Masteria Online: Shattering the Dark God's Grand Scheme

As they rode the airship away from the crowd, Lumi and Lena finally had a moment to check on their weapon upgrades.

Lumi pulled his wand from his inventory, examining it closely. The metal surface gleamed differently now, subtle patterns of energy rippling across its length that hadn’t been there before. Lightning occasionally crackled along the shaft. It wasn’t immediately obvious, only visible if observed closely.

Lena did the same, holding her wand up to the light and watching the way it sparked. "Ooh! Shiny~"

Lumi opened the item description to see exactly what had changed.

In the past, their wands, given to them by Merath, had looked like this in the system interface.

[Magician’s Metal Wand]

[Required Level: 10]

[Int: +2]

[Magic Attack: +40]

[Remaining Upgrade Slots: 0/7]

As denoted by the zero remaining weapon upgrades, Merath had given them special treatment. No one else would so easily receive a fully upgraded wand.

Typically, when a craftsman made a weapon, it would have several open upgrade slots. These could be filled through various means. Most commonly, it was infused with magical traces. That was a new, but rapidly popularizing process. Each improvement consumed one slot until the base item could no longer support the strain of further upgrades.

Merath had skipped all of that. He’d given them weapons that were already at maximum capacity according to the system’s normal upgrade mechanics.

Theoretically, it wasn’t possible to upgrade them further.

Well, at least according to the system, that is.

But the system only took into account the most common ways to upgrade weapons. Things that fell within the expected parameters of how equipment worked in Masteria.

The thundercloud baptism wasn’t one of those things.

Since this wasn’t a recognized upgrade method, the system naturally wouldn’t take it into account until after it was already done. Only once the transformation was complete would the system acknowledge the change and update the item’s properties accordingly.

Now, Lumi’s wand looked like this. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

[Lumi’s Metal Wand]

[Required Level: N/A]

[Required User: Lumi]

[Int: +37]

[Magic Attack: +77]

[Remaining Upgrade Slots: 0/7]

[513 Adaptive Lightning Damage applied to spells]

[Transformed by a strange power]

Lumi’s eyes widened slightly as he processed the numbers.

The intelligence boost had jumped from two to thirty seven. The magic attack had nearly doubled, going from forty to seventy seven.

And it was bound to him specifically now. No one else could use this wand. The baptism had created a permanent connection between the weapon and its wielder.

He glanced over at Lena’s stats, curious to see if hers matched.

It was similar enough, but with surprisingly slightly higher stats.

[Lena’s Metal Wand]

[Required Level: N/A]

[Required User: Lena]

[Int: +39]

[Magic Attack: +81]

[Remaining Upgrade Slots: 0/7]

[527 Adaptive Lightning Damage applied to spells]

[Transformed by a strange power]

Lena had gone into the cloud first, when it was at full strength. The baptism had been more intense for her, which apparently translated to a marginally better result.

"Hey!" Lena noticed him looking. "Mine’s better!"

Lumi nodded. "You went in first. The cloud had more energy. Though, it only resulted in two more points."

"Still better." She grinned. "I’m the superior one now."

Lumi shook his head, but he couldn’t help smiling slightly.

Now, this upgrade was extremely deceptive if you only looked at the surface numbers.

It looked as if the most important part was the adaptive lightning damage. Five hundred plus damage added to every spell? That sounded incredible.

No.

It wasn’t.

Note the word "Adaptive" in the description. It meant that the actual damage applied would change depending on the spell being cast, typically adjusting downward to a much lower number.

And then when you factored in enemy armor, natural resistances to lightning, and magical defenses, the actual impact would be even smaller.

Not to mention, it was just some stray magical lightning. Some enemies simply wouldn’t be affected. What exactly was a golem supposed to feel from a zap? This wasn’t a full magical path. It wasn’t like the fire wizards, whose fire magic would still kill even constructs of steel, rock, or water.

Just some lightning wouldn’t do much on creatures that weren’t made of flesh.

What really mattered was the intelligence and magic attack bonuses.

The easiest way to put it was this. Both stats multiplied the effect of the other. The more you had of one, the more value you got from increasing the other.

