Second World Novel

Field of Swords gave Jack another ammunition for AOE assaults, which was the preferred assault during a war. The damage didn’t seem like much but he would have to see how many swordlights were conjured to make a proper judgment.

Ghost Sword at first glance seemed inferior to Phantom Blade. Phantom Blade had the same feat of bypassing the enemy’s defenses and blocks while the actual weapon could still parry the enemy’s attacks. However, Ghost Sword dealt higher damage and it was soul-type damage. Additionally, Peniel told Jack that he could still use other skills while Ghost Sword was active. If he used Brave Slash when Ghost Sword was active, the slash would become unblockable.

Jack didn’t pay much attention to the Lightning Mine and Magic Clone. Those spells would change once he fused them with Lightning Strike and Body Double. He would have to put fusing those spells on hold. He needed to see his grandfather first.

Before that, he wanted to use the souls inside the Container of Souls. After thinking for some time, he decided there was one spell that he wanted to fully max. Not just its level, but its star as well.

He opened his containers of souls and used 1,200,000 souls to upgrade Reset to its fourth star. Each star reduced the cooldown further by another 6 minutes. His Reset’s cooldown was now four hours and thirty-six minutes.

Reset allowed him to use big skills with long cooldowns twice, which meant their usage frequency was doubled and thus increased the speed of their star upgrades. Fully reducing the cooldown of this spell would give the other skills a faster improvement pace.

A bunch of his other skills had their stars upgraded after repeated usage. A few received their first stars. They were Mirage Beast, Teleportation, and Ghost Form.

Each star of Mirage Beast increased the copy’s HP and attributes by 5%. So, at max ten stars, the copy from Mirage Beast would have 100% HP and attributes as the real Therras.

Each star of Teleportation reduced its cooldown by 6 seconds. When Jack acquired the tenth star of this spell, he would be able to use teleportation every minute.

Ghost Form’s every star reduced its speed penalty by 5%. If this spell was fully developed to the tenth star. The speed penalty would disappear, meaning Jack could move as fast as he normally did during ghost form.

Jeanny and Paytowin had left when Jack was reviewing and upgrading his skills. Grace was chatting with Tip and Captain Whitebeard while waiting for him.

“You’ve better not let Domon wait too long,” Tip said when Jack was still not moving. “He brought a guest just for you, and this guest is rather impatient.”

“You make me truly curious. Who is this guest?” Jack asked.

“If you want to find out so much, why don’t you just go meet them?” Captain Whitebeard said.

“What do we have here? A wise mouse?” Jack teased.

“Hey, you show respect to my friend!” Tip exclaimed.

“That’s right! I won’t let you off if you hurt my captain’s feeling!” Grace joined the chorus.

“Settle down, people. I can perfectly defend my honor,” Whitebeard said and then turned into a giant shark-like rat. his current form was now taller than Jack and he was looking down at Jack from above. “Do you feel lucky, punk?”

“Holy… Where do you learn to talk like that? All right, I apologize! My fault,” Jack said with a laugh. “But you do know the current me can easily whoop your ass, don’t you?”

As he said that, he noticed Whitebeard’s level was higher than before. Previously when the mouse first showed this form, his level was 68. Now, his level was 73. As a native, such a leveling speed should be impossible.

“Hehe, he is my companion,” Tip said with a grin.

Whitebeard turned back to a little mouse and gave Tip his palm. “My bro!” He exclaimed as the two did a high five.

“You shouldn’t teach him all those street talks,” Jack said to Tip. He then turned to Grace, “Let’s go, Grace. Or if you want to stay and chat with this wise street mouse. It’s okay.”

Grace made a motion as if she was going to kick Jack, Jack dodged and ran out the door. Grace chased after him.

“Sigh… Young people. Love does make them act weirdly,” Tip said.

“How old are you?” Whitebeard asked.

“Nineteen,” Tip answered.

“… Don’t worry, bro. You will find yours one day,” Whitebeard said.

