Chapter 217: Advancing
Claws of the Envious
Slot: Weapon
Type: Unarmed
Damage: 3531-4164
Speed: Fast
Quality: 93%
Durability: Indestructible
Option 1: When equipped, Claws of the Envious can be extended or retracted at will from the fingertips of either hand, or both simultaneously.
Option 2: Adds +[1,153-1,267] shadow damage to your unarmed attacks made by this weapon.
Option 3: Unarmed attacks made with these claws deal slashing damage, instead of bludgeoning
Option 4: Adds +[(Unarmed Skill) x 150] damage to your attacks made by this weapon
Option 5: The damage of this weapon can scale off of strength or agility, depending on which is higher on the equipped player. Adds +[(Strength/Agility) x 50] damage to your unarmed attacks made by this weapon.
Description: The claws belong to the former Avatar of Jealousy, an envious woman who willingly allowed the spirit of the Dark God Jealousy to possess her body for hundreds of years in order to spread the dark emotion she loved to see in others.
Book of Dark Empowerment
Slot: Accessory
Type: Spellbook
Quality: 85%
Durability: 300/300
Option 1: Enhances the damage of Warlock and Wizard spells by 10%.
Option 2: Adds +153 spell damage.
Option 3: Reduces the mana cost of your Warlock or Wizard spells by 5%.
Description: A book created by the Dark Wizard Homregal to assist in his reign of terror over the people of Sigirak.
Concentrated Darkness
Type: Crafting Material
Option 1: This material has [15/15] charges, and can be imbued to this many crafts before it is depleted.
Option 2: Greatly reduces damage taken by Abyssal Creatures[Armor], or increases damage dealt to abyssal creatures[Weapon].
Option 3: Greatly increases your damage dealt to Avatars of Darkness and their minions, but reduces damage dealt to divine creatures[Weapon], Increases your resistance to Shadow damage, but reduces your resistance to Holy damage[Armor].
Quality: 83%
“Guys…” Pyri looked down at the group awkwardly. Almost immediately upon receiving the items, Aegis, Tullan, Darkshot and Rakkan all sat down on the floor, legs crossed, staring at the cards and scratching their chins, pondering.
“Hmmm…” Aegis’s eyes wandered up towards the ceiling.
“Hmmm…” Tullan looked intently at the floor in the middle of the small circle that the four had formed. Rakkan nodded along, as if in agreement about something that wasn’t said.
“Huh.” Darkshot said loudly, and suddenly, but no one reacted to it save for Lina, Pyri and Kenji who were standing above them, staring curiously. Kaito and Yumily watched from a distance, smiling awkwardly at the group.
“It’s obvious where the book goes.” Aegis said, and he immediately got several grunting nods of agreement from the other three.
“What book?” Lina asked curiously, as she and Pyri hadn’t yet gotten the chance to look at the item cards.
“Here.” Aegis held out the large, pitch black tome towards Pyri. She took it and stepped back, curiously inspecting the item card as Lina joined in.
“Oooh, that’s a pretty book.” Pyri grinned.
“Really powerful!” Lina cheered, while the four boys went back to pondering things deeply.
“Travis’d love those claws. Wicked powerful monk weapons.” Darkshot pointed out.
“But…” Rakkan began to speak, but needn’t say more as they all just abruptly grunted and nodded in agreement with him.
“Aye, I think so too. Virabhadra on its own is just too predictable. Bein’ a one trick pony ain't no good. Don’t tell Travis I said that, though.” Tullan said.
“Kinda late for that…” Aegis motioned to his live streaming icon with a maintained viewership of over 1 million.
“Ah… well, what’re yeh gonna do.” Tullan shrugged.
“What claws?” Lina asked curiously, turning from Pyri who was in the process of figuring out where to fasten the tome now that she’d already equipped it.
“These…” Aegis lifted up a small orange orb so that she could inspect the item card of the claws. Lina leaned in to read them, then pulled back with wide eyes.
“Those are perfect for you, Aegis!” She cheered excitedly. “That way, when you need a hand free, you don’t even need to unequip them. And they do lots of damage! And it scales off of your unarmed skill!” Lina went on, and following this, the others all grunted in agreement.
