Chapter 105: The Value of a Witch

Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales

That was definitely the worst battle yet.

Without rare grade weapons, fighting a supernatural creature was like cutting meat with a blunt knife. Soran and Aladdin looked at each other, then at their other’s slightly bent weapons, and looked back at each other with a helpless expression. There aren’t a lot of rare grade equipment, especially the number of weapons, often these equipment needed to be specially crafted. The rare grade weapons that occasionally circulated on the markets were average goods, which were not very useful for the skill-conscious Rogues. (Fighters were much less demanding on weapons quality.)

“Big brother.”

When the battle was over, Gloria led Vivian by the hand and went over. The little girl followed her obediently. When she saw the two’s slightly curled weapons, she said in a low voice, “I’ll help you repair it.”

“Mending.”

This was the most commonly used level 0 spell by Wizards. With the little girl’s white finger pointing out, a very weak light emerged, and Soran’s blade was almost fully restored to its original shape. Mending was a very useful level 0 spell that could be used to repair most of the non-rare level types of equipment. Of course, this was only possible with equipment that was not completely damaged. If the Wizard was very powerful, they would also be able to snap their fingers like Gloria and completely restore a messy and destroyed room.

Vivian had plenty of level 0 spells, she had twice the number of spells compared to other low-grade Wizards.

The Halfling had just pulled out a sharpening stone from his bag and was ready to sharpen his dagger. But when he saw Vivian’s spell, he immediately handed over the weapon with an eager face and said with a smile, “Little girl, a little magic for my dagger too?”

“Sure,” Vivian nodded her head lightly then reached over to cast the spell.

Within seconds, the dagger in the Halfling’s hand was soon repaired. After a while, Vivian had already used up two level 0 spells.

Low-grade spellcasters always faced the issue of not having enough Spell Slots.

As the energy core in the Earth Elemental dissipated, its body soon began to weather away. The body, which was made of rocks, gradually collapsed. While the body fell apart on the ground like sand and stones, a black obsidian-like stone appeared. Aladdin quickly pushed away the soil and sand, took the smooth black stone and handed it directly to Soran. “Do you think it would sell for 500 Gold Derahls?”

“Yes.” Soran nodded as he reached for the core of the Elemental. He then proceeded to put it in front of Gloria, asking, “You should have studied Golem making. Can you tell what quality it is?”

The quality of the core of an Elemental depended on the power of the Earth Elemental which contained it.

The Earth Elemental which they killed was a level 15. But, there are also some which are level 16 or 17. Usually, the higher the quality of the core, the stronger the Golem created.

Gloria took a look at it, and there was a faint glow of magic on her fingertips, she then said, “The quality should be above average. This probably could be sold for around seven to eight hundred Gold Derahls in the Northern regions. The north has plenty of cores from the water and wind Elementals, but very few of the other Elementals.

The price of things was different in different regions.

This item would have been sold for five hundred Gold Derahls in the south but would fetch eight hundred or so Gold Derahls in the north.

“It’s that valuable? A diamond is only five or six hundred Gold Derahls, isn’t it?” Suddenly, a gold light flashed through in the Halfling’s eyes, and there was no trace of tiredness anymore. He seemed to be full of vigor and excitement Then he said, “Let’s go get another one, shall we? I just saw about a dozen more in there, which means that’s around thousands of Gold Derahls!”

Soran also stood up.

The Earth Elemental just now gave him 2550 Slaughter EXP. Other Earth Elementals should give a similar amount. If I can clean them all up, I should get about 30,000 Slaughter EXP.

This was one of the more powerful creatures that he could defeat in the early stages, and also be able to traverse through the plane without too much risk. In the future, there wouldn’t be as many opportunities to gain so much Slaughter EXP in one go. After all, Elementals seldom appeared in the material plane, and the slow Earth Elemental was among the easier ones for him to deal with.

The agility of Earth Elementals were 10 to 12. Its strength and constitution were close to 20, some were even above 20. Since Soran had extraordinary agility, it was rather easy for him to defeat them. As long as he was careful enough and did not rush to kill it.

This was also why Soran initially didn’t go head-on against the Orges. Since there was a big difference in a single attribute, it was easy to get suppressed in some way. That was why all legendary professions would not allow themselves to have too obvious of a shortcoming in certain attributes.

Of course, Charm was another story!

There seemed to be a popular build where Charm was totally ignored to adopt a more brute style.

Gloria frowned slightly. She glanced at them and explained slowly, “You guys are way too slow. The duration of the spell wouldn’t be enough for you to clean up these monsters. Also, I rarely have repeats of spells, so there would be huge a risk if the two of you went against the Earth Elementals without any buff spells.”

