Chapter 683 - Sofia the plague

“Hey, Lepo, can I ask you something?” Sofia asked the shopkeeper.

“Yes?”

“Have any of the master items already been bought? Is that something you can share?”

“Hmm… It’s probably fine to tell yes. To this day, three of them have been sold. The respective shops have been closed so you will never get to see them,” he said.

“Three people have managed to get nine gold star pins yet nobody got the perfect run pin?!”

“That’s right. Can’t tell you who or why, but yes. So far, the master gloves, bracelets and dagger have been sold.”

“Did the three people all fail in the same event?”

“I’ve already told you all I could,” Lepo answered with a smile, returning to his game with Bookie.

“Alright, thanks…”

As there was quite a time before the next event, Sofia went on the hunt for the hidden shops again, and managed to find one hidden in the spiritual plane on the main deck. It took the form of a simple telescope pointed at the foggy white sky. There were no instructions and no help, but the telescope being inexistant in the physical plane definitely meant it was another hidden shop’s game.

Looking into the telescope showed a white expanse with some brighter spots like stars, and Sofia quickly found out that by feeding mana into the telescope and moving it around, it drew lines between the stars that passed by the center of the view for a short while.

It took a good twenty minutes of fiddling around before Mr.Scribe was the one who came up with the solution. There were spell patterns hidden within the ‘stars’ which had to be drawn with the lines. They started with the most basic pattern for the classless spell [Spark] which for many humans was the most ‘magic’ they would ever use, and harder spell patterns were hidden for the higher levels.

Still, as the patterns had to be two dimensional, once one had figured out the trick, unlocking them all was not too hard, and Sofia quickly got access to the shop’s last level and its unique item.

★★★★★★★★★U [Tournament Master’s Spellbinder Monocle]: 

Carefully crafted from the rarest materials by a genius craftsman, the master monocle can lock out your opponents of their spells.

Activate while looking at an active spell to instantly dispel it; its caster will not be able to use it until they leave the effective range of the Monocle or the Monocle is used to dispel another spell.

Effective range 15Km.

30 Seconds cooldown.

Can only dispel a spell you would have enough mana to cast.

Immensely enhances your vision and allows you to peer from/into the spiritual plane into/from the physical.

Cannot be destroyed.

Must be primed before use.

Price: 1 000 000 000 TP

Not great. I already have [Heat Death], also who really wants to wear a monocle?

… Am I just wasting my time? It really feels like we’re only meant to be able to buy one even if we get the nine gold star pins, and I cannot pass up the earring…

No, surely I can break another event or two and get more points than the maximum. Surely. Maybe with the bell thing, even? Nex did hint at a greater reward. I shouldn’t worry too much anyway, higher tier events give more points and we’ve yet to get a tier one even. The abyss god was tier two and it gave three times the points of a tier three. 

I can only wait for more events to come… Let’s try to find all the shops!

Scouring the entire ark from top to bottom, except for the lowest level which was still closed, Sofia and the skeletons managed to find three more hidden shops before the start of the next event.

Pestle cleared one, Pareth another, and Sofia the last and hardest one, which involved finding spell fragments hidden in the patterns on the carpets and artworks of the Ark’s living quarters and putting them together into a ritual that opened a teleportation gate to the shop.

This gave her access to another three Master items, Sofia reviewed them as she shared a light meal with Pestle in one of the ark’s restaurants.

★★★★★★★★★U [Tournament Master’s trinketeer belt]: 

Carefully crafted from the rarest materials by a genius craftsman, the master belt lets you activate the effect of attached consumables without depleting their uses.

Attached consumables cannot be destroyed.

Attached consumables cannot be detached.

Attached consumables gain a cooldown and or mana cost depending on the item.

The belt has five consumable slots.

Slots used: (2/5)

• Phoenix blood Potion - Restore 33% of your health, stamina and mana. Cooldown: 10 minutes.

• Vorgnam’s Undying branch - Breaks instead of losing your last health point. Cooldown : 30 seconds.

Cannot be destroyed.

Must be primed before use.

Price: 1 000 000 000 TP

Not my thing but this one would be really damned good for Alith…

Maybe I could find a way to give her a hint to the shop’s position? I’m pretty sure she could win the game, but can she get nine gold stars and a billion TP?

I could spend the year I need to repay my debt training her, Ihuarah, Astelia and Everelle specifically for the events, maybe? The system might prevent me from telling them anything but it can’t stop me from nudging their training in specific directions. The four of them would make a pretty incredible team. I’ll ask them when I’m out.

★★★★★★★★★U [Tournament Master’s Adaptive Cuirasse]: 

Carefully crafted from the rarest materials by a genius craftsman, the master cuirasse lets you gain various immunities.

On first equipping, you choose the immunities the master cuirasse grants.

You may choose one of each:

- Immunity to a status effect of your choice.

- Immunity to a damage type of your choice.

- Immunity to a stat regeneration impairment of your choice.

- Immunity to a sub-stat impairment of your choice.

The physical protection the master curiasse grants increases with your class level.

Cannot be destroyed.

Must be primed before use.

Price: 1 000 000 000 TP

If I picked health regeneration impairment this would let me heal through the unlife runes I’m pretty sure. And the other immunities are also great. If I pick strength for the sub-stat and I keep Olympian as my title that means all my physical sub-stats cannot be lowered, which is also a bit ridiculous.

I might have wanted to seriously consider this instead of the earring… If not for the other one.

Alternatively, it’s fine for Pareth too.

