Corwin exited the trial and looked at the deactivated gate, which was a shell of its former self. In place of the rainbow-colored stripes indicating the difficulty were dull shades of gray. The portal no longer opened, and wouldn’t for anyone else now that someone had completed the trial.

Corwin headed back to Edencourt, doing his best to enjoy the nearly 3-hour journey. The kingdom of Orleans was beautiful and the forests were awash with bright colors in the fall. Stepping off the road and away from its monster wards to view the scenery was quite dangerous, even for Corwin. The road passed through high-level monster areas. At long last, Corwin was back in Edencourt.

He went to the auction house and took in his gains. The equipment had sold for a total of 8000 gold, which was almost the 10,000 he needed for intercontinental teleportation. Corwin put a second batch up, another 25 of each bronze item he could make. Tomorrow, he’d start selling iron items. He didn’t want to decrease the value of the bronze items too much. He also didn’t want to accelerate other players by more than necessary.

Corwin spent some time looking at what was for sale on the auction house and was particularly interested in something rather unexpected. There were 75 magic crystals available, with a starting bid of 1g and a buy it now of 5g. Magic crystals traded for 100g each in his past life, after the full set of their uses was discovered. This early in the game they had no use yet for most people, so Corwin was happy to just stock up on them. 375 gold was gone in a heartbeat, and Corwin had a difficult decision to make with his 122 magic crystals. Corwin wasn’t super-eager to hand that much gold to whomever had just entered the trial with him, but the magic crystals were simply too valuable.

Corwin faced a difficult decision. He had so many choices for upgrades at this point. Ultimately, he decided that weapons would be most important to him and spent the 100 magic crystals necessary to upgrade his weapons to Epic-Tier. In addition to doubling their attributes, both swords gained abilities. The swords were finally distinct. The main-hand sword gained:

Sword of Lightning. The owner of this sword can channel mana into it to make any attack have the lightning attribute, and deal an additional 50% of weapon damage as lightning damage. Furthermore, all lightning based skills used with this sword do double damage.

The offhand sword however gained another powerful ability:

Sword of Ancients. The owner of this sword can channel manaa into it to make it possess the ancient property. This property is required for the use of certain skills. All ancient skills used with this sword gain double damage.

With 18 of the 22 remaining mana crystals Corwin upgraded his new item 4 times.

PLATEMAIL OF THE SWORDSMAN (Divine Growth Type)

Silver Tier Level 12 Plate, +48 Str, +48 Agi, +48 Con

192Def,192MDef, Durability 96/96, Requirements:96 Str

Reduce level of Damage over time(DoT) skills by level of plate

Reduce level of DoT techniques by level of plate

Improve Defence Tier by 0.02 levels/level

All swordsman skills +0.02 levels/level

The 24% bonus at level 12 to Def and MDef from the defense tier was quite nice, as was the level reduction on Damage over time effects. Corwin was slowly gaining a level-based immunity to most status effects in the game. Since the levels of skills were lower than the levels of players, it would ignore almost all effects in PvP. Monster skills worked differently and were closer to the level of the monster itself, so there it would only ignore skills of monsters that weren’t much higher levelled than Corwin himself.

Still, Corwin’s mana crystals were almost gone in an instant and he still needed many more. His gear was one thing but he still needed mana crystals for all the same reasons that other players soon would.

Corwin went to the shops and bought out rare array ingredients. He then crafted arrays until he got a rather pleasant global notification.

Congratulations to Corwin Swordborn for being the first player in Eternity’s Wake to become an apprentice arraymaker. Rewarding Iron Tier Arraymaker’s Tools and 32,000,000XP.

Congratulations to Corwin Swordborn for being the first player in Altaea to become an apprentice arraymaker. Rewarding Bronze Tier Arraymaker’s Medallion and 16,000,000XP

Congratulations to Corwin Swordborn for being the first player in Orleans to become an apprentice arraymaker. Rewarding Common Tier Arraymaker’s Belt and 8,000,000XP.

Arraymaker was a rare profession, and as such it rewarded double XP, of course this was still a pittance for Corwin at level 10. The experience was nonetheless enough to upgrade Earth Manipulation and Space Manipulation each to level 2 and they underwent minor improvements.

Corwin contemplated his next moves. Levelling would increase the difficulty of the next trial, but he could get experience to feed his ring skills. All the ring of elements skills were very important to him and if he could get them to a high-level he could gain a substantial edge. He’d need it as he was facing a level 2 divine trial next. The level 1 divine trial he had just faced was likely a peak level 1 divine trial but it was quite demanding of him. Corwin could only hope the next one was a low-difficulty among level 2 divine trials.

Corwin headed to a city gate and paid the fee for leaving at night; darkness had arrived in Edencourt while Corwin was finishing his array-making. He immediately activated a lightstone and headed to a level-14 zone, hoping to grind experience quickly.

Level 14 monsters gave approximately 256 times the experience of level 10 monsters, and as such this was the best way to grind experience for his ring. With 2.4 levels of ignore level-suppression from his level 12 ring, Corwin faced a manageable 1.6 levels of suppression. Enemies might take 5 minutes to kill instead of the ideal 1 minute, but it was still quite an XP grind.

Corwin slayed monster after monster, always upgrading his ring when it would keep him at level 10. Near the end, he levelled up to level 13 after what felt like an eternity of slaying monsters before levelling back down. This time he was wise enough not to level his gear. After level 9, these skills would undergo a qualitative transformation, reaching tier 1. Corwin could use tier 1 skills as a tier 0 player, but there would be penalties that negated most of the bonus for gaining a tier. It wouldn’t really be profitable to do so unless those skills also gained additional levels after tiering. The XP cost to get the ring skills to Tier 2, Level 1 was quite high, and tier 2, level 2 was out of the question as a level 10 character. Corwin decided he had ground enough monsters at this point. Corwin reviewed his updated skills.

