Might as Well

Choosing a new armor wasn’t a simple affair. His old one, made from high-quality troll leather, had served him faithfully so far, but it was time to upgrade. More and more people were walking around in expertly crafted enchanted armor. They were far from the ones that provided stat boosts like in other games, as here, in Magic Unbound, crafting items that boosted stats without any drawbacks was exceedingly hard.

The forums were awash with crafters debating the best way to alloy metals, use leathers from different monsters and beasts, products from said creatures, and naturally, how to apply magic to the entire process. The game’s robust magical system created some kind of schism between crafters.

One group claimed that the process should be separated. One crafter should only focus on the physical crafting part, while another should be doing the actual enchanting and other magical improvements, thus maximizing gains and minimizing losses.

The other group claimed that this was bullshit, as the magical enchantments were much stronger and more potent if somebody who had intrinsic knowledge of them applied it during the crafting process to the artifacts.

Both groups had their detractors and supporters, though the merchants and suppliers simply enjoyed the ‘arms race’ as both groups tried to prove they were right.

Sam had his money on the second group…

His first task was choosing the shape. The troll leather armor was simple, providing protection for his upper body, but he wanted something more. In the end, he chose one that protected him from every side and came with armored pieces for his legs. It wasn’t full body protection, but on the upside, it allowed a full range of movement. There was protective armor on his shins, added to his boots, and some on his thighs.

It was made of some rare – and very pricey – wyvern leather, reinforced with metallic scales crafted from some mana conductive alloy that the armorer developed himself. The man was very proud, calling it his masterpiece. While trying on the armor, he sent a quick message to Lucy to make sure the armorer was brought into the guild fully.

Sam had no doubt that was the reason the man unveiled his creation. He glanced at the shrewd man, but he just gave him a cheerful wave as he flitted around Sam, making sure that the armor would be a perfect fit.

The enhancements were a bit tricky. Despite the superior quality of the alloy, the base materials still weren’t amazing, thus the crafter could only add so many enchantments, but still, Sam was satisfied.

Standing before a mirror that was covering a good part of the wall, he turned around and wondered at his new armor. No pinches, chafing, or anything like that. Plus, it looked badass…

Opening the screen for the item, he read it again.

[Scaled Wyvern Leather Light Armor Set: Created by an experienced journeyman crafter employed by your company. They worked extra hard to make sure they would be well compensated later. Excellent quality, shy of being masterwork. It is resistant to magic and physical damage and is made of a material slightly heavier than the usual light armor. It is enchanted to decrease the sound it makes during movement, aids with channeling mana, and was made very aerodynamic.]

It wasn’t made exactly to aid in channeling mana. Instead, it was made to not impede his mana channeling like most metal armors. Perfect for Sam.

Doing a little twirl before the mirror, Sam spoke up. “What do you think, Lucky?”

His loyal companion, who watched the entire process while gnawing on spare wyvern bones, courtesy of the craftsman, looked up from his snack and barked once happily before returning to his meal.

Sam grinned and turned to the craftsman who was watching him with an experienced customer service smile, though Sam could see the hidden anxiety in his eyes.

“Excellent work! I love it!” he declared.

The other man let out an almost inaudible sigh before responding. “I’m very glad, dear customer.” The man never asked for his name and Sam never provided it. “I hope you’ll take my skills into consideration…” he hinted, not so subtly.

Sam just gave the man an enigmatic smile. “Naturally… now, how much do I owe you?”

This time, there was no anxiety in the man’s eyes. Only greed.

“Oh, my dear customer, it’s not much, but…”

And thus began the ancient dance of haggling.

Sam left the workshop poorer but with respect for the other person’s social skills, leaving behind an elated craftsman. Not that he minded. His new armor was pretty sweet.

As he walked away, he went over his tasks.

‘Alright, armor get. That’s done. I still have the rune teacher, but let’s shelve that for later. I really need to catch up with leveling…’ he mused.

Some guilds were all yelling from the rooftops that their people would be the first to reach Level 100. It hadn’t happened yet, but Sam knew they were getting close. According to some generous estimates that he made thanks to the information Lucy painstakingly collected from the forums and other parts of the internet and his access to the Shadowland forums, he knew that people would be soon reaching Level 90.

