He continued to upgrade his magic staff until it was level 30. He didn't proceed further as he would not be able to use it if it reached level 31. He failed another two times during the process, ended up spending 14 iron ores and 7 steel ores.

He didn't proceed to upgrade but he still opened up the blacksmith interface to look at the statistic if he wanted to upgrade It to level 31. The success rate was 50% without him activating the runestone of probability. That was already including the 30% boost from the workshop's rare tool. He was apprehensive about the prospect of future upgrades. The success rate was getting lower and lower. He would have more failures than successes if he did not improve his blacksmith job level. However, he did not want to spend too much time on this auxiliary job. Well, he would worry about it when it happened. For now, the failure rate was still bearable.

After level 30, the material required to upgrade had increased another notch again. It would consume 4 iron ores and 1 steel ore for each attempt in upgrading.

He took off his magic staff from the forge and observed it.

Red Dawn Staff, level: 30/40 (rare magic weapon)

Magical damage: 108

Range: 10 meters

Attack speed 1

Energy: 80

Intelligence +6

All spells range +3 meters

The increase in the damage at later levels was larger compared to lower levels. Especially when he upgraded it to level 30, the increase was a solid 10 points on the damage. He also noticed that the skill bonus on the weapon had been raised as well. Previously it only added 3 points to intelligence stats, now it was doubled, while the added range to all spells increased from +2 meters to +3 meters.

"In case you are wondering, do know that level 30 is a threshold for equipment as well," Peniel explained to him when she saw his confusion. "Just as how level 30 is when you become an elite class, most of the weapons found at this level and above are vastly superior to the lower-level ones. So the sudden spike when you upgraded your equipment to level 30 is to compensate for that."

"I see…," Jack felt good that he had come to upgrade his equipment then. He was not sure if he was the first person to reach level 20, but if yes, his level 30 weapon would outclass the other player's weapons even if they had the same rare grade.

He took out the rare longsword which he had been saving all this time. He would upgrade it to level 30 before feeding it to his Storm Breaker, thus bringing his Storm Breaker directly to level 30. He put the longsword onto the anvil and started the upgrading process with the help of runecraft. The longsword was a level 15 rare weapon, it took him twenty-two attempts before it was successfully brought up to level 30. Including the failed attempts, he spent 39 iron ores and 10 steel ores.

Without further ado, once the level up was done, he immediately fed the weapon to his Storm Breaker. His black longsword hummed with excitement when it fed on the weapon. A thin fog of black light was exhumed from the sword's body, exposing more of the golden lines along its dark blade.

This was new, Jack thought. Was this also due to that level 30 threshold Peniel was talking about?

Storm Breaker, level 30 (rare one-handed sword, bound weapon)

Physical damage 140

Attack speed 3

Cannot be destroyed

Bound to Storm Wind

Dexterity +6

Parry skill +3

Overlimit: Release the weapon's hidden power that adds an additional 200% damage as chaos damage, increase weapon range by 2 feet, and decrease the target's defense by 70%. Duration 120 seconds. Cooldown 8 hours

The damage improvement on his special longsword was even greater. The skill bonus of the weapon had also increased. Out of curiosity, he also checked on the other skills inside his Storm Breaker which could be exchanged. Each of them had also been increased proportionately.

What delighted him further was to see the Overlimit skill of his Storm Breaker had also undergone an improvement. Its additional chaos damage, decrease target's defense, and duration had all been increased compared to before. Most distinct was its duration, it had received a spike to 120 seconds. Now he could maintain the Overlimit form of this sword for a full two minutes!

After experiencing the wonder of level 30 equipment, he proceeded to work on all his current equipment. The one-hour time was not enough for him to do that, so he paid another 50 silver coins for an extra hour. He also realized that despite his deep stock of iron ore, he still did not have enough iron ores for all the upgrades. So when he went out to pay for the extra hour, he also went to buy another 60 iron ores.

Although the runecrafting skill only improved his success rate by around 14%, it still helped in reducing the number of wasted materials needed during the upgrade. After finishing with all the equipment he currently wore, with numerous failed attempts, the total materials he had used were 154 iron ores and 50 steel ores. The stock left inside his bag after the labor was a pitiful 13 iron ores and 31 steel ores. Good thing iron ores were easily acquired, so it was not a problem.

He then proceeded to test the Runestone of Enhancement by making whetstone. He used all the remaining 13 iron ores to produce the whetstones, all the while activating the Runestone of Enhancement. Out of the 13 whetstones produced, 4 were the enhanced version. The enhanced whetstone gave a 20% boost to weapon damage instead of the usual 10%, ultimately doubling the effectiveness of the whetstone.

He was satisfied with the work. He checked on his proficiency in his auxiliary skill page. The runecraft skill was not even 50% yet. The application just now had only increased the proficiencies by a bit. He would need to apply it more or find another runestone if he wanted to boost its growth. The blacksmith skill was also still some distance away from the advanced apprentice.

He stored all the whetstones and reequipped his equipment. He took a look at his equipment stats.

Head = Silver Guard Helmet, level 30/40 (rare medium armor), Physical defense: 68, Magical defense: 52, Durability: 40, Endurance +6, +40% resistance on dizzy and disoriented

Chest = Blood Guard Scale Armor, level 30/35 (rare medium armor), Physical Defense: 75, Magical Defense: 62, Durability: 50, Dexterity +6, Reduce all range damage received by 35%

Shoulder = Blue Wing Spaulders, level 30/40 (rare medium armor), Physcial Defense: 62, Magical Defense: 50, Durability: 40, Dexterity +6, Reflex +6

Arms = Silver Beast Vambrace, level 30/40 (rare medium armor), Physical Defense: 63, Magical Defense: 51, Durability: 40, Strength +6, increase strength by 20% when HP is below 50%

Belt = Coin Snatch Fauld, level: 30/40 (rare medium armor), Physical defense: 54, Magical defense: 48, Durability 30, Reflex +4, 15% chance to increase coin drop from monster kill

Pants = Shadow Bear Tasset, level 30/35 (rare medium armor), Physical Defense: 68, Magical Defense: 60, Durability: 40, Endurance +6, When HP is below 50%, defense is increased by 100%

Boots = Silver Wing Leggings, level: 30/40 (rare medium armor), Physical defense: 62, Magical defense: 48, Durability: 40, Reflex +4, movement speed +20%

Physical Defense = 452

Magical Defense = 371

He was pretty satisfied with the increase. After all the hard work, he could say that at this moment, his equipment set was at his strongest, unless of course if he got a super rare grade armor. He had upgraded all his equipment to the highest point of which he was still allowed to equip them.