Second World

37%... 38%... 39%... 40%

"Wow, it really does increase!" Jack uttered with amazement. His concentration slipped and the number started to go down again.

40%... 39%... 38%

"Crap!" He quickly put his concentration back into the runestone and willed the number to go up again.

"This is so burdensome!" Jack complained as he put all his mind into willing the increase.

Peniel lifted her two hands up and gave a shrugging expression. "You need to put in work for it. No free lunch," she said.

Jack finally managed to get the number to 44%. It kept on alternating between 43% and 44%. He guessed that's the best his willpower could manage to push.

"Now I feel like one of those characters from manga stories who use their willpower to fight," Jack commented.

"Again with the manga stories? What exactly are they?" Peniel asked.

"Never mind, it's just some sort of storytelling from the real world."

"Again with the real world? This is really getting old."

Jack didn't bother arguing with her. He had done that with her pretty often during the tutorial period. He canceled the upgrade process and store both the apprentice hammer and apprentice mobile anvil. He was not going to waste the upgrading materials with a measly 44% success rate, not when he could boost the success rate by spending a few coins to use the blacksmith workshop equipped with rare tools.

He took out all the gemstones he had gotten in the past. There were two rubies, one amethyst, and one emerald. All of them were common grades.

"So I can use these to upgrade the runestone?" He asked Peniel.

"Yes, but before you feed any of the gemstones to the runestone, I need you to tell me what element you encountered during the tribulation of that runestone."

Jack glanced at the floating runestone and cringed, he would prefer not to be reminded again of that tormenting moment. "I thought you know every basic knowledge? How come you don't know what element this runestone has?" He asked back.

"Because every runestone is different. Even the ones with the same type. You can only know about their element once you undergo their tribulation," Peniel replied.

"It's lightning," Jack answered.

"In that case, you should use the amethyst to upgrade that runestone."

"Why is that?"

"Because amethyst contains the elemental energy of lightning. By using the same element as the runestone, the elemental energy absorbed by the runestone will be more. Thus, reducing the number of gemstones you need to complete the upgrade."

"I see… What about these rubies and emerald?"

"The ruby contains fire element. Emerald is wind. There are three more types of gemstones. Sapphire for water, Amber for earth, and Diamond which contained no element."

"Oh? Then Diamond is the most useless then? Since it has no element, it doesn't provide any boost when upgrading runestone."

"On the contrary, Diamond is the best. It has no element because it is compatible to all. So any type of runestone will get the maximum benefit when you used diamond gemstone."

"Oh? Then I assume this diamond will be the rarest type of gemstone then. How lucky of me to get it."

"Yeah, how lucky of you," Peniel responded with a smirk.

"Okay, let's give it a try," Jack said as he picked up the amethyst and neared it to the floating runestone. The runestone blue light flared brighter and he heard a notification voice asking if he confirmed to feed the amethyst to the runestone. Jack confirmed it and a blue light shot out from the runestone and snatched the amethyst in his hand. The gemstone soon disappeared into the runestone. Another notification voice informed him that the gemstone was of a compatible element so the number of elemental energies being absorbed was doubled.

Jack made another scan on the runestone using Inspect.

Runestone of Probability (uncommon runestone)

Increase approx. 10% success chance to auxiliary jobs.

Elemental energy required for upgrade: 10/100

Seeing the number, if he was to use other common gemstones, the energy would only be 5 points.

Jack remembered something and said to Peniel, "hey, that shop we went to before. They sell gemstones, right? If I go and buy those gemstones, I will be able to upgrade this runestone in no time."

"You can go try if you want," Peniel said.

"Why do you sound like I will not be buying them even if I go…?"

"Heh, each of the common gemstones costs 1 gold coin. Are you still going to buy them?" She asked.

"Ugh, why are they so expensive? It costs the same price as the runestone itself," Jack complained. "I will need 10 gold coins to upgrade this runestone even if I use matching element."

He might be loaded with coins now, but he would still not simply spend them just like that. Not for the sake of auxiliary jobs.

"Yes, it's better if you just get them from monster loots, or mining," Peniel said. "Unless of course, if you have too much coin in your hand."

"No, thank you, I think I will just keep my coins," Jack said. He stored the remaining gemstones and unsummoned the runestone. "I'm beat, I guessed I will turn to bed early," he said.

"Are you forgetting something?" Peniel asked.

"Hm?" Jack had no idea what she meant.

Peniel pointed in a direction. Jack followed her pointing and saw two runestones on the floor ahead.

He was silent for a few moments before asking Peniel, "tell me, if I merge with another runestone, will I have to go through tribulation again?"

"You do," Peniel answered.

Jack stared at her in silence for a long while, before finally uttering, "oh, what the hell."

He ended up spending the night going through two more tribulations to merge with those two runestones. One of them was of the fire element. He had to go through the sensation of being burnt alive. The other was of water, where he got drowned again and again.

Despite the intense suffering he had to go through, it was really not too difficult. After all, he did not actually have to do anything. He only needed to endure through the pain. He felt it was not difficult because of the fact that the torture did not bring him any actual harm, and the knowledge that it would be over soon. When a person knew for sure that his or her sufferings did not give any permanent risk and knew for sure that those sufferings were going to end at one point in time, it made the experience much easier to overcome. Except of course for spoiled brats who could not endure even a little bit of pain.

He observed the two new floating runestones in front of him.

Runestone of Enhancement (uncommon runestone)

Approx. 10% chance of increasing the effectiveness of products made from artisan jobs.

Elemental energy required for upgrade: 20/100

Runestone of Duration (uncommon runestone)

Increases the duration of products created from artisan jobs which have duration, by approx. 10% more.

Elemental energy required for upgrade: 0/100

He had also used his two rubies to upgrade the Runestone of Enhancement which had the element of fire. For the Runestone of Duration which had the element of water, he did not have any sapphire so he just left it for now. Using the last gemstone, emerald which had the element of wind felt like a waste.

He was still pretty exhausted mentally after the ordeals. He went to bed immediately afterward. Another fact that he found was that each merging with the runestone gave him proficiencies in his runecraft skill. He had not actually applied any runecrafting in his activity but his proficiency was already around 30% from intermediate apprentice grade after merging with three runestones. Too bad the next runestone could only be gotten by luck, he could only increase his proficiency by applying the runecrafting the next time when he used his auxiliary skills.

The next day he immediately put the runecrafting to test. In the morning he started by cooking a couple of Egg Fried Rice and used the Runestone of Duration to boost its duration. He almost never consumed the food he cooked anymore since he could stock up on Ellie's cooking. The duration of the food increased from three hours to around three hours thirty minutes and three hours forty minutes.

Jack then went to the blacksmith workshop and rent a room that had rare tools. He again put his Red Dawn staff onto the blacksmith forge. With the boost from the rare tools, his success rate was 60%. He then summoned the Runestone of Probability and injected his will into it. The success rate increased to around 74%, which was a much better success chance compared to last night's one. He proceeded to spend 2 iron ores and 1 steel ore to go with the forging. And the result was… failed.

Couldn't help it, he thought. 74% was still not 100%, so there was still a chance of failing. It's a good thing he had a large stock of iron ores and steel ores from the previous robbery incident. He could afford numerous failures, so he decided to continue on it.