Now, the pleasure of spending money was there, but what Blaine was even more familiar with was the pain it caused to his wallet.

Fortunately, the things he bought were extremely useful to him. Not only could they save his life at critical moments, but they could also bring him tremendous profits in the future.

Take the rejuvenation potion he bought earlier, for example. How should it be described? Bringing the dead back to life and restoring flesh to bones wouldn't be an exaggeration. Its value was beyond question. Just imagine: if the prehistoric Bounty Hunter had been fighting the five Celestial groups at a critical moment and suddenly pulled out a bottle of rejuvenation potion and drank it in one gulp, wouldn't he instantly return to his peak state?

Then, continuing to overdraw his power and burn his blood, would it be possible to fight the gods again? In fact, as long as there were enough rejuvenation potions, Blaine felt that the prehistoric Bounty Hunter could even grind the five Celestials down through sheer endurance.

"Oh right, I almost forgot something,"

"System, how much can my physique be upgraded now?"

[It is detected that the host has only 35 billion 35 million remaining]

[Insufficient balance. Only two physique points can be upgraded.]

"Nani? Is there a mistake?"

"Thirty-five billion is only enough to upgrade two points?"

[This is already the result after the 30% discount for A-level Hunters]

"Doesn't that mean upgrading a single point now costs twenty billion?"

"This is way too outrageous."

Blaine had originally thought that every time he bought skills or equipment, he could conveniently upgrade his physique as well. After all, he already had a god-level physique score of 450, three-quarters of the way there, just one step away from fully reaching god-level.

In the end, he got stuck on the word "balance."

In the past, he bought skills to upgrade his physique. Now, he had to find ways to upgrade his physique just to earn money. With insufficient funds and only one fifth-level star core left, Blaine had no choice but to give up unwillingly.

"Since the balance is insufficient, why not upgrade Lightning Everywhere instead?"

[[Lightning Everywhere] current level: Lv.1. Upgrade to Lv.2 requires: 30 billion.]

[Confirm? Yes/No.]

It was well planned—or at least it seemed so. Just moments ago, Blaine had been thinking that with over thirty billion left, he couldn't upgrade his physique, and it might not even be enough to upgrade a skill. But now the system directly asked for thirty billion, clearly intending to squeeze him dry.

"Forget it,"

"Thirty billion is thirty billion,"

"Confirm."

There was no way around it. Money was meant to be spent anyway. Besides, with thirty billion, he couldn't buy anything else, so he might as well just spend it.

Once it was spent, it was spent. Blaine was far more concerned about the effects of the upgraded skill. However, when he checked it, his heart almost stopped.

At Lv.2, Lightning Everywhere only extended the paralysis duration by one second and expanded the range from ten meters to twenty meters. Other than that, there was no change at all. Was this really worth the price? Could this even be considered an upgrade?

No wonder the Lv.2 description was just a single line: "There will be a surprise after upgrading to Lv.2." What a surprise—more like a shock.

Just moments ago, Blaine had been wondering how upgrading a skill that cost one hundred billion could require thirty billion. Now he finally understood. This was the trap.

Hey—thinking about it carefully, this really was Blaine's own fault. He was overly anxious, guarding against fire and theft, yet still couldn't stop himself from being tricked by the system. Fortunately, 'Lightning Everywhere' was powerful enough. After all, it was a control-type skill that caused paralysis regardless of level.

Although Lv.2 only extended the duration by one second, that second was absolute paralysis. In other words, it was forcibly added on top of the original duration. One second was just one second—but in a duel between masters, one second was more than enough to decide the outcome.

Besides, there was a lot Blaine could do in that single second. With speed approaching the speed of light, that one second in his hands could be stretched, broken apart, and fully exploited.

That wasn't one second—it was one minute, ten minutes.

"Alright, now open the skill upgrade interface for me,"

"Isn't the Arbitrary Transformation bugged? Didn't you say it couldn't be upgraded?"

"Come on, tell me how to upgrade it and make this storm even more violent."

Anyway, Blaine was out of money, so it was time to see what other tricks the system had up its sleeve.

[[Arbitrary Transformation] upgrade requirements: one five-level star core, plus ten units of medium-level magic.]

"I knew it—you were eyeing my star core all along…"

Although Blaine still had quite a few star cores, aside from the five-level star core he had just exchanged earlier, he only had ten five-level star cores and ten ten-level star cores left.

Now that he wanted to upgrade a skill, the system immediately demanded a five-level star core. Blaine was genuinely speechless. As for medium-level magic, that part wasn't difficult at all.

What did that mean? Ever since the Hunter system was upgraded to version 2.0, it had added a skill recovery column and several magic recovery columns. In other words, the magic Blaine had copied—especially the useless ones—could be recycled back into the system. And with Carbon Eyes, magic was the one thing Blaine never lacked.

Of course, Blaine could still use those spells normally. After all, magic wasn't something you forgot once you learned it. But since recycling didn't seem to offer any immediate benefit, Blaine had never really paid attention to this function.

It wasn't until the system mentioned it just now that Blaine remembered his Hunter system even had this feature. As for what the recycling actually did, or what the system was really after, he had no idea.

Even though upgrading the Arbitrary Transformation required a five-level star core, Blaine handed it over without hesitation. Not for anything else—just for a man's dream. Definitely not 'that' kind of dream about lifting.

With Blaine tossing his last remaining five-level star core into the upgrade slot and casually recycling a few medium-level magic spells, the upgrade of the Arbitrary Transformation of Cosmic Skills was finally completed.

Just as the system had said, the upgraded skill allowed Blaine not only to freely change the size of his body, but also to alter its form at will. However, what Blaine never expected was that the duration of arbitrary transformation was limited to just one hour. Moreover, it could only be used three times a day, with at least a two-hour interval between each use.

Was this another disguised nerf?

If this skill were bought by wealthy people suffering from functional issues in that area, wouldn't they go insane? What was one hour even enough for, if it was supposed to be fun? Even gathering a group of "friends" to play together wouldn't be enough time—there wouldn't even be time to take off their pants.

Still, it could be considered a successful upgrade. At the very least, Blaine had gained one more skill.

*************************************

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