Jack didn't hang around for too long around the three guilds. He tried asking around some more regarding the last phase of the meeting without trying to make it too obvious, but everyone was tight-lipped about the subject. It was probably because they had been bound by the Shackle of Vows. He gave up after a while and departed from the ruin.
When he was out of Starlight Ruin, he asked Peniel, "do you have an idea how Earmouth only lost one level despite being killed in the wilderness?"
"I have," she answered.
"How?"
"He was wearing the Amulet of Rebirth."
Hearing the name, he could more or less guess at the function. "I reckoned this amulet allow the wearer to reduce the penalty of being killed in the wilderness to the same as being killed inside a safe zone or dungeon?"
"That's correct?"
"So lucky for him to get himself such a rare item," Jack commented.
"What rare? The Amulet of Rebirth offers no bonus other than the rebirth skill, and it can be bought," Peniel informed.
Jack was walking while he was conversing with the Fairy, he stopped abruptly after hearing Peniel's last words. "What do you mean? It can be bought? As in from the shops in the capital?"
"More like any city that housed the Church of Creation. This amulet can be bought from that church."
"Why didn't you inform me of this important information before?"
"What's the point? You have that Immortal Soul inherent skill, it was much better than the Amulet of Rebirth."
"Still, such information was kinda crucial…" Jack said with a helpless expression.
Peniel who heard Jack's tone, felt dissatisfied, she uttered, "I have much important information. If I have to share with you everything, I can't cover it all even if you do nothing but listen to me for an entire month!"
"Okay, okay, no need to get work out over it," Jack said, he felt defeated. "So everyone can just buy this amulet from the Church of Creation? Is there any special requirement for buying it?"
"No requirement, you just pay and you will get the amulet. Same method as any other shop."
"How much does this Amulet of Rebirth costs?"
"1 gold coin."
"For an item that can allow you to keep most of your level and equipment. That was absolutely cheap. If everyone can buy it, it kind of eliminates the risk of death in the wilderness."
Peniel made a smirking sound, "1 gold coin is for the first time purchase."
"What do you mean?" Jack asked with a confused look.
"This amulet is special equipment. It used a special method that connected the user's soul to the church's secret magic formation. So the amulet that one buys can only be used by said person, it can't be traded. Each time the amulet is activated, the rebirth spell was exhausted and will destroy the amulet. A new amulet with a new connection has to be established if the user wishes to be protected by the Rebirth spell again. But repeated application required double the energy from the previous application. Hence, if one buys the Amulet of Rebirth the second time, they will be required to pay 2 gold coins. The third time, 4 gold coins, and so on."
Jack made some calculations, if one died ten times, they would need to pay 1024 gold coins for the next Amulet of Rebirth. That was an astronomical sum. He guessed most individuals might only afford to purchase it three or four times. Any more would be too expensive already. For large guilds, however, the higher-ups might be able to abuse their position to use their guild's coffer to supply for this safety. But still, such a large expenditure would just cripple the guild's advancement if they spend too much to accommodate their top brass safety via this Amulet of Rebirth.
With this thought, he was not too worried about the Amulet of Rebirth anymore. If his enemies had it, all he had to do was simply killed them a few more times. Furthermore, wearing the amulet would instead weaken the wearer. Since the amulet provided no other bonus, wearing it meant that the wearer was sacrificing their pendant slot, which will put them at a disadvantage against others who wore a pendant that increased their combat power.
"Now, before you accused me of withholding information again, I'm going to let you in on another information," Peniel said.
"Oh? What is it?" Jack asked.
"That long-range communication device during the meeting which showed projection from another city, it was not a unique device that can only be found in that ruin."
"Really? But I don't find that strange. That White Death dude said he found a similar device in the ruin near his city, so there will be such devices in other ruins as well."
"No, I didn't mean it like that. What I'm telling you is that the device is actually a common tool that can be found in most large cities."
"What?"
"Yes, those guilds made it sound like such a big deal. They will be dying from shame when they found out that you can simply walk to the Remote Communication Office which was a common building in most large cities, and asked to use the same long-range communication device. Of course, you will be charged coins to use the service. These devices can also be found in some adventurer hubs in the wilderness, which supply facilities that cater to their needs when they were far away from a city. That Starlight Ruin might be one such hub in the past."
Jack chuckled after hearing Peniel's information. He did want to see the face of the three guilds' leaders when they found out about this Remote Communication Office. Nevertheless, this information about long-range communication devices was pointless to him as he did not need to contact anyone from other cities.
He spent his time killing monsters as he made his way back to the capital. He only changed his appearance back to Storm Wind after reaching the capital to avoid clashing with the forces from the three guilds, as some of them were also traveling back to the capital. He was not afraid of them, he simply had enough excitement in one day. Clashing with those guilds again would just be tiresome.
Back in the capital, he used the Transformation Box to merge the common equipment he got from John. Combined with the leftovers common equipment he had gotten from the robbers incident, he got eight uncommon equipment. Out of the eight, he used four to combined with the other uncommon he had, producing one rare medium armor chest and one rare medium armor pants.
He checked on the stats of the new rare equipment. Comparing them with the ones he was wearing, they were not better. So he just stored them back into his inventory bag.
The next day, Jack helped Death Associates on their monster hunting quests to collect coins. He could just leave them alone now since his original purpose of infiltrating the guild was done. However, he figured he might need to infiltrate the guild again in the future, so he kept up with his pretense for another day. If he just disappeared the day after the meeting, people who disliked him like Bigarm would speculate bad things about him again.
He took his time during the hunting quests, didn't try to perform too well. White Scarfs was also collecting coins to buy the plot of land for their guild base. This was the least he can do for them.
He met the other Death Associate teams as well during his hunting quests, but oddly, they seemed to travel with much caution. There were also more members in their team than usual. After some thought, he assumed this must have something to do with himself. He had threatened to hunt their members to hinder them from collecting coins, and he had also attacked their members yesterday. So it was safe to say that they were very much on guard against his ambush at the moment.
"What are you smiling at?" Warpath asked. This guy had been assigned back into his team for today.
"None of your business! You just focus on the task I gave. I will dock your coins portion if you annoy me," Jack replied.
"Huh!" He turned away indignantly.
They ended up doing two runs for the whole day. He passed the amount reserved for the guild before going away. He had also leveled up his Mage class after the two runs. His Mage class was level 17 now. While his Warrior class was closed to reaching level 19.
😉