“You’ll need to do the intermediate quest.” Rakkan explained.
“Then you’ll need to level it from 30 to 150.” Darkshot added.
“And then, the unarmed advanced 150 quest. I heard it’s pretty tough.” Tullan joined in.
“It’s fine. I also need to do the advanced shield mastery quest, so I’ll be in the area.” Aegis shrugged. “The real question is, what do we use this Concentrated Darkness on? It’s got 15 charges.” Aegis asked, and they all nodded, followed by them all becoming silent once more.
“Well, I suppose we should get going. Best of luck! And if you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to ask!” Yumily called out to them. Aegis and the cross-legged boys didn’t reply.
“Okay. Thank you! And, I love your music…” Lina replied weakly on their behalf.
“Thank you!” Yumily smiled at her with a polite bow as Kenji moved to her side. Once together, the three walked out of the barracks leaving Aegis’ party and Tullan to continue to think on it.
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"I'm going to kill him. I swear, I will log in right now and do it. The most famous pop idol in existence, and he didn't even say bye to her!" Hae-won fumed, stomping around her broadcasting simulation as she watched Aegis' dumb expression whilst he pondered what to craft.
"She kind of seemed happy though, right? I mean, don't idols get annoyed by people constantliny fawning over them? She's probably relieved that he's treating her as if she's just a normal pe-" Shinji tried to reply through a voice call with Hae-won, on Aegis' behalf, but Hae-won was having none of it.
"You shut your mouth. Shut your dirty editor mouth. You shut it right now!" Hae-won snapped back with ferocity. Following this, a stream of 'lol', 'lmao', and 'angry Hae-won is the best' messages all appeared in Aegis' chat, but some messages were in total agreement with Hae-won, as it became clear that many viewers of the stream were still only watching to see Yumily.
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“Alright. That’ll be okay.” Pyri declared, having fastened the tome to her robes using a small leather strap she’d pulled out of her inventory. She looked triumphantly at it, but quickly noticed no one else was looking and glared down at the four. “Didn’t you guys need to repair an airship? Why not ponder while you’re doing that.” Pyri grumbled at them.
“Good idea, I think better with me hands in motion.” Tullan replied as he quickly stood up, and the others followed.
“Aegis…” Darkshot began as the group started heading out of the barracks. “I know you just finished crafting us all this new stuff, but…”
“I mean, once your crafting gets higher, the quality of your stuff will go up, right?” Rakkan joined in on the request. Though it hadn’t been fully articulated yet, Aegis knew what they were asking him.
“The mithral equipment you guys have now was a rush job. My blacksmithing and mining hasn’t been leveled up fully yet… Once I finish grinding a bit more, and hammering out all of the requests from Chax, I’ll push my skills up to advanced and recraft your gear. Higher skill will allow me to imbue more extra materials into the crafts to give the items more options - I’ll be sure to include the concentrated darkness in the best ones for you guys.” Aegis replied.
“Ok. Sounds good to me.” Darkshot replied, and Rakkan nodded in agreement.
“Yer gonna use up all the charges for yer party?” Tullan asked with a hint of disappointment in his voice.
“Well… I’m sure there’d be some left over for Herilon, and Quinn… or someone like that.” Aegis shrugged, causing Tullan to sigh with relief. From there, the group went quiet again as each of them began daydreaming about their ideal, perfectly crafted mithral weapons and tools, and they silently ascended up the Skyport Tower until arriving at the pier where the heavily damaged Sky Darling was docked.
“Finally, I’ve been waiting all day. My poor darling is hurting.” Leonard called out to them from the deck of his ship, Gregory standing patiently beside him. “Oh my, aren’t you lovely…” Leonard said with suddenly wide eyes, staring at Pyri. Aegis wasn’t sure who he was referring to, and found himself following his eyes to see that he’d been talking about his mom. Pyri, upon seeing that he was complimenting her, began blushing shyly.
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“Surely your hands are too delicate to be fiddling with splinters of wood. Care to join me for a glass of wine while the boys do the heavy lifting?” Leonard asked her, ignoring the presence of everyone else completely.
