Chapter 179 - Supernova
Supernova was a divine skill that got reduced to the Legendary category and it had one of the worst cast times. However, Rina's damage with Supernova was prohibitive, it dealt 1000% fire damage over an area zone.
-200,000!
That's right, an entire area zone. The fire explosion from the sun's collision with the earth covered the entire Fleeting Forest, with not a wisp of heat escaping the 'boundaries' of the area zone.
She had slaughtered every player, since they had less than 20,000 HP on average. With 200,000 damage, Void Fodder and Void Monsters were killed without question.
After the sun landed on the ground, only 8 players were left standing.
Only the Void Killers and Void Destroyers remained, though their numbers had been largely reduced by Draco, Riveting Night and the core members of the Four Guilds before they had died.
Rina gained so much experience that she rose to level 50 in one go and even had some leftover. The sheer number of monsters she killed with her single AOE was in the thousands.
She didn't gain anything from killing players in terms of experience, but the system had something else for her in store.
｢System to Player Announcement
Player L.u.s.ty Wench, congratulations for having killed over 30 million players with one attack! You have gained the title: Queen of Death!｣
｢Queen of Death – Special Rank
All damage +100%
5% chance to reset all cooldowns when an enemy is killed by your attack
500% damage during PVP｣
Rina was shocked by this sudden announcement. She an inkling of an idea about the prowess of titles thanks to Riveting Night's teachings. However, she had no idea the effects were so overpowered.
Were all titles in the game like this?
Draco sent her a private message. "Place all the experience you gained into Flamesear and reduce yourself to level 30, 0%. Then, assist Eva and I with culling the remaining void monsters. Remember, place every single bit of experience you gain from here on into Flamesear until its full. - Draco"
Rina complied with Draco's words unconditionally. She reduced herself to level 30, 0%. Currently, Flamesear received 6,097% of 100,000%, which was a scary amount when one considered the fact that Rina gained 60 levels from one AOE attack.
Gentle Flower, Noble Soul, Sublime Notion, Rina and Fitter Cleric shared a look and went over to support the Evil Duo. Only Dreary Traveler stood in place, because he didn't need to go forward.
"Rise."
The corpses of all the surrounding slain players rose from the earth, armed with trash-tier versions of whatever weapons they had used.
Dreary Traveler possessed the Hidden class, Necromancer. Necromancers were able to raise the dead and use the corpses of their enemies as their own soldiers.
They were the glass cannons amongst glass cannons, possessing extremely low HP and defense for their Rank. Nevertheless, their versatility in battle - especially large-scale ones - was unparalleled under heaven.
Even though players, NPCs, and monsters - apart from Field Bosses - turned to pixels upon death, the location they died on was treated as a 'burial site'.
The very first skill any Necromancer would automatically be granted upon receiving this class was Death Vision which allowed them to see those burial sites, to raise the dead from below.
It barely cost him anything to raise the weakest version of the undead, which were skeleton soldiers. The higher the Rank Dreary Traveler wanted to summon, the more mana it would cost and the more it would put pressure on his mind to control them.
He could only raise 30,000 skeleton soldiers at the moment, and they had been the reason the five remaining members of the Four Guilds had survived so long.
Dreary Traveler had been unable to let his army contribute in this fight as frontline fighters. After all, their bodies were weak and their items were trash-tier. Even if they had been - wastefully - imbued with Aether, they would still do almost no damage to the Void Killers or Void Destroyers.
No, Dreary Traveler used them to defend the living members. They acted as bone shields that would dive in the way of an attack meant for a player on his side.
Thanks to that, everyone was able to easily manage the task of cleaning up the last few remnants of the void monster invasion. It took them quite a while, but with Draco and Riveting Night taking the lead, and with Sublime Notion's excellent heals, it wasn't too strenuous.
They naturally formed a party so that experience was shared. Otherwise, people like Sublime and Fitter would have a hard time gaining experience for this melee.
