Chapter 586 Four Pillars: Advancement

Chapter 586 Four Pillars: Advancement

"Speaking of which, since I still have all this XP to use, I should max that skill out." Since he had more or less gone through all of his notifications from the ascension, as well as increased his stats to the peak of Rank 3, Valyr finally focused his attention on what he planned to do for the night.

Commanding the system to upgrade the skill he had obtained to its current limits, a prompt swiftly appeared in front of his field of vision.

[Would you like to consume 1 Common grade Skill Key, 1 Uncommon grade Skill Key, and 1,049,986 XP to upgrade 'True Prodigious Equipment Advancement' to the peak of Uncommon grade?]

Saying yes to the prompt that had popped up, a great influx of information soon inundated the entirety of Valyr's mind. Though it was by no means a pleasant experience, the amount of information flowing through the young man's mind at that moment was still tolerable compared to what he had put himself through in the past.

Neatly organizing and processing all of the information he had gained from upgrading the skill to the peak of Uncommon grade, Valyr let out a satisfied sigh as he finally looked at the pile of equipment he was going to work with. "These guys have really been taken good care of by their respective guilds."

Although he hadn't noticed it at first, the equipment everyone else gave for him to upgrade were more or less around the same rarity as his current armor set. Utilizing [Greater Analysis] on them a couple of times, a bitter smile soon adorned his face as he thought about all of the hardships he had to go through to upgrade his equipment to their current states.

'I even got a curse placed on me just because I wanted to upgrade my equipment,' jokingly thought the young man, faintly chuckling as he continued to look at the equipment the others were using. Eventually, one of the pieces of equipment from the others caught his eye, though it was not due to its design or function.

It was the rarity of the equipment itself.

'Mystia definitely dotes on Vera a lot... if this piece of equipment doesn't already make it obvious.' Taking in a few deep breaths to calm himself, a slight smile appeared on his face as he read through the information written on screen.

Ding!

————

[(+20) Arcane Mystic Staff of Excellence] (Level 35)

Rarity: Legendary+

Weapon Bond: Lv. 1 (Vera Aschel)

Attack: 2,806 - 4,676

Foundation Tier: None

Forge Quality: Transcendent

Additional Attributes:

> AGI + 18

> INT + 20

> WIS + 32

A staff forged by a legendary entity of the Mystic Plane, this staff... description has been omitted.

<Innate Skill 1: Mystic Resonance - Whenever the user uses an attack based on Mystic Energy with the staff, all damage dealt by those attacks are increased by 10%.>

<Innate Skill 2: Arcane Resonance - Whenever the user uses an attack based on mana with the staff, all damage dealt by those attacks are increased by 10%.>

<Innate Skill 3: Arcane Mystic Transformation - Allows the user to briefly tap into the energies of the Mystic Plane, transforming into the commander of Mystic Energy itself. For 15 seconds, the user can cast as many skills as they want, as long as it is based on Mystic Energy or mana. After the skill ends, the user's ability to use any magic-based skills is nullified for 3 hours. Cooldown: 7 days. Cost: 99% of the user's MP and Mystic Energy.>

Remarks: Such a weapon can only instill fear into one's enemies.

————

'Even if I take into consideration the fact that its awakened attributes don't scale with Vera's current strength, this is a weapon that even I'd be jealous of.' Whistling in admiration after he was done reading through its information, the young man placed the staff to the side as he began to upgrade all of the equipment that he had been given.

As the weapon's description still lingered in his mind, a thought eventually surfaced in the midst of his upgrading session. 'The blacksmith that forged this has definitely got to be Rank 5 at the very least, owning an Epic blacksmith class probably. If not Rank 5, then that blacksmith would be at the peak of Rank 4 with a Legendary blacksmith class.'

Though Epic and Legendary was only a single rarity in difference, the difficulty in forging an equipment with the latter grade was hundreds of times greater than forging an equipment with the former grade. Even Valyr did not believe he could forge a piece of Legendary grade equipment any time soon, even though he was the owner of a Mythic blacksmith class.

Then again, the difficulty of forging Legendary grade equipment was nowhere near the difficulty of forging Mythic grade equipment, wherein even someone at the peak of Rank 5 could only dream of forging one. Of course, having a Legendary or Mythic blacksmith class made the chances of one forging something like that higher, though one would be better off saying there was no difference in one's chances at all.

Nevertheless, by the time one was at the peak of Rank 5, it could be said that one would only need to put in a bit more effort if one wanted to forge Epic grade equipment. If one had high stats, great levels of skill, and a decent blacksmithing class, then the chances of one forging a piece of Epic+ grade equipment was considerably high.

'I'll probably start seeing more Epic grade equipment once I head to the Meltierre Empire,' thought Valyr to himself as he finished upgrading Faulus' equipment to the peak of Rank 3. 'Then, I guess Epic would be the new Rare once I make my way to the Zeihardt Sovereignty... whenever that may be.'

Making sure that [True Prodigious Blacksmith's Sight] was active, the young man double checked if he had upgraded Faulus' equipment before moving onto Hal's equipment. Being composed of a sword and a few pieces of armor, the young man hammered away at it with his Hammer of Beginnings as he began to whistle a tune.

Eventually, by the time a couple of hours had passed, the young man had gone and upgraded everyone else's equipment to the peak of Rank 3. In fact, he even went ahead and refined all of the equipment with a low refinement level to +10, which made him briefly wonder why it had not been refined to that level by the blacksmiths that had forged it.

Reminding himself that it was only possible for him to do so due to him owning a Mythic blacksmith class, Valyr finally went ahead and focused on his equipment after giving everyone's equipment back to their respective owners, which prompted him to receive a few words of gratitude from the others.

'Though it's quite tempting, I'll save the Advancement stuff for my equipment.' Placing his spear on the anvil as he began to upgrade it to the peak of Rank 3, the young man thought about the urge he had earlier to try Advancement on everyone else's equipment.

Though Enhancement, Refinement, and Advancement all sought to awaken the latent potential of equipment and increase its strength, these things approached that awakening in different ways. For one, Enhancement was more or less self-explanatory, improving the materials that were already there in order to obtain more strength.

On the other hand, Refinement was slightly more convoluted as it refined the process of enhancement rather than the material itself. In a way, that difference was the reason why there was a limit to how far one could refine equipment depending on its rarity.

As for Advancement, it approached the improvement of strength differently from Enhancement and Refinement. If both Enhancement and Refinement were said to approach improvement from an external standpoint, then Advancement approached improvement from an internal standpoint.

In other words, Advancement aimed to improve the strength of equipment by changing the foundation of the equipment material itself. Because of this, there existed a limit on how far one could improve equipment through this process, with a piece of equipment at the highest possible rarity only being able to go through five advancements at most.

Aside from that, there was also a minimum requirement if one wished to advance an equipment's foundation, which was the fact that it needed to be a piece of Uncommon grade equipment at the very least. Then again, the chances of succeeding to improve its foundation by one tier at that grade was considerably low.

That was why most blacksmiths only began to start toying around with the concept of Advancements on Epic grade equipment, which could handle two advancements if the blacksmith wished to do so. It was also the reason why the young man had a strong urge to try the concept out on the equipments of the other four since the lowest grade out of all of them was Epic.

"Alright. Let's get this show on the road. These things won't upgrade by themselves." Discarding all of the unnecessary thoughts that continued to linger in his mind, Valyr finally began to go through his equipment and upgrade them. With that, the sound of constant hammering faintly resounded throughout the area as he continued to work through the night.