Chương 172: Let’s Talk About the Loot

Delfor could wait. Two Ancient loot beams rose from Varkesh's corpse, one for each of them thanks to the World First clear. Divine Evolutions were interesting, but the loot was already sitting there. Meno and Karmabeast went for the beams at the same time. [Ancient III | Varkesh's Sentence] Type: Dagger Damage Tier: Legendary VI Damage Factor: 0. 75x Attack Speed: 4.

0/s Durability: Empowered +4444% increased Bleed Damage 99% less Attack Damage Unique Equipped 4444 WHAT 99% LESS ATTACK DAMAGE LMAO FLAYER BIS LEGENDARY VI DAMAGE TIER WEAPON BASE STATS FINALLY STILL GOOD FOR QUAD"A weapon is a weapon, even if it's made for bad classes." Meno rotated the dagger once in his hand before reopening the tooltip.

"Was there a tooltip patch, or did the AI decide Ancient III was finally the time to show base stats for weapon types?" The new lines matched numbers Chadculator had calculated ages ago by comparing weapons at equal Damage Tier. A one-handed sword used a 1. 0x Damage Factor as the baseline, while daggers traded raw damage for 4. 0 attacks per second and a 0. 75x Damage Factor. Heavy weapons went the other direction, with a two-handed mace hitting much harder per swing but attacking far slower.

Meno checked Sinforged Trinity, but Its tooltip still showed neither stat. That made Ancient III, or more likely the equivalent Legendary VI threshold, the point where Solar finally started exposing the numbers instead of forcing players to reverse-engineer them with spreadsheets. Varkesh's Sentence was either complete trash or one of the best weapons in the game depending on who equipped it.

Ninety-nine percent less Attack Damage destroyed its normal hits, while +4444% increased Bleed Damage screamed Flayer weapon so loudly JojoBleeds could probably sense the drop from another continent. For Meno, all of that mattered less than the Legendary VI Damage Tier. The dagger was perfect Quadrillionator material. The Unique Equipped restriction stopped anyone from stacking two copies, probably to keep some Vein Flayer from turning every target into a leaking bag of HP.

The dagger would still sell for stupid money. The stranger line was Empowered durability. Durability had been background noise for a while now. Most of Meno's high-end gear was Indestructible. Empowered sounded like it should do more than make an item harder to break, so he focused on the term. [Empowered] Unbreakable | +10% more Damage until Durability depleted"Oh. That's actually good." The difference between Unbreakable and Indestructible was still unclear, but the important part was not.

An Empowered item could reach zero durability without being destroyed, and while any durability remained, it dealt 10% more Damage. More, not increased. A multiplier. Solar had turned durability into another damage resource. Repairing Empowered gear was technically optional, but letting it hit zero meant throwing away damage. Meno shared Varkesh's Sentence with Karmabeast.

"What did you get?" Karmabeast sent his drop back immediately.

"Even though this sword is mental, let's trade. I need that dagger for Debillionator. The mods don't matter." [Ancient III | Varkesh's Momentum] Type: One-Handed Sword Damage Tier: Legendary VI Damage Factor: 1. 0x Attack Speed: 3. 0/s Durability: Empowered +100% Mobility Cooldown Reduction +5% more Attack Damage per 10% Movement Speed +3% more Attack Speed per 10% Movement Speed 50% less Movement Speed Unique Equipped"Mental? That's one way to put it. Fifty percent less Movement Speed.

It's the worst sword I have ever seen. I'm losing big on this trade." PBG HATES IT SO ITS BIS 100% MOBILITY CDR HELLO RUSH MASTER JUST WOKE UP LESS MOVEMENT SPEED ON THE MOVEMENT SWORD LMAO THIS ITEM IS A MATH CRIME"I thought you were a scientist," Karmabeast said.

"When you reduce something by 100%, it means it has no cooldown. Zero. You can Dash all day. And those are multipliers, which means good."

"Yeah, it's a summoner weapon. They can spam dash for coffee while their army plays the game." Karmabeast clicked his tongue, but Meno ignored him and kept reading.

"Would you actually spam Venom Step with this? Every time you move before the swing finishes, you cancel your own attack. And there's zero chance I'm giving up half my Movement Speed. You want the shortest possible movement at the highest possible speed, then straight back into damage."

"Still worth more than that dagger. Stalker rogues outnumber Flayers, and Rush Master would abuse the heck out of it. That girl Miri from Crownfall will take a loan from Kestrel to buy it, just watch."

"The dagger is still better. Best-in-slot for a whole archetype beats a sword that needs the right class and gear setup." Meno opened the trade window anyway.

"But obviously we can trade. Just trying to educate the stream." Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. EDUCATE = SAY HIS ITEM IS BETTER BEFORE TRADING NEGOTIATION MASTERCLASS KARMA GETS BLEED STICK MIRI TOP PRINCESS PINGED 400 TIMES They exchanged the items and Meno flicked open his stream stats. 16. 53 million viewers. Not something he had been paying much attention to lately. Thinking about what a number that large meant was a major distraction.

Once he tried, streaming stopped feeling like talking to chat and started feeling like addressing a city. He pulled up Karmabeast's stream instead. 9. 1 million viewers was also ridiculous, although collab numbers cheated a little. Plenty of people had both streams open and switched perspectives depending on who was currently doing something stupid. Streamers had abused that trick forever. Still, Karmabeast had blown up.

"Your stream is huge. Now I don't get what the issue with Arayu is. I even went through all that trouble at the party to help you."

"Do you have to bring that up?" Karmabeast stuffed Varkesh's Sentence into his inventory.

"It's hopeless, I'm afraid."

"What's the issue?"

"This is gonna get clipped and shipped. Still sending it." Karmabeast hesitated.

