Guild Wars

The group entered the area where the nearest Tradeskill Altar was located. Since the Tradeskill Altar was formerly located in every village's church, they maintained their housing despite integrating into Vita's core area. 

It was pretty close to the various village manors which were formerly reserved for outsiders, but were now open to the public. Public in this case being citizens of Vita and members of Umbra only. 

The church itself wasn't fancy. It was a typical medieval fare, polished stone walls, and the size of a moderate house. More than a church, it was like a chapel. 

Inside were rows of polished wooden pews as well as kaleidoscopic glass behind the altar. As for the altar itself, it possessed the motif of a wisp-like entity that was carved into the effigy. 

When Sublime lead the group towards it, they noticed that it looked less like a wisp and more like a strange ball of energy that was carved into the form of stone. 

A screen appeared before each of them at the same time. 

｢System to Player Announcement 

You are in the presence of the Tradeskill Altar. Would you like to activate its interface? 

Y/N ｣ 

They all shared a look and pondered. Misery shrugged his shoulders an agreed first out of the lot. 

｢System to Player Announcement 

Choose one of the following options; 

1. Expand Tradeskill slots 

2. Remove learned Tradeskills.｣ 

Misery scratched his head and remembered the rundown that Sublime gave them earlier. It seemed like what he wanted to do coincided with the first option, so he chose it. 

｢System to Player Announcement 

Analyzing player Tradeskill slots… ｣ 

｢System to Player Announcement 

Tradeskills: 3 

Used Slots: 3 

Free Slots: 7 

Upgradeable Slots: 20｣ 

Yeah, that was correct. So he was supposed to max it out? 

｢System to Player Announcement 

You will add one more available Tradeskill slot to your list. The first addition costs 20 top-grade Aether Crystals or 100,000 platinum. Would you like to do so? 

Y/N ｣ 

Misery did not have any Aether Crystals as he had little need for them - yet. 

However, he had been told that they were necessary to get things up to the Legendary grade. Luckily for the members of Umbra, Draco's clone also produced Aether Crystals at half the rate of normal Draco, and most of them were placed in the Guild Shop for sale. 

After all, Avatar Draco did not need them for crafting and main Draco never shared his Aether Crystals despite having an abundance, so this was the second best option. 

However, platinum? Misery had a lot of that. Not to mention that each core member had unlimited access to guilds funds, one should not forget that his was the uncle of Sublime, the Lolitician Supreme! 

You think Sublime would let her precious Uncle be strapped for cash when she was that rich? Tough chance! 

｢System to Player Announcement 

You have increased your available Tradeskill slots by 1. Would you like to continue? 

Y/N｣ 

As such, like a prodigal young master who did not understand the value of money, Misery kept paying the platinum cost without even flinching. Umbra had a lot of that stuff, so it should be cheap, right? 

｢System to Player Announcement 

You will add one more available Tradeskill slot to your list. The second addition costs 25 top-grade Aether Crystals or 125,000 platinum. Would you like to do so? 

Y/N ｣ 

｢System to Player Announcement 

You will add one more available Tradeskill slot to your list. The second addition costs 30 top-grade Aether Crystals or 150,000 platinum. Would you like to do so? 

Y/N ｣ 

｢System to Player Announcement 

You will add…etc. Costs 35 AC or 175,000 Plat. Would you… etc? 

Y/N ｣ 

And so on. It increased by a quarter of the original amount for both the Aether Crystals and the platinum, but Misery only paid in platinum. As such, in order to unlock all 20 upgradeable slots and max out his Tradeskill slots to 30, he paid a total of 6,750,000 platinum. 

Ptui! 

Looking at it from the beginning, it seemed like the number would be a huge one. However, after doing the maths, it turned out to be just this? What crap was this? 

Who still dealt with platinum in the millions around here? When the guild was earning around 99 billions platinum per week, what was this measly amount? Scram quickly for This Daddy! 

After adding the slots, Misery didn't feel any different, but he knew this was only the first stage of the plan. As such he went back and opened the second menu, which was to remove tradeskills. 

｢System to Player Announcement 

Analyzing player Tradeskills… ｣ 

｢System to Player Announcement 

Tradeskills: 3 

1. Blacksmithing: (level 1, 4%) 

2. Mining: (level 2, 15%) 

3. Brewing: (level 5, 34%) ｣ 

Misery rubbed his chin in embarrassment. He had hardly invested any time into his crafts because he had been busy training up that rotten nephew of his. Looking at these numbers how could he not feel slightly shy? 

Misery then checked their values. 

｢System to Player Announcement 

Convert the following into Tradeskill experience and skillbooks? 

1. Blacksmithing (level 1, 4%) - Cost: 1.4 low-grade Aether Crystals or 1.4 platinum 

2. Mining (level 2, 15%) - Cost: 2.15 low-grade Aether Crystals or 2.15 platinum 

3. Brewing(level 5, 34%) - Cost: 5.34 medium-grade Aether Crystals or 5.34 platinum 

Y/N｣ 

"…" 

Misery was silent for a long while. He then followed Sublime's instructions and did the next bit rather quickly. 

｢System to Player Announcement 

What would you like to do? 

1. Extract Tradeskills as skillbooks 

2. Extract Tradeskills as skillbooks and sell experience 

3. Extract Tradeskills as skillbooks and convert Tradeskill experience 

4. Extract Tradeskills as skillbooks and convert to raw experience ｣ 

Misery tapped his chin and chose option 2. 