*

Before Jack went to the Space-time Chamber, he made a stop first at the guild warehouse to take common-grade equipment and blacksmith materials so he could fuse them using his Transformation Prism. Aside from that, he also checked the available exchange items Jeanny had put in for members to exchange using their guild contribution points.

Most of the items were of no interest to him except for the gemstones. After so long and with many members’ efforts, they had acquired a collection of legendary-grade gemstones. Inside the exchangeable list were all the six gemstones of the legendary grades. That’s why Jack didn’t bother to keep any legendary-grade gemstone he had gotten.

However, Jeanny set the contribution points needed for these legendary gemstones at the maximum possible. Jack never used his guild contribution points for anything other than to get the common-grade equipment and material. He always donated a portion of the fused equipment back into the warehouse so he always ended up with more guild contribution points than the ones he had spent.

Even then, Jack only had enough to exchange for three legendary gemstones. Amethyst, emerald, and amber.

Jeanny only copied one gemstone of each type. She never put in two identical gemstones. Only after one of them was taken then she would copy the one that had been taken, considering if she had spare mana cores. Hence, Jack had to take three different gemstones.

He used the emerald on his Runestone of Marching, bringing its elemental energies to 54,900. The amber was used for the Runestone of Spellcasting, its elemental energies were now 32,500. The amethyst was consumed by his Runestone of Luck, increasing its elemental energies to 98,150. This runestone only needed another 1,850 elemental energies to reach its maximum potential.

Jack could have exchanged for a diamond instead of the emerald or amber to fully level up his Runestone of Luck, but he thought it was a waste to use a legendary gemstone for that amount of elemental energy. A unique gemstone would have sufficed.

Unfortunately, Jeanny didn’t copy gemstones of lower grades because she considered it a waste of mana cores for copying lower-grade consumables. So, Jack had to leave the level-up of his Runestone of Luck for later.

Jack resumed going to the Space-time Chamber with Grace after leaving the warehouse. When they arrived at the entrance, they saw The Man standing guard there.

“What are you doing here? Are you waiting for someone?” Jack asked The Man.

“Master Domon said you are coming today, so he instructed everyone to leave the chamber. This chamber is restricted until your business inside is done. My job is to stop anyone other than you from entering.”

“Me included?” Grace asked.

“Uh… Master Domon did say everyone except for Jack,” The Man answered.

“What about the nightmares and the satyrs? He didn’t chase them out, did he? They are our guests,” Jack asked.

“No. But Master Domon requested them to stay in their corner. The nightmares’ mother, or her spirit, I guess, erected a flame barrier that seals that corner. You will see a giant flaming dome when you enter.”

“So, the old man is inside alone with his guest?” Jack asked.

“Guests. There were two of them, and Master Domon is with Haon,” The Man answered.

“The hell? If he is allowed to bring company, then I should be allowed as well. Grace, you follow me in!” Jack exclaimed.

“But…,” The Man tried to stop Jack.𝑛𝑂𝗏𝓮𝒍𝐍𝔢xt.𝑪𝐎𝑀

“Hey, who is your boss?” Jack gave The Man a stare.

“Ugh… You are…,” The Man stepped aside and let the two enter.

“You shouldn’t be jealous that your grandfather has a favorite disciple,” Grace said to Jack as they stepped inside the chamber.

“Who says I’m jealous?” Jack refuted.

Inside, they saw the flaming dome The Man mentioned. The flame that formed the wall was rather thick, they couldn’t see what was inside the dome. On the opposite side, they saw four people standing and talking. Jack and Grace walked toward them.

As they approached, they could better listen to their conversation. It was mostly two of the four who talked. Rather than talk, it was more like arguing. The arguing pair saw Jack and they stopped their conversation.

Two out of the four were Domon and Haon. As for the other two, one was an old woman while the other was a teenage girl. Jack didn’t recognize the old woman, but he knew the teenage girl.

It was the crazy girl from Cipher Flight whom Jack killed during the Verremor invasion war.