Second World

"Hey, is this the guild structure you mentioned before that can help us with our mana income problem?" Jack asked Peniel when Jeanny showed them the Mana Fountain blueprint. They were currently lining up to exchange their war contribution points in the kingdom representative office.

"Yes, the kingdom is rather generous to give this blueprint," Peniel remarked.

"Perfect! With this Mana Fountain and the coin income from the Valley of Tempus training operation, the limit to the number of guild soldiers we can train will increase exponentially," John said.

"Yeah, I will have our workers construct this structure once I am back at headquarters," Jeanny said.

"What did the other nine guilds get?" Jack asked.

"I don't know, we are called in to be given the reward privately," Jeanny replied. "But I did see nine other similar blueprint scrolls on the desk. I was the first one being called, so it should be safe to assume the others also received a guild structure blueprint."

"But I doubt they are all given Mana Fountain blueprint as well," John said. "Since they are all lower ranks than us, the blueprints they received should be of the lower grades."

"Oh, my turn!" Jack said when the counter he was queueing at was vacated.

He had over to the counter. The clerk took his data and said, "You have 10,509,008 war contribution points. Impressive, sir. The highest I've seen at this time. Do you wish to exchange these points?"

"Yes, please," Jack said. He should be able to exchange for unique equipment now if the list was still the same.

He reviewed the list displayed by the clerk. Most were still the same. The cheapest unique-grade armor cost around 5,000,000 war contribution points while the weapon cost around 6,000,000 points. He could get two unique-grade armors with his war contribution points, but if he exchanged one or two of his current armors, he would lose the full set bonus of his Sword Fiend's Gear set. If he had no other option to choose, then perhaps he would do that. But at the moment, of his two weapons, one was still in super rare grade.

So, Jack focused on the unique-grade weapon section. He studied the longsword section since his magic staff was already unique-grade. Three unique-grade longswords were available to be exchanged. Sword of Calamity, costing 5,800,000 points. Sword of Eternal Solitude, costing 6,200,000 points. Sword of Unknown Loss, costing 6,300,000 points.

If following common sense, more expensive items signified better quality, but he had a guide to make sure he didn't pick the wrong choice. "What do you recommend?" He asked Peniel.

"Every unique or legendary equipment provided one active skill, like the Mana Steal Aura from your Mana Leech Staff," Peniel explained. "The active skill of this sword of calamity is creating a field of chaotic energy that hit a small area. Everyone within this area receives chaos damage. Sword of Eternal Solitude had the Aura of Solitude. It is an ability that can only be used when there are no allies in your vicinity. It increased your overall power for two minutes, but if any allies approached during the duration, the ability will be forcefully ended. The sword of Unknown Loss gave you Peerless Slash. It dealt massive soul damage to a single target from a distance. The attack ignored all defense and in theory should be unavoidable."

"Should be?" Jack asked.

"If I am the old me, I would have said the Peerless Slash is unavoidable, but after seeing you outworlders dodged attacks using your mana sense, I am honestly not so sure anymore. Oh right, another thing. The peerless slash had a small percentage to inflict instant kill."

"Wow! Well, I think then it is not so strange to find this sword to be the most expensive one."

"You want to take the Sword of Unknown Loss? The skill only hit a single target," Peniel said.

"I think I have plenty enough skills that deal damage to groups, I need to add ones that pack a punch against a high-level enemy," Jack said. He then clicked on the option for the Sword of Unknown Loss. The sword was automatically transferred into his inventory. Jack immediately took a look at its detailed stats.

*

Sword of Unknown Loss, level 50/90 (Unique one-handed sword)

Physical damage 425

Attack speed 2

Durability: 100

Strength +22

All sword skills +10% damage

All received damage is reduced by 10%

Peerless Slash (Active skill): Deals 1500% physical damage to a single enemy from a distance. Completely ignores defense. 50% chance to cause Weakness status for 30 seconds. Range: 30 meters. Cooldown: 10 minutes.

