Chapter 12: 2-4: Go Away, No Lemons Here part 4

My project was a simple one—replicate a World Item using one of the fallen branches off Noa's tree. Of course, the Branch itself would be a fantastic crafting base for a high-Tier staff, a Branch of the original Tree serving Mare magnificently even now. But I didn't want a good staff. I wanted the best.

Making a staff isn't like making a sword or a mace. Different materials created different focuses, each suited for a specific purposes and alignment. The original Branch was made of wood, which was excellent for Nature Magic but poor for most other things. Adding a Crafting Item dropped by a powerful Fire Boss would shift its alignment to fire, but it would suffer no penalty because fire, too, is a part of Nature. However, no matter how hard you tried, the Branch would never be more than a fancy stick if a necromancer tried to use it.

So in order to make the Branch usable, I would have to change the material it was made of.

As to why I was doing this, well, that's a different story altogether.

See, in the last ten Levels of your character, you have to make a final decision about what your endgame is going to be. The last points you spend are often on very specific Job Classes designed to hone your DPS down to an art.

My first hundred Levels were for utility. I was strong enough to facetank several hits from an endgame Raid Boss without an issue, and I had enough Skill in Crafting to reliably be called the Guild's best smith. Those Levels were my foundation, who I was when I stood inside of the boundaries of the game. With my second hundred Levels, however, I took my character in a complete one-eighty.

I had gained inspiration in a heartbeat, a flash of excitement that drove me to spend my final days meticulously plotting out every move I made.

Information was free that late in the game, those who had left willingly telling what they knew.

I remember sending messages out to people in those final days. Remember doing my level best to get as many people as I could to stay inside the game until the End. Yet no one replied.

…I digress.

See, the Job Classes I got for beating the game were all geared towards pure firepower. Spell firepower, to be exact. And I intended to specialize in something that no one else ever could.

Super-Tier Magic.

Let's start from the beginning. Super-Tier Magic acts more like a special ability rather than an actual Spell. Magic casters can unleash it without consuming any of their MP. However, it has a set amount of 'charge time' and a limited number of uses per day.

Aside from a few Job Classes, these limits could only be modified in one way—Levels. Super-Tier Spells scaled directly against the Player's Level. In addition, the Job Classes I got for defeating the last Bosses were all more than helpful in allowing me to minmax the hell out of my few unreserved Levels.

'Savior of Worlds' was a Stat-scaling Class with some bizarre mechanics—namely, the ability to add unique, game-changing metamagic enhancements to any Spell, regardless of the Tier. 'Purveyor of Eternity' reduced cooldown time and granted a few special Skills relating to time dilation. 'Sentinel of the Fallen World' was a defensive Class, and 'Soldier of the Wastelands' gave ridiculous cast speed bonuses.

All four granted a specific Super-Tier Spell unique to them alone.

I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this.

The number of Super-Tier Spells a Player could technically learn was one for each Level after Level 70. Of course you could only learn specific Spells if your Stats matched the requirements, which already disqualified half the min-maxed Players in the game. When you first learned one at Level 71, it could only be used one time a day. It could be used once more for every additional ten Levels gained. Thus, the average Player who managed to reach Level 100 could hypothetically use Super-Tier Magic at least four times a day and had a maximum of thirty Spells in their arsenal.

Thirty was a ludicrous number for most Players with how much each one required you to have in raw Stats, but obviously I bypassed that restriction entirely just by being over-Levelled. Matched with the fact that I could learn a hundred and thirty Super-Tier Spells by the time I reached Level 200, you begin to get some mad plans starting.

Now. I noticed a small issue with the system at this point. A tiny flaw that was the main reason it was supposed to be impossible to breach Level 100. See, after you reach around Level 90, you have access to pretty much every Rare Job Class available for your build as well as the option to pick a few 10-Level High Classes if you wished to branch out a bit.

