Originally, golden-tier boss drops typically consisted of 2-4 pieces of silver equipment, with a small chance of gold items appearing.
But with the epic "Greedy Hand" effect, any loot dropped by a boss would have its tier increased by one!
This directly turned three pieces of golden loot into platinum-tier.
Among these items, three were usable by assassin-type classes.
Riven checked them one by one.
The first item was a platinum-tier assassin weapon.
[Ghost Twin Blades (Platinum): Assassin-type weapon. Attack Power +136, Agility +22. Attack Speed +24%, +17 Armor Piercing. Equipment Requirement: Level 5]
[Unique Effect: Each of your basic attacks deals damage twice.]
"This effect isn't particularly useful, since I mostly use skills for damage."
"However, the base attack power of this weapon is high, and it adds 22 points of agility!"
"The attack speed boost also increases skill casting speed and reduces skill delay, so it's not completely useless..."
"As for the armor-piercing stat, it's quite beneficial."
Earlier, when dealing with the golden Ghost Ship, the damage from his skills was noticeably lower than against other monsters.
That was because the golden-tier boss had very high defense.
The "Armor Piercing" stat provided significant benefits.
Riven equipped the weapon right away.
Then, he checked the next item.
[Ghostfire Leather Armor (Golden): Physical Defense +25, Fire Elemental Resistance +50. Damage Block +14, Health +419. Equipment Requirement: Level 5]
A good piece of armor, especially with the "Damage Block" stat.
"This armor is so powerful that most players would fail to break my defense at this stage!"
"And... I haven't put points into Vitality, so my health is only 350."
"This armor boosts my health by 419!"
After all, it was golden-tier equipment.
One single piece of gear had stats higher than most players' full sets.
Lastly, there was a skill book.
[Ghost Shadow Blur (Golden): Assassin-type skill. Passive: Gain 15% dodge rate, and dodging triggers immunity to all damage.]
Seeing this skill, Riven's eyes lit up.
Finally, an assassin survival skill!
"Dodge builds aren't mainstream in Eclipse of Eternity, but that's because dodge rates are usually hard to stack."
"Even with a 50% dodge rate, it's still easy to die."
"But..."
"I can evolve skills endlessly!"
"Even if I can just reach an 80% dodge rate, the effect would be considerable..."
Riven glanced at his remaining 21 evolution points.
If it were someone else, deciding which skills to evolve would be tough with so many options...
But for Riven, the decision was easy.
"First, let's focus on increasing damage."
"The higher the damage, the stronger bosses I can tackle, and the better loot I can get."
Riven temporarily ignored his newly acquired "Ghost Shadow Blur" skill.
Instead, he chose to evolve his "Shadow Slash."
[You have consumed 3+5 evolution points, remaining 13 points.]
[Shadow Slash (Platinum → Emerald → Diamond): Blink in a direction (up to 21 → 24 → 27 meters), and enter stealth (lasts 7 → 8 → 9 seconds), dealing 5 → 6 → 7 slashes to all enemies in the path. Cooldown: 12 (10.43) seconds.]
[Slash Width: 3.1 → 3.6 → 4.1 meters. Each slash adds 200 → 250 → 300 attack power.]
The consecutive evolutions of Shadow Slash doubled the skill's damage!
Even without being in stealth, just one use of the skill could deal around 3,000 damage.
If he activated stealth and backstabbed, the total damage from the seven slashes could reach 6,000 to 7,000!
With 13 remaining evolution points, Riven chose to evolve an initial skill—Backstab Enhancement.
[You have consumed 2+3+5 evolution points, remaining 3 points.]
[Initial Skill: Backstab Enhancement (Normal → Bronze → Silver → Golden). Passive Effect: When attacking from behind a target, damage increases by 15% → 20% → 25% → 30%.]
This was a steady damage boost, and the higher it was, the better.
After sorting through everything, Riven's combat strength increased once again.
If he faced the golden Ghost Ship again, he could finish it in less than five minutes, and most likely, he wouldn't die...
After all, his agility had increased by 20-30 points, greatly improving his speed. He was even able to dodge the Ghost Ship's full-screen attacks when it was at half health.
Next, Riven checked his inventory.
He had another platinum-tier item and a platinum-tier skill book.
The equipment was for archers, and the skill book was for priests.
"Platinum-tier items aren't really worth selling yet."
"I'll hold on to them for now."
Riven wasn't afraid of exposing his Greedy Hand ability—after all, if he was strong enough, what did he have to fear?
The real issue was that, at this stage, no one could afford platinum-tier items.
These items could last five or six years at least, and the skill book was even more expensive, probably lasting ten years.
"Besides the platinum-tier stuff, there are seven or eight pieces of golden-tier equipment and skill books that I can sell to Marcus's team."
Riven thought for a moment.
A mage skill book and a mage ring—those would go to Lina.
They had agreed earlier that he'd give her any items she could use, and that was fine.
After all, Riven had gotten a Storage Ring from her, which was worth more than what he was giving her.
Other warrior, priest, and archer items could be sold to Marcus's team for 90% of their value.
They might not be able to afford it right now...
But Riven trusted Marcus's integrity—he could owe him for now.
After all, Riven had worked with him for several years in his past life and knew Marcus was a reliable person.
Thinking it over, Riven realized these items could be worth thousands of days of life!
With everything sorted, Riven left the swamp and opened Lina's private chat: "Black girl, where are you?"
Lina could no longer tolerate the nickname "Black girl" and regretted giving herself that codename...
But she couldn't change her name in the game...
So, she helplessly replied, "I got caught by Ironclad and his team. I died and respawned at the town. Luckily, all our tradeable life was with Captain."
The Captain she referred to was Marcus. Marcus had great survival skills, so giving him their life was safer, as it avoided losing half of it upon death.
"Alright, wait for me to come back, I'll give you your stuff."
Riven entered stealth and headed back to Shell Town. Before long, he saw Ironclad and his team of over twenty players, still heading toward the swamp. Seeing these players, Riven treated them like wild monsters and immediately started attacking!
...
At the same time, in another town called Moonlight Town, part of Riverbay City in the Great Empire of Ross...
Lyra, who had obtained the hidden class "Life Priest," had found a team in Moonlight Town and was struggling to level up outside.
They were discussing the recent global first kill of a golden-tier boss.
"Hey, I heard Shell Town is also a starting town for our Riverbay City."
"Does that mean that Shadow is from our city?"
The group discussed excitedly.
As a priest, Lyra was healing from behind and overheard the conversation, secretly feeling excited.
Shadow!
The super-player who had just achieved the global first kill of a golden-tier boss... was from Riverbay City?
This realization made Lyra's eyes light up, and she secretly decided that once someone in our town reaches level 5, she'll immediately head to Shell Town and find the Shadow God!"
She was quite disdainful of her current temporary teammates.
It took them forever to kill a small monster, and sometimes they were even chased by wild monsters.
'If I team up with that Shadow, leveling and farming monsters will be so much faster!'