*

'Only level 50. Shit! I have to use lots of materials to level it up,' Jack thought after seeing its level. He guessed this would be the standard level for the unique-grade equipment players got from this source.

But even though he was slightly disappointed at the weapon's level, its other stats were great enough. Especially the Peerless Slash. It was weaker than a max-level Brave Slash but this skill hit from a long distance. It also completely ignored defense. Hence, when fighting a high-defense opponent, this skill had the potential to inflict even higher damage than the max-level Brave Slash. It also caused Weakness status which lowered the opponent's overall stats.

Jack didn't take too long to review the sword's stats, many people were queueing behind him after all. With his remaining war contribution points, he couldn't get any more unique-grade equipment. So, he exchanged them for two elemental evolve seeds. After the exchanges, he only had a paltry 209,008 war contribution points left.

John went next to the counter. Jack came to Jeanny who queued behind John. Jack was eager to feed the Sword of Unknown Loss to Storm Breaker but he needed to level it up first. Before that, however, he gave this sword to Jeanny to check the number needed for a copy. They had agreed they would copy unique-grade equipment if they ever found one.

When Jack got his unique-grade Mana Leech Staff from slaying Garland, she had given it to Jeanny to try to copy. It cost 7,000 mana cores. At that time, they needed the mana cores to copy super rare-grade bloodlines, so Jeanny couldn't spare any mana cores to copy. Even now, they still needed the mana cores for bloodlines because not all core members got the bloodlines yet. But after the war, all members that participated received mana core rewards, and they donated a portion to the guild, so Jeanny had many cores at the moment.

Jeanny checked the sword and saw that she needed 10,000 mana cores. She could copy the sword, but she would only make one copy just for their library. She would still prioritize bloodlines first before started copying equipment to be distributed. She asked Jack to wait. The duplication process couldn't be done from within her inventory so she needed to find a secluded place.

After John and Jeanny were done exchanging their war contribution points, Jack took them to his room atop Amy's Bakery. Jeanny duplicated the sword there, as well as Jack's Mana Leech Staff.

"Hey, do you have any other good stuff to duplicate?" John asked. "Like for example, a heaven-defying spell or something like that?"

When Jack got Perpetual Lightning Judgement from Garland, he had been astonished by the fact that he could learn an Elementalist's spell that he forgot to give to Jeanny to copy first. John had been complaining non-stop about it every chance he got.

"No...," Jack replied, remembering the spells that he had also gotten from the Order of Magi. But those spells could be acquired if other members joined and reached the required ranks in that faction. It was better for Jeanny to use her mana cores for other urgent items. At least that's how Jack tried to rationalize for him forgetting to let Jeanny copy the spells first before learning them.

While Jeanny copied his two equipment, Jack used the two elemental evolve seeds to evolve his spells. He didn't give them to Jeanny to copy because they already had a full set of elemental seeds in their leader's section warehouse. Jack didn't use the ones in that warehouse because if he did, Jeanny would have to copy another set which would eat up their mana cores consumption. That's why he only used the ones he acquired himself.

The two seeds he exchanged were ice seed and Lightning Seed. He used Ice Seed for his Mana Bullet and Lightning Seed for his Magic Bolts. These two basic spells had been lacking, their damage was trivial. But ice and lightning elements had crowd control abilities. With the basic spells' short cooldown, these obsolete spells should be somewhat useful again.

The Mana bullet become Ice Bullet and the Magic Bolts spell was now Electric Bolts. Both spells' damage numbers were increased. Ice Bullet now slowed the target and had a small chance of freezing. Electric Bolts increased the projectile speed and had the chance to paralyze the targets.

Jeanny gave Jack back his two weapons after she was done. Jack was planning to go to rent the workshop in Blacksmith Circle again to increase his weapons' levels but Jeanny stopped him.

"Whatever you want to do, do it later. We have been summoned by prince Alonzo to the palace," Jeanny said.

"We are?" Jack asked.

"Yes, the three of us. Let's go there now," Jeanny replied.