Both would increase the effectiveness of your spells. But when you increased both simultaneously, the value compounded. The more intelligence you had, the more effective each point of magic attack was. The more magic attack you had, the more effective each point of intelligence was.

Going from two intelligence to thirty seven intelligence was massive. Going from forty magic attack to seventy seven magic attack was equally massive.

It was curious when he thought about it.

Masteria was a real world. Real people lived here, real physics governed how things worked, real consequences followed every action.

However, the mechanics of how power actually functioned were so similar to a game that it was little wonder the Dark One had chosen a "video game" as a cover for the invasion.

In reality, though, it wasn’t that surprising.

It was only when given the "game" expectation that it became so unbelievable to think a world could work according to numerical stats and quantified levels.

Yet, strip away that framing, strip away the interface and the system prompts, and it made sense.

It was just the magical version of a concept that already existed on Earth.

After all, the impact of a physical strike was not determined by a single factor. It was mass and acceleration combined. And in practical terms, that translated into dozens of variables.

The weight of the object, the speed at which it moved, the angle of impact, the surface area making contact, the material composition, the structural integrity of what was being struck.

All of these factors combined to produce the final result.

So why wouldn’t magic work the same way?

Intelligence, magic attack, mana capacity, spell knowledge, casting speed, elemental affinity. All of these combined to determine how effective a spell would be.

The only difference was that the Dark One made a system that quantified and displayed these variables explicitly, making them visible and trackable in a way that Earth’s physics weren’t.

Regardless of the philosophical implications, they had work to do.

They made their way back to the pixie territory, guiding the airship toward the forest region where Seyen’s forces had been operating.

"I hate them." Lena blurt out while still on the airship. Lena was already sick of the pixies.

She’d made that abundantly clear over the past few days, complaining about them at every opportunity. Their high pitched voices annoyed her. Their chaotic fighting style frustrated her. Their tendency to teleport away from every attack made battles drag on forever.

She grit her teeth. "I hate their stupid faces. I hate their stupid wings. I hate how they all sound the same."

Lumi didn’t particularly care about the pixies one way or another.

But he knew where Lena was coming from. Fighting them for hours on end was exhausting, both mentally and physically. The lack of structure, the constant chaos, the inability to predict what would happen next.

It wore you down over time.

Still, this would be the last day. The raid was coming up too soon to continue the pixie war any longer.

They arrived to find the battlefield already forming. Seyen’s forces had cornered the loyalist faction against a massive tree trunk, cutting off most of their escape routes.

The fighting was brutal and immediate.

Lumi resumed his usual strategy, spamming Lance of Light to rack up assists while Lena protected him from anyone who got too close.

The experience came in steadily.

[EXP +298]

[EXP +245]

[EXP +267]

As already predicted by the trajectory of the war, this time the loyalists were cornered with no path to victory.

Queen Nalare fought desperately, shooting out several large scale curses and spells as she tried to break through the encirclement, but there were too many enemies.

She was surrounded. She had to deal with too many angles of attack and too many spells coming at her simultaneously.

Seyen, alongside her lieutenants Juik and Koim, pressed the attack relentlessly. Lumi and Lena added their own contribution, sealing off exits and punishing her mistakes.

The final moments of the battle came soon after.

Queen Nalare, surrounded and overwhelmed, made one last desperate attempt to escape. She reached into her cloak, and took out a torn scroll. "Aha!" She went to rip it in half, but...

Seyen anticipated it. She’d been watching for exactly that move.

"Spatial Lock!"

The spell activated, changing the field to one that prevented teleportation within the area. Queen Nalare’s escape attempt failed, the spell fizzling out as the lock took effect.

"No!" The queen’s voice was filled with fear. "But how could you know that!? That’s not-"

Seyen didn’t hesitate just because of the Queen’s confusion. "Dark Spear!"

The spell materialized and shot forward, piercing directly through the already severely injured queen’s chest.

Queen Nalare gasped, her eyes wide with shock. Blood dripped from her mouth. She tried to speak, but her strength failed.

She fell.

[EXP +1847]