It took them more than 10 more minutes to kill the remaining 20 Void Killers and 5 Void Destroyers. Since Rina's Supernova had already destroyed the portable portal, it meant that the invasion had been resolved.
｢Event Zone Announcement
All players, congratulations on completing: Void Monster Infestation Emergency Quest
Time elapsed: 00:48:42
Assessment: SS+
Reward:
1000 reputation with Sturgehaven Kingdom
2000 reputation with all races
3,000% experience
5000 gold
3 Epic Treasure Chests｣
The system rewarded them for how they had cleared the quest. The rewards were many times better than what it should've been there, so let's run through the process of assessment the AI made.
The Emergency Quest had three methods of completion. The minimum requirement was to survive for one hour. One could choose to fight until that one hour ended which was the recommended method of completion.
The best method of completion would be to destroy the portal and clear out the remaining monsters before the timer ran out.
This was assumed to be impossible for current players, but when you had two reincarnators like Draco and Riveting Night, predictions and assumptions became useless.
Next was the time it took to complete the quest. It had taken them less than one hour to complete the quest which had a one-hour time limit, so the assessment was boosted by that fact.
All in all, Draco, Riveting Night, Gentle Flower, Noble Soul, Dreary Traveler, Rina, Sublime Notion and Fitter Cleric gained immense rewards.
Putting aside the reputation and gold, three Epic Treasure Chests and 3,000% experience was amazing. It meant that everyone here could challenge the Class Up procedures if they wanted to.
But that wasn't all.
｢Event Zone Announcement
All players, congratulations on completing: The First Guild War Sub-Event
Time elapsed: 01:28:42
Assessment: A+
Reward:
70 silver
3 Common Treasure Chest｣
Of course, the second one wasn't as great, but it was something. However, the members of the Four Guilds had bet everything they owned on Umbra, and now that Umbra won the Guild War, the profit they made was scary.
Some other clever players had placed bets on Umbra, some wildly and some conservatively, so they would also gain something great after they respawned in 30 minutes, as that was the basic time penalty for Rank 1 players.
｢System to Guild Announcement
Guild Umbra has won the First Guild War against Myriad Cards and Lorebinders.
Rewards:
All participants +300% experience
Double Exp boost for 3 days
Event Item - Abyss Key
80 gold paid out from the losers out of a 100.｣
Draco smiled when he held the Abyss Key in his hand. In the previous timeline, it had been the Rank 7 NPCs who had monopolized it when the crisis had occurred.
Now, he could use this item to profit greatly from the calamitous Abyss Event. As for accessing the Abyssal Trove, he would do that only when the event was about to end.
Destroying the key just to access the trove right now would be a few levels beyond foolish, and Draco would definitely try his hardest to avoid that.
As the eight of them stood around each other, with tired but excited looks on their faces, Draco smiled.
"I think we should all open our chests. It would be best to do so now, when there is no one around to disturb us, don't you think?"
His suggestion was met with approval from the rest. First of all, they weren't like the Evil Duo who had owned many Epic items in their past lives. After getting a taste for Legendary Items, both of them could hold out in the face of possible Epics.
When a normal gamer got presented with loot, they opened such loot. It was unrealistic to expect a true gamer to put loot aside like the way Draco or Riveting Night did.
As such, the Fleeting Forest was lit up with bright lights as many Epic Treasure Chests were opened!
However, the faces of the ones opening them were black, except Fitter Cleric. Out of three Epic Chests, they each only got one Epic item and two Rares, while Fitter Cleric naturally scored a perfect hat trick.
All of the Epic items they received were the growth type, which was what Draco expected. The AI prioritized balance overall, but it still could not deny rewards.
It was possible that they could even have gotten three Rare items, because not everyone invested points into luck and the base chance of getting an Epic item was only 30%.
However, all of them had received too much experience and the system needed to maintain balance organically, so one of the chests was set to be a growth type item each.
It didn't interfere with the other two, meaning that Gentle Flower, Noble Soul, Sublime Notion, Dreary Traveler and Rina simply had shit luck.
