“Woah, you got legendary-rank stuff,” Marcus’s eyes widened as he looked at Almond’s rewards.
“But nobody can handle that yet,” Maya wryly smiled. “Though I heard the top guilds and GAA are training their top blacksmiths to handle them since they’ve gotten Legendary materials from the 10th Floor.”
“This is crazy! Almond, you can make Epic-rank items for us now,” Natalia grinned. “We’ll give ours to you for sacrifice, and you can unlock the Epic-rank forge option.”
“That’d be awesome,” Almond nodded and said thoughtfully. “But we got these items on the second floor, so we can use them on the 3rd floor when usually, nobody can use Epic-rank items on the 3rd floor or even 4th floor since there’s no chance of getting those there.”
“And on that point, I have a speculation,” Lily said as she glanced over the rewards everyone got. “We got Epic-rank items from the second floor because we defeated this Heroic Challenge Floor Boss, which means we would’ve gotten Super-rank items and other rewards if we had defeated the first floor’s Heroic Challenge Floor Boss.”
“Concordant Ratio! That makes sense!” Almond’s eyes shone. “If each of us had Super-rank items and more preparation, this boss fight wouldn’t be as hard as we had.”
“And with these Epic rank items, we’ll be able to fight against 3rd Floor’s Heroic Challenge boss properly,” Lily grinned, her eyes sparkling. “And the floor bosses like those would get harder and harder overall as we climb, so we’ll have to prepare better.”
“We’ll seriously need some heavy preparation for the third floor’s Heroic Challenge,” Marcus swallowed. “Almond saved our asses this time, but…we shouldn’t do this again without heavy preparation.”
“True,” Maya nodded. “I want to defeat more Heroic Challenge bosses, and we should consider increasing our party for that. The other parties in the leaderboard had more members, which shows the real difficulty.”
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“But Almond reduced that difficulty for us,” Lily smiled.
Almond rubbed his nose with a modest smile, “Well, what can I say? I’m just good.”
“Good? More like God,” Natalia rolled her eyes. “Seriously, you’re too strong for someone your level.”
“Your primary class is already strong, but your specialized class is also crazy, I know. Although you haven’t shown us much about it or told us its rank, I’m sure it’s SSS rank or higher,” Marcus grinned.
“Mhmm, I feel like it’s the main reason why you were able to remain equal during the second phase’s clashing. The boss got stronger, but your strength was still on par, or more like you were higher in the first phase and became on par in the second phase,” Maya nodded, her eyes gleaming as she looked at Almond. “I will join GAA. I want to be in your party.”
Almond faintly smiled, “Good decision.”
“So you will reject Blackstar Guild’s offer, huh?” Natalia grinned. “That’d be interesting.”
Among other guilds that wanted to recruit Maya, the most powerful one was the 2nd rank Blackstar Guild.
“I am also going to reject Ironclad guild’s offer,” Marcus grinned and saluted at Almond. “I don’t need anyone else but brother Almond. I’ll be in your party forever, leader!”
“In case that, soldier, hand over all your rewards,” Almond said with a serious expression. “If I use them, I’ll become more powerful and lead you to greater heights.”
“Err….for real?” Marcus scratched the back of his head.
Almond laughed, “I’m just joking. Anyway, this place is just fine. The portal isn’t going to close, so let’s finish our resting period here and then move to the 3rd Floor.”
“That’s a good idea. Let’s organize our rewards and properly power up ourselves as we rest,” Lily nodded.
“Oh yeah, I got skill options in both level-up boons I got,” Almond grinned. “What about you all?”
“One.”
“One.”
“One.”
“Tsk, I also got one.”
“Well, moving on, let’s finish camping first and then open the floor boss clearing reward chest,” Almond rubbed his hands. “I am clearly more lucky, so it’s my turn.”
“Or do we roll dice again?”
“Dice.”
“Dice.”
“Dice.”
“Dice.”
Almond wryly smiled, “Alright. We’ll normalize the dice to decide on reward opening from now on.”
“Only until I get my luck back,” Natalia said as she swung her hair arrogantly.