Air Manipulation, Tier 0, Level 9

For the next 5 minutes, gain attack speed +70% and movement speed +140%. 1 hour cooldown. Level does not advance by skill points. Spend 4,000,000,000,000 XP to tier up.

Time Manipulation, Tier 0, Level 9

For a 1-hour and 54-minute real time duration, make time slow down by a factor of 2.9 in an area of up to 145m radius resulting in 1 hour of real-life time for every 8 hours 42 minutes in game. Requires 1 minute to cast. Spend 4,000,000,000,000 XP to tier up.

Space Manipulation, Tier 0, Level 9

For a 1-minute duration, open a portal between here and any location you’ve previously been up to 95km away. Portal is any size up to 19m x 19m. Cooldown 3 hours. Spend 4,000,000,000,000 XP to tier up.

Earth Manipulation, Tier 0, Level 9

For a 5 second duration, reduce the level of all attacks attacking you by 0.29 levels/level. For each multiple of 10 levels instead reduce the tier of all attacks attacking you by 1 tier. Cooldown 1 hour. Spend 4,000,000,000,000 XP to tier up.

It was time to face another level 2 divine trial. This trial was to the north of Edencourt, nearly 4 hours away. In fact, the trial was closer to the city of Aginhome, and Corwin would be heading there after the trial. There were some useful quests in Edencourt, but Corwin decided to put those off until after he had his gear, the last trial had convinced him every moment counted. It was quite possible for elite players to be completing divine trials now, and at least some of them were exploring far enough from the city to find them.

Corwin headed to the divine trial, taking the long route following the roads. Along the way he ran into a shattered ward at the side of the road. This was quite troubling as Corwin was passing through a level 50 area. In fact, after entering that part of the road Corwin was chased by a Manticore. Fortunately, the new Air Manipulation power was equal to the task and Corwin managed to outrun the Manticore to the next Ward, which wasn’t shattered. Corwin gained a quest, to report the damaged ward to Edencourt’s Trade Division. This quest was worth a lot of XP and could gain city reputation, but wasn’t important enough to divert Corwin from his mission. He would lose the quest if someone else completed it first, but that was a risk he was willing to take.

Finally, Corwin arrived in a mountain range, a rather dangerous level-18 area. Fortunately, the enemies here were lesser stone elementals which weren’t very agile. Corwin managed to avoid all the enemies in the region, running away whenever they approached. Searching by lightstone was quite difficult and Corwin took almost 3 hours to find the cave containing the gate. There was a lesser stone elemental in the cave, which Corwin managed to circle around. Unfortunately, it chased him all the way to the gate. Corwin dove into the gate to escape it and began the next divine trial.

Corwin Swordborn

Spoiler : Level 10: 26% of Level 11

Level 10: 25% of level 11

Str: 1077 (base:25)

Agi: 1142 (base:70)

Con: 1077 (base:25)

Int: 409 (base:25)

Cha: 409 (base:25)

Lck: 197 (base:5)

Cnc: 197 (base:5)

Sta: 197 (base: 5)

Def: 2741

MDef: 1893

HP:11770/11770 (base: 1000)

MP:6090/6090 (base: 1000)

Gear:

MW: Epic Tier Level 12 Longsword, +192Str +192Agi +192Con

Base Damage: 240-288, Def 288 MDef 240 Durability 384/384, Requirements: 384 Str

OW: Epic Tier Level 12 Shortsword +192Str, +192Agi, +192 Con

Base Damage 196-240, Def 240 MDef 196, Durability 384/384, Requirements: 384 Str

MA: Silver Tier Level 12 Plate, +48 Str, +48 Agi, +48 Con

192Def,192MDef, Durability 96/96, Requirements:96 Str

LA: Silver Tier Level 8 Plate Cuisse, +32Str, +32Agi, +32Con

128Def, 64MDef Durability: 64/64 Requirements: 64 Str

B: Iron Tier Level 6 Plate Gloves +12 Str, +12 Agi, +12Con

48Def,24MDef, Durability 30/30, Requirements: 36Str

G: Gold Tier Level 12 Plate Boots +96Str +106Agi(10 Gemstone) +96Con

384 Def, 384MDef Durability 192/192, Requirements: 192Str

H: Gold Tier Level 12 Helm, +96 Str, +106(10 Gemstone) Agi, +96 Con

384 Def, 384MDef Durability 192/192, Requirements: 192Str

RR: Epic Tier, Level 12 Ring of Hidden Attributes (+192 All base attributes, +192 All Hidden Attributes)

LR: Epic Tier, Level 12 Ring of Elements (+192 All base attributes,

Ignore 2.4 Levels, Ignore 2.4 Equip Levels

AM: Iron Tier, Level 8 Amulet (+16 All base attributes)

Skills:

Time Manipulation, Special, Tier 0, Level 9

Space Manipulation, Special, Tier 0, Level 9

Air Manipulation, Special, Tier 0, Level 9

Earth Manipulation, Special, Tier 0 Level 9

Thunder Slash, Rare, Tier 0, Level 1

Wave Chop, Rare, Tier 0, Level 0

Wind Charge, Rare, Tier 0, Level 1

Disrupting Blow, Rare, Tier 0, Level 1

Double Slash, Uncommon, Tier 0, Level 2

Slash, Common, Tier 0, Level 2

Pierce, Common, Tier 0, Level 2

Parry, Common, Tier 0, Level 2

Passive Skills:

Swordsmanship, Uncommon, Level 0