Chapter 73: Aura System (1)
"We completed a cube."
Typhoon of Rising guild, showed the completed cube to the guildmaster Shooting Star. Rising guild had gathered the cube fragments while hunting named monsters just in case, and after a whole day of hard work, they were able to complete a cube.
Low-grade random cube.
-An item that can be created from 26 low-grade cube fragments. Completing a symbol by rotating the cube can open the cube.
The item's description was very simple. And completing a symbol was also pretty easy.
"Shall I?"
"Yeah."
Shooting Star replied with a nod at Typhoon's question.
Creak, creak.
When Shooting Star replied, Typhoon immediately rotated the cube a few times to complete the symbol. Then, a bright white light shone from the cube.
Flash!
You have completed a low-grade cube. You have acquired 'Low-grade Frostwind Aura Crystal'.
On Typhoon's hand was no longer the low-grade random cube, and was the aura crystal that they had been looking for all this time.
"Oh... shit...."
Seeing that, Typhoon felt as though he was struck on the head with a hammer.
"This... looks like we were fooled by someone, right?"
Shooting Star was also looking at the Aura Crystal with a defeated expression.
"Just where did it all go wrong? I thought you said this was genuine information."
"Yeah... Just where did it go wrong? Did that NPC lie to me then?"
"We were too foolish. There's no reason an NPC couldn't lie."
"The information regarding updates until now were all true, so we didn't possibly think that they would be lies. Shit, are we supposed to discern truth and lies from NPC's sayings in the future? What the hell is this game? It's so complicated."
Shooting Star thought that the false NPC update information was also a part of the game. Not only him, Typhoon thought so as well. No, in fact, no one imagined that there was a single user behind this false information.
"Hmm...in any case. It's good that we found out now."
Typhoon muttered while gripping on the aura crystal. Although they wasted one day, it was very fortunate that they got to know about it now.
"What about the other guilds?"
"They shouldn't be any different from us. Well, there might be some guilds that found out that they were struck on the back of the head by completing a cube for themselves."
"What are you going to do now? Are you... going to disclose this information?"
"I'm sorry, but I don't think I will."
When Typhoon asked, Shooting Star shook his head.
"Then what?"
"We first have to fill in our losses as much as possible. The auction... shouldn't there be some ignorant cube pieces there?"
"Until now, there were many people that were fooled by the false information, so there should be. But you know already, don't you? I think the 'Black Hand' of the auction is swiping them all."
The top-cass users all knew that there was a giant hand in the EL auctions. They called this the 'Black Hand'... and as long as this being existed, hoarding was practically impossible.
"Then let's gather whatever little we can through our guild members through person to person trading. Also, stop hunting named monsters... if we tell everyone to gather the cube fragments, we should be able to get some."
Shooting Star went with a decision to minimize losses.
"Then there will be rumors about it thought?"
"From how things are going now, there will be rumors regardless by tomorrow. So we should get our share before we're too late."
"Well, we shouldn't be the only ones to notice this.... The other guilds should be doing the same about now, right?"
"Probably. In the end, the only ones that make losses will be the normal users that are slow to the uptake."
Just as Shooting Star and Typhoon had estimated, a few of the large-scale guilds noticed this fact first, and started moving in secret. They all started moving in secret as though they had negotiated this beforehand.
Although this kind of information control couldn't last that long, it might last a day or two.
Meanwhile, the normal users would make more losses.
The normal users only thought of the cube fragments as easy-to-sell items due to the seriously distorted information. It was also very easy to acquire cube fragments of lower grades.
Moreover, putting them up on the auction or the commissioned sales store gave them practically immediate money, so amongst the normal users, words got around that they should sell them while they could as much as possible.
Of course, there were a few people that claimed that they should gather them and not sell them, but since even 2 or 3 out of 10 low-levelled monsters dropped them, the majority thought that they should sell them while it was still possible.
The answer was that they should collect them and not sell them as much as possible. The price of the cube fragments would rise even more and would sell around 5~7 times the market price right now in the future.
Also, there was something that was not known to others yet.
Generally, a cube could be completed by combining 26 cube fragments of the same grade. However, creating a larger cube with more fragments meant that the grade of the aura crystal gained from it would rise.
Once this fact was spread around, even the lowest-grade cubes wouldn't be sold for so cheap.
Although people were selling them ignorantly right now, once all the information regarding the cube was disclosed, the price of all the fragments would naturally rise.
Sanghyuk knew all this, so he was hoarding them all in before a the cube fragments toko their proper market price.
***
The Stone Giants were hard to kill, but killing them resulted in many rewards. Large amounts of karma, high-quality items, and even high-grade cube fragments... It was practically a gift set.
Sanghyuk killed one Stone Giant every five minutes and turned the Stone Giant valley into a desolate land.
After hunting Stone Giants for nearly ten hours without rest, Sanghyuk was able to gather around 20 high-grade cube fragments. Although he gained a variety of cubes and was hard pressed to find ones of the same shape, he didn't think that he would be able to complete a cube so easily.
Sanghyuk stopped hunting and returned to Tune in Hellfire Desert. Then, he started collecting the cube fragments that the NPCs of the Golden Mountain merchant guild had hoarded.
Since there were so many players, there were naturally a lot of ignorant cube fragments on the auction and the commissioned sales stores. Of course, even more cubes would be stored in user's warehouses and inventories, but what was important was that one individual had hoarded the majority of the ignorant cube fragments.
Thanks to that, Sanghyuk was able to gain an unimaginable quantity of cube fragments.
