From the looks of the fire core, it was definitely an upgrade from the one currently in his possession. No matter the cost, he had to obtain that fire core! It was the only way for him to advance further as an Apothecary. However, before he could even bring the matter up to everyone to make a deal of sorts, the chests slammed closed.
The next moment, all ten chests fused into a single chest before splitting back into ten separate chests.
'Of course, the system would not allow something to be so easily taken just from defeating one elite monster. There had to be this kind of twist added to it.'
Now, there was only a 10% chance that they would even pick the chests with the fire core inside of it!
"Choose!" The salamander spirit said. It almost sounded like a broken record the way it repeated the same word every five seconds.
Mirage furrowed her brows and said, "Every item that we saw inside of those three chests can only be used a single time. In the end, only one of us can benefit from it."
"It should obviously go to my teacher since he dealt the finishing blow." Azalea said without hesitation.
"That's a bit..." Mirage wondered if Azalea would have used that same excuse if she had been the one to deal the last blow to the Lava Brute. But, in the end, she had no idea how Izroth's party handled the dividing of loot, especially in situations such as this one. However, from the brief time she had gotten to know Izroth, Mirage was doubtful that he would use such an excuse to claim loot as his own.
At the end of the day, Mirage understood her current position within the party. Everyone here seemed to know one another and Izroth was the clear leader. Therefore, whatever choice made was one that she would just have to live with.
Everyone turned their attention towards Izroth as if they all awaited his decision on the matter.
After pondering over it for a few moments, Izroth finally spoke and said, "I have no use for the inscription and the contained fire spirit. Therefore, if the item I pick happens to be either of those items, I suggest everyone rolls for it fairly. As for the fire core, this is an item I must obtain."
Luna had a good idea of why Izroth wanted the fire core. After all, she even heard her own friends talking about someone called the Pill Emperor who created the only grade three pill currently within RML. It did not take long for someone like her to connect all the dots together. Izroth was not a part of any top guild and yet he easily handed out Five Cycles Pills to everyone as if it were candy.
Not only that, but earlier during their journey when they ran into Olohas, he handed out six grade three pills without hesitation. However, what really confirmed her speculation 100% was when Izroth put up one hundred grade three pills as a wager during his battle against Present Order.
It was impossible for any player to own that amount of an item with such a high value without having a direct connection to it. Add all the previous information she already had along with Izroth wanting the fire core, Luna came to a solid conclusion. Izroth was, in fact, the mysterious Pill Emperor that everyone was talking about!
"Of course, I will not allow you to leave empty-handed. Should I receive the fire core, I will present you with a suitable reward." Izroth said. He was a fair person by nature and did not intend to take advantage of his position as party leader.
"I have no objections." Luna was the first to agree without even bothering to hear Izroth's full terms. She understood that Izroth would not cheat them. But, even if he gave them nothing in return, she would still not fight over a fire core. After all, if Izroth's identity as the Pill Emperor is true, then he needed this fire core more than anyone within RML.
"I, as well." Azalea said following up on Luna's statement.
Mirage threw her hands up jokingly and said in a playful tone of voice, "Who am I to swim against the current of the river? Besides, I've never been much of a swimmer. I'll go along with things." She gave an approving thumbs up.
Izroth nodded as he turned his attention towards the chests. He examined every single chest in close detail, however, he was unable to determine any difference between them.
'So it all comes down to simple luck.'
10% was not a good chance considering he only got one shot at this. There was also a 70% chance that he would receive nothing at all! The odds were stacked against him.
'There's no point in thinking about it too much.'
Izroth approached the ten chests that were set down in front of the salamander fire spirit. When Izroth walked up to the chests, the salamander spirit finally stopped repeating the word choose and fell silent.
"I'll choose this one." Izroth said as he stood in front of the forth chest starting from the left side.
"You have chosen." The salamander spirit said as it disappeared. A few moments later, the Fire Spirit returned to its original state and hovered above Izroth's head.
〈System Alert: The temporary passive skill «Protection of The Fire Spirit» has been upgraded!〉
'Hm?'
Izroth took a look at the upgraded version of the passive skill and noticed that two lines had been added to it.
*So long as the user possesses a Fire Spirit, this skill can also exist within the Blazing Tempris Domain. The user of this skill is unaffected by the «Bounded Fire Domain».
What a useful upgrade! Izroth had pushed the concern to the back of his mind earlier, however, he was unsure of how they would make it back to Amaharpe through the Blazing Tempris Domain without a full party. After all, the Bounded Fire Domain passive was far too ruthless. But with the upgraded passive, it was now possible to travel freely through the domain!
