Chương 240: Heavenly Enhancing Fruits

After coming to grips with his new credits, Damion took another look at the Heavenly Enhancing Fruits the B Rank Iblis had given him. There was one for Shadow, Fire, Earth and Wind affinities. Since he did not have a Wind affinity, Damion ignored that one for now. Fire was also put aside. His Fire affinity was already at A Rank and from what he understood about Heavenly Enhancing Fruits, was that they could only increase the Rank of a person's affinity up to A Rank.

This left him with the Heavenly Earth Enhancing Fruit and Heavenly Shadow Enhancing Fruit. His Shadow affinity was at C Rank while his Earth affinity was D Rank. However, Damion did not know any spells for his Shadow affinity, so he decided to eat the Heavenly Earth Enhancing fruit first. Each fruit looked like a peach, but each had different colors. The Fire affinity fruit had reddish fuzz, while the Shadow was greyish. The Earth fruit Damion was bringing up to his mouth had a brownish coloring.

After taking a bite, Damion thought it tasted a bit sweet. Inwardly, he was just glad it did not taste like dirt, though if it had, it made him wonder what Shadow or Wind would taste like. When he swallowed the last bite, he received an expected notification from the Magic System. Ding {Host has consumed an affinity enhancing item. Current affected affinity D Rank. Would host like to maximize the effect of the enhancing item for 500 credits?} The Magic System had never indicated it could enhance the effect of things he consumed. From what he knew, the Heavenly Enhancing Fruits could only increase a person's Rank by one grade. If the Magic System could boost that effect at the cost of 500 credits it certainly would be worth it. After all, the cost to purchase an Increase Magic Affinity from the Shop was 1, 000 credits. Even if this boost was only an extra Rank, it seemed worth it.

'Yes,' Damion told the System. {Confirmed. Maximizing effect of affinity enhancing item.} Ding {Enhancement complete. Congratulations host on achieving A Rank Earth affinity.} Damion blinked a few times at what the Magic System told him. He expected the System would just give him an extra Rank, but to boost him all the way to A Rank, that was a surprise.

'System, if I consume another enhancing item, will you be able to increase that affinity to A Rank as well?' {As long as the enhancing item has not lost its effectiveness, System can use the enhancing item as a catalyst to boost host's aligned affinity to A Rank.}'What about above A Rank? If I consume an enhancing item while already at A Rank, can you boost the affinity to S Rank?' {Negative. The gap between A Rank and S Rank cannot be overcome by a single enhancing item.}'How many would I need to consume?'

{Host would need to consume a minimum of ten enhancing items to have a chance to boost an affinity from A Rank to S Rank.} If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

'Yeah, that probably won't be happening,' Damion thought. Even if he could find ten Heavenly Fire Enhancing Fruits, to only have a chance at boosting his affinity to S Rank did not seem like a safe bet to make. Setting aside the near impossible task of finding ten enhancing fruits, if he did, the value of those fruits was worth far more as bargaining potential with noble families and the Mage Association. He could never waste them on a maybe, not when he could just buy the upgrade from the Magic System Shop.

Not seeing a reason to delay, Damion consumed his Heavenly Shadow Enhancing Fruit and waited for the Magic System notification. Ding {Host has consumed an affinity enhancing item. Current affected affinity C Rank. Would host like to maximize the effect of the enhancing item for 500 credits?}'Yes.' {Confirmed. Maximizing effect of affinity enhancing item.} Ding {Enhancement complete. Congratulations host on achieving A Rank Shadow affinity.}'Well,' Damion thought to himself.

'Now, I have three affinities at A Rank. I wonder if I can find Heavenly Enhancing Fruits for all my affinities. I'd probably have to search in new Breaches or Unstable Breaches though. Which means the possibility of running into the other races will be high.' Damion considered the possibility of exploring Breaches and finding more legendary resources well into the night. When morning came and he exited his tent, he found the others had set up tents between his and the small pond.

In a nearby tree, he spotted Phil, who, judging by the dead Ferocious Beast at the base of the tree that had been disemboweled, had apparently already found breakfast. Taking a seat at his table, Damion took out his own breakfast and started eating one of his rations. Not long after Damion started eating the rest of his group started emerging from their tents. He was glad to see everyone got a good night's sleep, but it appeared none of them kept watch.

"Morning," Damion greeted each of them as they began to get their own breakfasts. He watched as they all ate their meals and waited for one of them to broach the subject of the rest of the exam. They had teamed up to clear the Breach, but that task was finished. There was still a week and a half of the exam to go. If they continued their team up, the six of them could take the top scores easily.

However, Damion could take the top spot on his own and he was not sure what the others could offer him to keep their team up going.

"I think it is time we address the issue at hand," Thomas said after he finished his breakfast.

"Go on," Damion said.

"We all achieved a sizeable boost in our scores due to the kills in the Breach. Coupled with the points we can get by turning in the Slash Rat bodies means we will most likely get top scores."

"Is this an argument to continue as a group or to go our separate ways?" Inara asked.

"That is a question we each have to ask ourselves," Thomas went on.

"Damion can, if he wants, claim the first spot all on his own. Myself, Yuri and Geoffrey can probably take the next spots. Aside from us, there are only a handful of D Rankers in the exam and none of them are likely to be working together.

"Inara won't have a problem surviving the rest of the exam, or getting a good score on her own," Thomas went on.

"Ronald on the other hand…"

"I would have been eliminated on the first day, if not for Phil." The Snow Hawk let out a quick chirp in acknowledgement.

"Or on the second day, if not for Inara."

"Exactly, for you it is in your best interest to stick with the team, but for the rest of us, we need a reason to stick together," Thomas finished.

"I intend to spend the next week training," Damion announced.

"So, I won't be generating much in the way of points. But since I get a quarter of each of yours, that shouldn't matter."

"So, you don't want to team up?" Ronald asked.

"I'll stick around here. If you want to make your camp here with me, that is fine. With Phil around, it is unlikely any other Ferocious Beasts will venture into the area."

"I'll keep my camp here with you," Inara announced.

"But I'll go out and hunt Ferocious Beasts every day and return to camp. Having a safe haven to rest, will be very useful."

"When you put it like that," Thomas spoke up.

"I think we will stick around and make our camp here as well." If you are reading this novel anywhere except Royal Road you are reading a pirated copy. Support authors and their mediums by reading on the original hosting site.