secret dice.

Chapter 808 I've never fought such a wealthy battle before.

Upon returning to the capital of the North, Luo Jun did not rush to leave. It was already midnight, and most associations and institutions were not yet open, so he found a hotel to rest for the night.

The next morning, taking advantage of the opening hours of the major guilds and merchant houses, he first went to the weapon and equipment shops to clear out the equipment he didn't need. The equipment system in this world was similar to that of Chaos Quest, but the effects of various items were relatively straightforward. Weapons generally increased attack power or damage of a certain attribute, or had special effects against specific races, or provided critical hit bonuses; armor mostly increased defense, shields, health, movement speed, and other basic attributes; jewelry mostly increased mana and mana regeneration, or provided bonuses to various spells, or stored a certain type of mana... The difference between different levels of equipment was only in the strength of their basic attributes and additional effects; items with special effects were extremely rare.

In short, compared to the equipment given by the Chaos quest, the equipment in this [game] world is more about stats than mechanics. Most of the equipment doesn't offer any real improvement for Luo Jun. Whether it's epic or legendary, it's all trash that can be easily exchanged for money.

In the end, Luo Jun kept only about ten items that he felt were particularly unique, and sold the rest, earning another million gold coins.

"Who says making money in this game is hard? It's incredibly easy!" Luo Jun grinned widely, carrying a huge sum of money, and headed to various guilds to learn all sorts of skills.

Previously, his skill page only had four types of magic, but now they have all been upgraded to level 20. He first went to various magic guilds, found spells he didn't have, and bought them all. Then he went to the Warrior Guild.

The Warriors' Guild teaches various basic combat skills, such as swordsmanship, spear fighting, archery, throwing, and shield fighting, as well as specific combat techniques. Like mages, warriors also possess skills, but unlike the grand scale of mages' skills, warrior skills often appear simple and unadorned, yet many involve certain rules. For example, the Immovable Mountain skill, once successfully cast, ensures that even if the warrior is killed instantly, their corpse will remain motionless…

Getting back to the point, combat skills are also very useful. Luo Jun learned all the basic skills of the Warrior Association and upgraded them all to expert level. He also bought all the combat skill manuals he could find and learned as much as he could!
After taking care of those things, he went to the Assassin's Guild.

This place will teach some skills that most warriors would look down upon, but which are equally helpful in combat. For example, daggers, theft, trap setting, stealth, poisoning, and light footwork, etc. Some of these are classified as combat skills, while others are classified as life skills, or auxiliary skills.

Compared to combat skills, auxiliary skills require fewer points to upgrade and don't have the special abilities of combat magic. They take effect immediately upon learning, somewhat like a passive effect. For example, stealth, while not comparable to the invisibility spell of storm magic, significantly reduces the chance of others noticing you simply by crouching down. Combined with the environment and lighting, it's enough to fool some low-level NPCs or even players.

These skills are equally important, and Luo Jun adopted them all, upgrading them all to expert level. He also acquired all the combat techniques related to combat skills.

The Assassin's Guild can only provide a limited number of auxiliary skills; the vast majority are taught by other organizations. For example, the Gourmet Guild teaches cooking, butchering, and farming skills, while various merchant guilds teach business acumen and eloquence. Even the training grounds can teach three skills: fitness, meditation, and breathing exercises. Fitness increases health proportionally, meditation increases mana, and breathing exercises regulate breathing, increasing stamina recovery speed and reducing stamina consumption when using combat skills.

In short, Luo Jun learned every skill he could find and raised them all to expert level. When he passed by the training ground, he also leveled up again, successfully reaching level 82.

At this point, he still had over 8,000 skill points remaining.

After this series of operations, Luo Jun arrived at the teleportation array, returned to the capital, and visited the major magic guilds, warrior guilds, and assassin guilds again. He raised the evaluation of his spells and combat skills to master level, and also reviewed all the spells and combat techniques that he had never seen before, including those at the grandmaster level.

After doing all this, Luo Jun went to the teleportation array and headed to the Cangyan Province in the southwest of the empire.

