When Jack arrived back at White Scarfs group, Silverwing congratulated him, "I know I've made the right decision when befriending you. Please allow me to express my congratulation."
"You are too kind, Sir Silverwing. I was just lucky," Jack replied in humility.
"Please, call me brother. All my other closest friends called 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 longsword. "Courtesy of our friend, Grimclaw," he said with a grin.
Jack took a glance at Grimclaw. He was folding his arms with a dark face. He seemed to be fighting the urge to look over at Jack. Jack felt slight reluctance as the guy's guild was supposedly an ally, but he looked at Silverwing and his retainers, they didn't show a face that minded at all. Well, a bet was a bet, he thought to himself and received the sword. He inspected the sword.
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 the enemy 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 the maximum level this rare sword could be upgraded was higher compared to its Normal and Uncommon counterparts. But he was not going to worry about upgrading this sword, he was going to feed it to Storm Breaker. Once he did, he could then choose another ability for his sword.
He stored the sword inside his storage bag, he couldn't do the feeding process in front of all the people here. 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, hence his rank came after Warpath.
"Take a look at the box," 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 statistic 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," Peniel urged.
He did as told. He sent his thought into his storage bag and searched for the box. 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's 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 limited information on the objects or players you scanned. But for most items that had come to your possession, there was no such limitation, the only difference between high level and low level Inspect skill is the time they need to inspect it. The rarer the goods, the longer the time needed to Inspect them."
'I see… And wow, this one takes really long. It had almost been a minute and it is still only 10%? Is it because this item is very rare or 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's 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 around 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 the moment Selena came to the blue sphere, the loading bar inside his storage bag was completed. He immediately returned his attention back to the box.
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? Do 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 equipment with rare grade. That rare sword you got from Grimclaw, he was really lucky to have gotten it in the first place. He should have just killed himself to lose it in a stupid bet, that moron. With this box, you have a sure way to get a Super Rare item, which is a grade higher!"
'Okay, okay,' Jack replied helplessly. 'I never said I don't like this box.'
'But it really takes a lot of items to upgrade. Let me count. Four… eight… If I want a Super Rare item, I would need 512 Common items of the same type! Bloody hell, by the time I collected that much quantity, I would have gotten the Super Rare from a simple loot drop already.'
"You wish!" Peniel countered. "You will need to complete a high-ranking quest or kill a high-ranking boss if you want to have any chance of scoring items above Rare grade. Anything below that you can still rely on luck by killing minions."
'Talking about luck. I've been wondering. My luck stat had been boosted due to Goddess' Blessing, but why Grimclaw managed to get a rare weapon while I have difficulties even for scoring an Uncommon?'
"Well, if you talk about luck. There is really never a real way of knowing, ain't it? Maybe you are just a very unlucky person. You getting the Blessing is just counterbalancing your bad luck into normal luck. And Grimclaw probably in basic form is 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 are 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 items.' 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 equipment, but she didn't want to burst his bubble, so she kept quiet.
'by the way, this Box is classified as Artifact. Does it have any special meaning?' Jack asked.
"It's just a way to tell you that this is one of a kind item. There is only one in the world. If you get it, no one will be possible to get the same item."
One of a kind, Jack was impressed. He was glad that he had followed Peniel's words and picked this Box. Otherwise, he would have had a big loss.
At this time, the people who came up to the Blue Sphere were level 11. The top players with level 12 stopped at rank 9. The reward selection got faster as the rank went down, because there were fewer rewards to choose from.
However, there was no way to say that the lower rank will 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 given a guide.
😉