When he collected all the cube fragments that the Golden Mountain Merchant Guild had gathered, he estimated that he could create hundreds of cubes of lowest-grade.
He also estimated that he could make dozens of low-grade, and even 5~7 mid-grade cubes.
The amount of money that the Golden Mountain merchant guild had used to buy these cube fragments amounted to 2 million gold.
On the second day, the speed at which ignorant cube fragments were appearing on the auction was definitely decreasing. At this point, even the slowest users to information were noticing that something was wrong, so very few people were selling their cube fragments.
'I wish that the current atmosphere was maintained for another 2 days at least... Looks like some of the information will be updated on the community today.'
Sanghyuk made an expression of pity. He put a lot of effort into manipulating the information, but it didn't work 100% as he had expected. The large-scale guilds especially were very quick on the uptake and he was only able to fool them for a day at most.
"Well, I guess I got enough."
Once the cube fragments reached their normal market prices, he would have spent around 15 million gold instead of 2 million to gather the same amount he had now.
In other words, Sanghyuk had pretty much earned 12 million gold in these 2 days. Once the true secret behind the aura system was disclosed, then many people would try to hoard them, so he had probably gained more than that.
'Let's make a lowest-grade cube to check, eh?'
Sanghyuk chose one type of the lowest-grade cube fragments and started making a cube. He combined 26 of the same type to create a 'single' cube from which he could get a lowest-grade aura crystal from.
Cubes were classified into 'single', 'double', and 'triple' according to their size. Single-sized cubes resulted in same-grade aura crystals, while double-sized cubes resulted in an aura crystal of a grade higher.
Lastly, triple-sized cubes resulted in an aura crystal of two grades higher.
There was nothing above triple. In other words, the maximum grade of aura crystal that could be gotten from lowest-grade cube crystals was mid-grade.
Sanghyuk first made a simple lowest-grade cube(single) and completed the symbol. Then, he was able to get a lowest-grade aura crystal.
Lowest-grade Steel Aura Crystal.
– Aura Crystal with the energy of Steel.
[Full-body aura effect] Defense +40
[Partial aura effect] Reinforces specific body parts to be as strong as steel.
[Aura reinforcement effect] Additional defense.
[Duration] 20 minutes
[Number of uses left] 4 times.
The Steel Aura Crystal was a very run-of-the-mill aura crystal. These were mostly used by tankers, and as there were no specific methods of using them, the only expected effect was the increase in defense.
'It's just as I knew it.'
There were just as many types of aura crystals as there were types of cube symbols. It was impossible to predict which aura crystal would appear just from the symbol of the cube alone.
Perhaps due to that, people didn't care about the symbols on the cubes for a long while. They just thought that using the same fragments would do.
However, this actually wasn't the case. This secret was not something that could be gotten from NPCs. In Sanghyuk's previous life as well, it took four entire months from the update until someone found out about this secret.
'Simply doing find-the-matching-picture results in this... but the symbols on the cube fragments aren't there to just find the matching pictures!'
Sanghyuk put the lowest-grade aura crystal inside his bag and started rummaging through the lowest-grade cube fragments.
He combed through his memories to think up of one symbol that he knew of. These symbols were called 'cube combination symbols'. Creating an entirely new symbol by using different cube pieces completed a different symbol.
It was just like Sanghyuk's main ability, combining cards. The cubes had a formula of their own.
Even though they were different cube fragments, Sanghyuk was able to make a completely new symbol when he twisted around with the cube.
'This was... the golden lion, wasn't it?'
Sanghyuk knew of many different types of cube combinations. The cube combinations he remembered were the ones that the users had verified their performance throughout the years in his previous life.
Sanghyuk completed a double-sized lowest-grade combination cube and twisted it to make the symbol that was in his memories. Then, light shone from Sanghyuk's hands once again.
Flash!
You have completed the combination cube 'Golden Lion.' You have acquired the 'Golden Lion Aura Crystal'.
You have completed a combination cube the first time. You have acquired a special aura crystal. This will become your achievement and will be remembered for eternity.
You have acquired the unique-grade title [Aura Master].
Aura crystals that could be gotten through combination cubes were unranked 'unique aura crystals'.
This was aura, which contained the true power behind the aura system update this time. 'Normal aura' that could be gotten from completing matching cube fragments only gave users simple effects according to their grades.
However, 'unique auras' that were gotten from unique aura crystals were very peculiar.
Golden Lion Aura Crystal.
– A Golden Lion was completed by completing numerous fragments. The Golden Lion, a guardian deity since the ancient times, can give you a special power.
[Full-body Aura Effect] Golden Lion's Roar: The Golden Lion roars and decreases the attack and defense of all beings hostile against you.
[Partial Aura Effect] Golden Lion's Blood: The Golden Lion's blood is imbued into a specific part of the body and is reinforced while shining gold. The effect differs according to where it is used.
[Aura Reinforcement Effect] Golden Lion's Soul: The Golden Lion's soul is imbued into a specific item, and is reinforced through the Golden Lion's power. The effects differ according to items used.
[Duration] 1 hour.
[Number of uses left] 7 times.
The Golden Lion aura crystal was one of the easiest and most ordinary combination cubes that Sanghyuk knew of. Of course, this didn't mean that it was not that good.
This would become one of the most common unique aura crystals that the rankers would one day use. Later, these cubes would become so important that the 'combination cube symbols' would be traded privately at large sums of money.
Of course, Sanghyuk's memories contained the truly effective combination cube symbols. This was something that he had learned through being a director of a pro-gamer team in his previous life.
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