Later, at Mu Shicheng’s insistent request, Bai Liu handed the matter of the badges over to them and let them deal with it themselves.

The highlight this year was the weapon modification.

The weapon modifier Charles introduced to them was a strange-looking man—unkempt from head to toe. His half-long hair was clumped carelessly into greasy strands by some kind of black engine oil, hanging messily around a beard that had not been trimmed in who knew how long. His face was so filthy with grime that his age was impossible to make out.

The place where the weapon modification would be carried out was located in an extremely remote corner of the game. It looked somewhat like an auto repair warehouse. The walls were hung with screwdrivers of every size, Phillips screwdrivers, saw blades, and all kinds of oddly shaped modification tools and half-finished products. The air was filled with the unpleasant smell of dust and gasoline.

A huge iron furnace burned fiercely on the ground, and inside it was a pot of bubbling magma. The modifier pulled down the welding mask on his head, used a long hook to catch a weapon that had already been burned beyond recognition, and plunged it into the magma.

“Sss—”

The magma let out a long trail of black smoke.

Two seconds later, the modifier pulled the long hook back out, but the weapon on it was gone. Clearly, it had already melted into the magma.

“Tsk.” The modifier snorted in displeasure. “Who sent over a skill weapon with such a low melting point? It vanished after one dip!”

The apprentice beside him stared at the pot of magma in despair, so anxious he was practically jumping. “...Master, at least test the weapon’s melting point before you put it in the pot! How are we supposed to fish it out now?!”

“If we can’t fish it out, then forget it.” The modifier casually tossed the long hook aside and roared angrily, “If it can’t even withstand the stone slurry refined by my Samadhi True Fire, then this weapon has no damn modification value! It’s nothing but dead weight!”

Mu Shicheng and the others could not help turning their gazes toward that bubbling pot of magma. They swallowed involuntarily and gripped their own weapons even tighter.

The modifier, dressed in a worker’s outfit from the eighties or nineties and a thick felt apron, raised a hand and swept his oily hair behind his head. He hung a welding gun, still crackling with sparks, back on the wall, then turned and glanced at Bai Liu and the others.

“So you’re the ones who want modifications?”

Charles suppressed the urge to leave immediately and nodded with dignity. “That would be them.”

“Bai Liu, this is the best weapon modifier in the game—Hua Ganjiang.”

Hua Ganjiang’s eyes, as sharp as iron hooks, were hidden behind his messy hair and grime. His gaze swept sharply over the group. Then he raised his arm and hooked, and before anyone could react, he had already hooked the pair of gloves from Bai Liu’s hand into his own.

“This is your skill weapon, right?” Although Hua Ganjiang was asking Bai Liu, he did not spare Bai Liu a single glance. Instead, he skillfully pulled a pen-shaped magnifying glass from a drawer and fitted it over his left eye. With his other hand, he picked up a small knife with a sharp tip and stabbed it straight into the surface of the glove without the slightest hesitation.

A hole was instantly poked through the glove.

Mu Shicheng could not help shouting at him, “Hey! Don’t just mess around with it!”

Hua Ganjiang turned a deaf ear. His knife moved even faster. In a few strokes, he had completely taken apart Bai Liu’s gloves. Then he plucked a threaded needle out of his messy hair, licked it twice, and began sewing in a disorderly, almost careless fashion.

After a short while, the wallet had shrunk considerably. Hua Ganjiang tossed it back to Bai Liu and wiped his hands on a towel.

“Try it again.”

Bai Liu took the wallet and put it on his hand, raising an eyebrow. “It fits much better than before.”

The leather had been rolled inward, tightening around the knuckles, while the tail end of the glove extended slightly to wrap firmly around the wrist. Wearing it felt far more comfortable than the simple modification Charles had made for him.

“As expected of the best modifier,” Bai Liu praised sincerely.

Charles took off his hat and bowed, smiling as he withdrew. “Then I shall leave it to Mr. Hua Ganjiang.”

Hua Ganjiang waved his hand dismissively, his lack of interest obvious.

Once Charles left, the topic turned to weapon modification, and the burly modifier’s manner became forceful.

“My skill is this furnace fire. It’s called Samadhi True Fire.”

The apprentice beside him corrected him in a small voice. “—It’s called Dissolving Forging Slurry, Master.”

Hua Ganjiang irritably slapped the back of the apprentice’s head. “You just have to run your mouth, don’t you? If I say it’s called Samadhi True Fire, then it’s Samadhi True Fire! Can’t I like the name Samadhi True Fire?!”

The apprentice: “...Of course.”

“Listen carefully. In my shop, skill modification is divided into two parts. The first is simple reshaping—what I did just now was reshaping. Once you’re satisfied with the shape, it goes into the furnace fire to be set, and after that it is forged.”

Hua Ganjiang’s expression turned serious. “Only skill weapons that do not collapse after being set can continue to maintain that specific form as your skill weapon and be used in matches.”

“But between setting and forging, you can add many rare items to raise your weapon’s attributes—attack attributes, for example.”

Hua Ganjiang glanced at the gloves on Bai Liu’s hands. “For instance, these gloves could have a layer of metallic satin molded over them, with a layer of Green Goat skin embedded inside. Their defense value could rise by roughly 2,700.”

“But correspondingly, the weight of these gloves would become 120 kilograms. That would be equivalent to constantly carrying a two-hundred-pound man.”

Bai Liu: “...Then I’ll pass.”

Hua Ganjiang continued, “So the forging process requires you to make choices based on your own situation—whether to add anything, and what to add. Charles has already paid your forging fees, so you may freely use the materials I have here.”