Draco and Riveting Night didn't open theirs for obvious reasons and Fitter Cleric was the incarnation of fraud, with his absurd luck.
Why didn't Draco propose to have Fitter Cleric open them all to improve the chance that they'd all get lucky?
First of all, could they even afford Fitter? Even Draco, his Guildmaster, always paid him handsomely for every opening he made. In the future, the importance of hidden classes would become higher and higher, and a unique class like Luckmancer would be coveted by all.
Secondly, Draco was slightly superstitious. Luckmancers were extremely lucky, but they were not perfect. So far, Fitter had yet to fail even once. That meant that his natural luck and system assisted luck were too high.
Still, no lucky streaks could last forever. There might come a day where Fitter would empty his tank of luck before he could somehow refill it. In that period, would Draco be able to discover the legendary pill for regret?
No. As such, it was best to let them have a taste of reality. Opening loot - whether it was chests in RPGs or gacha in those old mobile games - was a stressful process.
Well, putting aside the pretentious reasons, the true reason was that Draco understood the AI's POV. He saw the rewards and was able to deduce what it must have been thinking, so he convinced them to open it now so that the AI could carry out the aftermath of the plan.
Truthfully, if it wasn't for the strict and unbreakable directives from its creator, the AI would jump down into the world and kiss Draco all over.
Draco also placed all the gained experience into Pair Dadeni and Mjolnir equally. He decided to check how much progress he had made with them, and his heart almost stopped.
｢Pair Dadeni – Crafting item
Rank: Epic
Durability: 500,000/500,000
Effects:
Passive 1 – Reagent Improvement: All ingredients placed into this cauldron are improved to the same Rank as the Cauldron.
Active 1 – Return on Failure: Activating this skill allows the user to restart a failed crafting process three times. Cooldown: 21 days.
Description: The cauldron initially belonged to the giant Llasar Llaes Gyfnewid and his wife Cymydei Cymeinfoll, who lived within the Lake of the Cauldron. It was typically used to revive the dead infinitely, but was re-crafted for concocting potions.
Further abilities can be unlocked by sacrificing experience points. 12,876% of 50,000% needed to upgrade to Legendary Rank｣
｢Mjolnir – Crafting item
Rank: Epic
Durability: 500,000/500,000
Effects:
Passive 1 – Ingot Improvement: All ingots that are struck by this Hammer are improved to the same Rank as the Hammer.
Active 1 – Return on Failure: Activating this skill allows the user to restart a failed crafting process three times. Cooldown: 21 days.
Description: In the history of the Gods, Mjolnir was the hammer of Thor, the God of Thunder. It was re-purposed for the art of crafting after the Gods receded into heaven.
Further abilities can be unlocked by sacrificing experience points. 15,904% of 50,000% needed to upgrade to Legendary Rank｣
Pair Dadeni had gone from 1,555% to 12,876% and Mjolnir had gone from 3,000% to 15,904%. That was an insane jump when one remembered that this was in less than an hour.
Of course, to reach 50,000%, Draco would have to do a lot more than this. He estimated that the Abyss Event was the perfect match for him. An evil idea popped up in his head and he shared it with Riveting Night.
She wholeheartedly agreed and shared something with Draco as well.
｢Eye of Heaven – Ornamental Item
Rank: Epic
Durability: 500,000/500,000
Effects:
Passive 1 – Light Amplification: Light-based magic, skill, and techniques are boosted by 30%.
Active 1 – Light of the World: Activating this skill allows the user to summon the Heaven's Eye to send out a giant beam of light energy. Cooldown: 7 days.
Note 2: Heaven's eye will possess a rank of the player's + 3. The maximum Rank increase is capped at Rank 5.
Description: This talisman was created from the condensed essence of the Heaven's Eye, a mystical being that occasionally emerges in the world to purify all evil.
