Thomas thought for a moment, and a plan quickly formed in his mind. "Immediately investigate all the players who entered the Crimson Flame Desert between 7 AM and now. The whereabouts of the Dark Crystal must be among them."
"Focus especially on those who entered from the Howling Plains."
His subordinates quickly acknowledged the order and set off.
In the real world, the Bradford family was one of the most powerful financial conglomerates, and even in this game, where everyone participated, they remained at the top of the food chain.
As a result, when they wanted to investigate something, they could do so with remarkable speed.
Before long, a report was delivered to Thomas Bradford.
He quickly began reviewing the data.
Players who entered before 7 AM or after 7 PM were eliminated.
Players who didn't enter from the Howling Plains were also eliminated.
After this round of filtering, only three names remained.
[Jessica: Battle Mage, Level 47]
[Edward: Shadow Rogue, Level 50]
[Alexander: No Class, Level 10]
"Huh?" Thomas Bradford's gaze lingered on the last name, and he muttered to himself, "What's a level 10 newbie doing here?"
Then again, the Howling Plains was right next to the desert, so it wasn't unusual for a curious newbie to wander over.
However, the monsters in the Crimson Flame Desert were high-level, and most of these curious newcomers didn't survive long. They'd usually get one-shotted by a monster and sent back to the respawn point.
One of his subordinates peeked over his shoulder, glanced at the report, and suddenly exclaimed, "Hey! I saw that player earlier. He was in the deeper part of the Crimson Flame Desert, killing a Desert Lizard."
In Oracle, as long as you were close enough, a player's name and level would appear above their head—unless they were using a special item to hide their information. But most people didn't bother with that.
Hearing this, Thomas Bradford's expression shifted. "You're sure? He killed a level 50 Desert Lizard?"
The subordinate nodded confidently and added, "Absolutely! But the Desert Lizard was already heavily injured. It was in its death throes and managed to kill the previous player. Alexander just happened to pass by and finished it off."
Thomas Bradford: "..."
He kicked the subordinate to the ground.
"Fuck you! I thought Alexander was some hidden expert, but he's just a lucky chicken. Still, it's impressive that a level 10 newbie managed to survive this deep into the desert."
Thomas cursed a bit more, venting his frustration, before finally saying, "Focus on Jessica."
Of the three, Edward was the thief they were after, and Alexander was just a lucky newbie who didn't warrant much attention.
That left Jessica, the Battle Mage, as the most likely candidate to have stumbled upon the Dark Crystal. Her entry time was only three minutes after Edward's, which was suspiciously close.
She might have seen something.
With a clear target in mind, Thomas Bradford began issuing orders methodically.
After some thought, he also assigned someone to keep an eye on Alexander. The fact that this player had made it so deep into the desert and was still alive suggested he had high Luck. If he happened to stumble upon something valuable, it wouldn't be surprising.
Once everything was arranged, Thomas Bradford took a deep breath, preparing himself to face the inevitable scolding from his young master.
Meanwhile, Alexander, who had just killed another monster, was completely unaware that he had unknowingly taken something of great importance.
He bent down to pick up the loot from the ground, lost in thought.
He had been grinding monsters in the desert for at least ten hours now, killing over a thousand of them. He had collected more than 500 pieces of equipment.
Five hundred!
That was a drop rate of about 50%, which was at least 30% higher than what he had experienced in the Howling Plains.
"Why is this happening? Is it because I've been thinking so much about needing more equipment?" Alexander wondered, holding a piece of gear in his hand.
He had tried to distract himself by thinking about other things, but it hadn't worked. The equipment just kept dropping.
He was almost numb to it by now.
Still, with this much equipment, he should have enough to experiment with, right?
The Sharp Iron Sword had reached 100% growth value before he had found the Dark Crystal, and the option to evolve it had appeared.
But with only a 13% success rate, Alexander had been hesitant.
After all, if the evolution failed, the weapon's quality would drop.
So, he had decided to gather more equipment first, planning to attempt multiple evolutions in one go.
Now, he had enough.
Finding a secluded spot, Alexander sat down, took a deep breath, and carefully initiated the evolution process.
The Sharp Iron Sword began to glow, and a golden progress bar appeared above it, steadily advancing.
Alexander held his breath, watching intently.
But just as the progress bar reached halfway, it flickered twice and then vanished.
The glow around the Sharp Iron Sword faded as well.
[Evolution failed. Sharp Iron Sword quality downgraded to E-grade Rusty Iron Sword. Attributes retained, but values reduced.]
Alexander quickly opened the weapon's panel.
[Weapon: Rusty Iron Sword (Bound)]
[Quality: E-grade]
[Level: 11]
[Attack: 4-8]
[Skill A: 1% chance to inflict Tetanus on hit, causing a poisoning effect.]
[Skill B: +1% Critical Hit Chance]
[Growth Value: 0%]
Alexander's face darkened.
Not only had the evolution failed, but the weapon's stats had been severely weakened!
And according to the description, there was a chance that the attributes wouldn't even be retained.
It seemed there was no such thing as a free lunch.
Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Alexander resumed feeding the sword more equipment.
Once the growth value was maxed out again, he initiated another evolution attempt.
Flash—
This time, the glow disappeared even faster than before.
[Evolution failed. Rusty Iron Sword quality downgraded to F-grade Broken Short Sword. No attributes.]
Great. Now the sword had no attributes at all.
Undeterred, Alexander continued feeding the sword more equipment.
When the growth value reached 100% again, a new prompt appeared.
[Warning: If the weapon is F-grade and the evolution fails again, the weapon will be destroyed. Do you wish to proceed?]
[Note: Absorbing higher-quality equipment increases the chances of a successful evolution!]
Alexander paused for a moment, then decisively clicked Confirm.
This time, as he watched calmly, the golden progress bar finally reached 100%.
A brilliant light flashed, and the evolution was successful!
Without even checking the stats, Alexander immediately fed the sword more equipment and initiated another evolution.
Once again, the sword glowed brightly.
The weapon had finally returned to its previous quality, and all of its attributes and stats had been fully restored.
Looking at the hundreds of pieces of equipment still in his inventory, Alexander thought for a moment, then carefully selected the best ones and fed them to the sword.
Without hesitation, he clicked confirm once more.
The progress bar shot up to 50% in an instant.