Close Combat Mage

Chapter 365 - Bustling Back and Forth Part 2

Suo Jia took out a rank one Illusion Gem and put it in an extraction box, and then put the Atlantis’ Wisdom into an enhancement room. This extraction box utilized the properties of magic to remove a specific magic element. Once the gem lost its stability, it would collapse and then the equipment placed in the enhancement room would automatically start absorbing the energy.

“Ding!” Suo Jia took a deep breath and abruptly opened the extraction box, and the Illusion Gem within immediately disintegrated. It looked as if the Illusion Gem in the transparent extraction box had completely disappeared and had been replaced with a rainbow colored light.

The next moment all the colorful light entered the enhancement room through a crystal tube. Among the seven colors of the light, the blue beam of energy quickly gathered around Atlantis’ Wisdom.

Suo Jia couldn’t help but hold his breath as he watched the blue light wrap around Atlantis’ Wisdom. Although the entire process only took about a second, Suo Jia felt like time had come to a standstill.

Finally…a soft hissing sound could be heard as the brilliant colored light escaped from an outlet on the side wall of the enhancement room. At the same time, the blue light surrounding the Atlantis’ Wisdom gradually began to separate from it and disappear without a trace.

“Sigh…” Suo Jia bitterly shook his head. He could tell that this first attempt had failed. However, there was nothing that he could do about it, it was just a matter of luck. Although the 50% chance success rate didn’t seem that low, it was impossible to ascertain the results unless one manually performed the extraction.

Although the first gem’s extraction had failed, meaning that Suo Jia had lost a hundred million coins, he knew that the process wasn’t one for poorer people to do in the first place. If they weren’t willing to pay up, it was better not to attempt to in the first place.

Suo Jia placed another Illusion Gem inside the extraction box. Once more, the gem transformed into a multi-colored array of light and flowed out into the enhancement room.

This time, Suo Jia’s luck wasn’t bad. After a second or so, the blue light covering Atlantis’ Wisdom didn’t just disperse. Instead, it faintly floated and drifted around the surface of the crown like a glimmer in the air.

Suo Jia excitedly clenched his hands and reached out to remove Atlantis’ Wisdom and insert the upper body armor in its place. Unfortunately, this time the extraction failed three times in a row, and only upon using the last of his rank one gems did he finally succeed.

Suo Jia speechlessly stared at the two equipment that he’d finally enhanced with an agonized expression. How was this a 50% success rate? It seemed more like it was below 30%!

Suo Jia could only return to the auction house and purchase another ten Illusion Gems before returning to his room to attempt to enhance his equipment again. As it turned out, Suo Jia ended up using a total of 24 Illusion Gems to successfully enhance seven pieces of equipment to rank one. This success rate was clearly below 30%.

Suspicious, Suo Jia went up to the front desk to complain to the staff member. “Miss, is there something wrong with the Illusion Gems this auction house sells? How come my success rate isn’t even 30%?”

The staff member patiently replied, “Mister, there’s definitely nothing wrong with our Illusion Gems. Honestly, there’s no way any Illusion Gem could have defects. Although you might not be content with a 30% success rate, that honestly isn’t low!”

Suo Jia doubtfully asked, “So you’re saying it’s high? Are you saying that there are people that get even worse results?”

The staff member nodded. “That’s right, the worst record we have is someone having extracted over 800 gems in a row without a single successful upgrade to rank one.”

She then paused and carefully explained, “The 50% success rate actually refers to each individual gem. In other words, if your luck is bad, every one of your gems could fall on the chance of failure, so no matter how many you use, it won’t improve your result.”

Upon hearing this response, Suo Jia finally understood. Originally, Suo Jia had thought that the 50% meant 50/100 gems would succeed. However, it actually meant 50% chance of success for each individual gem. If one had bad luck, it was possible that they could use up 10,000 gems and still not succeed even once.

For lack of better option, Suo Jia could only go back to the displays and buy 20 rank two gems. The reason he could purchase so many was because the auction house reimbursed buyers if they returned any extra, unused items.

Like this, Suo Jia continued to enhance his equipment. After spending every last bit of his newly earned money, he was disappointed to discover that his equipment had only been enhanced to rank four, and the amount of money he’d need to spend on rank four gems was 1.6 billion! He’d only just earned a massive sum of money today, but had barely held onto it before using it all up. This amount spent was frightening.

Although Suo Jia had used up most of his money within the span of a single afternoon, he still felt pretty accomplished when he looked down at his armor and weapons that was now enshrouded in a hazy blue light. From what the staff member at the front desk had said, equipment enhanced to rank four or higher was definitely a powerful figure. After all, what kind of average person could possibly possess this amount of financial resources?

After putting on all of the armor, the blue glows from each had merged together like water and now covered his entire body in a layer of blue film made of light.

Although he had spent most of his money, Suo Jia didn’t have any regrets. His success rate had finally reached around 30% [overall], and while the staff member had informed him that this wasn’t a particularly high value, it was still above average.

By the time Suo Jia had left the auction house in contentment, it had already gotten completely dark outside. Anyone that passed by Suo Jia couldn’t help but be taken aback. After all, seeing someone that had boosted all of their equipment to this high of a rank was an extremely rare sight, one that many never saw even once in their entire lives.

When Suo Jia noticed the astonished expressions around him, he felt proud of himself for a brief moment. However, he immediately returned to his senses; although this equipment looked really cool, it was too eye-catching. Those with many assets would always encounter trouble. How was there any benefit of gaining people’s attentions? Although Suo Jia was confident in his own strength, he wasn’t to the point where he could be arrogant and egotistical.

Suo Jia hurriedly turned around and started running towards a tailor shop. Upon charging in, he immediately purchased an extremely large, black cloak to tightly wrap around his armor, making sure that not a single sliver of light was showing.

Suo Jia closely inspected himself in the mirror. The large, black cloak gave Suo Jia a mysterious air. Because of its size, the bottom half reached the ground and the large hood hid Suo Jia’s face deep within. At first glance he gave off a strangely sinister feeling.

“Phew…” Suo Jia let out a breath and relaxed. Fortunately…although the cloak looked pretty strange, it successfully hid [his armor. Without it, he’d probably end up in an extremely difficult situation.

After purchasing the cloak, Suo Jia left the city. He had absolutely no money on him now, and at the moment the most profitable business he could do was shipping pickaxes back.

Half a month later, Suo Jia was sitting on the deck of the ship back to the first checkpoint, his eyebrows knit together as he inspected a long scroll in his hands. This scroll contained a detailed account of the enhancement process he’d gone through. He hoped that he would be able to find some general patterns this way.

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