Chapter 20: Fragmented

Jaxir huffed out heavy breaths, not quite believing the notifications he was seeing. What happened? Was the battle going to end just like that?

"The boss was called Kindled. That’s the same name they gave my comprehension of twinkle mana. So did I shatter its divinity by taking too much control of the mana it controlled?"

Jaxir was just spitballing, he had no idea what any of this meant, honestly. He didn’t even really understand all the mechanics of the game just yet. He also didn’t know what it meant by the fact he had triggered another Instance. Did it mean he had yet another enemy to fight?

But... no enemy seemed to be coming.

The enormous bear king just collapsed, slowly disappearing into motes of light. The eight-pointed stars shattered slowly afterward. Honestly, this latter event was especially odd because of just how slowly it happened.

The one mechanic of the game Jaxir did understand, though, was that if the boss really was dead...

He should be getting rewards.

As though to confirm his expectations, sparkling lights jetted out of the crumbling eight-pointed stars and soon rewards began to spill out.

Jaxir grinned and then walked forward. He saw two things he immediately recognized. One of them was a staff and another was a set of feathers that looked a lot like the one he was wearing now.

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Name: Twinkle Weighted Staff

Grade: Epic

Level: 5

Abilities: -90% MP cost to simple Cast. -50% to Charged Cast. Gathers 5 MP of twinkle mana per second around user up to a maximum of 50 MP.

―

Jaxir blinked. These stats were kind of crazy, but what interested him the most was the accumulated twinkle mana.

That essentially meant that he didn’t have to use any of his own MP at all so long as he wasn’t in a battle that would require him to use more than 50.

But because the negation of MP he would need to use on Cast was so crazy, with a staff like this he could essentially send out as many rapid fire Casts as he wanted at literally no cost at all.

That seemed a little... broken.

Jaxir laughed and didn’t hesitate to throw his old staff away. He didn’t know what would happen to it, but he also didn’t care.

The Twinkle Weighted Staff was a little heavier, but it was finished in a beautiful copper color. There was a curved curl of metalwork on the end of it, and a ball of twinkle mana was quickly forming in the middle. That must be where the 50 MP of twinkle mana was stored.

Jaxir looked at the feathers next.

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Name: Feather Touch Set (3/3)

Grade: Epic

Level: 5

Abilities: Double Jump. Triple Jump accessible with compatible mana type

+50 Body Stats

―

Jaxir’s lip twitched. This one piece of the Feather Touch Set alone would make his weak Body Stat way higher than his Mind Stat. That was also kind of crazy.

Were treasures in this game really so crazy, or was it that Epic items were just that rare and thus so valuable?

Jaxir didn’t understand enough about the game yet to realize it was certainly the latter. For most players, they would be lucky to even have a single piece of Rare equipment, let alone two pieces of Epic equipment.

Now, he was wondering when he could find Feather Touch Set (2/3) to complete things. What would happen then?

There were still three other items left beyond these two. Jaxir picked up the next one and couldn’t help but smile.

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Name: Twinkle Deck Holder

Grade: Epic

Level: N/A

Abilities: Hold up to 20 Vestigem Cards up to the Epic Grade. Special attribute allows no additional weight to be suffered by the body and cards may be summoned with a thought.

―

"Nice."

Jaxir had been getting a bit tired of carrying around his higher level cards. But at the same time, he found himself feeling oddly sad.

He frowned. Those memories swimming around in his head, they seemed to remind him of how much he liked to use sleight of hand tricks to draw and use his cards. They didn’t like the automated feel of this deck holder.

Jaxir shook his head. For now, he ignored the feelings and slotted the Encore version of Twinkle Step and Twinkle Anchor into it. Then he tossed two of his common deck holders away, only keeping one of them just in case.

This game was very realistic, so weight played a factor in everything. Since he didn’t have an inventory, he had to pick and choose what he could take.

If it was an Epic item, he’d definitely just grit his teeth and drag it around. But there was no need to waste so much space on common items.

The next thing Jaxir picked up was a very familiar item. But it was much larger and heavier than the first one of its kind that he had seen.

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Name: Twinkle Blessing

Grade: Rare

Level: N/A

[Grant mana Twinkle characteristic]

Recommended Paths: Hex, Trap, Speed, Aggro.

―

This seemed to be the upgraded version of the last Twinkle Blessing he had received. This would upgrade his mana to a rare form.

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t give him Epic mana like he expected, but Jaxir had a feeling that it was very tough to receive higher grades of mana and he had been given two such upgrades in just one dungeon.

Without the first upgrade, there was no way he would have been able to defeat the king bear.

Without hesitation, Jaxir made use of it.

He felt a surge run through him and his body felt stronger. The HP he had lost straining himself began to tick back up even faster than before.

He bet that if he sent out a simple Cast now, he’d probably be able to one-shot a twinkle twinkle fox. If not, he’d be pretty damn close to managing it.

Finally, there rested the last item.

It was another orb, but this one just felt... different, somehow.

Jaxir frowned. He could feel a hint of danger from it. Part of him had hoped it was the Epic version of the Twinkle Blessing, but every aspect of him was screaming that this very much was not the case.

In the end, he could only slowly reach forward and touch it.

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[You have touched a Fragment of Divinity]

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[You have shattered the budding Divinity of a servant of the Minor God of Gravity and garnered Their ire]

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"Well sorry for not letting it just kill me, then," Jaxir rolled his eyes. What kind of bullshit was this?

From what he knew, the game had 18 Major Gods and 108 Minor Gods. Under them, there were probably thousands or tens of thousands of Demi-Gods, and beneath them were their various ranks of servants.

The Major Gods usually had Minor Gods under them. There was a connection between their Divinity, sometimes loose, sometimes more direct.

The Minor God of Gravity, for example, was probably directly under the Major God of Space. The Demi-Gods under them would carry that power.

But what did it mean for Jaxir if he was essentially using pieces of mana related to them, and now this Minor God apparently hated him?

―

Quest: Resolving a God’s Hatred

Description: You have killed a budding talent of the Minor God of Gravity and earned Their Divine Ire. Servants of the Minor God of Gravity will receive rewards for targeting you until you are destroyed and the root of your existence has been eradicated lest things change.

Objective: Make a choice. Either join the Minor God of Gravity and form a budding Divinity of equal merit and preciousness, join another Divinity, or find a method to eradicate the Mark of Ire.

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[You have been cursed with a Common Mark of Ire. No stat debuffs have been applied, but servants of the Minor God of Gravity will receive a +5% boost in strength when battling you, and will be able to sense your exact location within 1 kilometer]

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