Play was, understandably, being Play. But Wade would forgive that slight because the exact same dialogue was going straight through his head.
He yanked the small wooden box out of the half-tilted position it had been left in.
It looked like a small jewelry box. And other than the dust that had built up over the top, it looked largely functional. He opened it up on the hinges, a pale glint of blue light already peeking under the crack.
Small Mana Crystal (Low Quality)
"We're in the big leagues now Eri." Wade said, holding up the tiny piece of ammunition up like a prized fish.
The skeleton clicked his jaw, happy his boss was getting some help. That earlier +1 Intelligence was going to be paying itself off earlier than expected.
"Play, how much juice is inside a small crystal like this compared to a mana potion?"
Small crystals are enough to run a regular mage about four days worth of use before they're tapped dry.
Play was giving good advice. "I notice you're not telling me I should avoid sticking this in my mouth and starting a fight with things down here with it."
Relax, you could probably burn through the entire thing, and be fiiiiine. ┐(￣ヮ￣)┌
…
"Fine for how long?"
Def not for longer than two days after lmao.
Wade went through the numbers as he held the volatile gem in his hands. Far more powerful than a mana potion, which meant he'd max out his mana bar real fast. Leon said he predicted two minutes before his body would hit the max level he had. But Wade didn't quite know the exact numbers the Russian was running when it came to health.
For all he knew, Leon might have started the game with higher stats than Wade did. Which opened up an entire new topic on if he could gain stat points by naturally working out hard enough to increase them? Intelligence was set to 0, and that was all about practice with mana control. He'd seen how much the difference was for one point already. How long would he have had to train himself in order to reach the same level as that?
The real questions he should be asking himself right now however were a lot more pressing: How long could his body function when fatally irradiated with mana? If it was a slow death that would kill him a week from now, he could enjoy this crystal like a crackhead would guilt-free, since his body here was already going to get reset in a few hours.
"If I use up every last bit of mana in this gem, how long do I have before complete organ failure?"
Maybe you'll get some male pattern hair loss going and a bit of puking blood a few hours after you drained the whole thing? idk, nobody ever willingly tests that kinda question
I like the way you think thou ?(>??)
He debated internally, and decided he'd give it a test later, once they were either in a life-or-death fight, or close to the end of the round. By that point, it would be fine to go through the entire thing. He'd need to know what the limits of that were and how to best use it in the future.
"Why's this crate even here in the first place filled with loot?"
Zinny says demons drop these crates like anchors along with the rest of the stuff. Every time the floating city passes by, it's got big hooks on ropes where it'll snag on, drag these puppies back up and get restocked before being deposited back down.
Wade looked over to the overturned crate here. If they were dragging these back up like crab traps, then something must have gotten messed up in the pickup here, since the rope was still on the ground? Or possibly a demon dragged it over here to protect themselves, and never got around to putting it back in the open where it could be picked back up and resupplied.
But for however long this thing was down here for, there were still some unlooted items besides the mana crystal now in his pocket.
"Identify."
Demonic Enchanted Longsword (Low Quality)
Boot Stilts (Low Quality)
He pulled out an odd set of metal stilts. Like... platform boot additions? "What are these for?"
Avoiding blackrot bugs in the ground. You put them on your boots and walk around with them. Bugs can't bite what they can't reach. Unless they jump on your pants like a tick would lol
Wade shrugged, seemed like a good idea. His eyes roved over the rest of the loot.
Demonic Enchanted Shield (Low Quality)
Mithril Collar (Low Quality)
That Wade immediately grabbed, looked to be the last one on the rack. In a world filled with Blackrot, this was probably why Bael claimed a supply crate was the first thing to look for. And right next to that were more tools and items.
Demonic Enchanted Leather Breastplate (Low Quality)
Demonic Enchanted Longsword (Low Quality)
Demonic Enchanted Dagger (Low Quality)
There were a bunch of other objects in there, mostly flares, compasses, and survival kits of still edible food. The nametags were all overlapping one another, since whatever neat order had been inside the crate was overturned and sprawled over the ground instead. He'd need to start really diving inside the crate and pulling things out before he could tell everything inside it.
"Why are all these things low quality?" He grabbed a longsword out, inspecting it. The metal felt fine, although it didn't quite look as sleek and well maintained as Leon's longsword.
