Chapter 323 Saving The Best For Last

Whoosh!

"Haah… and that's the last piece of armor for the set finally done with the upgrade." Watching as the aura surrounding the final armor piece to undergo through the upgrade process began to intensify, Valyr let out a long sigh of relief after he had received a string of notifications that confirmed to him that the upgrade had been successful, finally giving his body and mind some quality time to rest.

Ever since Valyr had returned to the private workshop after they grabbed his Half Wyvern Armor set from the inn, he had not allowed his entire being to take a rest at all throughout the two sessions of upgrading he had done on the armor. Then again, he did find some time to give a part of him some respite, allowing his mind to rest up as his body focused on a monotonous action, or allowing his body to take a rest as multiple things went on his mind while he kept an eye on the furnace.

Nevertheless, due to how long he had been staying at the workshop, even the small break he had taken once Braum had returned with the food he asked him to buy was not enough time for Valyr's body and mind to return to its peak condition. In any case, though he still had one more thing to do in the workshop before he was certain that he had done everything in his list, he found solace in the fact that he was finally finished with the tedious task that made up most of it.

Unsurprisingly, the tedious task in mind was upgrading all of the armor pieces. Twice.

Letting out a deep sigh as he thought that he should finish his task while he still had the time, he took a look outside the window that he could see from the door that led out of the private workshop, only to find out that it had already turned into night. Briefly scratching his head as a faint bitter smile appeared on his face, he turned his attention back to the private workshop, picking up one of the armor pieces that made up the new Nascent Wyvern Armor set before placing it on the anvil.

"Let's hope the heavens are on my side." Taking in a deep breath to regain his composure as he inwardly made a quick prayer to the heavens for a bit of increased luck, Valyr grabbed the forging hammer he had placed nearby before proceeding to hit the piece of armor he had placed on the anvil, starting the final task he set out to do in the workshop before heading to Astarto Village.

Enhancing and refining all of his equipment.

Thanks to the fact that he had a better version of the [Basic Equipment Enhancement] skill due to his class, it only took around 10 minutes or so for Valyr to increase the level of the armor on the anvil to the highest it could go, which was Level 31.

While doing so, he thought about enhancing the piece of armor to a level beyond that number, considering that he still had a lot of XP to allocate evenly between his skills and his level. In the end, he decided that he would only upgrade it to Level 31 for now and upgrade them once more after he was done allocating the XP he still had.

With that, he swiftly enhanced all of the pieces making up the Nascent Wyvern Armor set to Level 31, taking only slightly a bit above an hour to go through all of them. Once he was done, he took a look at their improved stats through [Analysis], prompting him to whistle at how much of an improvement the equipments' stats had undergone.

After admiring the significant improvement the enhancement brought to the equipments' Defense stat, Valyr psyched himself once more, telling himself that he would only need to enhance his weapon to his current level once he was successful in refining all of the armor pieces to +20.

Asking the heavens to be on his side once more through the process, Valyr swung his hammer down on the armor pieces yet again, this time activating his own version of [Basic Equipment Refinement] on the piece of armor as he began his attempt at refining equipment beyond what was deemed the safe limit of refinement.

As mentioned in the past, one was guaranteed to refine their equipment to +10 as long as it was done under the hands of a capable blacksmith, which was the reason why it was called the safe limit of refinement. However, if one aimed to achieve a refinement level that exceeded +10, the chances of going beyond +10 gradually became smaller the farther one went, with the only method available to guarantee a refinement level beyond +10 being the usage of Refinement Jewels.

Of course, Valyr had no Refinement Jewel on hand whatsoever at the moment, instead believing in the increased success rate his version of the [Basic Equipment Refinement] skill contained as he began the refinement process.

Deciding to take his time in making sure that he brought a great portion of the latent potential lurking within the piece of armor, Valyr inwardly let out a sigh of relief as he obtained a notification from the system that the armor had been successfully refined to +11. Gaining a bit of confidence that he could possibly refine all of his armor pieces to +20, he went ahead and continued to take his time during the refinement, obtaining a notification sometime later that he had succeeded in refining it to +12.

