When Jack arrived back at White Scarfs group, Silverwing congratulated him,
"I knew I made the right decision when befriending you. Please allow me to express my congratulations."
"You are too kind, Sir Silverwing. I was just lucky," Jack replied with humility.
"Please, call me 'brother.' All my closest friends call me that."
Bluedaze and the others came to congratulate him as well, except for Grimclaw, who was sulking in the corner.
Bowler nudged Jack, and then passed him a crimson colored long sword. "Courtesy of our friend, Grimclaw," he said with a grin.
Jack took a glance at Grimclaw. He was standing with folded arms and a dark face. He seemed to be fighting the urge to look over at Jack. Jack felt slightly guilty as the guy's guild was supposed to be an ally, but when he looked at Silverwing and his retainers, they didn't look like they minded at all. Well, a bet was a bet, he thought to himself, and decided to just keep the sword. He inspected it.
*
Retaliating Sword, level 10/30 (Rare One-handed Sword)
Physical damage: 55
Attack speed: 2
Durability: 30
Endurance +2
When user receives damage, next attack on player dealing the damage will be increased to 150%
*
As Peniel had mentioned, rare equipment provided another extra ability compared to Uncommon. He also noticed that this rare sword could be upgraded to a much higher maximum level than its Normal and Uncommon counterparts. But he was not going to be upgrading this sword; he was going to feed it to Storm Breaker. Once he did, his sword would have another ability he could choose from.
He put the sword inside his storage bag; he wasn't going to let all the people here see the feeding process.
At this time, Warpath had come back from choosing his reward. The third rank was a man called Kill Order from Black Cloak guild, he was level 12 same as Warpath, but his experience bar progress was less than Warpath's, hence his rank came after Warpath.
'Take a look at the cube.' He heard Peniel 's voice in his mind.
'What? Now? In front of all these people?' Jack asked.
Peniel sighed, 'Dumbass, you are really hopeless. You can check the statistics of the items inside your storage bag without needing to take them out. Did you never try it before?'
'I didn't,' Jack answered sheepishly.
'Then go ahead and try it now,' Peniel urged.
He did as he was told, sending his thought into his storage bag and searching for the cube. After he found it, he focused on it to inspect it. A loading bar appeared. Huh? This is new, he thought.
'That's because it's higher than rare grade,' Peniel voice came.
'You can join me in viewing inside my storage bag?'
'Of course. We are linked,' she answered simply. 'Normally, if your Inspect skill is low, you can only learn a limited amount of information on the objects or players you scan. But for most items that have come to your possession, there is no such limitation. For these items, the only difference between high level and low level Inspect skill is the time needed to inspect them. The rarer the goods, the longer the time needed to Inspect it.'
'I see… And, wow, this one takes really long. It's been almost a minute already and it is still only 10%. Is it because this item is very rare or because my Inspect skill is terribly low?'
'Both,' again, Peniel answered simply.
While waiting for the progress bar to fill up, he looked at the ranking reward ceremony. Red Death came out as the fourth. After her, finally it was Grimclaw's time to shine. However, he didn't show any joy when he went up for the reward. His face wore the same gloomy expression. People in the crowd might think that he was trying to act cool or something. Only the people around Jack and Silverwing knew the truth.
When Grimclaw finished selecting his reward, Selena from Wicked Witch was summoned as the sixth rank. At this point, the loading bar inside his storage bag was finally completed. He immediately returned his attention back to the cube.
*
Transformation Box (Unique Artifact)
Consumes 4 Common equipment of same type to create 1 random Uncommon equipment of same type.
Consumes 8 Uncommon equipment of same type to create 1 random Rare equipment of same type.
Consumes 16 Rare equipment of same type to create 1 random Super Rare equipment of same type.
*
'What do you think?' Peniel asked.
'This… Its ability sounds… great.'
'Of course it is great! Why do you sound like you aren't convinced? You know how difficult it is to get a rare item at this stage? I bet in this entire crowd, you wouldn't find four or five pieces of equipment with rare grade. That rare sword you got from Grimclaw? He was really lucky to have gotten it. He should have just killed himself for losing it in a stupid bet, that moron. With this cube, you have a sure way to get a Super Rare piece of equipment, which is a grade higher!'
'Okay, okay,' Jack replied helplessly. 'I never said I didn't like this cube. But it really takes a lot of items to upgrade. Let me count. Four… eight… If I want a Super Rare piece of equipment, I would need 512 Common pieces of the same type! Bloody hell, by the time I collect that many, I would already have gotten the Super Rare from a simple loot drop.'
'You wish!' Peniel countered. "You would need to complete a high ranking quest or kill a high ranking boss for any chance of scoring items above Rare grade. It's only Rare or lower grades that you can get by luck for killing minions."
'Talking about luck. I've been wondering. My luck stat had been boosted due to Goddess' Blessing, but how come Grimclaw managed to get a rare weapon while I have difficulties even scoring an Uncommon?'
'Well, luck is a strange thing. There is really never a way to be certain, you know? Maybe you are just naturally a very unlucky person. You getting the Blessing could just be counterbalancing your bad luck into normal luck. And Grimclaw in basic form is probably already a much luckier person compared to you.'
'… That was a really irresponsible way to explain it. If he is really lucky, then he wouldn't have lost the bet now, would he?'
'That's because you guys were cheating. Can we get back to the Box, please? If you are worried about the huge number of items needed, you could always buy the items from shops. There will be plenty of shops selling items and equipment in the Main World. You just need to have enough coins for it.'
'Oh? I can buy? Why didn't you say that earlier? Now I'm really looking forward to getting my Super Rare equipment.' Jack was grinning thinking about it.
Peniel wanted to tell him that the coins in his pocket were just barely enough to buy three Common pieces of equipment, but she didn't want to burst his bubble, so she kept quiet.
'By the way, this Box is classified as an Artifact. Does it have any special meaning?' Jack asked.
'It's just a way to tell you that this is a one of a kind item. There is only one in the world. Now that you have it, it will not be possible for anyone else to get the same item."
One of a kind! Jack was impressed. He was glad that he had followed Peniel's advice and picked this Box. Otherwise, he would have suffered a big loss.
By this time, the people coming up to the Blue Sphere were level 11. The players at level 12 stopped at rank 9. The reward selection got faster as the ranks went down, because there were fewer rewards to choose from. However, there was no way to say that the lower rank would get rubbish compared to the upper rank, because, unlike Jack, they didn't have a Fairy guide who could tell them which one of the rewards was more valuable than the others. It's all came down to luck and intuition for them.
Jack was really glad now that he had saved the Goddess and been given a guide.