Thomas mulled it over for a moment before coming up with a plan. "Find out every single player who entered the Crimson Flame Desert between seven this morning and now. That Dark Crystal has got to be with someone on that list."
"Focus especially on anyone who came in from the Howling Plains."
His subordinates obeyed immediately. In the real world, the Bradford family was one of the most prominent conglomerates around, and in this game, they were still at the top of the food chain. Whenever they wanted to investigate something, it didn't take long.
Soon, a report landed on Thomas Bradford's desk. He quickly sorted through the data.
Anyone who arrived before 7:00 a.m. or after 7:00 p.m. was out. Anyone who didn't come from the Howling Plains was also out. After all that filtering, only three names remained:
• Jessica: Battle Mage, Level 47
• Edward: Shadow Rogue, Level 50
• Ares: No class listed, Level 10
"Huh?" Thomas Bradford murmured, staring at the last name. "Why would a level 10 newbie come here?"
Then he remembered the Howling Plains was a starter zone next door. It wouldn't be strange for some curious rookie to wander in just to look around. Usually, though, any low-level player stepping foot in this desert would get annihilated instantly.
One of his subordinates peeked over and suddenly blurted, "Oh, that's the guy I saw earlier, deeper in the Crimson Flame Desert—he took down a Desert Lizard."
In the Oracle game, whenever someone gets near, you can see their name and level unless they're using special items to hide that info. Ares obviously wasn't hiding anything.
Thomas Bradford's expression flared. "You sure you didn't screw up? He took out a level 50 Desert Lizard?"
The subordinate nodded. "Positive! Well, the creature was already seriously injured by someone else, and during its final struggle, it killed that other player. Then Ares just happened by and finished it off."
Thomas Bradford let out a noise of frustration and kicked the guy over.
"Damn it, I thought maybe Ares was some hidden badass. Turns out he's just a clueless chick. Still, the dude got lucky—only level 10, yet somehow he's far out here and still alive."
Swearing under his breath, Thomas chewed out his subordinate a bit longer before moving on. "Keep a close eye on that Jessica. Out of these three, Edward is the thief we're after, and Ares is just some newbie—no need to worry. That Jessica chick, though? She's a Battle Mage, probably powerful enough to have stumbled on the Dark Crystal by accident. She went in just three minutes after Edward, which is suspicious as hell. She might've seen something."
With a target in mind, Thomas systematically laid out his plan. For good measure, he also assigned somebody to watch Ares.
After all, surviving that far in the desert at level 10 meant his Luck must be through the roof. It wasn't impossible he'd bent down somewhere and picked up something valuable.
Once he was done, Thomas took a deep breath, resigned to facing Robert's wrath.
Meanwhile, Ares—who'd just killed another monster—had no idea he'd accidentally walked off with a high-priority item.
Bending down to pick up the fallen gear, Ares found himself lost in thought. He'd been grinding in the desert for at least ten hours now, taking out more than a thousand mobs. He'd snagged over five hundred pieces of gear from them.
Five hundred! That was basically a 50% drop rate, at least 30% higher than what he'd gotten in the Howling Plains.
"Why does it keep dropping so much stuff? Is it because I really need equipment and I'm always thinking about it?"
He wondered if the desire in his heart was affecting the drops somehow. Trying to think about other things made no difference; the gear just kept raining down. He was practically numb to it.
But hey—having that many items stocked up should finally be enough to experiment with.
Before finding the Dark Crystal, his Sharp Iron Sword's Growth Value had already hit 100%. At that point, a prompt labeled "Evolve Available" had popped up. But that 20% success rate made him hesitate. If evolution failed, the weapon would drop in quality.
So instead of evolving right away, he chose to gather more gear for multiple attempts in one go. Now he felt like he had enough.
Ares found a hidden spot, sat down, took a deep breath, and cautiously tapped "Confirm Evolution." The Sharp Iron Sword lit up, conjuring a golden progress bar that crawled across the blade at a steady pace.
Ares watched, holding his breath.
Suddenly, halfway in, the bar flickered twice—and vanished. The glow faded at the same moment.
[Evolution failed. Sharp Iron Sword has been downgraded to Rusty Iron Sword (E-rank). Attributes remain, but the values have been reduced.]
Ares hurriedly opened the item panel:
[Weapon: Rusty Iron Sword (Bound)]
[Quality: E-rank]
[Level: 21]
[Attack: 4–8]
[Skill A: 1% chance on hit to inflict Tetanus, causing ongoing HP loss.]
[Skill B: +1% Critical Rate]
[Growth Value: 0%]
Ares's expression darkened. Failing evolution not only demoted its rank, but also severely slashed its stats. And the description implied attributes might not always stay. So much for a free lunch.
He took a calming breath, steadied himself, and fed the sword more gear, aiming to fill the Growth Value again. Once it hit 100%, he tried evolving it once more.
Whoosh—
This time, the glow snuffed out even sooner than before.
[Evolution failed. Rusty Iron Sword has been downgraded to Shoddy Sword (F-rank). No attributes.]
All right then, literally nothing left. So Ares resumed feeding.
When he next tried to evolve it, this warning popped up:
[Warning: If an F-rank weapon fails to evolve again, it will be destroyed outright. Continue?]
[Note: Absorbing higher-quality equipment increases the chance of a successful evolution!]
Ares paused, then pushed "Confirm" without hesitation.
In the tense gaze of its owner, the golden bar finally maxed out. A brilliant flash—success!
Without even pausing to look, Ares kept feeding it more items, trying to evolve once again. After another burst of dazzling light, the sword returned to the quality it had at the start, and all its stats were fully restored.
He glanced inside his inventory at the remaining hundreds of pieces of gear. Sorting out the ones with better attributes, he fed them to the sword as well and tapped "Confirm" again.
This time, the progress bar shot straight to halfway.