After speaking, Hua Ganjiang held out his hand to Bai Liu. “Give me the gloves. They need to go through the magma.”

Bai Liu handed them over naturally and asked, “What happens if they fail and dissolve in the magma like that weapon just now?”

“Skill weapons are derivatives of desire. The purer the desire, the higher the potential of the weapon derived from it, and the stronger its power after it has been tempered by fire.”

Hua Ganjiang pinned the gloves to the long hook and said without looking back, “Only low-grade skill weapons will dissolve. In my shop, you bear the consequences yourself.”

Bai Liu said softly, “If I give you the wallet, will you exhaust everything you have, even your soul, to help me forge the skill weapon?”

“You are my client. As long as your weapon can endure it, I will naturally forge a weapon that satisfies you.”

The corner of Bai Liu’s lips curved almost imperceptibly.

As he spoke, Hua Ganjiang plunged Bai Liu’s pair of worn-out gloves into the glowing, boiling magma without hesitation.

“Sss, sss—”

A loud, piercing sound of scorching came from the magma. One could clearly see several banknotes inside the wallet being faintly burned.

Mu Shicheng, Mu Ke, Liu Jiayi, and Tang Erda silently shifted their gazes toward Bai Liu.

“...”

Liu Jiayi reminded him calmly, “Did you forget to take something out just now?”

Only then did Bai Liu pretend to remember. He smiled apologetically, without a trace of guilt.

“My apologies. I forgot to take your banknotes out just now.”

This guy did it on purpose!!

Mu Shicheng gritted his teeth and was just about to go after Bai Liu, but Tang Erda stopped him. Liu Jiayi covered her face, refusing to look. Mu Ke stared blankly at that huge pot of bright-red magma.

Bai Liu’s lightless black pupils quietly reflected the crimson pot that had swallowed his wallet. The faint smoke rising from the surface of the pot, where the money had been extinguished, was like the scent of a soul being scorched by desire.

His soul banknotes were also inside.

The process of tempering brought with it a strange sense of evaporation. The excess emotions in his body were drained away like water, then injected with a desire that was more vivid, more scalding, and more violently beating.

Amid the distorted waves of heat and the tumbling magma, his soul was burned by the flames until its redundant impurities were stripped away, turning into a purer form of human desire.

Hua Ganjiang pressed down on his wrist and lifted the hook. When he saw the gloves hanging at the end of it, he suddenly turned to look at Bai Liu, who sat calmly off to the side, his face filled with uncontrollable shock.

The apprentice beside him stared even more blankly, his foolish expression impossible to suppress.

“...Ma—Master, how did these gloves... turn into this?”

The originally damaged, peeling gloves were now clean and new. Tight, smooth black leather wrapped every inch of the inner layer of the gloves. At the base of the wrist was a faintly glowing metal band, and on the back of the hand was a large groove in the shape of a hexagram wolf’s eye, inside which blood-red magma flowed.

And at the moment these gloves were lifted out, less than one third of the magma in the pot remained.

The apprentice had followed Hua Ganjiang for so long, but this was the first time he had seen a forging process where a skill weapon could devour the magma. He stammered, “Master, isn’t the magma your skill weapon? How could it be swallowed?!”

Hua Ganjiang pulled the apprentice behind him, thrust the hook toward Bai Liu, and snapped, “What did you do?!”

He had already realized something was wrong.

Attacking skills were prohibited in the Game Lobby. In addition, Hua Ganjiang’s own skill was extremely overbearing, so he had not been particularly guarded against Bai Liu’s team.

But he had never expected Bai Liu to be so reckless as to set a trap for him at the crucial moment of skill weapon modification.

Bai Liu stood up unhurriedly, took the gloves from the hook, and put them on his hands.

The gloves had just come out of the magma, yet they were only slightly warm, not scalding at all, and showed no sign of melting. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

It was as though even this high-temperature magma could do nothing to the weapon derived from Bai Liu’s desire.

“Soul banknotes are also a type of currency.” Bai Liu drew a brand-new soul banknote from the inner layer of the glove and held it between his index and middle fingers.

On that banknote was Hua Ganjiang’s furious face.

Bai Liu smiled. “The moment Mr. Hua Ganjiang took my wallet, he had already completed a transaction with me.”

Hua Ganjiang’s chest heaved violently. He gritted his teeth and spat at Bai Liu, “I have never seen such a greedy skill weapon. Sooner or later, you will be swallowed by your own desires!”

“Perhaps that day will come.” Bai Liu did not deny it. He continued approaching Hua Ganjiang with a smile, using his gloved hand to grip Hua Ganjiang’s hook and push it aside.

Then he forcefully pressed Hua Ganjiang into a chair and leaned down, lowering his eyes to look at him.

“But before that, Mr. Hua Ganjiang, could you tell me—what kind of mission did the guild leader of Deer Hunter give you, for a proud weapon modifier who only serves those within the guild to stoop so low as to flatter me and modify my weapons?”

Bai Liu lifted his eyelids and glanced at the trembling young apprentice, whose throat was being held by Mu Shicheng’s claws.

“You may lie, but I believe a good master would not want to see his apprentice bear the consequences of his lies. What do you think?”

Hua Ganjiang’s pupils shrank abruptly.

In an instant, the positions of hunter and hunted deer had been reversed.

—

Author’s Note:

6: a man who plucks feathers even from a passing goose and refuses to leave empty-handed wherever he goes.

6: Since I’m already here.