Chapter 227: A Good Haul

As expected of a Demonic Artifact, an item class considered equal to Divine Artifacts, the necklace was extraordinarily powerful.

The most remarkable part was the Sea Demon Souls it could summon. Their abilities completely changed how Marcus could structure his combat strategy. Up until now, Pebble had been forced to serve primarily as the team’s tank, absorbing most of the incoming damage. With the Sea Demon Souls acting as dedicated aggro holders and shields, Pebble would finally be able to focus on what he did best: dealing damage.

In other words, Marcus’s already formidable pet team had just become even more terrifying.

“Marcus, let me put it on for you,” Anya said softly.

She and Chloe had finished studying the necklace’s attributes, and the excitement was still obvious in their expressions. Anya gently stepped forward, lifted the necklace, and carefully fastened the Sea Soul Demonic Jade Necklace around Marcus’s neck while Chloe helped guide the clasp into place.

The cool jade pendant settled against his chest.

Marcus smiled faintly and turned his attention to the rest of the equipment that had just been appraised.

There was one Red Artifact, the Boundary Stone Needle. Its attributes had already been visible even before appraisal, and it could be used starting at level forty. Unfortunately, it was clearly designed for Assassin-type classes, which made it useless to Marcus.

Then there were the two Mythic Artifacts.

—

Blood-Fiend Cloak (Black Mythic Artifact)

Requirement: Level 30, Sorcerer Class

Description

This cloak was crafted personally by the Blood-Fiend Flower Demon. Using the essence of Blood-Fiend Flowers and the dark clouds drifting through the Demon Realm, the demon refined the materials into a base garment before tempering it within demonic pools of blood and fire for fifty years.

Only after decades of refinement did the cloak finally reach completion.

Effects:

+50 Focus

+30 Agility

+50% HP Recovery Speed

+50% Mana Recovery Speed

+20% Dark Resistance

+20% Fire Resistance

Reduces incoming physical damage by 20%

Skills:

Flight (Active)

Wraps the user in a drifting red cloud, granting the ability to fly up to a height of twenty meters. While active, incoming damage is reduced by 50%.

Duration: 5 minutes

Uses per day: 2

Blood-Fiend’s Scent (Active)

Enhances combat capability by increasing skill effectiveness by 15%, attack speed by 2, and movement speed by 2.

—

The cloak’s attributes were excellent.

Unfortunately, it was restricted to Sorcerer classes and required level thirty. Marcus had no use for it at the moment, so after a brief glance he casually tossed it into his backpack.

The second Mythic item, however, caught his attention immediately.

—

Mist-Tear Spear of Purity (Black Mythic Artifact)

Requirement: Level 50, Fighter Class

Weapon Type: Two-Handed

Description

Within the Spring of Purity, one of the five legendary springs of the Dreamland Continent, flows an immense concentration of pure negative energy.

While dwelling within the Mist Veil Palace, the Mist-Tear Fiends absorbed both the spring’s energy and the high-grade metals carried within its waters. Over hundreds of years they refined those metals again and again, stripping away every impurity and infusing the remaining material with the spring’s power.

The result was this Mythic spear.

Attributes:

Attack: 600

+2 Attack Speed

+50% HP Recovery Speed

Adds 200 Water-element damage to attacks

Bonus Attributes

+30 Strength

+30 Constitution

Attacks have a 10% chance to inflict Freezing.

Skills:

Aura of Purity (Passive)

Enemies within a three-meter radius suffer a 10% reduction to attack power, movement speed, and attack speed.

Mist Vortex (Active)

Creates a swirling vortex of mist that deals 100 damage per second to enemies within three meters. The mist obscures vision and reduces enemy accuracy by 30%.

Duration: 40 seconds

80% chance to cause a 3-second stun

Cooldown: 1 minute

Mistform Illusion (Active)

Creates a combat clone with 80% of the user’s attributes to fight alongside the wielder.

Uses per day: 2

—

A level fifty Mythic weapon.

Marcus couldn’t help staring at the spear’s attributes with admiration.

If he hadn’t triggered the hidden quest within the Mist Veil Palace and discovered the Two-Headed Mist-Tear Fiend, he never would have obtained something like this.

It was an extraordinary weapon. Unfortunately, the level requirement was painfully high.

Marcus had already unlocked the ability to wield two-handed weapons, but he still hadn’t found one worthy of using. Now that he finally had such a weapon in his hands, he couldn’t even equip it yet.

The anticipation alone made his fingers itch.

Next came a large stack of fourteen Golden weapons.