He would need to use a few shortcuts to catch up, but that would be no problem. They were mostly exploits that could be found by anybody. Will they get patched out after he used them for a while? Most definitely. But it would still provide a modest boost to his leveling.

‘I need to put together a schedule and a plan. The team will follow, but we will need a lot of supplies. What else?’ he pondered as he walked through the city.

“How was the crafter?” Lucy asked from the seat across from him. They decided to meet up in a restaurant that provided private rooms and didn’t mind if they spent time talking instead of ushering them out as soon as they finished.

“Splendid! We need him in the guild,” Sam answered as he speared another morsel on his fork.

Lucy nodded with a mischievous look on his face. “Then he passed his last test…”

“Oh?”

“Making an armor for you was the last test for his entry. He was pretty excited to do it,” she explained, chuckling a little.

Sam was surprised, but in the end, he joined her. “Pretty smart.”

“Thanks!” They fell silent and spent some more time with their excellent food. It was after they were finished with the dessert and were picking through some snacks that Sam brought up the reason why they were meeting in real life and not in the game.

“What’s your opinion about my plan?”

Lucy wiped her mouth daintily and retrieved a small laptop that Sam knew had its internet capabilities removed. You could never be too careful.

“I went over your schedule and plans and it seems solid, but I do have a few suggestions…”

Sam took out his own device, opened it, and waited for his friend’s advice.

“I’m all ears…”

“Right! Well, first of all, you need to take into account that…”

Returning to the game, Sam made sure his armor was in all right condition, Lucky was happy and sated, then went to pick up the first part of the supplies prepared by Lucy. He would need to pass a little time while his teammates gathered and Lucy got the rest of the supplies for him, but he had a few ideas for that.

First, a visit to the temporary guild headquarters.

The building was bustling with people, not dissimilar to the one back in the previous one Adam led, but as Sam walked around, he could see that the very air was different. There were fewer people eyeing him as a juicy target and more people happily spending their time training or just resting.

Lucy had made sure that the temporary building was not only equipped with a decent training hall – plus the required silencing and odor wards – but also several cafes operated by the company. The guild members, at least the new ones, got some decent discounts, but they would still have to pay for their food and drinks.

Those who were elevated higher, after some tests and contracts, would receive ever-increasing discounts until the service provided would be free. But based on the few grumbles he had heard as he walked around, not many had that privilege.

There were offices for several NPC-led departments, mostly to process the incoming requests for the guild. They were loaned from the company or were hired after they were 'coincidentally' let go by several noble houses. Sam was a little worried about them, but Lucy and Tim reassured him that this was all part of the game.

‘Ugh… that’s why I hate politics. Thank the gods for Lucy and Tim…’ he grumbled to himself.

There was also an office where guild members could exchange their earned points – no gold accepted – for items from the vault. Thankfully, the game system provided an excellent interface where they could set up the system.

People could get contribution points for all sorts of things. Donating materials, gold, and even information to the guild, going out, and fulfilling requests sent to the guild. These could range from patrolling mountain passes to clearing randomly appearing fractures. They could also protect the guild from assailants.

Sam was set up as a guild officer in the system, with almost the maximum number of permissions, though some of them required approval from Adam and Lucy too.

Satisfied, he left the building and returned to headquarters, where the second part of the ‘supplies’ was waiting for him.

Under the building, inside a stone room with smooth walls, was a simple ritual circle carved into the ground. A basic focusing circle. Around it was another more complex circle, also a focusing one, and then a final circle enveloped the two inside it, creating three very complex concentric circles.

“I hope this will work because it cost a lot of money to hire a ritual master… We could only do it because Lord Silvercrest vouched for us.” Lucy said a little waspishly as she stood at the door watching Sam inspect the circles.

He looked up and gave her a thankful smile. “Thanks! This is perfect!”

“Do you think it will work?” she asked, chewing her lips with worry.

Sam took another look and then nodded. “My runic skills are not too high, but from what I know this should work… if not, then I will pay for it from my own pocket.”

Lucy cast a worried gaze at him, then at the runic circles before nodding. “I will trust your assessment.”

