Chương 146: Charisma Build

Meno restored balance to the universe with pizza. After the previous morning's attack on his food rotation, he ordered the biggest salami pizza available and ate enough to purge most of the memory of eggs with grass on top. Before leaving the restaurant, he also stopped the bartender and arranged for an even more aggressively stacked greasy version to be delivered directly to Rina's room. Some people might call that revenge. As far as Meno was concerned, it was a blessing.

By the time he returned to the suite, Vivi had transformed the living room into a merchandise factory. Meno had expected to climb straight into the capsule, but instead she trapped him with questions about plushy versions of himself, T-shirt fabric weights, and what pose a PrayerBeadGod collectible should have.

"I don't care." Vivi showed him several logo designs.

"I still don't care." She apparently treated that as useful feedback and moved straight into shoutout recordings. Meno did a few for random commenters with very little enthusiasm, then discovered he also had to record a happy-birthday message for somebody he had never met.

"Happy birthday, uh..." Meno glanced toward Vivi.

"Darren."

"Happy birthday, Darren. Keep pumping." Vivi lowered the phone.

"Could you sound happier?"

"No." This was exactly the kind of exciting work nobody warned him about. By the time Vivi finally released him, Meno practically fled into the XPro before she could remember another birthday. The good news was that his auctions had finished. The bad news was that the results were merely decent. Most of the expensive pieces sold only slightly above their opening bids, while the Rare III equipment ended somewhere around 30–50k each.

Considering how empty the high-end market had been, Meno had hoped wealthy guilds would get into a proper bidding war. One item had not sold at all. [Masterwork III | Drowned Pilgrim's Vitality] Type: Ring While in combat and below 20% Maximum HP, regenerate 10% Maximum HP per second. It was Masterwork III. Sure, the effect was extremely niche without False Hero, but there had to be somebody somewhere with a build terrible enough to make it work. Apparently not.

He collected the successful auction proceeds, then took the unsold ring to the mailbox. Relisting it lower would get a buyer eventually, but the extra gold mattered less now, and he had already backed out of giving Aurelia the Sunker. The ring would do instead. Maybe she would find a use for it, maybe not, but it had more value as a gift than sitting in his inventory while he tried to squeeze another few million out of it.

He mailed Drowned Pilgrim's Vitality to Aurelia without adding anything complicated, then checked his balance. 20, 191, 894g"Now we're talking." Unfortunately, most of that gold already had somewhere to go. Tyrant needed weapons, armor, and far more stat planning than False Hero had ever forced him to think about. The main thing Meno wanted was anything Cooldown related.

He would always take Action Speed when possible, but the Meno's Lesson experiment had already shown him how aggressively Solar guarded meaningful amounts of that stat on high-rarity gear. Quadrillionator, Xenocide, and Crownmind all sat on 10-second cooldowns. Faster reload meant faster Chain gain, more Xenocide windows, and more frequent control removal, so the stat improved everything Tyrant wanted to do.

Marcel's Legendary gear had it as an option, but naturally, the entire set was built around one stupid item that created nearly as many problems as it solved. He crossed the Royal Quarter and found the permanent throne-room party still going. Marcel had recovered enough from being classified as spoiled meat to sprawl around the throne again like nothing had happened. Meno opened the quartermaster interface and immediately found the centerpiece.

[Legendary III | Marcel's Aurastone] Type: Amulet +50% Cooldown Reduction -500% Charisma Charisma modifiers apply to all Damage dealt 50% CDR WHAT makes total sense for this guy MARVELOUS MARCEL GEAR DAMAGE BY PERSONALITY BUILD PBG finally found the perfect item THIS ITEM WAS MADE FOR HIM Meno bought it anyway.

"Fifty percent Cooldown Reduction is too good. The rest is obviously a scam." On its own, the amulet was almost unusable. The -500% Charisma modifier became an enormous reduced-damage penalty because the item explicitly made Charisma apply to all damage. Once Meno checked the rest of Marcel's equipment, though, the trap became obvious. Grave Crown gearing solved problems by creating new ones, then charged extra equipment slots to fix the damage. Great way to fleece more gold from players. Very on-brand.

The Aurastone also looked like a possible target for the Cursed Divine Teardrop. If the corruption increased its rarity and somehow removed the negative Charisma, Meno could keep the huge CDR without dedicating half his build to Marcel's nonsense. On the other hand, the Teardrop could just as easily ruin it, and Meno still wanted to save the upgrade for a weapon. Marcel watched the purchase with visible approval.

"Enjoy, enjoy. That one is my favorite. Put it on your pet, maybe. That one has more Charisma." Meno looked toward Isabel.

