Chapter 1262 Filling it up

Seeing the commotion, Liam decided to pay the counter another visit when things were relatively calmer and he walked away. After all, he was not done with this place yet.

Apart from the beast eggs, three other counters were selling questionable things. The first was a mineral ore selling counter. Big rocks were being sold for a fixed price and the content inside solely depended on the luck of the customer.

The process was risky, with no guarantee of what might be revealed once the rock was split open. Yet, the allure of uncovering a hidden treasure drove many to invest heavily in these mystery ores.

The second counter was similar to the mineral ore selling counter but specialized in rough, uncut gemstones. These gemstones, wrapped in mystery and potential, attracted those who hoped to unveil rare and valuable jewels within their unassuming exteriors. The prospect of finding a gem that could be worth many times the purchase price was a tantalizing gamble, one that many found hard to resist. The excitement of possibly uncovering a precious stone, hidden for ages within a plain rock, was a strong allure. However, like the ore counter, there was no certainty in what lay inside these rough stones. The risk of disappointment was as high as the thrill of discovery.

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The third counter offered something entirely different. It was a magical artifact counter, displaying a variety of items. These were mysterious broken and dilapidated items that were the remains of battlefields found across the myriad realms.

The artifacts ranged from broken weapons and armor to unidentified magical objects, each with scars and marks that spoke of the intense conflicts they had witnessed.

With minor repairs, some might become useful again while others might require a major overhaul. Irrespectively, several priceless items could be gained from this section. The repaired items could be superior grade and if unable to fix, the item can be melted and perhaps rare materials could be extracted from it. There was also a chance that these items could reveal secrets about ancient techniques, long-lost magic, or forgotten historical events.

The challenge was in restoring and identifying these items, a task that required considerable skill and knowledge.

Liam planned to target these counters next but he changed his plan and once again made a trip to the topmost floor. He had only visited the nether gathering facility until now. After hatching the pets, he had gotten the idea to visit one another facility, the astral energy gathering array. Perhaps Violet simply needed some astral energy to recuperate?

Unfortunately, his idea did not quite pan out. He spent several hours in the room, even cranking up the array to a high dose. However, he did not get any results or rather he didn't get the result that he wanted.

Unexpectedly, small amounts of astral energy started circulating in his body and gathering in the fruit lodged in his heart which Liam quickly started expelling. The space in the fruit was limited and he still hadn't thought out what energies to cram it with.

He had chosen mana, nether, and ice so far, mostly out of necessity and urgency but he wanted to put some thought into the rest of the composition. An astral core was not really at the top of his list as he had no connection with it yet.

However, now that he was bonded with not one but two astral pets, Liam decided to once again add it to the mix. This place was an amazing opportunity to lay the foundation of his nine-chamber fruit as he could easily absorb energies of different affinities into the different chambers simply by paying some mana cores.

He might not be able to form the respective core as he would have to visit a place with an even higher intensity of the respective energy but he could at least gather some condensed firepower and store it for emergency use.

For instance, combining pure ice elemental energy with mana while casting an attack resulted in a much stronger magnified attack power compared to just using mana or pure ice elemental energy. The same went for nether and ice.

As long as he combined two complimentary energies, the resulting fusion seemed to amplify the inherent powers of each, opening up a plethora of strategic options for Liam in combat.

After some thought and some experimenting, Liam decided to let go of the astral energy for now. He had never used it and was not proficient in it. So there was no point in wasting a chamber.

He quickly exited the astral array room, immediately jumping into a fire elemental array room. In there, he did not hold back and gobbled up as much fire elemental energy as the fruit chamber could possibly contain.

The array platform, ablaze with flickering flames and intense heat, was an ideal place for Liam to meditate. He felt the fiery energy coursing through him, a stark contrast to the cold, freezing ice and the dark corrupting nether energy he was accustomed to.

After the fire, he next switched to the dark elemental room and then the earth elemental room, followed by the wind and the lightning elemental room. This only left him with one other temporary open space.

Liam decided to go with demonic energy for this one as he had used that particular one more than the others. He had an S-grade affinity for both nature element and demonic element but he had never used nature element before and he had a feeling that the demonic element would further boost his nether type attacks.

Either way, this was a temporary decision as he could always empty the chamber by using up all of the energy gathered inside. Without a core, the replenishment wouldn't be as fast especially if he was not in an attuned-energy world.

With this, Liam finished his preparations for the next half of his plan and stepped out of the last floor to go back into the gambling den once again.

The store manager saw him once again wander around the floor and the fairy's heart started thumping anxiously. What was this person going to do now?