Chapter 173 – Damaged Equipment

　　Ding!

　　System Notification: Congratulations! You have slain the three-headed h.e.l.lhound Cerberus. +200,000 exp. Because the Cerberus is a dark creature, the Reputation reward is multiplied for a total of +1200 Reputation. +100 Merit.

　　Bang! Thud! Along with the sound of the system notification, a pile of items burst from the h.e.l.lhound’s body.

　　Fatty was quite satisfied with the rewards from slaying the Cerberus, especially the Reputation since it was much harder to gain than experience points. Not long ago, Fatty had suffered a deduction of 5,000 Reputation for releasing Undead Marshal Lei Ting, which nearly sent his Rep into the negatives. Since he’d been fighting bosses, the value had slowly climbed back up again. As for the Merit thingie, Fatty tried to figure it out for a while, but to no avail.

　　He temporarily ignored the items on the ground and cast Harvest on the h.e.l.lhound’s body.

　　Fssht! Three inner cores, each different in size and color, appeared in his palm. They were blue, dark green and red respectively and shaped like hexagonal pillars. Radiating coronas of light, the cores felt warm to the touch.

　　Cerberus Demonic Nucleus—Wood

　　Cerberus Demonic Nucleus—Water

　　Cerberus Demonic Nucleus—Fire

　　So, the inner core of a demonic creature isn’t called “Inner Core,” but “Demonic Nucleus,” Fatty observed. Apparently, this Cerberus was a common demonic creature; otherwise, it should have been a Yao-ranked demon instead of Gold.

　　Perhaps, due to being spit out too many times, the poisonous Wood and Water nuclei had been drained of too much energy and thus were much smaller than the Fire nucleus.

　　Holding the three demonic nuclei and feeling the bursting energy within, Fatty came up with an idea. He took out the Elemental Skill Book and placed the three nuclei onto it.

　　Whoos.h.!.+ The skill book instantly emitted red, blue, and dark green lights that enveloped the three demonic nuclei. In response, the three nuclei also issued lights to intertwine with those from the book. The lights gradually grew brighter, and three silken wires of red, blue, and green streaked out from the nuclei only to be absorbed into the skill book.

　　Pop pop pop. After about five minutes, three soft snapping sounds rang out in succession. The light from the Elemental Skill Book vanished, and the three nuclei turned into two white piles of dust and one black pile. The black pile looked especially eerie.

　　“That must be it. The Water and Fire nuclei would, of course, leave behind white dust. As for the Wood core, although it was of the Wood attribute, it contained poison; so, the color is different from the other two.” Fatty understood. He then carefully poured the black dust into a vial. This dust contains all of the poison from the h.e.l.lhound’s body, so the potion refined from it must be horrifyingly poisonous, he concluded.

　　After absorbing the three nuclei, the Elemental Skill Book showed no visible change; however, Fatty wasn’t disheartened. The objective required a Legendary rank for restoration, so some mere demonic nuclei obviously wouldn’t cause a special reaction.

　　Yet, this still shed a light for Fatty on his way to restoring the mystery realm, and he was definitely motivated!

　　He had always been envious of Purple Bell’s Yin Yang Phantasm Realm. With an entire separate s.p.a.ce to oneself in which to grind, the leveling speed would soar up and up.

　　But, this kind of core thing is rare, Fatty mentally noted. Seems I have to gun for Yao monsters from now on.

　　Re-equipping the Elemental Skill Book, Fatty turned his gaze to the pile of items. The black magic staff on top was quite eye-catching.

　　Appraisal.

　　h.e.l.l Staff

　　Violet Weapon

　　Level Requirement: 50

　　Attack: 95 – 110

　　END +20

　　INT +25

　　Pa.s.sive: Increase fire and water magic by 10%.