Chapter 741 - Put a ring on it

“So, after buying Pareth’s master item, I will be left with 782 million points… I think buying the curse ring is probably the smartest choice, as long as I don’t lose the philosopher’s stone. So that leaves me with 282 million and two more unique slots. Then, when I’m done being smart, I’ll buy the enhancement stone because I like gambling. 182 million left. The last purchase  is really the toughest… I could go back to the potions and grab on the Prismatic juice, but that might be a bit too much gambling. It’s likely to give me either light, lightning, or plasma immunity. But out of those only light immunity is useful at this point. I’m taking enough risks with the enhancement stone already. Which means I should rule out the feather too, too random.”

Sofia paced around the room, talking to herself.

“Agh… I really want the clothes, but at this point… I have enough money to get a similar item made for me outside. Then my choice would be permanent stats so the curse potion… But I’m already immune to a large majority of curses with the philosopher’s stone… Ugh… Maybe I should really just buy the fae potion and sit on it for a filter or two… ”

‘You have spent 500 000 000 tournament points’

[You have received: Cursed blood ring of Gomeroth]

‘You have spent 100 000 000 tournament points’

[You have received: Perfect chaos enhancement stone]

‘You have spent 10 000 000 tournament points’

[You have received: Fae concoction]

[Remaining Unique purchase count: 1/4]

‘Current balance : 1 172 938 579 points’

The ring was a simple blood-red band of multiple alloyed metals, it snapped around Sofia’s finger when she put it on.

“Hmm. I don’t feel anything special. The stone must be working properly, I better be careful not to take it off.”

For now, Sofia was just wearing the philosopher’s stone in a bone pendant on a soft bone necklace. She only quickly glanced at the glimmering potion in its mithril-glass flask before storing it in a lockbox in a corner of her storage ring. What she really wanted to do now, was to gamble.

The chaos stone was like a fist-sized purple gem with polished edges.

“So I just slam that against the scepter… Will this work from inside the toybox? Hello?”

[We will conduct the enhancement for you outside and relay the result, should you choose to do it now.]

“It would be nice to know who’s talking, but thank you. I’ll do it then.”

Sofia placed her scepter on her bed, and held the purple stone high above it.

Please… Don’t tell me I wasted those points!

She slammed the stone against the scepter, shattering it in a cloud of purple particles that quickly shot straight into the scepter sinking into its wood and its adamian steel reinforcements.

The scepter briefly shone with bright withe light, and that was it.

Sofia tried to identify it, only to get an error message thrown at her face.

Now I need to wait…

It’s here!

[Lumian Royal Hand Scepter +1] ♢ : 

A weapon that is eager to serve its ruler.

• Absorbs the backlash of forcefully canceled channeling.

• Cannot be damaged by the user’s magic.

• Halves channeling time.

• Halves the mana cost per second of sustained magic.

• Inflicts [Thunderbolt] on hit.

• Can hold and use the passive effects of 1 Ring (applied to itself).

Catalyst : [Prismatic Diamond Orb]

Accessory : [Regulator’s bauble]

Ring : None

A RING?!

“The name even changed… Let’s see… It lost quite a few things. The can’t be forcefully unequipped is gone, so is the projectile absorption and the extra range… It also lost the angel bolt damage protection. That’s a lot of negatives, but overall not a huge loss, the most important stats are all unaffected! And on the positives, the electrical damage on hit that used to be melee only now is [Thunderbolt], without a restriction…”

[Thunderbolt]: Strike your enemy with a sonorous thunderbolt! (Uses the weapon’s mana reserves)

That’s not saying much. But still… Does that mean that anyone I hit with a spell channeled through the scepter is going to eat an extra lightning bolt in the face?

I need to try that.

“And holding a ring…”

The part of the scepter that hold the catalyst had always been a bony hand ever since Sofia had primed it, and now one of it’s fingers was slightly lifted from the catalyst it held, just enough for it to be possible to slide a ring onto it.

Do I have an extra ring to give it?

I don’t really… I could go buy one maybe… Even if it’s a useless one, just to try.

Sofia left her room, planning to go buy a random ring, and she noticed Ezerid eating at a food stand on the way, which gave her an idea.

“Hoy! Ez! How’s the food?”

“Sofia? Hmm. It’s good, you tried this one yet?” he answered after swallowing a mouthful of steaming noodles.

“Not this one no, but I guess I might, if I have points left over. Say, you mentioned you had plenty of rings right? Any leftovers that aren’t even worth putting in the necklace? I need a random magic ring with a passive effect to try something.”

Ezerid raised an eyebrow at Sofia’s request, he swallowed another mouthful of noodles before answering. “I have some, not sure they’d be of any to you though.”

Sofia held her staff out, “My scepter just got an upgrade, it can equip a ring now. Don’t ask me how that works, I just want to try it out but the rings I have aren’t gonna show anything if I put them on.”

“Uh… I have a levitation ring?”

Sofia let go of the Scepter, which kept floating next to her, “As you can see, we wouldn’t see the difference.”

“Oh. Hmm…”

“Well I won’t bother you more during your meal, you can always-”

“No no, I don’t mind, just give me a second to look through my storage… Ah, here it is…”

Ezerid took out a small wooden box, placing it on the table. It was full of magic rings, pendants and bracelets, enough for twenty people to wear and have leftovers.

“Woah, are you secretly a jeweler?”

“Progress is a very generous sponsor,” Ezerid answered, “I still need to check all of those again just in case, but this is the box jewelry of things I no longer use, so see if there’s anything you want,” he told her, going back to his bowl of food.

Sofia looked Identified the rings in the box one by one until she found one that would easily show how the scepter worked.

“Ah, this one would work perfectly,” she said, grabbing a dull brass ring from the bottom of the box.

[Stillwaters ring]: Grants the wearer invisibility while they stand still.

“Hmm, I’ve stopped using this one a while ago. It’s only visual invisibility so almost any monster above level 50 can see through it be it because of mana or smell and all. Saved me a few times in my early levels though.”

Sofia nodded and slid the ring onto the Scepter’s finger, which immediately turned invisible. She grabbed it and swung it around, and it stayed invisible. The she let it go at took a few steps away, and when the scepter flew back to her hand it briefly reappeared before disappearing again.

“Neat,” Sofia commented.

“That looked a bit weird, but it works. You can keep the ring if you want, I’m not putting that in the necklace, would be a pain to deal with.”

“Thanks for the offer but no need, I just wanted to try out the scepter’s new function, I’ll see if I can buy a proper non-unique ring for it with my remaining points,” Sofia said, putting the ring back into the box, “Thank you for the help. I’ll stop disturbing your meal then.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m more than a bit indebted to you now.”

“If you say so, I’ll reiterate though, I’m not interested in any kind of repayment. Just think of the master item as my apology for messing up your trial.”

‘You have spent 50 000 tournament points’

[You have received: Strategist’s ring]

[Strategist’s stamina ring]: You suffer a 25% penalty to maximum stamina and related substats.

All allies within range of the ring gain a 5% boost to strength, speed and agility.

Affected allies can only benefit from the bonuses of one Strategist’s ring at a time.

“There we go. Perfect/ 5% stamina substats for everyone at the low-low price of nothing, because the scepter doesn’t have physical stats to lose. Too bad the strategist’s mana ring would actually weakens the scepter’s mana reserves. I can probably find a better ring later, but that’s good for now.”

Alright, and now… The rest of my points will go to Pareth’s master item first, and the leftovers I can dump into the skill optimization machine. All I need is for Pareth to make a choice on what to buy.