Second World



Jack didn't go ahead and picked up the loot. Cain was floating above Marcus' mangled body. The red smoke was in the shape of Cain's human form and he just stared at Marcus' corpse in stillness. Jack couldn't make out the spirit's expression because the smoke was constantly shifting.

The silence ended when Jack took out the communication device Horatio had given him from his inventory. The device was making sharp pinging sounds. Jack turned the device on and Horatio's voice was heard.

"You succeeded! I hear the notification. The soldiers have stood down. I've been appointed as the sovereign since I'm the remaining heir. Right on time, I might say. Jygorth has been hammering this palace to get to the basement. Any longer and he might have dug a hole into it."

"Jygorth is the name of this country's guardian," Peniel explained when she saw Jack's confused face.

Jack didn't feel the tremors this Jygorth caused. Probably this basement was very solid or the battle just now was so intense that he wasn't aware of the tremors.

"At any rate, come to the throne room. We can discuss our next move in person there," Horatio said.

"Okay, I will be up there soon," Jack replied and ended the transmission.

Cain was still floating there in silence.

Leavemealone came to Jack's side. He asked, "Are we done here? We should go join Master Domon as soon as possible."

"You don't want to take the loots?" Jack asked.

"I've already picked up two unique-grade light armor pieces from the loots when you are talking on your phone. I leave the rest to you," Leavemealone answered.

'#@$%. This bastard has even less courtesy than me, and it's not a phone!' Jack complained in his mind.

"I will be joining my army. You can go and join Jeanny's force. My gramps should be with her," Jack said to Leavemealone. The lockdown should be lifted now that Horatio held the power.

Leavemealone nodded. When he turned away and was about to leave, Jack stopped him and said, "Thank you for your assistance."

"… Thank you for saving me from being executed," Leavemealone replied. He then ran to the stairs. He would be using this capital's zone portal to teleport to this country's border town before crossing the border region into Palgrost.

Jack returned his attention to Cain. The bloody spirit was still doing nothing. He decided he couldn't wait indefinitely. He approached and started picking up the loot beside Marcus.

Leavemealone didn't touch the gold coins and mana cores. There were 50 gold coins and 3,000 mana cores on the floor. Jack needed these mana cores. It would be some time before he could summon another archdemon lord again.

Aside from those standard drops, the rest were mostly equipment and materials. These he would donate to the guild. The loots he was excited about were a unique-grade diamond and two Evolve seeds.

With this gemstone, his Runestone of Luck could finally be maxed. He didn't waste any time. He fed the diamond to the runestone from his status window.

*

Runestone of Luck (legendary runestone)

Increase luck by approx. 25 points for 30 seconds.

Elemental energy required for upgrade: Fully maxed

*

The level-up gave this runestone a whooping 10-point increase. Not only that, its duration was improved significantly from 10 seconds to 30 seconds. This gave him more windows when he was killing his opponents. He wondered if the secret cooldown of this runestone was affected. He tried summoning the runestone. He failed. He would do it again later to see if the cooldown was still one hour.

He turned to the two Evolve seeds. One was a super-rare-grade light seed and the other was a unique-grade time seed.

Jack knew the light seed gave the light element. They already have this seed in their guild warehouse. He supposed the time seed increased duration or reduced cooldown. He looked around for his trusted fairy to ask for confirmation. He saw Peniel was conversing with Arlcard.

He called her over.

"What are you talking about?" Jack asked.

"I'm curious about how Cain instantly killed those vampires at Leavemealone's execution ground. Turned out I'm half right."

"Half right, how?" Jack asked.

"It was Unholy Exorcism, all right, but one that was combined cast with another spell, Chain spell."

"Combination casting? But there is no one… Oh, right… There were two people there, Arlcard and Cain. They both cast a spell and combined those spells."

"Yes, we weren't aware the red smoke was Cain at the time. The red smoke also obscured everything so we couldn't see the spell formation," Peniel said. "The unholy exorcism when combined cast with Chain Spell will become Area Exorcism. It had the same effect as Unholy Exorcism but was AOE instead of a single target. No wonder the high elder vampire that supervised Leavemealone's execution was instant-killed too. Cain is an ancient vampire. He was much older than that supervisor."

"I see…"

"What do you call me for anyway?" Peniel asked.

"Oh, right. These seeds. Mind telling me what this likely gives to my skills?" Jack showed Peniel the time seed.

She confirmed Jack's speculation. Jack asked her what she thought the mana core cost would be to copy this time seed. She couldn't tell for sure but she thought it would need lots of mana cores. Even if it was not as expensive as the Mana Gathering Stone, it wouldn't be too far.

Hence, Jack decided to use those seeds. He used the light seed on Tracing Beams and the time seed on Acceleration. Too bad Beast Form and Magic Weapon were not skills that could be evolved. Otherwise, those would have been his choice to use the time seed on.

After using the light seed, Tracing Beams transformed into Tracing Light Beams. The spell was now of light element and dealt higher damage. It also caused Blind for 3 seconds in addition to the original knockback. Its range was doubled. It could now hit targets 100 meters away.

The time seed not only increased Acceleration's duration, but it also improved the speed increase. The spell was renamed to Superior Acceleration. The duration had doubled to 1 minute, and its base acceleration had changed to 1000%.

Additionally, Jack's acceleration had gained another star upgrade just now. It had two stars. Each star of Superior Acceleration added 100% to the increased speed. When he used this spell, he could now move twelve times his normal speed for a full minute.

Jack was satisfied with these improvements. He looked ahead to the area near the pedestal. No loot there. The vampire elders killed by the archdemon lord gave him exp points but they dropped no loot. As for the one who vanished after Arlcard removed the Chalice of Blood, they didn't give anything.

Jack stood back up. Cain was still silent. Jack decided he couldn't wait anymore. He asked the spirit, "What now? Are you going to continue possessing Arlcard?"