“Why, that sounds lovely.” Pyri smiled, taken in by Leonard’s accent.
“Mom…” Aegis grumbled at her in annoyance.
“What? I’m no good at this crafting stuff anyway.” Pyri shrugged at him with a look of feigned innocence before quickly stepping ahead of the others, climbing up the boarding plank onto the deck of the ship. As she neared the top, Leonard reached out his hand to assist her in stepping from the boarding plank onto the deck.
“Right this way, I’ll show you to my wine collection below deck where you can choose whichever bottle piques your interest.” Leonard grinned mischievously at her, leading Pyri away from the others while Aegis awkwardly glanced at Rakkan and Darkshot before looking back at Pyri and Leonard disappearing below the deck of the ship.
It suddenly became very awkward, as Lina smiled uncomfortably at Aegis once they’d got on board the ship. Tullan broke the silence by loudly clearing his throat and walking over to where the damage had been done to the ship.
“Alright, Let’s get this started, shall we? Any special requests from the captain?” Tullan turned to Gregory.
“No.” Gregory replied coldly.
“Right then.” Tullan clapped his hands together loudly. “Let’s just put ‘er back to the way she was, shall we?” Tullan suggested before sending out a work project invitation to the others.
It was a long few hours of effort, but the group worked together efficiently to repair the Sky Darling. Tullan provided the high quality wooden planks for the repairs, and Aegis and him worked together in giving out instructions to Darkshot, Lina, Rakkan, and Gregory. By the time they’d finished, the sun was setting on the Shattered World, and Pyri and Leonard had set up chairs near the front of the deck with a small table between them, multiple bottles of wine set atop it.
They were chatting, laughing, and sipping wine together, ignoring the fact that the others were all working hard on the ship repairs behind them as they enjoyed the view of the sun setting over the island of Kalmoore.
“What is happening right now?” Aegis mumbled in disbelief as he and the others had finished the job and approached the pair from behind.
“Don’t ask me.” Darkshot shrugged, while Rakkan made a great deal of effort to keep his head down, staring at his feet as if they were the most interesting things in the virtual world.
“She’s making a new friend.” Lina smiled awkwardly at Aegis.
“Yes. Leonard makes lots of new friends.” Gregory replied in a mocking tone.
Right then.” Tullan spoke loudly, interrupting Pyri and Leonard’s conversation a few meters away. “Job’s all done.”
“Oh, wonderful!” Leonard replied excitedly as he and Pyri stood up, turning to face the group. Both were still holding glasses of wine, and Leonard had somehow managed to unbutton his white dress shirt at some point to reveal his character's ridiculously defined abs. Aegis awkwardly glared down at them as the wind blew over the deck of the ship, brushing his shirt back to reveal his bare, muscled chest more clearly, of which Pyri was blatantly staring at.
“Pyri here was just telling me about your desire to revisit the Kiepalt forest. Shall we head out now? You can experience your very first flight on my Airship…” Leonard turned to Pyri and winked at her.
“Ooh, I can’t wait.” Pyri smiled at him.
“Hol’ it.” Tullan cleared his throat to interrupt them, much to Aegis’ relief. “Yer fergettin last time how we got up to the clouds. Trexon’s finished by now, give me a moment…” Tullan replied as he opened up his interface to send a message to Trexon. “Aye, give it a sec.” Tullan nodded once he’d finished, closing out of his interface.
“A sec for what?” Darkshot asked curiously, glancing at Tullan who walked towards the side of the ship and began peering off the side down at the city of Kordas below. The others joined him, and a few moments later, a dark gray stony figure appeared from the streets below, soaring up towards them, making a stony squawking noise.
As Snowflake flew up over the side of the ship, he swerved back down and landed with a loud thud on the deck before excitedly walking towards Aegis and nudging the side of his beak into his chest.
“Snowflake couldn’t fly anymore, because he’s a golem. So I asked Trexon to enchant the fly spell onto him. Now he can fly again!” Aegis explained excitedly while attempting to ruffle Snowflake’s feathers, but finding them rather hardened and immovable. Still, Snowflake appeared to enjoy the rubs on his head. “I also talked to Amlie about making permanent stone dyes, so we can get his color back to normal. Gray doesn’t really suit you, does it lil buddy?” Aegis asked, and Snowflake squawked in agreement.
