The five legendary items Almond chose to sacrifice were—Seraphic Aegis Plate, Thunderleaf Cloak, Ironroot Helmet, Runeforge Quill, and Solarflare Orb.
He was a bit tempted to just sacrifice the two one-time-use Legendary items, but their effects were too useful and could help greatly against the heroic boss despite being one-time, so he kept them both.
Everyone also acquired a high-tier Epic-rank set in contribution ranking reward, so aside from the two people who would get to wear the Legendary-rank sets, the others would get solid Epic-rank sets.
‘Now then, let’s start.’
After unlocking the Legendary Forge Option, Almond began crafting without further ado.
The ingredients were all ready, so he just needed to choose the slabs and put them in production.
He used a heavy broad sword for the weapon part, and he used the three strongest lightning-attributed Tengus’ spirits as ingredients for this.
For the full-body sleek armor, he used three defensive-type monsters’ spirits.
For the boots, he used three spirits of wind-type and lightning-type Tengus. He also made the boots flying-oriented as he didn’t want to create wings.
If he could fly with boots and gain speed both, he’d have an extra slot in a way, allowing him to craft the 4th item of the set to be more useful.
As such, he decided to be a bit creative in the process of his set creation and made 4th item an accessory with a special mechanism in the description in his mind when putting it in production.
He could only hope it included that type of effect he desired since he couldn’t set it himself.
Once he was done here, he went outside and saw that everyone was sparring against each other and his spirit wraiths since they finished resting.
“Everyone! Gather here for a moment. I am going to distribute the items.”
“So it’s time!”
“Hehe, I wonder who will get to use the Legendary gear sets.”
“So it’s Almond who decides who wears what?”
“Yeah.”
As everyone walked towards him, Almond suddenly sensed something through the ground and atmosphere as he looked back.
‘Hmm?’
An invisible snake-like white trail released from his forehead as he used the second stage of Focus Field in that direction and soon saw a figure rushing towards them.
It was Marcus, and he wasn’t alone.
Marcus, who felt the familiar Focus Field aura of Almond, immediately shouted, “Help!”
Behind was one Wandering-type Boss and a bunch of monsters of different types!
‘It seems that he rushed here, and all monsters that usually followed a target without restriction came here with him,’ Almond chuckled. ‘Well, that’s good. I’d get some extra spirits to put into Spirit Pocket.’
The others also sensed something by now due to the sound and vibration as Marcus got close to his entourage of monsters.
“It’s Marcus,” Almond turned to the group as his figure crackled with lightning, zapping the air around him. He magnetized himself and floated. “Stay here, I’ll be back.”
He vanished in the next moment with a blast, breaking the sound barrier while a random Epic-rank sword appeared in his hand.
Marcus saw a flash of golden lightning shooting at him. His pupils contracted as he saw Almond’s visage in it.
He pressed breaks in his legs and turned around at his fastest, just at the moment to see Almond swinging his sword horizontally.
Almond’s eyes sparkled with golden flicker as he swung the sword, consuming 500 Mana and just briefly activated his Espada Ad Grimveil skill as his domain expanded and he targeted all monsters.
As he swung the sword, a flickering blade projectile appeared in front of the Wandering Boss and 54 other monsters, all varying in size according to their physique, aimed at their limbs.
*Slash!*
The entire area stilled for a moment before a long, crisp, slicing sound cut through the tension.
Almond’s sword stroke unleashed a blade of crackling energy that passed through the horde as if guided by a precise, unerring will.
In a perfect lining, the surrounding foliage, rocky outcroppings, the Wandering Two-headed Cyclopes Boss, and other monsters seemed to pause—then their limbs began to slide apart while cutting the surroundings as the blades proceeded ahead.
Every monster struck by the attack was completely paralyzed, their flesh sizzling with lightning.
“Kill them and level up. You are still not Gold level 50 yet.”
Marcus heard the voice and grinned as he saw Almond turning around and putting away his sword, “Thanks a lot, boss!”
Marcus jumped high as a giant golden-brown sword manifested in his hand as he used his specialized class skill.
“Woohoo!”
*Slash!*
And finished off the Wandering Boss first.
Almond looked at his status, specifically at the EXP bar. ‘I’ll reach Level 43 since I helped, but that’s fine, I guess. The rewards from Heroic Bosses don’t seem to be impacted by levels.’
He knew killing Field Bosses and other floor bosses while having lower levels increased the chance of item drops, but Heroic Bosses weren’t affected by that. Instead, their rewards were affected by overall performance and timing.