“Much obliged…”

“I will leave you to it then… Good luck, Sam!” she called out before turning around and leaving the room, closing the door behind him.

Sam chuckled a little, then spent a minute divesting himself of his armor and every magical artifact he wore, only leaving some cotton pants and a simple shirt on his body.

“Lucky, go play with Lucy a little, please!” he called and waited until he heard a small echoey bark before his loyal familiar’s comforting ever-present presence faded from his shadow.

He took a comfortable seat in the middle of the circle, and spent a few minutes just meditating, making sure that his breathing was as calm as possible, then he opened his eyes and with a twist of his mind, illusionary runes began appearing around the third circle, hovering in the air, their smokey forms pulsing with mana.

One circle to connect with the rest on the floor.

Another circle to create a bridge.

And one more to extend that bridge.

That was six circles. He checked his mana levels and then decided to go for one more to make it extra magical.

With a great effort, sweat falling down on his brows, after more than half an hour, he crafted the last circle of runes. This one was for stabilizing the entire ritual, with his Heart Rune sitting in all cardinal directions.

He smirked a little, knowing that most players would be green with envy, as this was only possible thanks to his eclectic collection of skills that allowed him to multitask and layer a number of spells on each other.

Then Sam closed his eyes and starting with the first circle, the one that stabilized everything, he began feeding his mana into it. Slowly, and cautiously, he made sure that every nook and cranny was filled, then using the bridges built, he led the mana from the seventh circle into the sixth. And when that was full and shining strong enough that he could feel it through his closed eyelids, he turned his attention to the fifth. Soon, the fourth followed. The third was carved into the ground, and thanks to its high quality was extremely easy to fill up, the second and first were the same.

There was no need to speak out loud, but Sam felt a little dramatic.

“Three to focus, three to cast my eyes far. One to bind them and be the fulcrum that reveals the truth to me!”

The circles pulsed one after another, first the seventh, then the sixth, and so on. Then the order reversed.

“Three to focus, three to cast my eyes far. One to bind them and be the fulcrum that reveals the truth to me!”

The pulsing sped up, and Sam could feel the mana from the environment being siphoned to the circles carved into the floor. He was pretty sure if he opened his eyes, he would be blinded by the intense light that the mana was giving off.

“Three to focus, three to cast my eyes far. One to bind them and be the fulcrum that reveals the truth to me!” he repeated for the third time, just to keep up with the nature of magical numbers.

He was rewarded by another pulse, this one big enough that he couldn’t differentiate where it originated from, before the mana quieted down for half a breath, like the calm before the storm.

He waited another breath, letting the ritual and spell settle before exclaiming. “Release!”

Instantly, the gathered mana exploded from the circles. But instead of destroying, the mana simply passed through everything, doing nothing to the material world. Instead, in Sam’s mind, a very vague map bloomed, that was slowly increasing in size.

First, the vague mana blob that was the city, then the nearby fractures, and the outposts built around them. The resolution on the ‘map’ was crap, but Sam didn’t care. He was only looking for one thing and one thing only.

The Valley of Distortion.

Well, technically he already knew where it was, after all, he had the memories of a person who spent years reading about it. Real-life years, even. But alas, this was not something he could accidentally discover.

But fractures were easy to sense, and with the ritual he could amplify his sensing skills, sending the mana out in the world along the ley lines. He watched as his awareness grew and grew, soon reaching the mountains and valleys bordering the country, while he tried to sense his target.

‘There!’ he exclaimed in his mind as his skill showed another distinct blob of weird mana, which even from a distance, felt like fractures. The blob was ever-shifting in size and intensity, hidden in a valley, both by the environment and the mana leaked from these fractures.

He quickly memorized the location, as well as the location of a few fractures that seemed strong and were not being exploited. Then he simply waited for the spell to run its course. Sadly, he couldn’t really sense geographical features through the spell, only a very crude and abstract representation of mana concentration. The price of the ritual…

As the wave of mana began to peter out, he let it escape his grip and waited until the mana fully left the runic circles. His own illusionary runic circles were gone, but the ones on the ground were slightly sizzling, and Sam saw several places where the stone was melted, ruining the circle.

He waited a little more, then stood up, stretching with a grin on his face.

“Leveling, here I come!”