The climate here is warm and humid, with rainforests everywhere. It borders the elven kingdom to the southwest and is an important border province of the empire.

Besides the hot weather, tropical specialties, and elven trade goods, the most famous thing here is the great volcano.

This is a volcano located on the border between the Oran Empire and the Elf Kingdom. It towers into the clouds, is active year-round, and you can even see thick smoke billowing from its crater. However, according to records, this volcano has not erupted for hundreds of years.

Despite its active state, it has yet to erupt. According to legend, a powerful being is secretly harmonizing the surging fire element within the volcano.

Luo Jun left the capital of Cangyan Province and flew all the way to the Great Volcano. He plunged into the crater, enduring the high temperature and pungent sulfur smell, and saw a small castle built on the inner wall of the volcano, constructed of obsidian.

found it!
Luo Jun arrived at the door and knocked. After a short while, the door opened, but instead of a human, he was greeted by a lava monster covered in obsidian armor.

"I have come to pay my respects to the great Fire Master, Ms. Fia!"

The lava monster seemed to understand him, nodded slightly, and made way for Luo Jun to enter. Soon after, he saw a figure wearing a silk robe, with long red hair and a shapely figure.

I must say, the Fire Master mentor is in really good shape.

"Are you here to get a Grandmaster rating...?" Fia asked directly without turning around, but her voice was a little strange, as if she hadn't opened her mouth.

“Yes.” Luo Jun nodded: “And I…”

"Go down there and get me some lava essence first," Fia said, pointing downwards.

"Below?" Luo Jun blinked. "You mean below the house, or..."

Below this house is a bubbling lava pool.

“Of course it’s under the lava…” Fia’s voice was getting impatient: “You’re already a master of fire, right? You dare to come to me? You can’t possibly not even have this much skill, can you?”

This wasn't a difficult task for Luo Jun, but he really didn't want to waste time on the mission: "I have a letter here, which Instructor Locke asked me to bring. Perhaps you can take a look first."

"Locke? That old guy can write letters now?"

Fia finally turned her head, and Luo Jun then realized why her voice sounded so strange. Her face was covered in a thick layer of soft mud, like a face mask. Moreover, the texture didn't resemble the sea mud favored by beauty-conscious women in the main world; it was more like a mixture of volcanic ash and lava. Judging from the red glow of the dripping droplets, the temperature was clearly quite high…

Fia wiped her hands, took the paper Luo Jun handed her, and after reading it, looked at him with some surprise: "Locke said you have unparalleled magic power?" "I don't know." Luo Jun shrugged: "At least I've never seen anyone with more than me."

“Prove it to me!” Fia stared into his eyes.

"how to prove?"

Fia snapped her fingers, and the lava monster walked to the obsidian cabinet, opened the door, and took out a magic book.

These educational game props are very difficult to destroy; even at high temperatures, they did not catch fire.

“Master-level Fire Magic, Blazing Fire Ray,” Fia said. “This is a failed attempt at my research. It’s very powerful, but correspondingly, it consumes a lot of magic power.”

"Isn't it normal for a powerful weapon to consume a lot of magic?" Luo Jun asked curiously. "Why is this called a failed work?"

“Because of two points.” Fia held up two fingers: “First, its power needs time to accumulate and increase, so it can’t deal enough damage immediately. As for second, its power is not proportional to its magic consumption at all.”

As she spoke, she went to the window, raised her hand, and shot a red ray diagonally upwards: "This spell can be cast continuously. In the first second, it deals 200 points of damage and consumes 100 points of mana."

"Uh, two hundred points of damage is indeed a bit meager for a master-level spell..." Luo Jun couldn't help but complain.

“But in the next second, the damage will increase to 300 points, while the mana cost will increase to 200 points,” Fia said. “After that, the mana cost will double every second, but the damage will only increase by 50%, until it reaches its peak in the tenth second, and so on…”

"In the tenth second, the damage per second can exceed 10,000," Luo Jun said, "but the mana consumption can reach 100,000 per second!"