After everyone put their small camps in a circular position around a bonfire, Natalia went to open the big reward chest since she had won the dice competition.
With a burst of sparks, the reward chest spewed out five orbs containing various rewards.
1 x Epic-rank Equipment Set.
3 x Adventurer’s Essential Selection Reward Chest.
1 x S-rank Mystery Box.
1 x Epic-rank one-time use item.
4 x Instant-learning Skill Slabs.
“Awesome rewards,” Natalia grinned. “Now gimme that Mystery Box.”
“Dice,” Marcus.
“Dice,” Almond.
“Dice,” Maya.
“Dice,” Lily.
Natalia pouted.
Everyone rolled the dice, and Lily won this time.
“Finally, my first random opening,” with visible excitement in her eyes, Lily opened the mystery box.
It burst open, and a single orb came out.
“Is that…” Maya blinked. “An egg?”
Everyone squinted their eyes as they inspected the thing inside.
[Winged Tyrant’s Egg]
-Detail: The egg of a magical beast with an Epic-rank bloodline.
-Hatching progress: 0%.
“Based on its name, it’s a flying magic beast. That’s awesome,” Marcus said.
“True. Many Adventurers have gotten eggs and cool beast pets, hehe. We’ll finally have one as well,” Natalia grinned.
“Let’s check the selection chest now,” Lily said as she put the egg in the storage pouch. “We’ll find the egg’s hatching requirement later after leaving.”
“Yep,” Almond nodded as he grabbed a selection chest.
[Adventurer’s Essential Selection Reward Chest]
-Please choose one of the options from below.
1—Adventurer’s Magic Tent.
2—Adventurer’s Storage Ring.
3—Adventurer’s Repair Powder Pouch.
4—Adventurer’s Consumable Assortment.
“We have three, so we can pick three of those if all reward chests have the same options,” Maya said.
“They all have the same options,” Almond said as he selected Magic Tent from this chest. “Repair Powder Pouch seems to be a thing that repairs items, so we don’t need it.”
“Yeah,” Lily nodded. “Even if we use Epic-rank items all day, their durability won’t get much lower even against gold-rank monsters.”
Almond proceeded to select Storage Ring and Consumable Assortment from the other two selection chests.
Everyone stood up to check out the Magic Tent first, and it turned out to be a crazily cool item.
First, it looked small from the outside, but it was as big as a big room inside, at least 100 meters square.
Second, it had in-built Magic Formations to allow for three effects.
—1. Invisibility. It could turn invisible to the naked eye, mask smell, and seal off magic aura at no cost for 8 hours daily.
—2. It could attach to any surface, create a flat floor, and adjust its shape and size according to the user.
—3. Temperature adjustment.
Lastly, the tent was absolutely aesthetic looking, both from the outside and inside. It was made with some kind of fabric, colored maroon with medieval-style royal patterns.
There was a bedroom, a toilet, a cupboard, a stove, a dressing table with a mirror, a storage box, and utensils already inside, decorated and ready.
But their tents were already prepared, so Almond put this tent away in the storage ring, which he wore on his finger. It had a blue gemstone with gray-gold metal carved with black criss-cross patterns.
The consumable assortment was 10 x Healing Potions, 10 x Mana recovery Potions, 10 x Stamina recovery potions, and 10 x Positive Potions.
Apparently, poof potions gave random buffs upon consumption.
However, the most important thing in this reward chest turned out to be instant-learning skill slabs.
Everyone had gotten skill scrolls, but learning skills from them required training and practice.
However, using a skill slab could instantly form that skill scroll’s skill rune within their skill room. (In case you forgot, the skill room, as termed by Almond, is a mysterious space within everyone that one could access upon reaching 50 Perception and Focus.]
Everyone had opened their higher-ranking skill scrolls and got random skills ranging from B to SS rank.
Almond had no lack of skills for now, and he didn’t want to instantly learn the skills, so he decided to power up the others since there were only four instant-learning skill slabs.
While everyone learned their new skills using the skill slabs, Almond opened his level-up boon windows.
It was time to select the two skill options, to either get a new primary class skill or upgrade one of the existing ones.