Is this really a Game?!

“Hey boy.” Adrian smiled at Reign after seeing him. The old man was doing pretty much the same he always did, sitting in front of his smithy and smoking a cigar. Players would frequently come to Adrian in order to get themselves custom-made weapons, but most of them, however, would change their opinion after seeing the price. Thanks to the auction house that Reign had built, people could buy a lot of different weapons and armor pieces, even though a custom weapon was better in most cases, it was quite expensive and the players would rather save up and order higher-ranked ones from Adrian later.

It was mostly the elves that came to order weapons in recent times, the weapons Adrian made were quite different from their own and the elves were very interested in them. Of course, a lot of players would also go over to the elves and order some weapons or armor there as it was cheaper.

“I got something I need your help with.” Reign said before taking out the two broken pieces of the sword. Upon seeing them Adrian quickly put his cigar away and took the pieces in his large hands.

“Marvelous, this is without a doubt the best weapon I have seen since coming on this planet, even though it’s broken, a part of the weapon spirit is still inside of it.” Adrian examined the weapon very carefully as he put it on his large desk. Reign had a small smile on his face as this was the first time he had seen Adrian taking care of a weapon in such a manner.

“This spirit, hmmm, could it be?” Adrian suddenly stopped and put his hand to his chin as he went into deep thoughts.

“What’s wrong?” Reign asked Adrian after seeing him like that.

“Nothing is wrong boy, it’s just, I rarely see a weapon spirit as interesting as this one, tell me Reign, what did you want me to do with this weapon, want me to fix it, perhaps make it stronger?” .𝙘𝒐𝒎

“Stronger.” Reign immediately answered as a ferocious smile appeared on Adrian’s face.

“Without any hesitation, good, had you said just fix it, I would’ve thrown you out, a weapon such as this one needs an ambitious master after all,” Adrian said before giving Reign the two pieces back.

“Can you feel it, can you feel the intense flames of ambition from this sword, the incredible urge to transcend its previous self and become stronger?”

“Ummm, I can feel it shaking when it’s in my hands.” Reign said as he looked at Adrian with a confused gaze.

“Uh, well, yeah, let’s say that that’s it.”

“Alright, so, can you make it stronger?” Reign asked Adrian who sat down and once again took his cigar and lighted it.

“The weapon is already at rank S+ which means that it’s infinitely close to a rank SS weapon, which makes the job a bit easier, I will however need some rare materials and the help of that damn elf as well, as much as I hate to admit it, his knowledge will be incredibly useful in this case.”

“Great, so what materials do you need, maybe I have some of them.” Reign said excitedly, he had a lot of different materials that he had managed to find during his stay in Riplas, even though he had given almost all the spatial rings to Raigon and the kingdom, he made sure to take whatever he found to be interesting in them.

With his inventory he was able to do it without anyone noticing anything, he even gave his spatial ring in for inspection multiple times even when he didn’t need to, all of that was simply to make the kingdom trust him more.

Reign didn’t feel bad for doing that, he not only helped them win the war, but he also found Lios and spoiled the plans the demon had in the kingdom, even though that was something he had to do in order to finish the quest, nobody knew that.

Thanks to the social hubs in the territories, he was still able to contact Raigon and the others, of course for now there was no reason to do that. Perhaps in the future, he might go and visit them, but for now, he had much more important things to do, improving the Sword of Dominance being one of the most important ones together with giving the branch of Yggdrasil the essence.

As Reign looked at the list that Adrian had given him, however, his hand shook a bit as he felt a cold sweat coming down his back.

“Yo, old man, the hell is this list?!”

“What do you mean, if you want to get a rank SS weapon, of course, I would need good materials, those weapons are for people that had gone through the third and fourth evolution after all,” Adrian said with a smile on his face. The list he had given to Reign had a bunch of materials that Reign already had, but there were three that were almost impossible to get right now.

“Man, these are things from third evolution monsters, what the…”

“Exactly, you want a weapon that will suit you, either you get the mana core of a third evolution monster that has lightning attributes, or you get me some ore with lightning attributes, just like the ones your other sword was made from.”

“Maybe you’ll get lucky and get some from Eldar or Jack, even though the system prevents them from doing a lot of things if you can trade something with them, that will offset the restrictions, still, the items you give them can’t be just pieces of garbage, you need to give something that has a similar value, go to them and talk, the elf queen as well, she might have some things we need too.”

Reign spent the next couple of hours with Eldar and Jack before going to the elves and meeting with the queen. He was in luck as they had the 3 materials that were impossible for him to get by himself, unfortunately, he didn’t have some other things and even though he had posted missions for the players to get them, it would take time.

Some stuff he would perhaps be able to get via the auction house, but he still needed to wait for Shadow and the others to come back, with their help he might have more than enough materials to forge the weapon and trade with Eldar and the others.

“It really is good to be friendly with Transcendents.” Reign sighed as he came out of the portal and arrived back in his territory. Now it was time to give the tree the essence.

Immediately after he came out he was able to feel the branch of Yggdrasil, the tree was happy, Reign could feel that thanks to the connection the two had. Even though the branch wasn’t able to sense the essence that was still in the inventory, it could feel the residual power of it on Reign, that was enough to let it know that Reign had managed to bring something good for it.

Reign quickly went to the tree, with the power he had in the territory, he was actually able to fly, well, it was more like floating in the sky and moving slowly, but it was still cool as hell and Reign loved the feeling.

The moment Reign arrived at the tree, the huge tree trunk opened up and Reign was able to get inside. That was something he didn’t think would happen, but after defeating the other branch of Yggdrasil in the black forest and getting inside of it, he wasn’t very shocked that his own branch had a room inside of it.

The room was similar to the one of the other tree, only that it was a bit larger. The essence ball was the same as the one before, albeit a bit bigger as well. Reign quickly took out the essence of the branch as the green vines quickly covered it and started taking its power away.

Eldar had told him that he could have avoided fighting the branch entirely if he talked to him, but it was too little too late at that point. As Reign’s tree started taking the power of the essence Reign could feel how delighted it was, its own essence ball was growing a bit larger thanks to the nutrients it was given and in mere minutes the process was completed.

Reign was able to see some changes inside the tree, it wasn’t only the essence that grew larger, the room as well had increased in size. Outside however many were shocked to see that the golden tree was growing at a visible speed and from its original 300 meters, it had now grown to 350 meters while also becoming wider. Thanks to the essence of the other tree, the branch of Yggdrasil was now more powerful and gave Reign more bonuses and powers inside the territory.