"Could you shut him up? Thanks."

"Certainly, my lord." Isabel leaned over and kissed Marcel. The quartermaster recoiled hard enough to fall backward onto the throne while Isabel pulled away giggling. Meno hated these NPCs so much. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work. Unfortunately, he still needed the rings that made the Aurastone functional.

[Legendary III | Marcel's Purity] Type: Ring (Max: 1 Equipped) -50% Maximum HP +500% Charisma That canceled the Aurastone's Charisma problem and restored his damage to normal, while immediately creating a new problem by cutting his Maximum HP in half. So naturally, there was another item to repair the damage for the low price of another 2 million gold.

[Legendary III | Marcel's Forgery] Type: Ring (Max: 1 Equipped) +50% Maximum HP +500% Threat generated"So the build is create problem, solve problem, create another problem, solve that too. Go bankrupt." The Threat generation barely mattered because Meno played solo. If pulling aggro became a problem in group content, he could swap the ring later. The HP loss from Purity was much less negotiable.

Carrying the bounty while voluntarily cutting his HP in half sounded like an easy way to get deleted by the first mage with brain cells and enough levels to use them. The armor choice followed the same logic. Plate was dead on arrival because Meno had no desire to eat a negative Action Speed penalty, Cloth leaned too hard into caster effects, and Mail mostly offered raw damage. Damage was good, but Meno preferred speed modifiers. Leather was the obvious choice.

[Legendary III | Marcel's Stitch] Type: Leather Chest Durability: Indestructible Defense: Medium Leather Bonus: +2% Action Speed +10% Healing Reduction Applied on Damage for 3 seconds +25% Damage Reduction for every equipped item with a Charisma modifier"This Charisma thing is going to be a pain. If I replace the amulet later, half my other items become useless." With Aurastone and Purity both carrying Charisma modifiers, however, Stitch was already providing significant Damage Reduction.

The pants took the same idea and turned it offensive. [Legendary III | Marcel's Revelry] Type: Leather Pants Durability: Indestructible Defense: Medium Leather Bonus: +2% Action Speed +10% Healing Reduction Applied on Damage for 3 seconds +25% Attack Speed for every equipped item with a Charisma modifier"Fifty percent Attack Speed from one item is great, but these per-Charisma modifiers are a scam. There are only two Charisma items total, and I doubt the stat drops naturally.

Marcel built an entire set around his own garbage." Marcel looked pleased by the criticism. The boots completed the trio. [Legendary III | Marcel's Sneaker] Type: Leather Boots Durability: Indestructible Defense: Medium Leather Bonus: +2% Action Speed +10% Healing Reduction Applied on Damage for 3 seconds +25% Movement Speed for every equipped item with a Charisma modifier"Fifty percent Movement Speed on boots. Pretty sweet."

Across the chest, pants, and boots, Meno was also applying 30% Healing Reduction for 3 seconds every time he dealt damage. The setup screamed PvP, but healing bosses existed too, so the effect was not completely wasted in PvE. The weapons needed more thought. Meno needed a two-hander for Quadrillionator and another one-handed melee weapon if he wanted to test Annihilator properly. Sinseeker might still end up being his main weapon, but refusing to build the rest of Tyrant after firing the bow once would be stupid.

For the two-handed component, Meno settled on a polearm. Quadrillionator took final Damage Tier from the weakest component, but the tooltip said nothing about attack speed or reach. Polearms were the fastest two-handed weapon type and had excellent reach, but they also had the lowest base damage. Since Meno mostly intended to use it as a component instead of attacking with it directly, that was ideal.

[Legendary III | Marcel's Vainglaive] Type: Two-Handed Polearm Durability: Indestructible +20% Healing Reduction Applied on Damage for 3 seconds +150% Damage with Two-Handed Melee Weapons"The mod is good, I guess. Nothing special. All the weapon types have basically the same thing." Combined with his armor, a successful hit could now apply 50% Healing Reduction. Very PvP. For his one-hander, Meno cared about reach again.

Annihilator retained the weapon type of the main hand while absorbing the modifiers of both weapons, so using a spear in the main hand would preserve spear reach and import the broken mods from Vervenzal's Verdict. Compared with a sword's three-attacks-per-second baseline, one-handed spears sat at 2. 7 with slightly higher base damage and much better spacing. That felt like a good compromise.

[Legendary III | Marcel's Reacher] Type: One-Handed Spear Durability: Indestructible +10% Healing Reduction Applied on Damage for 3 seconds +75% Damage with One-Handed Melee Weapons Meno confirmed the final purchase and watched most of the wealth he had just accumulated disappear.