Resupply costs. idk, Zinny says there's some kind of pact going on where if you grab and use stuff, you gotta personally make sure its put back down here or pay for new gear to be dropped in for the next demon.
"So people cheaped out."
Yeppers.
"Guess I can't be too upset at that." He checked the inscriptions on the longsword itself.
It did have the same runes as Leon's hammer, all inscribed in the hit, which he identified as an impact enchantment. "So when I power this up, it'll hit harder?"
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Yep. Impact's one of the most common enchantments out there, real easy to make if I remember right.
"Cheap equipment with the cheapest enchantments then. Just enough to make it out of here?"
Probably since they keep doing that instead of dropping more expensive stuff? idk, this region isn't as dangerous as it could be. Seems more like demons gave up even trying to take their home back, no point
He pulled out a leather breastplate next from under the knocked over swords, blowing the dust off of it. It had straps, buckles, and on the center of the leather was a metal plate with runes etched. He identified the same trigger rune, though the rest didn't make much sense.
"How's this used?"
You tap and hold the center trigger, and then pour mana into it. After a while, it gets saturated and starts the enchantment so long as you act like the pump. This is low quality stuff though, not a ton of juice is stored inside of it. Need to recharge it often to keep it functional.
Wade supposed that'd be the first order of business. Eat the mana crystal, power all this gear up, and then find a way to puke the crystal out before it killed him.
Lovely.
But fate had a different plan for him: Smart teammates.
Eri took one of his snowboarding gloves off, flexed his skeletal fingers, and then tapped and held a firm connection to the center rune.
His health started going steadily down, but the plate did begin to glow pale blue. After twelve percent, he took his hand off of it.
Jury was out if that twelve percent off his health was going to be worth the candle, but Wade would take any help he could get, and they both knew the skeleton's health got restored back to full on each trip.
"Holy shit Eri, you're the best."
The skeleton clicked his jaw in agreement. He really was the best, thank you.
And he gave Wade a cheeky butler's hand sign to enjoy the meal.
Wade did as suggested, slipping off his backpack before strapping the armor onto himself, fumbling with the crude metal buckles.
It was clearly made for something taller than he was, but the actual hardened leather part just covered the most vital spot on his front chest and nothing else. Real barebones.
"What's this do exactly anyways?"
Arcane protection. Less smart than holy protection, but these are demons. Probably wouldn't be great to run around with holy enchantments.
"And what does Arcane protection actually do?"
Deflects or absorbs damage and anything of the kind. Like a turtle's shell would. Holy is more reactive, the spell itself does smarter things. Arcane protection is more dumb and pre-built, but way more efficient. This one's probably all about blunt force trauma to protect against falls. Also teeth and claws, I'd guess.
"…Can blackrot suck the power out of this if it touches the shield sections?"
The answer had to be no, otherwise the demons wouldn't have sent this as part of the package. Everything in this crate was meant to be used.
The raw mana itself is safe inside the metal, and the actual shield being generated isn't really mana anymore once it's been converted into a spell. TL;DR: Blackrot can eat mana, not spells. And it can only eat mana inside a host body it's infected, so you're double covered. Heck, if you got blackrot inside you, you'd still be able to use enchanted equipment, you'd just have a hard time finding ways to power it back on once the juice was spent. Mana has to be manually shoved inside. Unless you're the Nathir.
As Wade held the breastplate closer to himself, the straps tightening one by one, he could start to sense the mana itself lurking within the plate. It had to be real close to his chest to work with though. He reached out to it, the same way he'd done so to control his own mana outside his body. The mental load was... easier than it was in the past with his three points. Once more confirming even a single point was probably equal to a month or two of extra practice.
As for the feeling itself, it was like sinking an invisible hand into the plate, feeling the still water within it. Like a garden hose filled with water, just waiting for something to provide the power.
He slowly started to push. The runes began to glow.
A flickering pale blue overshield appeared all over his body, like a thin transparent outline. It rapidly faded out of view, but Wade could sense it was still there. So long as he mentally kept the mana inside the metal moving through those runes like a water pump. He could even sense parts of it vanishing away, cycling into the central runes, and returning out of that with less flow than he'd pushed in.