“Alright.” Leonard clapped his hands together. “Everyone ready to set sail?”
“Aye, I’ll be stayin’ behind. Ain't no reason for me to come along. You kids have fun.” Tullan waved as he headed off the ship. Once he’d left, Gregory pulled up the boarding plank and untied the ship from the pier while Leonard made his way up to the stern.
“Everyone prepare for take off!” Leonard called out joyously as his fingers began glowing yellow - the side sails extending out from the side of the ship. Hearing this, Aegis watched as not just Pyri, but Rakkan, Darkshot and Lina all excitedly looked forward.
“Right. I guess this is the first time for all of you, huh?” Aegis said as he watched them. A few moments later, the ship began moving forward away from the Skyport, and Aegis was reminded of his first time experiencing the Airship taking off. He could see it in their eyes, the exact same sense of wonder he had felt as the Airship narrowly navigated between the tall buildings of Kordas until clearing the city and soaring above the open fields of Kalmoore.
“Would you like to try steering a bit?” Leonard suddenly called out to Pyri, once he was sure there was nothing nearby that the ship could hit.
“Oh, me?” Pyri looked up at him with surprise. “I don’t know, I’ve been drinking a bit…” Pyri blushed.
“Oh nonsense, it’s just virtual wine. You’ll be fine. Come, I insist…” Leonard motioned her up towards the upper deck where the wheel was.
“Okay…” Pyri replied with childlike excitement as she quickly rushed towards him.
“Did he ever let you steer the ship?” Darkshot asked Aegis as the others huddled around him.
“No…” Aegis replied grumpily.
“At least she’s having fun…” Lina tried to cheer Aegis up, as his face showed nothing but awkward annoyance at the situation. Snowflake squawked in agreement at this statement, but it didn’t make Aegis feel any better as he watched Leonard whisper something into Pyri’s ear, and the pair giggled at the apparent joke he had made. Leonard then moved to stand behind her, his shirt still open and flapping in the wind, and he put his hands on her arms to help her properly grip the stern and instruct her how to steer the airship.
“We’re never riding this airship ever again.” Aegis sighed as he turned away from the scene and crossed his arms.
After several airbursts, the Sky Darling arrived below the floating sky island in the Kiepalt forest in under an hour. Still, to Aegis, it felt much longer than that. By the time they’d arrived, the sun had set and night had overtaken the island of Kalmoore.
“I’ll just be up to turn in the quest. Do any of you want to come with me?” Aegis asked the group, to which Lina eagerly nodded. “You could cast fly, to come up with me. You know.” Aegis called out loudly, realizing that Pyri had ignored him as she was in mid-conversation with Leonard up at the stern.
“Huh? Oh, no thanks. You’ll be fine by yourself. I’m going to stay on the ship.” Pyri replied dismissively to him before going back to talking with Leonard. Aegis then awkwardly glanced at Darkshot and Rakkan, who both avoided his gaze.
“You’re her husbands. You better not let Leonard do anything.” Aegis instructed them in a commanding tone.
“Huh? Yeah…” Darkshot replied uncomfortably.
“Right…” Rakkan nodded with his head still tilted downwards. Aegis reluctantly climbed onto Snowflake, and Lina got on behind him, gently placing her hands on Aegis’ waist.
“Let’s go, Snowflake.” Aegis said, and Snowflake let out an excited squawk before launching himself off the deck of the ship, into the skies above it as he flapped his stony wings upwards towards the cloud island above.
The moment he tilted upwards, Lina felt herself falling back and desperately threw her arms around Aegis to hold on tight as Aegis put his arms around Snowflake’s neck. It wasn’t long before Lina grew very comfortable in holding Aegis tight like this, so was disappointed when Snowflake flew over the top of the sky island and landed on the grass of the silver garden.
