And with that, time went by. As Ilmarinen went to his job, learned dishes with Lyvie at work and trying to receive at least an Uncommon Item from his System, the day before the Dungeon open arrived. A little journey of 29 days. Currently level 2, as he accumulated 154 XP. Ilmarinen was basically hopeless, he thought his System wasn't working as intended, like it was in the first time he met it. The only thing he did was create a Set Item, that were his clothes. He didn't receive much, though. 2 Dexterity and 3 Strength.
Without any expectances, as it was the last Item of the day for him to use his Skill, he grabbed a knife in his kitchen and used it, and as he was just going to throw it away like the others, a pop-up finally appeared.
[System Alert: Congratulations! You have created your first Rare Item.]
...
While everything happened, Merlin suddenly appeared from the shadows inside a room, perhaps he brought good news to his boss, or maybe he was about to doom the entire mafia. Of course, for the sake of the lore, good news were the ones being brought. "Sir, we found the man who got the Crystal, we analyzed some footages from around the city. A no-one that goes by the name of Ilmarinen." Merlin told to the man sitting behind the desk.
"Why are you telling me that, Merlin? Just finish the work already. Ask him... Politely for the Crystal in his possession." The man said as he looked through the window, sitting on his chair, with his back turned to the man who brought the information. "That will be a problem, sir. He apparently has already used it." As Merlin said it, the room suddenly fell into silence. The man slowly turned his chair back, with a cold-piercing gaze. "He is a no-one, you say. Perhaps no one will notice if he suddenly... I don't... Just vanished."
Merlin nodded as he faded out of his boss' vision. The man sitting on the chair punched the desk, finally releasing part of his anger out. "I'm going to extract that Crystal out of your soul, you little ant. And nobody will be there to care. You destroyed my plans, and now, it's you who will be destroyed." He said as stared at his desk. Ilmarinen was not going to have a good time.
...
[System Alert: You have finished the Quest [Improving Yourself] following certain methods. Your effort has been acknowledged.]
[System Alert: You have received 235XP.]
[System Alert: You have received 15 credits.]
[System Alert: You have received 5 Skill Points. They have been added to [Luck]
[System Alert: A random [Epic Tier] Item has been added to yout inventory.]
Ilmarinen, once more, couldn't believe it. Maybe the System was playing with him, waiting his expectations to reach almost nothingness and then, help him. He held the Rare Knife and read the specs.
[A Chef's Knife]
Quality: Rare Item
Description: A Item, that once was useless, found its way to become useful.
Skills: [Passive] This Item has discovered the way of doing well-done cuts. The dishes made are really good.
[Passive] +5 Dexterity and +2 Strength
[Active] Doubles the users efficiency in what he needs. 50 points of the User's Energy shall be consumed. [Cooking/???]
Ilmarinen was left with his mouth open as he read it. Normally, Items would be stuck to certain specs. Swords would always have certain Skills that would change depeding on the Quality. Of course, some cases were out of the ordinary. But this knife, it didn't have the same pattern as other Knifes that were Items. You see, Ilmarinen studied a bit about Items because of his System, and it was pretty much common sense to know Items had a pattern when talking about Skills.
An Item like this would sell for an extraordinary price on the free market. Any good chef would pay large sums of money to have this in his collection, but Ilmarinen wasn't searching for money now, he needed good Items to enter a dungeon, and selling something takes more than a day or two.
[A new Secondary Quest has been received]
[Proving Yourself.]
Create an [Epic Tier] or higher.
- 100XP
- 20 credits.
- When creating an [Epic Tier] Item, nothing special will be earned.
- When Creating a [Legendary Tier] Item, extra 250 XP and 50 credits will be earned.
- ???
A lot of things appeared in front of Ilmarinen. Well, receiving a new Quest was expected, but he didn't expect the last part of it. The three question marks, something that was hidden from the User by the System itself. He was pretty surprised, trying to know what that was. The human-made Item ranking stopped at the [Legendary Tier], so Ilmarinen had no ideia of what that meant.
"I'm level 3 now, huh. These Quests do give a lot of XP." He said as he moved the [Rare Knife] in his hands. And so, something showed up on his sight once more. Ilmarinen couldn't receive any rest!
[System Alert: You have unlocked a new Unique Skill!]
[Item User.]{Unique}: You are able to use any Item.
'Huh? Anyone can use Items. Why is this even a Skill?' Ilmarinen thought to himself as he frowned. Was this a joke? An useless Unique Skill? Well, what Ilmarinen didn't know, as he searched too little about Items, because he never expected the System to work, was that Items had their limitations. A Necromancer's Item couldn't be used by a Priest, for example. His Chef's Knife would have its effects nerfed by people who aren't a Chef, like a Thief using it as an weapon.
Ilmarinen had another thing to do, he couldn't afford being mad by everything the System did that he didn't agree with. He received an Item from the System, [Epic Tier] even. He should be at least grateful for this. Ilmarinen opened his Inventory and got his new Item, a Glove.