He could take a guess it would have been a lot harder with the 0 intelligence he'd started with, but his current amount made it rather easy. He could grab any part of it and push, which would equally push the rest. There was some resistance, but it really did feel like he was just moving water with a hand and wasn't much of a mental load on him right now.
"Stats." He called out on reflex, checking the mana bar.
It sat at the same amount it had before he'd done anything with the armor. A fat 7 out of 125. And it wasn't going up. So long as the mana wasn't going through his body, it wasn't doing damage to him. "What's the catch to this?" Wade asked. "I get to use magic gear without any issue?"
The catch is you have to keep cranking the hand shaft all the time. And other people are going to try and stop you from doing that lol
"Ah. It's not my attuned mana. Other people could mess with this if they get close enough."
Yeppers. You're doing it right now you know. Guess who's mana it actually is?
Wade looked up at the skeleton. Eri gave a jaw click, then waved a skeletal hand. Wade could feel the current within the runes start to pick up, as if someone else was equally pushing with him.
Which meant someone else could equally push against it and stall his shield if he could interact with Eri's attuned mana here.
It was a free-for-all. Proximity was probably important, and leaving Eri's field of control would probably turn all that mana inside his plate back to neutral.
Zin's lecture about sticks and how defense failed on Earth but kept up on Azdrial started to make more sense. Long range weapons would lose their enchanted properties, and collide against his enchanted and fully powered defenses.
Only way to turn those off would be to get within melee range and start messing with his equipment directly in some way. And the only completely foolproof defense against that was to have the mana within a body, because then nobody could mess with it besides him.
"I'm starting to see this isn't going to be an easy to manage thing either." Wade said, as he stopped powering the shield for a moment and felt it fade away from him like static.
It didn't instantly vanish, but it slowed to a trickle and died off once there wasn't enough juice cycling through the center rune.
He fully focused on it again, and this time tried to shove the current forward as fast as he could. The shield flickered back on around him, and brightened up before fading from view.
"Does this actually increase how much damage I can mitigate with this on demand?" Wade asked.
Yes and no, the low quality of this means even if you shove the mana super fast, there's diminishing returns. But you do eat up the power real fast for little gain. Zinny says that's called flaring your shield. You do it when you're about to get hit by something real big, but otherwise a constant cycle should be fine.
And that meant during a fight he'd need to manually think about his armor's shields, and power it up while doing other things like trying not to die or stabbing the enemy back. Those points into intellect now made more sense, he'd be able to do that with less thought.
He could imagine people who lived and breathed this kind of combat could continue cycling mana at a constant rate with the same amount of thought they'd use to breathe. A reflex even.
Eri clicked his jaw again, he was already powering another leather breastplate and hooking it over his tattered cloth, skeletal arms easily rotating past where they should in real life, easily fastening the entire thing. It flickered to life as the skeleton focused on turning the thing on.
He then turned to Wade and helped him fasten the final buckles so the entire armor actually held tight and wasn't loose.
Two things instantly happened the moment he'd finished the process and the armor was properly equipped. One was in his system notifications, text was appearing there.
Wade read it real quick.
You have fulfilled three hidden requirements:
-
Ability to transfer material goods to Earth.
-
Discovering items within a lootable container left behind by another entity.
-
Using an item obtained from this container.
A new storefront upgrade has been spawned nearby.
And whatever that was, it was spawned right in front of him. Directly inside the center of the turned over crate, floating in the middle. Something he remembered, because he'd seen it before: Inside the mimic chest, after he'd killed it.
The System granted reward.
"Identify." Wade whispered, eyes locked on the floating oddity.
Extraction Tutorial Completion (System Quality)
His pocket buzzed. Wade slowly pulled the phone out and gave it a brief look.
TYOUCH IT (╯?▽?)╯
Well, if the goddess of games tells one to go harass a potential upgrade of some kind faster than she could even spellcheck her text, who was he to deny that?
Last time he'd touched one of these things, it ended with Eri. Who'd become the single greatest MVP of his team thus far, his ride or die. Literally on that last part.
Wade reached a hand out and touched the floating anomaly.
A new storefront upgrade tree has been unlocked at the storefront: Extraction Loot Spawns.
"… Play, what the fuck is extraction loot spawns?"
There was a pause while the goddess clearly looked over her interface, reading what the new additions was.
Then a flurry of texts came back.