"Cool. We spent 16 million. Poverty time again. Those other auctions better end soon." His balance sat at: 4, 191, 894g. Financially, the last hour had been a rollercoaster. At least the loadout finally looked real. Marcel's leather pieces were high-quality black, with elaborate gold decoration worked into the seams, and they fit Grave Crown without looking like generic faction gear. Between the four leather slots, the armor bonuses added another +8% Action Speed. Meno reviewed the final setup.

HELM: [Legendary III | Vervenzal's Pursuit] AMULET: [Legendary III | Marcel's Aurastone] RING: [Legendary III | Marcel's Forgery] RING: [Legendary III | Marcel's Purity] CHEST: [Legendary III | Marcel's Stitch] GLOVES: [Legendary I | Sleepless Grip] PANTS: [Legendary III | Marcel's Revelry] BOOTS: [Legendary III | Marcel's Sneaker] WEAPON: [Mythic I | Sinseeker] Meno briefly considered buying Marcel's gloves too in case a complete set triggered an achievement, but replacing Sleepless Grip while carrying the bounty felt reckless.

Crownmind could remove crowd control every 10 seconds, but Sleepless Grip gave him another layer against anyone trying to chain-stun him between cooldowns. [Legendary I | Sleepless Grip] Type: Cloth Gloves Durability: Maximum Defense: Low Cloth Bonus: + 10% Crowd Control Recovery Speed Every 10 seconds, resist the next Debuff or Crowd Control effect applied to you +50% Damage while suffering from a Debuff or Crowd Control effect He also needed to keep some gold available for whatever Fractera threw at him.

Spending everything for a possible achievement that would probably reward another lame design credit was too risky.

"Acceptable," Marcel said from behind him. Meno looked back.

"Thanks." He left before he decided to punch the quartermaster in the face. Uninvited trouble was waiting outside the castle. Meno's instincts tightened before he recognized the name floating above the player. [Karmabeast (60) | Venom Tormentor Umbral | GC | GraveMistake] KARMABEEEEAST crime guild meeting he also has 1M bounty watch your back bro PBG can oneshot him EZ"Hey, man!" Karmabeast lifted one hand casually.

"Cool setup you got there. Looks rad."

"What do you want?" Meno stayed wary.

"That's rude. I thought we were friends." Karmabeast did not sound offended in the slightest.

"Anyway, can I ride your boat? I wanna go to Fractera, but I'm short on gold."

"Shouldn't you be farming negative Karma?" Meno narrowed his eyes.

"Are you trying to snipe me on my own ship?"

"No way. I can't even dodge that bow. You'd delete me." Karmabeast shrugged.

"I want to go to Fractera. Need a new source to catch up to Arayu and Scuzzy. I'm hoping for better crime in the new city." That was probably the most Karmabeast explanation possible. Meno considered leaving him behind anyway, but having someone from his own guild on the ship was fine.

"The moment you leave the party, I'm attacking you."

"For sure." Meno sent the party invite, Karmabeast accepted, and then immediately discovered the flaw in his plan when Meno summoned the Gravecycle.

"Wait. I can't mount here." Meno accelerated.

"That's your problem. Try to keep up." The Gravecycle tore through Westmarket before Karmabeast could complain. Somewhere in the back of Meno's mind, he had the vague feeling that there were several other things he meant to do before leaving, but Karmabeast's interruption had knocked the checklist apart and he could no longer be bothered to reconstruct it. He had spent enough time shopping, managing auctions, dealing with cursed pets, and figuring out Tyrant. He wanted Fractera, and everything else could wait.

Apparently Karmabeast owned a Gravecycle too, because by the time Meno reached the coast, the other player had caught up. Meno dismissed his mount before reaching the water and used Airwalk to launch himself far enough offshore that anyone waiting near the shoreline could not immediately grief him. To his surprise, Karmabeast followed. He jumped, kicked against empty air, then kept kicking without showing any sign of running out. Meno summoned the Blackwake beneath himself and landed smoothly on the deck.

Karmabeast dropped beside him a moment later.

"New skill?"

"Yeah. Umbral perk. It's active, though." Karmabeast stretched like flying through the air had been completely normal.

"Unlike your passive, mine doesn't have a kick limit." Meno looked back toward the shrinking coastline.

"I really need to look up what all these evolutions actually do." He retrieved the compass, switched the direction to Fractera, and watched the needle turn. The Blackwake surged forward a moment later, gathering speed as Westmarket disappeared behind them. The errands were over. The gear was good enough, the bounty was everyone else's problem, and the Blackwake was already cutting toward the place every top player in Veyrath had been rushing to reach. Fractera was next.