Leveling Up and Reaping the Rewards

At 8:50 the next evening, after a full day of frenzied leveling, he had easily reached Lv. 53, yet Higashino Makoto could not bring himself to feel happy.

Things had been fine at first, and he had leveled up quickly, but he could now clearly feel the pace slowing down.

He had only barely managed this with the help of a large number of cash-shop Items that boosted experience gain.

It would not work if he leveled entirely according to the Inverted God's requirements.

Reinforced Armor would become extremely difficult to solo once the dungeon level exceeded Lv. 50, and this crappy game did not even let players use cash-shop Items to reset their stats.

Hmm, perhaps spending money to hire five power-levelers specifically to carry him would be faster.

Furthermore, he had already received word regarding the purchase of the World Calamity class qualification, and he had even given both sellers a deposit. Surely they would not both stand him up, right?

"Oh, right. I should turn the Sin Silver Coins in the Bag of Sin, which I deliberately saved for tonight, into experience. I shouldn't get busy and forget later."

"If all else fails, I'll use the wish from the cash-shop Item Meteor Ring to forcibly raise my level! After all, these Meteor Rings were meant for critical moments."

Higashino Makoto made up his mind. It was just money. If he did not spend it all, he would not be able to take it with him anyway.

Still thinking, he took the Sin Silver Coins from his pocket.

As thirty Sin Silver Coins vanished, his character's experience bar rose by a huge amount.

At nine o'clock, he opened his message panel right on time.

More than ten times as many messages as yesterday appeared before him, and even the mailbox icon had turned crimson.

Looking at the densely packed trade messages, Higashino Makoto did not know whether to laugh or cry. A thought he had not previously considered surfaced in his mind.

"I miscalculated—I should have found two people specifically to handle the purchasing for me. It would have saved me some leveling time too."

Just kidding... He already knew exactly what he needed. No one else could possibly imagine that he was preparing to transmigrate, and what he needed differed from what most players wanted.

Besides, it would be better to rent an AI to handle this sort of thing. Compared to hiring people, it would make far fewer mistakes and would not pocket anything for itself.

With that in mind, Higashino Makoto immediately spent money to rent a civilian-grade AI with a fairly high approval rating.

He entered World Item into the mailbox search, and more than a dozen options immediately appeared.

But upon closer inspection, most of them were scams.

"Wait! Twenty! There are actually two Twenty Items!"

And they were Creator and Eternal Serpent Ring, two outrageously overpowered Twenty Items!

Without hesitation, he spent a total of 1.5 million and bought them.

Besides that, he spent 700,000 on the three ordinary World Items Holy Grail, Huginn and Muninn, and Brionac.

But it was undoubtedly money well spent.

Looking at the effects of these World Items, Higashino Makoto even felt that he might be able to challenge Nazarick.

Though he quickly calmed down.

A Twenty Item would disappear from his possession after being used once, then randomly appear somewhere in the world.

Would it not be troublesome if a True Dragon Lord or Old Bone picked one up and used it against him?

Therefore, he had to use them cautiously. Ideally, he should not use them at all.

The three ordinary World Items were as follows—

The Holy Grail, a legendary cup said to hold Holy Blood, possessed unimaginable effects.

Once per day, it fully restored HP and MP, cleared all negative statuses, and granted complete resistance to bleeding, instant death, and poison. It could automatically activate after death or be used manually.

Huginn and Muninn were the two ravens beside Odin, king of the gods, in Scandinavian mythology. They symbolized Thought and Memory respectively.

Legend said that every morning, they flew from Odin's shoulders and traveled across the world. They returned at dusk and whispered everything they had seen and heard to Odin, allowing him to know all things beneath the heavens.

In the game, one was responsible for single-target intelligence defense, while the other gathered intelligence over a large area.

Brionac was one of the Tuatha Dé Danann's four great treasures in legend, a divine artifact hailed as the Sacred Spear. It was a treasure given by the king of the Tuatha Dé Danann to Lugh, the god of light.

It possessed the attributes of light and lightning. A living weapon with a special advantage against evil, it could transform into five dragon-serpents of light and lightning and automatically attack enemies.

Oh, and there was also Solomon's Key, the World Item he had acquired at the very beginning. Its effect was to transform the player into the world boss Seven Deadly Sins Demon. This Item was extremely famous in YGGDRASIL.

He had World Items for attacking, intelligence defense, healing and resurrection, and even flipping the table. Higashino Makoto felt that he could temporarily slow down his acquisition of World Items.

It definitely was not because he thought he had too many World Items. The reason was simple—he was running low on money, and prices could be pushed down considerably on the final day.

Well, if he saw an outrageously overpowered Twenty Item like World Will, he would definitely have to buy it.

"No, have I gotten stupid from playing games? Rather than tormenting myself, why not torment others? If I run out of money, I can just lower my purchase prices. I'm practically the only one still buying in bulk, so if they want to sell, how low can the price possibly go?"

"Materials and gold for building a guild, all kinds of cash-shop Items, powerful divine-tier equipment... Anyway, most of my purchasing requirements have already been met. Even if they refuse to sell, it won't be much of a loss."

"Tomorrow, I'll pause purchases. On the final day before the servers shut down, I'll make one last round of purchases from six to nine in the evening. The price will be one-tenth of today's."

Many players who had failed to sell their goods saw Higashino Makoto's new message and let out waves of wailing.

"No way! It was almost my turn to trade!"

"No, it was clearly my turn!"

"Come on, bro, isn't dropping it straight to one-tenth a little too harsh?"

"Can't be helped. He's practically the only 'sucker' still buying in bulk. If you won't sell, plenty of others will!"

"Anyone willing to sell should hurry up and sort through the stuff in their warehouses. Send the email again around 8:50 tomorrow night. And forget one-tenth—one-twentieth or even one-fiftieth is fine, as long as you can sell it. In another two days, you won't be able to sell it even for one ten-thousandth. Everything will be wiped clean."

"By the way, I already sold all my stuff yesterday. I never expected the game shutting down to pay me back three months' salary!"

"You really deserve to die!!!"

"Wait! The big shot wants to hire fifteen top players to level with him! If they can get him to max level before the servers shut down, it's only for two days, and each person gets 20,000 per day! One day's pay is enough for half a month of my salary!"

"Your monthly salary is 40,000? You're a big shot!"

"Oh, right, isn't he also offering a bounty for a guild base? He said that anyone who can help him capture a base with over 2,000 NPC points will get a full one million. Does anyone have any leads?"