The nine chests that Izroth did not choose vanished at the exact same time as the salamander spirit. At the moment, there was only one chest remaining and it sat on the ground before Izroth. Right as he touched the chest, it opened on its own and immediately an overflowing source of coldness washed over him.
A few seconds later, the coldness transformed into an overbearing heat. It was as if the temperature was constantly fluctuating going from extreme cold to extreme heat.
Sitting within the chest that Izroth opened was a small orb with a mystical green flame dancing around freely inside of it. It was the fire core!
'It looks like the one point in my luck stat is paying off.'
Izroth took the green orb into his hands and could feel the everchanging temperature.
Name: Flame of Synthesis(Fire Core)
Rank: B
Durability: 50,000/50,000
Usage: This mysterious flame was trapped by a mythical apothecary figure of great power in his youthful days. It has extreme cold and extreme heat properties which makes it one of the most ideal flames for perfect temperature control.
It was not just any fire core, but it was one well above what Izroth expected! It was actually a B-ranked fire core! This was a huge gain due to the fact that these were simply impossible to find at the current moment within RML. The main reason was not due to the level of monsters, but rather the usefulness of hunting for such high-grade flames.
At the moment, a large majority of apothecaries were still stuck at the first level. As for those very few who made it to the second level, even they only needed D-ranked fire cores at best because the level of their pills did not require anything more than that. After all, Izroth was a grade three Apothecary and used a D-ranked fire core to create grade three pills.
No one needed or even thought about obtaining such a powerful fire core because it would be similar to using a supercomputer to calculate something as simple as 2+2. That much power was unneeded for such a menial task.
'With this, I should be able to reach grade six, maybe even grade seven Apothecary if I'm lucky, without needing to changing my fire core.'
Of course, even grade four and five were still in the future for Izroth. It was not because he lacked the skill to create pills of that level, but because even the head of the Apothecary guild in Amaharpe was only a grade four Apothecary!
How could they alone make the decision for him to officially be awarded the grade four rank? He had to first locate an Apothecary guild with higher ranking apothecaries.
Another reason was the materials currently available. While he may be able to create a grade four pill, according to his calculations, a grade five pill simply would not be possible with the ingredients available at the moment, even if he swept through some of the rare ingredients of those top guilds.
It was simply too early in the game and the developers did not account for someone with Izroth's skillset to even be a grade three Apothecary by this point, let alone a grade five!
As promised, Izroth gave Luna, Azalea, and Mirage what he believed to be more than a fair price. He gifted them one of each pill that he had created thus far, making for a total of seven pills!
Even Azalea who was usually nonchalant about most things could not help but reveal a slight glimmer in her eye as she observed the small stack of pills now within her possession. What amazing creations! She had not even heard of any of these pills besides the Five Cycles Pill! Wait a second... Three of these pills were grade three pills! Azalea eyes widened slightly in shock.
Mirage was in a state of shock similar to Azalea. This was way too much of a reward! In the end, Izroth did most of the damage so the price should not be so high. However, she could not find it within herself to deny such a precious pile of treasure.
As for Luna, she gave a polite thank you as she accepted the pills from Izroth. She had been with Izroth long enough now that she almost developed a numbness for his unexpected surprises. In fact, Luna thought that Izroth would pull out a grade five pill or something along those lines.
After the excitement died down, Izroth decided to continue exploring the Blazing Temple with his party.
...
Around three hours later...
Izroth and his party had arrived back at the capital city Amaharpe. They had spent around two hours exploring the Blazing Temple and made it into the deeper layers, however, the level of the monsters was becoming too dangerous to face without a tank to hold the aggro. Therefore, they chose to head back to Amaharpe and call it a day.
However, Izroth was able to level up to 35 and gain a good amount of experience towards reaching level 36.
"Ah, that was fun! I haven't enjoyed an adventure like that in a long time." Mirage said with a joyous smile on her face.
"It was... Interesting to say the least." Luna said with a weary expression. For some reason, Azalea and Mirage seemed to enjoy taunting and fighting with one another, therefore, she was forced to act as an intermediary of sorts during the course of their adventure.
Fortunately, Azalea went her separate way as soon as they left the Blazing Tempris Domain, otherwise, she was unsure if she would have been able to survive the journey back to Amaharpe. However, it surprised her that Mirage was able to get the reclusive Azalea, at least from what Luna had seen so far of her, to actually talk more than a few words.
As Izroth was lost in his thoughts, he suddenly received a surprising message from someone over the system alerts..