,000 points, a fair amount considering the market rates.

With everything set up, Qin Ming left the stall, ignoring the questions from potential buyers, leaving the potion behind and letting the system handle the transaction.

After all, with Nightmare Space's rules in place, he didn't have to worry about anyone trying to steal his goods. The punishment for breaking the rules was far harsher than any battle technique.

Qin Ming continued browsing the market, buying the cheapest consumables he could find. After half an hour, a notification rang in his ears.

The auction had ended, and his potion sold for 11,650 points.

Clearly, items that provided permanent attribute increases were highly sought after.

Now flush with cash, Qin Ming was reinvigorated. Without hesitation, he spent all the points on consumables.

Carefully calculating the number of items and fusing them together as he went, Qin Ming finally returned to his room.

Sitting down, he gazed at the two freshly upgraded potions in his hands, nodding in satisfaction.

His remaining points now stood at a mere 560.

Even though he had spent nearly all his funds, Qin Ming was able to stretch his budget thanks to a lucky encounter with a vendor selling low-quality healing items.

That vendor had been selling bandages—12 rolls in total—for only 300 points each, which was extremely cheap.

Of course, the bandages themselves weren't great. They couldn't be used during combat and only restored 5% of health—a pitifully weak effect.

Compared to other consumables of the same level, which either worked in combat or restored significantly more health, these bandages were practically useless.

Still, with the help of those bandages and his ample funds, Qin Ming had successfully upgraded his potions.

Now, he held two potions in hand: one of dull silver quality and one of radiant silver quality.

(End of Chapter)