If you'll recall, I maxed out Sage, which was considered a Caster Class. If you choose to Prestige it, it becomes a 10-Level High Class instead, replacing the 15-Level Sage. Upon taking High Sage, I was pretty much given my choice of every possible Rare Class that High Sage could evolve into. Turns out that the game really didn't know how to deal with someone beyond 100, so it simply assumed I already had every possible prerequisite for combining Classes.

Now, I'm sure some of you out there are already counting up the needed Levels in their heads. Adding in World Disaster and World Champion, that's a total of 25 Levels already taken. With literally every other Class I would ever need being a Rare or Unique 5-Level, I had fifteen slots wide open by the time I hit the home stretch. Excluding the slots I needed to save for the Job Classes I planned to gain in the shift, that number was still a fairly beefy seven slots for Rare or Unique Classes.

I proceeded to abuse those seven slots to their fullest, taking every opportunity to scale my Super Tier DPS ever higher. I even used a Mirrored Ouroboros to request a new Job Class specifically tailored to Super-Tier Spells, something that the Devs didn't even blink twice at considering I had been grinding Levels in the Demon Realm for long enough to have found ten Ouroboros by that point.

As seemed to be customary now that the end of the game was coming, they didn't even bother to properly balance the Class, which changed the cooldown of Super-Tier Spells from a day to an hour. I thanked them profusely, but they just waved me off.

With my Cast Speed through the fucking roof, with my Stats high enough to learn literally every Super-Tier Spell in existence, with the ability to cast them up to fourteen times a day with next to no lag between, I was the world's most efficient specialist in Super-Tier Magic.

So. You have your specialization, you have your insane damage scaling turning any one of these Spells into a weapon of mass destruction. Now, what do you try to do?

Simple.

Make a World-Class weapon capable of scaling it even further.

I chuckled quietly to myself.

It was all a matter of using my knowledge as an Alchemist alongside my ability as a craftsman. Alchemy allows you to completely change the material composition of an object, but only so long as those objects are directly related. The 'ritual' needed was more or less bringing the object up to a specific temperature, regardless of what the object was.

I superheated the wood of the Branch, and in moments it was turned into pure coal.

Not burned. Not set aflame. Turned directly into coal. The properties of the Branch remained, but the medium had changed.

The process began again, slower this time. I had to heat the coal without setting it aflame. The forge glowed softly, and I spent quite some time gingerly raising the object's heat. When it finally hit critical temperature, a single touch turned it into solid diamond.

[Synthesized Branch of Mímameiðr]

My brow raised.

Huh. Apparently Noa's tree had a Norse name. Cool. I would start calling her by it just to fuck with her, if I could even pronounce the damn thing.

Moving on, then.

See, different mediums are better for different Magics. In YGGDRASIL, crystals gave different bonuses depending on what they were. Amethyst gave bonuses to Dark Magic, quartz to Light Magic, ruby to Fire Magic, sapphire to Water Magic and so on. Diamond was almost unheard of in-game, simply because of what it did.

It gave bonuses based on the Tier of Magic you used, rather than the type of Magic it was.

And what I had before me? It was a solid chunk of diamond with all the primal force of the World Tree. Even if Noa couldn't use it, the power was still there, lying dormant. Waiting. Growing. Merging with her until she could one day call it her own.

So what do I do with it?

Simple. Do the detailing on it, then put in a few World Items from the First Tree to turn this into a Crafted Item.

I had already removed the twigs and smaller branches from the thing, and with the diamond lacking any impurities, it looked more like glass than anything. I took my time polishing it, taking off the rough barklike texture so it had the smooth sleekness needed to refract light. The rings within the Branch were still visible as well, scattering light more and more with each layer. I finished up the fine-tuning, then flipped it so the pointed tip rested on the ground.

The base of the Branch, where it was the widest, would be where I would make the 'head' of the staff. I would need to grind out a hollow hemisphere in order to fit in the orb, after all.

