Leo entered the world of Ekalius Online and found himself laying on a bed in a hotel-like room. He quickly left the room and walked to the Auction House. His meeting with Mike and the others wasn’t until three hours later and Leo decided to use the time to experiment with his creation skill. He had been gone for three real-life days and the market should have plenty of low-level equipment of varying qualities for cheap.

It only took him a few minutes to walk from Legacy’s guild residence to the Auction House and begin searching through the listings. The average level of players had reached 25 with the highest leveled ones at level 30. The amount of experience needed from level 20 drastically increases and average players find themselves only leveling once or twice per day. This part of the game was known as the ‘fear stage’ due to dying now actually meaning something. Before, dying only meant a few hours of lost progress but now it means a day of lost progress. This will later turn into a week then weeks.

Leo had 90 gold on him which had actually only increased in value. The price for 1 gold was previously $1,000 but rose to $1,400 in only three days. The number of buy-orders had significantly increased and the already depleted supply couldn’t even try to catch up. The price would constantly increase until the demand and supply finally stabilizes and supply eventually drives the price down again.

Leo bought 400 pieces each of Copper and Bronze Quality equipment with levels ranging from 10-15. The prices varied depending on quality and level and he ended up spending a total of 36 gold for 800 items. Leo wanted to experiment with the cheap Copper and Bronze Quality equipment before deciding how much of higher quality equipment he needed to buy.

He deconstructed all the Copper Quality equipment and gained a total of 4628x [Scrap Metal] and 3509x [Copper Dust]. After deconstructing the items an announcement suddenly popped up and a new icon appeared on his menu.

System announcement: Congratulations on fulfilling the requirements to acquire [Material Analysis I ]!

Leo looked at the new icon on his menu with a delighted smile. From the name, he could already tell that it would allow him to gain more information which is exactly what he wants. Leo opened the skill and read its description.

[Material Analysis I]

Description: Use to see what material you can gain from specific items when using [Deconstruction].

Cast time: 0.1 seconds

Cooldown: 0.1 seconds

Leo used the skill on a random piece of Bronze Quality equipment in order to see how much information he could gather.

[Basic Chestplate (Bronze Quality)]

Equipment level: 10

Core material: Bronze Core

Quality material: Bronze Dust

Special material: None

Quantity range

Bronze Core: 5-28

Bronze Dust: 4-19

The information matched what he already knew and added something he didn’t know. He already knew that the materials were random within a range, but he didn’t expect the range to be this vast. What he didn’t know was that equipment could give special material. Although it was possible that the quill he needed for enchantments were categorized as a special material, he didn’t know what items have the chance to give it. The obvious choice would be a book but he still needed to test it before making a conclusion.

Leo tried the analyze skill on several other pieces of equipment and found them all to be consistent with the first example. The range stayed the same for each equipment of equal level and quality but changed drastically with level and hardly at all with just quality. He found that the minimum quantity seemed to increase alongside the maximum quantity with the latter increasing faster per level.

The next thing Leo wanted to try was how much material was needed to increase a weapon’s stats. He already knew that the amount added was important but he hadn’t reached a maximum yet. Leo also knew that he needed to add the material in large amounts for the best possible stats.

Leo opened his creation space and chose his spear. The spear had already been upgraded several times which had significantly decreased its full potential. He wanted to first see if there was a cap on the number of materials an item could have. If there is, he would then use that number when creating his new spear.

Leo added [Scrap Metal] first, starting with a total of 500. This brought the total amount of [Scrap Metal] in the spear to 658. The stats on the spear went up significantly, which surprised Leo. He did expect them to rise, but only slightly. There were no signs that he had reached the maximum and Leo decided to use another 500. This time, however, there was a sign.

System: Weapon has reached the limit of allowed [Scrap Metal]. 408x [Scrap Metal] has been destroyed.

This confirmed that there was indeed an upper limit and in this case, it seemed to be 750x pieces of [Scrap Metal]. Leo let out a sigh at the lost materials but continued on anyway. The stats on the spear had actually gone down, which only served to confuse Leo even more. Did reaching above the limit actually decrease the spear’s power?

Leo decided to test out the limit of [Copper Dust] before doing anything else. He had already added 82x [Copper Dust] before and decided to immediately bring the total up to 750. As he hoped, the system announcement came once more but this time he didn’t use any extra material.

System: Weapon has reached the limit of allowed [Copper Dust].

System announcement: Congratulations on unlocking [Manual Mode]!

Leo was once more surprised by the sudden expansion of his options. He knew that there were hidden parts to his skill but didn’t think he would find two in one day. Leo activated manual mode and his spear turned into thousands of lines with different colors. Each line had a number above it and a percentage value. Leo looked at the lines and began thinking about what to do.

Time ticked by and Leo thought deeply about his situation before beginning his experimentation once more. He put his finger on a line and the number and percentage suddenly changed. He quickly checked his total amount of material and found that [Scrap Metal] had gone up by one. Leo let out a smile and began tinkering with the endless amount of lines.

Minutes turned into hours and Leo quickly found himself understanding the creation skill more and more. He had spent two hours adding and removing material, then checking its impact on the final product. The most interesting thing he found out was that he didn’t lose attack power because of the added materials, but due to where the material went.