[Thief's Treasure]
Quality: Epic Item.
Description: An Item any Thief would kill to have. Stolen by many, is now in your hands. Hand, actually. The whereabouts of the other glove is unknown.
Skills: [Passive] Highly increases the User's Stealth.
[Passive] +20 Dexterity.
[Active] Doubles the User's Dexterity for 20 minutes by the cost of 30 Energy points with a 20 minute cooldown. If the user needs to use it for extra amount of time, 5 points of Energy are used per second, causing the cooldown to increase 1 minute for every second.
[Active] Requires 50 mana for activation. The user can become Invisible for 30 seconds and hide its presence. 10 mana is required for every extra second. 10 minutes cooldown.
Ilmarinen was dumbfounded. The gloves were really good! Coming from this System, Ilmarinen expected this [Epic Item] to be trash, as the System would always destroy this man's heart and expectations into pieces, but not this time. This was worth the title of Epic!
This made Ilmarinen anxious, he felt ready to fight!Goblins? No problems! Orcs? I can do it! Dragons? Not really, he only had a knife. But he felt like he could finish an E-Rank Dungeon with this Items. Normally, people going to E-Rank dungeon would, at best, have 1 [Rare Item] and the rest of the things would be [Uncommon Tier]. He was way ahead of them, he was feeling confident enough to go into a D-Rank Dungeon, but there was no time to test his courage! He would finish his Quest tomorrow!
...
Ilmarinen slept through the night, waking up early as he would always do. He changed into his clothes, put his Thief's Treasure glove and wielded his Chef's Knife. But then, a thought crossed Ilmarinen's mind, that made him say out loud "Oh, God, I have to work!".
[System Alert: Today's saturday. No needs to work.]
The pop-up appeared as he was running to get his uniform to bring to his work. "Oh, right, it's true." Ilmarinen said as he calmed down with a relieved smile on his face. It only lasted a moment, though. He frowned as he looked around and then to the pop-up. "You could speak to me all along?" Ilmarinen said as he stared angrily at the System Alert. That would be nice to know before! But, no answers came. "You cunt."
It didn't take much until he decided to head to the Dungeon's appearance. Ilmarinen actually never went there before. It was kind of far from his house, and it actually appeared on a park this time. He took around 30 minutes and reached the place. It was the first time he saw a Dungeon's Entrance before. A big portal, flowing in a purple-like color, stood there. It was had some sort of menacing aspect.
People wearing jackets and militar equipment stood around. The Dungeon was studied before it was released to be bought by Guilds and the people. They would measure the Rank, find the Dungeon's name and some other informations. Ilmarinen was informed by the System as he walked into this area that the Dungeon was named "Goblin's Den", a classic and known type of Dungeon, one of the easiest.
In front of him, right by the portal, 4 people stood wearing Uncommon Armor, a tall and sturdy man, probably mediterranean, wearing heavy armor and holding a shield. He has short, somewhat light brown hair and was around 10 cm smaller than Ilmarinen.
Then, a man around 1.70, silver hair, really white skin, wearing light armor as he wielded a sword, not as big as the shieldsman. A woman, around 1.85, with long red hair, wore a strange robe and a book. She seemed like a magician, but Ilmarinen was unsure about what kind of System she had. At last, a small girl, about 1.60 tall, wearing a white robe, held into a staff, probably the healer.
Ilmarinen approached them, and was "greeted" by the shieldsman. "Are you the last one? Where is your armor? Do you really want to enter a Dungeon without armor?" The man said lacking his manners, approaching the tall man that just got there. Though, Ilmarinen didn't back off, nor felt scared, as he stared into the man's eyes.
"I'm already wearing it, I'm good to go." Ilmarinen said as he passed by the shieldsman and stared at the portal really close. He had never seen one before so he was really amazed by it. It was really otherworldy, he had never seen something like it! "Oi, oi... Don't ignore me. Are you telling me that's your armor?" The shieldsman said as he put his hand on Ilmarinen's shoulder, making the man close to the portal turn his head and remove the man's hand out of there. "Don't touch me. I don't know you. I just need to do my job." Ilmarinen said as he looked to the rest of the team. "Is everyone good to go?"
They nodded, as they approached the other two. They really didn't like the man with the shield as well, he was there to make everyone feel powerless or something. They didn't really care. "Hah! Ignore me then! I'll like to watch you die inside that place." He said as he positioned close to them.
The staff signed that they could enter, and so they did. Then, something happened. It was complete darkness, and pop-ups appeared in everyone's System. Of course, they didn't have the same System, but they were in the same Dungeon.
[System Warning: Two craftspersons have been noticed.]
[System Warning: The Dungeon has changed itself]
[System Warning: Rank E has been upped to Rank D.]
[System Warning: Goblin's Den has become Cook Off.]
[System Alert: Prepare yourselves to cook!]