After much deliberation, Xu Mo ultimately decided to allocate the final two enhancement slots to the "Spartan Dagger" and the "Demon Hand."
Of course, it wasn't because he had a particular fondness for these two. Rather, it was a matter of choosing the lesser evil among a poor selection.
Currently, the only weapons transformed from yellow shards were the "USP Pistol" and the "Spartan Dagger."
To be fair, whether in terms of convenience or power, the USP Pistol far surpassed the cold weapon Spartan Dagger. However, an unavoidable issue was its strict limitation of a twelve-round magazine. Once the ammo ran out, this thing might be even less useful than that damned ice shaver. Therefore, the Spartan Dagger, which could be used indefinitely as long as it wasn't lost, became the only relatively suitable enhancement option at the moment.
As for the blue shard ability "Demon Hand," the choice was even more straightforward. One option was the perverse "Falling Feather Crow," which had a habit of flying into women's private areas unprovoked. The other was the "Grass Mud Horse," with sharp eyes but utterly useless abilities. Even if Xu Mo wanted to choose, these two didn't give him any face at all…
Enhancements were never as shocking as activations, and the process was even rather low-key.
After its first enhancement, the Spartan Dagger showed no external changes. However, when held in hand, Xu Mo could faintly sense a significant improvement in the blade's durability and sharpness.
The changes to the Demon Hand, however, were more noticeable. Originally, the black-red armored plating stopped at the wrist, but after enhancement, it extended down to just below the elbow, increasing both the defensive area and overall sturdiness. The blue flame on the back of the hand flickered and spread upward as the armor expanded, its color becoming purer and more radiant, resembling not a flame, but an ocean wave that danced in the form of fire.
While the enhancement of the Spartan Dagger wasn't particularly surprising, the transformation of the Demon Hand took Xu Mo aback—it even left him a little shaken. If each enhancement continued to increase both its defensive strength and coverage, then he had every reason to believe that the Demon Hand's ultimate form might be a full-body suit of armor!
No wonder he had always found the Demon Hand practically useless compared to other abilities. It turned out its true power could only be revealed after reaching a certain level of enhancement. Unfortunately, right now, it wasn't even a half-finished product.
Despite this, Xu Mo was quite pleased with his discovery.
Even at its current strength, the Demon Hand was already highly resistant to damage. If it truly evolved into a full-body suit of armor one day, he couldn't imagine what weapon, apart from a nuclear bomb, could pose a real threat to him. At that point, there wouldn't be a single place in the world he couldn't go!
Although he knew that intelligence-type blue shards were much harder to acquire than other types of Apocalyptic shards, the Demon Hand's immense potential was simply too tempting. Xu Mo couldn't resist making it his primary enhancement focus for the future.
To some extent, Apocalyptic shards were like money—no matter how many you had, once you started spending them freely, they would be gone in the blink of an eye.
Now, only the final chained-type orange shard remained. Since it wasn't a healing-type initial shard, there wasn't much to contemplate. Xu Mo simply fused it and began activation.
In truth, he had been worried that this chained-type shard might somehow link up with that ridiculous ice shaver and create some kind of "enhanced ice shaver." Fortunately, that kind of absurd scenario didn't happen. Instead, the orange chained-type shard took root next to a blue shard.
It was the Demon Hand.
Xu Mo immediately activated the Demon Hand and quickly sensed an unusual force coursing through it—much like the energy of Zero Eruption. He focused on experiencing this new power within his right arm, then suddenly swung his hand forward with force.
In an instant, a massive blue claw shadow, twice the size of his own hand, shot out from the Demon Hand and smashed a vase on the desk into pieces.
"This is…"
After two more experiments, Xu Mo finally grasped most of the properties of this new chained ability.
Temporarily named "Blue Flame Phantom," this ability was, in essence, a form of energy projection. However, unlike conventional energy techniques, this so-called "energy" was entirely composed of the blue flames of the Demon Hand. The power of the orange shard had granted these originally non-lethal flames a degree of attack capability and a brief physical form.
The energy consumption of Blue Flame Phantom was comparable to that of Zero Eruption, but its attack power was only slightly stronger than Xu Mo's normal heavy punches, making its practical combat value relatively low. However, its maximum range extended to about one meter, and its activation speed was incredibly fast, making it a useful surprise attack technique… The only limitation was that it could only be used while the Demon Hand was equipped.
Upon completing the activation of the final shard, Xu Mo received an unexpected surprise.
He discovered that the Blue Flame Phantom's orange shard had suddenly formed a connection with the orange shard of Zero Eruption. A portion of the energy from Zero Eruption was now slowly flowing through this channel and replenishing the Blue Flame Phantom shard.
This meant that even without directly enhancing chained-type shards, they could still share energy among themselves to a certain extent—though not as efficiently as direct enhancement.
Although the experience felt brief, in reality, the enhancement and activation process had taken Xu Mo a full hour and a half. When he realized he still had an appointment with Lin Yijing, it was already 11:30 AM.
"Phew, I didn't expect time to pass so quickly. Good thing we didn't set an exact meeting time…"
Xu Mo quickly sent Lin Yijing a message, arranging to meet at the pedestrian bridge on the south end of Walking Street around noon. Then, he immediately began packing his things.
Even though this wasn't a formal date, since he was meeting Lin Yijing, he couldn't afford to be careless. After some thought, he decided to wear the black Li-Ning sports outfit his mother had recently bought for him.
As he was about to leave, he ran into his mother, Liu Shuxian, who had just returned from grocery shopping. Seeing Xu Mo dressed neatly and putting on his shoes, she was a bit surprised.
"Xiao Mo, where are you going? Lunch is almost ready…"
"Mom, sorry about that. I just made plans with a classmate, so I won't be home for lunch today," Xu Mo apologized while tying his shoelaces.
"A classmate? Well… alright then." Liu Shuxian didn't press further but suddenly took out a hundred-yuan bill from her wallet and stuffed it into Xu Mo's pocket. "Take this money with you. Don't let the girl pay for the meal."
"Mom… How did you know it's a girl?" Xu Mo was embarrassed to be seen through so easily.
"Do I even need to guess? You're just like your father. Whenever you go out to meet a female colleague, you make sure to dress as if you're changing your entire skin. Like father, like son…" She chuckled, tapping Xu Mo's forehead with her finger. "Make sure you see the girl home before coming back! And if it gets late, call home, or even I won't be able to cover for you!"
"Hehe, got it, Mom!"
After giving his mother a big hug, Xu Mo hurriedly ran downstairs, hailed a taxi at the entrance of the residential complex, and headed straight for Walking Street.
At that moment, on the wide Shenhuo Avenue, the main thoroughfare running through Shang Shan City, a nondescript black Audi A6 was moving slowly northward, caught in the heavy midday traffic.
Through the dark-tinted windows, one could vaguely make out two middle-aged men with stern expressions sitting in the front seats, while in the back, a young girl, around eleven or twelve years old, lounged lazily with a bored look on her delicate face.
Ordinarily, such a scene wouldn't be particularly remarkable. But with the Chinese New Year approaching and the streets filled with families out together, this odd trio—a pair of burly men and a little girl—seemed rather bizarre.