“We’re here.” Aegis announced as he released his arms from holding onto Snowflake’s neck and leaned back into Lina, but she continued to hold her arms around Aegis from behind, squeezing him tight for a few moments longer than she needed to.
“Come, let’s meet the Silver Dragon.” Aegis eventually said, getting a nod from Lina as she finally released him and the two climbed off of Snowflake’s back. Together, they walked through the Silver garden towards the large structure in the center, where a familiar humanoid draconid was waiting for them.
“You’ve returned.” Ysil’atrilios spoke with a smile. “My mother has been eagerly awaiting your arrival. Come,” He motioned towards the doors behind him before promptly placing his hands on the central circle. Like last time, the circular runes lit up, and a few moments later the large stone doors grinded open to reveal the interior.
They caught Ysil’mareina in the process of attempting to stand up on her weakened legs. She managed to get up onto her legs for a few moments, wobbling due to lack of strength. But as she saw Aegis approaching, her strength gave out and she collapsed back down onto her belly and let out a sigh of frustration.
“It is taking much longer than I had hoped to return to my former strength.” She explained to Aegis as he, Lina, Snowflake and Ysil’atrilios entered her nesting chamber.
“I’ve learned a bit about rehabilitation. I think patience is the key.” Aegis explained to her. “Though, I’m not really sure how it works with dragons…” His voice trailed off.
“I felt your victory over the Avatar of Jealousy. I believe all of my kind did, as did many others across this world. Truly, I am impressed. I thought such a feat would be impossible.” Ysil’mareina smiled at him.
“You can feel the Avatars?” Aegis asked her curiously with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes. I can sense the presence of the remaining 12 walking this world still, spreading their influence.”
“What are the names of the other 12?” Aegis asked.
“Unfortunately, their nature is not apparent to me. There are some who would hold such knowledge, but we are not quite ready to seek out their allegiance. Or rather, should I say, you are not yet ready.” She cleared her throat, and Aegis found himself mesmerized once more by the giant tongue flapping within her huge silver dragon snout as she spoke. “You have convinced me, and my kind, to aid the people of the light once more in the battle against the Darkness. But that will not be enough. In order to retake the world’s surface, we will need the aid of the Wildlings.”
“Wildlings?” Aegis asked her curiously.
“Wildlings are what the creatures that watch over Wildwood trees are called.” Lina explained in an excited whisper.
“Yes.” Ysil’mareina nodded in Lina’s direction. “Unlike my kind, the Wildlings are immortal. Whenever slain, they are reborn as a seed, waiting to be planted so that they may grow anew. Their knowledge and power is far beyond anything I possess, but they do not befriend others easily. You must be able to display a great knowledge of many things in this world in order to impress them. So before you set out to befriend the wildlings, I must request that you improve your skills in the many crafts of this world.” Ysil’mareina explained, and once she’d completed her explanation, a new quest prompt appeared for Aegis.
Quest[4/6]: Improve your skills in preparation for meeting with the Wildlings.
Objective: 1/1: Skill Level 150 Healing Wind
1/1: Skill Level 150 Heal
1/1: Skill Level 150 Bless
1/1: Skill Level 150 Avatar of Eirene
1/1: Skill Level 150 Aura of Light
0/1: Skill Level 150 Holy Mastery
1/1: Skill Level 150 Shield Mastery
1/1: Skill Level 150 Any Armor Proficiency
1/1: Skill Level 30 Any Resistance
0/1: Skill Level 150 Leadership
0/1: Skill Level 150 Taming
0/1: Skill Level 150 Riding
0/1: Skill Level 150 Crafting Mastery
0/14: Skill Level 150 Any Crafting Skill
Quest Giver: Ysil’mareina, The Silver Garden, Kalmoore
Reward: Advanced Class: (Unknown)
Difficulty: Extreme(III)
Restriction: Ysil’mariena must survive.
Seeing the quest requirements, Aegis let out a long, drawn out sigh as he hit the accept button.
“Yeah… yeah…” He grumbled to himself as he turned to Lina, who looked at him with sympathy. “I figured this was coming at some point.”
“What is it?” Lina asked him worriedly.
“I’ve got some grinding to do.” Aegis replied.