Spell Slots.

The greatest limit to the Wizards, and the only tool to balance them.

As a high-grade Witch, Gloria had many Spell Slots and she also had twice as many spells as other Wizards. However, she needed to have memory for healing spells, defensive spells, combat spells, and control spells. Supportive spells like the one she had just used were only a small fraction of her Spell Slots. She wouldn’t waste all her Spell Slots on them.

If they didn’t have buff spell support, they wouldn’t have an attribute superiority, so they might get been hit by the Earth Elemental. It was probably very painful to get hit by the Earth Elemental.

“What then?” Aladdin looked at the others and said in a low voice, “How about we get rid of some of them today, and then some of them tomorrow after you have reconstructed your spells?”

Soran shook his head and said, “It’s best we finish this today. Things might go wrong if we stayed too long in the Elemental plane.”

He then turned and asked Gloria in a low voice, “Have you memorized the spell Enchant Weapon?”

Gloria frowned and thought for a moment. Then she said, “I seldom used this kind of spell, so I don’t have it in memory, but I think I have an Enchant Weapon scroll.”

Needless to say, the Northern Witch really was a rich, noble, fair-skinned Witch.

The spell Enchant Weapon was a must-have spell among groups of weak adventurers, and she didn’t even have the slightest intention of memorizing them.

She must have known that this was the most frequently used spell by low-grade Wizards, especially before they acquired rare grade equipment. The spell was generally used to buff the professions which had the highest damage output in the team.

Soon she took out a small, inconspicuous magic scroll. She then opened it and activated it with mana, where a magic glow of light fell on Soran’s curved sword.

In an instant.

Sorans curved sword of average quality transformed into:

Item Type: Army Curved Sword +2[Temporary Enchantment]

Item Grade: [Rare (Grade 2)]

Description: Weapon made of folded forged steel was much tougher and stronger than ordinary weapons. Only blacksmiths with weapon forging skill above 150 could forge such equipment.

Requirements: 10 or above strength.

Effects: Property of Black Steel, +2 Sharpness, +2 Penetration, +1 Energy damage

…

That was how a grade 2 rare weapon was born.

Since Gloria was a high-grade Witch. The effects of the buff were much stronger than other Witches. Her spell had brought the weapon instantly from grade 1 to grade 2, but it was only limited to a maximum of grade 2 rare weapon. Only the spell ‘Advanced Weapon Enchantment’ could upgrade a weapon to a higher grade. There was even the spell ‘Legendary Weapon Enchantment’, unfortunately, there were only a few who knew it.

She gave Soran a glance and said softly, “You better be quick, the spell only lasts 20 minutes.”

Spells only granted temporary buff effects.

True rare grade equipment was forged with special materials using alchemy techniques. When Soran looked at the state of the curved sword, his confidence immediately soared and he said, “This would be enough for me to get rid of them.”

Aladdin who was beside him saw how great the buff was, so also took his daggers over and looked up to Gloria with eager eyes.

Gloria looked down at the little Halfling and said softly, “There’s only one scroll, so bear with your weapon for now.”

Aladdin was disappointed, but he still followed Soran.

Soran’s weapon was a grade 2 rare equipment buffed by magic. Naturally, it also meant that he was now the main damage outputer. When the Halfling attracted an Earth Elemental again, he jumped up and rushed over, then he slashed down at the neck of the Earth Elemental.

A row of data appeared:

Target hit.

You’ve slashed at the Earth Elemental!…causing 7 (+2) physical damage! And an additional 1 energy damage!

You’ve successfully provoked the target.

Even it was only 8 damage, the enhanced weapon had already doubled Sorans damage!

He started off with a sword that only did about 4 damage, which took two attacks to get 8 damage.

He twisted his body and gave a backhand slash. The previous 2 to 4 damage had now increased to 6 to 7 damage, even a two or three-centimeter deep mark was left on the monsters solid surface. This was the penetration and sharpness effect of a grade 2 rare weapon. When dealing with enemies with natural armor, their protective armor could be damaged to a certain extent.

Too bad this was not the OP [Armor Break] which would have split open the natural Elemental armor like tofu.

Six slashes!

Each of Soran’s slashes carried an extra bit of Energy Damage. He slashed at the Earth Elemental’s arm with six attacks in a row and swiftly took one arm of the Earth Elemental’s shoulder.

Soran, armed with a rare grade weapon, dealt immense damage. He didn’t even need Aladdin to attack, as long as he helped a little here and there. Soran proceeded to cut off the other arm and one leg in quick succession.

Finally, he landed the final blow on the Earth Elementals neck and chopped off its head!