"She prefers guys like Thorn. With huge muscles." THORN TYPE CONFIRMED Karmabeast bulking arc BRO LOST TO SHOULDER WIDTH ask Thorn to spot you EAT MORE EGGS AND CABBAGE Arayu tank meta enjoyer this is just sad Meno sized Karmabeast up again with that in mind. His avatar matched his real body closely: shoulder-length black hair, narrow face, lean build. He was fit, just nowhere near somebody like Thorn. Comparing them was unfair. Thorn looked like his morning routine involved punching through walls.

"Yeah, forget about it."

"That's it? Let me have the don't-give-up, love-finds-a-way speech." Meno considered what useful advice he could possibly give.

"You know, on a flat world, love falls off the edge. You have to go after it and find it for yourself." Karmabeast took that seriously.

"Thanks." Meno had no idea what he was thanking him for, but whatever. The dungeon was cleared, and the final platform had no exit portal. Resetting the instance meant walking back through the tower, crossing the Crucible, leaving through the entrance, then coming straight back in. Annoying, but worth it. They were too close to Level 100 to stop now, especially with both of them at Legendary VI Damage Tier. The early bosses had already been dying in seconds before the weapon upgrades.

The next run should be even more disgusting. Meno wondered if beating their own Delfor records would raise the target for everyone else. It shouldn't, but if it did, the challenge was about to get even more spicy. They had barely started down the tower when Rina's voice came through the capsule's comms.

"Meno, can you come out for a sec? BrineSaint is here and wants to talk to you about something super important. Do you want me to tell him to leave?" Meno slowed halfway down the stairs. BrineSaint was at the Pearl? After everything at the party, showing up here was enough to matter. Telling him to leave without hearing him out would be pushing it.

"Let's take a fifteen-minute break, okay?"

"Good idea. I'll go do some PvP," Karmabeast said.

"Do not. Go grab some orange juice." Meno logged out before Karmabeast could negotiate. The XPro opened around him, and he climbed out with his back and shoulders stiff enough that he stopped to stretch. Vivi had already left the suite, but Rina was still there, curled up on the couch in one of Meno's shirts and a pair of sweatpants.

"How come you're still here? Not that I mind."

"I was napping on the couch watching your stream. Still recovering from the party." She pushed herself upright and rubbed one eye.

"Not sure how you have so much energy."

"We should key you into the suite door so you don't accidentally lock yourself out if you want to go back to your room."

"Yeah, that would be helpful." Rina led him toward the entrance. BrineSaint was waiting in the hall when Meno opened the door, looking exactly as stoic as ever. Party recovery had done nothing to change the man's calm paladin aura. Meno waved him inside.

"Hey! How come you are here?"

"What do you think? We didn't have a house in Vernova. This was the fastest way to log back in. Had to move my entire team." Morlando had told them to relocate to Vernova, but Meno had assumed that meant eventually. BrineSaint moving his entire team into the Pearl less than a day later made it clear Feltforge had meant now. Whatever XUltra LinkSync turned out to be, the next call might come much sooner than Meno wanted.

"Okay, so what did you want to talk about?" BrineSaint glanced past Meno toward Rina. She caught the hint and headed for the door, but Meno caught her arm as she passed.

"Don't. It's fine. Just keep it to the point." Rina stopped beside Meno instead of leaving. BrineSaint gave her one last glance, then faced him again.

"I told Celeste we had to move here to collab with you." Meno folded his arms.

"Collab how?"

"You, me, and Kestrel will start a podcast." Meno stared at him for a beat, waiting for the second half of the explanation. None came.

"Couldn't you come up with something less annoying? Did she actually buy that?"

"She did not, but she pretended to, so we have to do it." Meno rubbed the side of his face.

"That makes no sense whatsoever."

"When you get married, you will understand."

"Did you run this little nugget by Kestrel yet?"

"He is fine with it. Do you think I want to waste time on this? This was the most reasonable explanation I could come up with on short notice. This is all on you to begin with."

"That's debatable, but cool. Let's do it. When? I'm almost Level 100. I can't do it now." BrineSaint's expression tightened before he smoothed it away. Meno enjoyed that for about half a second, then remembered he had just informed one of his main competitors that the gap was about to get even larger.

"Tomorrow. Already booked the hotel's studio. Then we will discuss a schedule."

"Great. Tell Celeste I said hi."

"I will not." BrineSaint turned and walked out. Sabotaging BrineSaint's progression was not ideal, but this was on Morlando. Rina stayed by the door after BrineSaint left.

"That was weird. Very mysterious. I really wonder what you guys got up to when you disappeared during the party."

"We ran around the skyscraper with big zappers stunning security. It was like an action movie."

"Suuure you did." She hooked an arm around his and started steering him back toward the capsule.

"Now climb back into that thing. I wanna see what happens at 100 real bad."

"You know you have to be part of this podcast thing." Rina stopped pulling for a second.

"I don't think anyone wants to hear what I have to say about Veyrath."

"That's not true. It's good to have a casual POV, plus while you're on camera people will eyeball you so hard, I have to talk less." Rina laughed and tightened her grip.

"I'm sure you will have plenty to say." Before returning to the capsule, Meno keyed her into the suite lock. Then Rina resumed dragging him toward the XPro with more urgency than he had shown himself. Level 100 was close enough to be exciting and dangerous at the same time. Solar loved threshold moments. Level 60 had brought Evolutions and all the nonsense that followed. Level 70 had turned into Tyrant, False Hero problems, and Divine quests. Level 100 was going to do something.

The only question was whether it would fix everybody's classes like he expected or find a brand-new way to grief him. Meno climbed into the capsule. Time to find out.