｢System to Player Announcement 

Sell Blacksmithing (level 1, 4%), Mining (level 2, 15%) and Brewing(level 5, 34%) to the altar? 

Note: This cannot be reversed! 

Y/N｣ 

He retained his three Tradeskills, but they were sent back to level 1, 0% for all of them while the accumulated exp was sold to the altar. Immediately, a new message opened up. 

｢System to Player Announcement 

Analyzing selected Tradeskills…｣ 

｢System to Player Announcement 

Grading selected Tradeskills and experience…｣ 

｢System to Player Announcement 

Drawing list of appropriate rewards…｣ 

｢System to Player Announcement 

Grade of Tradeskills determined to be Common.｣ 

｢System to Player Announcement 

You have sold a total of 553% of common Tradeskill experience to the altar. Choose one of the following options; 

1. Spin the Wheel of Fortune 

2. Store experience in the Altar 

3. Open the special store｣ 

Following Sublime's advice, Misery chose to store the experience in the altar. While he was curious about the other options, Sublime had told them that what they had was useless for that stuff. One needed to sell, at least, Master level experience from a common Tradeskill to get anything good. 

According to Sublime, the best way for those with low levels to use the Tradeskill altar was to grind for experience and sell it all to the altar before they reached the next rank. Once they accumulated 1,000% common Tradeskill experience in the Tradeskill altar, they could purchase a special potion called the 'Enlightenment Potion'. 

｢Enlightenment – Consumable 

Rank: Epic (100% effectiveness) 

Effect: Boosts Tradeskill experience gain by 100% for one hour. Grants a small chance to develop a new crafting technique of their own.｣ 

If one accumulated 10,000% Tradeskill experience in the altar, they could buy the Legendary version that Draco developed called the Eureka potion. 

｢Eureka – Consumable 

Rank: Legendary (100% effectiveness) 

Effect: Boosts Tradeskill experience gain by 500% for three hours. Grants a great chance to develop a new crafting technique of their own at the Epic level and small chance to create a Legendary crafting technique.｣ 

Even with them being core members, the fellows here could help but breathe heavily when they saw this stuff. Misery, with red eyes, couldn't help but turn to sublime and ask. 

"Why make it so hard to get? Why not just price it with money?" 

The others looked over with questioning glances as well. Why DID Umbra use such a roundabout method? 

Sublime smiled bitterly. "Hey, don't ask me, ask the guild leader. He's the one who created these and is the only one who can make them. Since they're limited in quantity, I guess he did this to filter out those who aren't dedicated to their crafts." 

The group thought about it and felt it made some sense. A person who was suitably invested in their Tradeskill could certain accumulate a total of 10,000% experience, or 10 levels in it. This would require a week of grinding for even the most talented, and spending a week doing anything nonstop is a sigh of investment to some degree. 

As for those who just wanted to cheap out and progress quickly, this was not for them. Actually practice the Tradeskill and build a foundation before using enhancers. 

Shit, even athletes on steroids still exercise and become fit, training their bodies throughly before pumping the juice. 

"Besides, money is the one thing this guild doesn't lack. Putting a rare resource that is hard to produce for money in our store would be a surefire way to run out of supply in seconds." Sublime added with a cheeky smile. 

The core members here felt awkward at that. The guild was freely sponsoring their expenses, so how weird would it be to buy things from the guild, using the guilds own money? Was that not equivalent to using a bucket to fetch water from the sea only to throw it back? 

"Cough, there's no need to think too much. Since I'm done with your training, I guess ill focus on raising my level and working on my Tradeskills for now." Misery stated with a smile. 

Kiran and Sublime nodded. They knew they held their uncle down a bit this past week, but Kiran;ls growth made up for it. 

Shadowheart leaned close to the altar. "Such a fascinating construct. Who made it and why?" 

"A Semi-Origin Goddess called Norma, who was apparently like the authority of Tradeskills before she fell. Draco inherited her legacy, and so got all this stuff." Sublime explained casually. "As for the why, you'll have to ask Draco as I wasn't told that much." 

"Hmmm…" Shadowheart acknowledged Sublime's words with a positive hum. 

Elle beside him blinked in surprise. "More than that, why is it not styled in the bust of the Goddess? Or was she like this, a wisp-like entity?" 

"Err…no. She was a normal looking woman." Sublime answered strangely. 

Elle seemed to want to continue, but tactfully dropped it. It was likely that Sublime didn't know anyway, so pressuring her for an answer would not yield anything useful. 

AP_Berzerker, Tunder and Nightwalker also had varying ideas on how to make the best out of this device. Seeing that everyone was well acquainted with the Tradeskill Altar, Sublime bade farewell and left along with Kiran. 

Those few fellow would likely be spending a lot of time with the altar for the next few days, so she didn't have to worry about them. However, the other fellows who joined the guild and were up and about might be a problem. 

Case in point… 

In another location, where the sun shone darkly and the sky was blood red. 

Essence Stalker, Fitter Cleric, Ghostpro and Hades were currently facing off against an army of undead beings that were swarming endlessly from the edge of the horizon. Despite being throughly surrounded and practically helpless, the group was calm. 

"You know what I hate about undead? It's that they're a fucking cheat. How can you literally fight them without overwhelming numbers or some super power? They literally replenish themselves from your own ranks." Ghostpro commented idly as he threw scorching flames from his right hand while he conjured freezing ice from the other, culling waves of undead on either side.