Ten of them had dropped from the Headless Cavalry. All were level forty items, decent mid-tier Golden equipment with respectable stats. They would certainly sell well, but none of them suited Marcus’s class or playstyle.

Those would simply be sold later.

The remaining four Golden items, however, were far more valuable.

They had dropped from the Blood-Fiend Flower Demon and the Two-Headed Mist-Tear Fiend, two elite monsters whose loot quality naturally reflected their strength.

The items were:

Demon-Branch Staff

Blood-Fiend Robe

Mist-Tear Mask

Mist-Tear Necklace

All four pieces possessed excellent attributes.

Unfortunately, they shared the same problem as the spear: Every single one of them required level forty.

Marcus sighed and placed them in his backpack as well. Later, he would transfer them to the secure vault in his mansion.

Even after that, there was still more.

In total, he had obtained fifty-one pieces of Blue equipment.

Thanks to Marcus’s unusually high Luck stat, almost every piece had rolled strong attributes. Considering that gear above level thirty had a notoriously low drop rate, this batch alone would fetch a very respectable amount of gold.

Then there were the three skill books.

—

Skill Book: Dancing Sparks

An intermediate Fire-element spell that releases a burst of scattered sparks to attack enemies across a wide area.

Type: Active, Area of Effect

Requirement: Level 40 Sorcerer

Skill Book: Triple Shot

An intermediate Archer skill that instantly fires three arrows at the target, stronger than the common Double Shot.

Learning this skill from the book increases damage by 10% and reduces mana consumption by 10% compared to learning it from a Guild Hall instructor.

Requirement: Level 40 Archer

Skill Book: Critical Hit

A basic passive skill for Assassin-type classes.

Learning this book in addition to the base skill grants an additional bonus of +20 Agility and increases critical hit chance by 10%.

Requirement: Level 40 Assassin

—

Marcus stared at the final skill book for a long moment.

’Critical Hit.’

The bonus it provided was almost absurd.

A direct increase of 20 Agility plus 10% critical hit chance was comparable to the effects of some extremely rare legendary elixirs. It wasn’t simply granting a skill, it was permanently enhancing the player’s base attributes.

This book alone could easily sell for fifty million gold coins, possibly even more.

Yet Marcus hesitated. A skill book this valuable was hard to part with.

If it had been designed for Knights instead of Assassins, he would have used it immediately without a second thought. Twenty extra Agility combined with a higher critical rate would dramatically improve his combat performance.

Unfortunately, it simply wasn’t compatible with his class.

Reluctantly, he set the book aside.

Finally, there were the last rewards from the Mist Veil Palace.

The Soul-Mist Water Demon Cat pet, another Guild Creation Token, and a large pile of gathered crafting materials.

Altogether, the haul from this expedition had been astonishing.

Marcus had accumulated an enormous amount of crafting materials, many of them high-grade ingredients harvested from monster corpses. However, possessing materials alone wasn’t enough to create anything useful.

Although his Potion Making and Forging skills had already reached the Intermediate level, he still lacked the most important component.

Recipes.

For example, if Marcus wanted to craft an intermediate potion like the Clarity Pill, two conditions had to be met.

First, his Potion Making skill had to be at the Intermediate level.

Second, he needed the recipe.

—

Clarity Pill

An intermediate potion that increases resistance to all negative status effects by 30% for 30 minutes.

Recipe

Ingredients

2 Clarity Herbs

2 Purity Flowers

1 Threeleaf Fruit

Crafting Time: 5–10 minutes

Success Rate: 80%

A successful crafting attempt produces at least three pills per batch.

Each recipe scroll can be used 100 times.

—

In other words, even if Marcus possessed the skill level and every required ingredient, he still couldn’t craft the potion without first obtaining the recipe.

The crafting time and success rate were influenced by the player’s Luck and proficiency with the skill. Even when using the same recipe, two players might produce very different results.

The quality of a finished potion could vary in several ways.

For example, a successfully crafted Clarity Pill might differ in:

Duration:

Some pills might last the standard thirty minutes, others only twenty, while a particularly well-crafted batch might extend to forty minutes.

Efficacy:

Although the base effect was 30% resistance, the actual value could fluctuate between 20% and 40%.

Quantity:

A successful batch produced at least three pills, but a fortunate crafter might receive additional pills as a bonus.

Forging equipment followed the exact same principles.

If someone wanted to craft an intermediate level-thirty Blue Peak Sword, they would need both Intermediate Forging and the Blue Peak Sword blueprint.

After that, the final quality of the weapon would depend entirely on the player’s skill and luck during the forging process.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep