Guild Wars

Chapter 334 - The Wheel of Fortune

"What would you like to know, My Lord?" The Goatman asked with a bow.

"Tell me everything you know about the circ.u.mstances regarding the choices presented by this altar." Draco inquired with a light smile.

Hoover nodded. "Right at once, Sir."

The butler straightened his bent back, gazing at the altar with a hint of respect and reverence in his eyes. After all, to every native of this small world, the Altar of Crafting symbolized their closest link with their Supreme Ancestor.

"The altar offers anyone who uses it two options. The first is to add more slots by paying for it with either Aether Crystals - an item which is incredibly scarce here - or with money. This is pretty straightforward I believe."

Draco agreed and told Hoover to focus on the second choice.

"The second option allows us to remove our learned Tradeskills in a variety of ways. One can either remove the Tradeskill and receive a skillbook with all the acc.u.mulated experience in it, or the experience and skillbook can both be sold to the altar in exchange for a special reward, or it can also allow one to remove both skillbook and experience separately... and finally, one can extract only the skillbook and give the experience to the altar."

Draco rubbed his chin. Even though he had reasoned as much from the options presented to him as well as the basic explanation Vishad had provided, it didn’t hurt to have it confirmed by someone in the know.

He had learned his lesson from the previous event where all his acc.u.mulated Tradeskill exp had been swallowed up without the chance of a refund. The 16,000% Tradeskill experience he had acc.u.mulated back then had been converted up to higher Ranks at steep exchange rates.

His Horned Demon Inheritance had acted up and caused his arrogance to soar to untold heights, even making him miss the subtle warning the AI had given him in good faith.

"Tell me more about this reward."

Draco was naturally most interested in this reward. His initial plan was to sell Cooking, Brewing, and Taming to the altar but remove their acc.u.mulated exp for other purposes.

For Tactics, he would take the skillbook out and the exp as well, as it would multiply when converted down. Even though it was only a measly 25%, the meat of a mosquito was still meat.

"The Altar of Crafting calls its strange feature ’The Wheel of Tradeskills’. By choosing it, one’s acc.u.mulated experience, as well as the Tradeskill books if one had chosen to sell them, get graded by the altar after which it would offer one or two choices."

"The first is a certain number of spins on the common version of the wheel which usually only has one premium reward and many common rewards. If what you sold was good, you could even get 20 or more spins."

"The second is a single spin, but the quality of rewards depends on the quality of what you paid. It could end up with all of them being premium, or some being above average with a majority premium, etc."

"The types of rewards are usually unique recipes or designs, new Tradeskill books never seen before, high-quality materials or special Tradeskill tools and equipment that would support your crafting."

"The grades vary between them. Its best to invest a lot into the Wheel of Tradeskills, as the rewards are almost always proportionate to the amount invested, and there’s even a chance you might surpass it with enough luck!"

Hoover’s voice became slightly excited towards the end and with good reason. It was likely that many people in this small world had gambled a lot with this altar and had gained immense rewards.

Draco had a strange expression after hearing the explanation. From the way Hoover had described it, wasn’t this the fabled lootbox/gacha from the early 20’s? Every gamer knew about that horrible era were every company drained the funds and will to live of innocent gamers through indirect gambling.

Luckily, this had been banned just before the onset of World War 3, so no modern gamer had ever experienced such a thing before. It seemed like Draco was going to lose his gacha v.i.r.g.i.nity today.

Well, as an old saying went, a gamer would never become an a.d.u.l.t until they had drawn their first gacha. After suffering the pain of defeat, they would mature into an a.d.u.l.t and realize that life was cruel!

Before Hoover left, Draco had one last question for him. "Just to be sure, what influences your chances for the Wheel of Tradeskills?"

Hoover smiled. "Why luck, Sir. If the quality of your input decides the quality of rewards, what decides your chosen reward is your luck, pure and simple."

Draco nodded and tossed over a medium grade Aether Crystal. "Thank you, Hoover. Consider this a token of my appreciation."

When the Goatman caught it, his eyes widened as his breathing became haggard. It was an Aether Crystal, a real Aether Crystal! Not only that, but it was at the medium-grade!

Hoover got to his knees and kowtowed in thanks to Draco’s generosity, spinning great tales about his handsomeness and how magnanimous he was. Draco just laughed with pleasure but shooed the old butler away.

After he left, Draco’s smile became sharp. He didn’t throw a medium grade crystal to the fellow for doing the bare minimum of his duty. Since when was Draco so generous and kind?

No, after seeing that this altar drained away Aether Crystals, he realized that they must have some value here. He also guessed that they might be even more valuable to natives of this small world than those outside.

Hoover’s reaction had proven this to be true. If it wasn’t more valuable, it was at least around the same practical value as the outside world. One should not use the standards of the AI as the standards of the people.

The AI used the old era standard here, making it seem like crystals were more abundant, but that rather made things worse than the outside since there was not a steady flow of Aether Crystals here.

There would definitely be a mine or two around, since this small world had a high concentration of Worldly Energy. However, such mines would probably be located in the core area, where only the Inheritor may go.

Draco’s heart shivered when he had made this guess. If this small world had existed since the old era, it meant many millennia had passed. If all the energies concentrated inside the core area, just what kind of riches would await him?

Forget Aether Crystals... there might be Divine Crystals there! This was a resource that was totally impossible to find on the main plane. Unless one had immense favor with the Church of Light, it was impossible to get one.

Draco shook his head and decided to drool over possible loot later. Right now, he had high-quality loot right in front of him, waiting to be pilfered, pillaged, and plundered mercilessly.

Draco laughed evilly. He purposefully asked Hoover what was most important when drawing and the goatman had answered with the best reply possible: Luck.

In this world and at this Rank, Draco could bet that only Luckmancers could match him in that stat. Look at Fitter Cleric that bastard, whenever he farted, the world itself was in a rush to wipe his buttocks.

If he was here, he could probably take the best prize here, so how could Draco allow himself to be any weaker? Thinking like this, he decided to sell everything to the altar.