Each line has a maximum number of material and material type it can hold. The percent increases or decreases based on the lines needs, combined with the surrounding lines and the overall synergy between all lines. Leo managed to find pattern after pattern when going through the testing. The numbers changed so often that Leo almost went mad. Each change was consistent, which allowed him to find an answer but it was far from as simple as adjusting one line at a time. He could make a change on the left side to change the value on the right side.

Anyone would be able to figure it out eventually but it would take far longer than just two hours. Leo estimated that a normal person would likely take multiple years in order to find the patterns, even longer to understand them all. It’s like the difference between driving a car and knowing how its built. Most people would be more than content with just having a car to drive but a mechanic could make it faster, better and safer to drive.

When Leo added materials before, they would be distributed at random within a specified area. Adding more material at one time made it more likely that several connections were made, increasing the weapon’s power.

Leo also found that the base is exclusively increased by core material while the quality is increased by dust. The amount directly represented the overall strength of the creation. It seems like the base score dictates the actual values while the quality dictates the maximum potential value. He assumed things like enchantment and functionality served to increase both elements, but he didn’t know exactly how.

Leo felt far more confident in creating weapons and equipment now that he could actually affect the process. There was no more need to waste materials and Leo decided to create a whole new set of gear based on the Ancient design he acquired long ago. He found that the design received a special option after he unlocked manual mode. The design had twice the amount of lines when creating gear, but it also had options for linking lines and increasing the overall strength. Leo found the extra work to be worth the effort.

He ended up postponing the meeting with Mike and his workshop. He gave Mike some simple instructions and had him take care of business for the next ten or so hours. Leo delved into the creation process and meticulously adjusted every line by hand in order to create the best equipment he could. As time passed, Leo found ways to shorten the work by creating special combinations of lines. It took him five hours to create his spear, then three hours for the shield and only two hours for the armor.

His gear changed slightly in design but the color scheme remained the same. Most people would find it difficult to see the difference between his new equipment and his old. The only obvious difference was the aged look. His spear, for instance, looked like an ancient artifact.

The EXP stored in his old gear could be transferred back to his character which made Leo relieved. He tried doing it with non-bound gear and quickly found that it was not possible. He had no hope that there would be such a massive loop-hole in the game’s system, but he still felt the need to verify it at least once.

The equipment needed 1500 [Bronze Core] and [Bronze Dust] to reach the limit and Leo just barely managed to reach it for each part. He used a large portion of the copper equipment for experimentation but his gear still cost more than 30 gold to create. Leo could have bought a full set of level 15 Dark Gold Quality equipment with that kind of money.

Leo decided to upgrade the gear to Iron Quality and began by buying a few Iron Quality equipments to deconstruct. He first began by adding a small amount and found that his suspicions were correct. Adding [Iron Core] and [Iron Dust] reset the gear’s score and drove the stats down to pathetic levels.

He already suspected this would happen but still felt dejected when actually seeing it. Both the Copper and Bronze materials he added could only increase the gear’s power when the score goes above their previous maximum. Copper had a maximum Base + Quality score of 804 while Bronze had a combined score of 1895. Leo added 10x of both Iron Quality materials and the overall score was now 2.

Leo spent another 40 gold buying Iron Quality equipment and adding it to his spear. He found that he needed slightly less than 1200 of each resource to reach Bronze Quality maximum and 3500 to reach Iron Quality maximum. He did not have nearly enough money to begin upgrading his armor and shield to a higher quality.

Leo inspected his gear with a grin on his face. It had cost him an arm and a leg to create, but the power spoke for itself.

Base: 2746P

Quality: 2301P

Total: 5046P

[Flawless Spear (Iron Quality)]

Level 10 (0 / 12,500)

Restrictions: Bound to [Zero]

Item-category: Main-weapon

Attribute requirements: 30 STR, 20 DEX

Durability: 150 / 150

Attack power: 282 - 337

Attributes

STR +29

DEX +21

Base: 1004P

Quality: 891P

Total: 1895P

[Flawless Armor (Bronze Quality]

Level 10 (0 / 12,500)

Restrictions: Bound to [Zero]

Item category: Armor set

Attribute requirements: 12 VIT, 9 STR

Defense: 395

Magical defense: 275

Durability: 200 / 200

Attributes

VIT +25

RES +19

Health +125

Base: 1004P

Quality: 891P

Total: 1895P

[Flawless Trickster Shield (Bronze Quality)]

Level 10 (0 / 12,500)

Restrictions: Bound to [Zero]

Item category: Secondary weapon

Attribute requirements: 15 STR, 9 DEX

Durability: 150 / 150

Shield mode

Defense 195

Magic defense 182

Attributes

VIT +28

RES +18

Health +65

Attachment mode

Attack power: 85 - 97

Spell power: 102 - 118

Attributes

INT +23

PIT +15

Mana +70

Leo looked at his armor and became disappointed that he couldn’t bring over the special trait the old one had. He still had much to learn and creating special traits was one of them. The fact that his shield/attachment combination didn’t have a functionality score surprised him. Leo was under the impression that the functionality score came from the fact that the shield can transform into a magic-based attachment for his spear. It would seem that wasn’t the case after all, which explains why his former armor also had that specific score.

Leo was glad to finally upgrade his gear even though it cost him far more than he would like. His head began hurting when he thought about having to also go through upgrading Lily, Snow and Alex’s gear as well.