“That’s right.” Fia shrugged. “Of course, the skill level of Fire Magic can increase magic damage to some extent, but it is ultimately limited. And the consumption of 100,000 mana per second makes this seemingly excellent damage output somewhat counterproductive.”

As she spoke, she handed the spellbook to Luo Jun: "Learn it, then show me how to cast it. My requirement is simple: after ten seconds, continue casting for one minute!"

"This requires over six million magic points?" Luo Jun took the spellbook. "It doesn't seem like that much..."

"Quite the boast." Fia sneered, a piece of volcanic mud falling off her face, which she quickly picked up and patched up. "Six million magic points, I can also come up with that, but the key is how much you have left after using up those six million! If you only have magic points at the same level as me, to be honest, you don't deserve Old Locke's letter of introduction!"

"Alright." Luo Jun smiled slightly, selected to learn, and immediately the Blazing Fire Ray appeared in his spellcasting bar: "Where do I cast it?"

Fia pointed outside. "Let's look down at the crater. The concentration of fire element has dropped a bit lately, so we can use these rays to replenish it. This volcano is very delicate; it has extremely high requirements for fire element. Too much or too little won't do. We have to maintain a delicate balance to prevent it from erupting. It's exhausting to even try to appease it."

“Okay.” Luo Jun nodded, flew out of the Obsidian Castle, raised his hand, and shot a blazing fire ray at the churning lava below!
The first second of the ray was only the thickness of a thumb, and it barely caused any ripples when it entered the magma. However, in the second second, the ray became noticeably thicker, and the mana consumption increased accordingly.

Second after second passed, and by the tenth second, the ray was already as thick as a normal person's waist. The powerful fire element intensified the churning of the magma.

"It's the tenth second now. From now on, 100,000 mana points will be deducted every second!" Fia came to the window, stared wide-eyed at the blue bar above Luo Jun's head, and then frowned.

"Am I seeing things? Why isn't it moving?"

Time ticked by, and Luo Jun maintained a high-efficiency output of the Blazing Ray in his hand. The one-minute time limit had expired, but he showed no signs of strain or wanting to stop. Instead, he turned to look at Fia: "Is this okay?"

At this moment, Fia was so surprised to see the blue bar above Luo Jun's head that it remained completely still that she opened her mouth wide, and the volcanic mud on her face fell off.

"Okay, okay! Come in quickly!" Fia's eyes shone as if she had discovered a precious treasure.

Having witnessed Luo Jun's abilities, she readily waived the tedious task, immediately imparting to him a master-level fire magic and gifting him a magic book.

"This is..." Luo Jun opened the magic book, blinked, and said, "The Great Forging Technique?"

"Yes, with this spell, you can instantly forge raw ore into the weapon you want... although it's only a rough prototype, it will save you a lot of trouble!"

"It wasn't that complicated to begin with..." Luo Jun muttered. After all, this was a [game] world, and he had seen blacksmith shops selling weapons where blacksmiths would throw materials into a furnace and forge suitable weapons in no time. Players could even learn forging; all they needed to do was find a blacksmith's furnace and they could use it—the process was just a matter of loading a bar.

"Don't compare my Grandmaster-level magic to those crude techniques!" Fia retorted angrily. "Not only does it not require a furnace, but it can also process high-grade materials and has the potential to create exceptionally high-quality equipment! In short, this is one of my most prized spells, and I'm honoring you by teaching it to you!"

"Alright, alright... Thank you, senior..." Luo Jun was too lazy to argue with her. He decisively learned the spell, then flew out of the castle. First, he used water magic to create a large piece of obsidian in the lava. Then, he used the Midas Touch to turn it into a piece of earth rock ingot. Finally, he used the forging technique to immediately process the material into a long, jet-black sword!

However, this can only be considered a blank blade. Although it has a shape, it has not been decorated, nor has it been opened, let alone has any special effects. It can only be described as an indestructible stick...

These two grandmasters, one taught me how to refine materials and the other taught me how to make weapon blanks, what exactly are they trying to do?
Luo Jun weighed the blank sword in his hand: "However, both of these spells consume a lot of magic power. This forging technique alone requires eight thousand magic power..."

(End of this chapter)