Chapter 279: Trading, and a contract

"Fine, just let me know if you can't make it." Elizabeth caved after listening to Eldrian just roughly explaining his quest. Herself, she dared not take any quests above the C-rank, as they always gave her the feeling of danger. 

They were also the only quests where the rewards guaranteed a level gain, instead of just some meager XP. So she reasons her gut must be correct, and that they were unlikely to succeed. These quests, while rare, were actually still easy to find if one tried.

Though as evident from most of the other players, few people actually succeeded in completing them.  Which made Eldrian's calmness in the face of an SS-rank quest all the more baffling. 

"Certainly, I should know ahead of time." Eldrian agreed, and then everyone quickly got to talking strategy.

For the most part, they now knew who they would be up against, most of the others teams were also streaming their matches. So even if they hadn't fought a specific team, they could still get information on them.

Streaming naturally helped their opponents figure out their style and weaknesses, but the extra income swayed most of the teams to go for it. They just made sure to never go all out, which wasn't a problem currently as there was still a lot of time left to get over 350 points for the legend rank. And the guarantee at entering the actual tournament. 

"Alright, also we should start talking about ways we can improve ourselves and the team," Elizabeth said after debating which teams they would likely be capable of winning against. For now, no one had really made any changes, so they still felt they would lose against those they lost against before.

"Right, good gear is far more effective than we thought it'd be." Ilmadia quickly added, even though she felt gear was the least effective on her. Mostly because she still thought that she needed some special armor, like in all the other games.

"Yeah, but it is also expensive. I have no idea how that Pure Warriors team could afford to kit three of their members with full Tier 6 armor. I looked into it and each piece is over a gold." Therdul said, having found the cost for items quite diverse.

With the gauntlets being around a gold but the chest pieces nearly five gold each.  Unlike in other games, where all the pieces would cost nearly the same, here the size and complexity of the armor mattered. It made sense, but also made it harder to generalize costs and effectiveness.

There being no total armor also made it harder to determine how good it was, damage is calculated based on the location hit and the armor at that location. Along with how important that part of the body was, naturally.

Damage was in fact still a mystery to most players, with most of them starting to think of it more realistically as Eldrian had from the start. Realizing that constantly tracking health was actually a distraction. Instead only waiting for the XP message was far more effective.

"Right, and cheaping out and only buying only some pieces, or cheaper pieces, would not be nearly as effective." Nikki added, "The fighters in their party for example each had the chest armor. Yet we could easily kill them by focusing on the unprotected areas."

"In which case," Elizabeth took over, "The best use of our money would be weapons. If we can get Tier 1 magic weapon, then we should likely be able to deal with their armor. Though that itself is still extremely expensive."

"Right, what weapon do you have Judith?" Eldrian suddenly asked, catching everyone off guard.

"A normal Tier 4 greatsword, it is why it always breaks when I attack. It can't take the magic flowing through it, along with the shock of the actual attack. Why?" She replied, having forgotten that Eldrian and Erik didn't know their precise gear layouts. 

"Well, I have a spare magical greatsword," Eldrian said, having already decided to sell it to try and get Erik some extra gold. So he might as well sell it to them on credit, seeing as it would highly increase their chances of winning, and thus gaining more gold. "But I am also going to give you a shield, which you must use."

"Huh?" Judith simply looked at Eldrian without understanding. 

"It's simple, if you die, then you having the sword wouldn't change a thing. So, when running after people, pull out the shield and protect yourself." Eldrian replied, half teasing and half serious. It was too ridiculous how she was kitted. 

Hearing this she couldn't help but blush, before suddenly turning aggressively defensive. She clearly remembered how she had been kitted and killed by the archers last time. Even if she wanted to act like a barbarian, she knew it was dumb to do so when it could cost them everything. 

"Fine, but how much do you want to sell it for?"

"It is a Tier 2 greatsword; normal one-handed sword of the same Tier sell for around twenty gold at blacksmith shops. Why don't we just make it twenty gold, since we don't really know its worth." Eldrian proposed, shocking everyone.

