Chapter 265: Star of Light

Chapter 262: Star of Light

The shield had a dull, purplish iron tint to its base. It was circular, but jutted out slightly with sharp points at the top, bottom, middle left and middle right sides of the circle. The base had an inner circle indentation inscribed with runes and texts that looked familiar to Aegis, but he couldn’t read them exactly. Each of the runes were glowing with a bright white light, but they were hard to see clearly due to the second layer of mithril forged onto the base.

The second layer was formed into the shape of a 10 pointed star, each point of the star was connected to the base at the center where it was fused between the base and the third layer, but the spikes themselves were curved outward and protruded slightly beyond the circular base, so as to allow attacks to slide off the shield, or catch weapons under the points if used to defend in certain ways.

Finally, the third layer, a star of Eirene, was forged atop the second layer at the very center point of the shield. The star had fewer points than 10, but it lined every other point up with the 10 of the second layer below it. The star was not flat, but bulged out at its center where all points converged, and from the center came a blinding white light that gently sprayed out strands of light over the rest of the shield, like a barrier of holy magic that washed over the mithral from the center.

All eyes fell upon the shield with wonder and amazement as Yuki held it forward towards Aegis. He carefully retrieved it from her hands, and the first thing he did was spun it around to view the back of it. It had a reinforced dragon scale backing, with hydra-leather straps sewn in with void silk thread. There were two standard straps for holding the shield with his wrist, but Aegis had made special requests to add more loose, outer straps. Their purpose, Yuki and Tullan did not know, but they included them nonetheless.

“It looks absolutely incredible...” Aegis said with his eyes wide open. This put a big proud smile on both Yuki and Tullan’s faces as they exchanged looks of relief with one another. Aegis then slid his left arm into the central straps and fastened the shield on, equipping it. It fit perfectly, and covered half of his body due to its large size. “It’s also pretty light, considering.”

“Aye, took me a lot of leveling with refinement and blacksmithin’, but I got some high quality mithral in that baby. No wasted metal, as thin as it can be without compromising its effectiveness. The aesthetic, and the backing, was all the work o’ this young lady, though. When people say she’s the best tailor in the game, I believe ‘em.” Tullan motioned to Yuki beside him.

“I couldn’t have done much without you, your metalworking was incredible. I hope I can use it to incorporate some of my usual outfit designs.” Yuki smiled back.

“O’ course!” Tullan cheered as Aegis took this time to wave it around a bit and get a feel for it.

“And, the stats?” Darkshot asked eagerly from behind Aegis. He turned to see not only Darkshot, but Rakkan, Lina, and Pyri all excitedly waiting to hear the stats on the new, artifact-level shield.

“Right. I guess that’s the most important thing here, isn’t it?” Aegis said as he tapped on his interface to open up the shield’s item card.

Name:Star of Light

Slot: Off-hand

Type: Shield

Armor:12,305

Quality:95%

Durability:Indestructible

Requirements: Level 150, 150+ Strength

Option 1: Increases Favor with Eirene while equipped by 1000

Option 2: Increases casting speed by 3% [Source: Voidsilk]

Option 3: Increases Damage and Healing from Spells by 290[Source: Mosmir Voidreaver Pincer]

Option 4: Negates damage from soul-infused weapons [Source: Indestructible Light]

Enchant 1: Reduces all spell damage taken from all types of magic by 4.3%[Source: Spellward(Trexon)]

Enchant 2: Restores 950 Health every 3 seconds. [Source: Healing Wind(Aegis)]

Description: A Shield made of Mithral, Voidsilk, Hydraleather, Royal Mosmir Pincers, Silver Dragon Scales, and Indestructible Light. Carved with runes and a star depicting the Goddess Eirene and her teachings. Crafted by Tullan, Yuki.

Aegis made sure to share the item card with his party, who looked upon it in amazement.

“I’ve never seen so many options on a single item before...” Lina commented.

“Two enchants... dang. Trexon must’ve leveled his enchanting to pull that off.” Rakkan said.

“It looks freakin’ sick, too.” Darkshot cheered.

“Pretty cool.” Pyri smiled at the card as she finished reading it.

“So, you think it’s gonna be enough to get you through the preliminaries?” Quinn asked jokingly, drawing attention back onto the task at hand. Aegis spun around to face her and saw she still had her hands on her waist, and behind her stood the imposing stadium awaiting their arrival.

“Right.” Aegis took a deep breath, shuffling his shield one more time before relaxing his shoulders and looking Quinn in the eyes. “We’re definitely ready.”

“Good. Now c’mon, let’s get you checked in.” She stepped aside and motioned him and the others to continue walking forward towards the stadium.

Aegis once again took the lead, with his party and then Quinn, Yuki and Tullan following closely behind him as they walked between the large statues of great champions that stood flanking the path that led into the arena’s main entrance.

Once under the roof and in the front hall of the stadium, they were able to easily approach the registration counter. There wasn’t a line of players waiting to check in like there was on the bigger islands; the other teams had already checked in and were standing off to the side, staring at Aegis and his team as they approached the desk.

“We’re here to check-in for the gladiator tournament preliminary round.” Aegis said to the lizardfolk NPC behind the counter wearing leather armor, a necklace dangling a pendant with the mark of Odin around his neck.

