B2 Chapter 46 - Retirement Money
My inventory felt like a fever dream.
A total of twenty-four gear pieces filled every slot within, which became thirty-two when Veyra spread her loot on the ground alongside mine. Eight epic uniques, thirteen legendaries, ten legendary uniques, and one mythic item.
The items literally didn’t fit in Veyra’s childhood home. We instead had to bring the loot to her “bombing grounds”, laying everything neatly on the stone for us to examine. Armor pieces, staves, rings…
“This is a whole ass gallery!” I said. “We could literally build a royal treasury with these.”
Veyra just grinned in silence. As usual, she wasn’t really one to bounce around in celebration. That was the disbelieving smile of someone who knew they’d live a very comfortable life from today onward. Money wouldn’t be an issue for a long time if we sold even half of these.
In the middle of it all, the heavenly blade of The Celestial Runesword reflected sunlight. Veyra grabbed it. “I was there when this dropped, you know. I can’t believe it’s ours now.”
“Annath must be crashing out just about now,” I said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she valued this more than her guild.”
“Actually, when it dropped, Annath’s first plan was to sell the sword and spread a chunk of it with the guild. We had to insist that she keep it as an investment to speed up our pace.”
“Really?”
“Annath usually means well,” Veyra said. “She really isn’t as evil as you think.”
“It's ours now, though,” I said. I felt a little bad, but not enough to stop myself from grinning. “I’d say we’re auctioning it off, right?”
“Yeah, that should be the best way to make money.” She thought about something for a bit, before saying, “She wouldn’t give my staff back if I lost it. I also don’t think she’d even accept the sword back if I offered it.”
“Honestly, I’m not surprised you’d offer it.”
“No, I won’t,” Veyra said. “She got greedy and betrayed Renlia and Veil. That didn’t work, and now she has to pay the price.”
“Expensive mistake, that’s for sure.”
We kept staring at the items, struggling to react from the sheer absurdity of the loot. I spotted CinderLight’s robe in there, and a few other items that were definitely core items to their owners’ builds. Still, top players were rich enough that losing an item or two wouldn’t put them to financial ruin.
“So, do we start looking at which items could be useful for us?” I asked.
“Yep,” Veyra said, and the task of reading through item descriptions began.
Fire Primordial’s Robe
Item Type: Legendary Robe (Unique Event Item)
Required Character Level: 213
Stats:
- +2000 Spell Power
- +17% Cooldown Reduction
- +10% to Fire Damage
- +50 All Elemental Resistances
Primordial Enkindlement (Passive): Every fifth cast of Enkindle casts Primordial Enkindlement, increasing the effectiveness of Enkindle by 50% and spreading flames violently around the enkindled target.
CinderLight’s robe—all around a solid item for a fire mage, though obviously useless for us. We agreed to put that to the auction for the highest bidder, expecting something around twenty to thirty thousand gold.
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Ring Of Jump Enhancement
Item Type: Epic Ring (Unique)
Required Character Level: 167
Stats:
- +10% Movement Speed
- +5% Maximum Stamina
- +15% Stamina Recovery
“What, how does this even work?” Veyra asked, showing me the ring. “The game just lets you… jump higher?”
I was more so wondering who the hell thought the effect was useful for combat in any way. The maximum stamina and recovery increase was good, I suppose. Not good enough to make the ring sell for any more than a few hundred. Still, Veyra thought it could be useful for cheesing something, which I doubted, but she wanted to stash it.
Mantra’s Highlight
Item Type: Legendary Amulet (Unique)
Required Character level: 229
Stats:
- +400 Spell Power
- +3 to Wisp Of Greater Healing
“Oh, man, this is so close to good!” Veyra said at the amulet. “That’s a thirty percent decrease to some shorter cooldowns. That’s insane.” She bit her lip, seriously considering it, before tossing it to the sell pile. “If only that was plus three to frost spells instead…”
Mask Of Soul Protection
Item Type: Legendary Headpiece
Required Character Level: 208
Stats:
- +200 All Elemental Resistances
- +5% Maximum Health
- +5% Health Recovery
“This could be decent, I suppose,” I said, examining the mask. It was pretty much just a cloth mask, having dropped from a ranger player. Not something I usually liked to wear aesthetically, but I’d have the option of lowering it to just wear it around my neck.
Veyra glanced at the stats. “That’s really good, no? It’ll let you tank at least one more hit from players. You’re always taking thirty percent damage from one hit anyway.”
“Yeah, this could work as one-shot protection. I guess I’ll use it for now.”
The remaining items were all good, but sadly unfitting for both of our builds. We had two support mages’ staves, Michelangelol’s enchanted mithril greaves, DJmikolele’s ring, and a dozen more items that went straight to the sell pile. The most expensive item after Annath’s sword was definitely Lrekk’s armor.
Riftbreaker’s Chestplate
Item Type: Legendary Chestplate (Unique Event Item)
Required Character Level: 249
Stats:
- +800 Defence
- +100 Attack Force
- +10% Cutting Sharpness
Nexus Rift (Passive): Activating an ultimate ability reverses the negative effects of Slash Of The Riftbreaker for ten seconds, making all attacks deal 10% additional damage and also increasing defence by 10%.
“So many stat-stick items today,” I said. “This is pretty good, though. Maybe fifty to eighty grand?”
“Yeah, all combined, these should be around seven hundred thousand gold, plus Annath’s sword, which is probably two million. We got lucky with that.”
Wow, I thought. Some of the drops were definitely unlucky, like missing out on Miko’s staff, which was famously really good, but getting Annath’s sword off-set any bad luck we might have had.
“Shame you didn’t get any upgrades, though,” I said. “I guess this is what it feels like to be the best mage in the game. I’m not even sure who you could kill for upgrades.”
“Eh, FireBrand has a ring I could kill him for,” she said with a smirk. “And same with Merami and Renlia. And there’s still a frost mage above me. Eirael from Zenith Protocol. I don’t think she was online for the raid.”
“I’m pretty sure it’ll be easier to just keep frontrunning bosses instead of trying anything funny with Zenith Protocol.”
She laughed. “Fair enough.”
After that, placing each item up for auction took us another twenty minutes. It was a surreal feeling, earning so much money from a guild wipe that happened on a whim. At the start of last year, I dreamed of obtaining even one item like this to prove to my family that I wasn’t just a useless member of society.
I’d never have to think of that anymore. I had enough money to buy a house, maybe even retire. I didn’t need to play Wonderwind out of desperation anymore. Veyra and I had achieved just about everything we realistically could, short of building and investing in a guild to truly make ourselves legends of Wonderwind.
I wasn’t competing against an unfair life or rent money anymore. From now on, my only goal was to compete against the mountains themselves—the legends and gods of the game who spent sixteen hours a day to ensure nothing could ever scratch the summit they stood upon. Zenith Protocol was the one guild nobody could touch, not the three best guilds together, and certainly not two players in a solo guild.
Although, I was quite interested in testing just how hard I’d need to hit to break the mountain under them.
Before any of that, there were much more important things to do. I turned to Veyra and asked, “So, want to go on a date?”