While it sounded extremely costly, they all knew it was in fact an extremely good price. As long as it was not a bottom-ranked Tier 2 sword, it should be worth anywhere from 25 gold to 30. 

"Wait! If you are willing to part with it, that means you have an even better weapon left." Elizabeth suddenly said, causing everyone to look at Eldrian in even more shock. 

"I do, my spear is a Tier 3 magic weapon." Eldrian quickly admitted, before asking, "Are you fine with the proposed trade?"

"Of course we are, but we don't have enough gold." Elizabeth quickly agreed before Judith could say anything that might take away this golden opportunity. 

"That's fine, I don't urgently need the gold. But we do need to urgently get stronger." Eldrian replied, after which they quickly created a contract through the system. 

While Eldrian was still angry at it, he didn't think of just taking Elizabeth's words for it. The system contracts were extremely thorough, with the only way of breaking them being to stop playing. Not even creating a new character would suffice, since it does not link the character but the actual person. 

"That's it?" Elizabeth asked, at first having been upset when Eldrian wanted to use the system contract. Now she understood why and felt it was completely reasonable. 

"Yes, that's it," Eldrian replied, the contract simply stating that by the end of the tournament they needed to pay the twenty gold. The idea behind it being that they could use the rewards from winning, if they at least made it into the top ten. If they didn't make it into the top ten then they could be given an extension, though that would have to be agreed upon by both parties. 

"Alright, with that settled we quickly need to complete the actual trade," Eldrian said next, a bit irritated that there was no way outside of the temples to actually accomplish this. Luckily he could do a direct transfer, so he didn't need to risk anyone grabbing it when he put it up for just a few silvers. 

A few minutes later he and Judith returned to Elizabeth's virtual home, the latter smiling ear to ear.

The process had been quite simple, with Eldrian only needing to confirm that he wanted to unbound the sword. He had wondered if it would be a problem that he had used the sword, luckily the temples seemed to deal with that for him. As part of the trading system, which was really handy for trading old weapons and made him more accepting of the limits it placed on trading. 

"Is it that good?" The others asked Judith, only for her to nod dumbly in reply. It took a few minutes before she actually replied. 

"I can't believe you would willingly part with it? How good is your spear?" Judith asked as soon as her mind returned. 

"It doesn't matter, I prefer spears in any case. So even if the greatsword is better, I would still pick the spear."

"That makes no sense," Judith replied as she recalled the stats. Simply the damage difference between her old sword and this one left her without words. 

"Right, in any case, let's queue up," Elizabeth said, which they quickly did. As they waited the others kept questioning both Eldrian and Judith, finally managing to get out the details. Which left them stunned. 

"33 damage! That's nearly double that of her old sword!" Zyviss shouted in shock, suddenly feeling like he was going to be even more overshadowed. 

"Not only that, it has a 10% damage bonus. While the condition behind it is quite strange, with Judith's trying to be a barbarian it might trigger even against players." Nikki said, for the first time envious of Judith's strong conviction in trying to roleplay.

Though they had no idea what the beliefs mentioned actually meant, nor how the system would determine if they conflicted or not. Everyone felt this weapon fit really well with Judith's style.

"I still think the lifesteal ability is the strongest." Eldrian interrupted, "Sure it won't do much if you just get a normal hit, but if you get a vital hit. Then it can heal you much better than any spell, right Erik."

"That would depend on how much damage she does." Erik replied, "Thera Aloifi, the Tier 2 healing spell, heals for just under 28HP without considering intelligence boosts and all the other things. Currently, if I heal someone I can heal up to 60HP, so she'd have to do nearly 600 damage to get the same effect."

Holy shit, that's a lot of healing. Why does it never feel like that when we fight? Eldrian was extremely shocked by the effectiveness of that heal, wondering why it never changed the fight. Most of the others were also left speechless hearing how much Erik could heal, also wondering why it never turned any of the fights thus far.