The Third Year Dorm cafeteria was bustling with students. They all were lively as they could be for students at this hour. They would start their class schedules for the last time this week and the weekend would be upon them.
Lee Seng, Liz and Ritsuka sat at one of the four seat tables. Lee Seng was wolfing down the large breakfast as Liz and Ritsuka watched with small bites of food in between.
"Oh, yeah?" Lee Seng spoke loudly with food in his mouth. He swallowed and wiped his mouth with his napkin and looked at his two friends. "Wanna go out to the city tomorrow?"
"Why? We can't really leave unless we have a good reason." Liz reminded him.
"Well, we were talking about what kind of gear you could wear the other day, right?"
"Yea, and?"
"And I don't have an armor fit. I never had to wear armor before. Plus, every time I went out on an expedition, it was just what I was wearing."
"So you want to get a fit? It can get really expensive. You have creds to even get decent adventure grade stuff?" Ritsuka asked. Ritsuka only asked because he knew how expensive gear was at the adventurer level.
The adventure-grade grade ranked as follows: bronze, silver, gold, quartz, platinum, emerald, diamond, and demi.
(Note: This is basically the more refined version of ranking within the Guild ranks. Adventure-grade ranks follow the same rank.
They also make regular armor for citizens but it isn't as sturdy and doesn't have much enchants like adventure-grade stuff)
"I think bronze adventure-grade is like… 10K for a set with no enchantments." Ritsuka began to recall the information. "With enchantments it can be anywhere from 40K creds, onwards."
Lee Seng glanced at his watch. He fiddled around with it and saw his total cred amount.
"I have like a mil of creds. What grade d'ya think I could afford?" Lee Seng asked.
"You want enchants too right?" Liz asked. Lee Seng nodded. He watches his two friends think about it for a while. Ritsuka eventually pulled his tablet out and began to dig for an adequate price.
"If we manage to go to one of the nearby armorers with a positive reputation…" Itsuka muttered. He tapped and scanned for a bit before looking up at Lee Seng. "Give me an idea of enchants. Just physical enchants? Magical defense enchants? Enchants to boost physical prowess?"
"Not the physical prowess." Liz waved her hand. "Not like he needs more of that. I would suggest physical and magical enchants if you do have enough creds and wanna invest now."
"Sure let's go with that." Lee Seng nodded. He hasn't really thought about how costly this was gonna be. He was reminded by Ritsuka's list of enchants, that he could REALLY sink money into boosting himself, well.
"Let's see.. Physical and magical defense enchants…" Ritsuka muttered. "+1 is going to be 50K for magic and 30K for physical. That's gonna be like 90K creds for a bronze."
"Can you give a rough estimate of the other tiers?" Lee Seng asked, standing to round the table and sit next to Ritsuka. Ritsuka tapped away, Liz and Lee Seng both watching him as he worked.
"Silver already makes it 300K creds. The tier you could possibly get with a million creds would be… Gold with +1 enchants." Ritsuka's finger hovered over the gold. Lee Seng scanned it and gulped at the number.
"1.2 million for gold tier armor set with +1 magic and physical enchants. Holy crap." Lee Seng mumbled. Liz's finger moved over and scrolled to the silver.
"Or you could get Silver-tiered armor and get higher enchants. You'd have more wiggle room to play with enchants, too." Liz pointed out. The price points were definitely way cheaper.
"Doesn't silver tiered armor only hold like… 3 enchants?" Lee Seng asked.
"It's specially made so… 3." Ritsuka nodded. "If this dungeon found stuff, it could easily hold more enchants."
"But getting the specific enchants you want on silver dungeon gear is more difficult. You're playing with a different set of runic magic at this point." Liz told them.
Dungeon gear and adventure-grade manmade gear differed greatly. Dungeon gear could drop in any rarity with a higher rarity of enchants and enchantment slots based on their rarities. You might get an adventure-grade of bronze equipment but if the rarity was high enough, enchantments would be crazy good with a hefty amount of slots. These would run for millions of of one single great enchant.
Man made gear lowers the cost of the base equipment but with it comes a specific amount of enchants. You could fit whatever enchants you want for it but you had a specific amount you could put into it.
(Note: Dungeon gear has more RNG in the enchants but can always have a higher amount of enchantment slots. Ex: Bronze could give you anywhere from 0-5 slots. Rarity would play a role in slots as well as the actual enchantments.)
"This is why I wanna get into a guild as soon as possible." Lee Seng wagged his finger. "If I could get into one, I can do a dungeon and get cool gear."
"Or sell it and get higher tiered gear." Ritsuka pointed out. He set the tablet off to the side and continued to finish his breakfast.
"If you want something simple, just stick to the magical and physical enchants for now. Once you make enough money, you can come back and play with enchants." Liz gave him a good point. Lee Seng nodded and moved back to his seat.
"So you wanna go with me tomorrow?" Lee Seng raises his eyebrows at his friends.
"Sure. I wouldn't mind going to check stuff out. Maybe even hit a restaurant or something while we're out?" Ritsuka looked at his peers for confirmation.
"Fine. Not like I was doing anything anyways. I don't have much creds so I'm gonna steer away from buying anything from the armorer shop." Liz agreed. The boys nodded with grind on their faces. "What did I do to gain super rich friends?"
"If you want something–"
"No!" Liz quickly cut off Ritsuka. "I already got Manny doing that. I don't need you and Chang doing it, too!"
"Fine, fine. But we should hit up one of those restaurants before we come back."
"We say we're gonna go shop for some gear and grab lunch while we're at it?" Lee Seng asked.
"Yeah, that's fine. Nothing else, kay? I got a butt load of homework to do." Liz sighed.
"We could help you if you need it." Ritsuka offered.
"Nah, the teacher is just a pain in the ass and likes to word things too complicated. It's easy once I figure out what they mean."
"Cool, then I'm gonna put in a ticket for us." Lee Seng informed them. The two nodded as Lee Seng pulled his phone out and made his way into the Academy app. He filled out a "request to leave" form and added Ritsuka and Liz in the request with all of their student numbers as well.
"There." Lee Seng tapped send. "Done. Hopefully they let us leave, otherwise I'm just gonna be wearing my regular stuff to a fight that might have sharp weapons."
"Not like you haven't experienced that kinda pain before." Ritsuka grinned at him.
"Still hurts like hell." Lee Seng winced as he thought about it. They finished up breakfast and headed out to the Academy building. Lee Seng was in a great mood. His single tail trailer behind him as he stuck to the side of Liz.
"So you guys haven't heard anything, either?" Liz asked. She had asked Ritsuka and Lee Seng about Manny, Evan and Olivia.
"Nope." Lee Seng shook his head. "The last thing I heard from Dr. Valentine was that they were all definitely awake and progressing well."
"I still wonder why they let them stay in quarantine for so long. We all entered at the same time so wouldn't the toxins be out of them by now?" Liz complained.
"You're not wrong about that." Ritsuka agreed. They crossed the black parking lot concrete and stepped into the many paths to the Academic building. "We were all exposed around the same time so why does it take longer for them? If anything, it's the healing from the burn marks that would be understandable."
"I wish they would just tell us when our friends are getting out of quarantine. If we don't hear anything by tomorrow, we'll have no choice but to go with Plan B." Liz rubbed her temples. She looked the most stressed and frustrated out of the three of them.
"Don't worry, Liz." Lee Seng smiled. "They'll definitely come back tomorrow. It's almost Thanksgiving, so they'll come back, we'll run some exercises together and hope for the best with the expedition!"
"Ah, your optimism isn't helping either… We're gonna be so doomed!"