Everyone looks at the items they gained, the items were good in quality and were definitely going to be helpful to them.
"Dammit Tank, two of these are great for you." Shadow sulks as he looks at the items that are almost worthless to him.
"Well, don't think I need both, with my shield I don't get hurt that much and if I switch the axe I'll lose the set bonus I have." Tank scratches his head in confusion as he looks over the items. Reign and the others look at him and break into a short laugh.
"You can just switch the weapons when you want to use the skill, that way you can still use it, and don't dare say you don't need the armor, if you get it we can just put you in front all the time and we won't get injured like this time anymore." Reign pats Tank's shoulder as he tells him with a serious expression on his face.
"Well alri- wait, you just want to use me as a meat shield more often don't you?!" Tank nods at first before he shouts at Reign, his behavior makes everyone laugh again, compared to the solemn atmosphere before they were now much more relaxed.
"Alright, so Tank gets the armor and axe, the bow obviously goes to Beast, what about the other items, the cape and ring are both useful and easy to use but the necklace, we know nothing about the bonuses it can give." Wolf calmly says to everyone as he ponders over the necklace, as it is a rank C equipment the bonuses should be good, but since they don't know the exact ones they were all unsure for who it was most suited. After all, it would be bad if Wolf takes it and finds out the bonuses are all for long-range attacks.
"Let's just give it to Beast, it's nature-oriented and well, he's the one that's most in touch with nature with his skill, maybe it will give him better bonuses or something." Reign just waves at off without any interest.
"Alright then, the coat should go to Shadow, you're the only one without any B rank equipment, after all, I'll take the ring as I don't have any long-range attacks." Wolf nods to Reign and distributes the items.
"Ah!" Beast puts on the necklace and suddenly exclaims in happiness. "Reign you were right!"
Ding!
[Player has a high affinity with the item, the bonuses will be increased by 15% ]
Looking at the notification Beast just shared with everyone they nodded happily as they now knew more information about items for future use.
"By the way Reign, I couldn't help but notice it." Beast nervously says after looking at Reign. " Why aren't you using the sword?"
Reign simply chuckles in response and says. "I can't use it, I don't know why but whenever I tried I felt like the sword was going against me, the more I used it the weaker the feeling got, but it was still safer to use this one before I manage to tame it completely."
"Ah, so there was actually something like that," Beast exclaims in surprise, the question he asked was something everyone had on their mind, after all, why wouldn't he use a sword as strong as that one during the fight.
"So A rank items need something like that huh." Shadow gloomily says.
"I don't think so, after all this sword is almost A rank when it's broken, it should be S ranked at its peak, so I think it's similar to skills, the difference between A and S rank isn't simply one tier after all." Wolf analyzes the situation calmly and says, he was the one that asked the system the most questions, making him a lot more knowledgeable about things like that.
Reign nods and takes the sword out of the inventory, seeing him hold it everyone could see a subtle trembling the sword was making, they all realized that that was what Reign was talking about.
Continuing their journey back they didn't get into any fights, after all, it wasn't that hard to sneak by the enemies in the deep forest while monsters in the newbie forest would simply run away after seeing them.
Getting to the castle everyone breathes out in relief, the battle today was simply too dangerous, even after getting so much loot they weren't very happy, they almost lost two of their friends for it.
Jack didn't speak, he just looked at them before nodding his head and turning around. However, right after he did that he turned back and glued his eyes to Reign's hands, more specifically to the sword he was holding.
"Reign, where … where did you find that?" Jack walks over to them and asks, his eyes never leaving the sword.
"Uh, Beast got it from a chest, why, is there anything weird with it." Reign looks at Jack in confusion as he had never seen him behave this way before.
"I, I need to inspect it first, may I?" Jack holds out his hand as he eagerly asks Reign, the weird behavior makes everyone feel like something is off.
"Sure." Reign shrugs his shoulders and gives the sword to Jack, he wasn't afraid that Jack would steal it as a weapon of this caliber shouldn't be that attractive to him.
"Incredible, to think I would see it after all these years." Jack caresses the sword as if it was a loved one, his sight slowly turns soft as he reminiscences.
"You know this sword?" Reign and the others suddenly get shocked by his words, after all they thought that the items they got were simply made new from the system and that the description was there to just bring it more life.
"Yes, I do know it, it was forged and used by a good friend of mine a long time ago, the sword was lost when he fell into battle, I never thought I would see it again," Jack tells them with a sad voice, his tone filled with sadness as he mentions his friend.
Shaking his head Jack returns his emotions to normal, looking up he takes a step forward and hands the sword back to Reign.
"It seems like you still haven't subdued the sword spirit, even if it is a weakened version it can still pose some problems, come, I'll help you with it." Jack doesn't even wait for Reign to answer before turning back and going to the practice field.
"A-all right," Reign says absent-mindedly, the description mentioned that a swordmaster used the sword a long time ago, never would any of them guess it was someone Jack knew, and it seemed they were good friends as well.
Standing at the practice field Reign and Jack starts sparring, according to Jack the sword spirit will only recognize Reign as its master if he was good enough, the best way to do that is simply to fight and become more proficient with it.
After a couple of hours of training Reign suddenly feels a weak connection with the sword, his strikes become faster and more accurate, it felt like the sword in his hand was like an extension of the arm and not an object.
"Congratulations, you have now officially stepped in the ranks of true swordsmen, not a lot of people can become one as quickly as you." Jack stops with the practice and congratulates Reign, looking down he could see that the sword was no longer vibrating in his hand, on the contrary, it now felt incredibly comfortable to use it, much more than any of his previous swords.
Bringing the stat screen up Reign checks it out.
Name: Reign
Level: 16 ( 2 680 / 9000 )
Class: Swordsman (more info in the class menu)
Race: Human? (more info in the race menu)
Attribute points: 2
Strength: 29 (39) (+5 from ability, +5 from item)
Agility : 33 (45) (+6 from ability, +6 from item)
Endurance : 14 (16) (+2 from item)
Vitality: 16 (18) (+ 2 from ability)
Willpower: 16 (18) (+ 2 from ability)
Spirit: 30 (44) (+4 from ability, +10 from item)
Proficiencies:
Knife Proficiency D
Hand to hand combat A
Sword Proficiency A-
Skills:
[Inspect ] – Rank B
[Lightning charge] Rank A
[ Lesser Lightning Body ] – Rank B
[ Lighting movement ] – Rank C
[ Lightning Stab ] – Rank B
[ Compact Punch ] – Rank C
[ Lightning Bullet ] – Rank C
[ Swordsman] – no rank
[ Downward slash ] – no rank
[ Swordsman Heart ] – no rank
Ability:
Lightning manipulation S ( lvl 33 exp: 45%)
Unknown rank ??? ( lvl ? exp ???)
Looking at his stats Reign was incredibly surprised as they had risen by a lot and strength was just about to hit the 40 points mark, not hesitating he immediately uses one free point to get it to that level while using the other one to raise his agility slightly.
Right after that, he goes to his room to sleep, tomorrow they were going to get briefed about the journey they needed to take to get to the town, getting some rest before that was very important.