Chapter 347 First Test of the Runic System
After Xi Wei personally suppressed the Tortoise Colossus, the first and second-rate Players were all cracking their knuckles and baring their fists, ready to clear the Elven Synchronized Intellect Nation (SIN).
Even noob Players like Simba were intending to join the event as well since anyone above Level 5 could enter the Faint Crystal Stratum, just as they could make an attempt on the Level 15 Deep Wall Stratum if they tried a bit. However, that would still require veterans to scout the road in the dungeon ahead, while Simba and the others would have to stick to their current task of evacuating and relocating survivals of Crookes.
It was worth mentioning that the undead elf —the appetizer of the entire event did not drop any legendary items, but every Player who was a part of the battle were given some ‘elven arcane text’ instead.
After all, while the undead elf could single-handedly crush Mufasa the Pink Flatfish, it proved quite weak when the Players encircled it for a beating, and simply didn’t live up to the Dead Red Dragon or the Nightstalker that were as genuinely powerful as a Boss.
As such, Xi Wei felt that dropping a legendary weapon over such a noob monster really devalues any preceding or subsequent legendary weapon… Moreover, he had just introduced the runic embedding system, and intend for the Players to get to work collecting elven arcane text to be refined into runes. That was why they had to first taste some of the goodness of the runic system beforehand.
And it was the reasons mentioned above that led to Xi Wei canceling any drops for the Undead Elf, and switch it for the elven arcane text which was extracted out of his corrupted clone.
It was an optimal consideration of game planning accountability toward Players, and not because he wanted to hog the corpse of the undead elf for himself!
And just as Xi Wei predicted, most Players were not entering the dungeon although the event had already started. They refined the elven arcane text into runes, and returned to the selected cities or bases to have the dwarven craftsmen who were idling for some time now to embed them.
It was thanks to Xi Wei sneaking an oracle to the dwarven craftsmen by impersonating Stoff, the G.o.d of Craftmanship and Fine Wine that they had learned how to embed those runes.
Unlike the strengthening where you would easily get a ‘Ding~ congratulations, your item is gone!’, embedding always succeedsalthough runes are consumables that can’t be extracted again once embedded.
And soon enough, the Players quickly understood the subtleties of runes once their embeddings succeeded.
***
Gou Dan had been asking the Players who were done with embedding about the actual conditions before quickly posting the results of the Player forums.
“Unlike strengthening which improves overall stats, runes seem to buff certain unusual attributes at the moment. The currently confirmed runes are ‘Zoffy’ which increase fire resistance; ‘First’ which randomly redistribute weapon stats; ‘Seven’ which increases throw damage; ‘Jack’ which increase damage in fights against multiple enemies; ‘Ace’ which grants melee weapons ranged effect and ‘Taro’, which trades durability for super damage of defense.”
“Since each Player would at most receive two runes, there wouldn’t be definite results if we test arrangements and conditions at the moment, and that is a point for further study. By the way, according to the Players who had tested it, embedding Zoffy on helms would grant the best effect, granting almost double the level of fire resistance compared to embedding in equipment for other anatomies.”
His post was promptly liked and saved by the other Players and commented heavily in no time at all, and was staying on top of the main page and not dropping anytime soon. Players who discovered any new information about the runes would post it below as a reference for other players, including about the ‘Leo’ rune which buffed unarmed damage and ‘Eighty’ which greatly increases defense.
And with Players like Gou Dan running around gathering information like a journalist, there were naturally certain Players who understood certain insider information and filled in the blanks on their own.
“Elven arcane text… High elf runes…”
Though Marni looked confused by the words on his System page, a storm was stirring inside him.
Unlike the other players who didn’t understand the background setting of the high elves, he was with Edward and the others when they visited the Elven Queen and learned about the secrets of the high elves of the last age.
Even if the event quest did not offer specifics, he could basically be sure that the so-called arcane text and runes were mostly likely a power that the high elves of the last age used for controlling Mystery! In fact, the runic embedding that the page mentioned was probably to apply that same method to weapons and equipment.
To think that the G.o.d of Games could see through the secrets of the high elves and achieve such feat-he truly is the G.o.d of Games!
On the other hand, while Edward didn’t make information about the Elven SIN public, he had mentioned it to Marni who was revived at the same lifestone at the same time.
“High elven ruins, super magitek that emulates a world and whatever… it sounds great and all, but it ended up as nothing more than toys for us, believers of the G.o.d Games to strengthen ourselves.” All at once, Marni revered the G.o.d of Games even more.The truth was that Xi Wei did not actually quarantine all the distorted power that could corrupt souls in the Elven SIN. Instead, he would draw in any of the powers that came to him without rejecting any, extracting the high elves’ basic arcane text and then use it for a basis for further extraction, and the arcane text would eventually take the form of
runes.
Such was the solution Xi Wei applied to resolve the players’ risk of being spiritually corrupted by Mystery. The advantage of this was that there wouldn’t be a widespread swap for items and new equipment amongst the Players. Xi Wei would be able to spare substantial divine power needed to create new items, just as he wouldn’t have to rack his brains over what to do with the old items.
Moreover, the Players’ equipment had already reached maturity at the current phase as well. Therefore, instead of having Xi Wei waste his own strength to introduce stronger event-limited items which the Players would have to form, it was only obvious that rune embedding was a quicker and better path of improving the Players’ overall ability.
And it has been proven that the Players quite liked the runic setting (since it doesn’t cost money), and many of them were already testing different a.s.semblies of runes. The Players who contributed less and in turn obtained fewer elven arcane text were already urging Eleena to quickly open the gates to the Faint Crystal Stratum to head within SIN for monster farming and rune collecting.
There was a total of 50 different runes, each of which could be affixed into three-runes or four-runes arrangement-but the four-runes a.s.sembly were mostly a strengthened version of the three-runes a.s.sembly, meaning that the system basically follows a Gaussian distribution.
Any plans of collecting everything in the middle of the event would be very difficult.
Still, even if the Players could really clear the Elven SIN and allow Xi Wei to completely claim the Mystery within, he wouldn’t have to rely on the Elven SIN to make runes from then on since his own power would suffice.