Unfortunately, during the attempt to improve the refinement on the armor piece to +13, Valyr felt like the latent potential he had been pulling out of the armor went into disarray, dissipating not long after as he received a notification from the system that his attempt at refining the piece of armor to +13 had failed. On top of that, the system told him that he could still afford to fail two more times before he would become unable to refine the piece of armor for the day.

Wondering to himself if there was a system like that for refinement back when he was still a player, Valyr continued with his attempts at refinement, losing a bit of the cautiousness he had earlier after being told by the system that he basically had three attempts at achieving a refinement level of +20 for each armor piece before the system would stop him.

Though he slightly sped up his movements as he thought about how he would only be able to return to the inn late at night if he didn't, it still took a couple of hours for Valyr to finish going through all of the refining attempts the system had allocated to him for each armor piece, the final result of which somewhat disappointed him, yet somewhat surprised him at the same time.

For his helmet, greaves, and boots, Valyr was able to achieve a refinement level of +13 on all of them, exhausting all three attempts on each armor piece as he aimed to get a high refinement level on all of them. Unfortunately, he was forced to settle for a level that was far from the limit of what an Epic grade piece of equipment could have, though it was still a lot when taking into consideration the grand scheme of things.

As for his pauldrons and chestplate, he had achieved a refinement level of +14 on both of them, learning from the three pieces of armor from earlier to not push his luck too much, thinking that reaching a refinement level that was only one level below the limit of what a Rare grade piece of equipment could achieve was a superb result, considering that he still had no access to Refinement Jewels.

With how this armor piece was the first to undergo through both upgrade processes, Valyr had saved the vambraces for last, hoping that the fact that this piece of armor was the first to go through both processes would work in his favor.

And surprisingly, it did.

By the end of his three attempts at increasing the refinement level on the vambraces, he had achieved a refinement level of +16, causing him to take in a few deep breaths to make sure that he stopped himself from acting on impulse and attempting another increase at the vambraces' refinement level.

Thinking that he should try to get his hands on some Refinement Jewels before he went through the Four Pillars' Inheritance, Valyr went ahead and used [Analysis] on his vambraces to see how much of a difference the increase in refinement and enhancement level brought to the equipment's stats, commanding the system to only give him a condensed version of the screen.

Ding!

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[(+16) Nascent Wyvern Vambraces (Emulation)] (Level 31)

Rarity: Epic

Defense: 101 - 168

Additional Attributes:

> …

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"Holy shit." Letting out a long sigh at the Defense stat his vambraces showed him, Valyr thought about how invincible he would become once he had all pieces of the Nascent Wyvern Armor set equipped, taking into consideration the fact that vambraces were one of the two pieces of armor that were on the low end when it came to stats.

Deciding that he would find out how true this statement was once he returned to Astarto Village, he then went ahead and placed his trusty spear on the anvil, his mind somewhat relaxed as he thought to himself that he would only have to enhance his weapon to his current level and he would be done.

While enhancing his weapon, he pondered over how there was now a great disparity in rarity between his weapon and his armor set, with the former still staying at Uncommon+ while the latter was now Epic grade.

Contemplating over ways how he could increase the rarity of his weapon, he rummaged through the general guides to upgrading spears he had come across in the past in his mind, eventually recalling that one of the easiest ways to upgrade spears was to upgrade the material that made up the spear as a whole.

"Since my spear is somewhat related to blood, I guess fusing some Sanguine Mithril into the weapon would make it upgrade." Thinking about what materials he could get his hands on to upgrade the spear to a higher rarity, Valyr thought about it for a bit and decided to focus the upgrade on one aspect of the spear that he felt like he could use as a base. However, not long after, a voice responded to his question.

"I recommend you to choose another type of metal for the upgrade…"

"Master."