Further abilities can be unlocked by sacrificing experience points. 28,101% of 30,000% needed to upgrade to legendary rank｣
The Eye of Heaven was on the cusp of upgrading. Unfortunately for Riveting Night, her firepower had been far weaker than Draco and she could not kill as many Void Destroyers and Void Killers as he did.
However, she had slaughtered far more Void Fodder and Void Monsters than Draco, which was how she still earned so much. The two had balanced each other out in that fight, so there was no time to check who was gaining more experience.
Draco placed the 3,000% he had gained into three places. The first was Pair Dadeni, for which he used 624% experience to send it from 12,876% to 13,500%.
Next was Mjolnir, which he used 1,096% experience to send it from 15,904% to 17,000%.
He put the remaining 1,280% into Fragarach, which was actually his first deposit into the item. Draco could only smile bitterly when he thought about the amount of work he would have to put in.
Riveting Night placed her 3,000% into the Eye of Heaven, sending it over the limit. The talisman disconnected from her neck and floated in the air before her.
It began to suck in Worldly Energy like a vortex leading to an endless abyss. This continued on for five minutes non-stop, then the upgraded talisman returned to Riveting Night's neck.
Design-wise, it hadn't changed that much. It still resembled a rhombus-shaped talisman with a large golden eye in the center.
(Author's Note: Like the Eye of Agamotto that Dr. Strange wears.)
However, the eye that had been closed before, was now open and it seemed to be looking around on its own. It seemed alive, and the slow movement of the eyeball added to Riveting Night's visual eeriness.
｢Eye of Heaven – Ornamental Item
Rank: Legendary
Durability: 1,000,000/1,000,000
Effects:
Passive 1 – Light Amplification: Light-based magic, skill, and techniques are boosted by a factor of 3.
Passive 2 – Heaven's Eye: You can never lose your sight and you can see in 360°.
Active 1 – Light of the World: Activating this skill allows the user to summon the Heaven's Eye to send out a giant beam of light energy over a large area of effect. Cooldown: 21 days.
Note 2: Heaven's eye will possess a rank of the player's + 3. The maximum Rank increase is capped at Rank 6.
Description: This talisman was created from the condensed essence of the Heaven's Eye, a mystical being that occasionally emerges in the world to purify all evil.
It has reached its strongest state and can no longer be improved.｣
The new Eye of Heaven talisman was great on paper, but Riveting Night and Draco could only smile bitterly. Based on the lore of the item, as well as general logic, it made sense for this second passive to be like that.
After all, it was an Eye of Heaven. This naturally meant that one's sight would be boosted greatly. To a normal player, this was a godsend.
To Control masters who had a larger and more efficient Void of Perfection like Draco and Riveting Night, this was extremely useless.
Riveting Night had a surplus of experience, which she had nowhere to place. As such, Draco handed her Fragarach, and she put the 1,101% experience remaining into the Legendary sword.
Fragarach came to 2,381% from 1,280%. She then returned the blade to Draco, who placed in its sheath.
However, the Evil Duo were unable to proceed with anything else because a system notification appeared before Draco, Riveting Night and Rina.
｢System to Player Announcement
After reviewing the performance of various activities and items, the system has deemed it necessary to carry out a small-scale balance patch concerning items above the Epic Rank belonging to players Draco, Riveting Night and L.u.s.ty Wench.
This patch will not take the raw power of the items away, but will clarify the exact utility of the various skills in conjunction with the players using them. Please standby as the system carries out this patch.｣
They froze in place as the system evaluated their items in conjunction with their skills and possible loopholes/utility. Draco and Riveting Night weren't worried, since they knew how the system carried out balancing.
Rina though was scared that she would lose her powerful Legendary item, but it wasn't something to worry about objectively.
｢System to Player Announcement
After analysis, the items to be altered are;
- Dragon Soul
- Eyes of Caelo
- Flamesear
- Abyssal Ring
- Eye of Heaven
- Fragarach
- Dragorugio (set)
- Seal of Camelot｣