Still, he didn’t want to level up as he didn’t need to since he had already reached the maximum foundational stats possible for Gold rank.
-Stats: 199 unassigned points.
—Physical:
↳[Strength: 200 | Health: 200 | Stamina: 200]
—Mental:
↳[Mana: 200 (+300) | Focus: 200 (+200) | Perception: 200 (+200) ]
—Will: 100.
…
After everyone gathered, Almond began distributing the items.
“Let’s start with the Legendary Gear sets,” Almond smiled as he took out the two sets first.
“This Yaksha’s Crimson Rampage Set will go to Lily. The weapon of this set is like a fusion between sword, dagger, and cleaver. It has blood element and vitality recovering effect based on attacks, so it suits Lily.”
Everyone nodded.
“Damn, you all really got a solid Legendary gear set,” Ron said as he gulped, inspecting the set.
Adrian, Jian Finn, Emma, Anya, and Mira—the super rookies who had yet to fight a Heroic Boss, felt all excited inside as they inspected the Legendary Gear set.
“The next Legendary Gear set is called Lunar Hunt Set. It has a slender sword in it, and it’s a light-armored set. Since it is also based on the Water attribute, Kira would be able to use it best.”
“Wow, awesome!” Kira’s eyes sparkled as she inspected the beautiful yet imposing gear set. “It got some powerful effects! And the gear set bonus actually increases my Water elemental mastery and gives me 2000 extra Mana? Damn.”
Everyone was envious.
Each legendary item gave crazy good bonus stats in their perks, ranging from 200 to 250 total bonus stat points for low-tier Legendary items.
“Next is this Shadowsong Amulet. This item boosts the user’s shadow-attributed skills’ effects by 50% passively and also grants an active effect that boosts the next shadow-attributed offense-type skill by 100% with a one-minute cooldown. However, its third effect is most powerful with one day of cooldown.”
Everyone inspected the amulet and saw its third effect.
“Interesting. So if the user receives a fatal attack that could kill them, this amulet protects them and keeps their vitality at 10% while allowing them to turn into Shadow Phantom for 10 seconds,” Lily raised her eyebrows.
“Shadow Phantom status is op!”
“Yeah, it makes the user unaffected by all physical and magical attacks for 10 seconds…”
“Give it to Mira,” Lily said as she looked at Mira. “She is the only one aside from me who has Darkness elemental mastery, and I don’t really need this amulet.”
“Really?!” Mira was startled. Being the second darkness elemental user and assassin in the group, she expected to get items passed down from Lily but wasn’t expecting a solid Legendary item.
“Good,” Almond smiled as he nodded at Lily. The amulet flew from his hand and went towards Mira.
“Thank you so much,” Mira’s cheeks flushed as she bowed.
The other new super rookies felt super envious.
“Next is Phoenixflame Gauntlet,” Almond said as he took out a pair of red-golden badass-looking gauntlets.
‘Gauntlets!’ Adrian’s eyes instantly glimmered. As someone who used gauntlets with his family, specialized in close-range hand-style combat, and his specialized class also bolstered this specialty, he really wanted to use those Legendary gauntlets!
‘Crap, even my father doesn’t have a Legendary rank gauntlet,’ Adrian gulped.
“We only have one person who can use gauntlets, and his attacks are impactful with good push-back, armor break, and heavily disabling and interrupting humanoid-type monsters, so this weapon will belong to him.”
The gauntlets flew toward Adrian, his excitement clearly visible.
“T-Thank you, Almond.”
“I want you to be useful because of your specialty,” Almond said, his voice firm and sharp. “Against beastly monsters and other big monsters, your specialty is less effective, but against humanoid monsters, it’s very useful, and Heroic Bosses are all humanoid.”
“Forget about defending yourself and focus on cracking joints and interrupting the boss’s attacks in close range. I want you to coordinate with me, and that’s why I’ll also give you a one-time item that will buff you and make you very evasive and defensive.”
Almond took out Jadeheart Talisman, the one-time-use item.
“Activating this Talisman will increase your action speed and movement speed by 200% for 30 seconds and create a Jade Heart that will save you from one fatal attack.”
Almond glanced at others and said, “You all already know that we plan to finish off the boss as fast as possible, and it will be no different this time. We will use everything we got within 30 seconds and seize the victory.”
Everyone was determined, their fist clenched.
‘I will show you all this time in this Heroic Challenge,’ Jian gritted his teeth. ‘I am not going to get looked down anymore!’
“Next legendary item is a weapon, the Abyssal Whisper Wand…