The Fruit of the First Tree was utterly enormous, and the Seeds from it could be up to the size of a fist. Not all the Seeds I obtained were from the Fruit, the Seeds were added long before the giant peach. They were the 'junk drop' of World Items for the longest time, appearing from time to time instead of any useful Item. Now, though, I had plenty of uses for them.

I turned one of the Seeds into diamond by the same method, ground it into a perfect sphere, and began carefully cutting it down into a multifaceted beauty that still glowed with the gentle light of the original Seed. Finally I set it atop the main body of the staff, excitement building.

Only for the two to violently repel each other in a flash of bright light.

Item Creation failed.

"No shit." I grumbled, leaning over to pull the jewel out of the wall.

More preparation, then.

Fuck.

I reluctantly got out my chisel and got to work. I inscribed a Rune on every facet of the four thousand-carat monster, taking the time to add as many stabilizing Runes as possible. Runes that allowed for increased stability, Cast Speed, and Spell Damage were prioritized, a few others tossed in for good measure.

I tossed aside my now-dull chisel, sighing to myself and gently placing the jewel atop the staff. This time it stayed, gently hovering over the divot in the top without ever bothering to make contact.

Item Creation success!

Name: /~~~~~~~/—World-Class Item

+1 to Tier of Spells cast through this Item.

+40% increased Spell Damage.

+40% increased Mana Cost of Spells.

+20% increased Cast Speed.

Description: /~~~~~~~/

Huh. That's… odd. It seems that Runecrafting has a definite effect on the outcome of the Item. Ah well. At least I can still add to the Flavor Text.

I began to type, starting with the basics.

This Staff can be equipped regardless of Item Requirements as long as Level Limit is met.

Requires Level 250.

All right, that comfortably disqualifies everyone in this World save for myself, as well as allowing me to bypass my Race's normal inability to equip weapons. The Level requirement alone is more than enough to let me tack on basically any stat, so I had plenty of wiggle room for balancing it. Now… for the fun part.

The Sage's Last Stand—World-Class Item

+1 to Tier of Spells cast through this Item.

+40% increased Spell Damage.

+40% increased Mana Cost of Spells.

+20% increased Cast Speed.

+1 to Tier of Attack Spells cast through this Item. (Triggerable ON/OFF)

Adds +5% Spell Damage per Player Level.

+100% increased Physical Damage.

+100% increased Elemental Damage.

Grants +1% increased Experience gain per point in Physical Attack.

This Staff can be equipped regardless of Item Requirements as long as Level Limit is met.

Requires Level 250.

"As the Billion Worlds burned, the ancient Sage rose to his feet. With his bare hands he fought, crushing bone and tearing flesh. He refused to cease fighting, refused to lose hope. He refused to cast a single Spell—not because he was incapable of it, but because he knew he was too capable.

But as the darkness closed in, he finally accepted his fate. With a branch so old it had become solid stone, he took his last stand against the encroaching darkness. Never again would such horrors be seen, never again would every World scream out in the same agonized cry.

Because there were no Worlds left to scream."

-Chronicles of the Nameless One.

I whistled lowly, confirming the changes. Nothing appeared to happen, but the changes remained in place. I had added several different damage modifiers in order to give as much variety as possible, but I hadn't been entirely sure that my plan would work. I had already failed to Craft the Item once, so it was obviously possible to fail a Craft… which meant that there was likely an upper limit to how much modification I could add before it simply refused to work.

A self-balancing world, just as I suspected.

Now, obviously I'm a bit overpowered as it is, to the point where making this monstrosity seems a bit pointless. But I'm not really making it for me. I'm making it for my Shabti, whose inherent fragility requires them to act from a distance while facing any powerful enemies. With this, they can stay far away while nuking the hell out of their enemies.

How do I intend to mass-produce this?

Well, it's quite simple.

It's time for me to test the Mirror trick once more… for science, of course.

Word count 2500