"Mhm! I am beat. Let's take a rest," Haruka said.
Akira checked the mobile for a nearby hotel, but he saw some news he had been keeping track of. "No, we have one important work. From the nightmare, I heard the highest coin rate for a crystal was 15 coins. Now the cost is 14.8 coins. This is the best time to sell all our crystals."
"Sell all of them? We can only upgrade growth skills with crystals and ascend at levels 10, 20, 30, and so on with crystals." She knew that information from the internet.
"We can buy them later; we need the coins to buy the important system function. That's why I asked you to not buy from the system because the first-time purchase has a 50% discount.
If we sell crystals, we both can get that 200,000 coins worth of function for 100,000 coins. Although there are other items worth more, we can save more coins with this function along with a lot of time."
Haruka had been listening to him obediently up until now because nothing came in conflict with her emotions, but once Akira mentioned putting all her hard work into something else she didn't know, she balked, especially when she had collected more crystals than him.
"Just what is that function?" Haruka asked aggressively, which alerted Akira, but it didn't faze him as he knew she would listen to him if she knew what it was.
"To collect crystals automatically after killing a monster," said Akira, acting uninterested, "well, if you don't want to, I won't force you."
Haruka's face became blank, she didn't speak another word, and quietly went to a player who was shouting, "I need crystals, I can pay with coins."
'I have been collecting every crystal without one monster missing because he asked me, but I don't have to do the tedious chore anymore.' Haruka became very enthusiastic about it.
A few minutes later,
"We got enough," said Haruka, she was onto something.
"No, we still need 400,000 coins each to max out this function." Akira stopped her.
"Wha..." She was extremely unwilling. "What's the use?" She was so reluctant that her face became like an old grandma's.
"How do I know," Akira said, "we have to check it. If they gave the feature to collect crystals, then they would also give the feature to collect materials like skin, claws, bones, etc.
Didn't you check the internet? To ascend to level 30, you need specific materials for different professions. We can sell those materials for a good price."
"But…but these are crystals I dug nonstop to get," Haruka complained, but deep down she knew she would lose the argument again.
"What's the use of collecting them if you don't use them?" That line, Haruka couldn't answer, so she started selling all her crystals. They had to visit a few places to find buyers. It took them 2 hours and it became night.
**You purchased a system feature, auto collection.
Auto collection: allows you to collect crystals just by killing monsters. Crystals are automatically put in inventory.
Upgrade cost: 200,000 coins**
**You upgraded auto collection to auto collection materials.
Auto collection materials: this allows you to collect crystals and outer materials like skin, claws, etc automatically. Only valuable items will be collected. You can choose to switch off the auto collection.
Doing so will allow you to collect these materials by hand gesture of grabbing. If you show your palm to the dead monster you killed and make the gesture of grabbing, those materials will come to your inventory.
Upgrade cost: 200,000 coins**
"What's the point of switching this off?" Haruka asked.
"Maybe some scientists want to learn about the full body and post a high reward for getting the full body of a monster. What will you do at that time if you don't have a switch-off option." She never thought about that and she never knew that possibility even existed.
**You upgraded auto collection materials to collection king.
Collection king: allows you to automatically collect every valuable material within 5 meters which doesn't have an owner.
You also collect every valuable material from the monsters you kill. You can choose to switch off the auto collection.
Doing so will allow you to collect these materials by hand gesture of grabbing. If you show your palm to the dead monster you killed and make the gesture of grabbing, those materials will come to your inventory.
Additionally, you can show a gesture of grabbing towards the monster you didn't kill to get all the valuable materials, but you have to touch the monster with the other palm while doing the gesture.**
"Wait, every valuable item that doesn't have an owner? Does this also include wild fruits and ores?" Haruka asked.
"Yes, we can even get materials of monsters we didn't kill. Although we shouldn't do that," said Akira.
"The first upgrade is just a small benefit but the second upgrade is huge, but both cost the same."
"Maybe that is the system's way to stop others from upgrading because they think the upgrade doesn't have much value. Only by upgrading a player will know the benefit of 2nd upgrade."
The system only shows the upgrade to the next stage in any category; that was how players found that they needed monster materials at level 30 accession even though that was the cap. For level 10 and 20 accessions, they only needed crystals.
'In my previous life, this 2nd upgrade took 5 years to become public, at that time almost every player regretted it.'
"So, let's rest now," said Akira.
Haruka held his shoulder tightly and looked at him with a dehydrated scary look. "What do you mean by rest? We are completely broke now. A second ago we were the richest players and now we are the poorest. Until my losses are covered, I won't be able to sleep."
Akira gulped with awkwardness. "You…you are acting weird," he said and thought, 'so you are finally showing your true colors. I knew something was wrong when you were being oddly obedient since the game descended.'
"Keke." She smiled sinisterly. "Did you like pushing me around while you slacked off for 3 days? Now I got the gist of our situation, no need to follow you anymore."
Akira gulped in fear. "What are you going to do?"
"Hehe. We both don't have any crystals now. From this point on if the number of crystals I have exceeds yours; you will see what I will do to you."
'Yep! This is the Ruka I know. So she was silent all this time because she didn't know how this disaster works but now she lost her coins and crystals, so she got snapped.'
They both reached a white-colored portal.
"There are two types of dungeons," said Akira, "tower dungeons and portal dungeons.
Tower dungeons give a specific reward but the rank of rewards is unpredictable. We mostly saw S-rank items there.
But portal dungeons are different. These dungeons only give exp and coins for clearing with a 10% possibility of getting items or skills. Those items or skills will be the same rank as the dungeon.
One more important thing is that the end goal of these portal dungeons can only be achieved by a party. The party can consist of any number of people. As we can only make or join a party after level 10 accession, we have to clear it individually.
There will be 2 quests, the exit quest and the real quest. You can only exit this dungeon after finishing the exit quest, which will be slightly easy and rewards will be coins, exp, and a 10% probability of getting skill or items.
Then to close this portal dungeon, you can do the real quest. Real quests are difficult for normal players. Same rewards with better quality and quantity.
White Dungeon is an F-rank dungeon. The highest level monster is level 30. In terms of the tower dungeon, each floor represents a rank. So we only saw one-floor dungeons until now.
From the E rank, the colors follow the rainbow colors. With E rank being violet color and SS rank being red color and SSS being black color. You shouldn't confuse these with the radiant color of tower dungeons.
As almost all tower dungeons are cleared by now…"
"Whatever." She brushed it off. "You are going to be by my side always anyway, no need for explanations." She dragged him into the portal like he was a kid.
20 minutes later, both of them came out of the portal and Haruka was exhausted. She fell on Akira's back and pitifully requested. "Piggyback me."
'And she's out. I knew this would happen.' Akira thought with an amused smile.
"Just why are there so many monsters?" Haruka complained while he carried her.
"Portal dungeons are purely fighting monsters in their territory type," Akira explained, "so there's bound to be more monsters than what we saw in tower dungeons."
"You…you obviously killed more than me, why are you not exhausted?" She complained.
Akira smiled under the mask. "To carry you, of course," he said and thought, 'I have a lot of combat experience. No matter how spoiled you get, I can take it all. That is the atonement for 34-year-old Haruka.'