Second World Novel

As expected, it truly took him tons of attempts. Even after breaking a hundred lockpicks, he was still met with failures. However, through all the tries, his Lockpicking grade had increased to Advanced Apprentice. Each attempt on this Gold Treasure Chest netted him a large amount of proficiency.

Yet, when his one-hundredth lockpick broke, he was starting to worry. He only got around three hundred lockpicks in his bag. He had burnt out one-third of them already. He slapped his cheeks with both hands to force himself to concentrate. "Positive thinking! Positive thinking!" He motivated himself. Peniel simply sat on top of the treasure chest and looked at him silently.

When he reached two hundred attempts, he started to have cold sweat. This caused him to make mistakes several times, wasting a number of precious attempts. He broke away and have a walk around the room, taking deep breaths to calm himself. Peniel was still just looking at him without any words.

Jack came back again to the treasure chest. He gave a short glance to Peniel, but both of them didn't say a word. He then returned to his lockpicking effort.

When he only had fifty lockpicks left, he started to pray before every attempt. He even took a proper praying posture and spent a minute reciting a full prayer before every attempt when his lockpicks were down to twenty. Peniel simply looked at him, amused.

When he had only eight lockpicks left, he finally heard the notification telling him that he had successfully unlocked the chest. He was blank for a second, unsure if he had heard right. Peniel's voice roused him from his stupor. "Runestone of Luck!" She yelled.

Thanks to Peniel's reminder, he immediately summoned it, just as the treasure chest gave a click sound and started opening. When the lid was fully opened, it released an extremely bright golden light.

Did it have to be this exaggerated? Jack complained as he closed his eyes due to the brightness.

The brightness soon subsided, Jack peeked out one eye to make sure the bright light was gone. He then looked into the content of the chest.

There were only six items inside, but each radiated aura that gave his heart a loud thump.

"Hot damn!" He exclaimed

The six items were two pouches, a pair of boots, one large-sized diamond, a red smoldering pebble, and a strange-looking device.

He knew one of the pouches should be a coin pouch, he took both of them up and inspected them. One was indeed a coin pouch, containing 100 gold coins! He was slightly dizzy thinking about the coins, he could buy another plot of land with this. But more than that, combined with the coins he had saved, he could finally do another upgrade to either Ellie's restaurant or Amy's bakery. His first choice was of course the restaurant, it generated more income after all.

He looked at the second pouch, it was a mana core pouch. There were 42 mana cores inside. He put these mana cores, which he still knew not what their use was for, into his bag. He picked up the pair of boots next.

Speed Fury Chausses, level: 28/58 (super rare medium armor)

Physical defense: 72

Magical defense: 56

Durability: 50

Reflex +8

Defense +30% when moving

Movement speed +80% for 3 seconds after executing a skill

Another super rare! He compared this one with the Silver Wing Leggings he wore. Even though the level of these super rare boots was lower, its defense was still higher than his rare boots. The ability it provided was also handy. His fighting style had him moving most of the time, he was not like those players who like to stay in one place as they fought or cast spells. He liked to move around. Meaning this Defense +30% when moving suited him perfectly.

Its other ability was also perfect for him. His Power Strike had a 3 seconds cooldown. Meaning as long as he had enough stamina to continuously spam that skill, his movement speed would always be at 80% faster. Now he could again be faster than those high-dexterity Rogues.

Without hesitation, he exchanged his equipped boots with this new one. For a test run, he executed a Power Strike, then ran around.

"Let me say it again, you are weird," Peniel repeated her previous comment.

"Lady, I'm trying to get myself familiarize with the speed burst. Won't be funny if I end up missing my target in a fight because the sudden speed burst surprises myself."

After a round of running around the room, he went back to the treasure chest. The diamond gemstone was easily recognizable, but this large size was the first he had seen. When he used Inspect on it, the skill showed the gemstone to be a Unique grade.

He sucked in a deep breath. He then summoned his Runestone of Luck. "Time for you to level up," Jack said as he injected the elemental energy of the Unique Diamond into the runestone. He was amazed as he saw the numbers of elemental energy getting filled. Even after the runestone was upgraded to Super Rare grade, the elemental energy still continued to go up rapidly. It only slowed down after reaching the 2000 mark.

Runestone of Luck (super rare runestone)

Increase luck by approx. 10 points for 10 seconds.

Elemental energy required for upgrade: 2,350/10,000

The luck increased had doubled. He calculated the amount of elemental energy contained within that Unique grade Diamond, there was 2,500 elemental energy within a single gemstone. He could directly upgrade an uncommon runestone to a super rare grade if he found another one. But then again, It's not like Unique grade gemstone was lying around to be picked up. But considering his luck, which was further boosted by this super rare Runestone of Luck, sooner or later he should get himself one such gemstone again.

He unsummoned the Runestone of Luck and took a look at the next item in the treasure chest, the red smoldering pebble. Although he had never seen such an item before, he had an inkling of what it was. He took a random cloth from his bag. He had prepared several such mundane items in his bag just in case. He covered his hand with it before he picked up the pebble. He could feel the heat burning through the cloth. He quickly transferred it inside his storage bag while he could still endure the heat.

As expected, he thought as he inspected the item in his bag. It was another Evolve Seed. It was Fire Seed, a rare consumable.

Heh, he thought jovially. The last time was ice, this time was fire, two opposite elements. He thought for a brief moment before deciding. The last time he had used the Ice seed on the Mage skill, it's only fair if he used this one for his Warrior skill. He opened the evolve interface and used the Fire Seed on his favorite, most used melee skill, Power Strike.

Flame Strike, level 20/20 (Active skill, melee, require melee weapon), star: 2

Deal 400% fire damage, cause pushing force proportional to Strength stat.

25% chance to inflict Burn on target for 10 seconds.

Stamina consumed: 30

Cooldown: 5 seconds

The damage had been increased and as expected, the damage type was changed to fire damage, with additional property to cause Burn status. Stamina usage had been increased. The cooldown had also been increased by 2 seconds, Jack felt down due to it. And here he just thought about spamming Power Strike to utilize the speed boost of his new boots every 3 seconds. But then again, the ability was triggered by any skill, so he could just use other skills when Flame Strike was on cooldown.

Now, the only thing left inside the treasure chest was the strange-looking device. He left the most unknown one for the last. Peniel, however, knew exactly what it is. "I see you save the best for last," she said.

'Best?' Jack thought. The fairy had mistaken his reason, but he didn't bother to correct her. He picked up the device and made an Inspect.

Upgrade Cell (Unique Consumable)

Upgrade an item to the next grade

Another unique? It seemed that his luck added by the Runestone of Luck had truly worked wonder. Peniel once told him Gold treasure chest's highest grade content was a unique item, but the percentage was small. For him to acquire two was already considered the best of luck. The only thing he felt pity about was that none of these unique were equipment.

"It said upgrade an item. What item? Any item will do?" Jack asked the fairy.

"Yes," the fairy confirmed.

Jack thought for a bit and then took off his new boots. It seemed that he could get unique equipment after all.

"Don't tell me you are going to use it on those boots now, are you?" Peniel asked.

"Why not?" Jack asked back.

"Why not? Because it will be a big waste, is why. Put those boots back on!" Peniel commanded.