“Check in for Aegis, Lina, Pyri, Darkshot and Rakkan confirmed. Your first preliminary match will begin in 11 minutes. You must remain inside this Gladiator Arena for the remainder of your preliminary matches in order to be eligible to be transported into your match once it begins. Leaving the arena will count as forfeiture of the preliminary matches and disqualify you from the tournament. Do you understand these conditions?”

“I understand.” Aegis replied on behalf of his party members who were all listening intently.

“Good. You will receive a notification in your interface when your next match is ready. Speak to me after you’ve received the notification and I will transport you to your arena room with your randomly selected opponents. Given the number of participants, you must win 5 out of 5 of your preliminary matches to move on to the next stage of the tournament. A single loss will lead to disqualification. Good luck.” The NPC explained robotically.

“No pressure, huh?” Quinn joked as she saw the nervous look on all of their faces.

“Yeah. Hehe...” Aegis forced an awkward laugh.

“Yo you just talked to Darkshot...” the Berserker player whispered to the druid excitedly, which Darkshot clearly overheard.

“Ah, I suppose it’s only natural. I bet you want my autograph too?”

“Hell yeah!” The berserker cheered before attempting to run forward - he’d momentarily forgot the blue box was still there and prevented them from approaching.

“Oh god.” Pyri rolled her eyes as she watched in real-time as Darkshot’s ego grew.

“How can we give them autographs, though? I thought we’re not allowed to use items here outside of what we have equipped?” Aegis asked as he turned to Rakkan.

“Uh...” Rakkan wasn’t trying to hide how reluctant he was to answer as he eyed the players across from them in annoyance. “They can unequip their items after the match starts and drop them on the ground. You can then mark them with your weapons or tools. Most likely, they’re going to start the match with a... yep.” Rakkan motioned to the berserker as he equipped in one of his hands an inscribing kit equipped as his main-hand weapon. This was Pyri’s limit and she bursted out laughing.

Match begins in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

The moment the timer counted down to 0, the blue walls vanished and the others eagerly jogged forward across the arena to Aegis’ group.

“Sorry about this, but we started out on the mountain island. There’s not a lot of streamers there, and it's expensive to travel so, this is the only way we could have a chance to meet our favorite streamers.” The wizard apologized, while simultaneously he unequipped his staff and presented it to Aegis.

“It’s no problem, I guess...” Aegis shrugged awkwardly.

“Here!” The berserker enthusiastically unequipped his inscribing kit so that it dropped to the ground, then did the same with his axe. One by one, the others unequipped their weapons and dropped them for Aegis.

Rakkan remained on edge, his weapons ready as Aegis picked up the kit and got to work.

“You guys want something special written? I don’t really normally do this sort of stuff...” Aegis replied awkwardly.

“Just your names, that’d be great!” The berserker exclaimed while motioning to Darkshot as well as Aegis.

“Do you even know how to use this toolkit?” Aegis turned to Darkshot as he stepped forward beside him.

“Huh? Of course I do. I’m Darkshot.” He replied in his dramatic tone.

“So cool...” The berserker squealed with excitement.

“How old are you kids?” Pyri asked curiously.

“Oh me? I’m 9.” The berserker replied.

“I’m 12, though.” The wizard said proudly.

“I’m 17!” The cleric joined in. “Oh, when you sign my shield, can you put your catch phrase on it?” Hearing this, Aegis turned to Lina who held back a chuckle.

“Sure...” Aegis replied. He quickly went through and etched their requests onto their weapons, leaving just Darkshot left with the axe. Darkshot struggled to use the tool, making it very apparent he had not taken up the scribing skill, but eventually managed to etch in a little scribble that somewhat resembled a D and an S.

“Great. Thanks a lot guys!” The berserker shouted as he eyed his axe with glowing eyes.

“What would you do if you got someone else as your opponent?” Aegis asked curiously.

“Oh, just surrender, I guess. Try again next month. We’re lucky we got one of our favorites though. You, or Feng, or even Makaroth would’ve been awesome.” The wizard replied.

“Hey it’s true you’re really out to get Makaroth, right? He’s your dad?” The monk asked.

Aegis looked awkwardly at him, trying to hold himself back from answering this question inappropriately.

“Alright guys, that’s enough, no questions. We’re here for the tournament. You guys gonna surrender now? Or want us to kill you?” Pyri asked them nonchalantly.

“Oh, right. Yeah, we’ll surrender. Thanks again. Good luck in the tournament! We’ll be cheering you on!” The wizard answered, then promptly hit a button in his interface which removed him from the match.

Combatant Jerin has retired.

Combatant Telly has retired.

Combatant Pippymonk has retired.

Left behind was the cleric and the berserker, as they eagerly continued to stare at Aegis’ group with bubbly eyes.

“Hey, is it true you guys had sex last night? I couldn’t watch because of the age restriction.” The berserker asked with an inappropriate level of enthusiasm. Lina’s face immediately went bright red as he motioned to her. Aegis avoided looking at the kid as well and couldn’t immediately think of how to reply. “No way! You totally did. That's an awesome man. Hell yeah!” The berserker extended his hand as if to get a high-five from Aegis.

Combatant Smasherman has been defeated.

Combatant Starhealer has been defeated.

Rakkan had very swiftly cut them both down with a single swing of his mithral longsword.

“Thanks.” Aegis said.

“Don’t mention it.” Rakkan replied coolly.

Aegis’ team has won the match. Now exiting the arena...