Same as Jack's current equipped regal outfit, this God of Courage's Sword also followed Jack's level. He didn't need to spend blacksmith materials to upgrade this sword.
The damage stat from this sword rivaled Jack's level 77 Storm Breaker. The God of Courage's Sword might be three levels higher, but Storm Breaker boosted the damage of the sword it fused with and it also had Orb of Eurus etched into it. This meant if he could fuse God of Courage's sword with Storm Breaker, Storm Breaker's damage stat would become even higher.
Unfortunately, that was not an option.
Each of God of Courage's Sword's abilities was also impressive. Others might think it was better to get a legendary magic staff, but he didn't regret getting this sword. He stored the sword for imprinting later.
When they came out of the legacy dungeon, Jeanny asked if they wanted to do the medium difficulty of the Ancient Battleground Legacy Dungeon. They wouldn't get any legendary equipment even if they killed the Herald, but they could get other items to help the other guild members.
Since they were already gathered, everyone agreed.
They again killed the Herald of the medium difficulty. No one got scores reaching 120,000 so nobody could afford legendary equipment, but they exchanged for various items under Jeanny and John's instructions to distribute among the core members.
Afterward, they also did the Hard difficulty of the Ice Throne Legacy Dungeon. Jack used his legendary-grade Runestone of Luck when they killed the boss. It dropped two Hearts of Ice, two bottles of Thousand-Year Wines, and several super-rare-grade exp pills.
Seeing these loots reminded him. He asked Peniel, "Why the Herald didn't drop anything when we kill him?"
"Every dungeon has different rules," Peniel explained. "You don't get any scores and exchange list from this dungeon, do you?"
Jack thought that made sense. The Hearts of Ice were given to Jeanny for building improved Ice Cannon Tanks, as were the exp pills, but he asked for one of the two Thousand-Year Wines.
The bottle was given to him without any fuss. Everyone else then rolled for the one remaining bottle. Leavemealone was the one who got it. The exp pills were also rolled among them, Jack didn't win any despite his crazy luck. He guessed his luck only worked when it had something to do with the world's game system.
Jeanny copied the Thousand-Year Wine from time to time when she had spare mana cores, but there were just too many core members to develop. Every wine they got from loot was a blessing.
Jack drank the wine on the spot. He still had twenty-six days before his human age was added another month, it was now reduced to eleven days.
Everyone lamented that they wouldn't be able to do another run of the Hard difficulty of the Ancient Battleground for some time. The five-day cooldown was coincidentally the day of the Outworlder Convention. After that, everyone would be busy with the coming war. It would be some time before they had the spare time to fight the Herald again.
Everyone dispersed to do their things. Grace asked Jack where he was going. Jack told him he was power-leveling his newest royal agent. He asked her if she wanted to join.
After a brief thought, she declined. If she joined, she would just slow Elayne's progress because the exp would be further divided. She had been training martial arts in the Space-time Chamber with the Cipher Flight members. She would resume training until the time when she left with the others for the Outworlder Convention.
After leaving the others, Jack teleported to Thereath and went to the Mage Academy. There, he used the magic furnace to imprint the God of Courage's Sword to his Magic Weapon spell. He received his Themisphere's King Sword back after the process.
He also received a notification after imprinting the sword, "Legendary grade weapon detected. The duration of your Magic Weapon is now doubled."
"Oh? It has such a hidden effect?" Jack turned to Peniel, who just shrugged. She was not aware of this mechanism.
"Wait, my max-leveled Magic Weapon has a duration of twenty minutes. The cooldown is Twenty-five minutes. If the duration is doubled, the duration is longer than the cooldown. I can recast the spell every time it runs out of duration!" Jack exclaimed.
Before this, he always had a five-minute gap where he had to fight with a sword and a magic staff. Now, he could dual-wield two swords all the time while still able to cast spells. This was a small change but the convenience was very welcomed. The fluidity of his fighting rhythm would be even better now.
Coming out of the mage academy, Jack transformed into Iamanorc and used the guild return scroll to Wind Island. From there, he rode Pandora.
It was already late afternoon by then. He had Pandora fly at full speed. Although the royal agent page inside his status window showed that Elayne was okay, he couldn't help but worry. The girl was alone in a hostile zone, after all. Now that he thought about it, he should have been firm with her and brought her to a safe place to wait for his return.
As he got nearer, he saw on his radar that Elayne's green dot had lots of red dots surrounding her.
"What the… F*ck! Did she get careless and go into the Volatile Firefly Ants' territory?" Jack cursed. He hurriedly had Pandora head there.
She saw it then. The uncountable Volatile Firefly Ants flew in the sky as they chased after a small pink figure.
Jack rushed over and was about to charge in but he stopped.
"Huh? Why do you stop?" Peniel asked.
Jack didn't answer. He just pointed ahead, telling Peniel to watch.
It was a fact that the Volatile Firefly Ants were chasing Elayne, but the girl didn't appear flustered. Her expression was calm. Her body moved in the air with the grace of a seasoned flyer even though she just learned the Fly spell not long ago. Her hands never leave her zither. Her music continued to play. Jack recognized the music. It was the Melody of Death.
The mass of Volatile Firefly Ants lost HP as they crowded around Elayne. Sonic darts shot from her zither every time she picked her zither's strings. These sonic darts struck the ants accurately and sent them flying back. These ants then exploded.
Elayne's sonic darts could now somehow trigger the ants' kamikaze detonation. Jack did sense peculiar mana accompanying those sonic darts.
When the ants almost caught Elayne, she used her Air Skate to get away. When her Air Skate was on cooldown, she used Sound Shield. Her sound shield was empowered by mana manipulation. The ants were unable to penetrate the shield. Some of the ants triggered their suicide explosion to break the shield but the shield persisted.
During some rare moments when both skills were on cooldown and she couldn't dodge. She smacked the ants away just as they touched her. Her timing was so precise that the ants did their kamikaze explosion without harming Elayne. She was copying Jack's technique.
After witnessing this, Jack understood then that Elayne didn't accidentally wander into the Volatile Firefly Ants' territory. She purposefully lured them out.