Definitely one of the better master items. But this!

★★★★★★★★★U [Tournament Master’s Mana Mirror Catalyst]: 

Carefully crafted by [Redacted] with their own essence, the master catalyst reflects its recipient weapon instead of enhancing spellcasting.

Doubles all magical effects of the recipient weapon.

Doubles all physical damage inflicted by the recipient weapon.

Recipient weapon cannot be destroyed.

On first inserting into a recipient weapon: 

• Grants the item one random powerful magical effect.

• For spellcasting weapons only : Vastly improve performance as a physical weapon.

• For physical weapons only : Vastly improve performance as a spellcasting weapon.

Cannot be destroyed.

Must be primed before use.

Price: 1 111 111 111 TP

This I have no word. The essence provider and crafter must be Anna or Creation, basically, which is already saying a lot.

Erredis said she would be able to improve my Scepter with the Odalite blood. If I also had this for it?!

Halving my channeling timel again, halving sustained mana costs again!

It’s just… A tiny bit expensive…

Anyway. The next event is about to start. Solo and group have been alternating until now so I expect another solo event now. Any second now…

[Fifth wave: Individual trials]

[For the fifth wave of tournament events, you must choose to compete in one of four individual events. Tournament points and Star Pins will be awarded individually.]

[Current Mana heart Awakening progression: 8%]

Wait… Eight percent? That’s it?! I would have to duel Tartaros ten more times to awaken it fully?! I might need to focus on picking battle-heavy events now…

[Available fifth wave events:

• King of the mountain - Lonely thrones

• Advent of the war mages - Battle of the three kingdoms

• Mystery in Sunless city - Rise of shadows

• Ripples of knowledge - Competition of scholars]

[EVENT: King of the mountain - Lonely thrones]

[At the top of the holy mountain sit three lonely thrones. Can an heir with no kingdom like you claim them? TvT enabled.]

[EVENT: Advent of the war mages - Battle of the three kingdoms]

[War rages between the three kingdoms, how much can a mercenary like you contribute to the war effort? Will you side with the winners, or will the winners be whoever you side with?]

[EVENT: Mystery in Sunless city - Rise of shadows]

[The sun is gone. Under the mounting assault of the sunless, can an investigator like you piece together all the secrets and bring the sun back before it’s too late?]

[EVENT: Ripples of knowledge - Competition of scholars]

[Scholars forms the realms have gathered to share knowledge, each bringing with them an apprentice to compete in a battle of the wits. Can a vagabond like you beat the scholars at their own games?]

The descriptions are getting shorter… If I want to fight the first two events are the way to go. The way to go though… Yeah, probably the thrones, right? Other people can only claim one but with Pareth and Bookie I could monopolize all three!

The only issue is that Tartaros and Saria are both likely to pick this, not to mention the others… This could quickly evolve into a big mess, especially if alliances start to form. Also if others decide to come with their teammates… Ezerid could possibly come with his entire team, that would certainly be troublesome.

Still… I can’t let that stop me. I’ll quickly go confirm with Mornn and Kuli that they aren’t picking the same event, just in case.

The event started, and people started disappearing from the Ark, but Sofia and Pareth were not teleported.

They looked at each other wondering what had gone wrong, when finally the scenery changed around them. They were at the bottom of a gigantic mountain, and they got a few system prompts about the event. There were three thrones at the top of the mountain, a golden, silver and copper one, sitting on the gold throne for a second gave three points, the silver two points and the copper one point. People would get ranked by their number of points, and would get a bonus if they were still sitting on a throne when the event ended.

People would fight for their place on the thrones, potentially make alliances, share the throne with teammates, or wait until the end to ambush the weakened defenders of the thrones and get the end bonus. That was what the entire event was about.

But from the start things were strange.

Sofia and Pareth rushed to the top of the mountain, and they saw nobody. Perhaps it was because they were too fast, they thought, as they used everything they could to gain speed.

When they reached the thrones fifteen seconds later, there was no one. Sofia hurriedly sat on the golden throne, while Pareth prepared to defend against incoming contestants. 

“What is going on?” Sofia asked Pareth as she looked around, after sitting down. She had expected people to get there quickly, but a few seconds had passed already, and as a point counter slowly started to rise up in the corner of her vision, nobody seemed to come fight her. “Is there a trap? Something that we’re missing? Where is everyone?”

Sofia extended her mana senses as much as she could, and aside from Pareth and Peslte who was invisible beside her, she only felt one other presence, coming from the other side of the mountain.

She prepared to fight, throwing a bone token to observe the incoming contestant without leaving the throne, only to see Cinthia leap up the mountain alone.

A few second later, she made it to the thrones.

“Woah! Saria was right!” she exclaimed as she approached the thrones.

“Cin?” Sofia asked bewildered as Cinthia ran up to the copper throne and sat on it. “What do you mean Saria was right?”

“She predicted no one would want to fight with you after seeing you destroy Tartaros in the casino,” Cinthia answered with a giggle. “It was easy to predict you would go for this event so everybody just avoided it. Even Saria picked another one because she didn’t want to compete with you for the gold pin. Pareth, you should sit down on the silver throne, you’re wasting points!” 

Sofia was at a complete loss for words, and so were the Seraphs and everyone watching the event from the spectator rooms.

Sofia had a long chat with the fake Cinthia, and the event ended an hour later, literally nobody else showing up the entire time.

When the results came, they confirmed that indeed, there was no error, only herself and Cinthia were in the rankings.

What the fuck.