After the magic power incident, everyone decided to keep quiet about their abilities. We returned to the game as usual. Since we are still in the Luminous Continent, the rest of the gang has to do whatever they want until we return to the quest.
Sigma and Harmless Sparrow decided to improve the village to at least make it prosperous. I have no experience in making a village flourish and all I know is about battles and fighting, so I decided to just leave the management to the two since they knew what they were doing and if they are the ones who will be managing things, then that would be better.
Then what am I doing you ask? Well, of course, improving my equipment.
Now that I managed to access the Dark Sea and grind my level up to level 200, the only thing left to do is power up my equipment. The new set is indestructible so I decided to use this chance to increase their usage and also to have them gain some effects.
These elemental shards will allow these unremarkable armors of mine to at least gain some effects other than their original stats and set effect. I know they are good but in all honesty, if not for the set effect, I would rather sell these stuff or let the Versatile Weapon devour it for my own benefit.
Anyways, back to me upgrading them. First, I needed the equipment I needed to upgrade plus the shard that I will be using to upgrade the armor.
[Shard of Elemental Flame]
Type: Item
Info: A shard that contains fragments of elemental energy. Once used on a piece of equipment, the equipment would either gain an effect or will gain a new passive skill. It is warm to hold.
Note: More like a portable fireplace to me.
The effects are random and the first effect that appears will be the first one to be applied. Of course, if the upgrade is not to my liking, I can just do it again and it will reset depending on the stat that rolled after. However, once I settled into a stat, I can still keep on using the same item and try to upgrade more. This is where hoarding lots of Elemental shards help.
Once a stat is permanent, I can now go and enhance that stat by spending the same shard again and again. The maximum time you can upgrade it is 15 times. Rank downs do not happen but when it fails, there is a 50% chance of the item losing all durability, causing the item to disintegrate making the upgrading process a little bit risky once it reaches the threshold of 10. The only way to reach 15 without it getting disintegrated is to use an item called [Scroll of Precise Upgrade]. But this scroll is a premium commodity and can only be bought with real money so unless you are rich in the game and you want to upgrade something to the fullest, then this is for you. Even I cannot create the scroll with my abilities as a scribe which is sad.
But since the loss of durability does not apply to my equipment, I don't need to worry about losing my equipment. The only problem is that I will be seeing plenty of failures and I might lose all of my hoarded shards without reaching the upgraded 15 mark.
"Let's begin."
I took off the coat and poured a little bit of mana into the shard to activate it and put the two items together.
[Do you want to use the [Shard of Elemental Flame to the (Coat of the Abyssal Lord)? This cannot be undone.]
Yes/ No
I clicked yes, and the shard broke to pieces, its essence went down to the coat and the effect appeared on the coat immediately.
[Fire resistance: 10%]
Damn, that's a bad stat to start with. It would have been fine if most monsters in the game are reliant on elemental attacks but most of the enemies don't use one element at most. And the resistance of only 10 percent is very low. If I wanted to completely ignore the flame attacks without getting worried about getting burned, I have to at least gain a 70% resistance, and having only 10% is not worth getting. Besides, there are better options for stats that are superior to resistance.
Time to reroll the stat.
[Fire Attack Increase 40%]
Woah, there, that's good, very good stats. As someone who uses fire attacks most of the time, having this would be a big blessing as the increase of 40% is no joke. Welp, time to see whether the next 3 stats I roll would be a dud for me and if it is bad, then I will be staying on this one.
I rolled three times again. The first two were dud because they were both Fire Attack increases but lower than the current state so that is automatically a dud. But the third stat roll is something else and I am not sure which of the two is good for me.
[Fire Attacks Absorption: 50% attacks absorbed]
This is an actually good stat. Absorption is a stat that is very good in many contents as they convert any damage done to you into HP. Instead of damaging you, the attacks heal you. A potion if I must say. And the fact that it reached 50% was something else since it usually just sits in at 10 to 20% as the highest starting point and upgrading it would allow it to reach the 50% mark. Seeing it in 50% is something else.
Now I am torn, the Fire attack increase is good and if upgraded, it will help my attacks exponentially but exclusively on attacks that are flame-based attacks. I usually use flames so this is a big help but after I rolled the Fire absorption, it's kinda a big waste to not use this as this will definitely help in fighting anyone who specializes in flame attacks, rendering them helpless as most of their attacks will instead heal you instead of killing you. Which of the stats is good, an offensive one or the defensive one?
After making a self-debate and having a pained expression, I decided to go with the Absorption stat. This will help me in a long run more than the Fire attack increase. It was a pain at first but now that I convinced myself that I needed this stat more, I don't feel bad now.
Time to go upgrading and hopefully, I would reach the 15 mark without blowing up too much. Every upgrade will increase the stats by 2% so if I successfully reach the 15 mark, I would be able to get a whopping 80% of flame-based attacks absorbed. Not all of them will be absorbed but most of them will be so that is a very good one. But now the real problem comes in, how much will I be spending on this one?
Let's find out!
The first 10 upgrades are all successful so that is not counted. Now, time to see whether my luck will help.
[Upgrade Failed]
[Upgrade Failed]
[Upgrade Failed]
[Upgrade Failed]
[Upgrade Failed]
"F*CK! What the heck man!"
If not for the fact that the coat has no durability available, my coat will be been gone in seconds after the upgrade. Forget about the stat, it's all dust now which thankfully was not going to happen.
But straight five upgrades fail is something else. I have to cough multiple times every time the upgrade fails since it explodes right in your face. But I still have plenty of shards so we can still go and gamble it up. Let's go!
...
...
...
...
30 minutes later, 100 shards were gone... and not a single success...
I would not be pissed if this was in the 13th or 14th upgrade as failing is much higher there but in the 11th upgrade? You will have a high chance to succeed in that! But for me to fail without a single success is a big disaster. This is painful, a really painful one. If I didn't have the Blacksmith EX Job, I would have blown quite a lot of money which all turned to dust. Just f*ck, this is the most horrible stat rolls I ever had in my entire life.
I still have 10 shards left for the flame element. I will be spending it all and hope that I get success this time.
...
...
...
But reality failed. All f*cking 10 shards failed me. What are the odds of failing this much in the 11th upgrade? Isn't this pretty much disappointing? My motivation at the start has drained. All of my hope is gone for this sh*t. I am done with upgrading for the day. I would have moved to the next piece of equipment to upgrade if I run out of shards but seeing the results... I lost all my will to move and proceed with the upgrade. What's the point if it was like this? Ugh dammit.